Listening to Voices and Judging People

The impact of vocal cues on personality judgments is investigated in an experimental study that used technically manipulated levels of pitch (low and high frequency), sex of the speaker, and content area (e.g., fixing a bike, baking, reading directory information) as independent and the entailing personality judgments as dependent variables. Subjects (48 male and 48 female) were presented with voice probes and ratings of physical (age, sex, height, stature), and psychological characteristics (bipolar adjectives representing the “Big Five” dimensions of personality) were collected. Results confirm that voice characteristics have an impact on interpersonal perception and that vocal cues are processed separately by the listener. Results are discussed with reference to processing demands and cognitive load on the working memory of a listener.     

Mixed‐Method Evaluation of Continuing Professional Development: Applications in Cultural Competence Training

Continuing professional development has been identified as an important tool for advancing the competence of social workers, yet outcomes of professional development are conventionally evaluated using methods that cannot provide trustworthy information about program effectiveness. This paper suggests that innovations in social research can be applied to strengthen the evaluation of educational outcomes from continuing professional development. The benefits of designing a mixed‐method evaluation of educational interventions are explored by reviewing the experience of implementing a cultural competence continuing professional development workshop series in Toronto, Canada. Review of the process demonstrates that the combination of methods results in a richer data set that can answer questions about both the process of the learning experience, and the effect that training has on professional practice.     

Techniques For Developing Health Quality of Life Scales for Point of Service Use

Clinical and health policy research frequently involves health status measurement using generic or disease specific instruments. These instruments are generally developed to arrive at several scales, each measuring a distinct domain of health quality of life (HQOL). Clinical settings are starting to explore how to integrate patient perspectives of HQOL outcomes into patient care. However, the length of many HQOL instruments poses a challenge in terms of patient burden, as well as clinic flow time. The most popular paradigm for scale construction utilizes classical test theory methodology and can lead to excessive and redundant items in an effort to bolster reliability measurements such as Cronbach’s alpha above levels of accepted reliability. This paper presents techniques for utilizing item response theory to arrive at single item scales that are diagnostically informative and short enough to have clinical utility. A danger of such dramatic scale reduction is that validity might be compromised. This danger is addressed in terms of criterion related validity and sensitivity to clinical changes over a 36 months period. The reduction methods are illustrated using selected scales from the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales 2 (AIMS2) with data obtained from the study Pharmaceutical Care Outcomes: The Patient Role (PCOPR).     

Measurement of the quality of family planning services

The quality of health services is a subject of increasing interest to health care providers and organizations responsible for financing and promoting health services. The importance of the client's perspective (and by inference, the perspective of potential clients, as well) is now well established, but efforts to define and measure quality have thus far been limited to the perspective of experts even when the experts claim to speak for the clients. In this paper we utilize family planning programs to explore issues of the quality of health services. We propose that a better understanding of the view of quality actually held by family planning program clients will clarify the influence of quality on the use of services, a clarity that has not been possible by looking at quality only as defined by providers, managers or experts. We review the literature on quality of services and identify the gaps in research that must be filled if a better understanding of what quality is and how it relates to service outcomes is to be obtained. A first step must be the research required to develop a set of measures of quality that reflects the multi-dimensional nature of quality, includes the clients' view of services in the definition of quality, and incorporates methodologies required to ascertain the true view of clients. Finally, we suggest that dimensions of quality identified as important for clients as a group will be more predictive of use of services than dimensions identified as important to providers.     

基于作业成本法的企业物流成本控制研究

作业成本法是以作业成本计算为基础,融合作业会计与作业管理集成管理方法。作业成本法有效的克服了传统成本计算方法对于间接费用分配不公而导致的会计信息失真的情况。从而为企业提供经营决策所需的真实、客观的财务信息。对物流系统来说,作业成本法既重要又实用,被认为是确定和控制物流费用最有前途的方法。本文主要是介绍作业成本法的基本情况、及其对企业物流成本控制方面相对于传统成本计算方法的巨大优势,力求使人们能够对企业的物流成本有一个较为完整的认识,希望能引起企业管理者对作业成本法的重视,改变我国目前企业物流系统中作业成本法的实施情况,实现企业的成本竞争优势。     

How public relations executives perceive and measure the impact of social media in their organizations

Decisions about social media in organizations are not made lightly. Corporate executives are faced with an ever changing and in many cases, uncontrollable opportunity with social media. This study provides insights obtained from 25 interviews with communication and public relations executives to identify their opinions about what drives social media in organizations, what challenges they face, and what questions they have about social media and its measurement.     

Criteria for the selection of foster families and monitoring of placements.: Comparative study of the application of the Casey Foster Applicant Inventory-Applicant Version (CFAI-A)

Based on a literature review, this article frames different stages of the foster care process, identifying a set of standardized measures in the American and Portuguese contexts which, if implemented, could contribute towards higher levels of foster success. The article continues with the presentation of a comparative study, based on the application of the Casey Foster Applicant Inventory-Applicant Version (CFAI-A) questionnaire, in the aforementioned contexts. Taking a comparative analyses of CFAI-A's psychometric characteristics in four different samples as a starting point, one discovered that despite the fact that the questionnaire was adapted to Portuguese reality, it kept the quality values presented on the American samples. It specifically shows significant values regarding reliability and validity. This questionnaire, which aims to assess the potential of foster families, also supports the technical staff's decision making process regarding the monitoring and support of foster families, while it also promotes a better decision in the placement process towards the child's integration and development.     

我国农产品物流要素贡献率实证研究

本文根据1991-2005年我国农产品物流行业投入产出数据,利用生产函数拟合法对影响农产品物流行业发展的劳动力、资本、技术三大要素贡献率进行计算与分析:资本投入和技术进步是推动我国农产品物流行业增长的主要力量,劳动要素对农产品物流行业的贡献相对有限。我国农产品物流行业面临劳动要素贡献低,而资本、技术要素虽贡献率高但起点较低的困境。因此必须完善硬件设施、提高技术水平和劳动者素质。     

关于中国全要素生产率测度的研究——基于一阶差分对数模型和有效资本存量的再测算

本文对以往我国全要素生产率测度中存在的问题做了较为系统的分析,试图总结一套科学且具有可操作性的测度方法。本文在区分实际资本存量和有效资本存量的基础上,根据我国资本存量估算数据,采用一阶差分对数模型和有关经济计量学方法,估计资本与劳动的产出弹性,避免了可能出现的“伪回归”“序列相关”“多重共线性”和“异方差”等问题,从而保证所测度的产出弹性估计值既符合经济理论分析又能通过经济计量学检验。本文还阐述了全要素生产率与广义技术进步这两个指标 的联系与区别,并通过实证分析揭示了不同时期两项指标产生差异的原因。实证分析结果表明,改革开放以来全要素生产率提高对促进我国经济增长发挥了重要作用。     

量词的数量语义特征与语法功能

从数量语义特征看,量词重叠并未产生空间量的变化,量词重叠量变发生在时间维度上,此外数量短语具有时问性和层级性,它们都不具有体词性的数量语义特征而具有谓词性的数量语义特征。从句法功能上看,量词与量词结构也不具有体词性,而具有谓词性。量词体词性的误会可以从“理论影响、意义、运用、产生”四方面来看。