Technical notes and correspondence: Stochastic robustness of linear time-invariant control systems

A simple numerical procedure for estimating the stochastic robustness of a linear time-invariant system is described. Monte Carlo evaluations of the system's eigenvalues allows the probability of instability and the related stochastic root locus to be estimated. This analysis approach treats not only Gaussian parameter uncertainties but non-Gaussian cases, including uncertain-but-bounded variation. Confidence intervals for the scalar probability of instability address computational issues inherent in Monte Carlo simulation. Trivial extensions of the procedure admit consideration of alternate discriminants; thus, the probabilities that stipulated degrees of instability will be exceeded or that closed-loop roots will leave desirable regions can also be estimated. Results are particularly amenable to graphical presentation

ETHNICITY AND CONFLICT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

This paper examines the impact of ethnic divisions on conflict. The analysis relies on a theoretical model of conflict (Esteban and Ray, 2010) in which equilibrium conflict is shown to be accurately described by a linear function of just three distributional indices of ethnic diversity: the Gini coefficient, the Hirschman-Herfindahl fractionalization index, and a measure of polarization. Based on a dataset constructed by James Fearon and data from Ethnologue on ethno-linguistic groups and the "linguistic distances" between them, we compute the three distribution indices. Our results show that ethnic polarization is a highly significant correlate of conflict. Fractionalization is also significant in some of the statistical exercises, but the Gini coefficient never is. In particular, inter-group distances computed from language and embodied in polarization measures turn out to be extremely important correlates of ethnic conflict.

Book Review

Reviewing Real Collaboration: What it Takes for Global Health to Succeed, Mark L. Rosenberg, Elisabeth S. Hayes, Margaret H. McIntyre, and Nancy Neill, California/ Milbank Books on Health and the Public; no. 20. Berkeley: University of California Press; New York: Milbank Memorial Fund, c2010

From the Bench to the Screen: The Woman Judge in Film

Although there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women judges over the past half century, their cinematic counterparts have failed to reflect that change. This Article explores the paradoxical relationship between social reality and its representation on screen to identify a lingering resistance to the idea of women exercising judicial power. The Article first examines the sparse history of women judges as central characters in films of the 1930s, finding the tension in those films between judicial authority and domestic happiness. It then turns to Hollywood’s romantic comedies of the 1940s, which resolved that tension through the courtship of women judges by charming and tolerant suitors. Finally, the Article contrasts those films with the recent, darker films which present aspiring and active women judges struggling unsuccessfully to reconcile their professional and personal identities. All of these films use the woman judge as a vivid proxy for the broader theme of a woman challenging her traditional feminine role by assuming a position of authority; a sampling of recent films from countries with civil law systems reveals that American filmmakers have not been alone in exploring that theme with an eye to its difficulties rather than its rewards. All of these films, American and foreign, vintage and modern, suggest that the reality of women on the bench has yet to eliminate an element of discomfort with the idea of a woman successfully combining judicial power with a traditional and satisfying personal life