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New Measure (new + measure)
Selected AbstractsPROPOSAL FOR A NEW MEASURE OF CORRUPTION, ILLUSTRATED WITH ITALIAN DATAECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 1 2005Miriam A. Golden Standard cross-national measures of corruption are assembled through surveys. We propose a novel alternative objective measure that consists of the difference between a measure of the physical quantities of public infrastructure and the cumulative price government pays for public capital stocks. Where the difference is larger between the monies spent and the existing physical infrastructure, more money is being siphoned off to mismanagement, fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and embezzlement; that is, corruption is greater. We create this measure for Italy's 95 provinces and 20 regions as of the mid-1990s, controlling at the regional level for possible differences in the costs of public construction. [source] A NEW MEASURE OF US POTENTIAL OUTPUT, INFLATION FORECASTS, AND MONETARY POLICY RULES,THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 5 2009CHARLES HARVIE This paper proposes a new measure of potential output for the USA. The key idea is that potential output is constructed as the level of output which would correspond to a forecast of no inflation change over the policy horizon. The resultant output gap has a clear interpretation as a measure to gauge future inflationary pressures. It also exhibits better predictability for future inflation changes in comparison with previous output gap measures. Simulation results further demonstrate its usefulness as a feedback variable in the Taylor monetary policy rule for interest rates. [source] Sexual Adjustment and Body Image Scale (SABIS): A New Measure for Breast Cancer PatientsTHE BREAST JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009E. Jane Dalton PhD Abstract:, The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self-report measure of body image and sexual adjustment in breast cancer patients: the Sexual Adjustment and Body Image Scale (SABIS). Three hundred and fifty three women diagnosed with primary breast cancer that had completed initial surgical treatment completed the SABIS and five measures of psychological, psychosocial, and sexual functioning. Psychometric properties of the SABIS were examined and it was found to be a reliable and valid means of assessing body image and sexuality in breast cancer patients following surgery. [source] New measures of photoprotectionEXPERIMENTAL DERMATOLOGY, Issue 2002Margaret Kripke No abstract is available for this article. [source] A study on the convergence of least-squares meshfree method under inaccurate integrationINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING, Issue 10 2003Sang-Hoon Park Abstract In the authors' previous work, it has been shown through numerical examples that the least-squares meshfree method (LSMFM) is highly robust to the integration errors while the Galerkin meshfree method is very sensitive to them. A mathematical study on the convergence of the solution of LSMFM under inaccurate integration is presented. New measures are introduced to take into account the integration errors in the error estimates. It is shown that, in LSMFM, solution errors are bounded by approximation errors even when integration is not accurate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Dangerous and severe parenting disorder?CHILD ABUSE REVIEW, Issue 4 2003Personality disorder, new legal proposals, parenting Abstract The Government has proposed new legal measures for the management of people with personality disorders who are dangerous to others. In this paper, it is argued that there is no reason why these proposed measures should not apply to those individuals with personality disorders who are parents and present a severe risk of harm to their own children. New measures that provided a legal and clinical framework for the provision of assessment and possible therapy for personality disordered parents who pose a risk to their children would ful,l a real need which is not being met. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Integrated Environmental and Financial Performance Metrics for Investment Analysis and Portfolio ManagementCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2007Simon Thomas This paper introduces a new measure, based on a study by Trucost and Dr Robert Repetto, combining external environmental costs with established measures of economic value added, and demonstrates how this measure can be incorporated into financial analysis. We propose that external environmental costs are relevant to all investors: universal investors are concerned about the scale of external costs whether or not regulations to internalise them are likely; mainstream investors need to understand external costs as an indication of future regulatory compliance costs; and SRI investors need to evaluate companies on both financial and social performance. The paper illustrates our new measure with data from US electric utilities and illustrates how the environmental exposures of different fund managers and portfolios can be compared. With such measures fund managers can understand and control portfolio-wide environmental risks, demonstrate their environmental credentials quantitatively and objectively and compete for the increasing number of investment mandates that have an environmental component. [source] System Complexity As a Measure of Safe Capacity for the Emergency DepartmentACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2006Daniel J. France PhD Objectives System complexity is introduced as a new measure of system state for the emergency department (ED). In