Empirical bayes rules for selecting good populations

A problem of selecting populations better than a control is considered. When the populations are uniformly distributed, empirical Bayes rules are derived for a linear loss function for both the known control parameter and the unknown control parameter cases. When the priors are assumed to have bounded supports, empirical Bayes rules for selecting good populations are derived for distributions with truncation parameters (i.e. the form of the pdf is f(x|θ)= p_i(x)c_i(θ)I_{(0, θ)}(x)). Monte Carlo studies are carried out which determine the minimum sample sizes needed to make the relative errors less than ε for given ε-values.     

Modeling knowledge sharing and team performance in technology industry: the main and moderating effects of happiness

Review of Managerial Science - This study complements previous literature by bridging activity theory and the broaden-and-build theory to examine how happiness (as an intrinsic driver) and...     

Political Feasibility Analysis of the New Financing Scheme for the National Health Insurance Reform in Taiwan: An Application of Stakeholder Analysis

This study carries out in‐depth political feasibility analysis of the prospective health financing reform currently taking place in Taiwan. The National Health Insurance (NHI) Program, which was established in Taiwan in 1995, covers virtually all of the island's citizens. Between the years 2001 and 2004, the Taiwanese Government organized a taskforce to carry out the wholesale reform of the NHI program into the so‐called ‘Second Generation NHI Program’. This study is part of the comprehensive review, focusing on the preferences and positions of key policy stakeholders with regard to the financial reform proposals, as well as their network relationships. The approach of stakeholder analysis was employed to conduct this empirical study. The results reveal that the new financing scheme has a certain degree of support from the policy stakeholders participating in this study, and that in particular, the measures concerning equity and sustainability were most welcome. However, controversy remains with regard to the issue of the equitable sharing of contributions. It is clear that there is much strong support for the new scheme amongst the administrative and legislative elite, although the same level of support is not evident amongst the social elite affiliated with employees' associations and welfare groups.     

Estimation of nonlinear errors-in-variables models: an approximate solution

We propose an easy to derive and simple to compute approximate least squares or maximum likelihood estimator for nonlinear errors-in-variables models that does not require the knowledge of the conditional density of the latent variables given the observables. Specific examples and Monte Carlo studies demonstrate that the bias of this approximate estimator is small even when the magnitude of the variance of measurement errors to the variance of measured covariates is large. Cheng Hsiao and Qing Wang's work was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant SeS91-22481 and SBR94-09540. Liqun Wang gratefully acknowledges the financial support from Swiss National Science Foundation. We wish to thank Professor H. Schneeweiss and a referee for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Probabilistic Selling,Channel Structure,and Supplier Competition*

Probabilistic selling has recently been introduced to facilitate consumer segmentation. It allows the retailer to mix products from multiple competing suppliers to generate a probabilistic good. The probabilistic good effectively creates consumer differentiation, and its presence invites extensive interactions among channel participants. In this article, we show that the equilibrium channel structure may be asymmetric: one supplier retains his brand‐name product and the other one delegates to the retailer. We further show that this asymmetric equilibrium can be mutually beneficial for all firms compared with other equilibria. In addition, the introduction of the probabilistic good is beneficial to the channel members.     

案例式教学方法在博弈理论课程中的应用探讨

应用型高校办学目标为培养应用型人才,博弈理论运用传统的教学方式已无法满足此目标,因此必须进行教学改革.加强应用型指标,应以社会对应用才人的专业结构、能力需求作为博弈理论教学改革的重点.新的案例式教学方法,更具有针对性、实用性和有效性,使博弈理论教学契合于应用型目标,满足经济社会发展的需求.     

Benefits and limitations of panel data

Observations for a number of cross-sectional units over time have become increasingly available. The new data sources enable econometricians to construct and test more complicated behavioral models than a single cross sectional or time series data set would allow. The availability of new data sources, however, also raises new issues. In this paper we review some basic econo- metric methods that have been used to analyze such data sets. We also indicate areas of research where panel data may be useful.     

Job‐related stress,social support,and work–family conflict among Mexican workers in a multinational company: A case study of a Korean‐owned,US‐branded former “sweatshop” in Mexico

Due to globalization and outsourcing of commodity production, an estimated 60 million workers are employed in the garment industry by multinational corporations, yet relatively little is known about the work–family tensions experienced by these workers. Building on role stress and job demands–resources theories, this study employed mixed methods to examine job stressors, support, and work–family conflict (WFC) in a sample of 168 Mexican workers in a multinational factory, a rarely studied and underserved population. As hypothesized, results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that workers experienced high job stress and WFC. Social support from spouses, family, and friends increased the positive association between job stress and WFC, suggesting that culturally relevant obligations increased WFC. This study highlights the need for multinational corporations to implement culturally adaptive, family‐friendly policies. Implications for social workers in multinational work organizations and for future research are discussed.     

新自由主义全球化对“医疗化”的形构

“医疗化”与新自由主义全球化之间有怎样的关联?国内外社会学界对此尚缺乏系统的分析。本文以物质力量、制度、观念为分析框架,探讨新自由主义如何加剧并转变全球的“医疗化”状况。在物质上,产、官、学复合体网络的多方利益形成有力的市场力量,从而促成医疗化;在制度上,则是由于药品之国际专利权的制定与各国导致医疗化的政策;在观念上,某些压力团体因为要强化“竞争力”而推动某种服药的观念、个人自主健康管理的盛行、风险恐慌的论述普遍化及另类医疗的兴起等氛围都加剧了“医疗化”。 即便有反新自由主义的力量,但医疗的供给面与需求面均被牵涉到因商品化可获利的普遍利益中,因而新自由主义的结构性力量仍难以撼动,从而使医疗化加剧。     

An alternative phase II/III design for continuous endpoints

The success rate of drug development has been declined dramatically in recent years and the current paradigm of drug development is no longer functioning. It requires a major undertaking on breakthrough strategies and methodology for designs to minimize sample sizes and to shorten duration of the development. We propose an alternative phase II/III design based on continuous efficacy endpoints, which consists of two stages: a selection stage and a confirmation stage. For the selection stage, a randomized parallel design with several doses with a placebo group is employed for selection of doses. After the best dose is chosen, the patients of the selected dose group and placebo group continue to enter the confirmation stage. New patients will also be recruited and randomized to receive the selected dose or placebo group. The final analysis is performed with the cumulative data of patients from both stages. With the pre‐specified probabilities of rejecting the drug at each stage, sample sizes and critical values for both stages can be determined. As it is a single trial with controlling overall type I and II error rates, the proposed phase II/III adaptive design may not only reduce the sample size but also improve the success rate. An example illustrates the applications of the proposed phase II/III adaptive design. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.