bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Watching Dutch Change: A Real Time Study of Variation and Change in Standard Dutch Pronunciation
Authors: Van de Velde Hans , Van Hout Roeland , Gerritsen Marinel
Published: March 2003

The study investigates phonological variation and change in two varieties of standard Dutch: southern standard Dutch (spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium) and northern standard Dutch (spoken in the Netherlands). A new source for studying language change in progress is introduced: archived recordings of radio broadcasts. The study covers the period from 1935 to 1993. Changes in progress are studied by a combination of insight and techniques from historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. The outcomes of analyzing separate linguistic variables are presented, but the focus of the analysis is on the presence of more general patterns of covariation within the set of linguistic variables and on the possibility of distinguishing (prototypical) temporal and community‐based varieties of standard Dutch. The results reveal a pattern of divergence between the two varieties of standard Dutch. The southern variety remained more or less stable between 1935 and 1993. Northern standard Dutch, however, changed substantially.
In search of the intercultural
Authors: Kramsch Claire
Published: March 2003

Books reviewed in this article:

Fred E. Jandt, Intercultural Communication: An Introduction

Young Yun Kim, Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross‐Cultural Adaptation

Tony Schirato and Susan Yell, Communication and Culture: An Introduction

Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollon, Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach
The study of language variation and change: Changes in progress?
Authors: Millar Sharon
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill and Natalie Schilling–Estes (eds.), The Handbook of Language Variation and Change
A Picture of Male and Female Unemployment among Britain’s Ethnic Minorities
Authors: Blackaby David , Drinkwater Stephen , Leslie Derek , Murphy Philip
Published: March 2003

Using a sample of around one million observations, formed by combining two micro datasets from the 1991 Census of Population, the paper explores male and female unemployment differences across Britain's ethnic minorities. The large sample size allows a detailed multivariate analysis of females for the first time. Unemployment differences are not simply the result of characteristic differences or discrimination by the white majority. The empirical work shows that there are equally wide discrepancies in female unemployment rates, compared with males, between the white majority and the non‐white ethnic minorities. Of particular interest is the comparison between UK born and foreign born ethnic minorities. Unemployment rates among the former tend to be considerably higher, but this is accounted for by characteristic differences. Thus there is no evidence that the UK born are doing worse, as the raw data suggest, but they do not seem to be becoming better assimilated either.
The Endogeneity of Money: Evidence from the G7
Authors: Howells Peter , Hussein Khaled
Published: March 2003

For many years economists have argued that the money supply is endogenously determined. However, it has often been suggested that monetary regimes differ in important institutional respects and it may be that endogeneity may be true for some regimes and not for others. The aim of this paper is to test for endogeneity of money supply in the G7 countries and also to detect the existence of any interaction between the demand for bank lending and the demand for money by using recently developed techniques of causality tests. Our findings suggest that broad money is endogenous. However, the ability of the demand for loans to cause deposits is not, it seems, unconstrained by the demand for those deposits. Agents do not simply absorb whatever flow of new deposits loans might create.
Interest Rate Linkages Between the US and the UK During the Classical Gold Standard
Authors: Tullio Giuseppe , Wolters Jürgen
Published: March 2003

One of the most critical and debated issues about the functioning of the classical gold standard is the issue of asymmetries in balance of payments adjustment. London is believed to be by several authors the ‘conductor of the international orchestra’ (Keynes, 1913, p.  19). This view implies a highly asymmetrically working system which tended to shift the burden of adjustment from the UK onto other countries. The alternative view is that the classical gold standard was a ‘decentralised multipolar system’, at least with reference to the balance of payments adjustment among industrial countries. In this paper we analyse causal relationships, impulse response functions and coherence between weekly US and UK 6‐month interest rates using data from the National Monetary Commission (1910) covering the period 1890–1907. The main conclusion is that London was more vulnerable particularly in the medium run to changes in US interest rates than vice versa, contradicting the ‘conductor of the orchestra view’. Comparing the result of the present study with those of Tullio and Wolters (1996), it seems that London was even more vulnerable to interest rate changes in New York than to changes in Paris and Berlin.
Financial Constraints and Investment Decisions
Authors: Saltari E. , Travaglini G.
Published: March 2003

In what follows we show that liquidity constraints can affect a firm’s investment even when the constraints are not currently effective. This happens when, at any given time, the firm believes that internal finance is likely to become a constraint in the future. In these circumstances, the value of the firm becomes a non‐monotonic functional form of the fundamental. Thus, in a dynamic setting, the potential barrier to internal liquidity expansion exerts a global effect on the firm’s investment policy, lowering its desired investment profile (Classification JEL: E22, E51).
Banks’ Inefficiency and Economic Growth: A Micro‐Macro Approach
Authors: Lucchetti Riccardo , Papi Luca , Zazzaro Alberto
Published: March 2003