its original form, the measure quantifies the uncertainty of demands on system resources. For application in the ED, the measure is being modified to quantify both workload and uncertainty to produce a single integrated measure of system state. Methods Complexity is quantified using an information-theoretic or entropic approach developed in manufacturing and operations research. In its original form, complexity is calculated on the basis of four system parameters: 1) the number of resources (clinicians and processing entities such as radiology and laboratory systems), 2) the number of possible work states for each resource, 3) the probability that a resource is in a particular work state, and 4) the probability of queue changes (i.e., where a queue is defined by the number of patients or patient orders being managed by a resource) during a specified time period. Results An example is presented to demonstrate how complexity is calculated and interpreted for a simple system composed of three resources (i.e., emergency physicians) managing varying patient loads. The example shows that variation in physician work states and patient queues produces different scores of complexity for each physician. It also illustrates how complexity and workload differ. Conclusions System complexity is a viable and technically feasible measurement for monitoring and managing surge capacity in the ED. [source] Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?ECONOMETRICA, Issue 2 2002Roland Bénabou This paper studies the effects of progressive income taxes and education finance in a dynamic heterogeneous-agent economy. Such redistributive policies entail distortions to labor supply and savings, but also serve as partial substitutes for missing credit and insurance markets. The resulting tradeoffs for growth and efficiency are explored, both theoretically and quantitatively, in a model that yields complete analytical solutions. Progressive education finance always leads to higher income growth than taxes and transfers, but at the cost of lower insurance. Overall efficiency is assessed using a new measure that properly reflects aggregate resources and idiosyncratic risks but, unlike a standard social welfare function, does not reward equality per se. Simulations using empirical parameter estimates show that the efficiency costs and benefits of redistribution are generally of the same order of magnitude, resulting in plausible values for the optimal rates. Aggregate income and aggregate welfare provide only crude lower and upper bounds around the true efficiency tradeoff. [source] Why do Westerners self-enhance more than East Asians?EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 3 2009Carl F. Falk Abstract Much research finds that Westerners self-enhance more than East Asians, with the exception of studies using the implicit associations test for self-esteem (IATSE). We contrasted Japanese and Canadians on a new measure of self-enhancement under low- and high-attentional load to assess whether cultural differences vary across controlled and automatic processes. Participants also completed measures of relational mobility and the IATSE. Results indicated that Japanese and Asian-Canadians were more self-critical than Euro-Canadians, both under high- and low-attentional load. This cultural difference was partially mediated by relational mobility. The IATSE showed no cultural differences, but this measure did not positively correlate with any of the other measures in the study, suggesting that it is not a valid measure of ,true' self-feelings. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Achievement orientations from subjective histories of success: Promotion pride versus prevention prideEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2001E. Tory Higgins A new task goal elicits a feeling of pride in individuals with a subjective history of success, and this achievment pride produces anticipatory goal reactions that energize and direct behavior to approach the task goal. By distinguishing between promotion pride and prevention pride, the present paper extends this classic model of achievement motivation. Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) distinguishes between a promotion focus on hopes and accomplishments (gains) and a prevention focus on safety and responsibilities (non-losses). We propose that a subjective history of success with promotion-related eagerness (promotion pride) orients individuals toward using eagerness means to approach a new task goal, whereas a subjective history of success with prevention-related vigilance (prevention pride) orients individuals toward using vigilance means to approach a new task goal. Studies 1,3 tested this proposal by examining the relations between a new measure of participants' subjective histories of promotion success and prevention success (the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ)) and their achievement strategies in different tasks. Study 4 examined the relation between participants' RFQ responses and their reported frequency of feeling eager or vigilant in past task engagements. Study 5 used an experimental priming technique to make participants temporarily experience either a subjective history of promotion success or a subjective history of prevention success. For both chronic and situationally induced achievement pride, these studies found that when approaching task goals individuals with promotion pride use eagerness means whereas individuals with prevention pride use vigilance means. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Integrated local correlation: A new measure of local coherence in fMRI dataHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 1 2009Gopikrishna Deshpande Abstract This article introduces the measure of integrated local correlation (ILC) for assessing local coherence in the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data and characterizes the measure in terms of reproducibility, the effect of physiological noise, and the dependence on image resolution. The coupling of local neuronal processes influences coherence in a voxel's neighborhood. ILC is defined, for each voxel, as the integration of its spatial correlation function. This integrated measure does not require the specification of a neighborhood and, as demonstrated by experimental data, is effectively independent of image resolution. Respiratory and cardiac fluctuations do not considerably alter the ILC value except in isolated areas in and surrounding large vessels. With resting-state fMRI data, ILC was demonstrated to be tissue-specific, higher in gray matter than white matter, and reproducible across consecutive runs in healthy individuals. Within the gray matter, ILC was found to be higher in the default mode network, particularly the posterior and anterior cingulate cortices. Comparing ILC maps obtained from resting state and continuous motor task data, we observed reduced local coherence in the default mode network during the task. Finally, we compared ILC and regional homogeneity by examining their ability to discriminate between gray and white matters in resting state data and found ILC to be more sensitive. Hum Brain Mapp 2009. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] If You Can Use Them: Flexibility Policies, Organizational Commitment, and Perceived PerformanceINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2003Article first published online: 25 MAR 200, Susan C. Eaton This study links workplace flexibility policies,formal, informal, and perceived usable,to organizational commitment and self-reported productivity. Professional and technical employees of biotechnology firms were surveyed. Where employees could freely use policies, a positive association with outcomes is found. The article contributes a new measure to capture employees' organizational experience, relevant to work and family research. [source] Devaluation Expectations and the Stock Market: a new measure and an application to Mexico 1994/95INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FINANCE & ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2002Torbjörn Becker Abstract This paper develops a market-based measure of devaluation expectations derived from the relative stock market performance of companies with different exposures of current and future profits to exchange-rate changes. The measure can be viewed as a complement to measures of devaluation expectations based on interest-rate-parity conditions, survey data or macroeconomic models. Some of the benefits of the measure are that data are available on a timely basis and that the stock market has traditionally been free of central bank intervention. As an illustration, we examine the Mexican devaluation of 1994. Contrary to what might have been expected given the alleged peso overvaluation, high-net-exporting firms outperformed the market beginning in late 1993. This pattern is, on the other hand, consistent with forward-looking stock prices that assigned an increasing probability to a devaluation benefiting exporting firms. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Epistatic kinship a new measure of genetic diversity for short-term phylogenetic structures , theoretical investigationsJOURNAL OF ANIMAL BREEDING AND GENETICS, Issue 3 2006C. Flury Summary The epistatic kinship describes the probability that chromosomal segments of length x in Morgan are identical by descent. It is an extension from the single locus consideration of the kinship coefficient to chromosomal segments. The parameter reflects the number of meioses separating individuals or populations. Hence it is suggested as a measure to quantify the genetic distance of subpopulations that have been separated only few generations ago. Algorithms for the epistatic kinship and the extension of the rules to set up the rectangular relationship matrix are presented. The properties of the epistatic kinship based on pedigree information were investigated theoretically. Pedigree data are often missing for small livestock populations. Therefore, an approach to estimate epistatic kinship based on molecular marker data are suggested. For the epistatic kinship based on marker information haplotypes are relevant. An easy and fast method that derives haplotypes and the respective frequencies without pedigree information was derived based on sampled full-sib pairs. Different parameters of the sampling scheme were tested in a simulation study. The power of the method decreases with increasing segment length and with increasing number of segments genotyped. Further, it is shown that the efficiency of the approach is influenced by the number of animals genotyped and the polymorphism of the markers. It is discussed that the suggested method has a considerable potential to allow a phylogenetic differentiation between close populations, where small sample size can be balanced by the number, the length, and the degree of polymorphism of the chromosome segments considered. [source] Jointness of growth determinantsJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 2 2009Gernot Doppelhofer This paper introduces a new measure of dependence or jointness among explanatory variables. Jointness is based on the joint posterior distribution of variables over the model space, thereby taking model uncertainty into account. By looking beyond marginal measures of variable importance, jointness reveals generally unknown forms of dependence. Positive