Impact of extreme temperatures on the performance evaluation of China's work-related injury insurance system

With the influence of climate change resulting in more extreme days, a rise in the number of work-related injuries could be expected. The literature has addressed the performance evaluation of a work-related injury insurance (WII) system via a two-stage structure with input/output correlation as well as the impact of extreme temperatures under different scenarios. This article thus evaluates the performance of a system comprised of operational and service sub-systems under three scenarios of extreme temperatures and proposes a hybrid two-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with nondiscretionary variables for measuring integrated WII efficiency under the three scenarios. The results are as follows: (1) the poor performance of the operational and service sub-systems leads to the integrated WII system's low efficiency for 30 provinces in China during 2010–2019, except for Zhejiang, Hainan, and Qinghai. (2) Extreme temperatures must be considered when measuring WII efficiency and its stage efficiencies, or otherwise WII efficiency and operational efficiency will be underestimated in 19 provinces. (3) The negative impacts of extreme temperatures on the efficiency of the integrated WII system should be taken notice of, especially for Sichuan.     

Channel coordination in supply chains with agents having mean-variance objectives

This paper investigates the issues of channel coordination in a supply chain when the individual supply chain decision makers take mean-variance (MV) objectives. We propose an MV formulation to capture the risk preference of each individual supply chain agent. Through the studies of a wholesale pricing policy, we find that the incorporation of risk concerns into the setting of supply chain coordinating policy is very important because it can substantially affect the achievability of channel coordination. It is also interesting to find that channel coordination depends on how big the net difference between the risk preferences of the supply chain coordinator and the retailer is. Thus, a slightly risk averse supply chain coordinator can successfully coordinate with a slightly risk prone retailer but not a very risk averse retailer. Numerical analyses are included and managerial insights are developed.     

Bent‐cable regression with autoregressive noise

Motivated by time series of atmospheric concentrations of certain pollutants the authors develop bent‐cable regression for autocorrelated errors. Bent‐cable regression extends the popular piecewise linear (broken‐stick) model, allowing for a smooth change region of any non‐negative width. Here the authors consider autoregressive noise added to a bent‐cable mean structure, with unknown regression and time series parameters. They develop asymptotic theory for conditional least‐squares estimation in a triangular array framework, wherein each segment of the bent cable contains an increasing number of observations while the autoregressive order remains constant as the sample size grows. They explore the theory in a simulation study, develop implementation details, apply the methodology to the motivating pollutant dataset, and provide a scientific interpretation of the bent‐cable change point not discussed previously. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 38: 386–407; 2010 © 2010 Statistical Society of Canada     

Two approaches to solving the multi-depot vehicle routing problem with time windows in a time-based logistics environment

This paper presents a two-phase heuristic method that can be used to efficiently solve the intractable multi-depot vehicle routing problem with time windows. The waiting time that was ignored by previous researchers is considered in this study. The necessity of this consideration is verified through an initial experiment. The results indicate that the waiting time has a significant impact on the total distribution time and the number of vehicles used when solving test problems with narrow time windows. In addition, to fairly evaluate the performance of the proposed heuristic method, a meta-heuristic method, which extends the unified tabu search of Cordeau et al., is proposed. The results of a second experiment reveal that the proposed heuristic method can obtain a better solution in the case of narrow time windows and a low capacity ratio, while the proposed meta-heuristic method outperforms the proposed heuristic method, provided that wide time windows and a high capacity ratio are assumed. Finally, a well-known logistics company in Taiwan is used to demonstrate the method, and a comparison is made, which shows that the proposed heuristic method is superior to the current method adopted by the case company.     

Leaving the Parental Home: Chinese Culture in an Urban Context

Leaving the parental home is increasingly treated as an essential stepping‐stone toward adulthood in the modern world. The authors argue that this is a cultural process regulated by social norms and institutional settings that vary from place to place. Hong Kong provides an excellent scenario in which Chinese traditions coexist with rapid economic development. Rather than looking at leaving the parental home as a developmental process, Chinese tradition tends to link it with filial obligations and gender status. On the basis of life history data collected in Hong Kong, the authors establish that leaving home has neither gained substantial popularity nor become a unique life stage among Chinese; it continues to be closely associated with the marriage transition and practical considerations such as housing, childcare needs, and the availability of elderly care.     

