Statistical Analyses and Modelling of the Mixing Process of Euro Coins in Germany and Europe

This paper reports on the mixing of Euro coins from different countries of origin in Europe, which started on 1 January 2002. There is an interesting conclusion: that the mobility of small and large denominations is different. The long‐term behaviour of the mixing process is studied using a simple deterministic model and data from Germany, France and the Netherlands. The analysis leads to predictions about the future progress of the mixing process.     

Population growth,farmland, and the long-run standard of living

This paper studies the natural-resources element in the theory of population growth over the very long run. In the context of the stock of land and Malthusian crises in earlier times, the model shows how resources have become more available rather than more scarce, even as population and income have increased.The paper sketches a mechanism which, added to the Malthusian system, leads to entirely different conclusions than does the Malthusian system. Using the illustration of food and land, change in knowledge and hence in the stock of resources is made a function of the stock of knowledge and the price of resources. The speed of adjustment depends on the economic and social climate for the development of new knowledge. Population growth first raises food and land prices, which then stimulate the creation of new resources, eventually leading to less scarcity of resources and lower prices than originally prevailed.That is, population growth creates new problems which in the short run constitute additional burdens which, in the longer run, lead to new developments that leave people better off than if the problems had never arisen.This paper benefitted from being presented in earlier draft at a Population Association of America meeting, to the Economic History workshop at the University of Illinois, and to a seminar of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population in New Delhi. We appreciate valuable comments on earlier drafts from Stanley Engerman, E. L. Jones, William McNeill, and two anonymous referees. Gunter Steinmann acknowledges financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation and a travel grant from Fulbright Commission.     

Calculating the total vote where the district magnitude is greater than one: A test of some algorithms using British local election data

Electoral analysis using aggregate data relies on the availability of accurate voting statistics. One vital piece of information, often missing from official electoral returns, particularly British local government elections, is the total number of valid ballot papers. This figure is essential for the calculation of electoral turnout. When voters have a single vote and official information about the number of ballot papers issued is missing, a figure for the total vote can still be derived. However, local elections in Britain frequently use a system of multiple-member wards, where voters have as many votes as there are seats to be filled. In such cases, calculating the total vote and, hence, the turnout does present a real problem. It cannot be assumed that all voters will use their full quota of votes or that voters will cast a ballot in favour of a single party. This paper develops and tests diff erent algorithms for calculating the total vote in such circumstances. We conclude that the accuracy of an algorithm is closely related to the structure of party competition. The findings of this paper have a number of important implications. First, the difficulties in calculating the turnout in multiple-member wards are identified. This will inform the debate about public participation in the local electoral process. Second, the method for deriving a figure for the total vote has an important bearing on a number of other statistics widely employed in electoral analysis.     

The effect of a novel ADL-based training program on performance of activities of daily living and physical fitness

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which a novel training program based on activities of daily living (ADL) would affect performance of ADLs, as well as the fitness of older adults. Fourteen individuals (mean age 82 years) took part in a 10-week control period followed by a 10-week ADL-based training program. Pre- and posttests included the Physical Performance Test (PPT), the Physical Functional Performance-10 (PFP-10), and the Senior Fitness Test (SFT). After the training period, improvements ranging from 7% to 33% (p<.05) were seen on the PPT and PFP-10 and on three items of the SFT. After conversion to standard scores, the magnitude of change in the PPT and the PFP10 was significantly greater (p<.05) than the magnitude of change in the SFT. These data support the idea that this novel ADL-based training program was able to facilitate improved performance of ADLs, as well as select measures of fitness among older adults.     

A comparison of various methods for estimating the parameters in mixtures of von mises distributions

In this paper we compare five methods for estimating the unknown parameters in a mixture of two von Mises distributions. We propose a new method based on the characteristic function and compare it with the classical methods based on maximum likelihood and moments. Thus far these methods have been successfully applied only to linear data. Here we show that the application to circular data is reasonably straightforward and that convergence to the final estimates is fairly rapid. For various simulated known mixtures the results obtained are satisfactory. Finally, we introduce a modification of the method of moments which is considerably faster in CPU time than any of the other methods used and gives good results.     

Global civil society or ‘networked globality’: beyond the territorialist and societalist paradigm

The concept of global civil society (GCS) is central to treatments of globalization and to depictions of a contested globality. This article offers a novel critique of the concept and its value for a critical social science of globalization. It argues that received notions of GCS are rooted in territorialist and societalist paradigms of the social and should not be used to subvent an account of globalization located in the dynamics of trans and even post-societal and post-national connections and the kind of world they intimate. GCS and variants such as cosmopolitanism are examined to evaluate whether they can provide a way of bridging the gap between territorialist and societalist assumptions about the organization of the social and the increasingly post-societal and post-territorial nature of the world. The aim is to avoid the inviting, but ultimately misleading sleight of hand through which GCS is revealed as the boundary-less equivalent of civil society, but with all the normative and aesthetic baggage of the latter still attached. The article ends with a critical discussion of the claim that globalization processes of connection are producing a networked globality in which reflexive agency is not lost. To recognize this requires a radical take on networks and their ontologies and being skeptical about much of the received sociology of globalization.     

Political Activist As Participant Observer: Conflicts Of Commitment In A Study Of The Draft Resistance Movement Of The 1960's*

In studying the draft resistance movement of the 1960's the author combined sociological observation with active and politically committed participation in the movement. The resulting conflicts of loyalty were rooted in basic characteristics of the movement, and of field research as a way of being in and experiencing the world. There were conflicts between political and research goals in daily decisions about how to allocate time and energy, and in larger choices about whether to take risks and to more fully join the community of fate of the movement. The role of researcher became a retreat, expressing limits to involvement and risk-taking, and providing a point of outside leverage which full participants lacked. The movement's ways of defining and interpreting experience ran counter to the more detached and routihizing perspectives of sociology. Conflicts between being a committed participant and an observing sociologist culminated in a sense of betraying the movement, and raised basic questions about uses, organization, and types of knowledge.