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La conceptualización del término “desarrollo”, así como los factores asociados a éste (bienestar y pobreza) ha ido evolucionando a través de la historia. Obviamente, la forma de medirlo o estimarlo también ha variado atendiendo a las diversas definiciones o caracterizaciones. Por ello se observa el tránsito desde una concepción económica del desarrollo, en la que predominan las medidas de ingreso o recursos, hasta una perspectiva humana, en la que el eje focal es el ser humano. La relevancia adquirida por estos fenómenos indica la necesidad de profundizar los estudios para determinar los niveles de desarrollo, bienestar o pobreza, a partir de la carencia de libertades que tiene el individuo para realizar las cosas que valora hacer. El presente trabajo presenta los argumentos para el diseño de un modelo de medición multidimensional de la pobreza en Venezuela, a partir del “Enfoque de Capacidad” propuesto por Amartya Sen y otros autores, así como normas constitucionales locales, las cuales ubican al ser humano como eje central del desarrollo y del bienestar. The definition of the term “development” as well as the factors associated with it (welfare and poverty) has evolved throughout history. Obviously, the way to measure or estimate it has also changed in response to the various definitions or characterizations. Therefore there is a transit from an economic concept of development, which privileges income or resources measures, to a human perspective, where the focal axis is the human being. The relevance acquired by these phenomena indicates the need for further studies to define levels of development, welfare or poverty, as the lack of freedoms that an individual has in order to do what he values. This paper presents the reasons for designing a model of multidimensional measurement of poverty in Venezuela, from the “Capability Approach” proposed by Amartya Sen and others, as well as local constitutional provisions, which placed the human being as central axis of development and welfare. La définition du terme «développement» ainsi que les facteurs qui y sont associés (le bien-être et la pauvreté) a évolué à travers l’histoire. Évidemment, la façon de mesurer ou d’estimer a aussi varié en réponse aux diverses définitions. Par conséquent, on fait acte d´une transition à partir d’un concept de développement économique, qui privilège les mesures du revenu ou des ressources, à une perspective humaine, où l’axe est l’être humain. La pertinence acquise par ces phénomènes indique la nécessité de nouvelles études pour déterminer les niveaux de développement, le bienêtre ou la pauvreté, en les associant à l’absence de libertés de la personne pour faire des choses qu’elle valorise. Cet article fournit des raisons pour la conception d’un modèle de mesure multidimensionnelle de la pauvreté au Venezuela, de l’ «Approche par les Capacités» proposée par Amartya Sen et d’autres, ainsi que des dispositions constitutionnelles locales, qui ont placé l’être humain comme axe central de développement et de bien-être.

This paper has estimated multidimensional poverty for four provinces of Pakistan using Pakistan social and living standard measurement survey dataset for years 2005-06 by applying Alkire and Foster methodology. Nine dimensions were selected for this study: Housing, Electricity, Water, Asset, Sanitation, Education, Expenditure, Empowerment and Land. Results found that overall Balochistan shows the worst picture, followed by NWFP, Sindh and Punjab. In urban areas of different provinces Balochistan is more multidimensionally poor followed by NWFP, Sindh and Punjab. As far as the rural area is concerned Balochistan is multidimensionally poor followed by Sindh, NWFP and then Punjab. Result shows that the most pervasive level of poverty exists in rural areas of different provinces. The analysis of contribution of each dimension in multidimensional poverty at different cutoffs showed that the major contributors are, land, empowerment, housing, assets and sanitation. This study also presents an empirical evidence of significant lack of overlap in the identification by the monetary and multidimensional approach in case of Pakistan.

This paper applies multidimensional affluence measures to a new dataset on income and wealth in 15 Eurozone countries. We start our analysis by examining the income and wealth distributions separately for each country, and extend it to a multidimensional setting by considering the joint distribution of income and wealth. The results indicate that, with the exception of Cyprus, France, Italy and Slovenia, less than 10% of households are affluent in both income and net wealth. Investigating the joint distributions of income and net wealth confirms that France demonstrates a more homogenous distribution of richness among affluent households compared to other countries in the sample. Portugal demonstrates a higher concentration of richness in the hands of a few compared to the majority of other countries in the sample. The degree of countries' affluence rankings differs with respect to the measures of multidimensional affluence considered.

The Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality (MMRS) survey was administered to 515 respondents from the southeastern United States, 355 graduate and undergraduate students in Social Work, and 160 clients undergoing alcoholism or drug treatment. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analyses resulted in retaining 59 of 81 MMRS items measuring 3 primary factors (Meaning, Spirituality, Religious Practices and Organized Religiousness) and 2 secondary factors (Guilt vs. God's Grace, and Loving/Forgiving God). The primary factors were highly internally consistent and showed acceptable stability reliability for a subsample of clients; they also largely replicated intended dimensions of the MMRS. Convergent, discriminant, and theoretical construct validity were generally supported for the factors in correlational analyses, but the Guilt dimension, in particular, should be reevaluated in future research. Various limitations were discussed. It was suggested that the 3 primary factors could b...

The availability of a measurement framework right at the early stage of a project can have a very positive impact in the management of software development process. In this paper, we cope with this problem proposing a methodology that can allow an early adoption of balanced measurement sets, which will be iteratively refined at each iteration of the process. The proposed methodology can be implemented and supported by open source tools like the Spago4Q platform.

A novel non-statistical method is proposed to evaluate the standard and mutual uncertainties in a multidimensional measurement based on the combined vector of measurands and the accumulated generating operation of grey system, which extends the grey theory of uncertainty in a precision measurement. The proposed method is applied in both statistical and non-statistical measurements, especially in cases of small sampling sizes or unknown distributions. Experiments and simulated computations were carried out. The results demonstrated the validity and consistency of the grey method, as compared to the statistical method, for evaluating multidimensional uncertainty.

This article explores difficulties that arise when culture is factored into the attempt to develop methods for both describing and measuring religiousness or spirituality as variables in health research. The author uses a report titled Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality for Use in Health Research published by the John E. Fetzer Institute to raise questions about the extent to which basic ideas associated with the study of Judeo-Christian religions are meaningful in contexts such as Japan, India, or China. Using a combination of ethnographic data from his own fieldwork in Japan and ethnographic literature focused on other cultures, the author argues that as an analytic category “religion” is problematic because basic elements of that category, such as faith or the notion of the transcendent, have been developed in terms of a predominately Christian or Western theological framework that is not necessarily appropriate for research in non-Western cultural contexts.

The purpose of this note is twofold: (a) to present the formula for the item information function (IIF) in any direction for the Multidimensional 3-Parameter Logistic (M3-PL) model and (b) to give the equation for the location of maximum item information (θmax) in the direction of the item discrimination vector. Several corollaries are given. Implications for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability and validity of the Marijuana Craving Questionnaire (MCQ) by using active imagery of auditorily presented scripts. Current marijuana users (n = 48) imagined scripts that varied in amount of descriptors of desire to smoke marijuana, from no-urge to high-urge content. Self-reported marijuana craving significantly increased as a function of script-urge intensity on Factors 1, 3, and 4 of the MCQ. Homogeneity of items comprising each MCQ factor was examined, indicating no significant departures from unidimensionality. These results verify and extend the reliability and validity of the MCQ as a multidimensional measurement of marijuana craving. The data also suggest that drug craving is not an all-or-none phenomenon.

This paper states the need to design a multidimensional poverty index for the Latin America region (LA-MPI) that can monitor poverty trends in a cross-country comparable way, yet is also relevant to the particular regional context. We review the region’s rich experience with multidimensional poverty measurement, as well as Europe’s experiences with multidimensional measurement. We set a number of requirements for the LA-MPI to satisfy and specify the methodological criterions necessary to fulfill such requirements. Drawing from the review, we outline an LA-MPI composed of five dimensions: basic consumptions, education, health, housing and basic services, and work. We list the indicators within those dimensions that are desirable, as well as what indicators are feasible given existing data constraints.

