‘Car Talk’: automobility and Chinese international students in Michigan

The apparent conspicuous consumption of luxury vehicles by Chinese international students attending a public Michigan University provides an opportunity to examine the convergence of different ideas about automobility. Upwardly mobile Chinese families send their children to Michigan, a state with a tradition of auto-production, for educational opportunities not available in China. The resulting ‘car talk’ of local residents about Chinese students and their cars speaks to broader anxieties about Michigan’s shifting relationship to the global economy. However, the paper focuses on the meanings of auto-owning created by Chinese students who make decisions about the purchase and use of their autos within a social world oriented primarily to other Chinese students and societal ideas about auto-owning circulating among friends, family and society in China. For Chinese students, car owning encompasses meanings of status, safety and sociability that are created within the context of study abroad.     

Socioeconomic status and the dynamics of preferences for income inequality in the United States, 1978–2016

Although considerable evidence indicates that public preferences for income inequality and redistribution vary across socioeconomic groups (i.e., occupation and income), much less is known about the temporal dynamics of these preferences. The purpose of this study is (a) to examine whether the attitudinal distance between managerial/professional workers and unskilled manual workers has changed (converged or diverged) over time and to (b) explore the reasons for and implications of the dynamics of preferences in the past several decades. Using data from the General Social Survey 1978–2016 (23 time‐points; N = 27,211), this study finds that the influence of occupational class has lost some of its significance in shaping public preferences for income inequality and that the declining effect of occupation can be explained in part by the attitudinal convergence between better‐ and less‐educated citizens. Findings suggest that proequality coalitions across educational boundaries play a remedial role in bridging the occupational divide over government redistribution in the United States.     

Graphical representation of survival curves in the presence of time-dependent categorical covariates with application to liver transplantation

Graphical representation of survival curves is often used to illustrate associations between exposures and time-to-event outcomes. However, when exposures are time-dependent, calculation of survival probabilities is not straightforward. Our aim was to develop a method to estimate time-dependent survival probabilities and represent them graphically. Cox models with time-dependent indicators to represent state changes were fitted, and survival probabilities were plotted using pre-specified times of state changes. Time-varying hazard ratios for the state change were also explored. The method was applied to data from the Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Cohort Study (A2ALL). Survival curves showing a ‘split’ at a pre-specified time t allow for the qualitative comparison of survival probabilities between patients with similar baseline covariates who do and do not experience a state change at time t. Time since state change interactions can be visually represented to reflect changing hazard ratios over time. A2ALL study results showed differences in survival probabilities among those who did not receive a transplant, received a living donor transplant, and received a deceased donor transplant. These graphical representations of survival curves with time-dependent indicators improve upon previous methods and allow for clinically meaningful interpretation.     

Statistical considerations in clinical trial design with event-free survival as the primary efficacy endpoint

In late-phase confirmatory clinical trials in the oncology field, time-to-event (TTE) endpoints are commonly used as primary endpoints for establishing the efficacy of investigational therapies. Among these TTE endpoints, overall survival (OS) is always considered as the gold standard. However, OS data can take years to mature, and its use for measurement of efficacy can be confounded by the use of post-treatment rescue therapies or supportive care. Therefore, to accelerate the development process and better characterize the treatment effect of new investigational therapies, other TTE endpoints such as progression-free survival and event-free survival (EFS) are applied as primary efficacy endpoints in some confirmatory trials, either as a surrogate for OS or as a direct measure of clinical benefits. For evaluating novel treatments for acute myeloid leukemia, EFS has been gradually recognized as a direct measure of clinical benefits. However, the application of an EFS endpoint is still controversial mainly due to the debate surrounding definition of treatment failure (TF) events. In this article, we investigate the EFS endpoint with the most conservative definition for the timing of TF, which is Day 1 since randomization. Specifically, the corresponding non-proportional hazard pattern of the EFS endpoint is investigated with both analytical and numerical approaches.     

