A Tribute to Bill Kruskal

Discussion of ``The William Kruskal Legacy: 1919--2005'' by Stephen E. Fienberg, Stephen M. Stigler and Judith M. Tanur [arXiv:0710.5063]Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000358 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Social information, social policy and social science

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der Bereitstellung und Nutzung von Daten in der öffentlichen Politik und der Rolle der Sozialwissenschaftler im Rahmen einer verbesserten Datennutzung. Dabei geht es insbesondere um die Frage, wie Fakten zu Daten werden und welche Entscheidungen den kontinuierlichen Datensammlungen von sozialen Fakten in der Gesellschaft zugrunde liegen. Es wird untersucht, welche Rollen Regierungen, Märkte und Sozialwissenschaftler bei dieser Datenproduktion besitzen. Während den Sozialwissenschaftlern spezielle Verantwortung für die Qualität von Daten zur Politikberatung zukommt, scheitern jedoch Forschungsprojekte immer wieder an unklaren wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen an die Forscher, die Daten sammeln und analysieren. So bleibt eine der wesentlichsten ungelösten Fragen zur Zeit, wie Sozialwissenschaft und Politik besser zugunsten einer verbesserten Auswertung sozialer Daten zusammenarbeiten könnten. (ICH

The Cultural Lives of Californians: Insights from the California Survey of Arts and Cultural Participation

Over the past two decades, numerous reports indicate that national rates of arts attendance have been declining. This downward trend is reflected in both survey data and in the day-to-day experiences of many nonprofit arts organizations. In California, attendance rates -- as defined by traditional measures -- have also declined. And yet, there is a sense that the arts and culture are flourishing as never before, with a renewed vigor and excitement. How do we understand this apparent contradiction?The trend in attendance figures, however, does not reflect Californians' participation in a wide array of arts and cultural activities. People's participation in arts and cultural activities, especially in ways that allow them to develop or release their own artistic impulse, is extensive -- and perhaps nowhere more so than in California.At the same time, California's cultural landscape is undergoing massive changes, affecting the ways people encounter, experience and engage with art. These changes include California's demographic shift to being a so-called "majority-minority" state and rapid technological advances that offer new opportunities for artistic expression and access. These changes pose challenges and exciting new opportunities for how artists and organizations create and share their expertise and work. But to understand these changes and their implications for the nonprofit arts field, a broader, more nuanced, more complete understanding of how Californians participate in arts and culture is required.The California Survey of Arts & Cultural Participation is a tool we developed to ask a wide range of questions about what Californians do to engage with arts and culture

Set in Stone: Building America's New Generation of Arts Facilities, 1994-2008

In 2007, just before the domestic economy experienced a major trauma, the Cultural Policy Center at the Harris School and NORC at the University of Chicago launched a national study of cultural building in the United States. It was motivated by multiple requests from leading consultants in the cultural sector who found themselves involved in a steadily growing number of major building projects -- museums, performing arts centers (PACs), and theaters -- and from foundation officers who were frequently asked to help fund these infrastructure projects. With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, we were able to conduct systematic scientific research on cultural building in the United States between 1994 and 2008 and come to a number of conclusions that have important implications for the cultural sector

State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce & Beyond

How should one measure the value of a college degree? In recent years, policy-makers have focused their attention on earnings as the primary measure of the value of a degree, often using that metric to single out humanities degrees as less valuable than others. But there are other—less tangible—measures of value, such as satisfaction with one's work and life more generally, that might also be applied to these discussions.Without taking a position on which metrics are best, this report, based largely on original research commissioned by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Humanities Indicators, examines a variety of outcome measures, including graduates' satisfaction with their jobs, their finances, and their lives generally. The evidence shows that humanities graduates tend to earn less and have slightly higher levels of unemployment than business majors and graduates from some STEM fields. With respect to perceived well-being, however, humanities majors are similar to graduates from almost every other field. The data cannot explain the seeming disparity between the objective and subjective measures, but they provide a starting point for a more nuanced discussion about the relationship among fields of undergraduate study, employment, and quality of life. And for faculty, the report also points to a potential area of concern regarding the way they communicate to students about the skills developed in the course of an education in the field, as a substantial share of humanities graduates perceive little or no relationship between their job and their degree. The data were all gathered prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but past experience tracking this sort of data for the humanities—particularly through the Great Recession—gives us little reason to expect a significant shift in values over the medium term

