Is there a Gender Difference in False Belief Development?

The contribution of children's social environment to their acquisition of theory of mind skills, combined with the well documented advantage for girls in mental state talk with siblings, peers and mothers, might lead to a female advantage on false belief tasks. We present a post‐hoc analysis of large datasets from two independent laboratories. A slight advantage for girls on false belief task performance was found in both datasets and was only apparent in younger but not older children. Language ability could be controlled for only in a smaller subsample of one dataset and cannot be ruled out as a potential mediator of this effect. However, if there is an age‐specific advantage for girls in false belief acquisition it is a weak effect only.     

Statistical analysis of competing risks model from Marshall–Olkin extended Chen distribution under adaptive progressively interval censoring with random removals

In this paper, a new censoring scheme named by adaptive progressively interval censoring scheme is introduced. The competing risks data come from Marshall–Olkin extended Chen distribution under the new censoring scheme with random removals. We obtain the maximum likelihood estimators of the unknown parameters and the reliability function by using the EM algorithm based on the failure data. In addition, the bootstrap percentile confidence intervals and bootstrap-t confidence intervals of the unknown parameters are obtained. To test the equality of the competing risks model, the likelihood ratio tests are performed. Then, Monte Carlo simulation is conducted to evaluate the performance of the estimators under different sample sizes and removal schemes. Finally, a real data set is analyzed for illustration purpose.     

From Engagement to Co-production: The Contribution of Users and Communities to Outcomes and Public Value

User and community co-production has always been important, but rarely noticed. However, there has recently been a movement towards seeing co-production as a key driver for improving publicly valued outcomes, e.g. through triggering behaviour change and preventing future problems. However, citizens are only willing to co-produce in a relatively narrow range of activities that are genuinely important to them and are keen that their co-production effort is not wasted by public agencies. Moreover, there are concerns that co-production may involve greater risks than professionalised service provision, although services may be quality assured more successfully through involving users and embedding them in the community. While offering potential significant improvements in outcomes, and cost savings, co-production is not resource-free. Co-production may be ??value for money??, but it usually cannot produce value without money.     

Statistical Inference of Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censored Data with Weibull Lifetimes

In this article, we discuss the maximum likelihood estimators and approximate maximum likelihood estimators of the parameters of the Weibull distribution with two different progressively hybrid censoring schemes. We also present the associated expressions of the expected total test time and the expected effective sample size which will be useful for experimental planning purpose. Finally, the efficiency of the point estimation of the parameters based on the two progressive hybrid censoring schemes are compared and the merits of each censoring scheme are discussed.     

Making robust the cross-validatory choice of smoothing parameter in spline smoothing regression

Cross-validation as a means of choosing the smoothing parameter in spline regression has achieved a wide popularity. Its appeal comprises of an automatic method based on an attractive criterion and along with many other methods it has been shown to minimize predictive mean square error asymptotically. However, in practice there may be a substantial proportion of applications where a cross-validation style choice may lead to drastic undersmoothing often as far as interpolation. Furthermore, because the criterion is so appealing the user may be misled by an inappropriate, automatically-chosen value. In this paper we investigate the nature of cross-validatory methods in spline smoothing regression and suggest variants which provide small sample protection against undersmoothing.     

New ways of believing or belonging: is religion giving way to spirituality?1

In this article, the presence of alternative spirituality and practices within the general culture and their relationship to institutional religion are examined using national survey data collected as part of the 2001 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey. Alternative practices are found to divide into two groups of interests: concerns with personal well-being and interest in divination. Better-educated women are much more likely to engage with holistic practices associated with well-being; a minority of younger, less well-educated women are more likely to have found horoscopes, astrology, fortune-telling and tarot 'important in their lives'. Churchgoers find divination antithetical to religion while the use and salience of a range of holistic practices is as acceptable among churchgoers as it is among non-attenders and the secular (once allowance has been made for the connections between putatively alternative practices, gender, age and education). This underscores a focus on personal well-being rather than alternative spirituality in the consumption of holistic products and practices within the general culture. The study findings are used to assess claims for a spiritual revolution in modern Britain.     

The political economy of fraud in a globalised industry: the case of seafarers' certifications

This paper reports on the first systematic and international investigation of the fraudulent trade in seafarers’ certifications of competence. The shipping industry more than any other traditional industry has been transformed by globalisation, so that there is now effectively a single global labour market for seafarers. International regulation of labour standards in the industry is extensive, but so is regulatory avoidance. This paper seeks to investigate the political economy of fraud, through an exploration of the links between economic features of the globalised shipping industry and regulatory avoidance of labour standards.     

Effects of Rounding Data Sampled from the Exponential Distribution

This paper looks at the effects of rounding data sampled from the exponential distribution. It examines the nature of the rounded distribution, together with the resulting error distribution. The influence of these distributions on estimates and tests of hypothesis is investigated. The results indicate that even a moderate degree of rounding can cause the bias in an estimator to increase, whereas in hypothesis tests level of significance is altered.     

Citizenship, Social Inclusion and Confidentiality

Correspondence to Tony Evans, Oxford Brookes University, Social Work Department, Heritage Gate, Sandy Lane, West Oxford OX4 6LB. E-mail: tevans{at}brookes.ac.uk Summary Confidentiality has tended to be disconnected from wider debatesabout citizenship and social inclusion. It has been hived offinto self-referential legal and professional discourses concerningthe principles that should inform social workers' conduct. Thelacuna concerning the significance of confidentiality in widerdebates is made more remarkable by the shift towards consumercitizenship, a shift that has ostensibly emphasized serviceusers' rights, including their capacity for active participationin service provision. The rights discourse, as a component ofactive consumer citizenship, is considered in relation to theperspectives of ‘interests’ and ‘will’.The arguments that support moving in the direction of a critical‘will’ perspective, through deliberative processesthat involve service users in developing and framing informationrights, are highlighted and linked to data from a small-scaleempirical study. This perspective is regarded as consistentwith a politically dynamic formulation of social citizenship.Such a formulation involves seeing citizenship as a practicethat requires on-going debates about claims to rights, movesin the direction of seeking to rectify imbalances in power andrecognizes the capacity of service users to act in their owninterests as citizens.