Problematic smartphone use is an expanded public health heed that requires more study to clarify the influence elements of different populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between smartphone use, and sleep quality, self-perceived health, and exercise participation in university students. A total of 1,575 Taiwanese undergraduate students from 7 universities participated in the study. Three questionnaires were completed by the study individuals. The results show the overall PSU rate was 11.8%. Average smartphone users were more (...) likely to feel in good health, better sleep quality and less unsatisfactory exercise participation than those who were problematic smartphone users. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that PSU, low weekly exercise frequency, and poor sleep quality were significant indicators of poor self-perceived health. We concluded that both low physical activity and PSU did have negative impacts on self-perceived health and sleep quality for undergraduate students. (shrink)

Infertility is a huge problem nowadays, not only from the medical but also from the social point of view. A key step to improve treatment outcomes is the possibility of effective prediction of treatment result. In a situation when a phenomenon with more than 2 states needs to be explained, e.g. pregnancy, miscarriage, non-pregnancy, the use of multinomial logistic regression is a good solution. The aim of this paper is to select those features that have a significant impact (...) on achieving clinical pregnancy as well as those that determine the occurrence of spontaneous miscarriage. Two multi-factor models were obtained, used in predicting infertility treatment outcomes. One of the models enabled to conclude that the number of follicles and the percentage of retrieved mature oocytes have a significant impact when prediction of treatment outcome is made on the basis of information about oocytes. The other model, built on the basis of information about embryos, showed the significance of the number of fertilized oocytes, the percentage of at least 7-cell embryos on day 3, the percentage of blasts on day 5, and the day of transfer. (shrink)

Infertility is recognized as a major problem of modern society. Assisted Reproductive Technology is the one of many available treatment options to cure infertility. However, the efficiency of the ART treatment is still inadequate. Therefore, the procedure’s quality is constantly improving and there is a need to determine statistical predictors as well as contributing factors to the successful treatment. There is a concern over the application of adequate statistical analysis to clinical data: should classic statistical methods be used or would (...) it be more appropriate to apply advanced data mining technologies? By comparing two statistical models, Multivariable Logistic Regression analysis and Artificial Neural Network it has been demonstrated that Multivariable Logistic Regression analysis is more suitable for theoretical interest but the Artificial Neural Network method is more useful in clinical prediction. (shrink)

The authenticity of the company’s accounting information is an important guarantee for the effective operation of the capital market. Accounting fraud is the tampering and distortion of the company’s public disclosure information. The continuous outbreak of fraud cases has dealt a heavy blow to the confidence of investors, shaken the credit foundation of the capital market, and hindered the healthy and stable development of the capital market. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to carry out the research (...) on the identification and governance of accounting fraud. Traditionally, accounting fraud identification is mostly based on linear thinking to build the fraud identification model. However, more and more studies show that fraud has typical nonlinear characteristics, and the multiobjective of fraud means also determines the limitations of using the linear model for identification. Considering that the traditional identification methods may have the defects of model setting error and insufficient information extraction, this paper constructs the support vector machine and logistic regression model to identify accounting fraud. The support vector machine is used to improve the learning ability and generalization ability of unknown phenomena, and the explanatory power of each variable to the whole model is identified by the logistic regression model. This paper breaks through the linear constraint hypothesis and explores the model setting form which is more suitable for the law of corporate fraud behaviour to extract the fraud identification information more fully and provide more powerful support for investors to effectively identify fraud. (shrink)

This paper makes a quantitative analysis of the comprehensive influence of music networks. Firstly, 11 music features are selected from energy, popularity, and other aspects to build a comprehensive evaluation index of music influence, and the PageRank algorithm is used to quantify the music influence. Secondly, the multiobjective logistic regression is used to construct the music similarity measurement model and, combined with music influence and music similarity, to judge whether the influence of different musicians is the actual influence. (...) Thirdly, the influence and similarity of the same music genre and different music genres are analyzed by using the two-way cluster analysis method. Finally, the lasso region is used for feature selection to obtain the change factors in the process of music evolution and analyze the dynamic changes in the process of music development. Therefore, this paper uses network science to build a dynamic network to analyze the similarity of music, the evolution process, and the impact of music on culture, which has certain research significance and practical value in the fields of music, history, social science, and practice. (shrink)

