Detecting seasonal unit roots in a structural time series model

In this paper, we propose to detect seasonal unit roots within the context of a structural time series model. Such a model is often found to be useful in practice. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that our method works well. We illustrate our approach for several quarterly macroeconomic time series variables.     

“He Said, She Said”: Assessing Discrepancies in Husbands'' and Wives'' Reports on the Division of Household Labor

Using the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) data, the discrepancy in the husband's and wife's reports on household work is examined. I found that husbands tend to overestimate their own contribution (or wives underestimate the husbands' contribution), but wives do not. Husbands tend to overestimate (or wives underestimate) their wives' contribution to shopping and paying bills, suggesting the husbands' inefficiency to perform these tasks may bias their estimates. To examine various sources of the interspouse response discrepancy, multiple regression analyses are conducted. The relationship between the interspouse response discrepancy in the husband's household work time and the attitudinal variables suggests that our estimates are affected by social desirability. The relationship between the discrepancy in the wife's time and both spouses' family-role attitudes indicates that the resentment felt by each spouse in performing household work may bias their estimates in their own favor. The wife's perceived fairness is related to the interspouse discrepancy in the husband's relative share of household work. Length of marriage generally decreases the interspouse response discrepancy, suggesting that the knowledge each spouse has of each other is an important factor. Finally, various measures of the division of household labor utilizing one or two spouses' responses are regressed upon the same set of predictors. The husband's relative share, rather than each spouse's absolute time, and both spouses' combined estimate, rather than either spouse's, are better explained by the various predictors.     

Decision Support System of Truck Routing and Refueling: A Dual‐Objective Approach

The variable‐route vehicle‐refueling problem (VRVRP) is a variant of the network‐flow problem which seeks, for a vehicle traveling from origin s to destination d, both the route and the refueling policy (sequence of fuel stations to use between s and d) that jointly minimize the fuel cost of operating the vehicle. Commercial‐grade decision support systems that solve the VRVRP are widely used by motor carriers, but they provide heuristic solutions only. Exact methods are available from the academic side, but because they focus on minimizing costs, they tend to cut fuel costs in exchange for increased vehicle miles (which can increase fuel consumptions and pollutants emission). We propose a new approach to the VRVRP that allows carriers to jointly seek the two possibly conflicting goals; minimizing fuel cost and vehicle miles. Computational testing shows that our approach (i) outperforms the commercial software products in both goals, and (ii) finds solutions that require significantly less vehicle miles than those given by the exact method proposed in the academic literature, without incurring unacceptable increases in fuel cost.     

共生教育

现在 ,各国都在以经济现代化为目标 ,尽可能发展和引进现代科学技术及其合理的思想观念 ,实现产业化 ,使国家富强 ,从而形成全球一体化的大交易圈。共生教育 ,就是讲授人们如何在这个大交易圈中生存的教育     

Sociological Determinants of Life Satisfaction in Japan: The Roles of Gender, Family, and Work

Abstract  This is one of the first studies on causes and correlates of life satisfaction among Japanese, based on the theoretical framework of Thibaut and Kelley (1959) on satisfaction and a nationally representative sample of Japanese adults. Emphasized are the effects of such demographic variables as gender, marital status, age, and work-related characteristics on life satisfaction. It is found that Japanese women are more satisfied with their lives than are men on the average. This difference is not explained by the gender difference in employment statuses. When examined for each employment status category, women still show higher life satisfaction than men on the average, except those employed full-time.
While widowed women show lower life satisfaction, never-married and divorced men show the same pattern. The detrimental effect of divorce on life satisfaction among women disappears when economic circumstances variables are controlled for. Age is found to be strongly related to life satisfaction, particularly among men. A non-linear effect of age indicates both family responsibility and job responsibility decrease life satisfaction for Japanese men and women.
The theoretical framework presented in American literature on the subject is largely supported in the present analysis with Japanese data. Rather than absolute levels of economic and/or social indicators, the salience each person places on them is found to be critical for life satisfaction. Given the cognitive definition of satisfaction adopted here which emphasizes comparisons, these results indicate the validity of this theoretical perspective.     

On mantel-haenszel type estimators in simple nested case-control studies

We are concerned with nested case-control studies in this article. For proportional hazards model, a class of over-all estimators of hazard ratios is presented when simple samples are drawn from risk sets. These estimators have the form of the Mantel-Haenszel estimator of odds ratio, and are consistent not only for large strata, but also for sparse data. Consistent estimators of the variances of the proposed hazard ratio estimators are also developed. An example is given to illustrate the proposed estimators.     

Vetoer and tie-making group theorems for indifference-transitive aggregation rules

A binary relation is indifference-transitive if its symmetric part satisfies the transitivity axiom. We investigated the properties of Arrovian aggregation rules that generate acyclic and indifference-transitive social preferences. We proved that there exists unique vetoer in the rule if the number of alternatives is greater than or equal to four. We provided a classification of decisive structures in aggregation rules where the number of alternatives is equal to three. Furthermore, we showed that the coexistence of a vetoer and a tie-making group, which generates social indifference, is inevitable if the rule satisfies the indifference unanimity. The relationship between the vetoer and the tie-making group, i.e., whether the vetoer belongs to the tie-making group or not, determines the power structure of the rule.     

Second‐order bias‐corrected AIC in multivariate normal linear models under non‐normality

This paper deals with a bias correction of Akaike's information criterion (AIC) for selecting variables in multivariate normal linear regression models when the true distribution of observation is an unknown non‐normal distribution. It is well known that the bias of AIC is $O(1)$ , and there are a number of the first‐order bias‐corrected AICs which improve the bias to $O(n^{-1})$ , where $n$ is the sample size. A new information criterion is proposed by slightly adjusting the first‐order bias‐corrected AIC. Although the adjustment is achieved by merely using constant coefficients, the bias of the new criterion is reduced to $O(n^{-2})$ . Then, a variance of the new criterion is also improved. Through numerical experiments, we verify that our criterion is superior to others. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 39: 126–146; 2011 © 2011 Statistical Society of Canada     

Trends in the Relative Influence of Education and Income on Highbrow Taste, 1982–2012

Although numerous studies have confirmed the separate effects of economic and cultural capital on arts participation, research focusing on the cumulative and interactive effects of economic and cultural capital through the creation of taste publics is limited. Using data from the United States (Survey of Public Participation in the Arts [1982–2012]), this research integrates economic and cultural capital—measured as income and education—into the analysis of taste, creates taste publics, and examines their association with highbrow arts participation over time. We find that the effects of economic and cultural capital on highbrow arts participation decreased between 1982 and 2012, and American publics seem to have converged across both types of capital. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

A study on the influence of headphones in auditory perceptual function

The focus of this study is a human's ability to make full use of listening and hearing. This ability consists of dividing auditory information into a signal and a noise. To evaluate the risk of using headphones, the study investigated the auditory perception when a warning sound is given in the presence of environmental noise.