This paper offers a methodological contribution to the empirical analysis of the relationship between banking and economic growth by suggesting a new indicator for the state of development of the banking system based on a measure of bank microeconomic efficiency. This choice helps to overcome the problem of causality and to capture the effects of banks’ activity on growth. This new approach is then applied to analyse the relationship between the banking system and economic growth in the Italian regions, through a dynamic panel technique. The empirical results show the existence of an independent effect exerted by the efficiency of banks on regional growth.
Bagehot’s Lombard Street and Macroeconomic Stabilisation
Authors: O’Brien D. P.
Published: March 2003

Bagehot’s Lombard Street (1873) has been recognised as the classic statement of the role and necessity of a Lender of Last Resort in a fractional reserve system. This perception has concealed, however, the fundamental nature of the work, which developed a sophisticated model of the business cycle, as the basis for shifting the focus of monetary control from the high‐powered money base to control via the rate of interest. In the course of developing this model, Bagehot was able to show that using Bank Rate to protect the reserve in the Bank of England, in anticipation of the cycle of the market rate of interest, rather than simply following the market rate, would both enable the Bank to fulfil its role as Lender of Last Resort, and to stabilise the business cycle.
On the Equivalence of Taxes Paid by Employers and Employees
Authors: Picard Pierre , Toulemonde Eric
Published: March 2003

In this paper we study the employment effects of a budget neutral restructuring of taxes levied on employers and employees. We derive conditions for taxes levied on workers to have the same employment effects as taxes levied on firms under standard processes of wage determination.
Monetary Stabilisation Policy in a Monetary Union: Some Simple Analytics
Authors: Nolan Charles
Published: March 2003

We do two things in this paper. First, we look at some simple models of monetary decision making in a monetary union and ask how much more variable a country’s output and inflation is likely to be if it joins the union. We answer this analytically and then go on to ‘calibrate’ the simple model. The model has few structural equations, but it is useful in allowing us to examine how the variability of output and inflation are likely to change as key parameters change. Our conclusions on this front are likely to be sensitive to model specification. However, we also identify a second best issue concerning the optimal make–up of the monetary union which is likely to be more robust: namely that only when all members of the union have the same structural parameter values (and shocks are perfectly correlated) will it be optimal for a new member to have these same structural parameter values.
Young Adolescents’ Patterns of Involvement with Siblings and Friends
Authors: Updegraff Kimberly A. , Obeidallah Dawn A.
Published: March 2003

We identified different patterns in young adolescents’ experiences with their siblings and their friends and investigated the connections between these relationship patterns and both young adolescents’ psychosocial functioning and the characteristics of their family and neighbourhood contexts. Participants were 141 families, including mothers, fathers, young adolescents (M = 11.4 years), and their younger siblings (M = 8.3 years). Cluster analysis revealed three groups of young adolescents: (1) high intimacy and involvement with sibling, high intimacy with friend but low involvement with friends (‘Differentiated’); (2) high intimacy and involvement with friend but not sibling (‘Incongruent’); and (3) low involvement and intimacy with both sibling and friend (‘Congruent’). The Congruent pattern was associated with young adolescents’ personal characteristics and their parent‐adolescent relationship experiences. In contrast, the Incongruent and Differentiated profiles were linked to contextual factors (i.e., family and neighbourhood resources). Findings suggest that individual differences exist in the associations between young adolescents’ relationships with siblings and friends.
Interpretations of Child Emotion Expressions and Coercive Parenting Practices Among Adolescent Mothers
Authors: Strassberg Zvi , Treboux Dominique
Published: March 2003

This study examined the relation between adolescent mothers’ interpretations of various child emotion expressions and coercive parenting practices (n = 4 mother‐child dyads, child ages = 10–34 mos.). The more coercive mothers decoded a range of child emotion expressions as exhibiting greater anger, and attributed greater defiant intentions to the child, compared to less coercive mothers. The findings for attributions of defiance were robust, as they were independent of both emotion decoding and level of child difficulty. Findings are discussed with regard to (a) mothers’ basic assumptions about the child; (b) the robust character of attributions of defiance in relation to coercive parenting; (c) the potential implications of this study for research with adult mothers; and (d) investigation of temporal precedence and developmental pathways in the interrelations among child behavior, maternal cognition, and parenting behavior.
Attention to Language: Lessons Learned at the Dinner Table
Authors: Ely Richard , Gleason Jean Berko , MacGibbon Ann , Zaretsky Elena
Published: March 2003

