An Automatic Test for the Umbrella Alternatives

The paper proposes a new test for detecting the umbrella pattern under a general non‐parametric scheme. The alternative asserts that the umbrella ordering holds while the hypothesis is its complement. The main focus is put on controlling the power function of the test outside the alternative. As a result, the asymptotic error of the first kind of the constructed solution is smaller than or equal to the fixed significance level α on the whole set where the umbrella ordering does not hold. Also, under finite sample sizes, this error is controlled to a satisfactory extent. A simulation study shows, among other things, that the new test improves upon the solution widely recommended in the literature of the subject. A routine, written in R, is attached as the Supporting Information file.     

Books and Publications Received

Manpower developments should be examined against the population background. Population and manpower structure of post-war Europe is the haphazard result of various trends, war losses and tremendous shifts of population. Conditions have been changing rapidly, so that computations regarding the structural changes of populations prior to 1949 are in many cases not significant.

The major pre-war trends in economic structure appear to have continued after the war with the exception of commerce, which has not maintained its previous upward trend.

The present disturbed situation is not a convenient platform for projections of population or of manpower. Anyhow, any speculation as to future developments should be based on the knowledge of the specific conditions obtaining in the various countries. Differences in the economic and social structure, as well as in legislation between the various parts of Europe, no longer warrant a smooth and uniform development in accordance with the pre-war pattern. There are, on the other hand, some features of a prospective rapprochement in the economic and social field between Western and Eastern Europe.     

Confidence estimation via the parametric bootstrap in logistic joinpoint regression

We consider asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood and related estimators in a clustered logistic joinpoint model with an unknown joinpoint. Sufficient conditions are given for the consistency of confidence bounds produced by the parametric bootstrap; one of the conditions required is that the true location of the joinpoint is not at one of the observation times. A simulation study is presented to illustrate the lack of consistency of the bootstrap confidence bounds when the joinpoint is an observation time. A removal algorithm is presented which corrects this problem, but at the price of an increased mean square error. Finally, the methods are applied to data on yearly cancer mortality in the US for individuals age 65 and over.     

Data-Driven Tests for Trend

This article proposes a new nonparametric test for the ordered alternatives problem in the k-sample setting for null hypothesis of lack of trend. This article further elaborates upon and extends the results of Ledwina and Wy?upek (2012a Ledwina , T. , Wy?upek , G. ( 2012a ). Two-sample test against one-sided alternatives . Scand. J. Statist. 39 : 358 – 381 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) obtained for k = 2. Simulations show that the new test has high and stable power and is able to control the Type I error to satisfactory extent, thus solving the problem posed in Terpstra and Magel (2003 Terpstra , J. T. , Magel , R. C. ( 2003 ). A new nonparametric test for the ordered alternative problem . J. Nonparametr. Statist. 15 : 289 – 301 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Our theoretical results say that asymptotic errors of both kinds do not exceed significance level, thus implying that the test is asymptotically unbiased.     

Minimum variance rectangular designs for U-statistics

We consider a certain class of rectangular designs for incomplete U-statistics based on Latin squares and show it to be optimal with respect to the minimal variance criterion. We also show it to be asymptotically efficient when compared with the corresponding complete statistics, as well as uniformly more efficient than the random subset selection. We provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of our design and give some examples of applications.     

Prediction intervals for time series models with trend via sieve bootstrap

This paper discusses method for constructing the prediction intervals for time series model with trend using the sieve bootstrap procedure. Gasser–Müller type of kernel estimator is used for trend estimation and prediction. The boundary modification of the kernel is applied to control the edge effect and to construct the predictor of a trend.     

Twice as Smart? The Importance of Managers’ Formative‐Years’ International Experience for their International Orientation and Foreign Acquisition Decisions

This study examined how top management team's (TMT) international orientation influences perceptions of environmental uncertainty and how these perceptions impact international strategic decisions, in particular regarding ownership stakes taken in foreign acquisitions. We highlighted the need for the concept of TMT international orientation to encompass executives’ formative‐years’ international experiences along with their international career experiences and nationalities. Empirical tests based on a sample of 2122 international acquisitions completed by 561 UK firms over the period 1999–2008 showed that TMT international orientation positively moderated the negative impact of cultural differences and host country risk on acquisition ownership stakes. The results underscored the importance of considering decision‐makers’ attributes due to their experiences at a young age, beyond their demographic characteristics or professional experience, in the context of international strategic choices. We also discussed some implications of one of the possible consequences of executives’ formative international experience, namely biculturalism, for international business.     

Debating,obfuscating and disciplining the Holocaust: post-Soviet historical discourses on the OUN–UPA and other nationalist movements

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union the archives of the former republics and satellite states of this multiethnic empire were opened. This allowed historians to investigate the history of nationalist and radical right organisations and armies that, during the Second World War, had been involved in the Holocaust and other atrocities. Among them was the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. For a long time the history of these movements was unknown or distorted by Soviet propaganda and propagandist publications written during the Cold War by veterans of these movements living in the West and cooperating with Western intelligence services. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was simultaneously accompanied by the “rebirth” of nationalism that was not free from antisemitism and racism, and which triggered different types of nationalist distortions of history and obfuscations of the Holocaust. Post-Soviet historical discourses were shaped not only by journalists or political activists, but also by radical right historians. These discourses impacted as well on historians who in general were critical of the post-Soviet rehabilitation of nationalism, war criminality or East Central European fascism. Concentrating on Ukrainian and Polish history, this article explores how the radical right historical discourses appeared in the post-Soviet space, what types of historians were involved in them and what kinds of distortions and obfuscations have predominated.