Principal Component Analysis is one of the data mining methods that can be used to analyze multidimensional datasets. The main objective of this method is a reduction of the number of studied variables with the mainte- nance of as much information as possible, uncovering the structure of the data, its visualization as well as classification of the objects within the space defined by the newly created components. PCA is very often used as a preliminary step in data preparation through the (...) creation of independent components for further analysis. We used the PCA method as a first step in analyzing data from IVF (in vitro fertilization). The next step and main purpose of the analysis was to create models that predict pregnancy. Therefore, 805 different types of IVF cy- cles were analyzed and pregnancy was correctly classified in 61-80% of cases for different analyzed groups in obtained models. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to understand the influence mechanism of college students’ entrepreneurial intention in view of the increasing number of college students at present to alleviate college students’ employment competition. The psychological factors that influence the entrepreneurial tendency of art graduates were analyzed and studied. First, venture capital and factors affecting entrepreneurial performance were analyzed. Second, the coefficient calculation is carried out for college students majoring in art through the regression analysis of the logistic model. (...) Finally, a team entrepreneurial performance questionnaire was designed, and team reward levels were discussed. The results show that the logistic model can well reflect the real situation of the respondents. The significance level of the entrepreneurial team was 0.02, which was correlated. Additionally, corresponding suggestions were put forward according to the questionnaire results. Clear team goals, assignment of tasks to members, good pressure resistance, and psychological quality of members are necessary qualities for successful entrepreneurship. This conclusion provides a certain theoretical basis for the current college students’ entrepreneurial learning and a reliable inspiration for helping college students to successfully start a business. (shrink)

Objective: The establishment of patient-centered measures capable of empirically determining meaningful cognitive change after surgery can significantly improve the medical care of epilepsy patients. Thus, this study aimed to develop reliable change indices (RCIs) and standardized regression-based (SRB) change norms for a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery in the German language. Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients with temporal lobe epilepsy underwent neuropsychological assessments, both before and 12 months after surgery. Practice-effect-adjusted RCIs and SRB change norms for each test score were computed. (...) To assess their usefulness, the presented methods were applied to a clinical sample, and binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the odds of achieving improvement in quality of life (QOL) after surgery. Results: The determined RCIs at 90% confidence intervals, and the SRB equations for each test score included in the test battery are provided. Cohen’s kappa analyses revealed a moderate mean agreement between the two measures, varying from slight to almost perfect agreement across test scores. Using these measures, a negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery was detected. Significance: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide RCIs and SRB change norms necessary for the objective determination of neuropsychological change in a comprehensive test battery in the German language, facilitating the individual monitoring of improvement and decline in each patients’ cognitive functioning and psychosocial situations after epilepsy surgery. The application of the described measures revealed a strong negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery. (shrink)

This study has two objectives – to provide a Korean form of the workaholism analysis questionnaire, and to analyze workaholic tendencies in South Korea by using a nationally representative data. Using 4,242 samples (2,497 men and 1,745 women), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to develop a Korean form (K-WAQ). The four-factor structure of K-WAQ in this study seemed to adequately represent the underlying dimensions of work addiction in Korea. The study also analyzed the prevalence of workaholism among Koreans (...) and its differences according to socio-demographic variables. Both mean difference analyses and logistic regressions were conducted. The overall result indicated that the prevalence of workaholism in Korea can be estimated to be 39.7% of the employees. The workaholic tendencies in Korea differ significantly according to gender, age, work hours, and voluntariness of choosing employment type. Practical as well as theoretical implications and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

Economy is one of the major issues in the United States presidential election campaign. In order to investigate the impact of the US presidential election on the economy, this paper first constructs an analysis model of the economic impact on the United States based on stepwise regression and principal component analysis to analyze the focus of different candidates’ attention on the economic issues and its possible impact on the US economy in the election year and after the election; secondly, (...) a Chinese economic impact analysis model based on factor analysis and machine learning logistic regression was constructed to analyze the impact of the US presidential election on the Chinese economy. At the same time, the future economic development of the United States and China based on the time series prediction model is forecast and analyzed, respectively. Finally, the countermeasures and policy suggestions on China’s related economic development are put forward. (shrink)

We investigate what drives responsible investment of European pension funds. Pension funds are institutional investors who assure the income of part of the population for a long period of time. Increasingly, stakeholders hold pension funds accountable for the non-financial consequences of their investments and many funds have engaged in responsible investing. However, it appears that there is a wide difference between pension funds in this respect. We investigate what determines pension funds’ responsible investments on the basis of a survey of (...) more than 250 pension funds in 15 European countries in 2010. We use multinomial logistic regression and find that especially legal origin of the country, ownership of the pension fund and fund size-related variables are to be associated with pension funds′ responsible investment. For fund size, we establish a curvilinear relationship; especially the smallest and largest pension funds in the sample tend to engage with responsible investing. (shrink)

