Field of study variation throughout the college pipeline and its effect on the earnings gap: Differences between ethnic and immigrant groups in Israel

This study demonstrates the analytical leverage gained from considering the entire college pipeline—including the application, admission and graduation stages—in examining the economic position of various groups upon labor market entry. The findings, based on data from three elite universities in Israel, reveal that the process that shapes economic inequality between different ethnic and immigrant groups is not necessarily cumulative. Field of study stratification does not expand systematically from stage to stage and the position of groups on the field of study hierarchy at each stage is not entirely explained by academic preparation. Differential selection and attrition processes, as well as ambition and aspirations, also shape the position of ethnic groups in the earnings hierarchy and generate a non-cumulative pattern. These findings suggest that a cross-sectional assessment of field of study inequality at the graduation stage can generate misleading conclusions about group-based economic inequality among workers with a bachelor’s degree.     

地震后家庭幸福指数研究

2008年5月12日，举国震动的汶川大地震打破了平静，灾区人民的生命财产遭受巨大损失。灾后重建，八方支援，灾区人民找回失去的幸福。文章采用问卷调查地震灾区重建后家庭幸福感状况，从物质生活幸福感、环境幸福感和精神生活幸福感三因子反映地震后家庭幸福指数，构建因子模型，以期向爱心人士提供灾后重建的家庭幸福感的可靠信息。     

‘I nearly lost my work’: chance encounters,legal empowerment and the struggle for disability rights in Ghana

This article uses a case study from Ghana to argue that rights-based legal instruments are important but insufficient steps towards securing disability rights in non-western societies. Despite Ghana’s implementation of a Disability Act and ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a grassroots perspective shows that legislation and the model of legal empowerment will not automatically produce equal access to human rights. The paper will present this argument through a case study of an individual who became disabled in 2008 and struggled for four years to secure his rights to healthcare and employment. I also argue that the case has a wider significance for disability rights in Ghana and beyond.     

青岛市乡村休闲旅游 SWOT 分析研究

运用SWOT 分析法对青岛市乡村休闲旅游发展进行分析，结果显示：青岛具有资源丰富、经济发达、交通便利等优势，但同时也存在认识水平不高、农村基础设施落后、产品同质化严重、季节性明显、人才缺乏等劣势；面临旅游新热点形成、政府出台鼓励政策、新型农村社区的建设等新的发展机遇，但周边地区的竞争、生态环境的恶化也对其构成了威胁。在此基础上，提出了提高认识水平、完善基础设施、打造特色品牌、保护资源、培养人才等可行性建议。     

中国共产党百年文艺工作的发展历程、基本经验及当代启示

百年来，在马克思主义理论指导下，党的文艺工作始终坚守“以人民为中心”的初心，致力于民族解放与国家发展大局。从艰辛成长到曲折探索，到蓬勃发展，再到丰富创新，党的文艺工作有辉煌成就，也经历过坎坷曲折，它为百年中国革命、建设与改革事业提供了精神动力，注入了思想活力。党的百年文艺工作坚持以马克思主义文艺观为指导，坚定党在文艺工作中的领导地位，维护人民在文艺工作中的主体地位，并始终把握“弘扬主旋律”的文艺工作主题。昨日之史，今日之鉴。百年历程启示我们，在今后的文艺工作中，要坚持政治性与艺术性的统一、建设性与批判性的统一、娱乐性与教育性的统一，要善于定目标、举旗帜、聚能量，不断展现新时代文艺发展的新风貌。     

Statistical testing strategies for assessing treatment efficacy and marker accuracy in phase III trials

When a candidate predictive marker is available, but evidence on its predictive ability is not sufficiently reliable, all‐comers trials with marker stratification are frequently conducted. We propose a framework for planning and evaluating prospective testing strategies in confirmatory, phase III marker‐stratified clinical trials based on a natural assumption on heterogeneity of treatment effects across marker‐defined subpopulations, where weak rather than strong control is permitted for multiple population tests. For phase III marker‐stratified trials, it is expected that treatment efficacy is established in a particular patient population, possibly in a marker‐defined subpopulation, and that the marker accuracy is assessed when the marker is used to restrict the indication or labelling of the treatment to a marker‐based subpopulation, ie, assessment of the clinical validity of the marker. In this paper, we develop statistical testing strategies based on criteria that are explicitly designated to the marker assessment, including those examining treatment effects in marker‐negative patients. As existing and developed statistical testing strategies can assert treatment efficacy for either the overall patient population or the marker‐positive subpopulation, we also develop criteria for evaluating the operating characteristics of the statistical testing strategies based on the probabilities of asserting treatment efficacy across marker subpopulations. Numerical evaluations to compare the statistical testing strategies based on the developed criteria are provided.     

Objective and subjective conditions for the continuity of the Peruvian extractive development model

ABSTRACT

The Peruvian economy depends for its growth on the export of its mineral resources. The core of the current economic development model is the export of the country's commodities and a free and (relatively) unregulated functioning of the markets. We argue that the continuity of the country's extractive development model is the consequence of the interplay between the objective and subjective conditions of Peruvian capitalist development. The analysis of the objective conditions is focused on the role of the country in the international division of labour, the relation between this role and the country’s economic and business structure, and the functionality of the extractive development model for the Peruvian State. In the case of the subjective conditions, the strength of the political Left, the labour movement and the social movements against mining capital are analyzed     

A statistical procedure for representing state fragility and transition paths

State fragility is a concept that entered the political discourse in the last decades producing remarkable implications for aid allocation and international policies. The operationalization of this concept has generated a number of composite indices to produce rankings of fragile states. However, the temporal dimension of the driving forces leading to fragility has been rather neglected. This article discusses a statistical procedure that helps to represent the global fragility of a country and the path that a country has followed or will follow in the future when possibly entering into (or escaping from) a fragility condition. Specifically, multiple factor analysis is applied to depict vulnerable and weak countries, and to identify the fundamental forces that determine their overall fragility. Moreover, the trajectories of countries along the years are estimated using partial factor scores. Finally, the path of each country is predicted by means of parsimonious regression models, based on a reduced set of explanatory variables, and according to scenarios elaborated from available international outlooks.     

Explicit analytical solutions for ARL of CUSUM chart for a long-memory SARFIMA model

This paper aims to derive explicit analytical solutions for Average Run Length (ARL) of CUSUM chart for the SARFIMA(P,D,Q)_S process with exponential white noise. Measurement of performance was done with the ARL in terms of percentage error and CPU time. The results obtained from the explicit formulas were compared focusing on the performance using the numerical integral equation (NIE) method. Both methods had similarly excellent agreement with the percentage error at less than 0.25%. Meanwhile, the explicit formulas consumed less CPU time than the NIE method. It is clear that the explicit formulas are a good alternative in real applications.     

Choice of the ridge factor from the correlation matrix determinant

Ridge regression is the alternative method to ordinary least squares, which is mostly applied when a multiple linear regression model presents a worrying degree of collinearity. A relevant topic in ridge regression is the selection of the ridge parameter, and different proposals have been presented in the scientific literature. Since the ridge estimator is biased, its estimation is normally based on the calculation of the mean square error (MSE) without considering (to the best of our knowledge) whether the proposed value for the ridge parameter really mitigates the collinearity. With this goal and different simulations, this paper proposes to estimate the ridge parameter from the determinant of the matrix of correlation of the data, which verifies that the variance inflation factor (VIF) is lower than the traditionally established threshold. The possible relation between the VIF and the determinant of the matrix of correlation is also analysed. Finally, the contribution is illustrated with three real examples.