Positivity conditions for stochastic state space modelling of time series

This short paper clarifies some aspects of the balancing method for state space modelling of observed time series. This method may fail to satisfy the so-called positive real condition for stochastic processes. We illustrate this by theoretical spectral analysis and also by simulating univariate ARMA (1,1) models.     

Work-home interaction from a work psychological perspective: Development and validation of a new questionnaire,the SWING

Abstract

This paper reports upon an investigative study of stress in the Ambulance Service. The aims of the research were in part methodological and in part substantive. Methodologically, the study sought to validate as measurable constructs the perceptions of sources of stress reported by ambulance staff in response to questionnaire items. Substantively, it sought to identify these possible sources of stress and to measure the relationship between their perceived importance and such moderating variables as personality characteristics, length of service, and urban or rural location of operation and rank. Both aspects of the study are reported.     

Does Communicating (Flood) Risk Affect (Flood) Risk Perceptions? Results of a Quasi‐Experimental Study

People's risk perceptions are generally regarded as an important determinant of their decisions to adjust to natural hazards. However, few studies have evaluated how risk communication programs affect these risk perceptions. This study evaluates the effects of a small-scale flood risk communication program in the Netherlands, consisting of workshops and focus group discussions. The effects on the workshop participants' ( n  = 24) and focus group participants' ( n  = 16) flood risk perceptions were evaluated in a pretest-posttest control group ( n  = 40) design that focused on two mechanisms of attitude change—direct personal experience and attitude polarization. We expected that (H1) workshop participants would show greater shifts in their flood risk perceptions compared with control group participants and that (H2) focus groups would rather produce the conditions for attitude polarization (shifts toward more extreme attitudinal positions after group discussion). However, the results provide only modest support for these hypotheses, perhaps because of a mismatch between the sessions' contents and the risk perception measures. An important contribution of this study is that it examined risk perception data by both conventional tests of the mean differences and tests for attitude polarization. Moreover, the possibility that attitude polarization could cause people to confirm their preexisting (hazard) beliefs could have important implications for risk communication.     

Modeling Lung Carcinogenesis in Radon‐Exposed Miner Cohorts: Accounting for Missing Information on Smoking

Epidemiological miner cohort data used to estimate lung cancer risks related to occupational radon exposure often lack cohort‐wide information on exposure to tobacco smoke, a potential confounder and important effect modifier. We have developed a method to project data on smoking habits from a case‐control study onto an entire cohort by means of a Monte Carlo resampling technique. As a proof of principle, this method is tested on a subcohort of 35,084 former uranium miners employed at the WISMUT company (Germany), with 461 lung cancer deaths in the follow‐up period 1955–1998. After applying the proposed imputation technique, a biologically‐based carcinogenesis model is employed to analyze the cohort's lung cancer mortality data. A sensitivity analysis based on a set of 200 independent projections with subsequent model analyses yields narrow distributions of the free model parameters, indicating that parameter values are relatively stable and independent of individual projections. This technique thus offers a possibility to account for unknown smoking habits, enabling us to unravel risks related to radon, to smoking, and to the combination of both.     

Dynamics in intention to stay and changes in language proficiency of recent migrants in the Netherlands

This study focuses on consequences of changes in intention to stay for Dutch language proficiency of recent migrants. It is anticipated that migrants who decide at a later instance to stay longer in the Netherlands have made less language investments and therefore have a lower proficiency than migrants who decided to stay longer or permanently at an earlier stage. Hypotheses are tested using Dutch panel data from the data set ‘Causes and Consequences of Social and Cultural Integration Processes among recent migrants.’ In this survey, migrants have been interviewed twice in the first years after migration to the Netherlands. Results provide that migrants who maintain a temporary intention and migrants who intend to circulate between country of origin and The Netherlands experience the smallest improvement and have the worst command of Dutch at the second wave. Changing a temporary intention to stay into a circular one improves the command of the Dutch language the most, whilst changing a temporary intention into a permanent one also strongly increases second language proficiency. Migrants changing a temporary intention into a permanent one do not differ in their language proficiency at wave 2 and experienced change herein from migrants maintaining a longer or permanent perspective.     

More Than Fear Induction: Toward an Understanding of People's Motivation to Be Well‐Prepared for Emergencies in Flood‐Prone Areas

This article examines the extent and manner to which evaluations of flood‐related precautions are affected by an individual's motivation and perception of context. It argues that the relationship between risk perception and flood risk preparedness can be fruitfully specified in terms of vulnerability and efficacy if these concepts are put into the perspective of prevention‐focused motivation. This relationship was empirically examined in a risk communication experiment in a delta area of the Netherlands (n = 1,887). Prevention‐focused motivation was induced by contextualized risk information. The results showed that prevention‐focused individuals were more sensitive to the relevance of potential precautions for satisfying their needs in the context they found themselves in. The needs included, but were not limited to, fear reduction. Due to the heterogeneity of the residents, the evaluations reflected individual differences in the intensity and the selectivity of precautionary processes. Four types of persons could be distinguished according to their evaluation of precautionary measures: a high‐scoring minority, two more selective types, and a low‐scoring minority. For policymakers and risk communicators it is vital to consider the nature of prevention motivation and the context in which it is likely to be high.     