An emergent body of literature examined why some firms apply some environmental initiatives while other firms do not take responsibility for their natural environment? Thus, firm environmental orientation (responsiveness and performance) are linked in the literature to several variables. Unfortunately, the relationship between firm environmental orientation and either available resources or firm size showed mixed results and inconclusive evidence. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to show empirically how available resources and firm size can explain differences in firm environmental (...) responsiveness and environmental performance. Econometric results of environmental responsiveness using the logistic regression model demonstrated that firm size does appear to add something unique in explaining differences in environmental responsiveness while available resource can be safely dropped from the model. However, econometric analysis of environmental performance using the maximum-likelihood random effects model showed strong evidence that available resources and firm size are significant predictors of firm environmental performance. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effects of 10 factors on the choice between alternative ba sentences and SVO sentences in Mandarin Chinese. These factors are givenness, definiteness, animacy and pronominality of NP2s, NP2 length, VP length, verb sense, syntactic parallelism, dependency distance, and surprisal. Using corpus data and mixed-effects logistic regression modeling, we find that on the one hand, givenness, syntactic parallelism, and the log-transformed ratio of NP2 length and VP length are significant predictors of the choice between ba (...) sentences and SVO sentences. A new NP2, a large length ratio and a parallel construction predict an SVO sentence rather than a ba sentence. On the other hand, dependency distance and surprisal estimated by the trigram model are effective in predicting the choice between naturally occurring ba/svo sentences and their alternatives. Naturally occurring sentences are more likely to have shorter dependency distances and smaller surprisal values than the converted sentences. The effects of these five factors on syntactic choice are congruent with results of previous studies, which suggests that some determinants of syntactic choice are shared among languages. (shrink)

The motive of this study is to identify the factors influencing the willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for socially responsible food products (SRFPs) in India. This study is based on primary survey of 398 respondents. Descriptive statistics and factor analysis have been used for data analysis. Further, logistic regression was used to examine the factors affecting the WTP a premium price for SRFPs. Results demonstrate that respondents of higher age are more likely to pay premium prices (...) for SRFPs. Male consumers are two times more likely to have higher WTP for SRFPs. WTP a premium price is significantly influenced by the consumers' reference group, pro‐environmental intention, and concern for the animals. Gender, age, consumers' reference group, pro‐environmental intention, and concern for the animals determine WTP premium prices for SRFPs. There are relatively very limited researches on this topic in emerging economies including India, where the adoption of socially responsible products is in early stage. The practical implications of this study are to help in increasing the sales of the SRFPs and producers to develop appropriate policy design. (shrink)

The University of Tehran English Proficiency Test (UTEPT) is a high-stakes entrance examination taken by more than 10,000 master’s degree holders annually. The examinees’ scores have a significant influence on the final decisions concerning admission to the University of Tehran Ph.D. programs. As a test validation investigation, the present study, which is a bias detection research in nature, utilized multistep logistic regression (LR) procedure to examine the presence of gender differential item functioning (DIF) in the UTEPT with a (...) sample of 6,555 examinees who took the test in November 2006. Specifically, the LR DIF two-degree of freedom Chi-squared test of significance was employed to test the significance of DIF. Following what has been recently suggested in the literature, the test of significance for DIF was accompanied by a measure of magnitude, namely the R-squared effect size for LR DIF, for the interpretation of which the two widely accepted classification schemes were used comparatively. The results reveal that 39 of the 100 items in the test display significant gender differences. However, these group differences are viewed as “negligible” based on both of the schemes. Accordingly, it could be argued that the UTEPT is a gender DIF-free test, though the Reading Comprehension section of the test remains in need of further analysis as it seems that the general trend of DIF indices at the item level may hint at an inclination towards males. (shrink)

Despite increasing public attention and media coverage of fraud, no solution to this problem has been designed specifically for the not-for-profit sector. This study focuses on charities in England and Wales and examines variables derived from a content analysis of 42 fraud and 42 no-fraud charities' annual reports and financial statements. We use logistic regression to explain and predict fraud in the charity sector. We examine whether a range of governance-type variables are significantly related to the likelihood of (...) fraud in charities. We find that smaller boards, which imply a small cosy environment for governance, are associated with a greater likelihood of fraud, suggesting that larger boards enhance monitoring in the not-for-profit sector. Also, a low or zero-level of grant funding is associated with a greater likelihood of fraud, implying that monitoring by long-term donors is also important in curbing fraud. (shrink)

Weights of evidence and logistic regression are two loglinear methods for mineral potential mapping. Both models are limited by their respective basic assumptions in application. Ideally, WofE indicator patterns have the property of conditional independence with respect to the point pattern of mineral deposits to be predicted; in LR, there supposedly are no interactions between the point pattern and two or more of the indicator patterns. If the CI assumption is satisfied, estimated LR coefficients become approximately equal to (...) WofE contrasts and the two methods produce similar results; additionally, bias then is avoided in that the sum of all estimated posterior probabilities becomes approximately equal to the number of observed discrete events. WofE allows construction of input layers that have missing data as a separate category in addition to known presence-absence type input, while logistic regression as such is not capable of handling missing data. As an improved WofE model based on LR, modified weights of evidence inherit the advantages of both LR and WofE, i.e., eliminates bias due to lack of CI and can handle missing data as well. Pixel or unit area input for MWofE consists of positive and negative weights for presence and absence of a pattern plus zeros for missing data. MWofE first is illustrated by application to simple examples. Next, it is applied to a study area with 20 known gold occurrences in southwestern Nova Scotia in relation to four input layers based on geological and lake geochemical data. Assuming that geochemical data were missing for the northern part of the study area, MWofE, like WofE but unlike LR, provides posterior probabilities for the entire area. (shrink)

