Optimal predictive model selection

Often the goal of model selection is to choose a model for future prediction, and it is natural to measure the accuracy of a future prediction by squared error loss. Under the Bayesian approach, it is commonly perceived that the optimal predictive model is the model with highest posterior probability, but this is not necessarily the case. In this paper we show that, for selection among normal linear models, the optimal predictive model is often the median probability model, which is defined as the model consisting of those variables which have overall posterior probability greater than or equal to 1/2 of being in a model. The median probability model often differs from the highest probability model

Bank ownership type and banking relationships

The authors formulate and test hypotheses about the role of bank ownership types-foreign, state-owned, and private domestic banks-in banking relationships, using data from India. The empirical results are consistent with all of their hypotheses with regard to foreign banks. These banks tend to serve as the main bank for transparent firms, and firms with foreign main banks are most likely to have multiple banking relationships, have the most relationships, and diversify relationships across bank ownership types. The data are also consistent with the hypothesis that firms with state-owned main banks are relatively unlikely to diversify across bank ownership types. However, state-owned banks often do not provide the main relationship for firms they are mandated to serve (for example, small, opaque firms), and the predictions of negative effects on multiple banking and number of relationships hold for only one type of state-owned bank.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banking Law,Economic Theory&Research

Science communication with alma: #WAWUA and the role of animation video in science outreach

With the rise of web 2.0. and the current social media landscape, audiovisual content, and online video in particular, provide a novel and interactive platform for communicating science. This report focuses and reflects on three, interrelated subjects: (1) The potential animation videos offer to science outreach, especially to astronomy outreach, with the singular challenges and benefits it faces. Animation allows the representation of un-filmable or abstract scientific processes, offers the possibility for narrative integration and visual storytelling, and has an intrinsically artistry and versatile nature. All these characteristics make it an invaluable tool to reach and engage audiences with a wide range of backgrounds, despite the inherent complexity and technicality of science subjects; (2) The step-by-step process of producing animated videos – which include background research, script writing, storyboarding, voice over and its editing, illustrating/designing, animating and sound editing – and how they were used to create #WAWAU: “Why do Astronomers Want to Use ALMA?”. #WAWUA is a series of five two-minute animated videos and the result of a 9-month internship in the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array’s (ALMA) Education and Public Outreach Office (EPO). The project aim is to communicate the science behind ALMA and the radio telescope itself in a simple, accurate and engaging manner; (3) The reception of the animated series in ALMA’s social media and how the monitoring of that performance allows for both the measuring of #WAWUA’s impact in the audience and the development of guidelines based on the lessons learnt throughout the entire production process, from the project’s conception to its evaluation

A Froggatt-Nielsen flavor model for neutrino physics

Superheavy neutrinos can, via the seesaw model, provide a mechanism for lepton number violation. If they are combined with flavor violation as characterized by the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism, then the phenomenology for the neutrinos in oscillation experiments, neutrinoless double beta decay, and other experiments can be described by a relatively few number of parameters. We describe the low-energy neutrino mass matrix and show that the results are consistent with currently available data.Comment: 7 pages, no figure

A natural scheme for the quantitative analysis of the magnetically induced molecular current density using an oriented flux-weighted stagnation graph. I. A minimal example for LiH

A new natural scheme is introduced to analyze quantitatively the magnetically induced molecular current density vector field, J. The set of zero points of J, which is called its stagnation graph (SG), has been previously used to study the topological features of the current density of various molecules. Here, the line integrals of the induced magnetic field along edges of the connected subset of the SG are calculated. The edges are oriented such that all weights, i.e., flux values become non-negative, thereby, an oriented flux-weighted (current density) stagnation graph (OFW-SG) is obtained. Since in the exact theoretical limit, J is divergence-free and due to the topological characteristics of such vector fields, the flux of all separate vortices (current density domains) and neighbouring connected vortices can be determined exactly by adding the weights of cyclic subsets of edges (i.e., closed loops) of the OFW-SG. The procedure is exemplified by the minimal example of LiH for a weak homogeneous external magnetic field, B, perpendicular to the chemical bond. The OFW-SG exhibits one closed loop (formally decomposed into two edges), and an open line extending to infinity on both of its ends. The method provides the means of accurately determining the strength of the current density even in molecules with a complicated set of distinct vortices.Peer reviewe

Introduction: Historical Cultures and Education in Transition

In the Introduction Carretero, Berger and Grever present an overview of the main issues that are currently discussed in relation to historical culture and history education. They introduce the 38 chapters of the Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education written by scholars from the Americas, Europe and Asia, providing an international and global perspective on these matters. The Handbook is organized into four parts: (a) Historical Culture and Public Uses of History; (b) The Appeal of the Nation in History Education of Postcolonial Societies; (c) Reflections on History Learning and Teaching; (d) Educational Resources: Curricula, Textbooks and New Media. The Introduction also explains the interdisciplinary approach of the Handbook, evidenced by contributions from History, Education, Social and Cognitive Psychology and other Social Sciences

Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education

This handbook provides a broad overview of current research and theories on historical culture and education. It consists of thirty-nine chapters divided into four parts: I. Historical Culture: Conceptualizing the Public Uses of History; II. The Appeal of the Nation in History Education of Postcolonial Societies; III. Reflections on History Learning and Teaching; IV. Educational Resources: Curricula, Textbooks and New Media. The handbook integrates contributions of researchers from history, historical theory, education, collective memory, museum studies, heritage, social and cognitive psychology, and other social sciences, stimulating an interdisciplinary dialogue. Contributors come from various countries of Northern and Southern America, Europe, North-Africa, Australia and Asia, providing an international perspective that does justice to the complexity of this field of study. The Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education provides state-of-the-art research, focusing on how citizens and societies make sense of the past through different ways of representing it