After the Bologna Reform: Employability of Bachelors in Social and Educational Work in Luxembourg

The present paper treats employability and the relevance of this concept with regard to the social professions in Luxembourg subsequent to the Bologna reform. Two studies were conducted to examine the employability of Bachelors in social and educational work in terms of their (a) rate of entry in to the labour market and (b) self-reports of practice proficiency as acquired at university. The results showed a high employment rate and further suggested that employability was perceived largely in terms of self-assessed knowledge and skills. The implications of a systematic follow-up of recently qualified practitioners are discussed as well as the need to adapt the curriculum more efficiently to the demands brought about by the evolution of the social professions.     

Mariners' Museum and Library

The Mariners' Museum and Library, begun in 1930 in southeastern Virginia, is world renowned for its collections of maritime ephemera. Collections include ships, boat plans, figureheads, navigational instruments, rare maps, books, and a wonderful collection of serials. Both the museum and library are used by scholars, ship builders, students, and television and movie researchers. It is also a great place for a family to spend the day learning and playing. The library's interactive Web site, with online exhibits and educational programs, is a fantastic resource for those who are not able to travel to the museum.     

Tax Structure and Female Labour Supply: Evidence from Ireland

How great an effect does the structure of income taxes have on female labour supply? This issue is investigated using a discrete‐choice static labour supply model for married couples in Ireland. The model incorporates fixed costs of working and simultaneously explains participation decisions and preferred hours of work. The model is estimated using data from the 1994 wave of the Living in Ireland Survey. Simulations examine the labour supply effects of introducing greater independence in the tax treatment of married couples, compared with an income‐splitting system, and alternative forms of tax cuts.     

The natural index and the divisia index on the straight line as well as the divisia index on the exponential line

In earlier papers the Divisia index on the straight line was called natural index. Representing the index problem in the 2n-dimensional quantity-price-space, it is now proposed to call natural index the limit of stepwise products of Laspeyres' , Paasche's or Edgeworth-Marshall s indices, if the steps approximate the straight line between the base point and the observed point. The numerical results of successive finer approximations of the natural index are illustrated by some examples. As expected these approximations converge to the value of the Divisia index on the straight line. The same approximation procedure is applied to the Divisia index on the exponential line.     

Minimum chi-square estimator and test for incomplete multidimensional contingency tables

A modified transformed chi-square statistic is defined for testing hypotheses of quasi-independence in the incomplete multi-dimensional contingency table and a simple method for determining degrees of freedom is given. A modified transformed chi-squareestimator of the expected cell frequencies is given in closed form for a general class of exact linear constraints. The co-variance matrix of estimated cell frequencies is derived under the assumption of a conditional Poisson distribution.     

Tests for the umbrella alternative under normality

Consider a one-way layout of the analysis of variance assuming independence, normality, and homogeneity of variance. Test the null hypothesis H_o that the means, j., of each of Amp; columns, i = 1,…, k are equal versus the alternative that they follow an umbrella pattern. That is, the alternative is H₁-H₀ where H₁: μ₁> μ₂>… > μk, and m is known. We derive a class of tests which are unbiased and lie in a nontrivial complete class. We recommend specific tests within the class. A simulation of the power functions of some tests is contrasted with the simulated power function of the likelihood ratio test.     

Large-scale kernel methods for independence testing

Representations of probability measures in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces provide a flexible framework for fully nonparametric hypothesis tests of independence, which can capture any type of departure from independence, including nonlinear associations and multivariate interactions. However, these approaches come with an at least quadratic computational cost in the number of observations, which can be prohibitive in many applications. Arguably, it is exactly in such large-scale datasets that capturing any type of dependence is of interest, so striking a favourable trade-off between computational efficiency and test performance for kernel independence tests would have a direct impact on their applicability in practice. In this contribution, we provide an extensive study of the use of large-scale kernel approximations in the context of independence testing, contrasting block-based, Nyström and random Fourier feature approaches. Through a variety of synthetic data experiments, it is demonstrated that our large-scale methods give comparable performance with existing methods while using significantly less computation time and memory.