The term big data is currently a buzzword in social science, however its precise meaning is ambiguous. In this paper we focus on administrative data which is a distinctive form of big data. Exciting new opportunities for social science research will be afforded by new administrative data resources, but these are currently under appreciated by the research community. The central aim of this paper is to discuss the challenges associated with administrative data. We emphasise that it is critical for researchers to carefully consider how administrative data has been produced. We conclude that administrative datasets have the potential to contribute to the development of high-quality and impactful social science research, and should not be overlooked in the emerging field of big data.

Cordyceps sinensis (CS) is a traditional Chinese medicine and health food used to support many organ systems. It is commercially produced by cultivation in a liquid medium or on a solid (grain/potato) phase. We tested the effects of hot water extracts of liquid-phase and solidphase commercially grown CS on its ability to influence proliferation (using Alamar blue, an oxidation/reduction indicator), migration (serial-wounded monolayer photomicroscopy), invasion through collagen gel (fluorometric assay) and indomethacin-induced apoptosis (active caspase-3 colorimetric assay) of human colon cancer HT29 cells. An in vivo study used a rat gastric damage model (indomethacin 20 mg/kg and 4 h restraint with oral administration). The CS extract stimulated cell proliferation threefold when added at 10 mg/ml (P,0·01). Cell migration increased by 69 % and invasion by 17 % when CS was added at 5 mg/ml (P,0·01). The results also showed that 93 % of the pro-proliferative activity was soluble in ethanol, whereas pro-migratory activity was divided (61:49) into both ethanolsoluble and ethanol-insoluble sub-fractions. Indomethacin-induced apoptosis was not affected by the presence of CS. CS reduced the amount of gastric injury by 63 % when administered orally at 20 mg/ml (P, 0·01), the results being similar to using the potent cytoprotective agent epidermal growth factor at 25 mg/ml (83 % reduction). We conclude that both methods of cultivated CS possess biological activity when analysed using a variety of gut models of injury and repair. Functional foods, such as CS, could provide a novel approach for the prevention and treatment of injury to the bowel.

Powerful new social science data resources are emerging. One particularly important source is administrative data, which were originally collected for organisational purposes but often contain information that is suitable for social science research. In this paper we outline the concept of reproducible research in relation to micro-level administrative social science data. Our central claim is that a planned and organised workflow is essential for high quality research using microlevel administrative social science data. We argue that it is essential for researchers to share research code, because code sharing enables the elements of reproducible research. First, it enables results to be duplicated and therefore allows the accuracy and validity of analyses to be evaluated. Second, it facilitates further tests of the robustness of the original piece of research. Drawing on insights from computer science and other disciplines that have been engaged in e-Research we discuss and advocate the use of Git repositories to provide a useable and effective solution to research code sharing and rendering social science research using micro-level administrative data reproducible.

BackgroundCognitive development in childhood is negatively affected by socioeconomic disadvantage. This study examined whether differences in fetal environment might mediate the association between family socioeconomic position and child development.MethodsData were linked from the Scottish Longitudinal Study, maternity inpatient records and the Child Health Surveillance Programme – Pre School for 32,238 children. The outcome variables were based on health visitor assessment of gross motor, hearing and language, vision and fine motor, and social development. Socioeconomic position was measured using parental social class and highest qualification attained. Random-effects logistic regression models were estimated to account for multiple reviews and familial clustering. Mediation analysis was conducted using the Karlson-Holm-Breen method.ResultsHearing and language, vision and fine motor, and social development were associated with lower parental social class and lower parental educational qualifications after adjustment for fetal environment. Fetal environment partially mediated the estimated effect of having parents without educational qualifications for hearing and language (β = 0·15; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0·07, 0·23), vision and fine motor (β = 0·19; CI = 0·10, 0·28) and social development (β = 0·14; CI = 0·03 to 0·25).ConclusionsSocioeconomic position predicted hearing and language, vision and fine motor, and social development but not gross motor development. For children of parents without educational qualifications, fetal environment appears to contribute to a part of the socioeconomic gradient in child development abnormalities but post-natal environment appears to still explain the majority of the gradient and for other children most of it.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12939-017-0698-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In Britain school examination results are now an annual newsworthy item. This recurrent event illustrates, and reinforces, the importance of school level qualifications. The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the standard qualification undertaken by pupils at the end of year 11 (age 15-16). GCSEs continue to play an important and central role in young people's educational and employment pathways. Within the sociology of youth there has been recent interest in documenting the lives and educational experiences of 'ordinary' young people.There are many analyses of agglomerate (i.e. overall) school GCSE attainment. More recently attention has been focused on individual GCSE subjects. In this paper we analyse school GCSE attainment at the subject area level. This is an innovative approach and our motivation is to explore substantively interesting patterns of attainment that might be concealed in analyses of overall attainment, or attainment within individual subjects.We analyse data from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales using a latent variable approach. The modelling process uncovered four distinctive latent educational groups. One latent group is characterised by high levels of overall attainment, whereas another latent group is characterised by poor GCSE performance. There are two latent groups with moderate or 'middle' levels of GCSE attainment. These two latent groups have similar levels of agglomerate attainment, but one group performs better in science and the other performs better in arts GCSEs. Pupils study for multiple GCSEs which are drawn from a wide menu of choices. There is a large array of possible GCSE subject combinations, and results in individual GCSE subjects are highly correlated. The adoption of a latent variable approach is attractive because it handles the messy nature of the data whilst not trivialising its complexity. The paper demonstrates that a latent variable approach is practicable with large-scale social survey data, and is appealing for the analysis of more contemporaneous cohorts.