Schließung von Schulen — Chancen für schulische Innovationsprozesse

Closing down schools — chances of scholar innovative processes. Coaching as support of merging processesThe author discusses chances and risks of processes of school merging processes as an internal coach of a school board. Conditions for success are named for various levels of hierarchy in the school system. This includes an support by means of coaching and supervision.     

Wo sind die Bachelorabsolventen heute und wie sehen sie ihr Studium?

The paper is based on a survey of graduates of the BA course Social Sciences at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. The course, which is a combination of Sociology, Political Science and Communication and Media Studies, was set up in 1999. In 2002 the first students completed the course. Therefore, the BA course Social Sciences is one of the BA courses with the longest experience in Germany. Four graduate years were interviewed for the survey. The aim of the survey was to find out where the graduates now stand and how they judge the course in retrospect. The results show that half of the graduates currently have an occupation, slightly over a third is doing a Master’s degree and about 10 % are in a temporary situation or performing other activities. Overall, the graduates are satisfied with the course. The evaluation of the individual course elements shows the strengths and weaknesses of the course.     

THE EFFECTS OF DEGENERACY ON COST-COEFFICIENT RANGES AND AN ALGORITHM TO RESOLVE INTERPRETATION PROBLEMS

The problems of determining valid shadow prices and of performing a valid sensitivity analysis for managerial purposes are considered. For primal degenerate optima, earlier results on finding shadow prices are used to propose a clear and efficient method for finding valid cost-coefficient ranges. An example is used to demonstrate how managerial information can be obtained at degenerate optima.     

Probabilistic Projections of the Total Fertility Rate for All Countries

We describe a Bayesian projection model to produce country-specific projections of the total fertility rate (TFR) for all countries. The model decomposes the evolution of TFR into three phases: pre-transition high fertility, the fertility transition, and post-transition low fertility. The model for the fertility decline builds on the United Nations Population Division’s current deterministic projection methodology, which assumes that fertility will eventually fall below replacement level. It models the decline in TFR as the sum of two logistic functions that depend on the current TFR level, and a random term. A Bayesian hierarchical model is used to project future TFR based on both the country’s TFR history and the pattern of all countries. It is estimated from United Nations estimates of past TFR in all countries using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The post-transition low fertility phase is modeled using an autoregressive model, in which long-term TFR projections converge toward and oscillate around replacement level. The method is evaluated using out-of-sample projections for the period since 1980 and the period since 1995, and is found to be well calibrated.     

On the definition of public relations: a European view

The article confronts a U.S.-based definition of public relations as relationship management with a European view that besides a relational, argues also for a reflective paradigm that is concerned with publics and the public sphere; not only with relational (which can in principle be private), but also with public consequences of organizational behavior. The article is based on a three year research project on the European Public Relations Body of Knowledge and it reflects on the consequence of that project for definitional activities in the US practitioner and academic communities.     

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Modelling beyond regression functions: an application of multimodal regression to speed–flow data

Summary.  For speed–flow data, which are intensively discussed in transportation science, common nonparametric regression models of the type y = m ( x )+noise turn out to be inadequate since simple functional models cannot capture the essential relationship between the predictor and response. Instead a more general setting is required, allowing for multifunctions rather than functions. The tool proposed is conditional modes estimation which, in the form of local modes, yields several branches that correspond to the local modes. A simple algorithm for computing the branches is derived. This is based on a conditional mean shift algorithm and is shown to work well in the application that is considered.     

Testing generalized linear and semiparametric models against smooth alternatives

We propose goodness-of-fit tests for testing generalized linear models and semiparametric regression models against smooth alternatives. The focus is on models having both continous and factorial covariates. As a smooth extension of a parametric or semiparametric model we use generalized varying-coefficient models as proposed by Hastie and Tibshirani. A likelihood ratio statistic is used for testing. Asymptotic expansions allow us to write the estimates as linear smoothers which in turn guarantees simple and fast bootstrapping of the test statistic. The test is shown to have √ n -power, but in contrast with parametric tests it is powerful against smooth alternatives in general.