Reward interventions: A strategy to Erode social inequality?

Decades of research illuminates how status beliefs about socially significant characteristics, like gender, fundamentally alter expectations about individual's competence and worth. This process biases opportunity structures and resource distributions, thereby recreating social inequalities in a self-fulfilling fashion. Many social and organizational policies attempt to reduce inequality by increasing disadvantaged groups' access to valued rewards, such as prestigious alma maters, awards, and valued positions. In addition to meaningfully increasing resources, the status these rewards convey should also theoretically increase the status of the particular people who come to possess them. To know whether inversions to reward structures reduce social inequality, however, we must first demonstrate that the status value of rewards alone is an effective intervention. In an experimental test of interventions to gender status inequality, reward markers with relatively higher or lower status value were consistently or inconsistently associated with the gender of the participants' task partners. Results indicate that rewards intervened in the groups' gendered status hierarchy as participants were more likely to be influenced by their partners' rewards than their gender.     

A Remark on the Alternative Expectation Formula

Students in their first course in probability will often see the expectation formula for nonnegative continuous random variables in terms of the survival function. The traditional approach for deriving this formula (using double integrals) is well-received by students. Some students tend to approach this using integration by parts, but often get stuck. Most standard textbooks do not elaborate on this alternative approach. We present a rigorous derivation here. We hope that students and instructors of the first course in probability will find this short note helpful.     

Statistical estimation for a failure model with damage accumulation in a case of small samples

A failure model with damage accumulation is considered. Damages occur according to a Poisson process and they degenerate into failures in a random time. The rate of the Poisson process and the degeneration time distribution are unknown. Two sample populations are available: a sample of intervals between damages and a sample of degeneration times. The case of small samples is considered. The purpose is to estimate the expectation and the distribution of the number of damages and failures at time t. We consider the plug-in and resampling estimators of the above mentioned characteristics. The expectations and variances of the suggested estimators are investigated. The numerical examples show that the resampling estimator has some advantages.     

C472. The expected value of a conditional variance: An upper bound

The article derives Bartlett corrections for improving the chi-square approximation to the likelihood ratio statistics in a class of symmetric nonlinear regression models. This is a wide class of models which encompasses the t model and several other symmetric distributions with longer-than normal tails. In this paper we present, in matrix notation, Bartlett corrections to likelihood ratio statistics in nonlinear regression models with errors that follow a symmetric distribution. We generalize the results obtained by Ferrari, S. L. P. and Arellano-Valle, R. B. (1996). Modified likelihood ratio and score tests in linear regression models using the t distribution. Braz. J. Prob. Statist., 10, 15–33, who considered a t distribution for the errors, and by Ferrari, S. L. P. and Uribe-Opazo, M. A. (2001). Corrected likelihood ratio tests in a class of symmetric linear regression models. Braz. J. Prob. Statist., 15, 49–67, who considered a symmetric linear regression model. The formulae derived are simple enough to be used analytically to obtain several Bartlett corrections in a variety of important models. We also present simulation results comparing the sizes and powers of the usual likelihood ratio tests and their Bartlett corrected versions.     

An optimal replenishment model for inventory items with normally distributed deterioration

This paper deals with the inventory replenishment problem for deteriorating items with normally distributed shelf life, continuous time-varying demand, and shortages under the inflationary and time discounting environment. The reasons of choosing normal are twofold: it is one of the most important probability phenomena in the real world due to the classical central limit theorem, and it is also one of the most commonly used lifetime distributions in reliability contexts. The problem is formulated as a dynamic programming model and solved by numerical search techniques. The solutions of the model determine the optimal replenishment schedule over a finite planning horizon so that the present worth of the future costs associated with the system is minimized. In the extensive experiments, we validate the model, demonstrate the optimal replenishment schedule and lot-size, and carry out a comparative study to ascertain its contribution. In addition, sensitivity analysis was provided to help identify the most crucial factors that affect system performance. The experimental result shows that the deteriorating problem solved by an appropriate model (i.e. the proposed normal model) can save the total cost up to 2% approximately. It also identifies that the magnitudes of purchase cost per unit and demand rate are the most significant parameters that affect the replenishment decisions and cost.     

Explaining information technology usage: A test of competing models

While much of the prior information technology (IT) research has attempted to explain users’ acceptance of new IT, recent research has focused on IT continuance or continued usage. The technology acceptance model (TAM) and the expectation–disconfirmation theory (EDT) are currently the dominant referent theoretical frameworks explaining user acceptance and continuance of IT, respectively. However, no study to date has yet empirically compared the relative ability of the two competing theories in explaining IT continuance intention. This paper fills this gap in the literature by comparing the explanatory ability of the two models via a longitudinal study of computer-based tutorial usage. Our findings confirm that both models have good explanatory power with the TAM providing a better prediction of intention. An integrated model, combining TAM and EDT, provided a marginally better explanatory power.     

Identifying Nonlinear Relationships in Regression using the ACE Algorithm

This paper introduces an alternating conditional expectation (ACE) algorithm: a non-parametric approach for estimating the transformations that lead to the maximal multiple correlation of a response and a set of independent variables in regression and correlation analysis. These transformations can give the data analyst insight into the relationships between these variables so that this can be best described and non-linear relationships uncovered. Using the Bayesian information criterion (BIC), we show how to find the best closed-form approximations for the optimal ACE transformations. By means of ACE and BIC, the model fit can be considerably improved compared with the conventional linear model as demonstrated in the two simulated and two real datasets in this paper.     

货币和产出缺口能给通货膨胀提供有用的信息吗？

 ]论文目的是确定货币、产出缺口和国际商品价格指数与我国通货膨胀之间是否有长期的关系,能否给我国通货膨胀预测提供除通货膨胀自身所具有的以外的信息。论文的研究方法主要是自回归分布滞后模型(ARDL),基于自回归分布滞后模型进行通货膨胀与相关经济变量的长期关系检验,并进行预报实验,将预测结果与仅包括通货膨胀自身滞后因子的自回归模型的预测结果比较。实证结果显示：货币供给m2、m1、m0都与通货膨胀有显著的长期关系,但是只有m0含有通货膨胀自身没含有的信息,能给通货膨胀提供额外的信息;产出缺口、国际农产品价格指数分别与通货膨胀有长期的关系,含有通货膨胀自身没含有的信息,能给通货膨胀预测提供额外的信息。最后还提出一些相关建议。     

我国通货膨胀率非线性特征研究

 本文应用带单位根的门限自回归模型,对我国1990年来以来通货膨胀率的动态路径进行了模拟分析。估计和检验发现了我国通货膨胀具有明显的非线性特征,模型较好地拟合了通货膨胀的动态调整过程。我国通货膨胀调整存在减速通货膨胀状态、适中通货膨胀状态和加速通货膨胀状态三个区制。适中通货膨胀状态是一个平稳的自回归过程,减速通货膨胀状态、加速通货膨胀状态则是具有单位根的自回归过程,具有自我加速的作用。在不同的区制下,通货膨胀率均有较高的持久性,但中间状态的持久性明显低于其他两种状态。     

隐含信息翻译的关联性原则

翻译的一个主要问题是如何处理原文中的隐含信息。译者可能明示隐含的意义,也可能对等翻译,但如不考虑原文和译文语境的话,这两种策略都存在风险。关联理论揭示,成功的翻译关键在于原文和译文具有解释相似性,翻译的最高标准是达到受众期望于译者所传达的语境效果,而不是符合具体的翻译范式。本文根据关联理论的启示探讨了翻译隐含信息所遵循的一些基本原则。