Development and Validation of the Marital Metaphor Questionnaire (MMQ‐10) for Urban Chinese Women

Metaphors have long been applied to marital counseling and couple therapy. This pioneering study measures marital conceptualization through metaphors. It reports the validation of the Marital Metaphor Questionnaire (MMQ‐10), designed to measure the marriage conceptualization of Chinese women through marital metaphors. The MMQ‐10 was found to have favorable psychometric properties including reliable internal consistency, a good discriminative prediction of marriage at risk and moderate correlation with a Chinese indigenous multidimensional marital satisfaction inventory. Factor analysis reveals that the MMQ‐10 is composed of three dimensions: conjugal relationship, marital anguish, and marital conviction. The MMQ‐10 appears to be suitable for the use with Chinese women in premarital or marital counseling sessions. The present researchers hope that this study may support the use of metaphors in future research and clinical practice in other nations and cultures.     

Therapeutic Hypothermia: Quantification of the Transition of Core Body Temperature Using the Flexible Mixture Bent‐Cable Model for Longitudinal Data

Hypothermia which is induced by reducing core body temperature is a therapeutic tool used to prevent brain damage resulting from physical trauma. However, all physiological systems begin to slow down due to hypothermia and this can result in increased risk of mortality. Therefore quantification of the transition of core body temperature to early hypothermia is of great clinical interest. Conceptually core body temperature may exhibit an either gradual or abrupt transition. Bent‐cable regression is an appealing statistical tool to model such data due to the model's flexibility and readily interpretable regression coefficients. It handles more flexibly models that traditionally have been handled by low‐order polynomial models (for gradual transition) or piecewise linear changepoint models (for abrupt change). We consider a rat model to quantify the temporal trend of core body temperature primarily to address the question: What is the critical time point associated with a breakdown in the compensatory mechanisms following the start of hypothermia therapy? To this end, we develop a Bayesian modelling framework for bent‐cable regression of longitudinal data to simultaneously account for gradual and abrupt transitions. Our analysis reveals that: (i) about 39% of rats exhibit a gradual transition in core body temperature; (ii) the critical time point is approximately the same regardless of transition type; and (iii) both transition types show a significant increase of core body temperature followed by a significant decrease.     

Integration of Behavioral Frequency and Intention Information in Young Children's Trait Attributions

Two experiments examined three‐ to six‐year‐olds' use of frequency and intention information to make trait attributions and behavioral predictions. In experiment 1, participants were told a story about an actor who behaved positively once or four times on purpose or incidentally. Children were most likely to make trait‐consistent behavioral predictions after hearing about several positive, intentional behaviors. Trait attributions were largely positive. Experiment 2 examined children's use of the same cues concerning negative behavioral outcomes. Participants tended to predict that actors who engaged in negative behavior would do so again, irrespective of intention, although younger children required more exemplars than older children. Participants were most likely to make negative trait attributions after hearing about multiple intentional behaviors; however, there was reluctance with age to describe actors as mean. Implications for children's ‘theory of personality’ are discussed.     

Can external corporate venturing broaden firm's technological scope? The role of complementary assets

This study applies two theoretical perspectives—resource-based view (RBV) and organizational learning—to explore how a firm's external corporate venturing (CV) influences its technological scope. Using data from 583 electronics and information technology firms in Taiwan for the period from 1997 to 2006, the results indicate that external CVs facilitate an established firm's broadening of its technological scope. Moreover, this study calls into question the idea that a firm's decisions regarding technological scope may be due to a specific factor that governs the extent of technological specialization and diversification. We identify this factor as the complementary assets of established firms. This study, thus, investigates whether complementary assets moderate the relationship between external CV in established firms and those firms’ technological scope. The analytical results also support the idea that increasing investments in specialized complementary assets will urge firms engaged in external CV to concentrate on their technological scope. Therefore, this study addresses the notion that concentrated technological scope is the conjunction of technological capabilities and complementary assets, not determined by either individually.