Linguists and other animals

Book reviewed in this article:
Joan Dunayer, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation     

On the Convergence of the Monte Carlo Maximum Likelihood Method for Latent Variable Models

While much used in practice, latent variable models raise challenging estimation problems due to the intractability of their likelihood. Monte Carlo maximum likelihood (MCML), as proposed by Geyer & Thompson (1992 ), is a simulation-based approach to maximum likelihood approximation applicable to general latent variable models. MCML can be described as an importance sampling method in which the likelihood ratio is approximated by Monte Carlo averages of importance ratios simulated from the complete data model corresponding to an arbitrary value of the unknown parameter. This paper studies the asymptotic (in the number of observations) performance of the MCML method in the case of latent variable models with independent observations. This is in contrast with previous works on the same topic which only considered conditional convergence to the maximum likelihood estimator, for a fixed set of observations. A first important result is that when is fixed, the MCML method can only be consistent if the number of simulations grows exponentially fast with the number of observations. If on the other hand, is obtained from a consistent sequence of estimates of the unknown parameter, then the requirements on the number of simulations are shown to be much weaker.     

ERP在钢铁贸易企业的应用研究

以上海宝钢技术经济发展公司为对象,根据公司对提升内部管理及业务流程规范化的要求,研究了公司建立ERP系统的定位及目标,提出应建立以钢材贸易和钢铁产品深加工为主业的ERP体系,实现流通过程中的价值增值.在分析存在的主要问题的基础上,提出了ERP的模式、流程设计及采购业务、库存业务的解决方案.     

高校青年学生网络思想与法制教育的几点思考

随着因特网的发展 ,网络上信息的内容日益呈现出其复杂性 ,世界观并没有完全形成的青年学生 ,很容易受到网上信息内容所隐含的意识形态的影响。正确辨别网络信息 ,正确对待网上游戏 ,抵制恶意信息流传 ,增强青年学生的自我控制能力 ,加强对他们的思想与法制教育 ,是高校实现人才培养目标的重要保证。     

Simple detection of outlying short time series

Sets of relatively short time series arise in many situations. One aspect of their analysis may be the detection of outlying series. We examine the performance of standard normal outlier tests applied to the means, or to simple functions of the means, of AR(1) series, not necessarily of equal lengths. Although unequal lengths of series implies that the means have unequal variances, that are only known approximately, it is shown that nominal significance levels hold good under most circumstances. Thus a standard outlier test can usefully be applied, avoiding the complication of estimating the time series' parameters. The test's power is affected by unequal lengths, being higher when the slippage occurs in one of the longer series     

黑龙江（汉族）民歌衍变过程探析——对黑龙江、河北（汉族）民歌的比较

黑龙江汉族民歌的衍变历经了数百年的岁月沧桑，它与民族迁徙、人口变迁以及文化传统等存在着极为密切的联系。通过对黑龙江民歌与河北、山东、河南、山西民歌进行比较，表明黑龙江民歌与河北民歌之间存在着较近的亲缘关系。因此，文章试图在对较有代表性的几首黑龙江与河北民歌比较研究的基础上进一步探究黑龙江民歌衍变的影响因素。     

Implied Preference for Seismic Design Level and Earthquake Insurance

Seismic risk can be reduced by implementing newly developed seismic provisions in design codes. Furthermore, financial protection or enhanced utility and happiness for stakeholders could be gained through the purchase of earthquake insurance. If this is not so, there would be no market for such insurance. However, perceived benefit associated with insurance is not universally shared by stakeholders partly due to their diverse risk attitudes. This study investigates the implied seismic design preference with insurance options for decisionmakers of bounded rationality whose preferences could be adequately represented by the cumulative prospect theory (CPT). The investigation is focused on assessing the sensitivity of the implied seismic design preference with insurance options to model parameters of the CPT and to fair and unfair insurance arrangements. Numerical results suggest that human cognitive limitation and risk perception can affect the implied seismic design preference by the CPT significantly. The mandatory purchase of fair insurance will lead the implied seismic design preference to the optimum design level that is dictated by the minimum expected lifecycle cost rule. Unfair insurance decreases the expected gain as well as its associated variability, which is preferred by risk-averse decisionmakers. The obtained results of the implied preference for the combination of the seismic design level and insurance option suggest that property owners, financial institutions, and municipalities can take advantage of affordable insurance to establish successful seismic risk management strategies.     

论英语语言课程设计中的需求分析

界定需求要从目标和目的两个方面进行,这两个方面是我们发展测试、材料、教学活动、评价策略的基础。因此需求分析是语言课程建设不可分割的一部分。本文重点介绍了英语语言课程设计中需求分析的方法及步骤。目的在于强调需求分析的重要性,以及需求分析对于教师改进教学方法、提高教学效果、提高学生学习的主动性和积极性的重要意义。     

Statistical and Combinatorial Aspects of Comparative Genomics*

Abstract. This document presents a survey of the statistical and combinatorial aspects of four areas of comparative genomics: gene order based measures of evolutionary distances between species, construction of phylogenetic trees, detection of horizontal transfer of genes, and detection of ancient whole genome duplications.     

Ethnic patterns in the phonetics of Montreal English

Most North American cities no longer display strong ethnic differentiation of speech within the European‐origin population. This is not true in the English‐speaking community of Montreal, Canada, where English is a minority language. Differences in the phonetic realization of vowels by Montrealers of Irish, Italian, and Jewish ethnic origin are investigated by means of acoustic analysis. A statistical analysis of ethnic differences in formant frequencies shows that ethnicity has a significant effect on several variables, particularly the phonetic position of /u:/ and /ou/ and the allophonic conditioning of /æ/ and /au/ before nasal consonants. The unusual tenacity of ethnophonetic variation in Montreal English is explained in light of the minority status of English, and the social and residential segregation of ethnic groups in distinct neighborhoods, which limits their exposure to speakers of Standard Canadian English who might otherwise serve as models for assimilation.