Latin American convergence and divergence towards the mortality profiles of developed countries

It is uncertain whether Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries are approaching a single mortality regime. Over the last three decades, LAC has experienced major public health interventions and the highest number of homicides in the world. However, these interventions and homicide rates are not evenly shared across countries. This study documents trends in life expectancy and lifespan variability for 20 LAC countries, 2000–14. By extending a previous method, we decompose differences in lifespan variability between LAC and a developed world benchmark into cause-specific effects. For both sexes, dispersion of amenable diseases through the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the benchmark. Additionally, for males, the concentration of homicides, accidents, and suicides in mid-life further impedes mortality convergence. Great disparity exists in the region: while some countries are rapidly approaching the developed regime, others remain far behind and suffer a clear disadvantage in population health.     

Subjective utility with upper and lower probabilities on finite states

This article is concerned with thresholds of discrimination of preference judgments under uncertainty. We establish an axiomatic characterization for a threshold representation, where thresholds are represented by inexact measurement of subjective probabilities, i.e., upper and lower probabilities. Since upper and lower probabilities need not be additive, the representational form adopts the Choquet integration.     

关于独立董事制度的一个经济逻辑分析

运用体制转轨和渐进改革的宏观视角、使用制度演进和制度创新的分析方法、结合公司治理结构的发展,对独立董事制度的构建背景、意义、发展途径进行一个比较详尽深入的经济逻辑分析,认为在制度潜力发掘—市场规范发展彼此良性互动的作用机制下,独立董事制度将逐渐成熟壮大,最终形成对原有公司治理机构体系的冲击,促使公司治理结构的不断优化和市场的不断成熟规范化变迁。     

中英文特殊诗体的对比--书写形式变异的英文诗与中国的回文结构诗

诗歌一般拥有新鲜的、独特的想象、又常被说是“带有音乐性的思想”,而且语言特别优美和精练。比喻、象征等手段用得多而巧妙。但是在视觉方面,诗人也有所创新。这表现在书写形式变异的英文诗和中国的回文诗。本文通过分析麦克高夫和卡明斯的两首英文诗,以及苏轼等人的回文诗,探讨中外诗人力图通过书写形式的安排,从视觉方面展现诗歌的魅力。     

Sampling design proportional to order statistic of auxiliary variable

The sampling designs dependent on sample moments of auxiliary variables are well known. Lahiri (Bull Int Stat Inst 33:133–140, 1951) considered a sampling design proportionate to a sample mean of an auxiliary variable. Sing and Srivastava (Biometrika 67(1):205–209, 1980) proposed the sampling design proportionate to a sample variance while Wywiał (J Indian Stat Assoc 37:73–87, 1999) a sampling design proportionate to a sample generalized variance of auxiliary variables. Some other sampling designs dependent on moments of an auxiliary variable were considered e.g. in Wywiał (Some contributions to multivariate methods in, survey sampling. Katowice University of Economics, Katowice, 2003a); Stat Transit 4(5):779–798, 2000) where accuracy of some sampling strategies were compared, too.These sampling designs cannot be useful in the case when there are some censored observations of the auxiliary variable. Moreover, they can be much too sensitive to outliers observations. In these cases the sampling design proportionate to the order statistic of an auxiliary variable can be more useful. That is why such an unequal probability sampling design is proposed here. Its particular cases as well as its conditional version are considered, too. The sampling scheme implementing this sampling design is proposed. The inclusion probabilities of the first and second orders were evaluated. The well known Horvitz–Thompson estimator is taken into account. A ratio estimator dependent on an order statistic is constructed. It is similar to the well known ratio estimator based on the population and sample means. Moreover, it is an unbiased estimator of the population mean when the sample is drawn according to the proposed sampling design dependent on the appropriate order statistic.     

情景喜剧《武林外传》中的语域偏离与语篇幽默效果

古装情景喜剧《武林外传》在全国热播，掀起一阵收视高潮，其原因值得探究。本文运用Hauiday的语域理论，试从语域转换、语域混合和语域借用角度来分析该剧的幽默语言特点，探究其产生具大幽默效应的独特魅力。     

Subjective probabilities and utility with event-dependent preferences

This article generalizes Savage's theory to include event-dependent preferences. The state space is partitioned into finitely many events. The induced preferences over consequences are assumed independent of the underlying states within, but not across, these events. This results in an additively separable representation of preferences over acts. The dependence of the preference relation over consequences on the events is represented by event-dependent mappings of the set of consequences onto itself. Given these mappings, the preferences on acts are represented by the expectation of event-dependent utilities on the consequences with respect to unique subjective probabilities on the states.Helpful discussions with David Schmeidler are gratefully acknowledged.     

系统科学在大型技术装备项目中的应用

本文论述了系统科学的理论和方法在大型技术装备项目管理中的应用和发展,着重介绍了项目规划的方案优选和项目管理组织体系、计划控制系统,质量控制系统、项目管理信息系统。从这个项目管理系统的总体看,随着加工的进展,系统内信息不断扩大和加深,形成生产管理信息回路,而且采用人-机结合的信息网络,为配合项目管理发挥了重要作用。     

具有卖空总量限制的多阶段M—SAD投资组合优化

文章提出具有卖空总量限制、阈值约束和V型交易成本的多阶段均值—半绝对偏差（M-SAD）投资组合优化模型。该模型分别运用均值和半绝对偏衡量资产的收益率和风险。由于交易成本的存在,该模型不满足无后效性的动态优化问题。文章将该模型近似为一般动态规划问题,提出一种新的离散迭代方法,并证明该算法是线性收敛的。最后,文章通过实证研究比较分析卖空总量限制和风险偏好系数取不同值时对投资组合最优策略的影响,验证模型和算法的有效性。     

Coherent decision analysis with inseparable probabilities and utilities

This article explores the extent to which a decision maker's probabilities can be measured separately from his/her utilities by observing his/her acceptance of small monetary gambles. Only a partial separation is achieved: the acceptable gambles are partitioned into a set of belief gambles, which reveals probabilities distorted by marginal utilities for money, and a set of preference gambles, which reveals utilities reciprocally distorted by marginal utilities for money. However, the information in these gambles still enables us to solve the decision maker's problem: his/her utility-maximizing decision is the one that avoids arbitrage (i.e., incoherence or Dutch books).