Birkbeck, University of London

Summary In the analysis of data it is often assumed that observations y 1, y 2, …, yn are independently normally distributed with constant variance and with expectations specified by a model linear in a set of parameters θ. In this paper we make the less restrictive assumption that such a normal, homoscedastic, linear model is appropriate after some suitable transformation has been applied to the y's. Inferences about the transformation and about the parameters of the linear model are made by computing the likelihood function and the relevant posterior distribution. The contributions of normality, homoscedasticity and additivity to the transformation are separated. The relation of the present methods to earlier procedures for finding transformations is discussed. The methods are illustrated with examples.

Abstract Justice is one of the oldest and most central themes of philosophy, but sometimes we would do well to focus instead on injustice. In epistemology, the very idea that there is a first-order ethical dimension to our epistemic practices — the idea that there is such a thing as epistemic justice — remains obscure until we adjust the philosophical lens so that we see through to the negative space that is epistemic injustice. This book argues that there is a distinctively epistemic genus of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower, wronged therefore in a capacity essential to human value. The book identifies two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. In doing so, it charts the ethical dimension of two fundamental epistemic practices: gaining knowledge by being told and making sense of our social experiences. As the account unfolds, the book travels through a range of philosophical problems. Thus, the book finds an analysis of social power; an account of prejudicial stereotypes; a characterization of two hybrid intellectual-ethical virtues; a revised account of the State of Nature used in genealogical explanations of the concept of knowledge; a discussion of objectification and ‘silencing’; and a framework for a virtue epistemological account of testimony. The book reveals epistemic injustice as a potent yet largely silent dimension of discrimination, analyses the wrong it perpetrates, and constructs two hybrid ethical-intellectual virtues of epistemic justice which aim to forestall it.

It is now quite common to have panels in which both T, the number of time series observations, and N, the number of groups, are quite large and of the same order of magnitude. The usual practice is either to estimate N separate regressions and calculate the coefficient means, which we call the mean group (MG) estimator, or to pool the data and assume that the slope coefficients and error variances are identical. In this article we propose an intermediate procedure, the pooled mean group (PMG) estimator, which constrains long-run coefficients to be identical but allows short-run coefficients and error variances to differ across groups. We consider both the case where the regressors are stationary and the case where they follow unit root processes, and for both cases derive the asymptotic distribution of the PMG estimators as T tends to infinity. We also provide two empirical applications: Aggregate consumption functions for 24 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development economies over the period 1962–1993, and energy demand functions for 10 Asian developing economies over the period 1974–1990.

Attentional control theory is an approach to anxiety and cognition representing a major development of Eysenck and Calvo's (1992) processing efficiency theory. It is assumed that anxiety impairs efficient functioning of the goal-directed attentional system and increases the extent to which processing is influenced by the stimulus-driven attentional system. In addition to decreasing attentional control, anxiety increases attention to threat-related stimuli. Adverse effects of anxiety on processing efficiency depend on two central executive functions involving attentional control: inhibition and shifting. However, anxiety may not impair performance effectiveness (quality of performance) when it leads to the use of compensatory strategies (e.g., enhanced effort; increased use of processing resources). Directions for future research are discussed.

