ON GENERATING MULTIVARIATE SAMPLES WITH ARCHIMEDEAN COPULAS

Archimedean copulas are one of the most known classes of copulas. They allow modeling the dependencies between variables with small number of parameters. This paper presents a method designated to generate multivariate samples of the same distribution like primary sample with Archimedean copulas. Such generator may be used in Monte Carlo investigations to create multivariate samples. Apart from theoretical considerations there are presented the examples of application of the method. All the calculations were carried out with R 2.15.0 packages

The cultural and social assimilation of immigrants, and systemic solutions - Poles in Norway and Ukrainians in Poland in the light of comparative research

The article presents the problem of migration and assimilation of newcomers in the countries of residence. One of the main reasons for migration are economic and social considerations, this applies to both non-European arrivals and internal migration. The aim of this study, conducted by scholars from Norway and Poland, is to compare systemic solutions both within the social legislation and the functioning of the labor market with respect to Poles and Ukrainians, confronting them with existing barriers regarding the possibility of assimilation and obstacles related to the transformation of economic into settlement migration. The methodological and theoretical basis of the team’s research is comparative methods, including comparative politics. The research on immigrants was conducted using both quantitative methods - statistical and qualitative data analysis - and research using the in-depth interview method. Poles and Ukrainians are not at the same stage of formal migration due to the formal plane. According to the analysis, Ukrainians have much greater opportunities for actual assimilation than Poles in Norway. Smaller cultural differences and linguistic barriers to the Ukrainians in Poland are conducive to this process. If the state and Polish society take advantage of this situation and enable the settlement of Ukrainians and make their job offers more attractive, there is a chance that they will fill the emerging demographic gap. It would be for the benefit of both societies

Can the Stephani model be an alternative to FRW accelerating models?

A class of Stephani cosmological models as a prototype of non-homogeneous universe is considered. The non-homogeneity can lead to accelerated evolution which is now observed from the SNIa data. Three samples of type Ia supernovae obtained by Perlmutter at al., Tonry et al. and Knop et al. are taken into account. Different statistical methods (best fits as well as maximum likelihood method) to obtain estimates of the model parameters are used. Stephani model is considered as an alternative to the concordance of Lambda-CDM model in the explanation of the present acceleration of the universe. The model explains the acceleration of the universe at the same level of accuracy as the Lambda-CDM model. From the best fit analysis it follows that the Stephani model is characterized by higher value of nonrelativistic matter density parameter than the Lambda-CDM model. It is also shown that the obtained results are consistent with location of CMB peaks.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure

Distortions of electoral law in the elections to the Polish Sejm and Senate

W artykule przeprowadzono analizę ewolucji parlamentarnego prawa wyborczego w Polsce. Zastosowano metodę analizy systemowej, prawno-porównawczą oraz metody historyczne. Przeprowadzono także analizę statystyczną. Wskazano na czynniki związane z regulacjami prawa wyborczego, które powodują deformację woli obywateli. W szczególności przedstawiono polityczne skutki kolejnych zmian ordynacji wyborczych i ich polityczną konotację. Wykazano w jaki sposób zmiany w prawie wyborczym deformują wolę obywateli. Zbadano również realny poziom legitymizacji władzy ustawodawczej w Polsce przez obywateli.The paper analyzes the evolution of parliamentary electoral law in Poland, applying the method of systemic analysis, the legal and comparative method and historical methods. A statistical analysis has also been conducted. The paper indicates what factors are related to electoral regulations that result in the deformation of the intentions of citizens. In particular, it discusses the political outcomes of the successive changes of electoral laws and their political context. It presents how the changes to electoral law deform the intentions of citizens. The paper also examines the real level of the legitimization of legislative power in Poland by citizens

