Unitary SK_1 of semiramified graded and valued division algebras

We prove formulas for the unitary SK_1 of a semiramified graded division algebra (or valued division algebra over a Henselian field) with a unitary involution. These formulas generalize earlier formulas of Yanchevskii, (and Platonov and Ershov for the nonunitary SK_1).Comment: 34 pages. Correction in References in v.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR EFFECTIVE EXTENSION POLICY EDUCATION

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PUBLIC POLICY EDUCATION IN THE EXTENSION INITIATIVES

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

EXTENSION ACCOUNTABILITY--AN 1862 PERSPECTIVE

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Accounting for choice of measurement scale in extreme value modeling

We investigate the effect that the choice of measurement scale has upon inference and extrapolation in extreme value analysis. Separate analyses of variables from a single process on scales which are linked by a nonlinear transformation may lead to discrepant conclusions concerning the tail behavior of the process. We propose the use of a Box--Cox power transformation incorporated as part of the inference procedure to account parametrically for the uncertainty surrounding the scale of extrapolation. This has the additional feature of increasing the rate of convergence of the distribution tails to an extreme value form in certain cases and thus reducing bias in the model estimation. Inference without reparameterization is practicably infeasible, so we explore a reparameterization which exploits the asymptotic theory of normalizing constants required for nondegenerate limit distributions. Inference is carried out in a Bayesian setting, an advantage of this being the availability of posterior predictive return levels. The methodology is illustrated on both simulated data and significant wave height data from the North Sea.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS333 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Grime and Punishment: Job Insecurity and Wage Arrears in the Russian Federation

The initial years of transition in the Russian Federation have been characterised by relatively smaller falls in employment than in other reform-orientated countries of eastern Europe, despite the huge negative shock caused by the move from planned to market economy. Using information from two complementary household survey data sets, we show that for many Russian workers, the dominant form of labour market adjustment has instead been the delayed receipt of wages. Other forms of adjustment at the intensive margin have not been used much. Wage arrears are found across the private, state and budgetary sector in approximately equal proportions. There are large regional variations in the incidence of wage arrears. Workers in the metropolitan centre are significantly less affected by delayed and incomplete wage payments than workers in the provinces. There is less evidence that individual characteristics contribute much toward the incidence of wage arrears, though unobserved heterogeneity may have some role to play. As with the incidence of unemployment, however, there is evidence that the persistence of arrears is concentrated on a subset of the working population. We show that workers can only exercise the exit option of a job quit from a firm paying wages in arrears if the outside labour market is sufficiently dynamic.