A Statewide Parenting Alternative Sentencing Program: Description and Preliminary Outcomes

ABSTRACT

The Washington State Legislature created the Parenting Sentencing Alternative in 2010, authorizing a substitute to total confinement for parents of minor children. The Alternative is designed to strengthen family bonds and improve parenting skills to encourage successful reintegration. An overview of the Alternative’s history, design, and implementation is presented, followed by preliminary results from an impact evaluation. A case study of a successful participant is presented, and implications for the findings are discussed.     

Approximating the risk score for disease diagnosis using MARS

In disease screening and diagnosis, often multiple markers are measured and combined to improve the accuracy of diagnosis. McIntosh and Pepe [Combining several screening tests: optimality of the risk score, Biometrics 58 (2002), pp. 657–664] showed that the risk score, defined as the probability of disease conditional on multiple markers, is the optimal function for classification based on the Neyman–Pearson lemma. They proposed a two-step procedure to approximate the risk score. However, the resulting receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is only defined in a subrange (L, h) of false-positive rates in (0,1) and the determination of the lower limit L needs extra prior information. In practice, most diagnostic tests are not perfect, and it is usually rare that a single marker is uniformly better than the other tests. Using simulation, I show that multivariate adaptive regression spline is a useful tool to approximate the risk score when combining multiple markers, especially when ROC curves from multiple tests cross. The resulting ROC is defined in the whole range of (0,1) and is easy to implement and has intuitive interpretation. The sample code of the application is shown in the appendix.     

On some aspects of a generalized alternative zero-inflated logarithmic series distribution

Here, we consider a generalized form of the alternative zero-inflated logarithmic series distribution of Kumar and Riyaz (J. Statist. Comp. Simul., 2015) and study some of its important aspects. The parameters of the distribution are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood and some test procedures are developed for testing the significance of the additional parameter of the model. All these estimation and testing procedures are illustrated with the help of certain real life datasets. A simulation study is also carried out for assessing the performance of the estimators.     

The determinacy of the regression factor score predictor based on continuous parameter estimates from categorical variables

The estimation of population parameters of the continuous common factor model from categorical observed variables is meanwhile regularly performed. It is shown that the formula for the calculation of the determinacy of the regression factor score predictor from the estimated model parameters has to be adapted under these conditions. A method for the calculation of this determinacy from the model parameters of the continuous population factor model based on categorical variables is proposed and evaluated by means of simulated population data. It turns out that using the uncorrected formula can lead to serious overestimation of determinacy for categorical variables.     

高等学校学生成绩分析方法的研究

学生的考试成绩一直是直接评价学生学业的重要标准,也是评价学生综合素质的一个主要指标。综合分析高等学校学生的学习成绩,掌握学生的学习动态,对培养学生成才至关重要。应用软件Microsoft Office Excel研究了综合分析普通高等学校学生成绩的方式,并将分析的结果应用到学生的培养。实践证明,该学习成绩的分析方法可以有效地提高学生的培养成效,在实际应用中可以作为培养学生成才的重要依据,为高等学校培养学生成才提供重要的分析工具。     

基于改进得分函数的直觉模糊多属性决策方法

针对属性权重信息完全未知的直觉模糊多属性决策问题进行了探究,提出了一种综合考虑隶属度、非隶属度以及犹豫度的新的得分函数,利用改进的得分函数将传统的熵权法推广到直觉模糊领域,为属性权重完全未知的直觉模糊多属性决策问题提供了一个新的排序方法。实际的铁路冻害整治算例进一步说明该方法的可行性和有效性。     

A propensity score matching analysis of the relationship between victim sex and capital juror decision-making in North Carolina

A small body of prior research has examined the impact of victim sex on jury death penalty decision-making and the majority of this research has demonstrated some evidence of a “female victim effect” such that cases involving a female victim are more likely to receive the death penalty than similarly situated cases with a male victim. However, within this line of research studies have suggested that victim sex may work in conjunction with other case characteristics. In order to further explore this phenomenon, the current study examines a near-population of death penalty cases from North Carolina (n = 1069) from 1977–2009 using propensity score matching. Results demonstrate that once cases are matched on more than 50 legal and extralegal case characteristics, there is no statistically significant or substantive link between victim sex and death penalty decision-making. Findings suggest that it is concrete differences in the legal and extralegal factors observed in cases with female victims compared to male victims that shape jury death sentence decisions rather than a direct effect of victim sex (before matching: OR = 1.53; 95% CI = 1.20–1.95; p < .001/after matching: OR = 0.90; 95% CI = 0.66–1.24; p = .52). Study limitations and implications are also discussed.     

企业业绩评价方法改进的探讨

企业绩效评价在促进企业改善经营管理、提高经济效益方面具有不可替代的作用。以利润为中心的传统绩效评价指标不能真实地反映公司经营业绩,经济增加值(EVA)和平衡计分卡(BSC)虽然较传统的绩效评价方法有了很大改进,但仍然存在一些不足。将EVA和BSC结合,形成EVA计分卡,运用层次分析法和专家评分法量化指标权重,能较好地评价企业业绩。     

留守经历对新生代农民工工作流动的影响--基于2015年北京市数据的实证检验

本文基于2015年北京市新生代农民工的微观调查数据，在利用倾向得分倒数加权法纠正样本的选择性偏差以后发现：（1）新生代农民工过高的工作流动频率在一定程度上与其普遍的留守经历有关；（2）不同类型的留守形式和留守时间对工作流动的影响有所不同，完全留守、长期留守者表现出更高的工作流动性；（3）相同的留守行为对工作流动的影响存在明显的性别差异，男性农民工更易受到童年时期留守经历的影响。上述结论的政策启示在于：在关注留守经历及其所带来的影响差异的同时，也应避免留守问题的代际传承。