Strategy-proof and anonymous rule in queueing problems: a relationship between equity and efficiency

We consider a relationship between equity and efficiency in queueing problems. We show that under strategy-proofness, anonymity in welfare implies queue-efficiency. Furthermore, by combining the result of Kayı and Ramaekers (Games Econ Behav 68:220–232, 2010) with ours, we also give a characterization of the class of rules that satisfy strategy-proofness, anonymity in welfare, and budget-balance.     

Domain expansion of the pivotal mechanism

We propose a mechanism for the provision of public goods called the extended pivotal mechanism, which works on wider environments than quasi-linear ones. This mechanism is shown to be a natural extension of the pivotal (Clarke) mechanism because the restriction of the mechanism to the quasi-linear domain coincides with the pivotal mechanism, and because it is the only mechanism satisfying strategy-proofness, an efficient condition (partial efficiency), and an equity condition (the welfare lower bound property), which characterize the pivotal mechanism.     

Asymptotic theory for fractionally integrated asymmetric power ARCH models

Consistency and asymptotic normality of quasi-maximum likelihood estimators (QMLEs) for the fractionally integrated asymmetric power ARCH (FIAPARCH) process are proved. The moment conditions are assumed only for standardized errors. We show the properties for a wide range of QMLEs including Gaussian QMLE.     

Potential roles of small and linear habitat fragments in satoyama landscapes for conservation of grassland plant species

By comparing with the historic semi-natural grassland and woodland vegetation data compiled in the 1970s and 1980s, we aimed to reveal potential roles of small and linear habitat fragments remaining in the urbanized satoyama landscape (i.e., agricultural landscape) in Japan for conservation of grassland plant species. TWINSPAN cluster analysis differentiated the current vegetation from historic one. Current vegetation of Miscanthus grassland was classified into two different groups and one of the two was equivalent to current understory vegetation of fragmented woodland. The linear woodland edge vegetation along the roads was classified into one group and separated from the other current vegetation groups. The current vegetation groups were characterized by higher richness of exotic species than historic vegetation groups. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) revealed that there were no groups of current vegetation that is equivalent to historic woodland understory vegetation. The vegetation quality of the current group of Miscanthus grassland and secondary woodland remaining on urban public properties, and the group of linear roadside vegetation were almost equivalent to that of historic semi-natural grassland. Both of the small and linear habitat fragments might have functioned as habitats for grassland species under regular mowing management. Although small and linear habitat fragments would not be sufficient for sustaining grassland populations in the future, these habitats can serve as key reservoirs for grassland species recovery in the conservation and restoration of grassland communities in the urbanized satoyama landscape.     

A Bayesian positive dependence of survival times based on the multivariate arrangement increasing property

We introduce a new notion of positive dependence of survival times of system components using the multivariate arrangement increasing property. Following the spirit of Barlow and Mendel (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 87, 1116–1122), who introduced a new univariate aging notion relative to exchangeable populations of components, we characterize a multivariate positive dependence with respect to exchangeable multicomponent systems. Closure properties of such a class of distributions under some reliability operations are discussed. For an infinite population of systems our definition of multivariate positive dependence can be considered in the frequentist’s paradigm as multivariate totally positive of order 2 with an independence condition. de Finetti(-type) representations for a particular class of survival functions are also given.     

Strategy-proofness versus efficiency on the Cobb-Douglas domain of exchange economies

We study the optimal design of an organization in which a team of fallible individuals with heterogeneous abilities collectively decides whether to accept or reject projects. Conventional wisdom tells us that the opinion of those individuals with better decision-making abilities should be given a “larger” weight in the decision. We formalize this intuition in a sequential evaluation process and provide specific ways to characterize the optimal decision weights, as well as demonstrate that the magnitude of the weights depends on the relative abilities of the decision-makers, as well as where the decision-makers are placed in the project evaluation sequence.     

Bayesian Inference for a Stochastic Epidemic Model with Uncertain Numbers of Susceptibles of Several Types

A stochastic epidemic model with several kinds of susceptible is used to analyse temporal disease outbreak data from a Bayesian perspective. Prior distributions are used to model uncertainty in the actual numbers of susceptibles initially present. The posterior distribution of the parameters of the model is explored via Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The methods are illustrated using two datasets, and the results are compared where possible to results obtained by previous analyses.     

南京国民政府时期的陆军大学——以其组织结构与教学内容改革以及兵学研究院为探究对象

南京国民政府时期的陆军大学负责人杨杰积极参与该校运营,如亲自监督实地演习,积极研究军事战略,进行改革以提高学术水平,附设兵学研究院,将优秀毕业生留校继续深造,部分人被派往欧美留学,录用优秀人才来校任教,等等。其结果是,陆军大学的人才质量上乘。这些人才在以后的抗日战争中发挥了重要作用。     

Estimation of exponential-polynomial distribution by holonomic gradient descent

ABSTRACT

We study the holonomic gradient decent for maximum likelihood estimation of exponential-polynomial distribution, whose density is the exponential function of a polynomial in the random variable. We first consider the case that the support of the distribution is the set of positive reals. We show that the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) can be easily computed by the holonomic gradient descent, even though the normalizing constant of this family does not have a closed-form expression, and discuss the determination of the degree of the polynomial based on the score test statistic. Then, we present extensions to the whole real line and to the bivariate distribution on the positive orthant.