Geometric representation of high dimension, low sample size data

Summary.  High dimension, low sample size data are emerging in various areas of science. We find a common structure underlying many such data sets by using a non-standard type of asymptotics: the dimension tends to ∞ while the sample size is fixed. Our analysis shows a tendency for the data to lie deterministically at the vertices of a regular simplex. Essentially all the randomness in the data appears only as a random rotation of this simplex. This geometric representation is used to obtain several new statistical insights.     

Exchange programs for educators: American and Russian perspectives

International exchange and training programs play a significant role in the development of international cooperation between educators from different nations. More and more teachers and school administrators participate in exchange programs and implement new curricular and instructional practices in their institutions. This paper presents findings of a phenomenological interpretive case study of the impact of international exchange programs for educators on their participants’ pedagogical practices, social status and professional careers. The study was conducted in 2005 in the US and Russia. Through observations and in‐depth interviews with 35 informants, the author compares the perception of exchange programs and their outcomes for American and Russian alumni. The findings demonstrate differences and similarities in participants’ perspectives on their roles in international programs and on the application of program outcomes.     

Participation Strategies of Activist-Volunteers in the Life Cycle of Community Crisis

Summary The aim of this paper is to propose a strategy for the managementof activist-volunteers' participation in the cycle of a communitycrisis. The proposal, as outlined in the paper, is based ona nominal group process of 45 activist-volunteers, employeesand directors along the confrontation line with Lebanon on thenorthern border of Israel. Participants were all veterans ofprevious crises. The nominal group process examined eight participationcharacteristics: areas of participation, level of influence,selection of activist-volunteers, definition of the organizational-politicalsystem, level of decentralization, participation forum and itssize, use of tactics and intensity of participation. These werematched to four phases of community crisis (warning, shock,organizing and change). The findings of the study show thatthere is a need to build a variable participation strategy,composed of a different mix of components of the selected participationcharacteristics.     

When you don't need to join: The effects of guaranteed payoffs on bargaining in three-person cooperative games

Theory and Decision - Two coalition formation experiments were performed in which subjects played twenty 3-person games in characteristic function form. The experiments were identical except for...     

Preface

Theory and Decision -     

Recollection and Relocation in Immigration: Russian‐Jewish Immigrants “Normalize” Their Anti‐Semitic Experiences

This study conceptualizes the relationship between recollection of the past and relocation in the context of immigration. Combining symbolic interactionist and narrative paradigms, it explores how immigrants'representations of past experiences inform their identity construction and the process of entering the host society. Our interpretive analysis of personal narratives related spontaneously by eighty‐nine Russian‐Jewish immigrants in Israel and Germany reveals that they choose to “normalize” their anti‐Semitic experiences by representing them as secondary, expected, and “normal.” They do so via four narrating tactics of normalization: obscuring, self‐exclusion, vindication, and essentializing stigma. Each tactic devalues the cultural depiction (grand narrative) of anti‐Semitic experiences as transformative and traumatic. By normalizing their past, the immigrants deconstruct and resist the authority and moral commands of the national narrative they encounter in both societies. Putting forward normalization as an alternative interpretation, the immigrants claim ownership of their biography and cultural identity.     

Immigrant Participation in Decision-Making Processes at the Local Level: A Comparison of Immigrants and Veterans in Israel

The issue of new immigrants' participation in policymaking and planning processes at the local level has not been adequately addressed. On the basis of qualitative research, the article examines a variety of different characteristics of immigrant participation in policymaking and planning in Israel. In particular, the research investigates aspects of participation, such as level of influence and typical tactics, of immigrant leaders from the Commonwealth of Independent States (specifically, Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus) and Ethiopia. In addition, a comparison with veteran leaders in the same city examines whether the characteristics of the immigrants' participation express (a) adjustment to the character of the existing participation in their new city, (b) reliance on the character of participation common in their countries of origin, or (c) participation focusing on the immigrants' position within the power structure of the city. The findings show that the third pattern is prevalent. The article suggests reasons for the emergence of immigrants' participation characteristics, the advantages and limitations of this kind of participation, and means for dealing with the limitations.     

Poverty and Pediatric Palliative Care: What Can We Do?

It has been recognized that families of children with life-limiting health conditions struggle with significant financial demands, yet may not have awareness of resources available to them. Additionally, health care providers may not be aware of the socioeconomic needs of families they care for. This article describes a mixed-methods study examining the content validity and utility for health care providers of a poverty screening tool and companion resource guide for the pediatric palliative care population. The study found high relevance and validity of the tool. Significant barriers to implementing the screening tool in clinical practice were described by participants, including: concerns regarding time required, roles and responsibilities, and discomfort in asking about income. Implications for practice and suggestions for improving the tool are discussed. Screening and attention to the social determinants of health lie within the scope of practice of all health care providers. Social workers can play a leadership role in this work.     

Reflections on Strangeness in Context: The Case of Russian–Jewish Immigrants in the Kibbutz

This article elucidates and elaborates upon the contextualized meaning of strangeness and the experience of being a stranger. Our empirical study of strangeness embarks simultaneously from the three leading theories of the stranger—as cultural reader (Schuetz 1944), as demarcator of social boundaries (Simmel 1950), and as trespasser of social categories (Bauman 1990, 1991)—and at the same time criticizes these theories for artificially divesting strangeness of social context. Our thesis about strangeness-in-context is grounded in in-depth interviews we conducted with Jewish–Russian immigrants (twenty-one university students) who have lived in kibbutzim. Our assumption is that the kibbutz as a communal home is a suitable case study to illuminate the manyfold dimensions of strangeness, as it intensifies the tension between insiders and outsiders. In explicating the immigrant's sense of strangeness we claim the local context of the kibbutz interacts with the Israeli national definition of the immigrant as a homecomer.