While major religions espouse moral values encouraging prosocial behavior, the empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of religious influence on such behavior, as proposed by the religious pro-sociality hypothesis, remains inconclusive. To explore this further, we conducted two studies to test this hypothesis in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority Asian nation, focusing on whistleblowing as a prosocial behavior. The first study gathered cross-sectional data from 323 undergraduate business students in Karachi, Pakistan, utilizing hypothetical scenarios of academic cheating and bank embezzlement. Participants completed a (...) scenario-based questionnaire assessing intrinsic religiosity, personality traits, and whistleblowing intentions. Measures were adapted for the Muslim context, with intrinsic religiosity assessed using the Age Universal Intrinsic-Extrinsic (AUIE) scale and personality traits measured using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) scale. Regression analysis of these data revealed that while intrinsic religiosity significantly predicted whistleblowing intentions in the academic cheating scenario, it did not do so in the bank embezzlement scenario. Furthermore, multiple regression modeling to test moderating effects of personality traits did not yield significant results for either scenario. The second study employed an experimental design to observe actual whistleblowing behavior among 85 undergraduate business students in Karachi, Pakistan. Participants were randomly assigned to either a religious or a neutral condition, aiming to assess the impact of intrinsic religiosity on whistleblowing behavior. The experiment used a cover story which involved a confederate cheating during an intelligence quotient (IQ) test. The purpose of this design was to examine whether the participant, acting as the sole witness to wrongdoing, would intervene and blow the whistle. Data analysis using logistic regression indicated that intrinsic religiosity did not significantly predict whistleblowing behavior across both the experimental and control conditions. These contrasting results highlight the complexity of whistleblowing, emphasizing its subjective nature and the influence of social dynamics on behavior. (shrink)

This paper investigates three morphosyntactic alternations in Estonian – those between the exterior locative cases allative, adessive and ablative and the corresponding postpositionspeale‘onto’,peal‘on’ andpealt‘off’. Based on the Complexity Principle (e.g., Rohdenburg, Günter. 2002. Processing complexity and the variable use of prepositions in English. In Hubert Cuyckens & Günter Radden (eds.),Perspectives on prepositions, 79–100. Tübingen: Niemeyer), we expect cognitively more complex constructions to use more explicit (i.e., morphologically more substantial) marking by means of a postposition. Further, we expect variation to be (...) conditioned similarly in all three semantic categories. For each of the three alternations, a random sample of the two outcomes (case vs. postposition) from the Estonian National Corpus is used, resulting in 3,000 data points. Using properties of the Landmark phrase as independent variables in Bayesian mixed-effects logistic regression models, we predict the choice of postpositions over case-marked realisations. Of the patterns found, only the frequency-related one supports our complexity-related hypothesis. We conclude that the Complexity Principle, in its general form, has little explanatory power for the Estonian constructions at hand and, in particular, that the derived principle of ‘analytic support’ is not generally applicable. We show, however, that the grammatical knowledge of Estonian exterior locative cases and the corresponding postpositions is regulated by our three factors in a relatively uniform way. (shrink)

Research on interaction in speaking assessment suggests that both verbal and nonverbal interaction are integral parts of the construct of interactional competence (Galaczi & Taylor, 2018; Plough et al., 2018; Young, 2011). However, little has been done to investigate which features significantly contribute to interactional competence scores. This study, therefore, examined which interaction features that raters noticed in individual scripted interview and paired discussion tasks to gain an insight into the interactional competence construct, providing validity evidence for an inclusion of (...) interactional competence in speaking assessment. Sixty-eight student performances were rated based on interaction rating scales. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four factors: nonverbal communication, topic management, interactional management, and interactive listening. Logistic regressions showed that while raters attended to more topic management features in the individual scripted interview task, they noticed more interactional management features in the paired discussion task. Simple regressions showed that nonverbal communication and topic management features predicted interactional competence scores in the individual scripted interview task, whereas nonverbal communication, topic management, interactional management, and interactive listening features were predictors of scores in the paired discussion task. The findings suggest that both nonverbal and verbal interaction features are important in the interactional competence construct with the paired task providing test-takers with more opportunities to demonstrate their interactional ability. (shrink)

