Skill Shortage or Credential Inflation? Qualification mismatch in Great Britain and Germany, 1984-2017

The dramatic expansion of education since the second world war has been recognized as one of the major forces shaping social change. However, the question whether educa-tional expansion has outstripped the demand for qualified labour, or whether modern economies face a skill-shortage despite increases in education remains debated. Focus-sing on the United Kingdom and West Germany, this paper asks to what degree expan-sion of education has been absorbed by labour markets. I point out shortcomings of wage-centred analyses and develop an approach that focuses on trends in self-assessed over- and underqualification. Using repeated surveys, I link cohort-level expansion to mismatch prevalence. Results show that educational expansion gave rise to credential inflation and a positional value of education in the United Kingdom. West-Germany, on the other hand, is affected by a mild skill-shortage. I relate these findings to the con-trasting institutional logics of education systems in the two countries.

A Skellam regression model for quantifying positional value in soccer

Soccer is undeniably the most popular sport world-wide and everyone from general managers and coaching staff to fans and media are interested in evaluating players’ performance. Metrics applied successfully in other sports, such as the (adjusted) +/− that allows for division of credit among a basketball team’s players, exhibit several challenges when applied to soccer due to severe co-linearities. Recently, a number of player evaluation metrics have been developed utilizing optical tracking data, but they are based on proprietary data. In this work, our objective is to develop an open framework that can estimate the expected contribution of a soccer player to his team’s winning chances using publicly available data. In particular, using data from (i) approximately 20,000 games from 11 European leagues over eight seasons, and, (ii) player ratings from the FIFA video game, we estimate through a Skellam regression model the importance of every line (attackers, midfielders, defenders and goalkeeping) in winning a soccer game. We consequently translate the model to expected league points added above a replacement player (eLPAR). This model can further be used as a guide for allocating a team’s salary budget to players based on their expected contributions on the pitch. We showcase similar applications using annual salary data from the English Premier League and identify evidence that in our dataset the market appears to under-value defensive line players relative to goalkeepers.

The Rolling 50s (and More): Cars and Life Satisfaction Among Seniors Across Europe

Cars represent a valuable real asset that most individuals use on a daily basis. Although cars are a form of material prosperity like income and other forms of wealth, the link between cars and subjective well-being (SWB) is barely covered in the existing literature. Furthermore, few existing contributions are scattered across specific cultural contexts. Here, we analyze the relationship between cars and the SWB of seniors in different European countries using the SHARE dataset. We construct multilevel and fixed-effect models to explore the extent of economic, infrastructural, and cultural factors and how they can explain this relationship. The results show that the value of the car is, among all wealth components (houses, bank account, bonds, stocks, mutual funds, debts and mortgages), the form of wealth most related to life satisfaction. In addition, cars matter less (a) in affluent societies, (b) where rail infrastructure is more developed, and (c) where people hold fewer materialistic values. We discuss these results in the framework of the functional and positional value of cars, i.e., respectively, the value derived from it regardless of others and the value derived from it vis-à-vis others.

Biological notion of positional information/value in morphogenesis theory

The notions of positional information and positional value describe the role of cell position in cell development and pattern formation. Despite their frequent usage in literature, their definitions are blurry, and are interpreted differently by different researchers. Through reflection on previous definitions and usage, and analysis of related experiments, we propose three clear and verifiable criteria for positional information/value. Then we reviewed literature on molecular mechanisms of cell development and pattern formation, to search for a possible molecular basis of positional information/value, including those used in theoretical models. We conclude that although morphogen gradients and cell-to-cell contacts are involved in the pattern formation process, complete molecular explanations of positional information/value are still far from reality.

Outperformed: how the envy reflex influences status seeking service consumers’ engagement

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assist service management academics and providers of positional services (i.e. services that provide status attainment benefits to consumers) to better understand how the envy reflex of outperformed consumers operates as an endemic emotional theme that, if properly managed, can be harnessed to improve consumer engagement outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe objectives of the research were addressed via two quantitative studies. In a preliminary descriptive study, the types of services consumers classify as “positional” were identified (n=351) and a measure of consumer perceived positional value was developed (n=179). In the main study, a 2 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design was adopted using a sample of positional service consumers (n=265) with the data analysed via SEM and two-way MANCOVA.FindingsThe main study found a significant mediation effect of the envy reflex on the relationship between consumer perceived positional value and the overall likelihood of an engagement intention for outperformed positional service consumers. In addition, specific engagement intentions were predicted for outperformed consumers with a high envy reflex after considering how deserving they perceived a superior performer to be.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the burgeoning scholarly interest in the envy reflex as a consumption emotion by demonstrating its influence on consumer engagement outcomes. The research also demonstrates how tactics informed by appraisal theories of emotion can be used to manage endemic emotional themes in service environments to improve engagement outcomes.