The literature has shown that the assumption of unidimensional measurement in psychology is difficult to fulfill, since measurement in psychology is usually a complex process that aims at providing information about constructs. As a consequence, factor analysis for psychological measurement tends to conceal several factors that underlie the items on the scale. Since applying a reliability coefficient (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha) based on a unidimensional assumption for a multidimensional measure will underestimate reliability, researchers should use an appropriate coefficient that matches the characteristics of the measure. There are several, albeit not frequently utilized reliability coefficients for multidimensional measures. The present article demonstrates the application of the stratified alpha, Mosier’s, Raykov’s, McDonald’s, and Hancock-Mueller’s coefficients for estimating the reliability of multidimensional measures.

This paper applies multidimensional affluence measures to a new dataset on income and wealth in 15 Eurozone countries. We start our analysis by examining the income and wealth distributions separately for each country, and extend it to a multidimensional setting by considering the joint distribution of income and wealth. The results indicate that the percentage of households affluent both in income and net wealth are less than 10% except in Cyprus, France, Italy and Slovenia. Investigating the joint distributions of income and net wealth yields that France demonstrates a more homogenous distribution of richness among affluent households compared to the other countries in the sample. Portugal demonstrates a higher concentration of richness in the hands of few compared to most of the other countries in the sample. The degree of countries' affluence rankings differs with respect to the measures of multidimensional affluence considered.

This paper applies multidimensional affluence measures to a new dataset on income and wealth in 15 Eurozone countries. We start our analysis by examining the income and wealth distributions separately for each country, and extend it to a multidimensional setting by considering the joint distribution of income and wealth. The results indicate that the percentage of households affluent both in income and net wealth are less than 10% except in Cyprus, France, Italy and Slovenia. Investigating the joint distributions of income and net wealth yields that France demonstrates a more homogenous distribution of richness among affluent households compared to the other countries in the sample. Portugal demonstrates a higher concentration of richness in the hands of few compared to most of the other countries in the sample. The degree of countries' affluence rankings differs with respect to the measures of multidimensional affluence considered.

Knowledge about what motivates patients to visit the emergency department (ED) of a hospital for minor complaints, instead of visiting their general practitioner (GP), can help to reduce unnecessary utilization of expensive services. This paper reports on a study designed to investigate the reasons why patients visit the ED and to determine the influence of patient characteristics on specific motives. A multidimensional measurement instrument was designed to identify the motives of patients who bypass their GP and visit the ED. The instrument assessed 21 motives, all measured by means of three questions in Likert format. During a period of 1 week, all patients who visited the ED of two hospitals in Amsterdam were asked to complete a questionnaire when they were 'self-referred' with minor complaints. A total of 403 questionnaires were analysed, and the results show that motives relating to the GP play a minor role in the decision of patients to visit the ED. Profiles of two major patient groups could be identified. One group comprised patients with a high socio-economic status living in suburbs, whose motives for visiting the ED are mainly of a financial nature. Patients in the second group mainly lived in the inner-city, and preferred the expertise and facilities provided by the ED.

Despite the importance of grandparenthood in the personal and family context, as well as its increasing economic, political and legal implications, research addressing its meaning and significance has been sparse and characterized by theoretical and methodological limitations. The main theoretical limitation is the lack of a clear definition at the conceptual level. Methodological limitations include not only the use of small and non-inclusive samples, most of which pertain to only one or two generations, but also the lack of a well-developed multidimensional measurement approach. The aim of the present paper is to describe the status of research on the meaning of grandparenthood, and discuss its conceptual and methodological developments, especially regarding measurement issues. An example of an ongoing research program is provided as a guideline for future research.

