Interval estimation of the 90% effective dose: a comparison of bootstrap resampling methods with some large-sample approaches

A number of recent studies have looked at the coverage probabilities of various common parametric methods of interval estimation of the median effective dose (ED 50 ) for a logistic dose-response curve. There has been comparatively little work done on more extreme effective doses. In this paper, the interval estimation of the 90% effective dose (ED 90 ) will be of principal interest. We provide a comparison of four parametric methods of interval construction with four methods based on bootstrap resampling.     

Multivariate Stochastic Volatility Models with Correlated Errors

We develop a Bayesian approach for parsimoniously estimating the correlation structure of the errors in a multivariate stochastic volatility model. Since the number of parameters in the joint correlation matrix of the return and volatility errors is potentially very large, we impose a prior that allows the off-diagonal elements of the inverse of the correlation matrix to be identically zero. The model is estimated using a Markov chain simulation method that samples from the posterior distribution of the volatilities and parameters. We illustrate the approach using both simulated and real examples. In the real examples, the method is applied to equities at three levels of aggregation: returns for firms within the same industry, returns for different industries, and returns aggregated at the index level. We find pronounced correlation effects only at the highest level of aggregation.     

A review of parallel processing for statistical computation

Parallel computers differ from conventional serial computers in that they can, in a variety of ways, perform more than one operation at a time. Parallel processing, the application of parallel computers, has been successfully utilized in many fields of science and technology. The purpose of this paper is to review efforts to use parallel processing for statistical computing. We present some technical background, followed by a review of the literature that relates parallel computing to statistics. The review material focuses explicitly on statistical methods and applications, rather than on conventional mathematical techniques. Thus, most of the review material is drawn from statistics publications. We conclude by discussing the nature of the review material and considering some possibilities for the future.     

Globalization,the Celtic Tiger and social outcomes: is Ireland a model or a mirage?

Ireland's Celtic Tiger economic boom has merited a great deal of attention as a successful model for small and peripheral states in this era of globalization. This article offers an alternative reading through examining social outcomes and interrogating the Irish model in the light of them. It seeks to answer the question whether Ireland offers a model to be followed or whether what appears to be a model is, on closer inspection, a mirage. The article begins by outlining the nature of the Celtic Tiger and surveying the mainstream interpretation of how Ireland's success shows it to be a model of what can be achieved through capturing the benefits of globalization. It then identifies the nature of the Irish model, examining the role of ‘social partnership’ and outlining the argument that Ireland is a ‘flexible developmental state’. Having described the principal features of Ireland's economic success and the means used to achieve it, as seen by mainstream scholars, the article then examines in some detail the distributional outcomes of the Celtic Tiger. Questions these raise for the positive reading of the Irish model open a more critical examination of the features of the model linked to the social outcomes described. This leads to a discussion that seeks to more adequately characterize the nature of ‘social partnership’ and of the Irish state, utilizing the concept of the competition state. The article concludes that, on closer examination, the Irish model turns out not to be a model of successful development, but a model of capital accumulation. To this extent it is a mirage and a warning about the social costs of economic success in the era of neoliberal globalization.     

The collective/affective practice of cancer survivorship

Whether within an atmosphere of hope, or amidst relations of fear, the emotions of cancer are unavoidably collectively produced. Yet persistent individualistic paradigms continue to obscure how the emotions of cancer operate relationally – between bodies, subjects, discourses, and practices – and are intertwined with circulating beliefs, cultural desires, and various forms of normativity. Drawing on interviews with 80 people living with cancer in Australia, this paper illustrates why recognition of the collective enterprise of survivorship – and the collective production of emotion, more generally – is important in light of persistent, culturally dominant conceptions of the individual patient as the primary ‘afflicted’, ‘feeling’, and ‘treated’ subject. Building on previous work on affective relations and moral framings, we posit that the collective affects of survivorship inflect what people living with cancer can, and should, feel. We highlight how such things as hope, resignation, optimism, and dread are ‘products’ of the collective affects of cancer, with implications for how survivorship is lived, felt, and done.     

