Characteristics of lead users. Refer to the Creativity and Innovation Management (February 2008) study of lead users of children's computer games. Recall that the researchers modeled lead-user rating (y, measured on a 5-point scale) as a function of gender (x₁ = 1 if female, 0 if male), age (x₂, years), degree of centrality (x₃, measured as the number of direct ties to other peers in the network), and between-ness centrality (x₄, measured as the number of shortest paths between peers). The least squares prediction equation was

yˆ = 3.58 + .01x₁ - .06x₂ - .01x₃ + .42x₄

(a) Compute the predicted lead-user rating of a 10-year-old female child with five direct ties to other peers in her social network and with two shortest paths between peers.

(b) Compute an estimate for the mean lead-user rating of all 8-year-old male children with 10 direct ties to other peers and with four shortest paths between peers.