RESUMO: Para muitos fenomenos psicossociais que envolvam grupo e individuo, e necessario que o individuo sinta-se como parte do grupo, que perceba a importância de uma pertenca grupal, para que a instância coletiva possa influenciar seu comportamento ou pensamento. A identificacao grupal e um construto que se define pela medida da forca de conexao de individuos com um grupo a que pertencem. Ha medidas de diversos tipos para a identificacao grupal, geralmente no formato de escalas de Likert, mas nao se encontram medidas genericas validadas para o contexto brasileiro. Este trabalho buscou propor uma medida simples constituida pela traducao e adaptacao de alguns itens ja consagrados na literatura internacional e valida-la. Foram escolhidos seis itens de medidas de identificacao grupal utilizadas em estudos internacionais. Itens adaptados para medir a identificacao com jovens e estudantes universitarios foram incluidos no instrumento de uma pesquisa com coleta de dados pela internet, realizada junto a 1203 universitarios de sete estados brasileiros; 65% dos participantes eram mulheres, com media de idade 21 anos. Analises exploratorias, confirmatorias e indices de confiabilidade apontaram que os itens comportam-se bem como uma escala unidimensional para os dois grupos de referencia avaliados. Constitui, portanto, um instrumento para inclusao dessa variavel em pesquisas mesmo que reconhecendo espaco para melhoria dos itens e possibilidade de mensuracao multidimensional. ABSTRACT: For various psychosocial phenomena that involve groups and individuals, it is necessary that the individual feels to be part of the group and perceives the importance of group belonging, so that the group instance can influence behavior and thinking. Group identification is a construct defined by the measure of the connection force of individuals with a group that they belong to. There are many kinds of group identification measures, usually in Likert format, but no generic measures validated for the Brazilian context are found. This work has proposed a simple measure consisting in the translation and adaptation of some items that are well known in the international literature and to validate it. Six items of group identification measures employed in international studies were chosen. Items adapted to measure the identification with young people and university undergraduate students were included in the instrument of a study with data collection through the internet, carried out with 1203 undergraduates of seven Brazilian states; 65% of the participants were women, with a mean age of 21 years old. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses and reliability indexes pointed out that the items work well as a one-dimensional scale for the assessed reference groups. The scale is then an instrument for the inclusion of such variable in research, even acknowledging that there is space for the improvement of items and the possibility to conduct multidimensional measurement.

By using fuzzy set theory a multidimensional analysis of poverty of Italian households is performed on the basis of SHIW data. A set of composite indicators is constructed in order to analyze different dimensions of poverty. For each indicator is calculated an unidimensional poverty ratio, thus allowing a comparison among indicators on the dimensions of poverty. Finally, a multidimensional poverty ratio is obtained., Statistica; Vol 68, No 3/4 (2008); 303-319

Typically, although commitment is conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon, it is measured unidimensionally. In this study, the measurement of likely dimensions of commitment to teaching was explored, drawing on commitment theory and conceptualization. Items from the Administrator and Teacher Survey of 1984 were used to analyze factor models of increasing dimensionality. The results indicate that a multidimensional measurement of teaching commitment is warranted. Research and policy implications of treating commitment to teaching as multidimensional are discussed.

In this paper the theoretical tradition of coping strategies and capital portfolios is used as the basis for adaption and combination of existing methodologies to analyze well-being in rural households. Special attention is given to comparisons among different contexts. First we estimate a multidimensional measurement of poverty based on fuzzy logic for two areas of rural frontiers: Nang Rong, Thailand, and Altamira, in the Amazon Basin in Brazil. To enable a cross-contextual comparison we calculated a second estimate using a subset of shared measurements in the two areas. The findings suggest that the pattern of responses on a range of numerous key variables - including education, income and demographic dependency ratio - is robust for the model specification. It is concluded that comparative generalizations, useful in formulating cost-effective public policy interventions across contexts, could be satisfactorily identified in many situations. More generically, this approach provides researchers and policymakers with a framework for understanding the interaction of contexts with the subjective construction of well-being. The understanding of this interaction is useful for distinguishing stable corollaries of poverty from those that are volatile across contexts.

The goal of this study was to test the effect of mental workload on handwriting behavior and to identify characteristics of low versus high mental workload in handwriting. We hypothesized differences between handwriting under three different load conditions and tried to establish a profile that integrated these indicators. Fifty-six participants wrote three numerical progressions of varying difficulty on a digitizer attached to a computer so that we could evaluate their handwriting behavior. Differences were found in temporal, spatial, and angular velocity handwriting measures, but no significant differences were found for pressure measures. Using data reduction, we identified three clusters of handwriting, two of which differentiated well according to the three mental workload conditions. We concluded that handwriting behavior is affected by mental workload and that each measure provides distinct information, so that they present a comprehensive indicator of mental workload.