The ordinary discourse of parents, and to a lesser degree young children, includes a surprising amount of attention to language. The dinner table conversations of 22 middle class families, each with a child between 2 and 51/2 years of age, were recorded. Transcripts of these conversations were analyzed for the presence and function of language‐focused terms, words such as say, ask, tell, and speak. More than 11% of mothers’, 7% of fathers’, and 4% of children’s utterances contained a language‐focused term. Metalinguistic uses (e.g., reporting and commenting on speech) exceeded pragmatic uses (e.g., controlling when and how speech occurs). Mothers more than fathers, and fathers more than children, talked about language. Mothers’, but not fathers, use of language‐focused terms was positively correlated with children’s use of language‐focused terms. The findings suggest that in the course of routine social interactions, parents provide children with potentially important information about the communicative functions of language.
The New Social Policy in Britain
Authors: Jones Finer Catherine
Published: March 2003

This paper starts from the proposition that approaches to crime and penal policy in contemporary Britain are of a piece with approaches to social policy across a number of fronts. “The New Social Policy” is examined in terms of “the stakeholder idea”, its implications for how people are meant to behave, and the distance between this and socio‐economic realities. The paper then explores various sectors of stakeholder social policy in their new order of importance—employment and training, education, health care, social care, housing, social security—before commenting on policies in respect of crime and crime prevention, in the light of the foregoing observations and with particular reference to the “lock‐’em‐up” tendency. The paper concludes that stakeholdership is no recipe for crime prevention.
Foreign Policy, Human Rights and the United Kingdom
Authors: Foley Conor , Starmer Keir
Published: March 2003

Amnesty International welcomes the UK Government’s undertaking to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic law, to put human rights at the heart of its foreign policy and to be guided by human rights principles in its treatment of asylum‐seekers, its policy on arms exports and its policy towards international development. This paper reviews the subject of international human rights standards and demonstrates their importance. It then offers advice as to the steps the UK Government should take in order to implement its undertakings in full. It comments on the significance of the incorporation of the ECHR into UK law and summarizes the state of the debate over whether or not there should be a Bill of Rights for citizens of the UK. It argues that the incorporation of the ECHR into UK law should be accompanied by the creation of a (UK) Human Rights Commission equipped with effective powers to strengthen human rights protection within the UK. It concludes with a list of specific recommendations pertaining to the UK Government’s conduct of international affairs.
Extending the Pillars of Social Policy Financing to Aged Care
Authors: Howe Anna L.
Published: March 2003

Against the background of a recent resounding rejection of substantial increases in user contributions for funding long‐term residential care in Australia, and especially of measures that could require realization of housing assets, this paper examines the scope for extending to long‐term care the “pillars” approach to financing of retirement incomes and health care. The two latter areas are funded through pillars of general revenue, private insurance, social insurance by way of compulsory levies, and direct user contributions, whereas long‐term care is financed only by a large pillar of general revenue and a smaller pillar of user contributions which are themselves drawn largely from transfer payments. Examination of the various pillars in each area suggests that there is limited scope for extending private insurance and user contributions in long‐term care, but that there are several social policy grounds for incorporating a social insurance pillar. However, while discussion of social insurance options is growing in several quarters, the current political climate offers little prospect for the adoption of such a scheme.
Creating Stable Racially and Ethnically Diverse Communities in the United States: A Model for the Future
Authors: Peterman William , Nyden Philip
Published: March 2003

We examine fourteen stable, racially and ethnically diverse communities in nine US cities to understand what produces such communities. These communities in the context of the US experience of increased, multiracial, and multiethnic diversity in the early twenty‐first century can serve as a policy model as both the US and European nations look ahead toward more diverse societies. After providing a brief history of US segregation patterns, we provide an analysis of factors related to stable diversity. We found two types of diversity. Diversity‐by‐direction communities, which are more likely to be black:white communities, consciously worked to preserve diversity through an array of community‐based efforts. Diverse‐by‐circumstance communities, which are more likely to be multiracial, multiethnic communities with significant immigrant populations, have been faced with an unplanned diversity, which they are now working to preserve. Among the characteristics of stable diverse communities are the presence of: social seams linking different groups, community organizations involved in preserving diversity, public discussion of values of what produces ‘good’ community, and distinctive physical or environmental characteristics that continue to attract new residents.
Using Household Expenditure to Develop an Income Poverty Line
Authors: Saunders Peter , Bradshaw Jonathan , Hirst Michael
Published: March 2003

