Are there causal relationships between the dimensions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory? A review and two longitudinal tests

Arising from interest concerning the possibility of causal relationships among the three components of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, several process models have been proposed for the development of burnout. The present paper first reviews the evidence in favour of the three most influential of these (Leiter and Maslach's model (1988); Golembiewski, Boudreau, Munzenrider, & Luo's (1996) phase model; and Lee and Ashforth's model (1993)). These three models, and our own model (which integrates of two of them, and includes feedback effects of depersonalization on emotional exhaustion) are then compared with each other using structural equation modelling, drawing on longitudinal data from two Dutch samples (total N=1185). The review revealed that none of the seven previous studies on this issue provided any convincing support for any particular causal order proposed so far. In contrast, our own study showed that high levels of exhaustion were associated with high levels of depersonalization over time across both samples. Further, higher levels of depersonalization led to higher levels of emotional exhaustion and lower levels of personal accomplishment. To our knowledge, the present research is the first to provide reliable longitudinal evidence for the conceptualization of burnout as a developmental process, although the effects are not large enough to be of practical use in the recognition of burnout.     

汉语中一类特殊祈使句的转喻和隐喻动因

认知语言学认为,隐喻是跨不同认知域的概念映射过程,而转喻则是在同一个理想化认知模型中用一个范畴去激活另一个范畴的认知过程。隐喻和转喻是人类基本的认知能力,也是许多语法现象背后的认知动因。汉语中有一类由动词、形容词或拟声词等加上“什么”构成的特殊祈使句。此类句子在形式上表现为普通疑问句的结构,但在语法上又有一些不同于普通疑问句的特点,在语用上不表示特指性疑问,而是起到表“制止”的祈使句功能。文章结合沈家煊(1999)提出的转喻模型及雅柯布森(1956)有关隐喻和转喻与语言横组合关系和纵聚合关系之间的对应性的论述,认为此类句子的句法特点可以从转喻和隐喻共同作用的角度获得解释。     

当代社会思潮对大学生的影响及应对策略

社会思潮作为社会文化的一种表现形式,反映了不同群体的理想、愿望、利益和要求,具有阶级性、理论性、多样性和非主流性等主要特征,对当代大学生的人生观、世界观和价值观的形成有着积极和消极的双重影响.要正确认识并客观分析社会思潮,加强学科建设和人才培养,深刻把握大学生感知社会思潮的取向特征,以社会主义核心价值体系引领社会思潮在高校的良性传播.     

Tests of association between survival time and a continuous covariate

Proportional hazards model(Cox, 1972) is reviewed for the case of grouped data with one continuously measured covariate. This leads to a logit-rank procedure for tied data which is reduced to the test proposed by O’Brien(1978) and studied by O’Quigley and Prentice(1991) in the absence of ties. The proposed test is then applied to a special ranking method in order to study non-monotonic associations.     

Modifications of the Empirical Likelihood Interval Estimation with Improved Coverage Probabilities

The empirical likelihood (EL) technique has been well addressed in both the theoretical and applied literature in the context of powerful nonparametric statistical methods for testing and interval estimations. A nonparametric version of Wilks theorem (Wilks, 1938 Wilks , S. S. ( 1938 ). The large-sample distribution of the likelihood ratio for testing composite hypotheses . Annals of Mathematical Statistics 9 : 60 – 62 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) can usually provide an asymptotic evaluation of the Type I error of EL ratio-type tests. In this article, we examine the performance of this asymptotic result when the EL is based on finite samples that are from various distributions. In the context of the Type I error control, we show that the classical EL procedure and the Student's t-test have asymptotically a similar structure. Thus, we conclude that modifications of t-type tests can be adopted to improve the EL ratio test. We propose the application of the Chen (1995 Chen , L. ( 1995 ). Testing the mean of skewed distributions . Journal of the American Statistical Association 90 : 767 – 772 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) t-test modification to the EL ratio test. We display that the Chen approach leads to a location change of observed data whereas the classical Bartlett method is known to be a scale correction of the data distribution. Finally, we modify the EL ratio test via both the Chen and Bartlett corrections. We support our argument with theoretical proofs as well as a Monte Carlo study. A real data example studies the proposed approach in practice.     

Regenerative Markov Chain Monte Carlo for Any Distribution

While Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are frequently used for difficult calculations in a wide range of scientific disciplines, they suffer from a serious limitation: their samples are not independent and identically distributed. Consequently, estimates of expectations are biased if the initial value of the chain is not drawn from the target distribution. Regenerative simulation provides an elegant solution to this problem. In this article, we propose a simple regenerative MCMC algorithm to generate variates for any distribution.     

Convergence of non-linear functionals of smoothed empirical processes and kernel density estimates

We consider regularizations by convolution of the empirical process and study the asymptotic behaviour of non-linear functionals of this process. Using a result for the same type of non-linear functionals of the Brownian bridge, shown in a previous paper [4], and a strong approximation theorem, we prove several results for the p-deviation in estimation of the derivatives of the density. We also study the asymptotic behaviour of the number of crossings of the smoothed empirical process defined by Yukich [17] and of a modified version of the Kullback deviation.     

Application and Reliability of Change-Point Analyses for Detecting a Defective Stage in Integrated Circuit Manufacturing

ABSTRACT

This article presents a reliable method for highlighting a defective stage within a manufacturing process when the existence of a failure is only known at the end of the process. It was developed in the context of integrated circuit manufacturing, where low costs and high yields are indispensable if the manufacturer is to be competitive. Change detection methods were used to point out the defective stage. Two methods were compared and the best chosen. Thanks to this approach, it was possible to solve some yield problems for which the engineers' investigations were far from the real cause of failure. However, there is a strong requirement to assess the reliability of the suspicions cast on the incriminated stage, otherwise engineers could be made to do useless work and time could be wasted looking into events that are not the true cause of failure. Two complementary tools were implemented for this reliability assessment and their efficiency is illustrated by several examples.     

On the almost sure convergence for sums of negatively superadditive dependent random vectors in Hilbert spaces and its application

Abstract

This paper develops almost sure convergence for sums of negatively superadditive dependent random vectors in Hilbert spaces, we obtain Chung type SLLN and the Jaite type SLLN for sequences of negatively superadditive dependent random vectors in Hilbert spaces. Rate of convergence is studied through considering almost sure convergence to 0 of tail series. As an application, the almost sure convergence of degenerate von Mises-statistics is investigated.