Return to work among employees with mental health problems: Development and validation of a self-efficacy questionnaire

Abstract

Because of the costs to both the organization and the individual, it is important that employees who are sick-listed with mental health problems are facilitated in their return to work (RTW). In order to provide adequate interventions, it is necessary to obtain a better understanding of the RTW process of people with mental health problems. Work-related self-efficacy (SE) might play a key role within this process. This paper describes the development and validation of the return-to-work self-efficacy’ scale (RTW-SE) for employees with mental health problems. Three Dutch samples of sick-listed employees were used to validate the 11-item instrument (N=2214). Based on the factor structure and reliability results, RTW-SE was conceptualized as a unitary construct. The associations with general SE, locus of control, coping, physical workload and mental health problems support the construct validity of this scale. Most importantly, RTW-SE proved to be a robust predictor of actual return to work within three months. The encouraging preliminary psychometric properties of the scale make it a potentially valuable tool in research and in clinical practice and occupational health care settings, both before and after employees have returned to work.     

The application of industrial robots in the Soviet engineering industry

Despite its scale and impressive rate of development the Soviet industrial robotics programme has received little attention in the West. In many respects the economic and social conditions for the application of industrial robots on a wide scale are favourable, but many problems are being experienced in securing their practical adoption and effective use. The paper reviews the Soviet robotics programme, the difficulties being encountered and the manner in which they are being tackled.     

Workforce‐constrained Preventive Maintenance Scheduling Using Evolution Strategies

Heavy equipment overhaul facilities such as aircraft service centers and railroad yards face the challenge of minimizing the makespan for a set of preventive maintenance (PM) tasks, requiring single or multiple skills, within workforce availability constraints. In this paper, we examine the utility of evolution strategies to this problem. Comparison of the computational efforts of evolution strategies with exhaustive enumeration to reach optimal solutions for 60 small problems illustrates the ability of evolution strategies to yield optimal solutions increasingly efficiently with increasing problem size. A set of 852 large‐scale problems was solved using evolution strategies to examine the effects of task‐related problem characteristics, workforce‐related variables, and evolution strategies population size (μ) on CPU time. The results empirically supported practical utility of evolution strategies to solve large‐scale, complex preventive maintenance problems involving single‐ and multiple‐skilled workforce. Finally, comparison of evolution strategies and simulated annealing for the 852 experiments indicated much faster convergence to optimality with evolution strategies.     

Large scale communication networks—Design and analysis

The paper discusses the problem of design and analysis of large scale communication systems. An iterative process, composed of a minimum cost network design algorithm and a network performance algorithm, is presented for the solution of these problems. Computational considerations, using these algorithms, are discussed.     

基于混合蚁群算法的生产系统设施规划问题研究

设施规划问题主要研究生产设备的布局规划,从而减小厂区内的物料搬运成本。一个有效的设施规划有利于生产过程中整体运作效率的提高。随着市场竞争的日趋激烈,市场环境处于不断的变化之中,制造企业需不断对设施布局进行重新规划来适应不断变化的市场环境对产品需求量的影响,并达到降低成本的目的。这一问题便需要用多阶段设施规划（MFLP）的方法来解决。本文提出了一种改进的混和蚁群算法（HACO）来解决带有财务预算约束的多阶段设施规划问题,并将此方法与其他一些典型的启发式算法进行了对比分析。结果表明,本文提出的HACO算法是求解带有财务预算约束的MFLP问题的一种有效的方法。     

基于参数法的中国商业银行规模经济研究与实证

本文依据参数法理论,在平均超越对数成本函数的基础上,应用相似非相关法(ISUR)评价了中国商业银行的规模经济情况,并与随即前沿法计算的银行规模经济结果做比较,验证了使用平均成本函数评价银行规模经济优于前沿成本函数的论断,确立了商业银行规模经济研究中的函数类型选取原则。本文融合了中介法和资产法的思想,建立了包括可贷资金、营业资本两项投入和存款、贷款、投资与证券总额三项产出的指标体系,解决了中介法难以反应银行多产出经营情况和资产法不能反应银行存款情况等两个问题。在确定的超越对数成本函数模型和投入产出指标体系基础上,本文结合真实的银行财务数据,实证研究了中国4家国有商业银行和10家股份制商业银行在1998-2003年的规模经济,揭示了两类商业银行的规模经济情况和变化趋势。实证研究结果显示:在样本年度间,中国商业银行改善规模经济情况的努力已见成效,各商业银行于2001年后均存在了规模经济;股份制商业银行规模经济平均水平高于国有商业银行;国有商业银行的规模经济状况呈现逐渐好转趋势;股份制商业银行规模经济控制良好,在2002年后规模经济情况出现了轻微的起伏,但仍好于国有商业银行。     

