Squashed dreams and rare breeds: ableism and the arbiters of life and death

The week beginning 29 June 2015 is not just historic for the closure of the Independent Living Fund in the United Kingdom, but for me was the week they decided that my life is not worth investing in; they being NHS England, NICE and, with them, the Department of Health. They chose not to support the enzyme replacement therapy that has been not only keeping me alive, but giving me a quality of life – enabling me to return to finish my Disability Studies PhD exploring how Christian leaders explain disability, where ethics have become the main topic, and to rebuild my career – or so I thought.     

Interval estimation for conformance proportions of multiple quality characteristics

A conformance proportion is an important and useful index to assess industrial quality improvement. Statistical confidence limits for a conformance proportion are usually required not only to perform statistical significance tests, but also to provide useful information for determining practical significance. In this article, we propose approaches for constructing statistical confidence limits for a conformance proportion of multiple quality characteristics. Under the assumption that the variables of interest are distributed with a multivariate normal distribution, we develop an approach based on the concept of a fiducial generalized pivotal quantity (FGPQ). Without any distribution assumption on the variables, we apply some confidence interval construction methods for the conformance proportion by treating it as the probability of a success in a binomial distribution. The performance of the proposed methods is evaluated through detailed simulation studies. The results reveal that the simulated coverage probability (cp) for the FGPQ-based method is generally larger than the claimed value. On the other hand, one of the binomial distribution-based methods, that is, the standard method suggested in classical textbooks, appears to have smaller simulated cps than the nominal level. Two alternatives to the standard method are found to maintain their simulated cps sufficiently close to the claimed level, and hence their performances are judged to be satisfactory. In addition, three examples are given to illustrate the application of the proposed methods.     

The context of employment discrimination: interpreting the findings of a field experiment

Although field experiments have documented the contemporary relevance of discrimination in employment, theories developed to explain the dynamics of differential treatment cannot account for differences across organizational and institutional contexts. In this article, I address this shortcoming by presenting the main empirical findings from a multi‐method research project, in which a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in the Norwegian labour market was complemented with forty‐two in‐depth interviews with employers who were observed in the first stage of the study. While the experimental data support earlier findings in documenting that ethnic discrimination indeed takes place, the qualitative material suggests that theorizing in the field experiment literature have been too concerned with individual and intra‐psychic explanations. Discriminatory outcomes in employment processes seems to be more dependent on contextual factors such as the number of applications received, whether requirements are specified, and the degree to which recruitment procedures are formalized. I argue that different contexts of employment provide different opportunity structures for discrimination, a finding with important theoretical and methodological implications.     

中国当代人口发展分析

以人为本的科学发展观必然要求我们在一切发展序列中首先关注人口发展,中国人口发展在中国社会发展框架中具有绝对优先的工具价值和目的意义.中国作为发展中国家与作为人口最多的国家两者之间在很大程度上具有互为因果的内在关系,充分认识中国人口发展现状具有多元化的重要意义.中国人口发展状况主要表现为人口数量多、人口质量低和人口结构不合理.中国人口现代化是中国其它现代化的强力引擎,中国人口发展的基本创新路径是城市化发展路径、市场化发展路径、民主化发展路径.     

服务台可修的多水平优先权排队(二)

文献[1]讨论了服务台可修的多水平优先权排队的排队指标。本文讨论该系统的可靠性指标。利用文献[3]中的随机序,获得了这些可靠性指标的界值。     

词语累赘与信息羡余

信息羡余是语言运用中加强信息传递的手段。信息羡余有两种加强信息的方式 :音节扩充 ,解释性叠加。语病重复是语句结构上的累赘 ,是应该删除的多余成分。保留信息羡余成分是“求繁” ,是信息传递的足量原则在起作用 ;删除累赘是“求简” ,是语言表达的经济原则在起作用 ,如何把握繁简的度 ,是语言规范工作所面临的一个难题。当前 ,语言规范化领域存在打击面过宽的偏向。区别“信息羡余”和“语病重复” ,可以从两方面考虑 :一是凭借人们的语感 ,一是参照表达实际。有时 ,是重复还是羡余 ,分界不是很清楚     

A Bayesian method for classification and discrimination

We discuss Bayesian analyses of traditional normal-mixture models for classification and discrimination. The development involves application of an iterative resampling approach to Monte Carlo inference, commonly called Gibbs sampling, and demonstrates routine application. We stress the benefits of exact analyses over traditional classification and discrimination techniques, including the ease with which such analyses may be performed in a quite general setting, with possibly several normal-mixture components having different covariance matrices, the computation of exact posterior classification probabilities for observed data and for future cases to be classified, and posterior distributions for these probabilities that allow for assessment of second-level uncertainties in classification.     

《孟子》中的单音节形容词研究

文章主要从量的角度对《孟子》中的单音节形容词的句法功能进行研究,通过与现代汉语形容词的特征比较,结果发现单音节形容词作谓语(不带宾语),单音节形容词作宾语,单音节形容词带宾语以及单音节形容词作定语是《孟子》中的单音节形容词的重要特征。     

Doing Gender unto the Other: Fiction as a Mode of Studying Gender Discrimination in Organizations

Although ‘doing gender’ has been recently defined as an accomplishment, an element of social practice, this understanding of the concept needs to be extended to coercive action such as subtle workplace discrimination. Even though great effort has been invested in revealing the dynamic of such social practices, the researcher's task is not easy for a variety of reasons. This type of study is difficult to conduct by following traditional research design and many alternative approaches have been tried. This article presents the possibility of using fiction as one possible and relatively unexploited venue of research.     

中国就业市场中的性别歧视——对公众认知率的研究

调查结果表明:女性更关注工作过程中的性别歧视和职业隔离的性别歧视现象,女性仅对应聘过程中的性别歧视现象如女性的相貌、身高等要求、外来打工妹的应聘两个问题的认知率高于男性;女性对性骚扰性别歧视认知率与男性没有显著差异;公众对各种性别歧视现象的总体认知水平不高.