Measurement of non-randomness in spatial distributions

Summary The measurement of departure from randomness in spatial distributions has widespread application in ecological work. Several “indices of non-randomness” are compared with regard to their dependence on sample number, sample size and density. Criteria for the best choice of index for specific situations are discussed. A new coefficientC _x is proposed for use with positively contagious distributions and tests of significance are given. WhenC _x and another index (S ²/m−1) are used for positive and negative contagion respectively, values ranging from −1 through 0 (random) to +1 are obtained, regardless of sample number, sample size or density.     

Simplicity and complexity in the effects of parental structure on high school graduation

As more and more children experience nonintact families because of nonmarital birth or parental marital disruption, researchers have paid more attention to whether nonintact family experiences have negative effects on later life. This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to consider how experiences of parental structure affect chances of high school graduation. The study shows that the negative effects of parental structure are simpler than theoretical notions might suggest.     

Evidence bearing on the construct validity of "ideal family size"

George Gallup polled "ideal family size" in 1936 and introduced a concept which subsequently appeared in many polls and fertility surveys. Previous research shows that ideal is a poor measure of respondent's personal fertility plans or behavior and that among researchers there is little agreement about what ideal family size does measure, if anything. Construct validity analysis based on historical, trend, and cross-sectional data suggests that the late 1960s saw ideal politicized as preoccupation with the "population problem" grew. Ideal family size is now appropriately regarded as a measure of a societal pronatalist norm and not merely a projected fertility preference.A version of this paper was presented at the meetings of the Society for Applied Anthropology, Merida, Mexico, 5 April 1978. Data on ideal family size from Blake (1974) are used with permission of the editors ofDemography. Other data come from the 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies co-directed by N.B. Ryder and C.F. Westoff (under contract No. PH-43-65-1048 with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development).     

End-to-end process management: implications for theory and practice

The term ‘end-to-end’ process management is now commonplace in the language and practice of operations. Managers are encouraged to migrate from functional process management to end-to-end process management to realise a range of performance improvements. However, these improvements are often elusive; the specific challenges associated with such a migration are under-researched. This paper uses a cross-sector study to identify the challenges of end-to-end process management and to generate practical managerial guidance. Three areas are identified that demand particular managerial attention: the need to move beyond process mapping, the role of IT in process management and maintaining the process infrastructure as a strategic asset. More significantly, the findings highlight the need for greater conceptual clarity regarding the end-to-end concept itself. The existing literature suggests that scope is the primary differentiator of the end-to-end process – the requirement to manage an extended boundary from customer order through to customer fulfilment. However, this research suggests that the end-to-end concept is more complex, comprising of three core constructs with seven dimensions: scope (boundary conditions, sequence/flow and controls); scale (resources and input/output transformation) and complexity (interrelationships and orientation). End-to-end process management involves much more than an extended boundary. It requires a systemic perspective and clarity regarding controls and transforming resources.     

Ranked Items Auctions and Online Advertisement

We study auctions for a set of commonly‐ranked items where each buyer has unit demand. This setting has promising applications in areas such as keyword auctions in the search engine advertising industry, the sale of quality‐ranked raw materials, etc. An auction mechanism suitable for this setting is the simultaneous pooled auction (SPA), where each bidder simultaneously submits a single bid and is allocated an object based on the rank of his bid among all the bids. We study how to improve the seller's expected revenue by enforcing a reserve price in an SPA. We find that the use of an appropriate reserve price may significantly increase the seller's revenue, especially when the number of items for sale is relatively large compared to the number of participating bidders. One inherent problem in the SPA is that some bidders may incur ex post losses; that is, they pay more than what they value the received objects. We propose a tailored VCG mechanism that generates the same expected revenue as the SPA does, while bidders do not incur any ex post loss. We also discuss the potential applications of this research to keyword auctions.     

On the relationship between Spearman's rho and Kendall's tau for pairs of continuous random variables

It has long been known that for many joint distributions exhibiting weak dependence, the sample value of Spearman's rho is about 50% larger than the sample value of Kendall's tau. We explain this behavior by showing that for the population analogs of these statistics, the ratio of rho to tau approaches 3/2$3/2$ as the joint distribution approaches that of two independent random variables. We also find sufficient conditions for determining the direction of the inequality between three times tau and twice rho when the underlying joint distribution is absolutely continuous.     

Motivational Enhancement Counseling Strategies in Delivering a Telephone-Based Brief HIV Prevention Intervention

Motivational enhancement therapy (MET) interventions are being increasingly added to the menu of behavioral interventions for HIV prevention. They present few logistical and psychological barriers for at-risk persons who are ambivalent about transmission risk reduction and appear to offer promise of being transferable to community based organizations and public health programs. We describe the principles of motivational interviewing, a counseling style often used in conjunction with MET, and demonstrate and discuss its application with case examples drawn from a recent pilot trial of a telephone-delivered brief motivational enhancement for HIV risk reduction with men who have sex with men (MSM).     

儒家式的民主主义

有关“儒家民主”讨论不是一种乌托邦思想的发挥。通过借助于美国实用主义大师杜威的眼光及其关于人类社群的思想对中国“逝者和民主”考察,可发现中国更接近杜威的社群主义民主理想,在未来东西文化的交往过程中,很有可能是中国的影响使得美国与其他北大西洋民主国家益发接近杜威的民主观。我们希望来自将来对话的中西价值和信仰的结合将成为中国的儒学及西方的实用主义这两者的组成部分。     

A Path Analytic Model of a Theory of Quality Management Underlying the Deming Management Method: Preliminary Empirical Findings*

Despite the impact that Deming and his 14 Points have had on the practice of quality management, empirical support for the effectiveness of the Deming Management Method has not advanced beyond the presentation of anecdotal, case-study evidence. In part, this is because theory to guide the conduct of empirical research has not been available. Only recently has such a theory of quality management to describe and explain the effectiveness of the Deming Management Method been articulated in the literature. This paper continues the journey of theory development; it reports the results of an exploratory empirical analysis of an articulated theory of quality management underlying the Deming Management Method. The constructs in the proposed theory are operationalized using measurement statements developed by the World-Class Manufacturing research project team at the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University. Path analysis is applied to the World-Class Manufacturing project data to explore the empirical strength of relationships advanced in the theory. The path analytic results provide support for several of the proposed relationships in the theory, and more importantly, suggest a number of new relationships which have not heretofore been proposed.     

The Effects of Personality Type on Choices Made in Strategic Decision Situations*

Jung's personality-theory typology is used as a framework for exploring the effects of cognitive style on the type and radicalness of choices made in strategic decision situations. Extending the work of Haley and Stumpf [23], it is proposed that individuals with different personality-type preferences exhibit cognitive styles that are associated with specific biases in the pattern of choices they make. Through participation in an interactive behavioral simulation, 407 participants confronted over one hundred ill-structured decision situations and proposed whatever actions they perceived appropriate. The results support the hypothesized relationships that individuals with different personality-type preferences (i.e., sensing-thinking, intuition-thinking, sensing-feeling, and intuition-feeling) take patterns of actions that reflect specific biases (i.e., selective perception, positivity, social desirability, and reasoning-by-analogy, respectively). The implications of these findings for evaluating the likely effectiveness of strategic decisions and making senior-level staffing decisions are discussed.