The relative importance of individual, job-related and organisational characteristics in explaining differences in earnings.

Abstract: This paper focuses on a number of key research questions: (1) What is the relative importance of individual, job-related and organizational characteristics in explaining differences in earnings? (2) Do job characteristics such as hierarchical level and functional domain exercise a significant influence on pay differentials if we control for the traditional human capital factors? (3) Do organizational characteristics such as size and the sector in which the company is active exercise a significant influence on pay differentials if we control for the traditional human capital factors and job-related pay determinants? In order to assess the relative importance of these pay determinants, use is made of linear regression and analysis of variance. The analysis draws on data from the Salary Survey, which generated pay details for a total of more than 15,000 Belgian white-collar workers. Based on the analysis, we come to the conclusion that the five main determinants, in order of importance, are number of years' work experience; level of education; hierarchical level; sector of employment; and the nationality of the parent company. A further striking feature is that more than 50% of the total explained variance can be attributed to the three features which receive a great deal of attention in traditional human capital approaches to pay differentials: level of education, work experience and gender.Implications; Characteristics;

Some improvements of the spectral learning approach for probabilistic grammatical inference

International audienceSpectral methods propose new and elegant solutions in probabilistic grammatical inference. We propose two ways to improve them. We show how a linear representation, or equivalently a weighted automata, output by the spectral learning algorithm can be taken as an initial point for the Baum Welch algorithm, in order to increase the likelihood of the observation data. Secondly, we show how the inference problem can naturally be expressed in the framework of Structured Low-Rank Approximation. Both ideas are tested on a benchmark extracted from the PAutomaC challenge

Dimension-free Concentration Bounds on Hankel Matrices for Spectral Learning

International audienceLearning probabilistic models over strings is an important issue for many applications. Spectral methods propose elegant solutions to the problem of inferring weighted automata from finite samples of variable-length strings drawn from an unknown target distribution $p$. These methods rely on a singular value decomposition of a matrix $\v{H}_S$, called the empirical Hankel matrix, that records the frequencies of (some of) the observed strings $S$. The accuracy of the learned distribution depends both on the quantity of information embedded in $\v{H}_S$ and on the distance between $\v{H}_S$ and its mean $\v{H}_p$. Existing concentration bounds seem to indicate that the concentration over $\v{H}_p$ gets looser with its dimensions, suggesting that it might be necessary to bound the dimensions of $\v{H}_S$ for learning. We prove new dimension-free concentration bounds for classical Hankel matrices and several variants, based on prefixes or factors of strings, that are useful for learning. Experiments demonstrate that these bounds are tight and that they significantly improve existing (dimension-dependent) bounds. One consequence of these results is that the spectral learning approach remains consistent even if all the observations are recorded within the empirical matrix

Estimation of fiber diameters in the spinal dorsal columns from clinical data

Lack of human morphometric data regarding the largest nerve fibers in the dorsal columns (DCs) of the spinal cord has lead to the estimation of the diameters of these fibers from clinical data retrieved from patients with a new spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system. These patients indicated the perception threshold of stimulation induced paresthesia in various body segments, while the stimulation amplitude was increased. The fiber diameters were calculated with a computer model, developed to calculate the effects of SCS on spinal nerve fibers. This computer model consists of two parts: (1) a three-dimensional (3-D) volume conductor model of a spinal cord segment in which the potential distribution due to electrical stimulation is calculated and (2) an electrical equivalent cable model of myelinated nerve fiber, which uses the calculated potential field to determine the threshold stimulus needed for activation. It is shown that the largest fibers in the medial DCs are significantly smaller than the largest fibers in the lateral parts. This finding is in accordance with the fiber distribution in cat, derived from the corresponding propagation velocities. Moreover, it is shown that the mediolateral increase in fiber diameter is mainly confined to the lateral parts of the DCs. Implementation of this mediolateral fiber diameter distribution of the DCs in the computer model enables the prediction of the recruitment order of dermatomal paresthesias following increasing electrical stimulation amplitud

Linear modeling of possible mechanisms for parkinson tremor generation

The power of Parkinson tremor is expressed in terms of possibly changed frequency response functions between relevant variables in the neuromuscular system. The derivation starts out from a linear loopless equivalent model of mechanisms for general tremor generation. Hypothetical changes in this model from the substrate of the disease are indicated, and possible ones are inferred from literature about experiments on patients. The result indicates that in these patients tremor appears to have been generated in loops, which did not include the brain area which in surgery usually is inactivated. For some patients in the literature, these loops could involve muscle length receptors, the static sensitivity of which may have been enlarged by pathological brain activity

Can we rate public support for democracy in a comparable way? Cross-national equivalence of democratic attitudes in the World Value Survey

In this study we examine the cross-cultural equivalence of two scales that measure attitudes toward democracy across 36 countries in the World Value Survey (WVS) 2000. We examine the equivalence of these scales in order to explore if we can meaningfully compare democratic attitudes across countries. Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) is applied to answer this question. The analyses indicate that the scales may be compared but only to a certain extent and not across all the countries. We close this article by discussing the implications of the findings

Global identification predicts gay-male identity integration and wellbeing among Turkish gay men

In most parts of the world, hegemonic masculinity requires men to endorse traditional masculine ideals, one of which is rejection of homosexuality. Wherever hegemonic masculinity favours heterosexuality over homosexuality, gay males may feel under pressure to negotiate their conflicting male gender and gay sexual identities to maintain positive self-perceptions. However, globalisation, as a source of intercultural interaction, might provide a beneficial context for people wishing to create alternative masculinities in the face of hegemonic masculinity. Hence, we tested if global identification would predict higher levels of gay-male identity integration, and indirectly subjective wellbeing, via alternative masculinity representations for gay and male identities. A community sample of 219 gay and bisexual men from Turkey completed the study. Structural equation modelling revealed that global identification positively predicted gay-male identity integration, and indirectly subjective wellbeing; however, alternative masculinity representations did not mediate this relationship. Our findings illustrate how identity categories in different domains can intersect and affect each other in complex ways. Moreover, we discuss mental health and wellbeing implications for gay men living in cultures where they experience high levels of prejudice and stigma

[Commentary] The “common view” and the “cultural binary”— and how to move forward

Takano and Osaka’s (1997, 1999) careful review of empirical research on individualism and collectivism in the US and Japan revealed a striking lack of support for the “common view” that Japanese individuals are typical collectivists whereas Americans are typical individualists. Two decades on, Takano and Osaka (2018) conclude that empirical studies have continued to fail to support the common view—and yet this view is stubbornly persistent in the literature. More is at stake here than the characterization of two national cultures. The common view epitomizes a widely adopted binary view of culture, which reduces the richness and complexity of global cultural diversity to an oversimplified contrast between individualist/independent/Western/North American and collectivist/interdependent/Eastern/East Asian categories. Unless cultural psychologists can move beyond binary thinking and research practices, correcting an inaccurate portrayal of American and Japanese cultures will be of limited benefit. Future progress might be fostered by (a) defining concepts more precisely, (b) more use of exploratory approaches, (c) wider sampling of cultural groups and contexts, (d) using available methodological guidance for cross-cultural research, and (e) expanding research into cultural identities and stereotypes