Linguists and other animals

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

Kernel Estimation of Rate Function for Recurrent Event Data

Abstract.  Recurrent event data are largely characterized by the rate function but smoothing techniques for estimating the rate function have never been rigorously developed or studied in statistical literature. This paper considers the moment and least squares methods for estimating the rate function from recurrent event data. With an independent censoring assumption on the recurrent event process, we study statistical properties of the proposed estimators and propose bootstrap procedures for the bandwidth selection and for the approximation of confidence intervals in the estimation of the occurrence rate function. It is identified that the moment method without resmoothing via a smaller bandwidth will produce a curve with nicks occurring at the censoring times, whereas there is no such problem with the least squares method. Furthermore, the asymptotic variance of the least squares estimator is shown to be smaller under regularity conditions. However, in the implementation of the bootstrap procedures, the moment method is computationally more efficient than the least squares method because the former approach uses condensed bootstrap data. The performance of the proposed procedures is studied through Monte Carlo simulations and an epidemiological example on intravenous drug users.     

东汉庄园的兴起及其文化意蕴

西汉以自耕农为主体的经济结构到东汉以庄园为主体经济结构的转变 ,客观上形成了汉晋之际社会思潮变迁的重要依托。作为新兴的相对独立的社会经济单位 ,东汉庄园对士大夫的精神世界产生了重要影响。不仅使一部分士人从原有的大一统思想和依附地位中剥离出来 ,而且发展出了较为独立的群体性格、个体人格、思维方式和兴趣取向     

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。     

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.     

构建沈阳自主创新科技投融资体系的途径选择

建立创新型城市离不开多元化、多渠道、多层次的科技投融资体系。通过有效的政策安排,不断完善科技投融资体系,对加快沈阳的发展,加速科技创新进程和科技成果转化具有重要意义。本文提出了沈阳自主创新亟待投融资体系的完善,着重分析了沈阳自主创新科技投融资体系的现状和存在的问题,提出了促进沈阳自主创新科技投融资体系完善的途径。     

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。     

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.     

ASSESSING CONGRUENCEAMONG DISTANCE MATRICES: SINGLE-MALT SCOTCH WHISKIES REVISITED

A test of congruence among distance matrices is described. It tests the hypothesis that several matrices, containing different types of variables about the same objects, are congruent with one another, so they can be used jointly in statistical analysis. Raw data tables are turned into similarity or distance matrices prior to testing; they can then be compared to data that naturally come in the form of distance matrices. The proposed test can be seen as a generalization of the Mantel test of matrix correspondence to any number of distance matrices. This paper shows that the new test has the correct rate of Type I error and good power. Power increases as the number of objects and the number of congruent data matrices increase; power is higher when the total number of matrices in the study is smaller. To illustrate the method, the proposed test is used to test the hypothesis that matrices representing different types of organoleptic variables (colour, nose, body, palate and finish) in single‐malt Scotch whiskies are congruent.     

"专利权的地域性"评析

专利权的地域性是专利权法律冲突肯定说和否定说争议的焦点所在.文章通过分析专利权地域性的成因暨合理性,指出无论是国内法还是国际公约,适时地突破专利权地域性均不存在制度上的障碍.认为地域性并不是专利权的本质属性;随着各国政治、经济、文化环境的优化,专利权地域性的消失带有必然性;各国在处理涉外的专利权合同关系和侵权关系时,应突破地域性理论的窠臼,建立适宜的法律适用规则以解决存在的法律冲突.