This paper employs a multidimensional approach for the measurement of well-being at the top of the distribution using German SOEP micro data. Besides income as traditional indicator for material well-being, we include health as a proxy for nonmaterial quality of life as well as self-reported satisfaction with life as dimensions. We find that one third of the German population is well-off in at least one dimension but only one percent in all three dimensions simultaneously. While the distribution of income has become more concentrated at the top, the concentration at the top of the multidimensional well-being distribution has decreased over time. Moreover, health as well as life satisfaction contribute quite substantially to multidimensional wellbeing at the top which has important policy implications.

This paper suggests multidimensional affluence measures for the top of the distribution. In contrast to commonly used top income shares, they allow the analysis of the extent, intensity and breadth of affluence in several dimensions within a common framework. We illustrate this by analyzing the role of income and wealth as dimensions of multidimensional well-being in Germany and the US in 2007 as well as for the US over the period 1989-2007. We find distinct country differences with the country ranking depending on the measure. While in Germany wealth predominantly contributes to the intensity of affluence, income is more important in the US.

The purpose of this study is to devise and test a multidimensional measurement model of late life religiosity that is composed of three major components: organizational religiosity, subjective religiosity, and religious beliefs. The religious belief dimension, which has been overlooked frequently in prior research, is assessed in part with items that ask about belief in the Ten Commandments. Alternative ways of specifying the relationships among these dimensions are explored, including first- and second-order factor models. The findings that are derived from estimating these confirmatory factor models are supplemented with additional analyses that examine the differential impact of the religiosity factors on an external criterion measure (i.e., life satisfaction). Throughout, the goal is to provide investigators with a practical approach to evaluating the utility of complex multidimensional factor models of religiosity.

The assumptions of multidimensionality measures seem to be violated as researcher apply unidimensional reliability coefficient (i.e. alpha coefficient) to estimatereliability for multidimensional data. There are several reliability coefficients for multidimensional measure is applicable and useful, but very few researchers take them into account. Researches suggest that applying alpha coefficient in multidimensional cases will produce underestimation. This article introduced five reliability coefficients such as alpha stratified coefficient, Mosier’s, Raykov’s, McDonald’s and Hancock-Mueller’s reliability coefficient, that applicable for multidimensional measurement. Each of these three measures and its computation is described and examples provided.

This paper deals with concepts of multidimensional poverty measurement and applies them to Germany. Three concepts of poverty are examined and included into one multidimensional approach: economic well being, capability and social exclusion. The empirical application relies on indices introduced by Bourguigon and Chakravarty (2003), and Alkire and Foster (2008). It uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study. The indices are tested for their robustness in several aspects, and the influence of changing levels of substitutability between achievements on the poverty dimensions is examined. It transpires that the depth of poverty is relatively stable for the period 1985 to 2007. A structural analysis of the poor in 2007 reveals that the group at greatest risk of poverty is the unemployed.

Closely following recent innovations in the literature on the multidimensional measurement of poverty, this paper provides similar measures for the top of the distribution using a dual cutoff method to identify individuals, who can be considered as rich in a multidimensional setting. We use this framework to analyze the role of wealth, health and education, in addition to income, as dimensions of multidimensional well-being in Germany. Our analysis shows that more than half of the German population is affluent in at least one dimension and less than 1% is affluent in all four dimensions. The likelihood of being rich in all dimensions is highest for prime-aged males from the West who live in couple households without children. Mobility between different affluence counts between 2002 and 2007 is rather low and existing changes are mostly driven by health and to a lesser extent by wealth.

Balanced Scorecard was articulated as a comprehensive framework for evaluating a company’s business performance. Some of authors have proposed a multidimensional measurement system with BSC in which a structural modeling of four perspectives is constructed in the 1st stage, and the evaluation process in each perspective is performed in the 2nd stage, then the integrated value is calculated in the following stage. In that system, FSM based structural modeling method is applied for calculating the weight of measures in each perspective, then fuzzy inference mechanism and Choquet integrals are applied to have integrated values. In this paper, we propose a new methodology for evaluating the strategy oriented business performance of a company by means of linked structure of measurements in BSC framework. Fuzzy inference mechanism and FSM based structural modeling method also play an important role. We give a scheme of our system and show how it works by an illustrative example.

