Confidence intervals,significance values,maximum likelihood estimates,etc. sharpened into Occam’s razors

Abstract

Confidence sets, p values, maximum likelihood estimates, and other results of non-Bayesian statistical methods may be adjusted to favor sampling distributions that are simple compared to others in the parametric family. The adjustments are derived from a prior likelihood function previously used to adjust posterior distributions.     

英汉互译中的音义对应及其可译性限度

声音、节奏等具有伴随意义,有时是对语言本身意义的补充.在翻译时力求音义对应是实现等效翻译的一种重要手段.当然,英汉语音在结构、功能和表达方式上的差异也使音义对应有一定的限度.     

Holistic trajectories: a study of combined employment, housing and family careers by using multiple-sequence analysis

Summary.  Social science applications of sequence analysis have thus far involved the development of a typology on the basis of an analysis of one or two variables which have had a relatively low number of different states. There is a yet unexplored potential for sequence analysis to be applied to a greater number of variables and thereby a much larger state space. The development of a typology of employment experiences, for example, without reference to data on changes in housing, marital and family status is arguably inadequate. The paper demonstrates the use of sequence analysis in the examination of multivariable combinations of status as they change over time and shows that this method can provide insights that are difficult to achieve through other analytic methods. The data that are examined here provide support to intuitive understandings of clusters of common experiences which are both life course specific and related to socio-economic factors. Housing tenure is found to be of key importance in understanding the holistic trajectories that are examined. This suggests that life course trajectories are sharply differentiated by experience of social housing.     

Factor analysis for ranked data with application to a job selection attitude survey

Summary.  Factor analysis is a powerful tool to identify the common characteristics among a set of variables that are measured on a continuous scale. In the context of factor analysis for non-continuous-type data, most applications are restricted to item response data only. We extend the factor model to accommodate ranked data. The Monte Carlo expectation–maximization algorithm is used for parameter estimation at which the E-step is implemented via the Gibbs sampler. An analysis based on both complete and incomplete ranked data (e.g. rank the top q out of k items) is considered. Estimation of the factor scores is also discussed. The method proposed is applied to analyse a set of incomplete ranked data that were obtained from a survey that was carried out in GuangZhou, a major city in mainland China, to investigate the factors affecting people's attitude towards choosing jobs.     

Assessing accuracy of a continuous screening test in the presence of verification bias

Summary.  In studies to assess the accuracy of a screening test, often definitive disease assessment is too invasive or expensive to be ascertained on all the study subjects. Although it may be more ethical or cost effective to ascertain the true disease status with a higher rate in study subjects where the screening test or additional information is suggestive of disease, estimates of accuracy can be biased in a study with such a design. This bias is known as verification bias. Verification bias correction methods that accommodate screening tests with binary or ordinal responses have been developed; however, no verification bias correction methods exist for tests with continuous results. We propose and compare imputation and reweighting bias-corrected estimators of true and false positive rates, receiver operating characteristic curves and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for continuous tests. Distribution theory and simulation studies are used to compare the proposed estimators with respect to bias, relative efficiency and robustness to model misspecification. The bias correction estimators proposed are applied to data from a study of screening tests for neonatal hearing loss.     

Nonresponse weighting adjustment using estimated response probability

To reduce nonresponse bias in sample surveys, a method of nonresponse weighting adjustment is often used which consists of multiplying the sampling weight of the respondent by the inverse of the estimated response probability. The authors examine the asymptotic properties of this estimator. They prove that it is generally more efficient than an estimator which uses the true response probability, provided that the parameters which govern this probability are estimated by maximum likelihood. The authors discuss variance estimation methods that account for the effect of using the estimated response probability; they compare their performances in a small simulation study. They also discuss extensions to the regression estimator.     

Bayesian locally optimal design of knockout tournaments

The elimination or knockout format is one of the most common designs for pairing competitors in tournaments and leagues. In each round of a knockout tournament, the losers are eliminated while the winners advance to the next round. Typically, the goal of such a design is to identify the overall best player. Using a common probability model for expressing relative player strengths, we develop an adaptive approach to pairing players each round in which the probability that the best player advances to the next round is maximized. We evaluate our method using simulated game outcomes under several data-generating mechanisms, and compare it to random pairings, to the standard knockout format, and to two variants of the standard format.     

降低线性调频脉冲压缩信号旁瓣的方法

讨论线性调频脉冲压缩信号距离旁瓣的抑制。研究如何降低小时带积线性调频信号距离旁瓣电平问题,针对该信号频谱矩形特性差,提出了采用频谱修正方法来提高脉冲压缩信号的主副比。该方法具有全数字式处理特点,适宜使用IMS A100器件实现脉冲压缩处理。计算机模拟结果表明,无论是小时带积还是大时带积的线性调频信号,经谱修正后,脉冲压缩信号的主副比均舍得到提高。     

农户兼业对秸秆还田技术采纳的影响机制及效应分析——基于冀皖鄂1150份农户调查数据的实证

基于河北、安徽、湖北三省1150份农户的实地调查数据,采用倾向得分匹配法构建“反事实”框架,探讨了农户兼业对秸秆还田技术采纳的影响效应,并进一步验证了其中介效应及务工距离的作用机制。研究结果表明：（1）相比纯农户,兼业户更倾向于采纳秸秆还田技术;（2）农户兼业通过风险分担间接影响秸秆还田技术采纳,间接影响占比为24.43%;（3）当纯农户选择在乡内务工时,秸秆还田技术采纳率会提高15.0%,选择在县内乡外务工时,兼业对农户秸秆还田技术采纳行为没有显著性影响,但当纯农户选择省内县外务工时,秸秆还田技术采纳率提高了9.2%,选择省外务工时秸秆还田技术采纳率提高了10.0%。因此,为更好促进秸秆还田技术推广,政府部门应该引导和鼓励农户就近务工,保障农村劳动力就业质量,培育和支持农机社会化服务组织并加强对秸秆还田技术的指导和培训。     

贸易中介研究综述

贸易中介在国际贸易发展中发挥的作用越来越受到重视,回顾近年来国内外贸易中介文献,从贸易中介的识别方法、贸易中介影响企业贸易行为的作用机制、实证结果、企业选择贸易中介的影响因素等方面进行研究。研究发现,贸易中介的作用机制包括促进买卖方的匹配、降低贸易成本和验证产品质量; 贸易中介为企业提供了新的出口模式,帮助企业进入市场规模较小、距离较远、贸易成本较高的目的国,对企业的出口产生积极的影响,同时对企业进口国外投入品、出口和生产率提升等产生影响; 在影响因素方面,规模较小、出口产品种类越多的企业面对难以进入的市场,越可能通过贸易中介出口。研究表明,为了完善贸易中介研究的理论体系和应用实践,需要加强贸易中介能否有效应对国内外政治和经济不确定性对进出口的冲击研究,拓展跨境电商与传统贸易中介关系研究,深化企业选择混合出口模式实现贸易中介出口和直接出口的优势互补研究。