Multiple Time Scales and the Lifetime Coefficient of Variation: Engineering Applications

We consider linear combinations of “natural” timescales and choose the “best” one which provides the minimum coefficient of variation of the lifetime. Our time scale is in fact a generalized Miner time scale because the latter is based on an appropriate weighting of the times spent on low and high level loadings. The suggested modus operandi for finding the“best” time scale has many features in common with the approach suggested by Farewell and Cox (1979) and Oakes (1995) which is devoted to multiple time scales in survival analysis. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

农村基层组织人员腐败演变实证分析

利用发生于1990 ～ 2012年间的849个农村基层组织人员腐败案件信息,分析我国农村基层组织人员腐败的主要特征和演变规律.结果显示,2000年以前,我国农村基层组织人员腐败的规模较小;2000年以后腐败规模开始扩大;2006年我国农村基层组织人员出现新一轮腐败高潮.对农村基层组织人员腐败活动内容的研究表明,“涉地”项目和“三农”项目中的腐败活动较为严重;我国农村改革各阶段不同的制度安排客观上为农村基层组织人员从事腐败活动提供了不同的物质基础,腐败内容表现出鲜明的时代特征.此外,农村基层组织人员集体腐败突出,且表现出明显的阶段性增多、加深趋势.     

Towards a theorization of the relationship between poverty and family

This article aims to contribute to theorizing and research about the processes and relationships connecting families and poverty. The aim is to undertake a thought exercise to identify possible relationships and interactions between family and poverty. In existing poverty research practice, a simplified view of both individuals and families is presupposed by, first, the reduction of family to household; and, second, treating the household as nothing more than a unit size and composition. Drawing from existing research on both poverty and families in everyday life, the article offers two core insights. First, it suggests that poverty scholarship needs to take specific account of the processes of resource and income transformation that are associated with family living. Second, these processes are not necessarily functional or confined to the material, but encompass normative and moral agency associated with family membership. Both act to mediate poverty‐related and other outcomes. The article also suggests some conceptual and methodological refinements to take these issues forward in future research.     

Discomfort With Homosexuality: A New Measure Captures Differences in Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbians

This study describes a creative and psychometrically sound method that allows researchers to measure homonegativity at a lower threshold than existing measures and to differentiate between homonegativity toward gay men and lesbians. Four hundred and thirty-one undergraduate students at a Western comprehensive university were asked to respond to a series of vignettes describing situations in which heterosexuals sometimes experience discomfort in the presence of homosexuals, indicating the degree to which they would feel comfortable or uncomfortable. The 12-item Homonegativity as Discomfort Scale (HADS) has adequate alpha reliability (.92) as well as good criterion and construct validity. Suggestions are made as to how the measure could be employed in research. Testing on this sample shows greater discomfort with gay men than with lesbians and greater discomfort among men than among women.     

Systematically misclassified binary dependent variables

ABSTRACT

When a binary dependent variable is misclassified, that is, recorded in the category other than where it really belongs, probit and logit estimates are biased and inconsistent. In some cases, the probability of misclassification may vary systematically with covariates, and thus be endogenous. In this paper, we develop an estimation approach that corrects for endogenous misclassification, validate our approach using a simulation study, and apply it to the analysis of a treatment program designed to improve family dynamics. Our results show that endogenous misclassification could lead to potentially incorrect conclusions unless corrected using an appropriate technique.     

Biases in bias elicitation

Abstract

We consider the biases that can arise in bias elicitation when expert assessors make random errors. After presenting a general framework of the phenomenon, we illustrate it for two examples: the case of omitting variables bias and that of the bias arising in adjusting relative risks. Results show that, even when assessors’ elicitations of bias have desirable properties, the nonlinear nature of biases can lead to elicitations of bias that are, themselves, biased. We show the corrections which can be made to remove this bias and discuss the implications for the applied literature which employs these methods.     

国内语言景观研究现状、热点及趋势——基于数据量表和知识图谱的分析

运用图形制作与数据分析软件Microsoft Excel 2016和信息可视化工具CiteSpaceV对1997-2018年间CNKI期刊网络出版总库、人大复印资料全文数据库和万方期刊数据库超过为共时实证类调查,标牌。     

Maximally even sets and configurations: common threads in mathematics,physics, and music

Convex (concave) interaction weighting functions are combined with circular configurations of black and white sites to determine configurations that have minimum (maximum) weight. These configurations are called maximally even configurations. It is shown that for a given number of black and white sites, all maximally even configurations are equivalent under rotation and reflection, and a simple algorithm is constructed that generates these configurations. A number of equivalent conditions that determine a maximally even configuration are established. These equivalent conditions permit maximally even configurations to apply to a number of seemingly disparate problems including the dinner table and concentric circles problems, the one-dimensional antiferromagnetic Ising model, and musical scales. This paper is dedicated to the memory of John Clough (1928–2003). Without his seminal works in music theory and patient encouragement of others, this work and much of the work referenced herein would never have been started, much less completed. The field of mathematical music theory owes a great debt to John Clough. The authors are privileged to have known and worked with John Clough.     

网上交易中的声誉机制——来自淘宝网的证据

本文主要研究在法律缺失或法律不完善情况下网上交易中声誉机制的作用.计量回归结果显示,卖方的个人声誉(用卖方信用度来衡量)对其销售量有正面的影响,但这种影响是非线性的:存在两个临界点,低于下临界点,卖方信用度对卖家商品的销售量没有影响;高于上临界点,卖家商品的销售量也不会因为卖方信用度的提高而增加.属于商盟的卖家在给定时间内的销售量高于不属于任何商盟的卖家.从而验证了网上交易中卖家个人声誉和卖家所属商盟集体声誉的作用.本文根据实证结果进一步提出一个推测:网上交易市场存在较大的搜寻成本,这削弱了声誉机制的作用.