In this article the logistic regression results in Table 4 Logistic regression results were unfortunately misinterpreted with respect to one hypothesis. The original article states that H5 Levels of observed unethical behavior by accounting students are lower for students who self-identify as politically liberal, than for students who self-identify as politically conservative. While the variable “Self-identified Political Ideology” is statistically significant, the negative sign on the coefficient indicates the result is hypothesized in the opposite direction. Thus (...) the correct interpretation is that accounting students who self-identify as conservative have lower levels of observed unethical behavior than accounting students who self-identify as politically liberal. We regret any inconveniences this may have caused. (shrink)

In recent years, misconduct by CEOs has led to firings, scandals, and financial losses for companies. Our study explores personality antecedents of CEO misconduct using Five-Factor Model personality traits and personality disorder profile similarity indices. The sample of 259 CEOs used in the analysis includes CEOs who were involved in well-publicized misconduct scandals as well as CEOs who had no misconduct scandals. Teams of trained raters measured CEO personality using psychometric personality rating scales and video-based assessment methods. Logistic (...) class='Hi'>regression results provided some support for hypotheses regarding relationships between ethical misconduct, fraud, excessive risk taking, and sexual misconduct and personality traits including “Big Five” traits and personality disorder profile similarity indices. (shrink)

Background: Ethical dilemmas are an integral part of medicine. Whether physicians actually feel that they have made ethically problematic treatment decisions or choices in their work is largely unknown. Identifying physicians with ethical problems, and the types of problems and underlying factors, might benefit organisational and educational efforts to help physicians solve ethical dilemmas in a constructive way. We investigated how the frequency and types of ethically difficult treatment decisions vary by specialty.Method: A mail survey of all non-retired Finnish physicians (...) was conducted in 2004. Of those who had made any ethically problematic treatment decisions, the types of decisions and reasons given for these decisions were asked for. Factor analysis was used to investigate clustering of ethically problematic treatment decisions, and logistic regression to investigate the effect of specialty, adjusted for age and gender.Results: Psychiatrists experienced ethically problematic treatment decisions most frequently, followed by pulmonologists, internists and neurologists. Problems were reported least often by pathologists, laboratory physicians and ophthalmologists. Overtreatment was more common than undertreatment in most specialties, with the exception of psychiatrists who emphasised undertreatment and patient rights issues.Conclusion: Physicians of different specialties differ significantly regarding frequency and types of ethically problematic treatment decisions they have made. Psychiatrists differ from all other specialists in reporting more undertreatment and patient rights issues. Experiencing ethically problematic decisions might affect the quality of care and physician well-being in many ways. The findings could be useful for both under- and postgraduate ethics education. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty is an insidious problem that besets most tertiary institutions, where considerable resources are expended to prevent and manage students' dishonest actions within academia. Using a mixed retrospective and prospective design this research investigated Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory as a possible explanation for academic dishonesty in 264 university students. The relationship between academic dishonesty and general criminality was also examined. A significant but small to moderate relationship between academic dishonesty and general criminality was present, including correlations with general (...) dishonesty, violent crime and drug offending subcategories. These findings suggested that a general criminological theory may be of use in explaining academic dishonesty, but the overall ability of self-control variables to explain academic dishonesty was not strong. Controlled logistic regressions indicated that a significant positive association with academic dishonesty was only present for one of 6 self-control subscales (self-centeredness), and even this association was only present in the prospective study component. A strong relationship between past and future academic dishonesty was present. Implications of the study for institutions are discussed. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influence of the level of psychopathic traits on judgment and choice of hypothetical action during moral dilemma evaluation. A population of 102 students completed a questionnaire with (...) ten moral dilemmas and nine non-moral dilemmas. The task included questions targeting both judgment (“Is it acceptable to … in order to …?”) and choice of hypothetical action (“Would you … in order to …?”). The level of psychopathic traits of each participant was evaluated with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Logistic regression fitted with the generalized estimating equations method analyses were conducted using responses to the judgment and choice tasks as the dependent variables and psychopathy scores as predictor. Results show that a high level of psychopathic traits, and more specifically those related to affective deficit, predicted a greater proportion of utilitarian responses for the choice but not for the judgment question. There was no first-order interaction between the level of psychopathic traits and other potential predictors. The relation between a high level of psychopathic traits and increased utilitarianism in choice of action but not in moral judgment may explain the contradictory results of previous studies where these two processes were not contrasted. It also gives further support to the hypothesis that choice of action endorsement and abstract judgment during moral dilemma evaluation are partially distinct neural and psychological processes. We propose that this distinction should be better taken into account in the evaluation of psychopathic behaviors. (shrink)

