Knowledge and correlates of osteoporosis: a comparison of Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Arab women

The present study examined levels and correlates of knowledge about osteoporosis among 176 Israeli-Jewish (mean age = 55) and 80 Israeli-Arab (mean age = 51) women. Levels of knowledge about the disease were low among all women, especially regarding some of the risk factors. Knowledge and awareness about the disease were especially deficient among Arab women. Younger age and lower education were the main vulnerability factors among Jewish women, and lower desire to seek information from the medical establishment, higher religiosity, and the lack of extended medical insurance among Arab women. Educational programs, geared to the needs and capabilities of the different ethnic populations, should be encouraged.     

Fitting Management Control Systems to Competitive Advantage

Recent publications suggest that existing management accounting and control systems prevent business unit managers realising their desired competitive advantage. Although the concept of competitive advantage has already been thoroughly discussed in strategy literature, it has not yet been integrated in the management accounting and management control frameworks. Only a limited number of researchers have concentrated on contingency research in this area. Contingency theory simply states that organization structure, process and management control systems are contingent upon various internal and external factors, such as industry, technology, size, culture and strategy (Anthony and Young, 1988; Anthony et al., 1992). This article is an attempt to identify and investigate the management control – strategy relationship. We report the results of our exploratory field research in 18 companies (32 business units). Based on our results, we formulate some hypotheses on the observed characteristics of the management control process in case of low-cost strategy, differentiation strategy in a standard product environment and differentiation strategy for customized products (make to order, engineer to order).     

Forecasting the business cycle in an uncertain environment

In an era of constant and growing uncertainty, short or long-term planning becomes increasingly difficult. To cope with this uncertainty planners attempt to compensate with more rapid information systems and early warning systems, provided by prediction models and business and consumer surveys. The author assesses the value of the qualitative as opposed to the quantitative data contained in business surveys and its significance as an indicator of the business climate.     

Behavioral patterns and reduction of sub-optimality: an experimental choice analysis

This paper attempts to identify behavioral patterns and compare their average success considering several criteria of bounded rationality. Experimentally observed choice behavior in various decision tasks is used to assess heterogeneity in how individual participants respond to 15 randomly ordered portfolio choices, each of which is experienced twice. Treatments differ in (not) granting probability information and in (not) eliciting aspirations. Since in our setting neither other regarding concerns nor risk attitude matter and probability of the binary chance move is (optimal) choice irrelevant, categorizing decision types relies on parameter dependence and choice adaptations. We find that most participants reduce systematically sub-optimality when following the identified criteria.     

Privatization of government services: Pressure-group resistance and service transparency

Even when efficiency gains can be expected from contracting out municipal services, it surprisingly rarely occurs. Political pressure by interest groups, especially unions, is usually assumed responsible. We argue that the effectiveness of such pressure is actually a function of a service’s “transparency,” which determines voter’s knowledge of the quality and cost of the service as well as the tax burden. A model is presented of the interplay between union opposition to contracting and service transparency. Policies are offered to increase transparency and make contracting optimal for governments.     

Stationary distributions for a class of Markov-modulated tandem fluid queues

ABSTRACT

We consider a model consisting of two fluid queues driven by the same background continuous-time Markov chain, such that the rates of change of the fluid in the second queue depend on whether the first queue is empty or not: when the first queue is nonempty, the content of the second queue increases, and when the first queue is empty, the content of the second queue decreases.

We analyze the stationary distribution of this tandem model using operator-analytic methods. The various densities (or Laplace–Stieltjes transforms thereof) and probability masses involved in this stationary distribution are expressed in terms of the stationary distribution of some embedded process. To find the latter from the (known) transition kernel, we propose a numerical procedure based on discretization and truncation. For some examples we show the method works well, although its performance is clearly affected by the quality of these approximations, both in terms of accuracy and run time.     

