On False Discovery and Non‐discovery Proportions of the Dynamic Adaptive Procedure

This paper studies the asymptotic behaviour of the false discovery and non‐discovery proportions of the dynamic adaptive procedure under some dependence structure. A Bahadur‐type representation of the cut point in simultaneously performing a large scale of tests is presented. The asymptotic bias decompositions of the false discovery and non‐discovery proportions are given under some dependence structure. In addition to existing literatures, we find that the randomness due to the dynamic selection of the tuning parameter in estimating the true null rate serves as a source of the approximation error in the Bahadur representation and enters into the asymptotic bias term of the false discovery proportion and those of the false non‐discovery proportion. The theory explains to some extent why some seemingly attractive dynamic adaptive procedures do not outperform the competing fixed adaptive procedures substantially in some situations. Simulations justify our theory and findings.     

When Costs Are Unequal and Unknown: A Subtree Grafting Approach for Unbalanced Data Classification*

In binary classifications, a decision tree learned from unbalanced data typically creates an important challenge related to the high misclassification rate of the minority class. Assigning different misclassification costs can address this problem, though usually at the cost of accuracy for the majority class. This effect can be particularly hazardous if the costs cannot be specified precisely. When the costs are unknown or difficult to determine, decision makers may prefer a classifier with more balanced accuracy for both classes rather than a standard or cost‐sensitively learned one. In the context of learning trees, this research therefore proposes a new tree induction approach called subtree grafting (STG). On the basis of a real bank data set and several other data sets, we test the proposed STG method and find that our proposed approach provides a successful compromise between standard and cost‐sensitive trees.     

Inequality in Volunteering: Building a New Research Front

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Volunteering research focuses predominantly on predicting participation in volunteering, proceeding from the...     

Food Insecurity Measurement: Stakeholder Comparisons of the EU-SILC and HFSSM Indicators and Considerations Towards the Usefulness of a Headline Indicator

Social Indicators Research - Prior to the February 2019 announcement that the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) will be used to estimate household food insecurity, there has not been a...     

Confession of prior knowledge about experimental procedures as a function of evaluation apprehension and commitment

Subjects' evaluation apprehension (anxiety about being judged by the experimenter) and commitment to (involvement in) the experiment were manipulated in an experimental study of subjects' honesty in postexperimental interviews. Previous studies have shown that subjects are typically dishonest in postexperimental interviews by refusing to admit prior knowledge of the experiment imparted to them by a confederate. It was found that both high apprehension and low commitment lead to greater subject honesty. Other features of the experimental design were successful in inducing subjects to be generally more honest than their counterparts in previous confederate tip-off studies.     

The Happiness Workout

This study tests for causality from exercise and physical activity to life satisfaction (LS) by applying an instrumental variable approach with the respondents’ perceived benefits of exercise participation as instruments. Using data across 25 countries from the Eurobarometer survey, our results confirm the positive association between exercise and LS. In terms of causality, the results indicate that being active increases LS for both gender, though more for men than women. One main reason for this relationship is that exercise is perceived as being pleasurable, something that policy-makers should keep in mind when designing programmes to get us off the sofa.     

Paradigmenwechsel in der Sozialwirtschaft – Sozialmarketing als neue Steuerungsphilosophie?

Against the background of developments in society and in the light of the reform efforts in the social economy, the question arises which of the steering concepts successfully employed elsewhere can also be applied in social economic organizations. In particular, “marketing” has already proven to be a widely adaptable social technology. While management and consulting practice, however, mostly argue pragmatically with its usefulness and thereof derive their normative claims, theoretical analyses are rare. This contribution provides such a background analysis and investigates the causes of the paradigmatic connectivity of marketing as a management technique. On the grounds of basic social science theory, a genuinely sociological perspective on marketing is developed, though without reducing sociology to an instrumental supplying function for business administration.     

A Transaction Cost Approach to Outsourcing by Households

Below‐replacement fertility and late marriage reflect, in part, the incompatibility of women's family and paid work roles. The outsourcing of childcare and housework to market and state service providers offers a strategy for reconciling work–family conflicts. By referring to the household as an organizational unit, I use the transaction cost approach (TCA) of organizational economics to discuss the factors that facilitate or impede outsourcing by households. In my analysis the frequency, specificity, and uncertainty level of the transaction, as well as normative and social beliefs, can facilitate or impede the household's decision to outsource. Monetary considerations, preferences, and government policies might moderate the effect of the transaction cost on this decision. The analysis further demonstrates that gender is an important factor, because transaction costs are often not distributed equally within households.     

Globalisation, memory and welfare regimes in transition: towards an anthropology of transnational policy transfers

Processes of transnational policy transfers are of immense importance in understanding new forms of the reproduction of relations and discourses of power, and of memory and forgetfulness, within particular social welfare regimes. Transnational advice and policy transfers appear particularly unsuited to the need to address the complexities of the ways in which welfare subjects interact with welfare regimes which seek to organise their lives, a theme which touches complex issues of culture, identity and resistance, at the interface of local, national, regional and global social relations. Utilising ethnographic material from post–Yugoslav countries, particularly Bosnia–Herzegovina, this article addresses international consultancy, transnational policy advice, and project and programme documents as a specific 'genre' with its own language and power, including the power of silence. The article is based on an explicit erosion of the border between 'research' and 'consultancy'. Theoretically and empirically, a literature on 'global social policy' has paid too little attention to an emerging 'cultural' perspective on welfare which focuses much more on the social relations of welfare; the role of biographies, subjectivities and memories; and the need for forms of reflexivity and attention to the minutiae of everyday life constructed within, and itself constructive of, 'welfare' as a lived experience. Rendering the practice of policy–making as a subject for ethnographic or anthropological research may be the basis for a new action research, and for policy agendas for a democratic welfare, envisioning forms of access, voice, and empowerment, which much current transnational policy advice militates against.