Income and expenditure measures are commonly used to establish poverty lines representing, respectively, the availability of cash resources and the standard of living approaches to measuring the extent and composition of poverty. Using UK data we compare these two measures and show how they might be combined. Although overall poverty rates are similar whichever measure is used, the relativities they imply for different types of household differ considerably. There is little overlap between income and expenditure poverty and very few households are both income–and expenditure–poor. The concept of poverty as constraint on choice or constrained expenditure is then defined as the absence of spending on durable goods and luxury items. Using logistic regression, income thresh–olds associated with the observed levels of constrained expenditure are derived for different types of household. Assuming all income is spent, these thresholds define a poverty line below which expenditure is severely constrained. The extent to which social assistance rates limit or prevent household expenditure is also estimated. The method and the estimates illustrate the value of exploring the links between income and expenditure in the measurement of poverty, drawing attention to the limitations of the data, and identifying future research needs.
Social and Material Deprivation among Unemployed Youth in Northern Europe
Authors: Julkunen Ilse
Published: March 2003

This article examines deprivation among unemployed young people. It draws on a comparative survey of 8,654 young unemployed in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Scotland. In spite of an increased knowledge of the relationship between unemployment and poverty,our understanding of deprivation among young unemployed people remains inadequate. How do young people deal with unemployment? Are transitional factors the only explanation for the prevalence of deprivation or should we also consider intergenerational factors? The six countries represent two different welfare strategies, the Nordic universalistic model and the Scottish liberal/ minimalist approaches. The research findings showed diverging tendencies within the Nordic countries. Converging trends between the different systems could also be found, as family support plays the main role in preventing deprivation in all of the countries.
Women Pioneers in Farming: A Gendered History of Agricultural Progress
Authors: Inhetveen Heide
Published: March 2003

Women farmers – the silent heroes of everyday life. Progress in the history of agriculture – the achievement of male pioneers. That seems to be the message of agriculturally oriented literature on women farmers and the history of European agriculture. The article challenges this image with some research findings on women pioneers committed to agricultural progress in the past. Although it is difficult to establish their achievements because of the male‐biased view of agricultural historians and a quasi de‐authorization by the women themselves, one can discover women strongly dedicated to agricultural progress from early modern times onward. The European custom of patrilocality is shown to be a crucial mechanism inhibiting women’s innovative role in agriculture. It was a shift of paradigm, called the rationalization of agriculture, which led to the exclusion of women from the accelerating agricultural progress. Not until the beginning of our century did women win access to universities and scientific research facilities. Finally, the article sheds light on the fact that there is a close relationship between women pioneers and organic farming.
A Neo‐Durkheimian Theory of Small Communities
Authors: Young Frank W.
Published: March 2003

The core hypothesis of the neo‐Durkheimian theory of community proposed here is that average welfare of the residents is determined by the interaction of ‘structure’ and ‘transaction organization,’ and that this interaction holds net of individual attributes. In formula form: w = (S*t). Structure is defined by three systemic dimensions – differentiation, pluralism and solidarity – which are interpreted as ‘institutionalized problem‐solving capacity.’ These dimensions have causal primacy over transaction organizations such as factories, commercial firms, medical facilities, and so on, even though transaction organization is technically exogenous. The effect of this transaction term is to reverse the conventional political economy causal sequence, which begins with production organization and moves through class polarization to lower average welfare.
Emerging Ethnification in Marginal Areas of Sweden
Authors: Hansen Kjell
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses certain political aspects of constructing local and regional identities, in order to grasp the ways these processes are related to different fields of power in society. It shows how local and regional identities are shaped in relation to state politics as well as to local traditions in concrete places, taking a marginal area of inland Sweden as an example. There is a marked and definite difference between the local and the regional in the construction of identity: at the local level, identity is formed through shared everyday practices and reflections, while at the regional level, it is part of a conscious and organized political process. Even if both types of identity may be interpreted as expressions of opposition, this paper shows that local identity seems to be of a refractory kind, while the more consciously organized regional identity may be viewed as an expression of resistance. In this second case, regional identity is undergoing a process of ethnification, creating a mythology of a people with rights to a specific territory.
African Immigrant Workers in Spanish Agriculture
Authors: Hoggart Keith , Mendoza Cristóbal
Published: March 2003

This paper explores reasons for the uneven employment of African workers in Spanish agriculture. Examining employment patterns at a provincial level, it explores why there is a concentration in certain regions of Spain. Focusing on the province of Girona, the study utilizes interview responses from African workers, employers and key local informants to explore reasons for African employment, as well as examining the working conditions of African labourers. It finds that Spanish workers have come to reject farming as an occupation, just as farm employers have come to favour African labourers over possible Spanish labour sources. Whether within or outside the farm sector, the vast majority of African workers do unskilled work, on poor pay, in occupations associated with inferior social status, with short periods of employment, in jobs that are rarely part of a promotion ladder. For many African immigrants, this means they have to shift into and out of farm work repeatedly, while those who stay in farming usually do so on a poor contractual footing. With the majority of immigrant African workers seeing Spain as their permanent home, the paper concludes by noting that the work experiences of African labourers strongly support segmentation theory ideas on the development of niches for particular kinds of workers. This is seen as having potentially detrimental long‐term consequences for issues of social exclusion, as well as restricting the pace of productivity improvements in the farm sector.
The exclusion of women from agri– political leadership: A case study of the Australian sugar industry
Authors: Pini Barbara
Published: March 2003