Sequential tests for non-proportional hazards data

In clinical trials survival endpoints are usually compared using the log-rank test. Sequential methods for the log-rank test and the Cox proportional hazards model are largely reported in the statistical literature. When the proportional hazards assumption is violated the hazard ratio is ill-defined and the power of the log-rank test depends on the distribution of the censoring times. The average hazard ratio was proposed as an alternative effect measure, which has a meaningful interpretation in the case of non-proportional hazards, and is equal to the hazard ratio, if the hazards are indeed proportional. In the present work we prove that the average hazard ratio based sequential test statistics are asymptotically multivariate normal with the independent increments property. This allows for the calculation of group-sequential boundaries using standard methods and existing software. The finite sample characteristics of the new method are examined in a simulation study in a proportional and a non-proportional hazards setting.     

Emotion Recognition in Nonverbal Face-to-Face Communication

The perception of emotional facial expressions may activate corresponding facial muscles in the receiver, also referred to as facial mimicry. Facial mimicry is highly dependent on the context and type of facial expressions. While previous research almost exclusively investigated mimicry in response to pictures or videos of emotional expressions, studies with a real, face-to-face partner are still rare. Here we compared facial mimicry of angry, happy, and sad expressions and emotion recognition in a dyadic face-to-face setting. In sender-receiver dyads, we recorded facial electromyograms in parallel. Senders communicated to the receivers—with facial expressions only—the emotions felt during specific personal situations in the past, eliciting anger, happiness, or sadness. Receivers mostly mimicked happiness, to a lesser degree, sadness, and anger as the least mimicked emotion. In actor-partner interdependence models we showed that the receivers’ own facial activity influenced their ratings, which increased the agreement between the senders’ and receivers’ ratings for happiness, but not for angry and sad expressions. These results are in line with the Emotion Mimicry in Context View, holding that humans mimic happy expressions according to affiliative intentions. The mimicry of sad expressions is less intense, presumably because it signals empathy and might imply personal costs. Direct anger expressions are mimicked the least, possibly because anger communicates threat and aggression. Taken together, we show that incidental facial mimicry in a face-to-face setting is positively related to the recognition accuracy for non-stereotype happy expressions, supporting the functionality of facial mimicry.     

How to avoid concerns with the interpretation of two primary endpoints if significant superiority in one is sufficient for formal proof of efficacy

Formal proof of efficacy of a drug requires that in a prospective experiment, superiority over placebo, or either superiority or at least non-inferiority to an established standard, is demonstrated. Traditionally one primary endpoint is specified, but various diseases exist where treatment success needs to be based on the assessment of two primary endpoints. With co-primary endpoints, both need to be “significant” as a prerequisite to claim study success. Here, no adjustment of the study-wise type-1-error is needed, but sample size is often increased to maintain the pre-defined power. Studies that use an at-least-one concept have been proposed where study success is claimed if superiority for at least one of the endpoints is demonstrated. This is sometimes also called the dual primary endpoint concept, and an appropriate adjustment of the study-wise type-1-error is required. This concept is not covered in the European Guideline on multiplicity because study success can be claimed if one endpoint shows significant superiority, despite a possible deterioration in the other. In line with Röhmel's strategy, we discuss an alternative approach including non-inferiority hypotheses testing that avoids obvious contradictions to proper decision-making. This approach leads back to the co-primary endpoint assessment, and has the advantage that minimum requirements for endpoints can be modeled flexibly for several practical needs. Our simulations show that, if planning assumptions are correct, the proposed additional requirements improve interpretation with only a limited impact on power, that is, on sample size.     

Mode 4 trade in services: promoting temporary labour mobility via the trade détour?

A comprehensive process of the liberalisation of trade and capital flows notwithstanding, neoliberal globalisation has not been equally successful in freeing the international movement of labour. With the General Agreement on Trade in Services, (GATS), the WTO set up a novel legal framework within the domain of trade politics that includes the cross-border movement of natural persons to deliver services, labelled Mode 4, thus aiming at the promotion of temporary labour mobility. This article seeks to explain the emergence of Mode 4 and its subsequent development as the outcome of a particular politics of scale motivated by the interests of transnational capital as well as the strategic selectivity of specific institutional terrains. The result has been a compromise that restricts Mode 4 liberalisation to highly qualified personnel only.