jointness implies that regressors are complements, representing distinct but mutually reinforcing effects. Negative jointness implies that explanatory variables are substitutes and capture similar underlying effects. In a cross-country dataset we show that jointness among 67 determinants of growth is important, affecting inference and informing economic policy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Risedronate Preserves Trabecular Architecture and Increases Bone Strength in Vertebra of Ovariectomized Minipigs as Measured by Three-Dimensional Microcomputed Tomography,,JOURNAL OF BONE AND MINERAL RESEARCH, Issue 7 2002Babul Borah Ph.D. Abstract Risedronate reduces the risk of new vertebral fractures up to 70% within 1 year of treatment in patients with osteoporosis. Both increases in bone mass and preservation of bone architecture are thought to contribute to antifracture effects. Our objectives were to determine the effects of risedronate on trabecular bone mass and architecture and to determine the relative contributions of mass and architecture to strength in the vertebra of ovariectomized (OVX) minipigs. The minipigs were OVX at 18 months of age and were treated daily for 18 months with either vehicle or risedronate at doses of 0.5 mg/kg per day or 2.5 mg/kg per day. The three-dimensional (3D) bone architecture of the L4 vertebral cores of Sinclair S1 minipigs was evaluated by 3D microcomputed tomography (,CT). Compared with the OVX control, the vertebral bone volume (bone volume/tissue volume [BV/TV]) was higher in both treated groups (p < 0.05). The architectural changes were more significant at the 2.5-mg/kg dose and were more prevalent at the cranial-caudal ends compared with the midsection. At the higher dose, the trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), trabecular number (Tb.N), and connectivity were higher, and marrow star volume (Ma.St.V) and trabecular separation (Tb.Sp) were lower (p < 0.05). The trabecular separation variation index(TSVI), a new measure to approximate structural variations, was smaller in the 2.5-mg/kg-treated group (p < 0.05). In this group, a significant preservation of trabeculae orthogonal to the cranial-caudal axis was confirmed by a decrease in the degree of anisotropy (DA) and an increase in the percent Cross-strut (%Cross-strut; p < 0.05). Both normalized maximum load (strength) and normalized stiffness of the same vertebral cores were higher in the 2.5-mg/kg risedronate group compared with the OVX group (p < 0.05). BV/TV alone could explain 76% of the variability of the bone strength. The combination of bone volume and architectural variables explained >90% of the strength. The study showed that risedronate preserved trabecular architecture in the vertebra of OVX minipigs, and that bone strength is tightly coupled to bone mass and architecture. [source] Impartial graphical comparison of multivariate calibration methods and the harmony/parsimony tradeoffJOURNAL OF CHEMOMETRICS, Issue 11-12 2006Forrest Stout Abstract For multivariate calibration with the relationship y,=,Xb, it is often necessary to determine the degrees of freedom for parsimony consideration and for the error measure root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC). This paper shows that degrees of freedom can be estimated by an effective rank (ER) measure to estimate the model fitting degrees of freedom and the more parsimonious model has the smallest ER. This paper also shows that when such a measure is used on the X-axis, simultaneous graphing of model errors and other regression diagnostics is possible for ridge regression (RR), partial least squares (PLS) and principal component regression (PCR) and thus, a fair comparison between all potential models can be accomplished. The ER approach is general and applicable to other multivariate calibration methods. It is often noted that by selecting variables, more parsimonious models are obtained; typically by multiple linear regression (MLR). By using the ER, the more parsimonious model is graphically shown to not always be the MLR model. Additionally, a harmony measure is proposed that expresses the bias/variance tradeoff for a particular model. By plotting this new measure against the ER, the proper harmony/parsimony tradeoff can be graphically assessed for RR, PCR and PLS. Essentially, pluralistic criteria for fairly valuating and characterizing models are better than a dualistic or a single criterion approach which is the usual tactic. Results are presented using spectral, industrial and quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) data. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Existential Loneliness Questionnaire: Background, development, and preliminary findingsJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2002Aviva M. Mayers We described the background and the development of a new measure of existential loneliness, the Existential Loneliness Questionnaire (ELQ). Specifically, we analyzed the items of the preliminary version of the ELQ (ELQ-P) using methods based on item response theory (the Rasch model) and examined the convergent and discriminative validity of the ELQ in a sample of 47 HIV-infected women. Item analysis produced an ELQ version consisting of 22 items that were internally consistent and performed well in measuring an underlying construct conceptualized as existential loneliness. In addition, the ELQ discriminated well between symptomatic and asymptomatic HIV-infected women. The ELQ correlated strongly with measures of depression, loneliness not identified as existential and purpose-in-life and moderately strongly with a measure of hopelessness. Holding constant depression scores, the correlation between the ELQ and loneliness not identified as existential was significantly attenuated. Limitations of the study include the small sample size, which precluded an analysis of the dimensional structure of the ELQ. