The challenge of pension reform in Georgia: Non‐contributory pensions and elderly poverty

Georgia's national social security system offers almost universal non‐contributory basic pension coverage. The basic pension has, to date, proved effective in dealing with old‐age poverty. But Georgia's fiscal constraints and ageing population also highlight the importance of improving the pension system, in order to ensure its sustainability. This article presents policy reform choices, which suggest that, in Georgia, pension reform might include increasing the statutory retirement ages and reducing the generosity of benefits through means testing. The case of the Georgian non‐contributory basic pension might hold value for some low‐ and middle‐income countries that are considering the implementation of, or expanding coverage under, a non‐contributory pension programme.     

The gender gap in pensions in Latin America

Lower female lifetime labour market participation rates, greater interruptions during their working lives, and wage gaps contribute to create gender gaps in pensions at the time of retirement. The design of social security systems may reinforce or attenuate these gaps. This article provides new evidence on gender gaps in access to pensions and in pension income in four Southern Cone countries in Latin America and analyses their evolution between 2000 and 2013, showing significant improvements in both gaps, with differential patterns by countries. The decrease in the gender gap in pension income has been particularly significant in Argentina and Brazil. In both cases, the largest increases in pension values during the period correspond to the lowest income percentiles, where women are overrepresented. The application of redistributive policies in these countries, aimed at reducing poverty and inequality but not necessarily focused on gender equity, has had positive and probably unintended consequences in terms of reduction in gender gaps in pensions.     

Pension reforms in EU11 countries: An evaluation of post‐socialist pension policies

This article evaluates the pension policy pathways of the 11 former state socialist nations that have joined the European Union since 2004. Focusing primarily on the post‐2004 period, the analysis discusses the most important measurable outcomes of these countries’ pension reforms, in terms of poverty alleviation, pension adequacy and fiscal sustainability. Going beyond the quantifiable concepts, we also investigate the quality of the 11 countries’ pension systems in terms of equity as well as efficiency, emphasizing the less conspicuous design errors present in these systems. Although these errors have received little attention to date, they may harm pension schemes along several dimensions, including their fiscal sustainability.     

Can the minimum living standard guarantee scheme enable the poor to escape the poverty trap in rural China?

The rural Minimum Living Standard Guarantee (Dibao) Scheme is the most important social assistance programme in rural China. However, how the rural Dibao programme affects household expenditures and whether it can enable the poor to escape the poverty trap are questions that remain largely unexplored. This study used data from the 2012 Rural Household Survey in China to investigate the impact of the rural Dibao programme on household expenditures. We found that the programme significantly improved the well‐being of low‐income households. Particularly, the programme significantly increased household expenditures on housing, education and health; furthermore, the impact was greater for households with educated household heads. However, the programme did not significantly affect household expenditures on food, transportation or farming inputs. The results imply that participation in the rural Dibao programme induces household investment in human capital, which could help to break the inter‐generational transmission of poverty and raise long‐run welfare.     

Variable selection for semiparametric proportional hazards model under progressive Type-II censoring

Variable selection is an effective methodology for dealing with models with numerous covariates. We consider the methods of variable selection for semiparametric Cox proportional hazards model under the progressive Type-II censoring scheme. The Cox proportional hazards model is used to model the influence coefficients of the environmental covariates. By applying Breslow’s “least information” idea, we obtain a profile likelihood function to estimate the coefficients. Lasso-type penalized profile likelihood estimation as well as stepwise variable selection method are explored as means to find the important covariates. Numerical simulations are conducted and Veteran’s Administration Lung Cancer data are exploited to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.     

高职化工类专业技术技能型人才培养方案的构建

结合陕西国防工业职业技术学院化工类专业人才培养方案的构建,对高职院校化工类专业人才培养方案构建的指导思想、制定原则、基本框架、课程体系开发、教学模式流程、人才培养质量评价体系等内容进行了具体阐述。     

The Continuous Run Sum Chart

The run sum chart is an effective two-sided chart that can be used to monitor for process changes. It is known that it is more sensible than the Shewhart chart with runs rules and its performance improves as the number of regions increases. However, as the number of regions increses the resulting chart has more parameters to be defined and its design becomes more involved. In this article, we introduce a one-parameter run sum chart. This chart accumulates scores equal to the subgroup means and signals when the cummulative sum exceeds a limit value. A fast initial response feature is proposed and its run length distribution function is found by a set of recursive relations. We compare this chart with other charts suggested in the literature and find it competitive with the CUSUM, the FIR CUSUM, and the combined Shewhart FIR CUSUM schemes.     

A Bayesian approach to non-parametric monotone function estimation

Summary.  The paper proposes two Bayesian approaches to non-parametric monotone function estimation. The first approach uses a hierarchical Bayes framework and a characterization of smooth monotone functions given by Ramsay that allows unconstrained estimation. The second approach uses a Bayesian regression spline model of Smith and Kohn with a mixture distribution of constrained normal distributions as the prior for the regression coefficients to ensure the monotonicity of the resulting function estimate. The small sample properties of the two function estimators across a range of functions are provided via simulation and compared with existing methods. Asymptotic results are also given that show that Bayesian methods provide consistent function estimators for a large class of smooth functions. An example is provided involving economic demand functions that illustrates the application of the constrained regression spline estimator in the context of a multiple-regression model where two functions are constrained to be monotone.     

分析对流-扩散方程显格式稳定性的一种方法

给出了分析二维对流-扩散方程FTCS显格式（时间向前,空间中心的差分格式）稳定条件的一种方法.这种方法可用于分析一维到高维对流-扩散方程差分格式的稳定性.     

安全的多层门限秘密共享方案

考虑到多层组织共享秘密,设计了多层门限秘密共享方案。本文方案安全性基于RSA密码体制、Sham ir门限方案以及哈希函数的安全性。方案中,秘密份额由参与者选择和保存,秘密分发者也不知晓。每个参与者只须维护一个秘密份额,可实现对多个秘密的共享。方案不需要安全信道,算法能够保障信息安全传送以及验证真实性。