Cultural capital and perception of teacher-student relationships: Uncovering inequalities at schools in China

A long tradition in stratification research argues students with higher cultural capital are likely to be treated by their teachers as possessing the “right culture,” which positively affects their academic performance. Nevertheless, the literature has paid little attention to the role of students' perception in this process. Using two waves of the China Educational Panel Survey, we investigate how students' cultural capital affects their own understanding of teacher-student interactions, including its gender difference. Fixed effects regressions show a substantially positive effect of cultural capital on the perceived frequency of teachers praising and calling on students to answer questions across subjects. Nonetheless, we also find the lack of cultural capital is not punished and that the cultural capital's effect varies across its specific components and gender. These findings pave the way for elucidating the entire causal chain of intergenerational social inequality via cultural capital, teacher bias, students’ perception, and their educational outcomes.     

A new method for describing predator-prey relations in discontinous environments

Summary I propose a new method for anlysing predatorprey interactive systems in discontinuous environments. The basic index used here is a generalized version ofLloyd's (1967) “interspecies mean crowding”, which is defined as the number of individuals of one species existing in a given patch per that of the other species in either the same or different patches at either the same or different times. Four indices are derived from different combinations of the numbers of the prey and the predator in habitat patches. Then, the correlation coefficients between the numbers of individuals in patches in both different locations and times are derived by modifying the above new indices. Using this technique, dynamical changes of the joint distributions of the numbers of predators and prey which reflect variation in local conditions, can readily be described. As an example, this method was applied to an analysis of the outcomes of a multi-patch version of theLotka-Volterra model of predator-prey interactions.     

1990年之后东京大城市圈的空间重构

本文探讨了1990年以来东京大城市圈空间扩展与变迁以及全球化对东京的影响。全球化对城市空间的重构有很大影响,经济全球化背景下,资本流动、劳动力转移、产业结构变化等因素是影响城市空间重构的主要要素。因此,需要从全球化的视角审视城市发展。     

TITE‐BOIN‐ET: Time‐to‐event Bayesian optimal interval design to accelerate dose‐finding based on both efficacy and toxicity outcomes

One of the primary purposes of an oncology dose‐finding trial is to identify an optimal dose (OD) that is both tolerable and has an indication of therapeutic benefit for subjects in subsequent clinical trials. In addition, it is quite important to accelerate early stage trials to shorten the entire period of drug development. However, it is often challenging to make adaptive decisions of dose escalation and de‐escalation in a timely manner because of the fast accrual rate, the difference of outcome evaluation periods for efficacy and toxicity and the late‐onset outcomes. To solve these issues, we propose the time‐to‐event Bayesian optimal interval design to accelerate dose‐finding based on cumulative and pending data of both efficacy and toxicity. The new design, named “TITE‐BOIN‐ET” design, is nonparametric and a model‐assisted design. Thus, it is robust, much simpler, and easier to implement in actual oncology dose‐finding trials compared with the model‐based approaches. These characteristics are quite useful from a practical point of view. A simulation study shows that the TITE‐BOIN‐ET design has advantages compared with the model‐based approaches in both the percentage of correct OD selection and the average number of patients allocated to the ODs across a variety of realistic settings. In addition, the TITE‐BOIN‐ET design significantly shortens the trial duration compared with the designs without sequential enrollment and therefore has the potential to accelerate early stage dose‐finding trials.     

Horn Clause Computation with DNA Molecules

In this paper, we will propose Horn clause computation as an underlying computational framework of DNA computer. Horn clause program is a subclass of the formulas of first order logic and has close relation to PROLOG language. The computational power of Horn clauses was discussed in (Tärnland, 1977) and it was shown that a finite set of Horn clauses is computationally equivalent to Turing Machine. Furthermore, it should be noted that Horn programs are adequate for representing nondeterministic computation. Thus, its parallel implementation with huge number of molecules might have possibility to overcome the computational power of conventional computers. It should also be noted that the clear logical semantics of Horn programs might enable us to accept it as a higher-level programming language of DNA computer. The aim of this paper is to propose an experimental method for implementing deduction with a subclass of Horn programs, called simple Horn programs. The computational power of this model is theoretically investigated and demonstrated with some applications to NP-complete problems.     

Education reform and education politics in Japan

Since the 1980s, a new tide of education reform movements has emerged in many countries, including the United States and Japan, along with the rise of a consumer orientation and national concern over the quality of schooling. This has made parental choice into a major policy issue, along with accountability and independent control. Four forms of symbiosis are identified: embracive, segregated, civic and market-oriented. This article discusses the nature of current reforms, and argues that they place Japanese education at a threefold critical crossroads or in a state of crisis.     

Star-shaped distributions and their generalizations

Elliptically contoured distributions can be considered to be the distributions for which the contours of the density functions are proportional ellipsoids. We generalize elliptically contoured densities to “star-shaped distributions” with concentric star-shaped contours and show that many results in the former case continue to hold in the more general case. We develop a general theory in the framework of abstract group invariance so that the results can be applied to other cases as well, especially those involving random matrices.     

Bayesian longitudinal paired comparison model and its application to sports data using weighted likelihood bootstrap

This article describes a procedure for Bayesian longitudinal paired comparison data analysis to rank stimuli. The proposed model is developed by combining the Bradley–Terry model and a nonlinear model that utilizes an exponential distribution to describe longitudinal changes in scale values. The weighted likelihood bootstrap method (WLB) is used to obtain samples from posterior distributions of parameters. WLB is an effective tool because neither diagnosing parameter convergence nor specifying proposal distributions is required, which decreases both the preparation necessary and the time involved. The proposed model is a simple one with few parameters, so WLB can be effectively accommodated. An actual example using sports data from sumo wrestling is presented to verify the efficacy of the proposed method.     

Economic recession and the nature and pace of social change in Japan

Previous research has found a link between economic development and post-materialist and libertarian values. This research examines social change in values in Japan from the mid-1970s to the beginning of the 21st century. Using Japanese survey data, we investigate the nature and pace of social change during the economic crisis of the early 1990s, as well as in the periods before and after the burst of the bubble economy. We find that social change stalled during the economic crisis and resumed again in the late 1990s, but at a much lower level than in the late 1980s. We argue that economic period effects are largely responsible for the slowdown in social change in values in Japan at the end of the 20th century.