Although scholars have invoked the escalation framework as a means of explaining the occurrence of numerous organizationally undesirable behaviors on the part of decision makers, to date no empirical research on the potential influences of escalating commitment on the likelihood of unethical behavior at the individual level of analysis has been reported in either the escalation or the ethical decision-making literatures. Thus, the main purpose of this project is to provide a theoretical foundation and empirical support for the contention that (...) escalating commitment situations can induce unethical behavior in decision makers. An experimental research design utilizing a computerized investment task was administered to 155 undergraduate business majors as a means of assessing the hypotheses presented here. Results from a hierarchical logistic regression analysis found strong support for the contention that exposure to an escalation situation increases the likelihood of unethical behavior on the part of decision makers. Further, results also supported previous ethical decision-making findings by confirming the effects of locus of control (LOC) on ethical behavior. Specifically, the data indicated that individuals with an external LOC orientation were significantly more likely to select the unethical option than were individuals with an internal LOC orientation. Interestingly, support was not found for the effects of Machiavellianism or gender on ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Malnutrition among children is prevalent in almost all the states in India. This study assesses the extent and causes of malnutrition in two eastern Indian states with similar climates, namely West Bengal and Assam, using data from the National Family Health Survey 1998s educational status, working status of the mother, mother’s age at delivery of the children, source of drinking water, toilet facilities and standard of living of the household. Logistic regression was carried out separately for each of (...) the three indices on the explanatory variables for both the states. It was found that not all variables are equally important in determining whether a baby is underweight, or suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition. Also, the importance of variables is not the same in the two states. It was observed that the coefficients associated with the variables in determining weight-for-height are not significant compared with those for weight-for-age and height-for-age. (shrink)

In recent years, after various scandals, the role of auditors has been called into question, even casting doubt on whether their reports reliably reflect the true financial situation of the auditee, especially when this situation is not good. Normative changes in the way auditors have to rate certain questions provide a good opportunity to study this problem. These changes have acquired great relevance among the factors involved in studying audit quality. Thus, the present study analyzed the effect of the normative (...) change that took place in Spain in December 2010, related to opinions modified for going-concern uncertainties. Until that date, the auditor’s uncertainty about the company’s going-concern status led to a qualified opinion. However, under the new regulation, it became an opinion that included an explanatory paragraph stating the reasons for concern, which was considered less serious. In all, 152 small- and medium-sized enterprises that had begun bankruptcy proceedings were studied. Expert systems were used for their analysis, based on classification trees assembled through boosting and bagging. In addition, the logistic regression was used as baseline to compare previous methods. The main result obtained was that a change in the norm that catalogs the going-concern issue as less serious made auditors more likely to report this situation, thus questioning the audit quality. (shrink)

Japanese pop idols occupy an ambiguous position in the broader popular music landscape, straddling a line between fiction and non-fiction, simultaneously characterological yet physically instantiated. As idealized representations of the girl or boy next door, idols serve as both ‘image characters’ who can be used to sell a variety of products, as well as ‘quasi companions’ meant to provide fans with a manufactured sense of intimacy. Using a joint quantitative and qualitative approach, this article analyses the lyrics of female idol (...) groups. Specifically, I demonstrate how the combination of first- and second-person pronouns and sentence-final expressions are utilized to construct both female-coded and male-coded gendered personae, revealing that idol lyrics engage in the process of cross-gender performance. As a result, through their performance of these personae, female idol groups explicitly reinforce a binary imagination of normative gender expressions, allowing such idol groups to capitalize on idealized heterosexual adolescence through affective resonance and nostalgia. (shrink)

Objective—To demonstrate Japanese doctors' and nurses' attitudes towards and practices of voluntary euthanasia (VE) and to compare their attitudes and practices in this regard. Design—Postal survey, conducted between October and December 1999, using a self-administered questionnaire. Participants—All doctor members and nurse members of the Japanese Association of Palliative Medicine. Main outcome measure—Doctors' and nurses' attitude towards and practices of VE. Results—We received 366 completed questionnaires from 642 doctors surveyed (response rate, 58%) and 145 from 217 nurses surveyed (68%). A total (...) of 54% (95% confidence interval (CI): 49-59) of the responding doctors and 53% (CI: 45-61) of the responding nurses had been asked by patients to hasten death, of whom 5% (CI: 2-8) of the former and none of the latter had taken active steps to bring about death. Although 88% (CI: 83-92) of the doctors and 85% (CI: 77-93) of the nurses answered that a patient's request to hasten death can sometimes be rational, only 33% (CI: 28-38) and 23% (CI: 16-30) respectively regarded VE as ethically right and 22% (CI: 18-36) and 15% (CI: 8-20) respectively would practise VE if it were legal. Logistic regression model analysis showed that the respondents' profession was not a statistically independent factor predicting his or her response to any question regarding attitudes towards VE. Conclusions—A minority of responding doctors and nurses thought VE was ethically or legally acceptable. There seems no significant difference in attitudes towards VE between the doctors and nurses. However, only doctors had practised VE. (shrink)