This paper draws on data from a case study of the agri–political group CANEGROWERS which represents the interests of over 6000 cane farm owners in Australia. The key focus is on the electoral system of the organisation. Using interviews with fifteen elected members, document analysis and participant observation the author examines the way in which women’s lack of representation in any of the 181 positions of organisational leadership is explained by a discourse of merit. While this discourse presents the electoral system as being open, objective and gender neutral, elected leaders descriptions of their own paths to leadership reveal an electoral system which is closed, subjective and distinctly gendered.
1. The Niche Hiker's Guide to Population Ecology: A Logical Reconstruction of Organization Ecology's Niche Theory
Authors: Péli Gábor
Published: March 2003

Logical formalization is a formal method for the analysis of theoretical arguments in the social sciences. Hannan and Freeman's organizational niche theory (1989) is rebuilt by means of First-Order Logic, and its predictions are derived as theorems. Translation into a formal language makes the theory's inference structure transparent and accessible to discussion, repair, and development. The consistency of the model can be checked by computational means. The logical approach helps to specify niche theory's domain; it points out hidden assumptions, highlights spots where the reasoning has to be modified, and provides solid foundations for further theory building. Moreover, the established premise set also allows for the deduction of some new results. Logical formalization supports empirical research by delineating constraints on and explicit relations between sociological concepts, facilitating their appropriate operationalization
Tuberculosis and ethnicity in England and Wales, 1950–70
Authors: Welshman John
Published: March 2003

This article seeks to contribute to recent debates about ethnicity and health by exploring the history of migration and tuberculosis in England and Wales between 1950 and 1970. It concludes that the story was more complex than recent writing, with its emphasis on ‘port health’ concerns, has implied. The fear that tuberculosis was being imported by migrants was certainly a central concern of both early researchers and the medical establishment. However, some researchers did show some interest in material explanations and in the roles of housing and work patterns in the transmission of the disease. A system of medical examinations at the ports of entry was not in fact implemented and it was at the local level that a system of surveillance was set up. Finally, despite much debate about the susceptibility of migrants, racial concerns were less evident than recent writers have suggested.
Clinical actions and financial constraints: the limits to rationing intensive care
Authors: Lapsley Irvine , Melia Kath
Published: March 2003

This paper is concerned with the nature of rationing in intensive care. It reports a study of three intensive care units (ICUs) where resources were limited. We describe two conceptualisations of rationing: hard rationing, where there are absolute physical or financial constraints in place and soft rationing, in which clinicians and clinical managers, key actors in the organisation, can relax or remove apparently binding constraints. This paper demonstrates that, for the ICUs in this study, soft rationing was the norm. The existence of soft rationing was a function of three main factors: the nature of intensive care, the current state of modelling of means‐end relationships in intensive care and network activity within and between ICU teams.
‘The tender trap’: gender, part‐time nursing and the effects of ‘family‐friendly’ policies on career advancement
Authors: Whittock Margaret , Edwards Christine , McLaren Susan , Robinson Olive
Published: March 2003

With the Government promoting ﬂexible and ‘family‐friendly’ policies within the NHS, an increase in the number of part‐time nurses is imminent, particularly in view of current pro‐active recruitment drives in this area. Research, however, indicates that it is mainly female employees who continue to utilise such policies with few male nurses employed on a part‐time or ﬂexible basis. Working part‐time and taking career breaks, usually because of caring commitments, results in female nurses falling behind male colleagues in terms of career development and promotion prospects, with managers selecting males over females (particularly those who work part‐time) regarding functional role allocation in the hospital setting. Based on a recent study of full‐time and part‐time nurses and their managers in three Outer London NHS Trusts, this paper argues that so‐called ‘family‐friendly’ policies must target both sexes and that the underlying attitudes of men to childcare and the domestic division of labour must change before the sexes can compete on equal terms in the workplace. Until this happens men will continue to advance the development of their nursing careers more rapidly than women. Already, in a female‐dominated area of employment, male nurses form a disproportionate percentage of those in higher grades and management posts.
Temporarily insane: pathologising cultural difference in American criminal courts
Authors: Reddy Sita
Published: March 2003