顾客满意度测量探讨：量表设计、信度和效度

针对消费者行为研究中,对顾客满意/不满意构念存在单维/双维的讨论,顾客满意度测量常常会得到左偏甚至严重左偏的结果,通过设计量表、收集数据、信度和效度检验以及结构方程模型分析等进行了充分讨论。研究发现:①把顾客满意和不满意当作同一维度的2个极端符合实际情况;②通过适当的量表设计可在一定程度上避免测量结果左偏,以及顾客满意和不满意测量之间存在非对称性。此外,对可靠并有效测量顾客满意度的方法提出改进建议;讨论了研究的实际意义和局限性。     

A low complexity semidefinite relaxation for large-scale MIMO detection

Many wireless communication problems is based on a convex relaxation of the maximum likelihood problem which further can be cast as binary quadratic programs (BQPs). The two standard relaxation methods that are widely used for solving general BQPs such as spectral methods and semidefinite programming problem (SDP), each have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is widely accepted that small and medium sized SDP problems can be solved efficiently by interior point methods. Albeit, semidefinite relaxation has a tighter bound for large scale problems, but its computational complexity is high. However, Row-by-Row method (RBR) for solving SDPs could be opted for an alternative for large-scale MIMO detection because of low complexity. The present work is a spectral SDP-cut formulation to which the RBR is applied for large-scale MIMO detection. A modified RBR algorithm with tighter bound is presented to specify the efficiency in detecting massive MIMO.     

Is Small Always Beautiful? A Dialogue

For quite a few years the two authors have been engaging in dialogues about management issues. Using as a model Plato's dialogues between Socrates and his various students, we have tried to clarify the nature of a concept by asking questions and thinking carefully about the answers. We disagree about many things, but agree that we respect each other's opinions, and can clarify our own viewpoints by debating them respectfully with another. For this dialogue, we decided to focus on the question of the scale of business operations. One of us has a particular preference for small scale enterprise, and for the localisation of the economy, because he believes that the giganticism of corporations is behind many of the problems we face today. As you will see, the other protagonist disagrees, arguing instead that other issues than scale are at the root of why some businesses do bad things.     

Shiftwork locus of control: Scale development

Shiftwork is a significant feature of occupational life for many people. It can have disruptive effects on sleep, health, social activity and performance. It is likely that beliefs about personal control will influence the individual-shiftwork relationship. This paper has two aims; first, to put forward the thesis that shiftwork-specific personal control expectancies may moderate the disruptive impact of shiftwork, and second, to report the development and preliminary validation of a shiftwork-specific locus of control scale. The scale demonstrated satisfactory psychominary qualities in terms of factor structure, internal reliability, construct validity and test-retest reliability. Variables associated with better coping with shiftwork such as alertness, flexibility of sleeping habits and the structured use of time correlated positively with shiftwork locus of control. In contrast, shiftwork locus of control was found to be inversely related to shiftwork problems such as sleep disturbance, poor mental well-being and work stress.     

Computational results for very large air crew scheduling problems

The airline crew scheduling problem is typically formulated as a set covering problem. The Federal Express Corporation has recently implemented a heuristic crew scheduling system based on this model. The system has been implemented on an IBM 3033 computer. Computational results are presented for crew scheduling problems with up to 3000 rows and 15,000 columns. Results of operational quality are obtained in less than one hour of computer time. This model provides a prototype for a wide variety of large scale crew scheduling applications.     

Strategic planning for water—A case history

Choosing a management policy in a developing economy for public utility systems involves consideration of a host of factors and delineation of some strategic issues. In order to make the management policy operational, a formal approach to system planning is necessary. This paper develops an approach whose primary aim is to assess the current status of the system and the environment, to identify and categorize the management problems, and then to break up the problems into manageable components to find out appropriate solution strategies. It is hoped that such an approach will jointly clarify the perceptions of how management techniques can be gainfully used and practised in managing large scale public utility systems.     

Approximation algorithms for hard variants of the stable marriage and hospitals/residents problems

When ties and incomplete preference lists are permitted in the Stable Marriage and Hospitals/Residents problems, stable matchings can have different sizes. The problem of finding a maximum cardinality stable matching in this context is known to be NP-hard, even under very severe restrictions on the number, size and position of ties. In this paper, we describe polynomial-time 5/3-approximation algorithms for variants of these problems in which ties are on one side only and at the end of the preference lists. The particular variant is motivated by important applications in large scale centralised matching schemes. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proceedings of COCOON 2007, LNCS, vol. 4598, pp. 548–558. This work was supported by EPSRC grant EP/E011993/1.     

Shiftwork locus of control: Scale development

Abstract

Shiftwork is a significant feature of occupational life for many people. It can have disruptive effects on sleep, health, social activity and performance. It is likely that beliefs about personal control will influence the individual-shiftwork relationship. This paper has two aims; first, to put forward the thesis that shiftwork-specific personal control expectancies may moderate the disruptive impact of shiftwork, and second, to report the development and preliminary validation of a shiftwork-specific locus of control scale. The scale demonstrated satisfactory psychominary qualities in terms of factor structure, internal reliability, construct validity and test-retest reliability. Variables associated with better coping with shiftwork such as alertness, flexibility of sleeping habits and the structured use of time correlated positively with shiftwork locus of control. In contrast, shiftwork locus of control was found to be inversely related to shiftwork problems such as sleep disturbance, poor mental well-being and work stress.     

