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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the temporal development of noncognitive abilities of children and the development trajectory of rural and urban children's noncognitive abilities in China.

Lexis diagram is used as the research framework to depict the development trajectory of rural and urban children's noncognitive abilities in China. By employing the nationally representative longitudinal survey data, China Family Panel Studies (2010–2016), the difference of rural and urban children's noncognitive abilities is disentangled into temporal, age and cohort effects.

There is a significant temporal rural–urban difference in children's noncognitive abilities, but the rural–urban gap would expand, narrow or show more complex development trends under different measurements. The results of age and cohort comparison are similar to those of temporal comparison, that is, there are divergent trajectories of rural–urban gap due to the different measurements and different ages and/or cohorts. Specifically, urban children perform better in self-esteem, but rural children always have a higher social responsibility, such a contrast between urban children's weak social responsibility under the advantageous condition and rural children's strong social responsibility in the relatively disadvantageous environment.

Children's noncognitive ability is not innate but is a gradually acquired characteristic through training and cultivation. The rural–urban difference of children's noncognitive abilities implies educational issues concerning educational principles in the urban environment and the educational resources' allocation in the rural society in China. Besides, as the unidimensional measurement of children's noncognitive ability is insufficient, the systematic measurement composed of multidimensional indicators utilizing cohort data or longitudinal data would be needed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative employment levels of return migrants in Finland with regard to their re‐adaptation into the labour market.

Longitudinal census data distinguished Finns who had lived abroad and returned to Finland. These return migrants are compared with non‐migrants with regard to employment levels, using logistic regression models that account for sex, age, education, mother tongue and place of residence.

Both male and female return migrants have odds of employment that are only about half those of their non‐migrant counterparts. The employment differential is stable over time and, consequently, not particularly sensitive to changes in the macroeconomic environment. Relative employment rates of migrants with short periods abroad and long periods in the home country are somewhat higher than those of other migrants, but still lower than those of non‐migrants. Difficulties in readapting into Finnish society are consequently associated with personal characteristics that cannot be observed explicitly but are apparently associated with job‐finding probability.

Considering that Finland at present has no explicit measures directed towards return migrants, it is suggested that this group should be given more policy attention.

The paper provides quantitative evidence that Finnish migrants have substantial difficulties in finding employment in the home country labour market subsequent to return migration, and that these problems cannot be attributed to structural factors.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the historical significance of Donald J. Urquhart, who established the National Lending Library for Science and Technology (NLL) that later was merged into the British Library Lending Division (BLLD), now called the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC).

The paper presents a short history of the probabilistic revolution, particularly as it developed in the UK in the form of biometric statistics due to Darwin's theory of evolution. It focuses on the overthrow of the normal paradigm, according to which frequency distributions in nature and society conform to the normal law of error. The paper discusses the importance of the Poisson distribution and its utilization in the construction of stochastic models that better describe reality. Here the focus is on the compound Poisson distribution in the form of the negative binomial distribution (NBD). The paper then shows how Urquhart extended the probabilistic revolution to librarianship by using the Poisson as the probabilistic model in his analyses of the 1956 external loans made by the Science Museum Library (SML) as well as in his management of the scientific and technical (sci/tech) journal collection of the NLL. Thanks to this, Urquhart can be considered as playing a pivotal role in the creation of bibliometrics or the statistical bases of modern library and information science. The paper relates how Urquhart's son and daughter‐in‐law, John A. and Norma C. Urquhart, completed Urquhart's probabilistic breakthrough by advancing for the first time the NBD as the model for library use in a study executed at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, connecting bibliometrics with biometrics. It concludes with a discussion of Urquhart's Law and its probabilistic implications for the use of sci/tech journals in a library system.

By being the first librarian to apply probability to the analysis of sci/tech journal use, Urquhart was instrumental in the creation of modern library and information science. His findings force a probabilistic re‐conceptualization of sci/tech journal use in a library system that has great implications for the transition of sci/tech journals from locally held paper copies to shared electronic databases.

Urquhart's significance is considered from the perspective of the development of science as a whole as well as library and information science in particular.

THE KNIGHT AND THE MAID IN DIALOG Publishing lead times mean that we are probably the last information‐related publication in the world to report that MAID has bought Knight‐Ridder information for $420 million, and that the combined business has been relaunched as the Dialog Corporation.

This study analyzed 24 IELTS Task One (data explanation) prompts for task type, diagram type, subject matter, level of critical thought, and geographical references, in order to determine whether Emirati university students’ anecdotal claims of cultural bias on the IELTS academic writing exam (as experienced by the researcher in the past decade of teaching IELTS in the United Arab Emirates) are valid. The analysis found that the majority of the task types (88%) were non-process in nature (i.e. required the description of data in the form of a chart or graph, rather than the description of a process); 40% of the non-process prompts consisted of more than one diagram. The analysis revealed that 33% of the non-process prompts included bar graphs and 29% included line graphs. Pie charts appeared in 25% of the prompts and tables in only 17%. An Emirati student English preparatory program survey indicated the pie chart as the easiest to understand – a finding that may highlight a difference between the most commonly used IELTS prompt and the students’ prompt preference. A content analysis of topics found a high percentage (58%) of subject matter related to the social sciences, with 79% of the geographical references pertaining to Western contexts. An analysis of the amount of critical thought needed for graph interpretation revealed 52% of non-process prompts required some form of critical thought. The study therefore found that the cultural bias perceived by Emirati students has some validity, given the students’ socio-cultural and educational background.