Eric Hobsbawm's brilliant enquiry into the question of nationalism won further acclaim for his 'colossal stature … his incontrovertible excellence as an historian, and his authoritative and highly readable prose'. Recent events in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics have since reinforced the central importance of nationalism in the history of political evolution and upheaval. This second edition has been updated in the light of those events, with a final chapter addressing the impact of the dramatic changes that have taken place. It also includes additional maps to illustrate nationalities, languages and political divisions across Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world, and the main currency for an IPA study is the meanings particular experiences, events, states hold for participants. The approach is phenomenological (see Chapter 3) in that it involves detailed examination of the participant’s lifeworld; it attempts to explore personal experience and is concerned with an individual’s personal perception or account of an object or event, as opposed to an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object or event itself. At the same time, IPA also emphasizes that the research exercise is a dynamic process with an active role for the researcher in that process. One is trying to get close to the participant’s personal world, to take, in Conrad’s (1987) words, an ‘insider’s perspective’, but one cannot do this directly or completely. Access depends on, and is complicated by, the researcher’s own conceptions; indeed, these are required in order to make sense of that other personal world through a process of interpretative activity. Thus, a two-stage interpretation process, or a double hermeneutic, is involved. The participants are trying to make sense of their world; the researcher is trying to make sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world. IPA is therefore intellectually connected to hermeneutics and theories of interpretation (Packer and Addison, 1989; Palmer, 1969; Smith, in press; see also Chapter 2 this volume). Different interpretative stances are possible, and IPA combines an empathic hermeneutics with a questioning hermeneutics. Thus, consistent with its phenomenological origins, IPA is concerned with trying to understand what it is like, from the point of view of the participants, to take their side. At the same time, a detailed IPA analysis can also involve asking critical questions of the texts from participants, such as the following: What is the person trying to achieve here? Is something leaking out here that wasn’t intended? Do I have a sense of something going on here that maybe the participants themselves are less aware of?

This book addresses how the new linguistic concept of 'Translanguaging' has contributed to our understandings of language, bilingualism and education, with potential to transform not only semiotic systems and speaker subjectivities, but also social structures.

Journal Article A generalized Wilcoxon test for comparing arbitrarily singly-censored samples Get access Edmund A. Gehan Edmund A. Gehan Birkbeck College, London and the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Biometrika, Volume 52, Issue 1-2, June 1965, Pages 203–224, https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/52.1-2.203 Published: 01 June 1965

We introduce the C++ application and R package ranger. The software is a fast implementation of random forests for high dimensional data. Ensembles of classification, regression and survival trees are supported. We describe the implementation, provide examples, validate the package with a reference implementation, and compare runtime and memory usage with other implementations. The new software proves to scale best with the number of features, samples, trees, and features tried for splitting. Finally, we show that ranger is the fastest and most memory efficient implementation of random forests to analyze data on the scale of a genome-wide association study.

Sir Ronald A. Fisher and Frank Yates: Statistical Tables for Biological, Agricultural and Medical Research. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1953. Pp. xi + 126. 21s.

Evolutionary-biological reasoning suggests that individuals should be differentially susceptible to environmental influences, with some people being not just more vulnerable than others to the negative effects of adversity, as the prevailing diathesis-stress view of psychopathology (and of many environmental influences) maintains, but also disproportionately susceptible to the beneficial effects of supportive and enriching experiences (or just the absence of adversity). Evidence consistent with the proposition that individuals differ in plasticity is reviewed. The authors document multiple instances in which (a) phenotypic temperamental characteristics, (b) endophenotypic attributes, and (c) specific genes function less like "vulnerability factors" and more like "plasticity factors," thereby rendering some individuals more malleable or susceptible than others to both negative and positive environmental influences. Discussion focuses upon limits of the evidence, statistical criteria for distinguishing differential susceptibility from diathesis stress, potential mechanisms of influence, and unknowns in the differential-susceptibility equation.

Received 18 December 1964DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.14.57©1965 American Physical Society

Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes for such data. It involves standardizing the units of text on which coders work and then improving the coding scheme’s discriminant capability (i.e., reducing coding errors) to an acceptable point as indicated by measures of either intercoder reliability or intercoder agreement. This approach is especially useful for situations where a single knowledgeable coder will code all the transcripts once the coding scheme has been established. This approach can also be used with other types of qualitative data and in other circumstances.

Summary A sequence of 0’s and 1’s is observed and it is suspected that the chance that a particular trial is a 1 depends on the value of one or more independent variables. Tests and estimates for such situations are considered, dealing first with problems in which the independent variable is preassigned and then with independent variables that are functions of the sequence. There is a considerable amount of earlier work, which is reviewed.