基于犹豫直觉模糊语言集均值-标准差偏好距离的多属性决策研究

在犹豫直觉模糊语言集和语言尺度函数的基础上定义了均值-标准差偏好的Hamming距离，并提出了基于犹豫直觉模糊语言集距离TOPSIS和TODIM的多属性决策方法，进一步利用这两种方法对实例问题建筑商的招标方案进行排序，并讨论了偏好参数对排序结果的灵敏度分析。为验证上述方法的有效性，与已有方法对同一实例的排序结果进行了比较分析。     

基于模糊理论的R&D员工创新绩效评价模型

针对员工绩效评价模型中存在的忽视基础条件、衡量绝对绩效、缺乏相对标准、过分关注短期绩效等问题,依据创新本身特征与R&D员工绩效的特点,设计了能够有效反映企业R&D员工努力程度与潜力水平的创新绩效评价指标体系。将创新绩效作为评价主体,构建了基于模糊理论的能够客观综合度量R&D员工创新绩效的评价模型。将模型应用于某大型制造企业300名R&D员工的样本中,综合评价出每一名员工的努力指数、潜力指数、优秀程度与不良程度,作为企业全面评价R&D员工绩效的基础数据。     

Multi-time scale Markov decision process approach to strategic network growth of reverse supply chains

This paper addresses a complex set of decisions that surround the growth over time of reverse supply chain networks that collect used products for reuse, refurbishment, and/or recycling by processors. The collection network growth problem is decomposed into strategic, tactical and operational problems. This paper focuses on the strategic problem which is to determine how to allocate capital budget resource effectively to grow the network to meet long term collection targets and collection cost constraints. We model the strategic problem as a Markov decision process which can also be posed as multi-time scale Markov decision problem. The recruitment problem in a tactical level appears as a sub-problem for the strategic model. Using dynamic programming, linear programming and Q-Learning approaches, an heuristic is implemented to solve realistically sized problems. A numerical study demonstrates that the heuristic can obtain a good solution for the large-scale problem in reasonable time which is not possible when trying to obtain the optimal solution with the exact DP approach.     

Combining analytical hierarchy process and Choquet integral within non-additive robust ordinal regression

We consider multiple criteria decision aiding in the case of interaction between criteria. In this case the usual weighted sum cannot be used to aggregate evaluations on different criteria and other value functions with a more complex formulation have to be considered. The Choquet integral is the most used technique and also the most widespread in the literature. However, the application of the Choquet integral presents two main problems being the necessity to determine the capacity, which is the function that assigns a weight not only to all single criteria but also to all subset of criteria, and the necessity to express on the same scale evaluations on different criteria. While with respect to the first problem we adopt the recently introduced Non-Additive Robust Ordinal Regression (NAROR) taking into account all the capacities compatible with the preference information provided by the DM, with respect to the second one we build the common scale for the considered criteria using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). We propose to use AHP on a set of reference points in the scale of each criterion and to use an interpolation to obtain the other values. This permits to reduce considerably the number of pairwise comparisons usually required by the DM when applying AHP. An illustrative example details the application of the proposed methodology.     

基于小波分析的多期夏普比率及实证研究

用风险价值代替标准差作为夏普比率中投资组合风险的度量,并应用修正的VaR计算方法解决收益率序列非正态分布时的风险度量问题.进一步地将小波分析引入夏普比率,利用小波函数的尺度变化与不同的投资期限相时应,建立了基于小波分析的多期夏普比率评价模型,并以我国经济背景为依托,选择上证八只封闭式基金进行研究.结果表明,把小波分析引入夏普比率可以解决投资组合业绩的多期评价问题.     

Market‐Implied Spread for Earthquake CAT Bonds: Financial Implications of Engineering Decisions

In the event of natural and man‐made disasters, owners of large‐scale infrastructure facilities (assets) need contingency plans to effectively restore the operations within the acceptable timescales. Traditionally, the insurance sector provides the coverage against potential losses. However, there are many problems associated with this traditional approach to risk transfer including counterparty risk and litigation. Recently, a number of innovative risk mitigation methods, termed alternative risk transfer (ART) methods, have been introduced to address these problems. One of the most important ART methods is catastrophe (CAT) bonds. The objective of this article is to develop an integrative model that links engineering design parameters with financial indicators including spread and bond rating. The developed framework is based on a four‐step structural loss model and transformed survival model to determine expected excess returns. We illustrate the framework for a seismically designed bridge using two unique CAT bond contracts. The results show a nonlinear relationship between engineering design parameters and market‐implied spread.