Changing symbolic and geographical boundaries between penal zones and rural communities in the Russian Federation

The article examines the processes involved in the integration of the USSR's secret places into mainstream rural society in the Russian Federation. Taking the example of one rural district in the Volga-Ural region that has been the site of a large prison complex over a period of ninety years, the article examines how economic changes and local government and penal reforms have eroded the boundary that marked off the penal region from the rural district in which it was located. Using interviews and social surveys conducted among the local population, the article examines the extent to which the opening of the penal sub-region has led to changes in the symbolic boundary between the communities in the rural raion. The article concludes that although new spaces of active government are being produced in rural Russia, these are not necessarily the basis for the emergence of new common identities among the people living in them.     

上海自贸试验区负面清单转化为全国负面清单的路径和措施

目前,在中国(上海)自贸试验区的各项实施制度中,"负面清单"制度是其中重要的一项,也将是未来自贸区可复制、可推广的一项关键制度。对此,可借鉴《美国双边投资协议2012年范本》,将上海自贸试验区负面清单转化为全国负面清单,向全国推广。     

Modeling Correlated Discrete Uncertainties in Event Trees with Copulas

Modeling the dependence between uncertainties in decision and risk analyses is an important part of the problem structuring process. We focus on situations where correlated uncertainties are discrete, and extend the concept of the copula‐based approach for modeling correlated continuous uncertainties to the representation of correlated discrete uncertainties. This approach reduces the required number of probability assessments significantly compared to approaches requiring direct estimates of conditional probabilities. It also allows the use of multiple dependence measures, including product moment correlation, rank order correlation and tail dependence, and parametric families of copulas such as normal copulas, t‐copulas, and Archimedean copulas. This approach can be extended to model the dependence between discrete and continuous uncertainties in the same event tree.     

Dependence function for continuous bivariate densities

The notion of cross-product ratio for discrete two-way contingency table is extended to the case of continuous bivariate densities. This results in the “local dependence function” that measues the margin-free dependence between bivariate random variables. Properties and examples of the dependence function are discussed. The bivariate normal density plays a special role since it has constant dependence. Continuous bivariate densities can be constructed by specifying the dependence function along with two marginals in analogy to the construction of two-way contingency tables given marginals and patterns of interaction. The dependence function provides a partial ordering on bivariate dependence.     

辽宁“十二五”工业经济发展规划的战略思考——基于产业竞争力的视角

基于产业竞争理论分析辽宁工业经济发展的现状，针对其中存在的利润率低、工业内部配套能力弱、产业之间发展不协调和民间投资被挤出等结构性问题分析其产生原因，认为政府主导资源推动型的发展方式和政府产业规划的雷同性及路径依赖性是造成结构性失衡的主要原因。为此，建议政府在编制辽宁“十二五”工业经济发展规划时应考虑效益指标，按产业发展周期和要素、需求条件等规划重点发展产业，并处理好支柱产业与支撑产业、相关产业之间的关系。     

A generalized negative binomial and applications

A generalized negative binomial distribution is derived from the Markov Bernoulli sequence of successes and failures. We study the properties and applications of this distribution. The properties are illustrated by two examples of discrete time queueing systems. The distribution is then fitted to two data sets, the eruption record of Mt. Sangay, and a record of computer disk failure accesses. In the first case there is a strong serial dependence in the data and the generalized negative binomial provides a good fit, while in the second case, although there is a significant serial dependence, it is insufficient to justify the additional parameter of the distribution. We conclude by demonstrating the usefulness of the distribution in the field of statistical quality control.     

试论中国社团的“官办”特性——路径依赖分析

新制度经济学中的路径依赖理论认为,路径依赖的产生源于旧体制中既得利益集团的阻挠和非正式制度安排的影响,而打破"锁定"状态除了从自身寻求出路外,往往还要借助于外部效应。这一理论对于解释中国社团的官办特性具有较强的适用性。中国社团的官办特性说到底是计划体制下的一种路径依赖,倘若对造成社团官办特性的种种路径依赖因素进行有意识的制度创新,将有助于减少路径依赖的负面影响,使我国的社团更能朝着良性的轨迹发展。     

Efficient Estimation of Parameters of the Negative Binomial Distribution

In this article we investigate a class of moment-based estimators, called power method estimators, which can be almost as efficient as maximum likelihood estimators and achieve a lower asymptotic variance than the standard zero term method and method of moments estimators. We investigate different methods of implementing the power method in practice and examine the robustness and efficiency of the power method estimators.     

A representation for quadrivariate normal positive orthant probabilities

For four variables x₁,x₂, x₃ and x₄, which have a quadrivariate normal distribution with means equal to zero, the positive ortrhant probability is the probability that all of the x.'s are simultaneously positive. A representation for the quadrivariate normal positive orthant probability is obtained and it is a function of no more than three integrals over a single variable. Extensive testing has shown this representation to be very efficient on a computational basis.     

Strong laws of large numbers for dependent heterogeneous processes: a synthesis of recent and new results

This paper surveys recent developments in the strong law of large numbers for dependent heterogeneous processes. We prove a generalised version of a recent strong law for Lz-mixingales, and also a new strong law for Lpmixingales. These results greatly relax the dependence and heterogeneity conditions relative to those currently cited, and introduce explicit trade-offs between dependence and heterogeneity. The results are applied to proving strong laws for near-epoch dependent functions of mixing processes. We contrast several methods for obtaining these results, including mapping directly to the mixingale properties, and applying a truncation argument.