The Establishment and Application of a Labor Quality Index: The Case of Taiwan’s Manufacturing Industry

The labor quality index (LQI) not only serves as an important reference for monitoring the progress of the sustainable development of a country, but it can also serve as an important parameter for economic analysis. To compile such an index for Taiwan, we conducted two large-scale surveys of 1000 major enterprises and 844 union leaders, respectively, to determine the appropriate weights for each key factor. We also searched for all the relevant statistics that were used to calculate the weighted sum of the 25 sub-indexes, in order to compile a LQI for Taiwan’s manufacturing industries covering the period from 1990-2000. Our calculations show that this LQI rose from 80.2 in 1990 to 117.5 in 2000, which reflected an impressive 37.3% increase in just one decade. This rate of growth has, however, been slowing down since 1997. Our results indicate that the LQI provides a valuable indicator for monitoring the enhancement of labor quality in this society.     

Examining Localized Patterns of Air Quality Perception in Texas: A Spatial and Statistical Analysis

Environmental and human health issues associated with outdoor air pollution, such as ozone, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants in metropolitan regions, are an area of growing concern for both policy officials and the general public. Increasing attention from the news media, new health data, and public debate over the effectiveness of clean air regulations have raised the importance of air quality in the public consciousness. While public perceptions of air quality have been studied thoroughly dating back to the 1960s, little empirical research has been conducted to explain the spatial aspects of these perceptions, particularly at the local level. Although recent studies suggest characteristics of local setting are important in shaping perceptions of air quality, the roles of proximity, neighborhood characteristics, and location have not been clarified. This study seeks to improve understanding of the major factors shaping public perceptions of air quality by examining the spatial pattern of local risk perception, the role of socioeconomic characteristics in forming these perceptions, and the relationship between perceived and scientifically measured air pollution. First, we map the spatial pattern of local air quality perceptions using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) across the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas. Next, we explain these perceptions through local contextual factors using both bivariate correlations and multivariate regression analysis. Results indicate that perceptions of air quality in the study areas are not significantly correlated with air quality based on readings of air monitoring stations. Instead, perceptions appear to be influenced by setting (urban vs. rural), state identification, access to information, and socioeconomic characteristics such as age, race, and political identification. We discuss the implications of the findings and provide direction on how further research can provide a deeper understanding of the local contextual factors influencing public perceptions.     

试论继续教育对教师素质的现代转换

继续教育是我国为实现现代化尤其是教育现代化、人的现代化所进行的新型教育。本文从知识经济与教育现代化的背景上论述了继续教育对教师素质进行转换的必要性、基本内涵、基本内容以及转换的方向。     

The Quality of Urban Environments in the Brazilian Amazon

In the Brazilian Amazon during the 1980s,urban population growth outstripped rural growth, andby 1991, most of the region's population resided inurban areas. Much of this urban growth involvedestablishment of unplanned housing with inadequateinfrastructure, which resulted in rising pollution. This paper compares indicators of environmentalquality in urban populations of the Amazon in 1980 and1991, and among different kinds of urban populationsin 1991. The results show that environmental qualityin the region deteriorated during the 1980s as theproduction of and exposure to environmental hazardsrose while resources to ward off hazards eroded. Thefindings also show that environmental quality wasparticularly poor in more rapidly growing urbancenters. The urban Amazon may not afford an adequatestandard of living and this may generate out-migrationfrom the region.     

提高妇女素质是提高人口素质的重要保证

母亲的素质对孩子的优生优育有直接的重大影响 ,因此 ,提高妇女素质是全民族刻不容缓的任务     

Interplay between Friends' Aggression and Friendship Quality in the Development of Child Aggression during the Early School Years

The aim of this study was to investigate the unique and combined role of friendship quality and friends' aggression in regard to the persistence of young children's physical aggression from kindergarten to grade 2. The sample included 1555 children (808 girls) assessed annually using teacher ratings. Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., the social learning and the social bonding perspectives) served as frameworks to guide the analyses and interpret the results. In line with the social learning perspective, friends' aggression was related to a significant increase in children's physical aggression. However, in line with the social bonding perspective, good friendship quality played both a compensatory and a protective role, by, respectively, reducing children's initial level of physical aggression and by mitigating, albeit marginally, the associations between friends' and children's physical aggression. These results suggest that fostering a positive relationship between friends in the early school years may decrease physical aggression even if the friends are aggressive.     

对跨世纪广州师范学院教师队伍建设的若干看法

本文论述跨世纪教师队伍建设的重大战略意义并针对广州师范学院的某些实际情况,提出抓好跨世纪教师队伍建设的若干对策。     

注重素质培养,实现教育实习的目的

面对实习学校设备参差不齐,指导教师素质有高有低,实习学生来源、民族、性别比例不均的状况,我校教育实习相应地采取了城乡结合式、基地式等多种形式.在实习中,通过准备、实习、总结三个阶段,加强学生教风、教态、仪表、行为、着装、语言和板书的专门素质教育,以期达到教育实习的目的.     

Heteroscedastic Regression Models and Applications to Off-line Quality Control

We discuss in the present paper the analysis of heteroscedastic regression models and their applications to off-line quality control problems. It is well known that the method of pseudo-likelihood is usually preferred to full maximum likelihood since estimators of the parameters in the regression function obtained are more robust to misspecification of the variance function. Despite its popularity, however, existing theoretical results are difficult to apply and are of limited use in many applications. Using more recent results in estimating equations, we obtain an efficient algorithm for computing the pseudo-likelihood estimator with desirable convergence properties and also derive simple, explicit and easy to apply asymptotic results. These results are used to look in detail at variance minimization in off-line quality control, yielding techniques of inferences for the optimized design parameter. In application of some existing approaches to off-line quality control, such as the dual response methodology, rigorous statistical inference techniques are scarce and difficult to obtain. An example of off-line quality control is presented to discuss the practical aspects involved in the application of the results obtained and to address issues such as data transformation, model building and the optimization of design parameters. The analysis shows very encouraging results, and is seen to be able to unveil some important information not found in previous analyses.     

On the recoding of continuous and bounded indexes to a binomial form: an application to quality-of-life scores

The statistical analysis of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) as endpoints has shown to be of great practical relevance. The resulting scores or indexes from the questionnaires used to measure PROs could be treated as continuous or ordinal. The goal of this study is to propose and evaluate a recoding process of the scores, so that they can be treated as binomial outcomes and, therefore, analyzed using logistic regression with random effects. The general methodology of recoding is based on the observable values of the scores. In order to obtain an optimal recoding, the evaluation of the recoding method is tested for different values of the parameters of the binomial distribution and different probability distributions of the random effects. We illustrate, evaluate and validate the proposed method of recoding with the Short Form-36 (SF-36) Survey and real data. The optimal recoding approach is very useful and flexible. Moreover, it has a natural interpretation, not only for ordinal scores, but also for questionnaires with many dimensions and different profiles, where a common method of analysis is desired, such as the SF-36.