The often overlooked issue of statistical power: This and other issues regarding assessing importance weighting in quality of life measures

In the area of quality of life research, researchers may ask respondents to rate importance as well as satisfaction of various life domains (such as job and health) and use importance ratings as weights to calculate overall, or global, life satisfaction. The practice of giving more important domains more weight, known as importance weighting, has not been without controversy. Several previous studies assessed importance weighting using the analytical approach of moderated regression. This study discusses major issues related to how importance weighting has been assessed. Specifically, this study highlights that studies on importance weighting without considering statistical power are prone to type II error, i.e., failing to reject the null hypothesis of no significant weighting effect when the null hypothesis is actually false. The sample size required for adequate statistical power to detect importance weighting functions appeared larger than most previous studies could offer.     

Optimal lot sizing under continuous price decrease

An important characteristic of high-tech industries is decreasing component prices over time. In the personal computer industry, some component prices decline at a rate of 1% per week. This paper develops an inventory model for products experiencing continuous decrease in unit price. We develop an accurate closed-form approximate solution to the model. Our results indicate that declining prices lead to substantial decrease in the optimal cycle time and much frequent ordering. This explains the heavy emphasis on just-in-time inventory management practiced by successful companies in high-tech industries. While previous models attributed the success of just-in-time policies to reduced holding cost and improved quality, under declining prices a substantial source of savings becomes lower costs of raw materials which is significant part of cost in these industries. We illustrate the results of the model with a numerical example and perform sensitivity analysis.     

PATTERN RECOGNITION VIA ROBUST SMOOTHING WITH APPLICATION TO LASER DATA

Nowadays airborne laser scanning is used in many territorial studies, providing point data which may contain strong discontinuities. Motivated by the need to interpolate such data and preserve their edges, this paper considers robust nonparametric smoothers. These estimators, when implemented with bounded loss functions, have suitable jump‐preserving properties. Iterative algorithms are developed here, and are equivalent to nonlinear M‐smoothers, but have the advantage of resembling the linear Kernel regression. The selection of their coefficients is carried out by combining cross‐validation and robust‐tuning techniques. Two real case studies and a simulation experiment confirm the validity of the method; in particular, the performance in building recognition is excellent.     

Unconditional analogues of Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel tests

The Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel tests are a suite of tests that are usually defined as conditional tests, tests that assume all marginal totals are known before sighting the data. Here unconditional analogues of these tests are defined for the more usual situation when the marginal totals are not known before sighting the data.     

How much is too much: Does the size of income support transfers affect labor supply?

Cash transfer programs pursue mainly protective objectives, but can also impact rural livelihoods by inducing investments in productive activities and changing household labor allocation. We adopt a continuous treatment approach to quantify how households’ labor supply responds to transfer size. We find a shift from paid labor to own farm labor and find that the transfer size is well within a level that would have disincentive effects on time spent on own farm activities. The switch from paid to own farm labor occurs at lower levels of transfers for labor-constrained households, and at higher levels for non-labor constrained households.     

Analysis of robust design experiments with time-dependent ordinal response characteristics: a quality improvement study from the horticulture industry

An approach to the analysis of time-dependent ordinal quality score data from robust design experiments is developed and applied to an experiment from commercial horticultural research, using concepts of product robustness and longevity that are familiar to analysts in engineering research. A two-stage analysis is used to develop models describing the effects of a number of experimental treatments on the rate of post-sales product quality decline. The first stage uses a polynomial function on a transformed scale to approximate the quality decline for an individual experimental unit using derived coefficients and the second stage uses a joint mean and dispersion model to investigate the effects of the experimental treatments on these derived coefficients. The approach, developed specifically for an application in horticulture, is exemplified with data from a trial testing ornamental plants that are subjected to a range of treatments during production and home-life. The results of the analysis show how a number of control and noise factors affect the rate of post-production quality decline. Although the model is used to analyse quality data from a trial on ornamental plants, the approach developed is expected to be more generally applicable to a wide range of other complex production systems.     

4-6岁幼儿电子游戏卷入度与得分关系研究

为了解4-6岁幼儿电子游戏卷入度与游戏得分的关系,对随机选取的20名4-6岁的幼儿在选用的电子游戏中的行为表现及游戏得分进行了观察研究。结果发现: （1）电子游戏卷入度的正性维度得分（M=37.750）高于负性维度得分（M=23.600）;（2）游戏得分从高到低的项目为：保卫萝卜（M=3.200）>水果消消乐（M=2.400）>俄罗斯方块（M=1.400）;（3）电子游戏卷入度负性因子与游戏得分的交互作用明显,F(6,14)=14.368,P<0.005。结论：（1）益智电子游戏可以较好促进4-6岁幼儿产生喜悦、注意、鼓励、努力等积极情绪;（2）游戏规则和操作越简单,越容易成功的益智游戏,更容易吸引4-6岁幼儿;（3）场景多变性、任务挑战难度越大的益智游戏,具有双刃剑的效应,虽然可以引起4-6岁幼儿参与游戏的兴趣,但是也容易给他们带来消极的情感体验。     

并行工程在管理中的应用

在 2 1世纪 ,企业绝不能象过去那样满足于某一方面的优势 ,而要尽可能全面发展。为此企业必须要寻找一种新的整体优化管理模式。针对产品的开发设计而言 ,则要摒弃原有的开发设计模式———串行方式 ,采用新的方式———并行工程。本文介绍了并行工程的基本概念和它作为一种新的管理思想的内涵 ,并重点阐述了这种管理思想在企业中的应用。     

输入模态对认知负荷及听力成绩的影响

探讨了输入模态对学生认知负荷和听力理解的影响。90名来自两个平行班的大学英语学生被平均分为三个小组参加实验:文本输入组,声音输入组,文本和声音输入组。文本组的听力题目用文本呈现,声音组的听力题目仅用声音呈现,文本和声音组的题目则是采用文本和声音双重模态呈现。认知负荷量表结果和听力测试结果显示不同模态的听力输入形式对听力成绩有显著影响:文本组学生的成绩最高,其次是文本加音频组,音频输入组的成绩最低。认知负荷量表结果显示文本组的认知负荷最低,然后是文本加音频组,音频输入组的认知负荷最高。认知负荷与听力成绩的相关分析显示负荷程度与听力成绩呈负相关。研究结果对听力教学有较好的借鉴作用。     

Understanding Canonical Correlation through the General Linear Model and Principal Components

Canonical correlation has been little used and little understood, even by otherwise sophisticated analysts. An alternative approach to canonical correlation, based on a general linear multivariate model, is presented. Properties of principal component analysis are used to help explain the method. Standard computational methods for full rank canonical correlation, techniques for canonical correlation on component scores, and canonical correlation with less than full rank are discussed. They are seen to be essentially equivalent when the model equation for canonical correlation on component scores is presented. The two approaches to less than full rank situations are equivalent in some senses, but quite different in usefulness, depending on the application. An example dataset is analyzed in detail to help demonstrate the conclusions.