BackgroundEnd-of-life decisions remain a hotly debated issue in many European countries and the acceptance in the general population can act as an important anchor point in these discussions. Previous studies on determinants of the acceptance of end-of-life interventions in the general population have not systematically assessed whether determinants differ between withdrawal of life-prolonging treatment and euthanasia.MethodsA large, representative survey of the Austrian adult population conducted in 2014 included items on WLPT and EUT. We constructed the following categorical outcome: rejection of (...) both WLPT and EUT, approval of WLPT but rejection of EUT, and approval of both WLPT and EUT. The influence of socio-demographics, personal experiences, and religious and socio-cultural orientations on the three levels of approval were assessed via multinomial logistic regression analysis.ResultsHigher education and stronger socio-cultural liberal orientations increased the likelihood of approving both WLPT and EUT; personal experience with end-of-life care increased only the likelihood of approval of WLPT; and religiosity decreased approval of EUT only.ConclusionThis study found evidence for both shared and different determinants for the acceptance of WLPT and EUT. (shrink)

This paper questions the taken-for-granted moral portrayal depicted in the extant literature and popular media of the devoted social entrepreneurial hero with a priori good ethical and moral credentials. We confront this somewhat ‘idealistic’ and biased portrayal with insights from unique large-scale data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2009 survey on social entrepreneurship covering Belgium and The Netherlands. Binary and multinomial logistic regressions indicate that the intention and dominance of perceived social value creation over economic value creation is indeed (...) what makes social entrepreneurs unique. In contrast to the extant literature, however, our empirical investigation points at a reluctant attitude of social entrepreneurs toward entrepreneurship in terms of confidence in their skills to start and manage a business, their perception of entrepreneurship as a desirable career choice and their involvement in their activities. While the extant literature points at a strong entrepreneurial orientation as a source of ethical issues, the main contribution of this study lies in the reverse observation: ethical issues are also likely to emanate from a frail entrepreneurial profile. We formulate empirically grounded propositions that may serve as a basis for theory-building and testing purposes. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

Objective: Contemporary ethical accounts of the patient-provider relationship emphasise respect for patient autonomy and shared decision making. We sought to examine the relative influence of involvement in decisions, confidence and trust in providers, and treatment with respect and dignity on patients’ evaluations of their hospital care.Design: Cross-sectional survey.Setting: Fifty one hospitals in Massachusetts.Participants: Stratified random sample of adults discharged from a medical, surgical, or maternity hospitalisation between January and March, 1998. Twelve thousand six hundred and eighty survey recipients responded.Main outcome (...) measure: Respondent would definitely be willing to recommend the hospital to family and friends.Results: In a logistic regression analysis, treatment with respect and dignity 3.4, 99% confidence interval 2.8 to 4.2) and confidence and trust in providers were more strongly associated with willingness to recommend than having enough involvement in decisions . Courtesy and availability of staff , continuity and transition , attention to physical comfort , and coordination of care were also significantly associated with willingness to recommend.Conclusions: Confidence and trust in providers and treatment with respect and dignity are more closely associated with patients’ overall evaluations of their hospitals than adequate involvement in decisions. These findings challenge a narrow emphasis on patient autonomy and shared decision making, while arguing for increased attention to trust and respect in ethical models of health care. (shrink)

Background Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada came into effect in 2016 with the passing of Bill C-14. As patient interest and requests for MAID continue to evolve in Canada, it is important to understand the attitudes of future providers and the factors that may influence their participation. Attitudes towards physician hastened death in general and the specific provision of MAID are unknown among Canadian residents. This study examined residents’ attitudes towards PHD and MAID, and identified factors that may influence (...) their decision to participate in PHD and provide MAID. Methods A cross-sectional survey was adapted from prior established surveys on MAID to reflect the Canadian setting. All Canadian family medicine programs were invited to participate. The survey was distributed between December 2016 and April 2017. Analysis of the results included descriptive statistics to characterize the survey participants and multivariable logistic regressions to identify factors that may influence residents’ attitudes towards PHD and MAID. Results Overall, 247 residents from 6 family medicine training programs in Canada participated. While residents were most willing to participate in treatment withdrawal, active participation in PHD and MAID by prescription of a lethal drug and lethal injection were less acceptable. Logistic regressions identified religion as a consistent and significant factor impacting residents’ willingness to participate in PHD and MAID. Residents who were not strictly practicing a religion were more likely to be willing to participate in PHD and MAID. Increased clinical exposure to death and dying crudely correlated with increased willingness to participate in PHD and MAID, but when examined in multivariable models, only a few activities had a statistically significant association. Other significant factors included the residents’ sex and location of training. Conclusions Residents are hesitant to provide MAID themselves, with religious faith being a major factor impacting their decision. (shrink)