In recent years, American criminal courts have seen the rise of the culture defence strategy or the argument that the defendant's cultural background should excuse crime, mitigate responsibility or reduce the penalty for criminal behaviour. This paper argues that the rise and success of this strategy in practice reflects not just multiculturalism – as earlier studies contend – but the cultural impulse known as the ‘therapeutic ethic’. Using the culture defence archive as a valuable and underused sociological resource, it examines the extent to which this legal strategy embodies the therapeutic ethic. Through an analysis of actual cases, the paper traces the medicalisation of culture in courts by which cultural differences are consistently converted into psychological disorders in order to diminish criminal responsibility. It suggests that culture defence must be seen not only against changes in criminal law – such as the increase in legal excuses that rely on the therapeutic ethic – but as an instance of how ‘other’ cultures may be pathologised in multicultural legal arenas.
Integrating homeopathy and biomedicine: medical practice and knowledge production among German homeopathic physicians
Authors: Frank Robert
Published: March 2003

Abstract The purpose of this study is to assess the ways in which homeopathic physicians deal with the conceptual tensions between homeopathy and biomedicine. The data‐collection included twenty semi‐structured interviews which were conducted with homeopathic physicians in Berlin. Three distinct patterns of homeopathic practice emerged from the data: a) segregating the patients into categories of homeopathic and biomedical patients; b) complementing a predominantly homeopathic practice with a few biomedical strategies for diagnostics; c) focusing on homeopathy and condemning biomedicine with the exception of emergency medicine and surgery.

 On the level of medical knowledge the physicians’ perspectives on the efficacy of homeopathy and some of its controversial concepts (opposition to vaccinations, miasm, vital force) are examined. It also becomes evident that German homeopathic physicians do not sacrifice central aspects of homeopathic concepts in order to gain legitimacy.

 Finally, it is argued that complementary medicine and alternative medicine are both rather unfortunate terms for studying homeopathy in micro‐sociological settings. Heterodox medicine is favoured.
Nonparametric estimators of the bivariate survival function under random censoring
Authors: Van Der Laan M. J.
Published: March 2003

A large number of proposals for estimating the bivariate survival function under random censoring have been made. In this paper we discuss the most prominent estimators, where prominent is meant in the sense that they are best for practical use; Dabrowska's estimator, the Prentice–Cai estimator, Pruitt's modified EM‐estimator, and the reduced data NPMLE of van der Laan. We show how these estimators are computed and present their intuitive background. The asymptotic results are summarized. Furthermore, we give a summary of the practical performance of the estimators under different levels of dependence and censoring based on extensive simulation results. This leads also to a practical advise.
Asymptotic expansion of S‐estimators of location and covariance
Authors: Lopuhaä H. P.
Published: March 2003

By means of a straightforward application of empirical process theory, we show that S‐estimators of multivariate location and covariance are asymptotically equivalent to a sum of independent vector and matrix valued random elements respectively. This provides an alternative proof of asymptotic normality of S‐estimators and clearly explains the limiting covariance structure. It also leads to a relatively simple proof of asymptotic normality of the length of the shortest α‐fraction.
The emperor's new clothes: a critique of the multivariate t regression model
Authors: Breusch T. S. , Robertson J. C. , Welsh A. H.
Published: March 2003

Zellner (1976) proposed a regression model in which the data vector (or the error vector) is represented as a realization from the multivariate Student t distribution. This model has attracted considerable attention because it seems to broaden the usual Gaussian assumption to allow for heavier‐tailed error distributions. A number of results in the literature indicate that the standard inference procedures for the Gaussian model remain appropriate under the broader distributional assumption, leading to claims of robustness of the standard methods. We show that, although mathematically the two models are different, for purposes of statistical inference they are indistinguishable. The empirical implications of the multivariate t model are precisely the same as those of the Gaussian model. Hence the suggestion of a broader distributional representation of the data is spurious, and the claims of robustness are misleading. These conclusions are reached from both frequentist and Bayesian perspectives.
Exponential deconvolution: two asymptotically equivalent estimators
Authors: Jongbloed G.
Published: March 2003

Two isotonic estimators for the distribution function in a specific deconvolution model, the exponential deconvolution model, are considered. The first estimator is a least squares projection of a naive estimator for the distribution function on the set of distribution functions. The second estimator is the well known maximum likelihood estimator. The two estimators are shown to be first order asymptotically equivalent at a fixed point.
Nonparametric methods for paired samples
Authors: Munzel U.
Published: March 2003

The small sample and asymptotic properties of nonparametric tests for paired sampled are examined. Linear rank statistics are compared with the paired t‐test and the Wilcoxon‐signed‐rank test in simulation studies. From a minimax point of view the linear rank statistics turn out to be the best. Moreover, it is illustrated that the Wilcoxon‐signed‐rank test should not be used if it is not clear that the differences of the pairs have a symmetric distribution.
Multivariate Clustered Data Analysis in Developmental Toxicity Studies
Authors: Molenberghs G. , Geys H.
Published: March 2003

