20 years of Bologna - a story of success,a story of failure

The Bologna Process is a unique harmonisation process taking place outside the policy-making framework of the European Union. It aims at enhancing the comparability and compatibility of higher education structures and degrees across Europe, as well as to institutionalise quality assurance mechanisms. The aim of this article is to provide a condensed, up-to-date overview of the Bologna Process with regard to structural characteristics, before embedding it into a discussion on processes on voluntary policy convergence and to which extent we should be able to find this kind of policy harmonisation in the realm of the Bologna Process. Related to this are questions why this, in principle, completely voluntary process of policy harmonisation, has appealed to so many countries and why they might or might not feel committed to the implementation of its policies and tools.     

USING THE PARETO DISTRIBUTION TO IMPROVE ESTIMATES OF TOPCODED EARNINGS

Inconsistent censoring in the public‐use March Current Population Survey (CPS) limits its usefulness in measuring labor earnings trends, as previous approaches for imputing topcoded earnings systematically understate top earnings. Using Pareto estimation methods with less‐censored internal data, we create an enhanced cell‐mean series to capture top earnings in the public‐use data. Annual earnings inequality trends since 1963 using our series largely mirror those found by Kopczuk, Saez, and Song using social security administration data for commerce and industry workers. When we extend our analysis to 2013 and consider all workers, earnings inequality levels are higher but its growth is more modest. (JEL C81, D31, J01)     

Predictive Hierarchic Modeling of Operational Characteristics in Clinical Trials

An analytic methodology for patient enrollment modeling using a Poisson-gamma model is developed by Anisimov & Fedorov (2005–2007). For modeling hierarchic processes associated with enrollment, a new methodology using evolving stochastic processes is proposed. This provides rather general and unified framework to describe various operational processes associated with enrollment. The technique for calculating predictive distributions, mean, and credibility bounds for evolving processes is developed. Some applications to modeling operational characteristics in clinical trials are considered with focus to modeling events associated with incoming and follow-up patients in different settings. For these models, predictive characteristics are derived in a closed form.     

Analysis of California propositions: An experiment in the empirical revelation of shared mental models

This paper uses factor analysis to analyze Californians’ voting on 12 propositions considered during the 2008 general election. The result is to create quantitative representations of shared mental models. After generating two county-level shared mental model indices, the indices are further examined to explain their variation across counties and to evaluated their performance as substitutes for previous presidential voting as an independent variable in a presidential voting model.     

Viewing the child as a participant within context

This paper explores tensions between the social nature of learning and the current emphasis upon individual support. The paper contrasts the focus upon context in discussions with parents and practitioners, with the focus upon the individual within formal and informal written documents. The analysis is partly situated within the first author’s experiences as a parent researcher, drawing additionally upon ethnographic research carried out with families involved in early intervention, including an evaluation of over 150 pages of documentation provided by a parent. It identifies the need for assessment and evaluation to focus upon and record the broad range of context that influences learning.     

Mobility and Professional Networks in Academia: An Exploration of the Obligations of Presence

This article explores the obligations of presence behind work-related mobility for academics in internationalizing higher education systems. By further developing John Urry’s concept of ‘meetingness’, the article reveals how academics depend on corporeal and virtual mobility to create and maintain a networked professional life outside their own institution, which is crucial in the context of changing work conditions. Our insights are drawn from original qualitative research (42 interviews) in a Flemish and Danish context. The data reveal obligations of presence associated with an interrelated mix of functionality, and the construction of dense and sparse social networks that together support career success and work at the frontiers of academic knowledge. Despite the now well-recognized costs of corporeal mobility, obligations of presence result in virtual and corporeal mobility coexisting, rather than the former substituting for the latter. Virtual mobility is mainly used when conflicting obligations of presence exist, and as a means of sustaining networks over time given the processual nature of meetingness, rather than as a means to reduce levels of corporeal mobility.     

Applications of quadrivariate exponential distribution to a three-unit warm standby system with dependent structure

Two-unit warm standby systems have been elaborately dealt within the literature. However, the study of standby systems with more than two units, though very relevant in state-of-the-art practical situations, has received little attention because of mathematical intricacies involved in analyzing them. Also, such systems have been studied assuming: (i) the lifetime or repair time of the units to be exponential, or (ii) the lifetime and repair time to be independent. The present contribution is an improvement in the state-of-the-art in the sense that three-unit warm standby system with dependent structure is shown to be capable of comprehensive analysis.