Disparities in Healthcare Utilization Among Adults with Obesity in the United States,Findings from the NHIS: 2006–2015

Population Research and Policy Review - Few studies of disparities consider logistical hurdles faced by adults with obesity in obtaining needed healthcare. This study compared adults with obesity...     

Decision model for product rollover in manufacturing operations

The purpose of this study is to investigate critical decisions when planning for product rollover at a manufacturing company, and how to organise these decisions. A literature review and a case study are used to develop a decision model. The findings indicate that product rollover can be organised in a five-phase decision model. The research quality is strengthened by a structured literature review, but it can be argued that more empirical research is needed for validation. For researchers, this paper contributes with the identification of critical decisions and a model for product rollover. For practitioners, the study highlights the need to acknowledge the importance of product rollover and its role as a competitive weapon. In earlier studies, product rollover has mainly been investigated from a market perspective, so that this study contributes by investigating the issue from a manufacturing perspective.     

Introducing the expatriate ‘Entry-Mode’: an exploratory qualitative study of a missing link in global mobility and expatriate management research

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the novel concepts of expatriate ‘entry-modes’, ‘comb-patriates’, and ‘Fourth-Country Nationals’ (FCNs), emerging from an exploratory qualitative investigation of 51 Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong. Global mobility research has traditionally been overly focused on the characteristics and background variables of expatriates or accumulated experiences after arrival, and has neglected the phase and mode of entering the new host country. Unveiling new global mobility patterns is significant for multinational enterprises’ (MNE) global talent recruitment, and has implications for training and development. This is due to directing the focus towards the increasing numbers of those individuals who are not expatriating in the conventional linear fashion, such as between an MNE’s headquarter (HQ) and its subsidiaries overseas. The critical stance taken in this article is articulated through a theoretical lens comprising a social constructionist epistemology. Theoretical contributions, future research avenues, as well as managerial relevance and policy implications are also discussed.     

农业企业的盈余操控更为严重吗?——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

采用2007—2014年中国沪深两市A股上市公司数据,研究行业特征和盈利能力对上市公司盈余管理水平的影响,实证分析结果表明:农业上市公司较非农上市公司具有更高的应计盈余管理水平和真实盈余管理水平;上市公司的盈利能力与应计盈余管理水平正相关,而与真实盈余管理水平负相关;较高的盈利能力强化了行业特征对真实盈余管理水平的正向影响,而对应计盈余管理水平则不具有这种影响。该研究不仅证实了农业上市公司较非农上市公司实施了更为严重的盈余操控,还揭示出上市公司的盈利能力对应计盈余管理水平和真实盈余管理水平的影响存在异质性以及盈利能力对行业特征与两种盈余管理水平之间关系的调节作用也存在异质性。     

NDIS Self‐Management Approaches: Opportunities for choice and control or an Uber‐style wild west?

This article examines the emerging challenges and opportunities presented by self‐management options in Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We examine the three different ways in which NDIS participants can opt to self‐manage their funding and services, including direct employment and emerging Uber‐style online platforms, and explore the potential implications of these options for NDIS participants, service providers and the disability support workforce. In particular, we focus on these options in relation to the transition to a marketised services landscape being developed alongside the NDIS, and examine both the risks and opportunities for each stakeholder group. Through this analysis, we identify implications for policy and practice, in particular around regulatory mechanisms and the role of government within this emerging market economy and transforming service landscape.     

Perceived social standing among Asian immigrants in the US: Do reasons for immigration matter?

We investigate the association between a subjective measure of social status and the reasons for immigration among Asian immigrants in the US. We use data from the National Latino and Asian American Study to test several hypotheses about this association. Our analyses show the positive effect on perceived social standing of migrating for better education, the negative effect of migrating to seek employment, and the negative impact of refugee status. Migrating for family reunification can be associated with various circumstances, which lead to differing outcomes. The results suggest that the notion that immigrants arrive in the US with limited resources and few skills and move slowly up the socioeconomic ladder must be reassessed in light of the complex social context and factors such as ethnicity, gender, divergent immigration paths, and a range of associated circumstances.     

Bayesian credible intervals for response surface optima

In response surface methodology, one is usually interested in estimating the optimal conditions based on a small number of experimental runs which are designed to optimally sample the experimental space. Typically, regression models are constructed from the experimental data and interrogated in order to provide a point estimate of the independent variable settings predicted to optimize the response. Unfortunately, these point estimates are rarely accompanied with uncertainty intervals. Though classical frequentist confidence intervals can be constructed for unconstrained quadratic models, higher order, constrained or nonlinear models are often encountered in practice. Existing techniques for constructing uncertainty estimates in such situations have not been implemented widely, due in part to the need to set adjustable parameters or because of limited or difficult applicability to constrained or nonlinear problems. To address these limitations a Bayesian method of determining credible intervals for response surface optima was developed. The approach shows good coverage probabilities on two test problems, is straightforward to implement and is readily applicable to the kind of constrained and/or nonlinear problems that frequently appear in practice.     

A re-evaluation of random-effects meta-analysis

Summary.  Meta-analysis in the presence of unexplained heterogeneity is frequently undertaken by using a random-effects model, in which the effects underlying different studies are assumed to be drawn from a normal distribution. Here we discuss the justification and interpretation of such models, by addressing in turn the aims of estimation, prediction and hypothesis testing. A particular issue that we consider is the distinction between inference on the mean of the random-effects distribution and inference on the whole distribution. We suggest that random-effects meta-analyses as currently conducted often fail to provide the key results, and we investigate the extent to which distribution-free, classical and Bayesian approaches can provide satisfactory methods. We conclude that the Bayesian approach has the advantage of naturally allowing for full uncertainty, especially for prediction. However, it is not without problems, including computational intensity and sensitivity to a priori judgements. We propose a simple prediction interval for classical meta-analysis and offer extensions to standard practice of Bayesian meta-analysis, making use of an example of studies of 'set shifting' ability in people with eating disorders.     

A counterexample to Beder's conjectures about Hadamard matrices

In this note we provide a counterexample which resolves conjectures about Hadamard matrices made in this journal. Beder [1998. Conjectures about Hadamard matrices. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference 72, 7–14] conjectured that if H$\mathit{H}$ is a maximal m×n$m\times n$ row-Hadamard matrix then m is a multiple of 4; and that if n   is a power of 2 then every row-Hadamard matrix can be extended to a Hadamard matrix. Using binary integer programming we obtain a maximal 13×32$13\times 32$ row-Hadamard matrix, which disproves both conjectures. Additionally for n being a multiple of 4 up to 64, we tabulate values of m   for which we have found a maximal row-Hadamard matrix. Based on the tabulated results we conjecture that a m×n$m\times n$ row-Hadamard matrix with m?n-7$m?n-7$ can be extended to a Hadamard matrix.