Causes of worker burnout

This research reports on a survey conducted with 183 protective service workers in the state of Michigan. These practitioners listed 166 separate statements representing primary dissatisfactions or frustrations with being a child protective caseworker. Such dissatisfaction was assumed to underly the various dimensions of burnout. The statements were collated and synthesized through a version of the constant comparative method which resulted in three basic categories reflecting perceived causes of burnout: (a) overloaded responsibility, (b) lack of recognition, and (c) poor communication. The three categories are interrelated and together they point to workers' dissatisfaction with their supervisors as one of the major sources of burnout. The paper also includes a brief discussion of four ways to reduce or prevent worker burnout: reduce the client-to-staff ratio, shorten the number of work hours, change the function of staff meeting, and provide in-service training.     

A multi-dimensional client satisfaction instrument

Development of a client satisfaction measure through successive factor analyses is described. Five factors, each defined by five items and accounting for at least 11% of the total variance, were identified and replicated. A single second order factor also emerged in both studies. Reliability of the second order factor, and of three of the first order factors is sufficient for most purposes. The second order factor, which is a linear combination of the first order factors, was not significantly correlated with sex, age, race, or number of attempts made before receiving a client response. The distribution of scores was highly skewed, with most respondents scoring near the upper (satisfied) end.     

Quality of life in the evaluation of community support systems

As a result of the authors' experience in conducting an evaluation of the community support system (CSS) program in New York State, they have identified five reasons for focusing on quality of life (QOL) as a desired outcome for programs for the chronically ill. These reasons are presented and problems in QOL evaluative research are discussed. Psychological indicators are distinguished from social indicators of QOL, and two methods of operationalizing perceived QOL, the psychological well-being and life domains methods, are examined. A conceptual model is presented and the results of an exploratory study of the QOL of 118 chronic psychiatric patients receiving CSS services are presented.     

Evaluating sociodemographic data: implications for program planning and development

Sociodemographic data can have broad implications for program planning and development. Yet, such data are often obtained and analyzed in a non-rigorous methodological fashion. Four of these methodological issues are discussed in this paper. Their relevance for program planning and development are clarified, using examples from the utilization, needs assessment, illness behavior, and social functioning literature.     

One-reason decision-making: Modeling violations of expected utility theory

People violate expected utility theory and this has been traditionally modeled by augmenting its weight-and-add framework by nonlinear transformations of values and probabilities. Yet individuals often use one-reason decision-making when making court decisions or choosing cellular phones, and institutions do the same when creating rules for traffic safety or fair play in sports. We analyze a model of one-reason decision-making, the priority heuristic, and show that it simultaneously implies common consequence effects, common ratio effects, reflection effects, and the fourfold pattern of risk attitude. The preferences represented by the priority heuristic satisfy some standard axioms. This work may provide the basis for a new look at bounded rationality.

统计概念解析

本文从分析统计的本质属性出发,根据统计广泛性特点,归纳广义统计和狭义统计的概念,建立“统计概念总系”,力求能够包罗统计万象,体现统计全貌,使统计这一事物有一个总纲纪,为人们全面认识统计提供了一个新的视角。文中重点对政府统计纵向构成进行了分析和解读,解开人们在传统认识上的挽扣儿,这是正确理解政府统计构成的关键认识点,由此方能建立起统计概念体系。     

宋代南丰曾氏家族第五代诗词创作叙论——以曾悖与曾协为代表

南丰曾氏到了第五代已经全面衰落,文学创作与文化传承成为维持家族声名的最重要的方式。曾悖现存诗词均为绍兴中知黄州与台州所作,着意书写个人游赏清兴以表达“方外之乐”,他继承曾氏家族第四代传统,与江西诗派变调诗人韩驹、徐俯、吕本中、曾几等人往来唱和甚密,诗歌受其影响;词以小令为主,能将洒脱与温婉结合。曾协仕途与声名不及曾悖,但现存诗词最多,其诗学苏轼、陈与义而有所变化,词有陈与义的疏爽洒脱。曾悖与曾协代表曾氏家族诗词的两种不太相同的风格取向,曾晦之、曾思的诗作接近曾悼。接近江西诗派仍是曾氏家族第五代的诗歌创作特点。     

A statistical social network model for consumption data in trophic food webs

We adapt existing statistical modeling techniques for social networks to study consumption data observed in trophic food webs. These data describe the feeding volume (non-negative) among organisms grouped into nodes, called trophic species, that form the food web. Model complexity arises due to the extensive amount of zeros in the data, as each node in the web is predator/prey to only a small number of other trophic species. Many of the zeros are regarded as structural (non-random) in the context of feeding behavior. The presence of basal prey and top predator nodes (those who never consume and those who are never consumed, with probability 1) creates additional complexity to the statistical modeling. We develop a special statistical social network model to account for such network features. The model is applied to two empirical food webs; focus is on the web for which the population size of seals is of concern to various commercial fisheries.     

Pay premiums for economic sector and race: A decomposition

This paper examines two issues concerning a dual economy theory of labor markets. Using data from the older men's file of the National Longitudinal Surveys, I first investigate the degree to which differences in rates of pay among economic sectors (competitive, monopoly, public) are accounted for by sector differences in (1) human capital composition, (2) unionization, (3) occupational skill requirements, and (4) other factors producing an ability and willingness to pay high wages. The results of this decomposition suggest that the greater ability and willingness to pay high wages and the higher levels of unionization are the primary factors producing a monopoly sector pay premium. Second, I examine how racial differences in pay vary across sector and perform an analogous decomposition of these differences. In contrast to several previous studies, the relative disadvantages of black men were found to be somewhat greater in the competitive sector than in the monopoly sector.     

奥古斯丁的“情感”理论

从《上帝之城》、《论创世纪驳摩尼教》及《论“山上宝训”》、《论三位一体》这几个文本中,我们可以看出,奥古斯丁对于情感的态度是存在着矛盾的：早期他认为情感是人性的一种不自愿的反应,因而情感本身并不导致罪的发生;而后来则认为情感是一种承担着意志的赞同的真实的情感。至于第一推动（primus motus）,在奥古斯丁看来,它是灵魂的情感部分的反应．所以他把它们看作是最初的情感而不是情感发生的前件。