A majorization comparison of apportionment methods in proportional representation

From the inception of the proportional representation movement it has been an issue whether larger parties are favored at the expense of smaller parties in one apportionment of seats as compared to another apportionment. A number of methods have been proposed and are used in countries with a proportional representation system. These apportionment methods exhibit a regularity of order, as discussed in the present paper, that captures the preferential treatment of larger versus smaller parties. This order, namely majorization, permits the comparison of seat allocations in two apportionments. For divisor methods, we show that one method is majorized by another method if and only if their signpost ratios are increasing. This criterion is satisfied for the divisor methods with power-mean rounding, and for the divisor methods with stationary rounding. Majorization places the five traditional apportionment methods in the order as they are known to favor larger parties over smaller parties: Adams, Dean, Hill, Webster, and Jefferson. Received: 5 August 2000/Accepted: 24 October 2001     

Worlds come apart: Systems theory versus critical theory. Drama in the history of sociology in the twentieth century

This article places an episode in the history of sociological theory into intellectual history in the twentieth century. The perspective is chronological as well as contextual. The themes are two theoretical approaches, both embedded in both American and German history, Parsonian Systems Theory and “Frankfurt School” Critical Theory. The chronology shown spanned mainly from the 1940s to the 1960s. The context of the two theories is a period that is crucial in twentieth century history. The protagonists of the two approaches were, in the 1940s, Americans and Germans exiled in the United States. In the 1950s, both approaches were affected by McCarthyism in different ways. The 1960s, however, were the culmination. The dynamics of the two approaches led into a schism which came into the open on the occasion of the 1964 German Sociology Conference in Heidelberg celebrating Max Weber. The article shows the stages in the evolution of the schism, emulating three acts in a drama. The final split was over whether Weber or Marx should be the classic whose oeuvre was to influence sociological thinking today. My aim is to exemplify how these two authoritative approaches in sociological theory, far from escaping the vagaries and vicissitudes of their times, were embedded in twentieth-century history.     

Partial strikes under the railway labor act: The need for a doctrine of unprotected concerted activity

In light of use by airline unions of partial-strike tactics, such as concerted refusals to bid for overtime work and so-called ” CHAOS” tactics involving unannounced refusals to fly after passengers have been ticketed and are ready to board, the authors examine whether the Railway Labor Act (RLA) should be interpreted to permit employers to discipline employees for engaging in such tactics, or whether these are a protected form of economic pressure. Although in many respects bargaining duties and economic weapons under the RLA are read consonant with precedents under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (which governs all industries other than rail and air transport), there are a few decisions suggesting that during the period when self-help may be resorted to, employees can engage in partial strike activities as long as they violate no court order but are subject to permanent replacement in limited circumstances. These decisions, the authors submit, fail to take account of Supreme Court decsions since the 1930s that some economic pressures by unions, such as slowdowns and sitins, may not violate the labor laws but nor are they protected by those laws so as to immunize partial strikers from employer discipline. These decisions are not based on unique features of the NLRA. Rather, they give recognition to the background assumptions of Congress that employers may act to protect their property interests as long as they do not run afoul of NLRA or RLA protections and that employees who engage in partial-strike activities are subject to employer discipline even where not strictly necessary to maintain operations. Moreover, these tactics skew the bargaining process by giving employees an essentially risk-free gambit to pressure their economic position through planned disruption of carrier operations. Professor Estreicher is also labor and employment counsel to O’Melveny & Myers, LLP. The views expressed herein are the authors’ and should not be attributed to any organization. Hannah Breshin and Tom Jerman of O’Melveny & Myers, assisted the authors with this article. We also thank Professor Herbert Northrup for his helpful comments.     

对西部地区土地整理若干问题的思考

我国西部地区地域辽阔,地质地貌复杂,人少地多,土地利用相对粗放,是我国未开发利用土地的主要分布区,同时也是气候干旱多灾、水土流失严重、自然条件较差、生态环境脆弱的地区.随着国家西部大开发战略的实施,各项建设事业对土地的需求将会十分旺盛.如何根据西部地区特殊的自然、经济和社会条件来讨论西部土地资源的利用形式、利用方式以及生态环境保护,是西部大开发中首先应该思考的问题.     

Netzwerken: Reflexionen und Erfahrungen am Beispiel eines TrainerInnen und BeraterInnen-Netzwerkes

How are social networks organized and how much structure and openess do they have? The ambiguity of networking and the grade of organization are discussed and described theoretically and with an authentic example.     

Inference for the measurement of poverty in the presence of a stochastic weighting variable

Empirical applications of poverty measurement often have to deal with a stochastic weighting variable such as household size. Within the framework of a bivariate distribution function defined over income and weight, I derive the limiting distributions of the decomposable poverty measures and of the ordinates of stochastic dominance curves. The poverty line is allowed to depend on the income distribution. It is shown how the results can be used to test hypotheses concerning changes in poverty. The inference procedures are briefly illustrated using Belgian data. An erratum to this article can be found at     

GPS接收机P(Y)直捕方法研究

GPS接收机P(Y)直捕算法是基于存储的滑动相关搜索,并利用FFT将时频二维联合搜索变成时域一维搜索。同时,考虑位同步点已知的条件,接收资源池只需存储一段接收序列,缩短了捕获时间且利于硬件实现。仿真结果表明,多普勒频移为±5kHz时,所带来的峰值衰减为2dB左右,本地信号与接收信号对齐时出现明显的相关峰,很好地实现了捕获功能;提出了用重叠分段补零FFT操作实现并行相关,成倍降低了捕获时间;提出了利用位同步信息,避免了码极性翻转可能引起的信噪比损耗;针对码相位漂移,提出了优化捕获策略,可在短时间内完成重捕。     

民生节目:传播"善"与"美"的平台

民生电视新闻以生动的实例、严谨的推理、透彻的分析令人信服地打动着广大受众，让人们在不经意中受到深刻的“善”与“美”的熏陶。民生新闻节目已经成为传播“善”与“美”的平台，发掘民生新闻节目的道德教化功能及其表现方式必将成为电视媒体特别是省、市电视台的重要任务。