A Pilot for Improving Depression Care on College Campuses: Results of the College Breakthrough Series–Depression (CBS-D) Project

Abstract

Objective: To implement a pilot quality improvement project for depression identification and treatment in college health. Participants: Eight college health center teams composed primarily of primary care and counseling service directors and clinicians. Methods: Chronic (Collaborative) Care Model (CCM) used with standardized screening to identify, treat, and track depressed students for 12 weeks to monitor predetermined process and clinical outcomes. Results: Of all students receiving primary medical care services between January 2007 and May 2008, 69% (n = 71,908) were screened for depression. A total of 801 depressed students were treated and tracked; most predetermined treatment process and clinical outcome targets were achieved. Conclusion: The CCM for depression shows promise for improving depression identification and care for college students.     

THE LIMIT OF THE DISCURSIVE: A Critique of the Radical Constructionist Approach to Family Experience

To date, the postmodernist approach to family experience which considers the actor's use of discourse rather than external sociocultural forces as primordial in constituting domestic reality has become an intellectual stream which sociologists can hardly ignore. Using the Gubrium–Holstein model as an exemplar for a “more sophisticated” postmodernist approach to constructing family experience, this article attempts to outline a critique of radical constructionism which overemphasizes the discourse of actors as artfully producing reality as featured in the notions of “doing things with words” and “talking reality into being.” The critique is mainly based on the works of Schutz and Garfinkel, of which Gubrium and Holstein claim their own model share “abiding concern,” and is further supplemented by the work of Bourdieu. This article carries a commitment to rebuking the postmodernist emphasis on the discursive by highlighting that the prepredicative structure of the lifeworld—which is nondiscursive in nature—constitutes the primordial, albeit insufficient, basis of the nomos pertaining to experience as constituted.     

On the estimation of variance components in stability analysis

Chow and Shao (1989, 1991) indicated that the presence of batch-to-batch variation has an impact on the determination of drug shelf-life in stability studies. In this paper, we propose two unbiased estmators for batch-to-batch variation. The proposed estimators are compared in terms of their corresponding variances. An example concerning a stability study is discussed to illustrate the use of the proposed estimators.     

Bayesian approach to estimation of intraclass correlation using reference prior

For the balanced variance component model when the intraclass correlation coefficient is of interest, Bayesian analysis is often appropriate. Berger and Bernardo’s (1992a) grouped ordering reference prior approach is used to analyze this model. The reference priors are developed and compared for the posterior inference with real and simulated data. We examine whether the reference priors satisfy the probability-matching criterion. Further, the reference prior is shown to be good in the sense of correct frequentist coverage probability of the posterior quantile.     

A tutorial on rank-based coefficient estimation for censored data in small- and large-scale problems

The analysis of survival endpoints subject to right-censoring is an important research area in statistics, particularly among econometricians and biostatisticians. The two most popular semiparametric models are the proportional hazards model and the accelerated failure time (AFT) model. Rank-based estimation in the AFT model is computationally challenging due to optimization of a non-smooth loss function. Previous work has shown that rank-based estimators may be written as solutions to linear programming (LP) problems. However, the size of the LP problem is O(n ²+p) subject to n ² linear constraints, where n denotes sample size and p denotes the dimension of parameters. As n and/or p increases, the feasibility of such solution in practice becomes questionable. Among data mining and statistical learning enthusiasts, there is interest in extending ordinary regression coefficient estimators for low-dimensions into high-dimensional data mining tools through regularization. Applying this recipe to rank-based coefficient estimators leads to formidable optimization problems which may be avoided through smooth approximations to non-smooth functions. We review smooth approximations and quasi-Newton methods for rank-based estimation in AFT models. The computational cost of our method is substantially smaller than the corresponding LP problem and can be applied to small- or large-scale problems similarly. The algorithm described here allows one to couple rank-based estimation for censored data with virtually any regularization and is exemplified through four case studies.     

Employment and earnings of foreign-born scientists and engineers

Population Research and Policy Review -     

Internationalization and Performance of Firms in China: Moderating Effects of Governance Structure and the Degree of Centralized Control

This study proposes necessary modifications to the existing internationalization–performance relationship to meet the idiosyncrasies of China-specific contexts. We first hypothesize an S-shaped internationalization–performance relationship as the baseline and then investigate the moderating effects of a firm's governance structure and the degree of centralized government control on the relationship between its internationalization and performance. The results, based on a longitudinal sample of manufacturing firms in China for the 2001–2007 period, indicate that (1) the S-shaped internationalization–performance relationship holds for firms in China; (2) the governance structure moderates the internationalization–performance relationship such that increased profitability through internationalization is more likely for modernized firms than for their conventional local counterparts; and (3) the degree of centralized control moderates the internationalization–performance relationship such that increased profitability through internationalization is more likely for firms affiliated with higher level governments than for those affiliated with lower-level governments.     

Backward capacity-filtering for electronics Fabs

In electronics Fabs such as semiconductor Fabs and liquid crystal display (LCD) Fabs, which are capital-intensive, finite-capacity planning is critical to achieving full-capacity production and on-time production. However, existing finite-capacity planning methods do not adequately reflect the actual capacity profiles of an electronics Fab. In this paper, we propose a new Fab-level capacity-filtering procedure to generate finite-capacity plan: a backward capacity-filtering procedure for generating finite-capacity release plan. When developing the Fab-level filtering procedures, we use stage-level capacity-filtering algorithms as a key building block. In this study, we enhance the previous capacity-filtering algorithms proposed by one of the authors in order to facilitate the practical requirements of electronics Fabs. We apply the proposed capacity-filtering method to a modern LCD–TFT Fab in Korea. Performance analyses demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to existing methods.     

Bayesian estimation of P (Y<X) from Burr-type X model containing spurious observations

We consider the problem of estimating R=P(Y<X) when X and Y are independent Burr-type X random variables. We assume that the sample from each population contains one spurious observation. Bayes estimates are derived for exchangeable and identifiable cases. Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to compare the bias and the expected loss of R.