Gambler’s Ruin: The Duration of Play

We study the gambler’s ruin problem with a general distribution of the payoffs in each game. Assuming the expected value of the payoff distribution is negative, so that eventual ruin occurs with probability 1, we are interested in the distribution of the duration to ruin, also known as the first-passage time distribution. A generating function for this distribution is obtained. Exact expressions for the expected value and variance of this distribution, as well as asymptotic expressions for the case of large initial wealth, are derived.     

The Valued Child. In Search of a Latent Attitude Profile that Influences the Transition to Motherhood

In this research, a latent class analysis is used to identify latent attitude profiles that influence the transition to the first child. We argue that ideational theories, i.e. the Second Demographic Transition theory and the extended model of Planned Behaviour, often refer to a broad range of attitudes or values that are hypothesized to influence behaviour, and as such describe an attitude or value profile that inhibits vs. fosters the likelihood of motherhood. The results demonstrate the usefulness of a latent class approach and reveal that quite different latent attitude profiles may lead to an increased likelihood of motherhood. However, only one latent attitude profile clearly inhibited the hazard of a first birth, i.e. an egalitarian profile that dissociates with “traditional” views on familistic issues regarding marriage, children, partnership and household roles, and at the same time stresses the importance of autonomy and independence.     

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

This article examines current inconsistent trends in social welfare advocacy literature. Some studies show evidence of widespread engagement in advocacy by nonprofit organisations, while other studies conversely offer evidence of limited advocacy activities. Another controversial aspect stems from the question whether governmental funding undermines the extent to which nonprofits engage in advocacy. We argue that these findings reflect the contradictory impact of neoliberal governance on social welfare advocacy. The article highlights and discusses three interrelated components of neoliberalism and their impact on current social welfare advocacy: marketisation, precariousness and commodification. Neoliberalism has propelled a model of market-driven civil society that has remade the practice of social welfare advocacy in contradictory ways. With its complex rationales, neoliberalism has simultaneously undermined the ability of nonprofits to engage in advocacy but in a paradoxical way has also created conditions that induce these organisations to practice advocacy. Implications for practice and research on social welfare advocacy are discussed.     

Sparsely clustered survival data: application to the evaluation of the safety and effectiveness of medical devices

The effectiveness and safety of implantable medical devices is a critical public health concern. We consider analysis of data in which it is of interest to compare devices but some individuals may be implanted with two or more devices. Our motivating example is based on orthopedic devices, where the same individual can be implanted with as many as two devices for the same joint but on different sides of the body, referred to as bilateral cases. Different methods of analysis are considered in a simulation study and real data example, including both marginal and conditional survival models, fitting single and separate models for bilateral and non-bilateral cases, and combining estimates from these two models. The results of simulations suggest that in the context of orthopedic devices, where implants failures are rare, models fit on both bilateral and non-bilateral cases simultaneously could be quite misleading, and that combined estimates from fitting two separate models performed better under homogeneity. A real data example illustrates the issues surrounding analysis of orthopedic device data with bilateral cases. Our findings suggest that research studies of orthopedic devices should at minimum consider fitting separate models to bilateral and non-bilateral cases.     

Can World System Theory predict news flow on twitter? The case of government-sponsored broadcasting

Social media platforms provide world governments with the opportunity to distribute news content from their broadcast channels directly to foreign publics [Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world system. New York: Academic Press] World System Theory, which has successfully explained and predicted the structure of international news flow, is now being challenged. Specifically, these social platforms undermined assumptions regarding the one-way flow of information toward audiences and the exclusive institutional nature of the players in the international system. This study examines the unique case of government-sponsored news media and its international news flow. It finds that while the structure of the international news flow on Twitter exhibits a hierarchical core–periphery structure, non-institutional actors (e.g. bloggers) conformed less than institutional players (e.g. governments and news media) to that structure. This study also found that non-institutional actors assumed the role of bridging news sources and audiences, a role traditionally reserved for a small minority of elite news media. The growing and diversified pool of information mediators resulted in a more fragmented network of news flow, siloed, rather than interconnected. Research findings are synthesized and analyzed in the context of international broadcasting and social media scholarship.     

A model for long range planning in higher education

In essence this paper proposes a model for a systematic, continuous instructional planning process to develop strategies and tactics for those institutions of higher education desiring perpetuation, growth, and flexibility to meet changing needs in a changing environment and organization.The model accounts for a viable structural linkage of the many organizational components, and the several kinds of information and decision making processes which are important to the successful functioning and growth of already complex organizations.The model also, even though somewhat implicity, includes procedures which are self-orienting to the personnel involved and thus which facilitate the maintenance of a realistic, flexible, theoretically based approach to planning processes important to the well being and the growth and development of the personnel involved.     

Brain Circulation: The Educational Profile of Return Migrants

Population Research and Policy Review - Countries increasingly compete to attract and retain human capital. However, empirical studies, particularly those of migrants moving back to developing...