Translating cross-lagged effects into incidence rates and risk ratios: The case of psychosocial safety climate and depression

Longitudinal studies are the gold standard of empirical work and stress research whenever experiments are not plausible. Frequently, scales are used to assess risk factors and their consequences, and cross-lagged effects are estimated to determine possible risks. Methods to translate cross-lagged effects into risk ratios to facilitate risk assessment do not yet exist, which creates a divide between psychological and epidemiological work stress research. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate how cross-lagged effects can be used to assess the risk ratio of different levels of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) in organisations, an important psychosocial risk for the development of depression. We used available longitudinal evidence from the Australian Workplace Barometer (N?=?1905) to estimate cross-lagged effects of PSC on depression. We applied continuous time modelling to obtain time-scalable cross effects. These were further investigated in a 4-year Monte Carlo simulation, which translated them into 4-year incident rates. Incident rates were determined by relying on clinically relevant 2-year periods of depression. We suggest a critical value of PSC?=?26 (corresponding to ?1.4 SD), which is indicative of more than 100% increased incidents of persistent depressive disorder in 4-year periods compared to average levels of PSC across 4 years.     

集权、分权、利益集团理论与美国公共行政的发展

本文从论述汉密尔顿、杰斐逊和麦迪逊政治思想入手，分析了以集权思想为特征的汉密尔顿＂古典式行政模式＂、以分权思想为特征的杰斐逊＂浪漫式行政模式＂和以利益集团思想为特征的麦迪逊＂新古典式行政模式＂产生的历史条件和原因，并从宏观上考察了３种＂行政模式＂在美国行政的不同发展阶段中的实践和影响。     

Measuring agreement between two statistics with applications to age standardization

Summary.  We detail a general method for measuring agreement between two statistics. An application is two ratios of directly standardized rates which differ only by the choice of the standard. If the statistics have a high value for the coefficient of agreement then the expected squared difference between the statistics is small relative to the variance of the average of the two statistics, and inferences vary little by changing statistics. The estimation of a coefficient of agreement between two statistics is not straightforward because there is only one pair of observed values, each statistic calculated from the data. We introduce estimators of the coefficient of agreement for two statistics and discuss their use, especially as applied to functions of standardized rates.     

见义不为现象的法律救治

见义勇为立法的重要内容之一,就是规定社会和国家对见义勇为者权益的救济和保护负有不可推卸的义务。作者认为对见义勇为者的权益实行法律保护是救治当前道德冷漠现象的一剂良方,是与现实需要紧密结合的法律规范。它的制定与实施又进一步充实了法律的正义精神,是法律价值的全面体现。但在现阶段我国还不具备相应的历史与现实条件用法律强制的手段推行见义勇为的道德行为。     

Statistical Distributions of Daily Breathing Rates for Narrow Age Groups of Infants and Children

Children may be more susceptible to toxicity from some environmental chemicals than adults. This susceptibility may occur during narrow age periods (windows), which can last from days to years depending on the toxicant. Breathing rates specific to narrow age periods are useful to assess inhalation dose during suspected windows of susceptibility. Because existing breathing rates used in risk assessment are typically for broad age ranges or are based on data not representative of the population, we derived daily breathing rates for narrow age ranges of children designed to be more representative of the current U.S. children's population. These rates were derived using the metabolic conversion method of Layton (1993) and energy intake data adjusted to represent the U.S. population from a relatively recent dietary survey (CSFII 1994–1996, 1998). We calculated conversion factors more specific to children than those previously used. Both nonnormalized (L/day) and normalized (L/kg-day) breathing rates were derived and found comparable to rates derived using energy estimates that are accurate for the individuals sampled but not representative of the population. Estimates of breathing rate variability within a population can be used with stochastic techniques to characterize the range of risk in the population from inhalation exposures. For each age and age-gender group, we present the mean, standard error of the mean, percentiles (50th, 90th, and 95th), geometric mean, standard deviation, 95th percentile, and best-fit parametric models of the breathing rate distributions. The standard errors characterize uncertainty in the parameter estimate, while the percentiles describe the combined interindividual and intra-individual variability of the sampled population. These breathing rates can be used for risk assessment of subchronic and chronic inhalation exposures of narrow age groups of children.     

和谐社会构建中的利益表达与利益协调

我国正处在一个社会转型的时代,利益关系格局也发生了一定的变化,产生了利益分化和重组。在这个利益分化的时代,中国的经济利益关系格局出现了经济利益主体多元化、经济利益来源多样化、经济利益差距扩大化和经济利益关系复杂化等新的特征。对此,我们必须正视问题,应特别注意利益表达机制的构建并进行合理的利益协调,充分发挥市场、政府和利益集团的作用,只有这样才能构建一个和谐的社会。     

谈激发大学生政治理论课的学习兴趣

政治理论课是大学生必修的一门课程,它不仅向学生讲授马克思主义的理论知识,还要帮助学生树立科学的世界观、人生观和价值观。政治理论课的教学质量如何,不仅影响到每个学生的未来,而且关系到国家的前途。所以我们要大力改进课堂教学,用教学的高质量来培养学生的高素质。如今大学生普遍不喜欢上政治理论课,极大地影响该课程的教学效果,更难以实现政治理论课的智育和德育双重功能。我们认为,针对目前大学政治理论课的低效性现状,可以通过激发学生的学习兴趣来提高政治理论课的教学效果。     

Diagnostics for dependence within time series extremes

Summary. The analysis of extreme values within a stationary time series entails various assumptions concerning its long- and short-range dependence. We present a range of new diagnostic tools for assessing whether these assumptions are appropriate and for identifying structure within extreme events. These tools are based on tail characteristics of joint survivor functions but can be implemented by using existing estimation methods for extremes of univariate independent and identically distributed variables. Our diagnostic aids are illustrated through theoretical examples, simulation studies and by application to rainfall and exchange rate data. On the basis of these diagnostics we can explain characteristics that are found in the observed extreme events of these series and also gain insight into the properties of events that are more extreme than those observed.     

Deposit Insurance,Institutions, and Bank Interest Rates

Many recent institutional reforms of the financial system have relied on the introduction of an explicit scheme of deposit insurance. This instrument aims at two main targets, contributing to systemic stability and protecting depositors. However, it may also affect the interest rate spread in the banking system, which can be viewed as an indicator of either inefficiency or market power in this financial segment. This paper provides an empirical investigation of the effect of deposit insurance and other institutional and economic variables on bank interest rates across countries. We find that deposit insurance increases the lending–deposit spread in banking. The main effect seems to arise not from the deposit side though, but from an increase in the lending rate. We interpret this result as evidence of the presence of moral hazard problems related to this instrument. We also find that higher quality of institutions is associated with lower spreads, thus contributing to eroding sources of market power in the banking sector.     

Deconvolution with supersmooth distributions

Nonparametric deconvolution problems require one to recover an unknown density when the data are contaminated with errors. Optimal global rates of convergence are found under the weighted L_p-loss (1 ≤ p ≤ ∞). It appears that the optimal rates of convergence are extremely low for supersmooth error distributions. To resolve this difficulty, we examine how high the noise level can be for deconvolution to be feasible, and for the deconvolution estimate to be as good as the ordinary density estimate. It is shown that if the noise level is not too high, nonparametric Gaussian deconvolution can still be practical. Several simulation studies are also presented.