铜陵公务员体育锻炼现状及健康状况的研究

本文通过对铜陵市279名在编公务员的问卷调查和跟踪访谈,对公务员的体育锻炼动机、影响体育锻炼的影响因素、体育锻炼场所、项目、形式及健康体检等结果做系统性的分析,寻找出公务员这一人群体育锻炼与身体健康存在的问题,并提出可行性的建议,为改善公务员的身心健康提供一定的科学依据。     

Do peer effects mediate the association between family socio‐economic status and educational achievement?

Differences in levels of academic achievement according to socio‐economic status (SES), and parental education in particular, have been a persistent feature of Australian education systems. Young people with highly educated parents are more likely than their peers with low‐educated parents to attain high levels of achievement at school. Students with low levels of achievement are less likely than their high achieving peers to complete Year 12 and are more likely to experience negative post‐school outcomes. The SES of the neighbourhood, and in particular, the school attended, has also been found to have an effect on levels of both academic achievement and attainment. For this paper, we conduct analyses of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy test scores for four cohorts of secondary school students attending government schools in the Australian Capital Territory to examine the associations between parental education, school attended and levels of educational achievement. Our findings show that students with university‐educated parents achieve at much higher levels than their peers with low‐educated parents and that attending a school with a higher proportion of students from educationally disadvantaged families has a negative effect on educational achievement.     

A general class of test statistics for Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis

Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis states that within a homogeneous taxonomic group the age is statistically independent of the rate of extinction. The case of the Red Queen hypothesis being addressed here is when the homogeneous taxonomic group is a group of similar species. Since Van Valen's work, various statistical approaches have been used to address the relationship between taxon age and the rate of extinction. We propose a general class of test statistics that can be used to test for the effect of age on the rate of extinction. These test statistics allow for a varying background rate of extinction and attempt to remove the effects of other covariates when assessing the effect of age on extinction. No model is assumed for the covariate effects. Instead we control for covariate effects by pairing or grouping together similar species. Simulations are used to compare the power of the statistics. We apply the test statistics to data on Foram extinctions and find that age has a positive effect on the rate of extinction. A derivation of the null distribution of one of the test statistics is provided in the supplementary material.     

Struggle as opportunity: making sense of U.S. migration experiences through Buddhist practice

Recent scholarship demonstrates how immigrants rely on religion for resources and psychological and social support at various stages of migration. Many studies of religion focus on the institutional role of faith-based organisations, with little regard for the social importance of religious experiences in daily life. Using interviews with U.S. immigrants who identify as Buddhists, I examine how migrants use Buddhist philosophies as a lens for finding meaning in the struggles associated with migration, including language acquisition, employment, and legal status. Through their practice, migrants gain a sense of agency amid vulnerable circumstances. I also explore the potentially negative consequences of the practice’s individual focus, including the propensity to mask structural causes of inequality and impede possibilities for collective action.     

湖南省学前教育普及现状调查与对策建议

湖南省实施发展学前教育三年行动计划效果明显，学前教育机构总数、在园幼儿数、学前三年毛入学率显著增加。与经济发达省份对比，湖南省学前教育普及水平还比较落后，城镇学前教育普及水平明显高于农村地区，县域之间学前教育普及水平差距明显。湖南省普及学前教育面临的主要问题是：政府主导作用发挥不够、农村学前教育普及水平落后、学前教育基础建设不足、普及学前教育路径不畅。推进湖南学前教育持续普及，需要构建学前教育公共服务体系，大力扶持农村学前教育，建立学前教育的保障体系，优化学前教育普及模式。     

Number of children and later-life mortality among Finns born 1938–50

We investigated the association between number of offspring and later-life mortality of Finnish men and women born 1938–50, and whether the association was explained by living conditions in own childhood and adulthood, chronic conditions, fertility timing, and unobserved characteristics common to siblings. We used a longitudinal 1950 census sample to estimate mortality at ages 50–72. Relative to parents of two children, all-cause mortality is highest among childless men and women, and elevated among those with one child, independently of observed confounders. Fixed-effect models, which control for unobserved characteristics shared by siblings, clearly support these findings among men. Cardiovascular mortality is higher among men with no, one, or at least four children than among those with two. Living conditions in adulthood contribute to the association between the number of children and mortality to a greater extent than childhood background, and chronic conditions contribute to the excess mortality of the childless.