Modeling Strategies for Categorical Data: Examples from Housing and Tenure Choice

Models to investigate categorical data can be divided into preprocessing, limited parameterization, and formal logit models. To illustrate the advantages of preprocessing and limited parameterization models they are applied to a data set of tenure and type of housing choice before the data are examined with hierarchical logit and nested logit models. The preprocessing approaches are useful in selecting optimal subsets of independent variables with respect to the dependent variable. The ease of application and interpretation of a limited parameterization approach extends the clarity of the results from the preprocessing approaches. Because some variables are only relevant at specific levels of other independent variables, nonstandard (nested) logit models are necessary to understand the nested relationships.     

Community Pharmacies in the City Area: Evidence from an Italian Province

Pharmacy opening and pharmacy location are heavily regulated in Italy. This paper investigates how pharmacies are positioned in the city area and analyses the role of some factors relevant for gaining access to pharmacy services and competition. For this purpose, a probit regression model has been estimated. A main finding is that the spread of pharmacies all over the city area is unbalanced. The number of residents in the surroundings is not a main determinant of location. In spite of the availability of competing outlets nearby, pharmacies tend to be situated in areas attracting visitors as part of the working and travel circuits. This contributes to good access to the extent to which consumers can easily get to the pharmacy from the doctor's office as well as from work or shopping. However, while multiple outlets are available in the areas offering better business opportunities, the other parts of the municipal district are often unsupplied. As a result, accessibility within the city area is not the same for all residents. Several aspects of the overall pharmacy market regulation prove unsuited for opposing this pattern of location.     

Technology Transfer between Technology Centres and SMEs: Evidence from the Basque Country

Public policies (often at the regional level) favouring pre-competitive research and cooperative research and development have played a decisive role in the development of technology centres in Europe and all over the world. The technology offer model gave priority to the creation of technology transfer organizations and structures, but there is increasing evidence that this model did not attach enough attention to the needs of small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and in particular, to their capacity to take in knowledge. In this paper, based on qualitative research, we show in detail some of the main issues involved in the relationships between technology centres and SMEs in the Basque Country, a region that has developed intensive policies favouring technology transfer organizations over the years.     

辽东满族和辽西满族民居的比较研究--以岫岩和北宁为例

岫岩和北宁两地满族在居住文化方面具有很大的差异,不仅仅在民居的外部特征、建筑方法上,而且在内部结构和居住习惯上都有很多不同。本文试通过两地满族民居的比较,探索两地民居的差异,并进而从历史、文化、地理等不同的侧面研究产生这种差异的主要原因。     

传统图书馆与数字图书馆的关系

数字图书馆是传统图书馆未来发展的方向,但不是唯一的发展模式。     

Housing and Public Services in a Medium-Sized Russian City: Case Study of Tomsk

A team of Russian and American urban specialists examines variations in living conditions across 26 microrayons of a medium-sized West Siberian city (Tomsk, 2002 population of 487,700) deemed to be fairly typical of urban settlements in that size class. Detailed information derived from the mapping of intra-urban variations in housing type and age, health facilities, schools and other educational institutions, and access to public transportation is used to construct three public service indices representing the relative level of deprivation of urban residents. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D32, I32, O18. 9 figures, 2 tables, 17 references.     

Surface and Subsurface Evidence for Community Size at Coapexco,Mexico

Abstract

It has become customary in the Basin of Mexico to derive the population size of prehistoric communities from the density of refuse on the surface of archeological sites. A study of the extensively littered Early Pre classic site of Coapexco leads to reservations concerning this practice. The plotting of all surface refuse over 0.8 ha at Coapexco has suggested that two other factors — elapsed time and the deposition of overburden — account for a substantial part of variation in the distribution and density of surface scatter on the site. Several categories of evidence contribute to this conclusion and are discussed in the paper. A consideration of this evidence tends to show that a) it is not likely that all surface concentrations in the same sampled area are contemporary, despite their cultural homogeneity and relative brief span of time within the Preclassic in which their occupation took place; and b) that the amount of refuse displayed on the surface at anyone point depends on the depth at which occupation strata are buried below present surface.     

The Robustness of Aboriginal Land Tenure Systems: Underlying and Proximate Customary Titles

While Aboriginal 1 1 I do not deal with Torres Strait Islander land relationships in this paper, although the arguments may well apply in that case. I have restricted myself to systems with which I am more familiar
land use patterns may have been fragile in the face of colonisation, and severe limits were consequently placed on Aboriginal people's capacity to physically enact local traditional entitlements on many lands, the basis and key content of traditional title to such lands is not fragile but has generally been maintained with considerable robustness. In this paper I suggest that this robustness arises in a critical sense from the pre-existing and widely continuing dual structure of traditional land tenure, which may be understood as consisting of an underlying title held within the relevant regional jural and cultural system, which underpins proximate entitlements enjoyed by small groups of individuals. There is scope within Australia's Native Title Act (1993) for the recognition of this system of customary law under the western legal concept of native title.     

On the Relationship Between Cultural and Economic Aspects of Regional Development: Some Evidence from Germany and Britain

This paper takes up the discussion on the relationship between culture and economic development and places it in the context of one British and several German case studies whose main interest it was to demonstrate the importance of cultural aspects (in the widest sense) for understanding regional development in general and the development of the study areas in particular. Despite the growing interest in the issue during the recent past in various academic disciplines there is as yet no consistent theoretical approach to it. This paper does not venture to fill that gap, but it addresses some of the open questions by looking into the case studies. The lessons learned are mainly two-fold. Firstly, the findings emphasize the general importance of the socio-cultural dimension for understanding regional development. Secondly, not least because of the empirical slant of the studies a closer link between the different theoretical approaches would seem very desirable.     

Theorizing Presidential Tenure: The Difficult Case of FDR's Fourth Term

This article examines Franklin Delano Roosevelt's pursuit of a fourth term in 1944, despite the significant erosion of his physical health beginning in late 1943. Not only did Roosevelt pursue a fourth term against long odds that he would not survive it, but he put little effort into the selection and policy education of Vice President Truman. This pursuit of a fourth term is critical to debates over presidential tenure, and particularly evaluations of the 22nd Amendment, which since 1951 has limited presidents to two terms. It is a "difficult case," however, because despite obvious miscalculations on the part of FDR and his advisors in 1944– which reinforce arguments of term limits proponents–a two term limit would have prevented a third term for Roosevelt as well, thereby depriving the nation of his experienced leadership in a time of war, especially in the crucial early years of the war. The article concludes by supporting the existing two term limitation which, despite its faults, effectively addresses problems of long presidential tenure while also providing periodic renewals of leadership.