We provide a systematic review of epidemiological surveys of autistic disorder and pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) worldwide. A secondary aim was to consider the possible impact of geographic, cultural/ethnic, and socioeconomic factors on prevalence estimates and on clinical presentation of PDD. Based on the evidence reviewed, the median of prevalence estimates of autism spectrum disorders was 62/10 000. While existing estimates are variable, the evidence reviewed does not support differences in PDD prevalence by geographic region nor of a strong impact of ethnic/cultural or socioeconomic factors. However, power to detect such effects is seriously limited in existing data sets, particularly in low-income countries. While it is clear that prevalence estimates have increased over time and these vary in different neighboring and distant regions, these findings most likely represent broadening of the diagnostic concets, diagnostic switching from other developmental disabilities to PDD, service availability, and awareness of autistic spectrum disorders in both the lay and professional public. The lack of evidence from the majority of the world's population suggests a critical need for further research and capacity building in low- and middle-income countries.

"Computer vision and pattern recognition." , 84(9), pp. 1265–1266 Additional informationNotes on contributorsNanning Zheng Email: nnzheng@mail.xjtu.edu.cn George Loizou Email: george@dcs.bbk.ac.uk Xuguang Lan Email: xglan@aiar.xjtu.edu.cn Xuelong Li Email: xuelong_li@ieee.org

This paper describes a computerised database of psycholinguistic information. Semantic, syntactic, phonological and orthographic information about some or all of the 98,538 words in the database is accessible, by using a specially-written and very simple programming language. Word-association data are also included in the database. Some examples are given of the use of the database for selection of stimuli to be used in psycholinguistic experimentation or linguistic research.

Abstract Method validation is one of the measures universally recognized as a necessary part of a comprehensive system of quality assurance in analytical chemistry. In the past, ISO, IUPAC, and AOAC International have cooperated to produce agreed protocols or guidelines on the "Design, conduct and interpretation of method performance studies" [1], on the "Proficiency testing of (chemical) analytical laboratories" [2], on "Internal quality control in analytical chemistry laboratories" [3], and on "The use of recovery information in analytical measurement" [4]. The Working Group that produced these protocols/guidelines has now been mandated by IUPAC to prepare guidelines on the single-laboratory validation of methods of analysis. These guidelines provide minimum recommendations on procedures that should be employed to ensure adequate validation of analytical methods. A draft of the guidelines has been discussed at an International Symposium on the Harmonization of Quality Assurance Systems in Chemical Laboratory, the proceedings from which have been published by the UK Royal Society of Chemistry.

The DICHROWEB web server enables on-line analyses of circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopic data, providing calculated secondary structure content and graphical analyses comparing calculated structures and experimental data. The server is located at http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/cdweb and may be accessed via a password-limited user ID, available upon completion of a registration form. The server facilitates analyses using five popular algorithms and (currently) seven different reference databases by accepting data in a user-friendly manner in a wide range of formats, including those output by both commercial CD instruments and synchrotron radiation-based circular dichroism beamlines, as well as those produced by spectral processing software packages. It produces as output calculated secondary structures, a goodness-of-fit parameter for the analyses, and tabular and graphical displays of experimental, calculated and difference spectra. The web pages associated with the server provide information on CD spectroscopic methods and terms, literature references and aids for interpreting the analysis results.

Abstract Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy has been a valuable method for the analysis of protein secondary structures for many years. With the advent of synchrotron radiation circular dichroism (SRCD) and improvements in instrumentation for conventional CD, lower wavelength data are obtainable and the information content of the spectra increased. In addition, new computation and bioinformatics methods have been developed and new reference databases have been created, which greatly improve and facilitate the analyses of CD spectra. This article discusses recent developments in the analysis of protein secondary structures, including features of the DICHROWEB analysis webserver. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 89: 392–400, 2008. This article was originally published online as an accepted preprint. The “Published Online” date corresponds to the preprint version. You can request a copy of the preprint by emailing the Biopolymers editorial office at biopolymers@wiley.com