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to explore the "resource curse" problem as a counter-example of creative performance and innovation by examining reliance on capital and physical resources, showing the gap between expectations and ex-post actual performance that became clearer under conditions of economic turmoil. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The analysis uses logistic regressions with dichotomous response and predictor variables on structured tables of count data, representing firm performance as an outcome of capital resources, physical resources and innovation where (...) appropriate. Findings ‐ Key findings relevant to economic and business practice follow. First, a typical characteristic of successful Vietnamese firms in the transition period is their reliance on either capital resources or physical asset endowments. Second, poor performers exhibit evidence of over-reliance on both capital and physical assets. Third, firms that relied on both types of resources tended to downplay creative performance. Some evidence suggests that firms face more acute problem caused by the law of diminishing returns in troubled times. Fourth, the "innovation factor" has not been tapped as a source of economic growth. Research limitations/implications ‐ This study has some limitations. The size of the survey sample is approximately 150 firms, while the potential sample of > 300 should be possible in the future. When the size increases, the research could be expanded to include further variables that will help investigate more deeply into the related issues and business implications. With regard to the implications of the study, the absence of innovations has made the notion of "resource curse" identical to "destructive creation" implemented by ex-ante resource-rich firms, and worsened the problem of resource misallocation in transition turmoil. The Vietnamese corporate sector's addiction to resources may contribute to economic deterioration, through a downward spiral of lower efficiency leading to consumption of more resources. Practical implications ‐ Insights obtained from this study could save transition economies' resources which have almost always been considered sine qua non before any critical major policymaking, while this is not necessarily true, and in many cases, even counterproductive. Originality/value ‐ Original data set on Vietnam stock market are collected, processed, prepared and used by the authors. Original design by the authors for regression equations with dichotomous predictor variables: dependence on endowed physical assets, reliance on capital resources and significant signs of creative performance/innovations. Original idea of viewing "resource curse" as absence of innovation and due to uncreative "destructive creation" of poor-performing commercial operations by resource-rich firms is used in the paper. We have searched the literature in business research and found that the empirical results have not been previously reported. (shrink)

Little is known about research misconduct within industry and how it compares to universities, even though a lot of biomedical research is performed by–or in collaboration with–commercial entities. Therefore, we sent an e-mail invitation to participate in an anonymous computer-based survey to all university researchers having received a biomedical research grant or scholarship from one of the two national academic research funders of Belgium between 2010 and 2014, and to researchers working in large biomedical companies or spin-offs in Belgium. The (...) validated survey included questions about various types of research misconduct committed by respondents themselves and observed among their colleagues in the last three years. Prevalences of misconduct were compared between university and industry respondents using binary logistic regression models, with adjustments for relevant personal characteristics, and with significance being accepted for p < 0.01. The survey was sent to 1766 people within universities and an estimated 255 people from industry. Response rates were 43 and 48%, and usable information was available for 617 and 100 respondents, respectively. In general, research misconduct was less likely to be reported by industry respondents compared to university respondents. Significant differences were apparent for one admitted action and three observed actions, always with lower prevalences for industry compared to universities, except for plagiarism. This survey, based on anonymous self-report, shows that research misconduct occurs to a substantial degree among biomedical researchers from both industry and universities. (shrink)

Objectives: To investigate why physicians label end-of-life acts as either ‘euthanasia/ending of life’ or ‘alleviation of symptoms/palliative or terminal sedation’, and to study the association of such labelling with intended reporting of these acts. Methods: Questionnaires were sent to a random, stratified sample of 2100 Dutch physicians. They were asked to label six hypothetical end-of-life cases: three ‘standard’ cases and three cases randomly selected, that varied according to type of medication, physician’s intention, type of patient request, patient’s life expectancy and (...) time until death. We identified the extent to which characteristics of cases are associated with physician’s labelling, with multilevel multivariable logistic regression. Results: The characteristics that contributed most to labelling cases as ‘euthanasia/ending of life’ were the administration of muscle relaxants or disproportional morphine. Other important factors were an intention to hasten death and a life expectancy of several months. Physicians were much more willing to report cases labelled as ‘euthanasia’ or ‘ending of life’ than other cases. Conclusions: Similar cases are not uniformly labelled. However, a physicians’ label is strongly associated with their willingness to report their acts. Differences in how physicians label similar acts impede complete societal control. Further education and debate could enhance the level of agreement about what is physician-assisted dying, and thus should be reported, and what not. (shrink)

Sleep onset is associated with marked changes in behavioral, physiological, and subjective phenomena. In daily life though subjective experience is the main criterion in terms of which we identify it. But very few studies have focused on these experiences. This study seeks to identify the subjective variables that reflect sleep onset. Twenty young subjects took an afternoon nap in the laboratory while polysomnographic recordings were made. They were awakened four times in order to assess subjective experiences that correlate with the (...) (1) appearance of slow eye movement, (2) initiation of stage 1 sleep, (3) initiation of stage 2 sleep, and (4) 5 min after the start of stage 2 sleep. A logistic regression identified control over and logic of thought as the two variables that predict the perception of having fallen asleep. For sleep perception, these two variables accurately classified 91.7% of the cases; for the waking state, 84.1%. (shrink)