The importance of cultural and economic influences behind the decision to attend higher education

This paper examines the relationship between economic and cultural variables and the decision to attend university. We find that a student is more likely to aspire to attend university if: they have the Internet at home; are encouraged by their teachers; or attend a Catholic or independent school rather than a public school. Our analysis also suggests that the level of parent support is important (with a marginal effect larger than that for teacher encouragement) and this level of support may be linked to the parent's level of educational attainment. Importantly, we find that including cultural and economic variables in a model of students’ aspirations significantly increases the power to predict when a student does not aspire to attend university.     

An Embattled Yet Enduring Influence: Introduction to a Special Issue on Blumerian Symbolic Interactionism

The papers in this special issue celebrate and build on the insights Blumer provides in his pivotal book Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. In setting the context for these papers, we discuss the significance of Blumer's variant of interactionism, his contributions to the discipline of sociology, the misinterpretations and misrepresentations of his approach, and the way in which the papers in this issue carry forward his legacy.     

A review and re‐interpretation of a group‐sequential approach to sample size re‐estimation in two‐stage trials

In this paper, we review the adaptive design methodology of Li et al. (Biostatistics 3 :277–287) for two‐stage trials with mid‐trial sample size adjustment. We argue that it is closer in principle to a group sequential design, in spite of its obvious adaptive element. Several extensions are proposed that aim to make it even more attractive and transparent alternative to a standard (fixed sample size) trial for funding bodies to consider. These enable a cap to be put on the maximum sample size and for the trial data to be analysed using standard methods at its conclusion. The regulatory view of trials incorporating unblinded sample size re‐estimation is also discussed. © 2014 The Authors. Pharmaceutical Statistics published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SERVICES OUTSOURCING AND INNOVATION: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

We provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of the links between international services outsourcing, domestic outsourcing, profits, and innovation using plant‐level data. We find a positive effect of international outsourcing of services on innovative activity at the plant level. Such a positive effect can also be observed for domestic outsourcing, but the magnitude is smaller. We also find that international services outsourcing has a positive effect on profitability, as predicted by theory, whereas this is not true for domestic sourcing. The results are robust to various specifications and an instrumental variables analysis. (JEL F19, O31)     

Estimation for High‐Dimensional Linear Mixed‐Effects Models Using ℓ1‐Penalization

Abstract. We propose an ?₁‐penalized estimation procedure for high‐dimensional linear mixed‐effects models. The models are useful whenever there is a grouping structure among high‐dimensional observations, that is, for clustered data. We prove a consistency and an oracle optimality result and we develop an algorithm with provable numerical convergence. Furthermore, we demonstrate the performance of the method on simulated and a real high‐dimensional data set.     

Information,measure shifts and distribution metrics

Reflexive shifting of a given distribution, using its own distribution function, can reveal information. The shifts are changes in measure such that the separation of the resulting left and right unit shifted distributions reveals the binary entropy of position, called locational or partition entropy. This can be used for spread and asymmetry functions. Alternatively, summary metrics for distributional asymmetry and spread can be based on the relative strengths of left- and right-hand shifts. Such metrics are applicable even for long tail densities where distributional moments may not exist.     

Siting Praxeology. The Methodological Significance of “Public” in Theories of Social Practices

The concept of “site” is at the center of current debates in theories of social practices as well as in cultural anthropology. It is unclear, however, how to assess the associated methodological assumption that overriding social structures or cultural formations can manifest themselves in sites. The article draws on the conception of social practices and introduces the notion of “publicness” in order to explicate how and why sociality and social structures can be accessed through “siting”. Sites as well as social practices, it is claimed, have to be conceptualized as essentially public and thus principally observable phenomena. This assumption of publicness implicit to both site ontology and theories of social practices is unfolded on the basis of a praxeological reformulation of the paradigm of joint attention elaborated in developmental psychology. To avoid presentist misinterpretations, we then conceptualize sociality as chains of practices across time and space, drawing on the works of Theodore Schatzki, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anthony Giddens and Bruno Latour. The public carriers of practices (artifacts, symbols, media, bodies) and the translocal structures they establish acquire particular significance in these approaches. In a further step, we present some methodological consequences of the “publicness assumption” and support our arguments by referring to Pierre Bourdieu's study on Distinction.