Analysis and Implications of Retraction Period and Coauthorship of Fraudulent Publications

Studies have indicated that the number and frequency of fraudulent publications being retracted are not subsiding even with greater awareness of such incidents in the recent decades. In this study, the trends of retraction period, number of citations and coauthors of 5 selected researchers who had ≥ 15 fraudulent publications retracted were analyzed. The obtained results shows that the retraction period is 48.96 ± 32.16 months for the 113 publications affiliated to the 5 studied researchers. There are a total of 180 coauthors with 6.40 ± 3.26 coauthors per researcher's retracted publication. The linear regression analysis indicates that there is limited correlation (R² = .008) between the citation counts and retraction period. The p value for multiple F-tests to assess the number of coauthors to a fraudulent publication on an interresearcher basis is found to be ranging from < .001 to .458. It is also found that a better correlation (R² = .592) exists between the likelihood of a researcher to involve different individuals for isolated fraudulent publications while only selecting very few to be their frequent coauthors of their mischievous acts. With this study, the possible use of coauthors as a strategy for publishing fraudulent work and a potential approach to tighten coauthorship are discussed.     

Logratio approach to statistical analysis of 2×2 compositional tables

Compositional tables represent a continuous counterpart to well-known contingency tables. Their cells contain quantitatively expressed relative contributions of a whole, carrying exclusively relative information and are popularly represented in proportions or percentages. The resulting factors, corresponding to rows and columns of the table, can be inspected similarly as with contingency tables, e.g. for their mutual independent behaviour. The nature of compositional tables requires a specific geometrical treatment, represented by the Aitchison geometry on the simplex. The properties of the Aitchison geometry allow a decomposition of the original table into its independent and interactive parts. Moreover, the specific case of 2×2 compositional tables allows the construction of easily interpretable orthonormal coordinates (resulting from the isometric logratio transformation) for the original table and its decompositions. Consequently, for a sample of compositional tables both explorative statistical analysis like graphical inspection of the independent and interactive parts or any statistical inference (odds-ratio-like testing of independence) can be performed. Theoretical advancements of the presented approach are demonstrated using two economic applications.     

Simulation and quality of a synthetic close-to-reality employer–employee population

It is of essential importance that researchers have access to linked employer–employee data, but such data sets are rarely available for researchers or the public. Even in case that survey data have been made available, the evaluation of estimation methods is usually done by complex design-based simulation studies. For this aim, data on population level are needed to know the true parameters that are compared with the estimations derived from complex samples. These samples are usually drawn from the population under various sampling designs, missing values and outlier scenarios. The structural earnings statistics sample survey proposes accurate and harmonized data on the level and structure of remuneration of employees, their individual characteristics and the enterprise or place of employment to which they belong in EU member states and candidate countries. At the basis of this data set, we show how to simulate a synthetic close-to-reality population representing the employer and employee structure of Austria. The proposed simulation is based on work of A. Alfons, S. Kraft, M. Templ, and P. Filzmoser [{\em On the simulation of complex universes in the case of applying the German microcensus}, DACSEIS research paper series No. 4, University of Tübingen, 2003] and R. Münnich and J. Schürle [{\em Simulation of close-to-reality population data for household surveys with application to EU-SILC}, Statistical Methods & Applications 20(3) (2011c), pp. 383–407]. However, new challenges are related to consider the special structure of employer–employee data and the complexity induced with the underlying two-stage design of the survey. By using quality measures in form of simple summary statistics, benchmarking indicators and visualizations, the simulated population is analysed and evaluated. An accompanying study on literature has been made to select the most important benchmarking indicators.     

Variable selection in the high-dimensional continuous generalized linear model with current status data

In survival studies, current status data are frequently encountered when some individuals in a study are not successively observed. This paper considers the problem of simultaneous variable selection and parameter estimation in the high-dimensional continuous generalized linear model with current status data. We apply the penalized likelihood procedure with the smoothly clipped absolute deviation penalty to select significant variables and estimate the corresponding regression coefficients. With a proper choice of tuning parameters, the resulting estimator is shown to be a root n/p_n-consistent estimator under some mild conditions. In addition, we show that the resulting estimator has the same asymptotic distribution as the estimator obtained when the true model is known. The finite sample behavior of the proposed estimator is evaluated through simulation studies and a real example.     

Hybrid-based confidence intervals for the ratio of two treatment means in the over-dispersed Poisson data

In many clinical trials and epidemiological studies, comparing the mean count response of an exposed group to a control group is often of interest. This type of data is often over-dispersed with respect to Poisson variation, and previous studies usually compared groups using confidence intervals (CIs) of the difference between the two means. However, in some situations, especially when the means are small, interval estimation of the mean ratio (MR) is preferable. Moreover, Cox and Lewis [4 D.R. Cox and P.A.W. Lewis, The Statistical Analysis of Series of Events, Methuen, London, 1966.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]] pointed out many other situations where the MR is more relevant than the difference of means. In this paper, we consider CI construction for the ratio of means between two treatments for over-dispersed Poisson data. We develop several CIs for the situation by hybridizing two separate CIs for two individual means. Extensive simulations show that all hybrid-based CIs perform reasonably well in terms of coverage. However, the CIs based on the delta method using the logarithmic transformation perform better than other intervals in the sense that they have slightly shorter interval lengths and show better balance of tail errors. These proposed CIs are illustrated with three real data examples.     

Image warping using radial basis functions

Image warping is the process of deforming an image through a transformation of its domain, which is typically a subset of R². Given the destination of a collection of points, the problem becomes one of finding a suitable smooth interpolation for the destinations of the remaining points of the domain. A common solution is to use the thin plate spline (TPS). We find that the TPS often introduces unintended distortions of image structures. In this paper, we will analyze interpolation by TPS, experiment with other radial basis functions, and suggest two alternative functions that provide better results.     

“大数据”背景下利用扫描数据编制中国CPI问题研究

扫描数据为政府统计源头数据信息化改革与宏观经济测度提供了新的技术范式。基于对世界各国利用扫描数据编制CPI的现状进行梳理研究,并针对中国扫描数据的现状和政府价格统计的特点,提出了一种利用扫描数据编制中国CPI的思路,力图为基于"大数据"的政府统计源头数据信息化改革提供理论和实践参考。     

数据包络方法评价企业绩效的有效性研究

旨在研究数据包络方法评价企业绩效的有效性。首先从理论上提出了四个假设,其次选取了2012年中国803家制造业上市公司作为样本数据,对四个假设从绝对有效性和相对有效性两个方面进行了实证检验。最后得出结论:数据包络方法测算的企业效率值与传统绩效评价指标显著正相关,而且在不同的效率水平上、不同地区、不同行业,该效率值作为评价企业绩效的指标既是绝对有效的,也是相对有效的。     

Consistency of the recursive nonparametric regression estimation for dependent functional data

We consider the recursive estimation of a regression functional where the explanatory variables take values in some functional space. We prove the almost sure convergence of such estimates for dependent functional data. Also we derive the mean quadratic error of the considered class of estimators. Our results are established with rates and asymptotic appear bounds, under strong mixing condition. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed estimator is illustrated throughout an empirical study.     

企业统计数据质量影响因素的实证分析

为明确企业统计数据质量的影响因素,定量描述各因素之间的关系,利用SEM模型,通过SPSS AMOS18.0软件进行数据分析,得到企业的信息化程度、企业重视化程度、企业统计力量、统计人员知识水平、统计人员地位、组织正规化程度6个因素的企业统计数据质量结构模型,并比较各个因素对企业统计数据质量影响的大小及各影响因素之间的相关关系,为进一步提高企业的统计数据工作提供了依据。