Reliability,Validity, and Cut Scores of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) for Chinese

We examined the reliability, validity, and classification accuracy of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) when adopted for use in Chinese. The DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling served as the standard against which the classification accuracy of the SOGS was tested. A total of 283 Chinese adults in the community and 94 Chinese treatment-seeking gamblers were recruited. The internal reliability of the SOGS was satisfactory for the general sample and acceptable for the gambling sample. The SOGS was correlated with the DSM-IV criteria items as well as psychosocial and gambling-related problems. Relative to the DSM-IV criteria, the SOGS tended to overestimate the number of pathological gamblers in both samples. In general, we were relatively confident that individuals were not pathological gamblers if the SOGS scores were between 0 and 4 and were pathological gamblers if the SOGS were between 11 and 20. There was about 50–50 chance of being pathological gamblers if the SOGS scores were between 8 and 10. However, the probability of individuals being pathological gamblers was about 0.30 if the SOGS scores were between 5 and 7. We proposed a SOGS cut score of 8 to screen for probable pathological gambling in Chinese societies.     

王茂荫纸币思想新论

作为咸丰货币改革中的重要一员,王茂荫的货币思想一直为国内外学界所关注。中国学界长期认为他是一位反对名目论传统的理论金属论者,但实际却不然。王茂荫货币思想的核心理念是以实运虚,主要体现在两个方面:实际运作中政府需要一定比率的商品货币储备支持纸币;根据预定的货币法则,纸币和商品货币在一定比率下同时流通。他提倡保持商品储备以坚定纸币持有者对纸币的信心,主张权力机构制定纸币的价值,并需要持币者的信任去支持。而货币信用理论认为虽然货币的价值由货币发行机构(通常是政府)所制定,但需要获得持币者的信任才能成功。实用金属论认为在某一历史情况下,纸币的发行需要商品储备的支持。这些恰恰表明了王茂荫是持货币信用理论的实用金属论者。在未受到西方影响的中国货币思想传统中,王茂荫是最富于创见的一位思想者。他提倡的将公共货币和私票相结合的规则如被采纳和认真执行,将会使咸丰货币改革在更大程度上获得成功,很可能会改写历史进程。     

Use of Risk Assessment and Likelihood Estimation to Analyze Spatial Distribution Pattern of Respiratory Infection Cases

Obvious spatial infection patterns are often observed in cases associated with airborne transmissible diseases. Existing quantitative infection risk assessment models analyze the observed cases by assuming a homogeneous infectious particle concentration and ignore the spatial infection pattern, which may cause errors. This study aims at developing an approach to analyze spatial infection patterns associated with infectious respiratory diseases or other airborne transmissible diseases using infection risk assessment and likelihood estimation. Mathematical likelihood, based on binomial probability, was used to formulate the retrospective component with some additional mathematical treatments. Together with an infection risk assessment model that can address spatial heterogeneity, the method can be used to analyze the spatial infection pattern and retrospectively estimate the influencing parameters causing the cases, such as the infectious source strength of the pathogen. A Varicella outbreak was selected to demonstrate the use of the new approach. The infectious source strength estimated by the Wells‐Riley concept using the likelihood estimation was compared with the estimation using the existing method. It was found that the maximum likelihood estimation matches the epidemiological observation of the outbreak case much better than the estimation under the assumption of homogeneous infectious particle concentration. Influencing parameters retrospectively estimated using the new approach can be used as input parameters in quantitative infection risk assessment of the disease under other scenarios. The approach developed in this study can also serve as an epidemiological tool in outbreak investigation. Limitations and further developments are also discussed.     

Nationalization and privatization in Peru: socio-economic images in perpetual conflict?

This article presents a stylized history of public policy regarding the relative places of government and private enterprise in a developing country-Peru. It is a history of clashing images of appropriate policy in the context of political power struggles and a volatile economic environment. The article covers the period 1968–2001 a time during which Peru first experimented with nationalization of private enterprise; then turned to privatization;and most recently sought to find some sort of workable compromise. A stylized history of this process is presented with an emphasis on the visions of proper policy that were publicly presented by the principal players. The time period of the study is 1968 to 2001.     

SPC as a tool for creating a successful business measurement framework

Many companies are trying to get to the bottom of what their main objectives are and what their business should be doing. The new Six Sigma approach concentrates on clarifying business strategy and making sure that everything relates to company objectives. It is vital to clarify each part of the business in such a way that everyone can understand the causes of variation that can lead to improvements in processes and performance. This paper describes a situation where the full implementation of SPC methodology has made possible a visual and widely appreciated summary of the performance of one important aspect of the business. The major part of the work was identifying the core objectives and deciding how to encapsulate each of them in one or more suitable measurements. The next step was to review the practicalities of obtaining the measurements and their reliability and representativeness. Finally, the measurements were presented in chart form and the more traditional steps of SPC analysis were commenced. Data from fast changing business environments are prone to many different problems, such as the short previous span of typical data, strange distributions and other uncertainties. Issues surrounding these and the eventual extraction of a meaningful set of information will be discussed in the paper. The measurement framework has proved very useful and, from an initial circulation of a handful of people, it now forms an important part of an information process that provides responsible managers with valuable control information. The measurement framework is kept fresh and vital by constant review and modifications. Improved electronic data collection and dissemination of the report has proved very important.     

SPC—making it work for the gas transportation business

Transco is the main provider of gas transportation to domestic and commercial customers in mainland Britain. Gas arrives in Britain at a steady rate but is consumed with a distinct diurnal pattern. The safe and timely movement of gas from arrival at the beach in various places in Britain to delivery at burners is the main driver for System Operations. The movement of gas is meticulously controlled and monitored resulting in a mass of information on pressure, flow and temperature. Gas is stored temporarily in various storage vessels and is moved around the pipes and in and out of storage as demand dictates. Demand is mostly dictated by the weather and is therefore subject to much variation. Transco and its predecessors have been transporting gas for over 50 years and are very successful as judged by their excellent safety record and the continual delivery of gas. Nevertheless, the company wished to improve itself and make further use of the many measurements collected. SPC is ideal for improving communication and understanding through increased visibility of data. All companies have special issues to face when they implement SPC, and this paper describes the way these were dealt with in System Operations and the lessons learnt along the way. The first part describes how performance measures were chosen for investigation. It includes a novel use of correlation between output and day-to-day conditions, which was successfully turned into a measure to check the uncheckable. The second part is about the issues involved with early application of SPC when features of the system are still unexplained. SPC has helped enhance understanding of the complex transportation process, encouraged team work, improved performance and provided an objective means of decision making.     

Characterizations through reliability measures from weighted distributions

In this paper we obtain general characterizations of probability distributions from relationships between failure rate and mean residual life from the origin distribution and associated weighted distribution. Our characterization properties extend particular results given by Gupta and Keating (1986), Jain et al. (1989) and Asadi (1998). Using the theoretical results we obtain characterizations of some usual distributions. Received: December 7, 1998; revised version: May 10, 2000     

The value of the aggregate data approach in meta-analysis with time-to-event outcomes

Collecting individual patient data has been described as the 'gold standard' for undertaking meta-analysis. If studies involve time-to-event outcomes, conducting a meta-analysis based on aggregate data can be problematical. Two meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials with time-to-event outcomes are used to illustrate the practicality and value of several proposed methods to obtain summary statistic estimates. In the first example the results suggest that further effort should be made to find unpublished trials. In the second example the use of aggregate data for trials where no individual patient data have been supplied allows the totality of evidence to be assessed and indicates previously unrecognized heterogeneity.