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Copyright of Mondo Digitale is the property of Italian Association for Informatics & Automatic Calculation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nuova Secondaria is the property of Edizioni Studium S.r.l and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Misalignment between the mandates and structures of formal schooling and the developmental needs of boys, particularly in the humanities, is receiving increased levels of public and scholarly attention. The problems may be especially acute for low-income and minoritized children. But little guidance for identifying and implementing best and promising practices is available for educators. Tim Spitsberg and Jonathan A. Plucker outline recent work on this problem and identify some promising state- and local-level strategies for beginning the hard work of improving humanities learning for boys. They advocate pairing common-sense policy and curricular changes (improved data-sharing, curricular reviews for gender bias) with research-supported interventions (personalization, pathways programs into humanities-based learning and professions). When implemented with care, these strategies could improve the education of all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses an announcement by the New York Academy of Sciences regarding the launch of the Global STEM Alliance, a public-private partnership, at the United Nations to address STEM education challenges. Topics include the academy's plan to release a white paper on STEM workforce crisis which will outline how partnerships between governments, corporations and institutions can address this crisis, and the Your Life campaign launched in Great Britain to inspire young people into jobs.

Abstract: Random forest, a data-mining technique which uses multiple classification or regression trees, is a popular algorithm used for prediction. Inference and goodness-of-fit assessment, however, may require an estimator of variability; in many applications the residual variance is of primary interest. This paper proposes two estimators of residual variance for random forest regression that take advantage of byproducts of the algorithm. The first estimator is based on the residual sum of squares from a random forest fit and uses a bootstrap bias correction. The second estimator is a difference-based estimator that uses proximity measures as weights. The estimators are evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations. Applications of the methods to the problem of assessing the relative variability of males and females on cognitive and achievement tests are discussed, and the methods are applied to estimate the residual variance in test scores for male and female students on the mathematics portion of the 2007 Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses the study "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," conducted by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin to discuss gender discrimination in pay in the U.S. Goldin states that most of the difference in gap in earnings between women and men depend on factors which have nothing to do with sexism. He states that gender gap in pay would significantly decrease if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward employees who worked long and in particular hours.