Academic Underachievement and Recovery: Student Perspectives on Effective Career Interventions

Academic achievement has a significant influence on various career development and decision‐making factors. Therefore, it is important for career counselors to understand how past academic underachievement affects students’ current lives and to develop interventions that might ameliorate negative effects. This study examined the experiences of 9 ethnically diverse college students who had experienced and overcome academic failure. Data were collected by individual interviews and analyzed based on the consensual qualitative research method. Four themes emerged in relation to participants’ academic underachievement and recovery: attitude, study strategies, external support, and coping difficulties. The results suggest that underachieving students are better able to cope with and overcome academic difficulties when they set clear career goals, use effective learning strategies, consciously put forth more effort, and receive external support.     

Wavelet-based Bayesian nonlinear regression for the air pollution effects on clinic visits in small areas of Taiwan

We revisit the complete clinic visit records and environmental monitoring data at 50 townships and city districts of Taiwan. Extending the earlier analyses, here we consider a Bayesian analysis using Daubechies wavelet. Appropriate model selection is also considered using Bayesian model averaging. Temperature, dew point, and NO₂ and CO of the current day and the previous day are identified as the pollutants in different areas of the island following some spatial pattern.     

A Note on the Inverse Birthday Problem With Applications

The classical birthday problem considers the probability that at least two people in a group of size N share the same birthday. The inverse birthday problem considers the estimation of the size N of a group given the number of different birthdays in the group. In practice, this problem is analogous to estimating the size of a population from occurrence data only. The inverse problem can be solved via two simple approaches including the method of moments for a multinominal model and the maximum likelihood estimate of a Poisson model, which we present in this study. We investigate properties of both methods and show that they can yield asymptotically equivalent Wald-type interval estimators. Moreover, we show that these methods estimate a lower bound for the population size when birth rates are nonhomogenous or individuals in the population are aggregated. A simulation study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the point estimates arising from the two approaches and to compare the performance of seven interval estimators, including likelihood ratio and log-transformation methods. We illustrate the utility of these methods by estimating: (1) the abundance of tree species over a 50-hectare forest plot, (2) the number of Chlamydia infections when only the number of different birthdays of the patients is known, and (3) the number of rainy days when the number of rainy weeks is known. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Urban biodiversity: comparison of insect assemblages on native and non-native trees

Trees are thought to be important for supporting urban biodiversity. However tree species differ considerably in the numbers of invertebrates they support, with potential consequences for higher trophic groups such as birds. In this study the influence of native and non-native trees on the abundance of insects (Hemiptera) and the incidence of insectivorous birds (Paridae) were investigated in the southern English town of Bracknell. The number and species of tree were recorded from each of 17 roundabout and parkland sites. Tree beating was used to sample arboreal Hemiptera and Paridae were recorded either with point counts and transect walks, depending on the size of the site. Due to the great variation between tree species, there was no overall significant difference in species richness or abundance of Hemiptera between native and non-native tree species. However, individual native trees had more species and individuals than non-natives. The proportion of native trees at Bracknell sites was positively related to the abundance of both Hemiptera and the number of Paridae observed. The consequences of vegetation type for insect abundance indicates that in order to sustain and enhance urban biodiversity, careful consideration needs to be given to species of trees present in urban areas.     

Multidimensional Comparison of Personality Characteristics of the Big Five Model, Impulsiveness, and Affect in Pathological Gambling and Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder

The phenomenological resemblance between pathological gambling (PG) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has led to suggestions that PG be categorized as an obsessive-compulsive-spectrum disorder (OCSD). This study aimed to explore whether PG resembles OCD in terms of personality and temperament. Fifteen patients with PG, 18 patients with OCD, and 33 healthy control subjects were included in the study. The study subjects were all male and drug na?ve. We analyzed data obtained from three self-report questionnaires assessing personality, impulsiveness, and affect: the short version of the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11), and the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Participants with PG and OCD demonstrated less conscientiousness (F = 7.089, P = .002) and less openness to experience (F = 6.268, P = .003) and less positive affect (F = 15.816, P < .001) than did healthy controls. The two diagnostic groups did not differ from each other with respect total BIS-11 scores, but those with OCD showed more neuroticism than did those with PG and healthy controls ( F = 9.556, P < .001), and those with PG obtained higher scores on the non-planning impulsiveness factor of BIS-11 than did those with OCD or healthy controls ( F = 9,835, P < .001). PG and OCD share similar profiles in terms of personality and temperament. This study provides phenomenological evidence supporting the conceptualization of PG as an OCSD.     

A characterization of the nucleolus without homogeneity in airport problems

We consider the problem of sharing the cost of a public facility among agents who have different needs for the facility. We show that the nucleolus is the only rule satisfying equal treatment of equals, last-agent cost additivity, and consistency.     

A simple test on the convergence of social security transfer in OECD countries

The growing trend toward globalization not only has aggravated international competition but also has increased interdependence among countries, inducing the need for harmonization and convergence of socioeconomic policies across countries. This paper examines whether the convergence phenomenon holds for social security transfers as a percentage of GDP in OECD countries, applying the traditional methodology of σ- and β-convergence.     

Cultural System vs. Pan‐cultural Dimensions: Philosophical Reflection on Approaches for Indigenous Psychology

The three approaches for conducting psychological research across cultures proposed by Berry (1989), namely, the imported etic, emic and derived etic approach are critically examined for developing culture‐inclusive theories in psychology, in order to deal with the enigma left by Wilhelm Wundt. Those three approaches have been restricted to a certain extent by the pan‐cultural dimensional approach which may result in the Orientalism of psychology in understanding people of non‐Western cultures. This article is designated to provide the philosophical ground for an alternative cultural system approach to construct culture‐inclusive theories in psychology. Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” (Shweder et al., 1998), the alternative strategy contains two steps: First, based on Bhaskar's (1975, 1978) critical realism, all universal mechanisms should seek to represent the operation of the human mind. Second, based on Archer's (1995) analytical dualism, the mechanisms of the universal mind may be used as frameworks for analyzing any cultural tradition. The culture‐inclusive theories thus obtained represent the synchronic morphostasis of a cultural system, which may be used as theoretical frameworks for conducting either qualitative or quantitative empirical research in studying the diachronic morphogenesis of socio‐cultural interaction in a particular culture.     

The influence of governance on public sector efficiency: A cross-country analysis

This paper examines whether governance quality affects public sector efficiency in the policy areas of administration, education, infrastructure, and stability. Using cross-country evidence, we find that a country's measures of governance quality are positively and significantly associated with public sector efficiency in the policy areas of administration, infrastructure, and stability. However, regression results suggest that a country's governance quality cannot affect efficiency in the policy area of education, even after controlling for some explanatory variables.     

A two-phase approach to estimating time-varying parameters in the capital asset pricing model

Following the development of the economy and the diversification of investment, mutual funds are a popular investment tool nowadays. Choosing excellent targets from hundreds of mutual funds has become more and more crucial to investors. The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) has been widely used in the capital cost estimation and performance evaluation of mutual funds. In this study, we propose a new two-phase approach to estimating the time-varying parameters of CAPM. We implemented a simulation study to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method and compared it with the commonly used state space and rolling regression methods. The results showed that the new method is more efficient in most scenarios. Meanwhile, the proposed approach is very practical and it is unnecessary to judge and adjust the estimating process for different situations. Finally, we applied the proposed method to equity mutual funds in the Taiwan stock market and reported the performances of two funds for demonstration.