Patrizio Frederic

Two Moments of the Logitnormal Distribution

We display the first two moment functions of the Logitnormal(μ, σ2) family of distributions, conveniently described in terms of the Normal mean, μ, and the Normal signal-to-noise ratio, μ/σ, parameters that generate the family. Long neglected on account of the numerical integrations required to compute them, awareness of these moment functions should aid the sensible interpretation of logistic regression statistics and the specification of “diffuse” prior distributions in hierarchical models, which can be deceiving. We also use numerical integration to compare the correlation between bivariate Logitnormal variables with the correlation between the bivariate Normal variables from which they are transformed.

Institutions, culture and background: the school performance of immigrant students

Programme for International Student Assessment data from 29 countries was used to measure immigrant school gaps (differences in scores between immigrants and natives) in relation to various potentially correlated factors. Results show that negative gaps are concentrated in the European Union; in the South, they are mainly correlated with school types – academic, intermediate or vocational – and country of origin; and in the North, they remain negative in all model specifications. This suggests a lack of assimilation, in some cases reinforced by educational institutions. Gaps are generally small in English-speaking countries; in the USA and GBR they are influenced by background.

Students’ Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness: Satisfaction and Related Factors

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) has been widely studied in the past century and considerable research has been devoted to investigate its reliability, validity, and unbiasedness [7, 25]. Often, the overall goal of the evaluations is to gauge teaching effectiveness, understood as the extent to which a given learning objective is accomplished. Effectiveness can be evaluated through (i) direct assessment of knowledge and skills acquired by the students or (ii) a questionnaire designed to survey students’ opinion about the teaching styles and behaviours of teachers and/or their satisfaction [34]. Since there is no universally accepted strategy to achieve the measurements of effectiveness, students’ ratings are usually employed as a primary source of data as they are easier to collect than measurements of learned knowledge/skills. As a consequence, they represent the basis for measuring not only teaching effectiveness, but also active participation and students’ attitude toward academic activity, which are critical factors for the success of any teaching system. However, it is often claimed that students’ evaluations do not reveal true teaching performance and can only gauge the satisfaction with their instructors.

Attributing a Paleoanthropological Specimen to a Prehistoric Population: A Bayesian Approach with Multivariate B-Spline Functions

Human bones were recovered in 1997 near Serra San Quirico in Ancona province (Marche, Central Italy) during archaeological excavations carried out by the Soprintendenza ai Beni Archeologici delle Marche. The site is located in a cave, 20 metres above the plane of the road, on the wall of a fluvial gorge called “Gola della Rossa”. The remains consist of a cranial vault and a few non-articulated postcranial bones, possibly belonging to the same individual.

Spatial diffusion of surnames by long transhumance routes between highland and lowland: a study in Sardinia

RIASSUNTO.