Hard thresholding regression

In this paper, we propose the hard thresholding regression (HTR) for estimating high‐dimensional sparse linear regression models. HTR uses a two‐stage convex algorithm to approximate the ?₀‐penalized regression: The first stage calculates a coarse initial estimator, and the second stage identifies the oracle estimator by borrowing information from the first one. Theoretically, the HTR estimator achieves the strong oracle property over a wide range of regularization parameters. Numerical examples and a real data example lend further support to our proposed methodology.     

The re-aestheticisation of poverty: blogging hunger in the age of austerity

This paper examines the re-aestheticisation of hunger and poverty with the emergence of austerity blogs. These blogs, which chronicle personal narratives while re-directing gaze in creating food through limited budgets and in sharing the intimate brutalities of hunger, bring a renewed focus and interest to poverty through daily lived experiences of hunger. Beyond personalising hunger in a climate of austerity, blogs as a symbol of articulation of the laypeople for the general public become interstitial spaces between government rhetoric and media representations, making poverty an intimate, personal and present proposition. Blogs as peoples’ archives of social history are hybrid spaces of personal iterations amenable to public consumption and media scrutiny. In the process these can re-mediate and disrupt the social reality of first-world hunger, inviting a gaze through first-hand narratives. Poverty becomes a contested entity online where blogs perform both resistance and reiteration of the neo-liberal stereotypes about the unemployed and those on benefits.     

Challenges of implementing restorative justice for intimate partner violence: An Islamic perspective

ABSTRACT

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is currently recognized as a critical public health concern and a human rights issue. Not surprisingly, Muslims – a religiously and socio-culturally diverse faith-based populace – are not an exception. To address this complex area of criminal justice and social policy, some scholars advocate implementing restorative justice (RJ) approaches. While RJ approaches have been traditionally used in Islamic cultures for conflict resolutions, to date, few studies have investigated how RJ operates in dealing with IPV in Muslim countries and communities. This article explores how RJ approaches towards IPV operate in some Muslim countries/communities, and offers insights into developing culturally and religiously appropriate ways of implementing RJ in IPV situations among Muslims. Given the prevalence of IPV among Muslims, the question is particularly important and timely. Taking exclusively limited examples of RJ approaches that have been used to mediate IPV cases in Muslim countries and communities, this paper found one significant challenge in the RJ approaches among Muslims: community acceptance of IPV. To reduce IPV in Muslim society, it is necessary to develop treatment models and techniques that meet cultural and religious needs. This paper found that since RJ is not alien to Islamic teachings, RJ approaches can be implemented effectively in dealing with IPV among Muslims by ensuring justice and equity of the abused woman. The findings of this paper will assist policymakers, practitioners, and service providers in providing religiously and culturally appropriate care when addressing IPV issues among Muslims.     

Technical and vocational education and training in Uganda: A critical analysis

This article undertakes a diagnostic study of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sub‐sector in Uganda, with a view to characterizing the sub‐sector and identifying its potential strengths and weakness. We undertook a cross‐sectional pre‐survey of purposively selected key stakeholders in the TVET sub‐sector. We selected performance indicators following their importance in influencing the TVET reform process. Both qualitative and quantitative data was solicited from the stakeholders. Quantitative data was collected through stakeholder‐specific structured questionnaires, whilst qualitative data was collected through desk review and field visits, individual focused interviews and focus group discussions. Our findings indicate that financing and planning constraints have resulted in poor quality equipment, under‐ and ill‐trained staff, limited adoption of a competence‐based education and training (CBET) curriculum, not to mention the supervision inadequacies of TVET institutions. Besides, the limited TVET sub‐sector interaction with the private sector has incapacitated TVET curriculum development to nurture skills demanded by the private sector. Furthermore, backward technology use in the private sector has equally inhibited the success of student attachment programmes. Finally, legal ambiguities have perpetuated a qualification jungle and overlapping curricula.     

Academic “Centres,” Epistemic Differences and Brain Circulation

This article investigates the factors that shape how migrant academics engage with fellow scholars within their countries of origin. We focus specifically on the mobility of Asian‐born faculty between Singapore, a fast‐developing education hub in Southeast Asia, and their “home” countries within the region. Based on qualitative interviews with 45 migrant academics, this article argues that while education hubs like Singapore increase the possibility of brain circulation within Asia, epistemic differences between migrant academics and home country counterparts make it difficult to establish long‐term collaboration for research. Singapore institutions also look to the West in determining how research work is assessed for tenure and promotion, encouraging Singapore‐based academics to focus on networking with colleagues and peers based in the US and Europe rather than those based in origin countries. Such conditions undermine the positive impact of academic mobility between Singapore and surrounding countries within the region.     

FDA: strong consistency of the kNN local linear estimation of the functional conditional density and mode

In this paper we present a new estimator of the conditional density and mode when the co-variables are of functional kind. This estimator is a combination of both, the k-Nearest Neighbours procedure and the functional local linear estimation. Then, for each statistical parameter (conditional density or mode), results concerning the strong consistency and rate of convergence of the estimators are presented. Finally, their performances, for finite sample sizes, are illustrated by using simulated data.     

Age and total and free prostate-specific antigen levels for predicting prostate volume in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Objectives: To investigate the predictive values of free prostate-specific antigen (fPSA), total PSA (tPSA) and age on the prostate volume.

Methods: The data of 2148 patients with lower urinary tract symptoms were analyzed retrospectively. The patients who had transrectal ultrasonography guided 10 core biopsies owing to the findings obtained on digital rectal examination and presence of high PSA levels (PSA?=?2.5–10?ng/dl), and proven to have BPH histopathologically were included in the study. Age, tPSA, fPSA and the prostate volumes (PV) of the patients were noted.

Results: One thousand patients that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included in the study. The PV of the patients were significantly correlated with age, tPSA and fPSA (p?r?=?0.307, p?r?=?0.382, p?r?=?0.296, respectively). On linear regression model, fPSA was found as a stronger predictive for PV (AUC?=?0.75, p?p?p?=?0.013).

Conclusions: Although tPSA is an important prognostic factor for predicting PV, the predictive value of fPSA is higher. PV can easily be predicted by using age, and serum tPSA and fPSA levels.     

High school students’ academic causal attributions in the cultural-political context of the Arab school system in Israel

While motivation is commonly interpreted as an individual student’s characteristic, motivational perceptions and beliefs, such as causal attributions of success and failure, are embedded in cultural meanings and contextual practices. The current study aimed to investigate causal attributions among Arab high school students in Israel and to interpret them in the light of their cultural-political context. Two hundred and five 11th-grade Arab students from three different geographic regions in Israel responded to open-ended and closed survey questions about events of success and failure in school. The analysis indicated that students overwhelmingly considered exams when thinking about events of success and failure, reflecting the normative teacher-centred pedagogical practices in schools. The analysis also manifested patterns of a self-serving bias. These findings are interpreted in the light of the cultural-political characteristics of the Arab school system in Israel.