The sociolinguistic development of Yiddish: Eighteenth to the twentieth centuries

Books reviewed in this article:
Estraikh, Gennady Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development
Kerler, Dov-Ber The Origins of Modern Literary Yiddish
Peltz, Rakhmiel From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia     

The role of deliberate and experiential learning in developing capabilities: Insights from technology licensing

We discuss the interdependencies between deliberate and experiential learning in developing a dynamic technology licensing capability, which was termed ‘desorptive capacity’ in earlier conceptual work. We use new three-year lagged data from two surveys of 79 firms to examine the role of dedicated licensing employees and prior licensing experience in developing firms’ sensing, seizing, and transforming capacities in technology out-licensing. The findings emphasize capabilities’ multidimensionality and critical trade-offs due to interdependencies between deliberate and experiential learning in developing capabilities. Besides interdependencies with experiential learning, deliberate learning strengthens sensing and seizing capacity, but it negatively affects transforming capacity based on inertia.     

Gender and nationality pay gaps in light of organisational theories

This paper analyses wage inequality with respect to gender and nationality within German establishments. It is a large-scale analysis based on linked employer-employee data from the Institute for Employment Research (LIAB). Wage inequality is measured as the intra-establishment pay gap by gender and nationality, taking into account that human capital may not be equally distributed across the different groups of employees. Consistent with economic theories of discrimination we find significant pay gaps by gender and nationality, even taking into consideration employees’ qualifications. We can show that pay differentials between men and women are much larger on average than those between Germans and non-Germans, and that both pay gaps exhibit a tremendous variation across establishments. Drawing on organisational theories we inquire as to how selected firm characteristics are related to the variation of these intra-firm pay gaps and derive hypotheses about which establishments have a greater incentive and/or are more able to pursue wage equality in their workforces. By use of regression analysis we then investigate whether variables that reflect the firms’ social, institutional and cultural environment and their resource requirements are empirically related to the sizes of the pay gaps. The results are rather ambiguous, suggesting larger, innovating and foreign-owned establishments with a larger share of non-German employees and with a collective bargaining agreement to have smaller gaps, particularly with respect to gender.     

Fitness profiles and activity patterns of entering college students.

Fitness levels of American youth have shown a marked decline in the last decade, according to recent studies. To determine whether such a tendency persists for entering college students, the authors evaluated 115 male and 143 female students for performance on the following fitness-related variables: (1) maximal oxygen consumption (estimated from Astrand cycling protocol), (2) body composition (skin-fold techniques), (3) muscle endurance (sit-up protocol), (4) muscle strength (bench-press protocol), and (5) joint flexibility (upper and lower body protocols). Although neither men nor women exhibited high levels of cardiorespiratory fitness, the women in the study showed higher relative levels than their male counterparts. Both groups showed excellent levels of muscle strength (compared with normative standards), but they achieved only an average standard for muscle endurance. Findings of relatively low levels of cardiovascular fitness compared with levels of muscle strength, particularly in men, seem to be a reflection of an inappropriate concentration of physical activity.     

Perceptions of and reactions to the homeless: A survey of fourth-grade, high school, and college students in a small Midwestern community

A total of 459 fourth-graders, high school students, and undergraduates completed a Homelessness Questionnaire developed for use in this study. Although participants generally expressed positive and supportive attitudes toward the homeless, attributing homelessness to either social maladjustment (e.g., drug problem) or negative characteristics (e.g., laziness) within the homeless was positively associated with “fear of and anger toward the homeless” for all groups of participants. In addition, perceptions of and reactions to the homeless were influenced by both the participants’ gender and age group. Although high school and college students’ interest in helping the homeless was associated with various attitudes and reactions (e.g., feelings of sympathylsupport), their indication that they had ever helped homeless people (either directly or indirectly) was consistently associated only with the acknowledgement that their mother and father had ever helped homeless people (either directly or indirectly). Among these older participants, homelessness in the United States was rated as a more serious problem at the end of the questionnaire than at the beginning.     

Individual Prior Information in a Physiological Model of 2H8-Toluene Kinetics: An Empirical Bayes Estimation Strategy

Physiologically-based toxicokinetic (PBTK) models are widely used to quantify whole-body kinetics of various substances. However, since they attempt to reproduce anatomical structures and physiological events, they have a high number of parameters. Their identification from kinetic data alone is often impossible, and other information about the parameters is needed to render the model identifiable. The most commonly used approach consists of independently measuring, or taking from literature sources, some of the parameters, fixing them in the kinetic model, and then performing model identification on a reduced number of less certain parameters. This results in a substantial reduction of the degrees of freedom of the model. In this study, we show that this method results in final estimates of the free parameters whose precision is overestimated. We then compared this approach with an empirical Bayes approach, which takes into account not only the mean value, but also the error associated with the independently determined parameters. Blood and breath ²H₈-toluene washout curves, obtained in 17 subjects, were analyzed with a previously presented PBTK model suitable for person-specific dosimetry. Model parameters with the greatest effect on predicted levels were alveolar ventilation rate Q_PC, fat tissue fraction V_FC, blood-air partition coefficient K_b, fraction of cardiac output to fat Q_a/co and rate of extrahepatic metabolism V_max-p. Differences in the measured and Bayesian-fitted values of Q_PC, V_FC and K_b were significant (p < 0.05), and the precision of the fitted values V_max-p and Q_a/co went from 11 ± 5% to 75 ± 170% (NS) and from 8 ± 2% to 9 ± 2% (p < 0.05) respectively. The empirical Bayes approach did not result in less reliable parameter estimates: rather, it pointed out that the precision of parameter estimates can be overly optimistic when other parameters in the model, either directly measured or taken from literature sources, are treated as known without error. In conclusion, an empirical Bayes approach to parameter estimation resulted in a better model fit, different final parameter estimates, and more realistic parameter precisions.     

Desire for Marriage and Children: A Comparison of Feminist and Non-feminist Women

Research indicates that liberal gender ideologies and feminist beliefs are related to a lower desire for marriage and children, but the importance of feminist self-identification has not been assessed. In Study 1, self-identified feminist and non-feminist women were asked to rate their own and the typical woman’s desire for marriage and children. Non-feminists desired marriage and children more than did feminists. Both groups believed that the typical woman desired these more than they did. In Study 2, feminist and non-feminist women provided information about feminist beliefs as well as their own and the typical feminist’s desire for marriage and children. Consistent with the results from Study 1, non-feminists desired marriage and children more than did feminists. Feminist identity was also found to predict decreased desire for marriage above and beyond feminist beliefs. Our results indicated that stereotypes of feminists, in this context, are somewhat accurate.