Vertical Stratification

This chapter considers national system stratification in high participation systems (HPS) of higher education. As demand for higher education increases, the social value of places within a system becomes more differentiated on a binary basis, between places offering exceptionally high positional value and others offering little value. Three prepositions about stratification are advanced. The first expands on the tendency to system bifurcation in HPS, with a small and elite ‘artisanal’ sector, mostly research-intensive universities, opposed to a larger and undistinguished ‘demand-absorbing’ sector. The second proposition identifies a set of drivers that push the bifurcation process. The third proposition recognizes that bifurcation is always incomplete and focuses on the contradictory dynamics of the ‘middle’ layer of higher education institutions in most HPS. Nationally specific factors that accentuate or limit stratification are identified.

Global Language: Status, Scope and Challenges

The world becomes shareable, narrow, familiar, and accessible for all since we have a common language (English) despite having culture, tradition, territory and idiosyncratic variation. Because of its commonness, it is accepted as an international, global, foreign/ second language or as a lingua-franca among thousands of diverse language speakers. It becomes the global language since its form is cozily perceptible and scope is being open-ended in nature. Having its scope unlimited, the status is automatically broadened and the positional value will be transformable from fewer to more, lesser- users to frequent, foreign to second language, etc. As the status and scope of English growing up, the opportunities and challenges have been raised as well. In the forms of opportunities, people are liable to get better jobs, quality education, and international identity and so on. In contrary, challenges oppose the regular development of it which may result minimizing the status and scope sooner than later. Whatever the situation, English language is stepping forward rather than pushing back.Journal of NELTA Surkhet, Vol. 5 January, 2018

Futuros professores de Matemática nos Anos Iniciais e suas estratégias diante de problemas do campo conceitual aditivo Future teachers of Mathematics in the Early Years and its strategies in the problems of the additive conceptual field

O ensino de Matemática nos Anos Iniciais vem ganhando espaço cada vez maior de discussões, com destaque para as pesquisas em Educação Matemática. Dentre tais pesquisas, temos as contribuições de Gérard Vergnaud acerca do campo conceitual aditivo. Neste texto, apresentamos uma investigação com a qual objetivamos analisar as estratégias de acadêmicos formandos em Pedagogia, quando deparados com uma proposta de resolução de problemas do campo conceitual aditivo. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida em duas etapas: na primeira, acadêmicos do 2º ano do curso de Licenciatura em Matemática de uma universidade pública do Estado do Paraná formularam problemas que contemplavam as diferentes estruturas relacionadas às operações de adição e subtração abordadas por Vergnaud; na segunda, os problemas foram propostos e resolvidos por acadêmicos do 4º ano do curso de Pedagogia da mesma instituição. Nossa análise das resoluções indica que, em geral, não houve dificuldades maiores em relação às diferentes classes de situações propostas por Vergnaud. Por outro lado, pudemos verificar outras incoerências relacionadas ao valor posicional, contagem, uso da operação inversa, uso incorreto da vírgula em operações com números decimais, ausência de notações matemáticas (sinais de adição, subtração etc.), dentre outros. Consideramos, com isso, o fato de que estes futuros professores de Matemática nos Anos Iniciais não participam de discussões em sua formação inicial acerca de problemas matemáticos que contemplam as diferentes situações e conceitos presentes no campo das estruturas aditivas. The teaching of Mathematics in the Early Years has been gaining an increasing space of discussions, with emphasis on research in Mathematics Education. Among such researches we have the contributions of Gérard Vergnaud on the additive conceptual field. In this text, we present an investigation with which we aim to analyze the strategies of academic graduates in Pedagogy, when faced with a proposal to solve problems of the additive conceptual field. The research was developed in two stages: first, academics of the 2nd year of the Degree in Mathematics of a public university of the State of Paraná formulated problems that contemplated the different structures related to the addition and subtraction operations addressed by Vergnaud; in the second, the problems were proposed and solved by academics of the 4th year of the Pedagogy course of the same institution. Our analysis of the resolutions indicates that, in general, there were no major difficulties in relation to the different classes of situations proposed by Vergnaud. On the other hand, we were able to verify other inconsistencies related to positional value, counting, use of the inverse operation, incorrect use of the comma in operations with decimal numbers, absence of mathematical notations (addition, subtraction, etc.), among others. We thus consider the fact that these future teachers of Mathematics in the Early Years do not participate in discussions in their initial formation about mathematical problems that contemplate the different situations and concepts present in the field of additive structures.

A Summarizer for Tamil Language Using Centroid Approach

Document summarization plays a vital role in the use and management of information dissemination. This paper investigates a method for the production of summaries from Tamil newspaper text document. The primary goal is to create an effective and efficient tool that is able to summarize the given text documents in a form of meaningful extract of the original text document using centroid-based algorithm. The paper focuses on generating summaries using a centroid-based algorithm, which represents group of words that are statistically important for a document. Each sentence in a document is considered as a vector in a multi-dimensional space. The sentences that are nearest to the centroid value are considered as the most important sentences. The importance of a sentence is determined by three parameters the centroid value, the positional value, and the first sentence overlap. The score for each sentence is calculated and the redundancy between the sentences is eliminated using CSIS. Finally, the sentences are ranked and the sentences with highest score values are selected as summary.