Effects of vacation from work on health and well-being: Lots of fun,quickly gone

Abstract

Although vacation from work provides a valuable opportunity for recovery, few studies have met the requirements for assessing its effects. These include taking measurements well ahead of the vacation, during the vacation and at several points in time afterwards. Our study on vacation (after-) effects focused on two related questions: (1) Do health and well-being of working individuals improve during a vacation? and (2) How long does a vacation effect last after resumption of work? In a longitudinal study covering seven weeks, 96 Dutch workers reported their health and well-being levels two weeks before a winter sports vacation, during vacation and one week, two weeks and four weeks after vacation on seven indicators. Participants' health and well-being improved during vacation on five indicators: health status, mood, tension, energy level and satisfaction. However, during the first week of work resumption, health and well-being had generally returned to pre-vacation levels. In conclusion, a winter sports vacation is associated with improvements in self-reported health and well-being among working individuals. However, these effects fade out rapidly after work resumption. We propose a framework for future vacation research and suggest investigating the role of vacation type, duration and means to prolong vacation relief.     

Dimensions of work–home culture and their relations with the use of work–home arrangements and work–home interaction

Abstract

This study examined the associations of work–home culture with (a) demographic and organizational characteristics, (b) the use of work–home arrangements, and (c) negative and positive work–home interaction, among 1,179 employees from one public and two private organizations. Substantial support was found for a 2-factor structure of a work–home culture measure differentiating between “support” (employees’ perceptions of organization's, supervisors’, and colleagues’ responsiveness to work–family issues and to the use of work–home arrangements) and “hindrance” (employees’ perceptions of career consequences and time demands that may prevent them from using work–home arrangements). This 2-factor structure appeared to be invariant across organizations, gender, and parental status. Significant relationships with organizational characteristics, the use of work–home arrangements, and work–home interaction supported the validity of these two cultural dimensions. It is concluded that if employers want to minimize work–home interference, to optimize positive work–home interaction, and to boost the use of work–home arrangements, they should create a work–home culture that is characterized by high support and low hindrance.     

Dimensions of work-home culture and their relations with the use of work-home arrangements and work-home interaction

This study examined the associations of work-home culture with (a) demographic and organizational characteristics, (b) the use of work-home arrangements, and (c) negative and positive work-home interaction, among 1,179 employees from one public and two private organizations. Substantial support was found for a 2-factor structure of a work-home culture measure differentiating between “support” (employees' perceptions of organization's, supervisors', and colleagues' responsiveness to work-family issues and to the use of work-home arrangements) and “hindrance” (employees' perceptions of career consequences and time demands that may prevent them from using work-home arrangements). This 2-factor structure appeared to be invariant across organizations, gender, and parental status. Significant relationships with organizational characteristics, the use of work-home arrangements, and work-home interaction supported the validity of these two cultural dimensions. It is concluded that if employers want to minimize work-home interference, to optimize positive work-home interaction, and to boost the use of work-home arrangements, they should create a work-home culture that is characterized by high support and low hindrance.     

Towards a typology of work-home interaction

In this paper the relationship of various types of work-home interaction (i.e. negative and positive influence from work to home, and the other way around) with demographic, family, and (perceived) work characteristics as well as with experienced health was explored in a sample of 751 postal employees. By using cluster analysis, we tried to uncover whether specific combinations of the various dimensions of work-home interaction (WHI) were more prevalent than others. Our results showed that employees did not simply experience negative work-home interaction or not, but that participants should be classified in five distinct clusters: (1) 239 employees experienced no interaction at all; (2) 74 employees experienced primarily negative interaction between both domains; (3) 113 employees experienced primarily positive influence from work; (4) 195 employees experienced primarily positive influence from home; and (5) 122 employees experienced negative and positive interaction simultaneously. Results further showed that the emerging WHI-clusters appeared to have distinct profiles with respect to demographic and family characteristics, perceived working conditions, and reported health and well-being. It was convincingly shown that workers who experienced negative interaction between work and home, perceived their working conditions as least favourable and experienced most psychological health complaints, while those with primarily positive influence from work had the most favourable perceptions of their working conditions and experienced better health than the other clusters. Employees who experienced virtually no interaction between both domains did not seem to enjoy a better quality of life than the other clusters. Implications of this exploratory study are discussed. Dans cet article nous avons exploré, dans un échantillon constitué par 751 employés de la poste, la relation entre les différents types d'interaction entre le travail et la vie domestique d'un côté (c'est à dire l'influence positive et negative du travail sur la vie domestique comme l'effet inverse), et de l'autre coté, les caractéristiques démographiques, familiales et de travail (perçu), et l'expérience de la santé. En utilisant des analyses agglomérées nous avons essayé de comprendre si les combinaisons spécifiques des différentes dimensions de l'interaction travail-domicile prévalaient sur d'autres. Nos résultats démontrent que non seulement les employés faisaient l'expérience positive ou negative de l'interaction travail-domicile, mais que en plus les participants pouvaient etre classés selon cinq agglomérats différents: (1) 239 employés ne montraient aucune forme d'interaction; (2) 74 employés percevaient seulement de l'interactions négative entre les deux domaines; (3) 113 employés ressentaient principalement de l'influence positive de leur travail; (4) 195 employées percevaient seulement l'influence positive de leur vie domestique; et (5) 122 ressentaient de l'interaction positive et négative simultanément. En outre, les résultats montrent que ces cinq groupes disposaient de profils différents en ce qui concerne les caractéristiques démographiques et familiales comme leur experiences de santé et de bien-être. Nous avons démontré de façon convaincante que les travailleurs qui ressentaient une interaction négative entre travail et domicile percevaient leurs conditions de travail comme les moins favorables et reportaient le plus de plaintes de santé psychologique, tandis que ceux qui ressentaient principalement une influence positive de leur travail reportaient les perceptions de conditions de travail les plus favorables et percevaient leur santé comme meilleur que les autres groupes. Les employées qui ne ressentaient pratiquement pas d'interaction entre les deux domaines ne donnaient pas l'impression d'avoir une meilleur qualité de vie que les autres agglomérats. Les implications de cette étude exploratoire sont discutées.