Taking the visual turn in research and scholarly communication key issues in developing a more visually literate (social) science

This article identifies some major impediments on the road to more visually literate forms of research and scholarly communication and advances some ideas for improvement. These recommendations relate to each of the following issues: the indispensable awareness for the magnitude of types of visual representations and their distinct implications, the need for clarifying the role of aesthetics in a scientific discourse, the need for a more explicit visual methodology and theory, the crucial role of technology, the importance of staying tuned with our audiences, and of fostering a thoughtful eclecticism and interdisciplinary exchange.

Making progress in each of these domains will result in an improved “visual scientific literacy,” a term that could be used to denote a set of skills and attitudes which manifests itself as very proficient visual thinking and acting throughout the complete research process. More visually literate scholars will be able to take better advantage of visual reality as a field for research and of the growing supply of representational tools and techniques to make sense of it and to communicate about it in an appropriate manner.     

Impact of selection bias on the evaluation of clusters of chemical compounds in the drug discovery process

Expert opinion plays an important role when selecting promising clusters of chemical compounds in the drug discovery process. Indeed, experts can qualitatively assess the potential of each cluster, and with appropriate statistical methods, these qualitative assessments can be quantified into a success probability for each of them. However, one crucial element often overlooked is the procedure by which the clusters are assigned to/selected by the experts for evaluation. In the present work, the impact such a procedure may have on the statistical analysis and the entire evaluation process is studied. It has been shown that some implementations of the selection procedure may seriously compromise the validity of the evaluation even when the rating and selection processes are independent. Consequently, the fully random allocation of the clusters to the experts is strongly advocated. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Labour Participation of Higher Education Students

The aim of this article is to shed light on the determinants of the decision to participate in the labour force while studying, and of the intensity of this participation as measured by the wages earned by students. We show that students react to their future expected economic benefits associated with their chosen course of study. In this sense, our results confirm Lévy‐Garboua’s (Revue française de Sociologie XVII: 53–80, 1976) thesis of working as an adjustment variable for the variations in the expected rate of return of discipline. Our results indicate that the decision to work while studying and its intensity depend on students’ socioeconomic status and material needs, as well as external financial resources. Altogether, our results suggest that the equity and internal efficiency implications of such a social bias in the labour force participation behaviour might not be too important, but that some public interventions might nevertheless improve the overall external efficiency by allowing students to spend more time on more valorizing activities rather than unskilled and low‐paid jobs.     

FINANCIAL DEPENDENCE,BANKING SECTOR COMPETITION,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

The relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper we first estimate for 16 countries an industrial organization‐based measure of banking system competition. We then relate this competition measure to growth of industries and find that greater competition in countries' banking systems allows financially dependent industries to grow faster. These results are robust under a variety of tests. Our results suggest that the degree of competition is an important aspect of financial sector functioning. (JEL: D4, G21, L11, L80, O16)     

RANKING ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS IN EUROPE: A STATISTICAL APPROACH

We provide a ranking of economics departments in Europe and we discuss the methods used to obtain it. The JEL CD‐ROM serves as a database for a period covering ten years. Journals are ranked using a combination of expert opinions and citation data to produce a scale from 1 to 10. The publication output and habits of fifteen European countries plus California are then compared. Individuals with a contribution greater than a predetermined minimum level are regrouped into departments which are ranked according to their total scores. A standard deviation is provided to underline the uncertainty of this ranking. (JEL: I29, D63, C12, C14)     

Participation and well-Being Among Older Adults Living with Chronic Conditions

This study explored the unique contribution of participation (daily activities and social roles) in explaining well-being of older adults living with chronic conditions and examined which aspect of participation (accomplishment of participation or satisfaction with participation) was more important in describing their well-being. Two hundred older adults with chronic conditions completed the following assessments: Satisfaction with Life Scale to measure well-being; Assessment of Life Habits to evaluate two aspects of participation: (a) accomplishment of daily activities and social roles and (b) level of satisfaction with participation; Interpersonal Support Evaluation List to assess level of social support and Affect Balance scale to measure level of balance confidence. In addition, participants’ level of mobility was assessed using the Timed Up and Go test. Regression analysis was performed. Results indicated that number of chronic conditions, social support and satisfaction with participation had a significant contribution to well-being and altogether explained 31% of its variance whereas accomplishment of participation did not play as significant role in the model. In conclusion, participation has a unique contribution to older adults’ well-being where satisfaction with participation rather than the accomplishment of activities is of importance. Additional aspects of participation and level of disability are key factors identified for further inquiry.     

Random variate generation for the generalized inverse Gaussian distribution

We provide a uniformly efficient and simple random variate generator for the entire parameter range of the generalized inverse Gaussian distribution. A general algorithm is provided as well that works for all densities that are proportional to a log-concave function φ, even if the normalization constant is not known. It requires only black box access to φ and its derivative.     

Worlds of (in)difference: a visual essay on globalisation and sustainability

The ubiquitously used term ‘globalisation’ seems inadequate to designate a group of interrelated but often conflicting processes of interconnectedness of such an unseen complexity and magnitude.

Unsurprisingly scholars, as well as political actors, and communities are at odds with respect to gauging the nature and impact of globalisation and its effects on national and ethnic cultures and on humanity as a whole. Closely connected to the problematic of the global is the equally overwhelming concept of sustainability. Both phenomena can be visualised in numerous ways: through documenting current problematic situations or processes, by depicting possible solutions or promising developments. Alternatively – or in addition – these potential threats or encouraging signs can be expressed in a more metaphorical manner. Photography may help to empirically investigate and lay bare the presumed homogenisation, hybridisation or differentiation of space as a result of cultural, political, economic and technologically spurred forms of globalisation. Photography may help to detect the local articulations of both globalisation and sustainability.

The photographic part of this visual essay is a personal account of some of the challenges of globalisation and sustainability as observed (and projected) in the everyday of cities around the globe as inspired by current debates and theorisations of this phenomenon. The paired photographs address only a few of the many distinct but often interrelated domains of globalisation and aspects of sustainable development that merit our attention. They almost all hint at the more problematic aspects of events and situations that seem to contradict rather than support the widely acclaimed strive towards a more balanced contemporary and future society.