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 1183,1193, 2002. [source] Housing satisfaction for persons with psychiatric disabilitiesJOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 6 2003Sam Tsemberis Provision of residential services to people with mental illness has assumed increasing importance since deinstitutionalization and as community- based services have increased. This large-scale multisite study of housing programs specifically for persons with mental illness examines one of the factors that lead to successful residential tenure for persons with serious mental illness. To date, the Lehman Quality of Life Scale has been used primarily to assess satisfaction with housing in studies of residential services. This article reports on a new measure of housing satisfaction. This new 25-item instrument was developed, field tested in a variety of housing settings across the country, and analyzed for reliability and validity by a group of housing researchers and clinicians. The implications of using this instrument for future evaluation and research on housing for persons with mental illness are examined. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 31: 581,590, 2003. [source] H-bond donor strength;JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 9 2009Abraham parameter; A quantum chemical model is introduced to predict the H-bond donor strength of monofunctional organic compounds from their ground-state electronic properties. The model covers OH, NH, and CH as H-bond donor sites and was calibrated with experimental values for the Abraham H-bond donor strength parameter A using the ab initio and density functional theory levels HF/6-31G** and B3LYP/6-31G**. Starting with the Morokuma analysis of hydrogen bonding, the electrostatic (ES), polarizability (PL), and charge transfer (CT) components were quantified employing local molecular parameters. With hydrogen net atomic charges calculated from both natural population analysis and the ES potential scheme, the ES term turned out to provide only marginal contributions to the Abraham parameter A, except for weak hydrogen bonds associated with acidic CH sites. Accordingly, A is governed by PL and CT contributions. The PL component was characterized through a new measure of the local molecular hardness at hydrogen, ,(H), which in turn was quantified through empirically defined site-specific effective donor and acceptor energies, EEocc and EEvac. The latter parameter was also used to address the CT contribution to A. With an initial training set of 77 compounds, HF/6-31G** yielded a squared correlation coefficient, r2, of 0.91. Essentially identical statistics were achieved for a separate test set of 429 compounds and for the recalibrated model when using all 506 compounds. B3LYP/6-31G** yielded slightly inferior statistics. The discussion includes subset statistics for compounds containing OH, NH, and active CH sites and a nonlinear model extension with slightly improved statistics (r2 = 0.92). © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 2009 [source] Consumer recycling: role of incentives, information, and social classJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 1 2007Easwar S. Iyer More and more communities have instituted recycling programs and consumer recycling is no longer a new fad; it is here to stay. However, consumer commitment to recycling and participation rates have leveled off. Whereas lack of access to recycling facilities was cited as a key inhibitor to participation in the early days of recycling, that is generally not the case anymore. Thus there is an imperative to revisit consumer recycling by focusing on behavioral issues that reflect today's context. In this study we review the past literature and propose a comprehensive model of consumer recycling. We identify two intervention mechanisms , incentives or information , that are believed to increase recycling participation. We, then, describe a longitudinal field experiment to evaluate the relative merits of these intervention programs. We conclude that either intervention program is effective, although informational programs appear to have more long-term effects than incentive programs. We also create a new measure of social class, one that includes other influential actors' characteristics, and show its relationship to recycling attitudes and behaviors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] High Self-Control Predicts Good Adjustment, Less Pathology, Better Grades, and Interpersonal SuccessJOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 2 2004June P. Tangney What good is self-control? We incorporated a new measure of individual differences in self-control into two large investigations of a broad spectrum of behaviors. The new scale showed good internal consistency and retest reliability. Higher scores on self-control correlated with a higher grade point average, better adjustment (fewer reports of psychopathology, higher self-esteem), less binge eating and alcohol abuse, better relationships and interpersonal skills, secure attachment, and more optimal emotional responses. Tests for curvilinearity failed to indicate any drawbacks of so-called overcontrol, and the positive effects remained after controlling for social desirability. Low self-control is thus a significant risk factor for a broad range of personal and interpersonal problems. [source] The Self-Injury Questionnaire: evaluation of the psychometric properties in a clinical populationJOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRIC & MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 2 2006E. E. SANTA MINA rn ba baan msc phd This paper presents the findings, from a clinical study, on the reliability and validity of a new measure for intentions in self-harm behaviour, the Self-Injury Questionnaire (SIQ). Eighty-three patients, who had presented to an emergency department with an episode of self-harm/suicidal behaviour, were given the SIQ as part of a battery of measures to evaluate differentiation in self-harm intentions based upon a history of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse. The internal consistency for the total scale was strong (, = 0.83). Construct validity demonstrated significant correlations with standardized measures. A principle component analysis of responses yielded a five-factor solution with ,affect regulation' items loading on the first factor. Cronbach's alphas were adequate for each subscale (, = 0.72,0.77). These preliminary findings indicate that the SIQ is a valid and reliable measure for research in an acute self-harming population. [source] Testing for Local Spatial Autocorrelation in the Presence of Global AutocorrelationJOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2001J. Keith Ord A fundamental concern of spatial analysts is to find patterns in spatial data that lead to the identification of spatial autocorrelation or association. Further, they seek to identify peculiarities in the data set that signify that something out of the ordinary has occurred in one or more regions. In this paper we provide a statistic that tests for local spatial autocorrelation in the presence of the global autocorrelation that is characteristic of heterogeneous spatial data. After identifying the structure of global autocorrelation, we introduce a new measure that may be used to test for local structure. This new statistic Oi is asymptotically normally distributed and allows for straightforward tests of hypotheses. We provide several numerical examples that illustrate the performance of this statistic and compare it with another measure that does not account for global structure. [source] Libcitations: A measure for comparative assessment of book publications in the humanities and social sciencesJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 6 2009Howard D. White Bibliometric measures for evaluating research units in the book-oriented humanities and social sciences are underdeveloped relative to those available for journal-oriented science and technology. We therefore present a new measure designed for book-oriented fields: the "libcitation count." This is a count of the libraries holding a given book, as reported in a national or international union catalog. As librarians decide what to acquire for the audiences they serve, they jointly constitute an instrument for gauging the cultural impact of books. Their decisions are informed by knowledge not only of audiences but also of the book world (e.g., the reputations of authors and the prestige of publishers). From libcitation counts, measures can be derived for comparing research units. Here, we imagine a match-up between the departments of history, philosophy, and political science at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney in Australia. We chose the 12 books from each department that had the highest libcitation counts in the Libraries Australia union catalog during 2000 to 2006. We present each book's raw libcitation count, its rank within its Library of Congress (LC) class, and its LC-class normalized libcitation score. The latter is patterned on the item-oriented field normalized citation score used in evaluative bibliometrics. Summary statistics based on these measures allow the departments to be compared for cultural impact. Our work has implications for programs such as Excellence in Research for Australia and the Research Assessment Exercise in the United Kingdom. It also has implications for data mining in OCLC's WorldCat. [source] The bibliometric properties of article readership informationJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 2 2005Michael J. Kurtz Digital libraries such as the NASA Astrophysics Data System (Kurtz et al., 2005) permit the easy accumulation of a new type of bibliometric measure, the number of electronic accesses ("reads") of individual articles. We explore various aspects of this new measure. We examine the obsolescence function as measured by actual reads and show that it can be well fit by the sum of four exponentials with very different time constants. We compare the obsolescence function as measured by readership with the obsolescence function as measured by citations. We find that the citation function is proportional to the sum of two of the components of the readership function. This proves that the normative theory of citation is true in the mean. We further examine in detail the similarities and differences among the citation rate, the readership rate, and the total citations for individual articles, and discuss some of the causes. Using the number of reads as a bibliometric measure for individuals, we introduce the read,cite diagram to provide a two-dimensional view of an individual's scientific productivity. We develop a simple model to account for an individual's reads and cites and use it to show that the position of a person in the read,cite diagram is a function of age, innate productivity, and work history. We show the age biases of both reads and cites and develop two new bibliometric measures which have substantially less age bias than citations: SumProd, a weighted sum of total citations and the readership rate, intended to show the total productivity of an individual; and Read10, the readership rate for articles