Predictors and outcomes of social network compositions: A compositional structural equation modeling approach

Proportions of a total, including social network compositions (proportions of partner, family, friends, etc.) lie in a restricted space, which challenges statistical analysis. Network compositions can be both dependent and explanatory variables and are usually measured with error by survey instruments. Structural equation models make it possible to correct measurement error bias. Coenders et al. (2011) fitted a factor analysis model to transformed network compositions. In this article, we use another transformation called an isometric log-ratio and we extend the model to include predictors and outcomes. The findings and hypotheses in the literature can be reformulated with isometric log-ratios in a more interpretable manner. For instance, we find relationships of gender with partner support, of education and extraversion with friend support, and of family support with tie multiplexity and closeness.     

山西农业劳动率对比分析

农业劳动率问题历来受到关注,山西的问题更加突出,通过对山西农业的劳动率情况内部纵向对比和外部横向对比分析,进而了解山西农业劳动力存在的问题以及具有多大的提升潜力,并在此基础上进一步探究限制劳动力发展的因素并提出相应的建议。     

结构现实主义理论的科学主义倾向分析

“科学主义”概念主要指仿照自然科学的程序来构建理论。结构现实主义在理论构建过程中表现出了强烈的科学主义倾向,尤其体现在其研究假设中。沃尔兹的科学主义倾向存在一定的局限性,但总体而言,其理论还是较好地满足了科学主义的要求,这种构建理论的方式有着重大意义,它对整个西方国际关系理论的发展都具有深远影响。     

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction Ratings; Multiple Group Invariance Analysis Across Scales with Different Response Format

The current study evaluates three hypothesized models on subjective well-being, comprising life domain ratings (LDR), overall satisfaction with life (OSWL), and overall dissatisfaction with life (ODWL), using structural equation modeling (SEM). A sample of 1,310 volunteering students, randomly assigned to six conditions, rated their overall life (dis)satisfaction and their (dis)satisfaction with six different life domains. Each condition used one of six response formats, differing in (1) orientation (horizontal vs. vertical), and (2) anchoring (0 to 10, −5 to +5, and Not numbered). The results of a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) support a six-factor model of LDR based on satisfaction or dissatisfaction items. However, our findings indicate that the kind of response format used to obtain satisfaction and dissatisfaction ratings can affect the factor loadings. Our results indicate that the proposed models of OSWL, and ODWL fit the data well, and are able to predict OSWL and ODWL, respectively. Moreover, among six life domains, which figure as the latent variables in our models, psychological well-being was found to be the strongest predictor of both OSWL and ODWL.

经营环境变迁与银行业发展——基于欧洲银行业的分析

20世纪80年代以来,放松管制、金融市场发展以及技术进步为代表的经营环境变化,推动全球银行业发生了根本性的结构变革。经营环境的变化使商业银行传统优势地位受到侵蚀,银行业市场可竞争性增强,商业银行在巨大经营压力下的应对战略是通过并购重组实施规模化与综合化经营,最终使银行业的市场结构以及资产和收入结构发生根本性的变化。     

调整政府支出结构 提升居民消费意愿——一个财政政策视角的分析

根据各类政府支出项目的基本功能,可将其划分为公共福利支出和非公共福利支出两大类,在现阶段,政府财政的公共福利支出对居民消费具有互补效应,而非公共福利支出对居民消费具有替代效应,并且前者明显强于后者.为了探析公共福利支出对居民消费具有互补效应的内在原因,我们根据行为经济学的基本理论与方法,假设居民的心理安全是决定其消费行为的重要因素,而公共福利支出又是影响心理安全的重要因素,并通过检验发现,当公共福利支出满足居民心理安全需求的能力下降时,居民的消费增长对收入增长的反应系数显著变小.上述结论的政策含义是,通过对政府支出的内部结构进行调整,即一方面增强公共福利支出的供给力度,以维持居民的心理安全;另一方面适当缩减非公共福利支出中的"臃肿"部分,以达到提升居民消费意愿、刺激居民消费增长的目的.     