In this paper we review statistical methods for analyzing developmental toxicity data. Such data raise a number of challenges. Models that try to accommodate the complex data generating mechanism of a developmental toxicity study, should take into account the litter effect and the number of viable fetuses, malformation indicators, weight and clustering, as a function of exposure. Further, the size of the litter may be related to outcomes among live fetuses. Scientific interest may be in inference about the dose effect, on implications of model misspecification, on assessment of model fit, and on the calculation of derived quantities such as safe limits, etc. We describe the relative merits of conditional, marginal and random‐effects models for multivariate clustered binary data and present joint models for both continuous and discrete data.
Efficiency Considerations in the Additive Hazards Model with Current Status Data
Authors: Ghosh D.
Published: March 2003

For current status data, LIN, OAKES and Ying (1998) proposed a procedure for estimation of the regression parameters in the additive hazards model that makes clever use of martingale theory. However, one of the outstanding problems posed in the paper was the issue of efficient estimation, as their estimators do not attain the semiparametric information bound. In this paper, we explore this issue and provide a characterization of the NPMLE. We conduct efficiency comparisons between the NPMLE and the procedure of LINet al. (1998) analytically and numerically through analysis of a dataset from a tumorigenicity experiment.
Second Language Acquisition: Holes in the parts and parts of a whole
Authors: Towell R.
Published: March 2003

The theme of this article is that much SLA research would gain if it took account of its place within an overall understanding of the component parts of this complex discipline and the relationship between them. In the article I first provide comments on UG based accounts of SLA, functionalist accounts of SLA, and processing accounts of SLA. In each case I seek to examine their specific contribution to an overall understanding of the discipline and at the same time to state the limits of that contribution. I also seek to examine whether the differences between these approaches derive from fundamentally contradictory beliefs or whether there is a degree of complementarity. In doing so, I argue in favour of a view which stresses complementarity, without seeking to deny the validity of underlying differences of opinion. I argue that the major ‘holes’ in the discipline arise from the difficulty of dealing with the way in which linguistic knowledge is created either through triggering or through the linking of conceptual knowledge to linguistic form. The missing element may be a failure to incorporate an awareness of how processing and memory systems work. I examine the contribution of the limited number of accounts which do assign importance to processing and to memory before concluding that this is an area on which future research should focus.
Bäcklund Transformations and Solution Hierarchies for the Third Painlevé Equation
Authors: Milne Alice E. , Clarkson Peter A. , Bassom Andrew P.
Published: March 2003

In this article our concern is with the third Painlevé equation

d2y/dx2= (1/y)(dy/dx)2− (1/x)(dy/dx) + (αy2+β)/x+γy3+δ/y

where α, β, γ, and δ are arbitrary constants. It is well known that this equation admits a variety of types of solution and here we classify and characterize many of these. Depending on the values of the parameters the third Painlevé equation can admit solutions that may be either expressed as the ratio of two polynomials in either x or x1/3 or related to certain Bessel functions. It is thought that all exact solutions of (1) can be categorized into one or other of these hierarchies. We show how, given a few initial solutions, it is possible to use the underlying structures of these hierarchies to obtain many other solutions. In addition, we show how this knowledge concerning the continuous third Painlevé equation (1) can be adapted and used to derive exact solutions of a suitable discretized counterpart of (1). Both the continuous and discrete solutions we find are of potential importance as it is known that the third Painlevé equation has a large number of physically significant applications.
The Third‐Order Nonlinear Evolution Equation Governing Wave Propagation in Relaxing Media
Authors: Varlamov Vladimir V.
Published: March 2003

Initial value problem for the third‐order nonlinear evolution equation governing wave propagation in relaxing media is considered for the case of two space dimensions and small initial data. Existence and uniqueness of the classical solution is established and the solution itself is constructed in the form of a series in the small parameter present in the initial conditions. Long time asymptotic representation is found, which shows that the nonlinearity does not contribute to its major term. The latter consists of two parts corresponding to isotropic and nonisotropic transfer of small perturbations in space.
Justification of Asymptotic Formulas for the Fourth Painlevé Equation
Authors: Abdullayev Alisher S.
Published: March 2003

A special case of the fourth Painlevé equation is studied. The existence theorem is proved, and asymptotic formulas for the two parametric family of solutions near negative infinity are obtained.
Extending Shannon's Theorem to a General Juggling Pattern
Authors: Yam Yeung , Song Jingyan
Published: March 2003

This article incorporates timing considerations into the site‐swap method and shows that the total dwell time, vacant time, and flight time over a period of a general juggling pattern satisfy the same equation as that in Shannon's original work for uniform juggle. Necessary and sufficient conditions on the dwell ratios to facilitate an executable juggling sequence are presented. The range of possible juggling periods incorporating maximum and minimum length of dwell times is also given.
Finite‐amplitude Rotational Waves in Viscous Shear Flows
Authors: Phillips W. R. C.
Published: March 2003