Neural Interaction Between Risk Sensitivity and Cognitive Control Predicting Health Risk Behaviors Among Late Adolescents

The developmental period of adolescence is characterized by increasing incidence of health risk behaviors (HRBs). Based on theoretical models that emphasize the moderating role of cognitive control, this study examined how neural correlates of cognitive control and risk sensitivity interact to predict HRBs among late adolescents (17–20 years). Neuroimaging data indicate that risk‐related hemodynamic activity in the anterior insula during anticipation of uncertain outcomes predicts HRBs among late adolescents exhibiting greater dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity during a cognitive interference task but not among late adolescents requiring less dACC activity. These results present neural evidence for a significant moderating effect of cognitive control on the link between risk sensitivity and HRBs among late adolescents.     

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

We document the need to examine digital game play and app use as a context for cognitive development, particularly during middle childhood. We highlight this developmental period as 6- through 12-year olds comprise a large swath of the preadult population that plays and uses these media forms. Surprisingly, this age range remains understudied with regard to the impact of their interactive media use as compared to young children and adolescents. This gap in knowledge about middle childhood may reflect strong and widely held concerns about the effects of digital games and apps before and after this period. These concerns include concurrent and subsequent influences of game use on very young children's and adolescents’ cognitive and socioemotional functioning. We highlight here what is currently known about the impact of media on young children and adolescents and what is not known about this impact in middle childhood. We then offer recommendations for the types of research that developmental scientists can undertake to examine the efficacy of digital games within the rapidly changing media ecology in which children live. We conclude with a discussion of media policies that we believe can help children benefit from their media use. Our hope is that this review will foster greater investigation of the cognitive socialization, as raised over 20 years ago by developmental psychologist and early games researcher Patricia Greenfield, that digital games serve during the middle childhood period, and childhood more generally.     

Seeing is Believing? An Examination of Perceptions of Local Weather Conditions and Climate Change Among Residents in the U.S. Gulf Coast

What role do objective weather conditions play in coastal residents’ perceptions of local climate shifts and how do these perceptions affect attitudes toward climate change? While scholars have increasingly investigated the role of weather and climate conditions on climate‐related attitudes and behaviors, they typically assume that residents accurately perceive shifts in local climate patterns. We directly test this assumption using the largest and most comprehensive survey of Gulf Coast residents conducted to date supplemented with monthly temperature data from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network and extreme weather events data from National Climatic Data Center. We find objective conditions have limited explanatory power in determining perceptions of local climate patterns. Only the 15‐ and 19‐year hurricane trends and decadal summer temperature trend have some effects on perceptions of these weather conditions, while the decadal trend of total number of extreme weather events and 15‐ and 19‐year winter temperature trends are correlated with belief in climate change. Partisan affiliation, in contrast, plays a powerful role affecting individual perceptions of changing patterns of air temperatures, flooding, droughts, and hurricanes, as well as belief in the existence of climate change and concern for future consequences. At least when it comes to changing local conditions, “seeing is not believing.” Political orientations rather than local conditions drive perceptions of local weather conditions and these perceptions—rather than objectively measured weather conditions—influence climate‐related attitudes.     

The Millennium Development Goals: Raising the Resources to Tackle World Poverty

At first glance, this book is about a narrow and technical aspectof today's development agenda – how to raise finance tohelp achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However,as Tony Addison and George Mavrotas put it in their chapter,‘mobilising finance in the right way can be a tremendousforce for good. The roads that the poor travel down, the marketsthat they access, and the schools that their children attendare all – in one way or another – the products ofdevelopment finance’ (p. 68). Approached in this way,the subject of this book gets to the heart of achieving equitableand sustainable development and, in its 11 chapters, the bookdoes indeed examine