published in the last 10 years, intended to show an individual's current productivity. We also discuss the effect of normalization (dividing by the number of authors on a paper) on these statistics. We apply SumProd and Read10 using new, nonparametric techniques to compare the quality of different astronomical research organizations. [source] A measure of disclosure risk for microdataJOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES B (STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY), Issue 4 2002C. J. Skinner Summary. Protection against disclosure is important for statistical agencies releasing microdata files from sample surveys. Simple measures of disclosure risk can provide useful evidence to support decisions about release. We propose a new measure of disclosure risk: the probability that a unique match between a microdata record and a population unit is correct. We argue that this measure has at least two advantages. First, we suggest that it may be a more realistic measure of risk than two measures that are currently used with census data. Second, we show that consistent inference (in a specified sense) may be made about this measure from sample data without strong modelling assumptions. This is a surprising finding, in its contrast with the properties of the two ,similar' established measures. As a result, this measure has potentially useful applications to sample surveys. In addition to obtaining a simple consistent predictor of the measure, we propose a simple variance estimator and show that it is consistent. We also consider the extension of inference to allow for certain complex sampling schemes. We present a numerical study based on 1991 census data for about 450 000 enumerated individuals in one area of Great Britain. We show that the theoretical results on the properties of the point predictor of the measure of risk and its variance estimator hold to a good approximation for these data. [source] Measuring beta-diversity from taxonomic similarityJOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 6 2007Giovanni Bacaro Abstract Question: The utility of beta (,-) diversity measures that incorporate information about the degree of taxonomic (dis)similarity between species plots is becoming increasingly recognized. In this framework, the question for this study is: can we define an ecologically meaningful index of ,-diversity that, besides indicating simple species turnover, is able to account for taxonomic similarity amongst species in plots? Methods: First, the properties of existing measures of taxonomic similarity measures are briefly reviewed. Next, a new measure of plot-to-plot taxonomic similarity is presented that is based on the maximal common subgraph of two taxonomic trees. The proposed measure is computed from species presences and absences and include information about the degree of higher-level taxonomic similarity between species plots. The performance of the proposed measure with respect to existing coefficients of taxonomic similarity and the coefficient of Jaccard is discussed using a small data set of heath plant communities. Finally, a method to quantify ,-diversity from taxonomic dissimilarities is discussed. Results: The proposed measure of taxonomic ,-diversity incorporates not only species richness, but also information about the degree of higher-order taxonomic structure between species plots. In this view, it comes closer to a modern notion of biological diversity than more traditional measures of ,-di-versity. From regression analysis between the new coefficient and existing measures of taxonomic similarity it is shown that there is an evident nonlinearity between the coefficients. This nonlinearity demonstrates that the new coefficient measures similarity in a conceptually different way from previous indices. Also, in good agreement with the findings of previous authors, the regression between the new index and the Jaccard coefficient of similarity shows that more than 80% of the variance of the former is explained by the community structure at the species level, while only the residual variance is explained by differences in the higher-order taxonomic structure of the species plots. This means that a genuine taxonomic approach to the quantification of plot-to-plot similarity is only needed if we are interested in the residual system's variation that is related to the higher-order taxonomic structure of a pair of species plots. [source] The Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life: A Cross-Cultural, Quantitative AnalysisAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2008STEPHEN K. SANDERSON ABSTRACT, Previous cross-cultural studies of religion's evolution that employed Swanson's High Gods measure are plagued by methodological difficulties, especially the lack of proper statistical controls. Here, we attempted to rectify this, using the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample to test five hypotheses employing multivariate statistical techniques. Results provided weak support for Swanson's Sovereign Groups hypothesis concerning High Gods and also limited support for a previously unexplored factor: writing and record keeping. In phase two of the study, we introduced a new measure, the Stage of Religious Evolution, based on Anthony Wallace's typology. When this new dependent variable was substituted for High Gods, much stronger results were obtained. The best predictors of Stage of Religious Evolution were mode of subsistence economy, writing and record keeping, and total population size. These findings allowed us to construct a new evolutionary interpretation of the development of different modes of religious life. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||