The article begins by defining three categories of information as soft; glosses on existing quantitative databases, text in the form of market reports and analyses, individual beliefs about markets and market behaviour before proceeding to review current text‐based information systems, based on commercially available databases. Focusing on information systems that elicit and represent structural relationships that would, for example, be familiar in terms of a diagrammatic consumer behaviour model, the article examines in turn, storage and database design; means of input and transfer of text, optical scanning; direct transfer from word processors, electronic publishing; access, interrogation, search and retrieval methods. The article concludes by providing an outline framework for an extended information system incorporating the tools, techniques and facilities described, highlighting the potential of such a system for learning, preprocessing and intelligent search.

The study examines the instigating factors behind the development of the local content (LC) policy in Ghana and it further investigates the accountability mechanisms that drive the LC policy implementation to promote sustainable development.

The study reports on a series of interviews with key actors using Institutional Theory and the application of Bovens’ (2010) Global Accountability Framework as a lens for discussion and interpretation of results.

The results reveal that two forces instigated LC policy enactment. One is external funding pressure from the Norwegian government and the World Bank. The other is the government’s engagement of Civil Society Organisations and other internal stakeholders to justify its activities and missions to signal adherence to impartiality, neutrality, and, to a lesser extent, solidarity. The analysis also reveals tensions in how accountability legitimacy relates to implementation of the LC policy. The study further discovers that while participation, transparency, monitoring, and evaluation are frequently invoked as de jure institutional legitimacy in oil and gas contracts, actual practices follow normative (de facto) institutionalism rather than what the LC policy law provides.

The interview had a relatively small number of participants, which can be argued to affect the study’s validity. Nevertheless, given the data saturation effect and the breadth of the data obtained from the respondents, this study represents a significant advancement in LC policy enactment knowledge, implementation mechanisms and enforcement in an emerging O&G industry.

The findings of this study suggest that future policy development in emerging economies should involve detailed consultations to increase decision-maker knowledge, process transparency and expectations. This will improve implementation and reduce stakeholder tension, conflict and mistrust.

The findings of this study build on earlier investigations into legitimacy, accountability and impression management in and outside the O&G sector. Also, the findings reveal the legitimising tactics used by O&G actors to promote local content sustainable development targets.

The study uses social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to explore the driving and restraining factors that students consider in selecting auditing as a career.

Considering the aim of this study, a qualitative research was preferred with the objective of gathering in-depth and enriched empirical data; hence, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seventy-five fourth-year undergraduate accounting students of six top-ranked universities in Ghana that offer accounting programmes.

The findings of the current study unearth the constructs of the SCCT that students' decision to consider a career in audit is driven by outcome expectations (high earnings/monetary incentives and social prestige associated with the job), as well as self-efficacy belief (possession of ethical values). Further, the study finds that self-efficacy beliefs (job stress and accounting stereotype) were the factors restraining students from considering auditing as a career. The results finally show that the students who would choose auditing as a career in future are in one way or the other, preparing for the achievement of their goals.

The SCCT framework utilized focuses on the three main constructs: self-efficacy, outcome expectations and goals. There are a number of related factors that may influence students' career choice decisions. These may include personal characteristics and contextual influences; a change of the theoretical framework may help discover other important personal and contextual factors that this current study could not unearth.

The study indicates, on the contrary, that students have negative perceptions about auditing as a career option; they consider the career as stressful, tedious and monotonous. These misconceptions make it less likely for a student to pursue auditing as a career. Educators can aid students in their decision to pursue a study in accounting and become auditors by displaying and reinforcing the positive outcomes that come with the position of an auditor.

The findings of this study add to the existing literature by delving deeper into the self-selection factors that influence a student's desire to become an auditor. Furthermore, the current research is exceptional in that it applies the SCCT to the aim of becoming an auditor. Although other research studies have looked into factors that may influence a student's decision to pursue a profession as an accountant, these studies have mostly been quantitative, limiting the students' ability to explain why those factors encourage or dissuade them.

Corporate spin-offs have become more popular as a restructuring technique in recent decades. The market performance of these spun-off subsidiaries has been considered critical, as positive market signals are vital to the success of these newly independent firms. Drawing on both the stewardship and resource dependence theories, this study aims to examine how two critical governance characteristics (namely, CEO duality and board size) affect the change in the market valuation of spun-off subsidiaries. This study proposes that both board size and CEO duality of spun-off subsidiaries should positively influence the change in market valuation.

This study used the SDC Platinum database to identify completed corporate US spin-offs between 2000 and 2014. To ensure consistency across spin-off events, this study included only those in which 100 percent of outstanding shares of spun-off subsidiaries were distributed. The study confirmed the SDC Platinum listings using online resources such as The Wall Street Journal and Lexis/Nexis. The study used weighted least square (WLS) regression to test all the proposed models.

This empirical analysis of 134 US-based spin-offs supported both main hypotheses. Furthermore, the analysis also finds that firm size has significant moderating effects on the link between governance structure and market performance.

These findings contribute to the governance literature on corporate spin-offs by advancing our understanding of the role of CEO and board characteristics in improving these subsidiaries' market valuation, as well as the moderating effect of the firm size.