Properties of a class of inequality measures: A proposal for a resistant version

Summary This note explores the robustness properties of a general class of ineqyality measures which includes the Bonferroni and the Gini indexes as special cases and proposes some modifications in order to make them outlier resistant.     

Evaluating qualitative management research: Towards a contingent criteriology

The term qualitative management research embraces an array of non‐statistical research practices. Here it is argued that this diversity is an outcome of competing philosophical assumptions which produce distinctive research perspectives and legitimate the appropriation of different sets of evaluation criteria. Some confusion can arise when evaluation criteria constituted by particular philosophical conventions are universally applied to this heterogeneous management field. In order to avoid such misappropriation, this paper presents a first step towards a contingent criteriology located in a metatheoretical analysis of three modes of qualitative management research which are compared with the positivist mainstream to elaborate different forms of evaluation. It is argued that once armed with criteria that vary accordingly, evaluation can reflexively focus upon the extent to which any management research consistently embraces the particular methodological principles that are sanctioned by its a priori philosophical commitments.     

Family Support of the Aged: Some Evidence and Interpretation

This paper brings together a range of Australian material concerning family support for the aged. From a review of studies dealing with the family structure of the aged and accounts of inter generational contact and supportive exchanges within families, including migrant families, considerable evidence of family support is found. The implications of the absence of such support are seen from data on the use of services and admissions to institutional care; the preventive effect of marriage and family is apparent, those aged without family being identified as most at risk. Reasons for the commonly held view of family breakdown are then examined and some suggestions for service development outlined.     

Dimensions Of Well-Being And Their Measurement: The Spf-Il Scale

What are the dimensions of well-being? That is, what universal goals need to be realized by individuals in order to enhance their well-being? Social production function (SPF) theory asserts that the universal goals affection, behavioral confirmation, status, comfort and stimulation are the relevant dimensions of subjective well-being. Realization of these substantive goals and the perspective on opportunities to realize these goals in the future contributes to the affective and cognitive component of well-being. The theoretical elaboration of this theory has been published elsewhere. This paper provides a measurement instrument for the dimensions of well-being. To measure levels of affection, behavioral confirmation, status, comfort and stimulation and empirically validate the dimensions of well-being, the SPF-IL scale was developed. This paper presents findings from a pilot study (n=145), the main study (n=1094), a test–retest examination (n=163), and a validation study (n=725). The measurement model was tested by means of structural equation modeling. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the dimensional structure of well-being indicating construct validity. The overall fit of the model was sufficient, in spite of the somewhat problematic measurement of status, and the test–retest study showed an acceptable level of stability. As for the content validity of the dimensions and their measurement, various sub-studies showed that the SPF-IL scale is a valid instrument, doing at least as well as popular measures of overall well-being but also specifying its dimensions.     

Family Therapy for Chronic Childhood Asthma†

Family therapy has been increasingly advocated in the management of chronic severe childhood asthma. At the Adelaide Children's Hospital we are currently engaged in a trial of family therapy in chronic childhood asthma. Effectiveness of family therapy is judged with a twelve-month follow-up on reduction of symptoms, drug use, emergency physician visits and hospital admissions and on improvement in school attendance and social and family functioning compared to the previous two years experience of the treated patients and compared to a cohort of untreated patients Of similar severity. We are particularly interested in studying different patterns of conflict detouring (child centredness, triangulation and fixed coalition) and the different therapeutic strategies required.     

Measuring Kurtosis by Right and Left Inequality Orders

The question of how to measure kurtosis in both symmetric and asymmetric distributions is addressed using the kurtosis diagram of Zenga (2006 Zenga , M. ( 2006 ). Kurtosis . In : Kotz , S. , Read , C. B. , Balakrishnan , N. , Vidakovic , B. , eds. Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences. 2nd ed . New York : John Wiley and Sons . [Google Scholar]). Kurtosis is related to inequality at either side of the median, and we establish a hierarchy of kurtosis orderings in which the kurtosis diagram stands at the weakest level. A sufficient condition for constructing kurtosis measures compatible with such ordering is provided. The merits of the proposed approach in both clarifying and formalizing the idea of kurtosis are evaluated and examples are discussed throughout.     

Depth Measures for Multivariate Functional Data

In this article, we address the problem of mining and analyzing multivariate functional data. That is, data where each observation is a set of possibly correlated functions. Complex data of this kind is more and more common in many research fields, particularly in the biomedical context. In this work, we propose and apply a new concept of depth measure for multivariate functional data. With this new depth measure it is possible to generalize robust statistics, such as the median, to the multivariate functional framework, which in turn allows the application of outlier detection, boxplots construction, and nonparametric tests also in this more general framework. We present an application to Electrocardiographic (ECG) signals.