Kierunki ewolucji prawa wyborczego w Polsce a demokracja partycypacyjna

One highly significant phenomenon demonstrating that public life is becoming increasingly democratic is provided by the formal and material guaranty of the citizens’ political participation. Legitimization of power is an important issue. For the sake of simplicity, it may be said that one political option or another has won the elections. Under Polish conditions, an electoral victory means that a given party won more votes than any other. But by no means does it say that this party has won the support of a majority of voters. Poland has been ruled by the parties that have won anything from 20.41% of the votes, as the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) did in 1993, to the 41.51% Civic Platform (PO) won in 2007. This shows that power has been exercised by political parties that have not won the approval of a majority of voters. The picture looks even worse when the support rulers enjoy is not measured in terms of approval expressed by voters, but in terms of absolute values, i.e. the proportion of all citizens entitled to vote. The legitimization of power is extremely low when analyzed from this perspective. In the best case it amounts to 21.89% obtained by the victorious party, and 26.58% of all entitled to vote won by the coalition formed by the victorious parties to rule after the elections. Thus it is difficult to talk about democratic governance, understood as the rule of the majority. It should rather be concluded that the ruling parties are those that have won the largest support, which only means that they have collected more votes than any other political power taking part in the same elections. Understood in this way, power is not exercised on behalf of a majority, but by the best organized minority

‘We can’t have Reds in Portugal’: The Portuguese Response to the Spanish Civil War.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Portugal was in a unique position, both geographically and politically, compared to other European powers. With a 1200 kilometre border shared exclusively with Spain and a young authoritarian political regime, which had established Portugal as a corporatist state in 1933, the Portuguese could not ignore the civil war on their doorstep. Regarded as the ‘poor relation’ of Europe, and viewed as the inferior partner in the historical Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, an anxious Portugal was suddenly elevated into a central position on the European political stage when Britain and France pressured the European powers into non-intervention during the Spanish conflict. This article will show that the Estado Novo government, led by Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, followed a course of action in support of a Nationalist–controlled Spain under General Francisco Franco. It will be argued that this response was influenced by Salazar’s personal principles in order to protect Portuguese sovereignty and interests from the threat of communism and atheism, which Salazar associated with the Spanish Republic

Service Composition Scenarios in the Internet of Things Paradigm

Part 3: Service OrientationInternational audienceIn this work the topic of service composition scenarios is introduced and discussed with the use of leading example of service composition in the transport domain. The example is used to visualize the connection to the Internet of Things paradigm. The service composition itself is defined with a holistic approach, describing all steps of the proposed composition process like: requirements definition, requirements decomposition or aggregation using domain ontology, composite service structure construction, service discovery, structure and service plan optimization. Lastly, implementation of service composition with service composition scenarios is discussed

The Cult of Liberation: The Berkeley Free Church and The Radical Church Movement 1967-1972 volume 2

The Berkeley Free Church was a major actor in the drama of church social action in the sixties. The emergence of the Free Church coincided with the high water mark of social action, and its dissolution paralleled the receding waters of church based social action in the early seventies. The and fall of the Free Church, as this study point out, indicates that there were forces outside the churches that were also dictating the ebb and flow of the waters of church social action. As much as the church activists were involved in social reform movements in the sixties and early seventies, most of the leadership and impetus for these movements were not church based. The growing oppositional youth culture, composing the new left and the counterculture, was the source and inspiration for much of the church social activism. Therefore, the Free Church\u27s identity was shaped not just by its relationship to church based social action but also by its role in the oppositional youth culture of the sixties and early seventies. The flounderings of the youth culture and social protest in the early seventies coincided with the flounderings of the church social action, a fact which indicated that church social action was not an independent force but more a dependent product of the oppositional youth culture

Pediatric Asthma Caregiver’s Quality of Life Questionnaire is a useful tool for monitoring asthma in children

PURPOSE: There is little agreement among researchers whether a caregiver’s QOL can be used to detect changes in asthma severity in children. We assessed correlation between QOL in parents and QOL in children with asthma as well as clinical parameters of asthma. We determined whether changes in caregiver’s QOL scores reflect changes in child’s QOL and their asthma control. METHODS: This was a 9-week period cohort study. One hundred and ten primary caregivers with 110 children were seen in the clinic at enrollment, at week #1, #5 and #9. At each visit, the parents completed the Pediatric Asthma Caregiver’s Quality of Life Questionnaire (PACQLQ). RESULTS: One hundred and one children and 101 caregivers completed the study. We found a significant correlation between asthma diary score in children and QOL in parents (from r = −0.46 to r = −0.53). We also found significant positive correlation between PAQLQ and PACQLQ and significant association between changes in asthma control and PACQLQ score for both domains. We observed significant change in PACQLQ of caregivers whose children obtained asthma control. CONCLUSIONS: PACQLQ is a useful tool for monitoring asthma in children. The implementation of the PACQLQ would be helpful in involving parents in therapy of their children with asthma