RESEARCHING RELATIONSHIPS FROM AN ATTACHMENT PERSPECTIVE: THE USE OF BEHAVIOURAL,INTERVIEW, SELF‐REPORT AND PROJECTIVE MEASURES

Having demonstrated its credentials as one of the more elegant and robust conceptualisations of human relationships, attachment theory has considerable relevance to social work. Attachment‐based research has flourished over the past few years and it now includes an impressive array of studies across the lifespan. This article considers four different measures used in attachment‐based research, although more discussion is devoted to interview and projective measures because they specifically embrace a psychodynamic approach in their design and analytic focus. The aim of the article is to provide a brief overview of each measure and to offer some illustrative examples using practice‐related material.     

Nonparametric analysis of treatment effects with missing observations

This paper develops a test for comparing treatment effects when observations are missing at random for repeated measures data on independent subjects. It is assumed that missingness at any occasion follows a Bernoulli distribution. It is shown that the distribution of the vector of linear rank statistics depends on the unknown parameters of the probability law that governs missingness, which is absent in the existing conditional methods employing rank statistics. This dependence is through the variance–covariance matrix of the vector of linear ranks. The test statistic is a quadratic form in the linear rank statistics when the variance–covariance matrix is estimated. The limiting distribution of the test statistic is derived under the null hypothesis. Several methods of estimating the unknown components of the variance–covariance matrix are considered. The estimate that produces stable empirical Type I error rate while maintaining the highest power among the competing tests is recommended for implementation in practice. Simulation studies are also presented to show the advantage of the proposed test over other rank-based tests that do not account for the randomness in the missing data pattern. Our method is shown to have the highest power while also maintaining near-nominal Type I error rates. Our results clearly illustrate that even for an ignorable missingness mechanism, the randomness in the pattern of missingness cannot be ignored. A real data example is presented to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Data envelopment analysis in the presence of measurement error: case study from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators® (NDNQI®)

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is the most commonly used approach for evaluating healthcare efficiency [B. Hollingsworth, The measurement of efficiency and productivity of health care delivery. Health Economics 17(10) (2008), pp. 1107–1128], but a long-standing concern is that DEA assumes that data are measured without error. This is quite unlikely, and DEA and other efficiency analysis techniques may yield biased efficiency estimates if it is not realized [B.J. Gajewski, R. Lee, M. Bott, U. Piamjariyakul, and R.L. Taunton, On estimating the distribution of data envelopment analysis efficiency scores: an application to nursing homes’ care planning process. Journal of Applied Statistics 36(9) (2009), pp. 933–944; J. Ruggiero, Data envelopment analysis with stochastic data. Journal of the Operational Research Society 55 (2004), pp. 1008–1012]. We propose to address measurement error systematically using a Bayesian method (Bayesian DEA). We will apply Bayesian DEA to data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators^® to estimate nursing units’ efficiency. Several external reliability studies inform the posterior distribution of the measurement error on the DEA variables. We will discuss the case of generalizing the approach to situations where an external reliability study is not feasible.     

Some Results Based on a Version of the Generalized Dynamic Entropies

We propose new dynamic measures of uncertainty based on the notion of generalized dynamic entropy introduced in Di Crescenzo and Longobardi (2006). These can uniquely determine distribution functions in continuous and discrete cases, and the characterizations of some well-known distributions are provided. We also define some orderings and aging notions based on the generalized dynamic measures, and prove some of their properties, obtaining as corollaries results that have recently appeared in the literature.     

企业内部控制的思考

现代企业从事的社会化大生产,具有分工精细、协作广泛的特点。日新月异的科学技术、加速发展的全球一体化进程,使得企业面临着错综复杂的政治、经济、文化、社会等内部环境。因此,企业要正确定位,优化设计,实施与持续改进绩效考评,建立资源计划系统以应对不断变化的形势。     

论“学报体”及其改良

"学报体"指发表在我国社科学术期刊上的文章所体现出的某些共性,既涉及题材内容,又涉及风格气象。我国社科期刊自创立至今,事实上存在着作为"正体"的和作为"伪体"的两种"学报体"文章,前者应得到护持,后者应受到贬斥。"正体"文章之长的主要体现是:分学科门类表述高深问题研究新得;举充分依据细密论证大小论点;以人文关怀给力社会发展;有较多行文规范服务内容表达。"伪体"文章之弊主要表现为:形式完备而内容贫瘠;"八股化"程度严重;缺少淑世情怀。当今"学报体"文章的改良,应先从三个方面做起:变文章评价由"重量轻质"为"重质轻量";变文章体式由"一体独大"为"众体并茂";变文章语言由"重质轻文"为"质文双重"。     

我国环境刑罚轻缓化探析

毋庸置疑,在整个国际社会对环境犯罪处以轻缓刑罚的背景下,我国亦应该对环境刑罚采用轻缓化的原则。诚然,我国的环境刑罚制度与其他国家相比还有许多亟待完善的地方,但这并不妨碍我们在借鉴其他国家先进的立法经验的基础上构建适合我国具体国情的环境刑罚制度。在环境刑罚中要突出自由刑的适用,扩大并完善财产刑的适用,明确财产刑中过于模糊的规定,逐步改善环境犯罪的刑事处罚措施过于单一的缺点和功能上的不足,同时提高对辅助刑罚措施的关注。在环境犯罪方面,在适用传统刑罚措施惩治的基础上配合适用辅助刑罚措施,使我国环境刑罚轻缓化实践不至于成为一纸空谈。     

大学与县域幼儿园伙伴合作的实践研究——基于幼儿园发展规划的制订与实施

幼儿园发展规划的制订和实施,已经逐渐成为我国学前教育管理的重要工具。在幼儿园发展诊断与改进过程中，大学与幼儿园建立伙伴合作关系，以幼儿园发展规划为基点与主线，思考区域学前教育发展的新道路。本研究以东北师范大学与四川省蒲江县幼儿园合作为例，呈现区域幼儿园制订与实施幼儿园发展规划的行动研究过程。     

Testing for a change point in a sequence of exponential random variables with repeated values

Two test statistics are proposed for the change-point problem with repeated values when the data follow an exponential distribution. The properties of these two statistics have been studied and their asymptotic distributions under the alternative have been derived. The powers of the two test statistics are compared. Real-data examples are presented to illustrate the application of these tests.     

Impact of an Overt Response System on Staff Performance and Maintenance of Computer-Based Instruction

Interactive Computer Based Instruction (CBI) systems involve teaching strategies to facilitate greater response opportunities during training in an effort to improve learner performance. The current study investigated the effect of online staff training videos with and without overt response requirements on posttest and maintenance test scores across six block-randomized instructional modules for four employees of a university located in the southeastern region of the United States. The overt response consisted of multiple-choice questions administered throughout select teaching modules using an alternating treatment design. Findings suggest that learning occurred as a result of the CBI training; however, the effectiveness of the overt response system varied across individuals, with no discernible differentiation between learning gains associated with response requirements. Other areas of research for expanding the efficacy of CBI and overt response systems are highlighted.