Towards an Objective Classification Scheme for Organizational Task Environments

This study replicates, refines, cross-validates and simplifies a scheme of operationalization and measurement of environmental dimensions proposed by Dess and Beard (1984). Employing a sample of 60 industries and data over a 16-year period, this study found considerable support for the viability of the three dimensions of munificence, dynamism and complexity. The data intensive and computationally complex operationalization scheme was simplified using a discriminant analysis approach and the discriminant functions were cross-validated using an alternate data set.     

Expenditure Differences of University Degree Holders Across Occupational Sectors in Malaysia

This study was motivated by the key role university degree holders play in Malaysia's vision for the future and by concerns expressed about the drift of university degree holders from one sector to another. A questionnaire was mailed to a sample of 400 Malaysian families that had at least one member who held a university degree. The objective was to elicit details of the household economic situation of respondents, with special reference to the differences in expenditure patterns between families whose degree holder worked in higher education, government, or the private sector.Results of tobit analysis of expenditures show that there are some differences between the sectors regarding expenditure patterns, but the differences are not as great as expected. Nevertheless, university-educated persons in the private sector seem to have somewhat different expenditure patterns than their counterparts in other sectors.     

中沙关系回顾与展望

中国和沙特政治制度不同,但两国发展积极友好的关系没有障碍。目前,沙特是中国在西亚和非洲最大的贸易伙伴,两国经贸合作前景广阔。同时,中沙双方均奉行独立自主的外交政策,拥有良好的政治关系,未来在区域组织和联合国等国际舞台上将有更广泛的合作领域。     

The purpose in life and academic behaviour of problem students in Bangladesh

This study was conducted with a group of 30 problem students who have been identified as irregular in class attendence, non-attentive to class lectures, creating disturbances in the class, etc. The problem students were compared with a group of equal number of normal students with respect to a Purpose in Life (PIL) scale. It was found that the problem students had lower scores (M=59.87, SD=18.09) as compared to those of normals (M=87.93, SD=0.68). These scores differed significantly (t=7.230). From this study it was concluded that the problem students demonstrated such activities due to a lack of purpose in their lives, although it was granted that some causality probably runs in both directions. It is hypothesised that counseling may be helpful in order to improve such behaviour.     

Selecting a Good Stochastic System for the Large Number of Alternatives

In this article, we present the problem of selecting a good stochastic system with high probability and minimum total simulation cost when the number of alternatives is very large. We propose a sequential approach that starts with the Ordinal Optimization procedure to select a subset that overlaps with the set of the actual best m% systems with high probability. Then we use Optimal Computing Budget Allocation to allocate the available computing budget in a way that maximizes the Probability of Correct Selection. This is followed by a Subset Selection procedure to get a smaller subset that contains the best system among the subset that is selected before. Finally, the Indifference-Zone procedure is used to select the best system among the survivors in the previous stage. The numerical test involved with all these procedures shows the results for selecting a good stochastic system with high probability and a minimum number of simulation samples, when the number of alternatives is large. The results also show that the proposed approach is able to identify a good system in a very short simulation time.     

An empirical study of the type I error rate and power for some selected normal-theory and nonparametric tests of the independence of two sets of variables

Normal-theory tests of the hypothesis of no relationship among two sets of variables require assumptions of independence, hamoscedasticity, and normality. If, however, the assumption of normality is not tenable, there are few guidelines for properly using these tests. Historically, the lack of a comprehensive hypothesis-testing framework in the nonparametric case has provided few alternatives to normal-theory procedures. Fortunately, this situation has changed with the introduction of nonparametric, general linear model-based tests that can be used with existing computing packages. Multivariate-nonparametric tests due to Puri and Sen (1969, 1971, 1985) and Conover and Iman (1981) are outlined, and the results of a simulation study of the performance of three nonparametric and one normal-theory test of the hypothesis of no relationship among two sets of variables are presented. These results suggest that multivariate-nonparametric tests should be considered for a variety of data conditions. especially heavy-tailed and badly skewed data for small samples and a large number of variates.     

Using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to Predict Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties on Positive and Negative Affect Among Adolescents in Disadvantaged Communities

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to predict the positive and negative affects of emotional and behavioral difficulties among adolescent boys and girls aged between 14 and 21 years living in disadvantaged communities. A total of 316 adolescents—181 boys and 135 girls—living in the Seri Pantai and Pantai Ria Public Housing Projects in Kuala Lumpur were invited to complete the questionnaire. The results showed that conduct and peer problems were the most prevalent emotional and behavioral difficulties experienced by these adolescents. As expected, the emotional symptoms were more common among the girls than the boys. A further analysis showed that emotional symptoms, peer problems, and low prosocial behavior were predictors of the negative affect of emotional and behavioral difficulties while negative emotional symptoms and high hyperactivity were predictors of a positive affect. The findings suggested that three subscales of SDQ are required to produce a negative affect, and two subscales of SDQ for a positive affect.     

A new double sampling control chart for monitoring process mean using auxiliary information

Statistical quality control charts have been widely accepted as a potentially powerful process monitoring tool because of their excellent speed in tracking shifts in the underlying process parameter(s). In recent studies, auxiliary-information-based (AIB) control charts have shown superior run length performances than those constructed without using it. In this paper, a new double sampling (DS) control chart is constructed whose plotting-statistics requires information on the study variable and on any correlated auxiliary variable for efficiently monitoring the process mean, namely AIB DS chart. The AIB DS chart also encompasses the classical DS chart. We discuss in detail the construction, optimal design, run length profiles, and the performance evaluations of the proposed chart. It turns out that the AIB DS chart performs uniformly better than the DS chart when detecting different kinds of shifts in the process mean. It is also more sensitive than the classical synthetic and AIB synthetic charts when detecting a particular shift in the process mean. Moreover, with some realistic beliefs, the proposed chart outperforms the exponentially weighted moving average chart. An illustrative example is also presented to explain the working and implementation of the proposed chart.     

Maternal,prenatal and traditional practice factors associated with perinatal mortality in Yemen

Background

Perinatal mortality remains a major international problem responsible for nearly six million stillbirths and neonatal deaths.