Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Evaluation of Domain Importance Weighting in Quality of Life Measurements

This paper examined major inconsistencies between claims made and the evidence presented in recent studies on evaluating the role of domain importance weighting in quality of life (QoL) measures. Three inconsistencies were discussed and they were: (1) treating the failure to support a particular importance weighting function as the evidence of uncovering no importance weighting necessary at all, (2) considering domain importance weighting and multiplicative scores synonymous, and (3) extending findings with a within-domain focus to an across-domain focus. Overlooking these inconsistencies may lead to an overgeneralization of study findings, which would likely result in premature or even erroneous conclusions. Caution must be given in interpreting study results in order to avoid overgeneralization which limits our understanding of the true role that domain importance weighting may play in QoL measures.     

On estimating the mean of the selected population with unknown variance

This paper compares four estimators of the mean of the selected population from two normal populations with unknown means and common but unknown variance. The selection procedure is that the population yielding the largest sample mean is selected. The four estimators considered are invariant under both location and scale transformations. The bias and mean square errors of the four estimators are computed and compared. The conclusions are close to those reported by Dahiya ‘1974’, even for small sample sizes     

Importance is Not Unimportant: The Role of Importance Weighting in QOL Measures

The effect of relative domain importance as a weighting mechanism in quality of life (QoL) measures has been a topic of debate for decades. Studies investigating the role of domain importance in QoL measures have produced mixed results. The mixed results may very well be the consequences of a limited choice of global satisfaction or QoL measures, measurements of domain satisfaction, measurements of domain importance and weighting approaches applied to date. This study investigated the effect of importance weighting without assigning any arbitrary weighting function of domain importance. A cluster analysis was first used to classify individuals into groups, based on their perceived importance of various life domains, and then the relationship between global life satisfaction measure and the composite of domain satisfaction scores between these groups was compared. Results of this study showed that the relationship between global life satisfaction and composite of satisfaction scores did not remain consistent for respondents with different importance rankings of major life domains, which suggested an important effect of domain importance in QoL measures.     

The relationship among interactive justice,leader–member exchange,and workplace friendship

Workplace friendship is an important issue in business. Despite its predominance within the management field, there are several unaddressed issues. This study examines the relationship among interactive justice, leader–member exchange, and workplace friendship. Based on data collected from 309 full-time Taiwanese employees, results indicate that interactive justice is positively associated with workplace friendship. Leader–member exchange mediates such relationships. Therefore, as far as the manager is concerned, interactive justice is an effective factor for promoting workplace friendship and the mediating effect of leader–member exchange cannot be neglected.     

Fault-free mutually independent Hamiltonian cycles in hypercubes with faulty edges

Two Hamiltonian paths are said to be fully independent if the ith vertices of both paths are distinct for all i between 1 and n, where n is the number of vertices of the given graph. Hamiltonian paths in a set are said to be mutually fully independent if two arbitrary Hamiltonian paths in the set are fully independent. On the other hand, two Hamiltonian cycles are independent starting at v if both cycles start at a common vertex v and the ith vertices of both cycles are distinct for all i between 2 and n. Hamiltonian cycles in a set are said to be mutually independent starting at v if any two different cycles in the set are independent starting at v. The n-dimensional hypercube is widely used as the architecture for parallel machines. In this paper, we study its fault-tolerant property and show that an n-dimensional hypercube with at most n−2 faulty edges can embed a set of fault-free mutually fully independent Hamiltonian paths between two adjacent vertices, and can embed a set of fault-free mutually independent Hamiltonian cycles starting at a given vertex. The number of tolerable faulty edges is optimal with respect to a worst case. An extended abstract of this paper appeared in Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Innovative Computing, Information and Control (ICICIC), pp. 288–292, IEEE Computer Society Press.     

从"论述分析"理论探讨法律语言的性质和地位

本文第一部分重点讨论从人类学起家的“法律论述”理论描述法律语言在诸多场合与情境(例如法庭上律师对法官、律师对当事人和证人、法律文件的起草和撰写等)的实际应用。第二部分则兼顾前述的社会语言学与法律论述理论,慎重检视和检讨时下法律语言的性质和地位。最后,则针对法律语言的现况,如何在社会语言学、法律论述和民族志等相关领域飞速发展的情况下,配合、因应和进行完善,提出有建设性的改进之道的结论与建议。     

Female Employment and Reproductive Behavior in Taiwan, 1980

The impact of female employment on fertility preferences and behavior is examined with data from a 1980 national sample of Taiwanese women. The guiding hypothesis is that the greater the involvement of women in the impersonal market sector, the lower the fertility preferences, the longer the first birth interval, and the lower the actual fertility. Findings reveal that female employment in Taiwan is only weakly related to reproductive behavior. Even with increased participation of women in the modern market sector, female employment apparently has little impact on fertility preferences or behavior. Implications are drawn for policies aimed at lowering fertility.     

Risk perception and smoking behavior: Empirical evidence from Taiwan

This article uses survey data obtained from Taiwan to investigate consumer perceptions of smoking risks and the linkage of these perceptions to smoking behavior. In our analysis, two equations are estimated: (1) risk perception, and (2) smoking probability. The simultaneity problem in estimating risk perception and smoking probability is also considered. Overall, the results indicate that the risk perceptions of cigarette smoking are substantially overestimated and that these risk perceptions in turn, have a significantly negative effect on smoking probability. Also, the results suggest that the determinants of risk perception are consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian learning framework.     

Perceived Importance of Service Elements in Client Satisfaction Measures

ABSTRACT

Many evaluators or service providers develop their own client satisfaction measures using satisfaction rating items representing service elements specific to the service settings. Global satisfaction scores are then produced by summing these item scores while assuming an equal contribution of all items. One approach to overcome evidence against this assumption is importance weighting, which is achieved by considering both item satisfaction and item importance in measuring overall satisfaction. Unfortunately, the adequacy of importance weighting in client satisfaction measures is not well understood. This study assessed the adequacy of importance weighting. Analyzing data from a previous client satisfaction survey with 110 older adults, the current study found that the relationship between global client satisfaction and the sum of satisfaction scores across service elements was dependent upon the patterns of respondents’ perceived importance of service elements. These results provide support for importance weighting and suggest the need for incorporating perceived importance of service elements in measuring overall client satisfaction.