Growing finite‐amplitude initially spanwise‐independent two‐dimensional rotational waves and their nonlinear interaction with unidirectional viscous shear flows of various strengths are considered. Both primary and secondary instabilities are studied, but only secondary instabilities are permitted to vary in the spanwise direction. A generalized Lagrangian‐mean formulation is employed to describe wave‐mean interactions, and a separate theory is constructed to account for the back effect of the developing mean flow on the wave field. Viscosity is seen to significantly complicate calculation of the back effect. The primary instability is seen to act as a platform for, and catalyst to, secondary instabilities. The analysis leads to an eigenvalue problem for the initial growth of the secondary instability, this being a generalization of the eigenvalue problem constructed by Craik for inviscid neutral waves. Two inviscid secondary instability mechanisms to longitudinal vortex form are observed: the first has as its basis the Craik–Leibovich type 2 mechanism. The second, which is as yet unproven, requires that both the wave and flow field distort in concert at all levels of shear. Both mechanisms excite exponential growth on a convective rather than diffusive scale in the presence of neutral waves, but growing waves alter that growth rate.
A Sturm–Liouville Eigenproblem of the Fourth Kind: A Critical Latitude with Equatorial Trapping
Authors: Boyd John P. , Natarov Andrei
Published: March 2003

Through both analytical and numerical methods, we solve the eigenproblem uzz>+(1/z−λ−(z−1/ε)2)u=0 on the unbounded interval z∈[−∞, ∞], where λ is the eigenvalue and u(z)→0 as |z|→∞. This models an equatorially trapped Rossby wave in a shear flow in the ocean or atmosphere. It is the usual parabolic cylinder equation with Hermite functions as the eigenfunctions except for the addition of an extra term, which is a simple pole. The pole, which is on the interior of the interval, is interpreted as the limit δ→0 of 1/(z−iδ). The eigenfunction has a branch point of the form z log(z) at z=0, where the branch cut is on the upper imaginary axis. The eigenvalue is complex valued with an imaginary part, which we show, through matched asymptotics, to be approximately √πexp(−1/ε2){1−2ε log ε+ε log 2+γε}. Because T(λ) is transcendentally small in the small parameter ε, it lies “beyond all orders” in the usual Rayleigh–Schrödinger power series in ε. Nonetheless, we develop special numerical algorithms that are effective in computing T(λ) for ε as small as 1/100.
Canonical Variables for Multiphase Solutions of the KP Equation
Authors: Deconinck Bernard
Published: March 2003

The KP equation has a large family of quasiperiodic multiphase solutions. These solutions can be expressed in terms of Riemann‐theta functions. In this paper, a finite‐dimensional canonical Hamiltonian system depending on a finite number of parameters is given for the description of each such solution. The Hamiltonian systems are completely integrable in the sense of Liouville. In effect, this provides a solution of the initial‐value problem for the theta‐function solutions. Some consequences of this approach are discussed.
Higher‐Dimensional Integrable Newton Systems with Quadratic Integrals of Motion
Authors: Lundmark Hans
Published: March 2003

Newton systems , with integrals of motion quadratic in velocities, are considered. We show that if such a system admits two quadratic integrals of motion of the so‐called cofactor type, then it has in fact n quadratic integrals of motion and can be embedded into a (2n+ 1)‐dimensional bi‐Hamiltonian system, which under some non‐degeneracy assumptions is completely integrable. The majority of these cofactor pair Newton systems are new, but they also include conservative systems with elliptic and parabolic separable potentials, as well as many integrable Newton systems previously derived from soliton equations. We explain the connection between cofactor pair systems and solutions of a certain system of second‐order linear PDEs (the fundamental equations), and use this to recursively construct infinite families of cofactor pair systems.
Nasen Book Award 1997
Authors: Phillips Sylvia
Published: March 2003

Howlin, Patricia Autism: Preparing for Adulthood
Working through complexity: an experience of developing mathematical thinking through the use of Logo with low attaining puils
Authors: Harries Tony
Published: March 2003

In this article Tony Harries focuses on the work of a group of low attaining pupils as they undertake tasks within the Logo environment. The tasks were designed to encourage the pupils both to move beyond single step procedural ways of working, and to explore ideas of generalisation. The results of the study suggest that while there is a tendency for these pupils to work in small steps and with instant feedback on each step, they can be enabled to move beyond this way of working and that this can be a means of empowering their mathematical development.
Responsive questioning in a mixed‐ability group
Authors: Adhami Mundher
Published: March 2003

Although based on research in mathematics classrooms, Mundher Adhami's article on responsive questioning will be of interest to teachers in all curriculum areas. His concern is to explore strategies to develop the skill of tactical, responsive questioning which, he suggests, is one of the essential qualities of good teachers.