State of the Humanities 2022: From Graduate Education to the Workforce

Given the recent decline in students earning bachelor's degrees in the humanities, a great deal of concern is focused on undergraduate education. But many of the questions received by the Humanities Indicators staff have to do with outcomes for those who earn a graduate degree in the field. This report explores several key topics related to graduate education, including degree trends, the demographics of degree recipients, the extent to which programs engage students in career preparation activities, and graduates' career outcomes. The report relies heavily on the high-quality data collected by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, and also the National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, several of whose surveys yield valuable information about graduate degree holders in the humanities.The findings include a few surprises: 1) while most of the attention in the disciplines seems to focus on PhDs, the field conferred almost five times as many master's as doctoral degrees in recent years; 2) even so, the number of master's degrees conferred annually in the humanities has been in decline over the past several years and their share of all master's and professional degrees reached a historic low in 2020; 3) the number of humanities PhDs awarded each year was at a near-record high in 2020, but as a share of all doctoral degrees, they fell to a historic low; 4) while the academic job market for humanities PhDs has been depressed since 2008, there is no evidence that this is due to the substitution of adjunct for tenure-track positions; and 5) regardless of where they end up—either in academia or out—the large majority of graduate degree recipients in the humanities are satisfied with their jobs, despite earnings that are considerably lower than those of their counterparts from other fields.This report reflects the ongoing mission of the Humanities Indicators, a nationally recognized source of nonpartisan information about the field. The Indicators website covers 121 topics and includes more than 340 graphs detailing the state of the humanities in schools, higher education, and the workforce; levels of support for research and other key activities; and the role of the humanities in the day-to-day life of the nation. The project draws on data sources that meet the highest standards of social scientific rigor, relying heavily on the products of the U.S. federal statistical system

Preventing and lessening exacerbations of asthma in school-age children associated with a new term (PLEASANT) : Study protocol for a cluster randomised control trial

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedBackground: Within the UK, during September, there is a pronounced increase in the number of unscheduled medical contacts by school-aged children (4-16 years) with asthma. It is thought that that this might be caused by the return back to school after the summer holidays, suddenly mixing with other children again and picking up viruses which could affect their asthma. There is also a drop in the number of prescriptions administered in August. It is possible therefore that children might not be taking their medication as they should during the summer contributing to them becoming ill when they return to school. It is hoped that a simple intervention from the GP to parents of children with asthma at the start of the summer holiday period, highlighting the importance of maintaining asthma medication can help prevent increased asthma exacerbation, and unscheduled NHS appointments, following return to school in September.Methods/design: PLEASANT is a cluster randomised trial. A total of 140 General Practices (GPs) will be recruited into the trial; 70 GPs randomised to the intervention and 70 control practices of "usual care" An average practice is expected to have approximately 100 children (aged 4-16 with a diagnosis of asthma) hence observational data will be collected on around 14000 children over a 24-month period. The Clinical Practice Research Datalink will collect all data required for the study which includes diagnostic, prescription and referral data.Discussion: The trial will assess whether the intervention can reduce exacerbation of asthma and unscheduled medical contacts in school-aged children associated with the return to school after the summer holidays. It has the potential to benefit the health and quality of life of children with asthma while also improving the effectiveness of NHS services by reducing NHS use in one of the busiest months of the year. An exploratory health economic analysis will gauge any cost saving associated with the intervention and subsequent impacts on quality of life. If results for the intervention are positive it is hoped that this could be adopted as part of routine care management of childhood asthma in general practice. Trial registration: Current controlled trials: ISRCTN03000938 (assigned 19/10/12) http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN03000938/.UKCRN ID: 13572.Peer reviewe

Linked Markov sources: Modeling outcome-dependent social processes

Many social processes are adaptive in the sense that the process changes as a result of previous outcomes. Data on such processes may come in the form of categorical time series. First, the authors propose a class of Markov Source models that embody such adaptation. Second, the authors discuss new methods to evaluate the fit of such models. Third, the authors apply these models and methods to data on a social process that is a preeminent example of an adaptive process: (encoded) conversation as arises in structured interviews. © 2007 Sage Publications

Does wage rank affect employees' well-being?

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of 16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well-being levels are shown to depend on more than simple relative pay. They depend upon the ordinal rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group. “Rank” itself thus seems to matter to human beings. Moreover, consistent with psychological theory, quits in a workplace are correlated with pay distribution skewness