On Exact Statistical Properties of Multidimensional Indices Based on Principal Components,Factor Analysis,MIMIC and Structural Equation Models

Recent empirical literature has seen many multidimensional indices emerge as well-being or poverty measures, in particular indices derived from principal components and various latent variable models. Though such indices are being increasingly and widely employed, few studies motivate their use or report the standard errors or confidence intervals associated with these estimators. This paper reviews the different underlying models, reaffirms their appropriateness in this context, examines the statistical properties of resulting indices, gives analytical expressions of their variances and establishes certain exact relationships among them.      

Factors impacting intention to leave in social workers and child care workers employed at voluntary agencies

Introduction

To ameliorate high turnover in child welfare, researchers have attempted to identify factors that lead to undesirable turnover. While this has been studied extensively, little attention has been paid to turnover based upon job roles. Like social workers in child welfare, the field of child care also experiences high turnover. Child care workers employed in child welfare settings are no exception. The current study seeks to understand differential factors that impact intent to leave for preventive and child care workers employed in child welfare agencies.

Materials and methods

Data for prevention workers (n = 538) were obtained from all preventive service programs under contract with the City. Data for child care workers (n = 222) were obtained from three voluntary agencies located elsewhere in the State. The instrument was a modified version of a survey developed to examine job satisfaction and potential turnover among public child welfare workers. Domains measured included job satisfaction, intention to leave, career commitment, and agency investment. Data were analyzed using bivariate analysis and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).

Results

Child care workers had more positive perceptions of child welfare and planned to stay in child welfare longer. Despite this, prevention workers felt more invested in their work. Child care and prevention workers had different levels of satisfaction with their jobs although overall job satisfaction did not differ nor did their intention to leave. Tenure at the agency was predictive of career investment. Investment, perceptions of child welfare, satisfaction with nature of work, and contingent rewards were associated with career commitment. Commitment and satisfaction with supervision were the greatest predictors of intention to leave.

Discussion

There is a gap in literature addressing child care workers in child welfare, and future study of this group is needed. Child care workers are just as likely to intend to leave their jobs as prevention workers. For both groups, it appears that investment in their jobs increases commitment to the field which reduces intention to leave.     

Antiracism Limited

Liberal enthusiasm over the arrival of a ‘post-racial’ era in the USA found ecstatic release at the 2008 election of the first African-American to the presidency. Several years have passed since that event, and the idea of ‘post-race’ remains a potent, if uneasy, keyword within the national imaginary. Authorizing ‘official antiracisms’ of our day, post-race sanctions the governmentalities of racial neoliberalism, and forecloses alternative paradigms for antiracist struggle. Equally, it registers as a cruel joke of sorts, turning on studied denials of abiding inequalities and open to the lash of ridicule and scorn. At once absurd and alluring, post-race reveals the cultural career of a keyword marked by power and authority as well as tenacious counter-claims that show up its conceits and specious allure.

A rich body of scholarship has emerged in recent years to unpack the meanings and implications of the term. These works typically take the Obama moment, unprecedented and consequential, as a key signifying theatre. This essay, however, begins elsewhere, suggesting instead that the 2008 victory constitutes a denouement, a narrative climax to epistemic struggles that shaped racial discourse over decades prior to and, indeed, anticipating Obama's arrival as post-racial icon. Offering a genealogical pre-history of post-race, the analysis uses the analytical lens of ‘bricolage’ to trace a range of articulations over a 40-year span that concludes with Obama's 2008 victory. The essay maps the riotous ascendance of post-race as well as its faltering claims to authority to reveal the conditions of possibility that gave rise to, and continue to provide traction for, the idea of the post-racial. Highlighting key epistemological shifts ushered in by the concept, the essay substantiates the terms of a third ‘racial break’ that works to foreclose all but those antiracist projects that serve the incentives of neoliberal capital.