Closely following recent innovations in the literature on the multidimensional measurement of poverty, this paper provides similar measures for the top of the distribution using a dual cutoff method to identify individuals, who can be considered as rich in a multidimensional setting. We use this framework to analyze the role of wealth, health and education, in addition to income, as dimensions of multidimensional well-being in Germany. Our analysis shows that more than half of the German population is affluent in at least one dimension and less than 1% is affluent in all four dimensions. The likelihood of being rich in all dimensions is highest for prime-aged males from the West who live in couple households without children. Mobility between different affluence counts between 2002 and 2007 is rather low and existing changes are mostly driven by health and to a lesser extent by wealth.

The Treatment Evaluation Inventory (TEI), a frequently used measure of treatment acceptability, was used by 164 undergraduates to rate the acceptability of each of the following treatments: differential reinforcement of other behavior, exclusionary time-out, overcorrection, medical restraint, contingent electric shock, and physical restraint. TEI ratings of each treatment type were grouped separately, variance-covariance matrices were formed and compared, and data were subjected to factor analysis. The results indicated that the factor structure of the TEI varied with the treatment it was used to evaluate. Item analysis of the TEI indicated a high degree of internal consistency, although item-total correlations varied between rated treatments. The findings suggest that although the TEI is a reliable instrument, sensitive assessment of the treatment acceptability construct probably requires multidimensional measurement.

Playing entertainment computer, video, and portable games, namely, digital games, is receiving more and more attention in academic research. Games are studied in different situations with numerous methods, but little is known about if and how the playing situation affects the user experience (UX) in games. In addition, it is hard to understand and study the psychology of UX in games. The objective of this study is to show how UX differs when the first-person shooter HALO is played in a laboratory and at home. To disclose this difference, a psychologically valid and multidimensional measurement framework is introduced. UX is profiled according to the level of the sense of presence, involvement, and flow in a between-subjects design. Statistically, the structure of the framework is grounded on a large and heterogeneous gamer data set (N = 2,182). The results showed that the profile of the sense of presence in the laboratory included higher levels of attention and arousal as compared with that of the natural...

Although dyspnea is a common and troubling symptom, our understanding of the neurophysiology of dyspnea is woefully incomplete. Most measurements of dyspnea treat it as a single entity. Although the multidimensional dyspnea concept has been mentioned for many decades, only recently has the concept been the subject of experimental tests. Emerging evidence has begun to favor the hypothesis that dyspnea comprises multiple dimensions or components that can be measured as different entities. Most recently, studies have begun to show that there is a separable ‘affective dimension’ (i.e., unpleasantness and emotional impact). Understanding of the multidimensional measurement of pain is far in advance of dyspnea, and has enabled progress in the neurophysiology of pain, including identification of separate neural structures subserving various elements of pain perception. We propose here a multidimensional model of dyspnea based on a state-of-the-art pain model, and review existing evidence in the light of this model.

This paper reports a novel sensor concept to measure the six components of the forces and torques applied to smart orthodontic brackets. The concept is demonstrated using a packaged CMOS based sensor chip and a novel test setup to measure the six forces and moments applied to a smart bracket. By measuring the stresses in the plane of a sensor chip inside the bracket, it is possible to extract the forces and moments externally applied to the bracket. The sensor chip contains three CMOS piezoresistive stress sensors making it possible to separate one force and two moments with the range typical for orthodontic therapy

In recent years, both in socialscience and policy circles, there has been agrowing consensus on the multidimensionalnature of poverty. However, theoperationalisation of the concept has notfollowed this development, as most studies arestill primarily based on income. In thisarticle, we propose to measure the concept ofpoverty using both monetary and non-monetaryindicators. To this end, a latent classmeasurement model is used, allowing us to takeaccount of the multidimensionality of the dataand the discrete nature of most availablepoverty indicators. The proposed measurementinstrument allows for poverty to manifestitself in different ways or forms for differentsubgroups in the population. Furthermore, theoccurrence of multiple deprivation, rather thana `negative' score on only one indicator, istaken into account. In addition, specialattention is paid to the feasibility ofconstructing a multidimensional poverty measurewhich can be used to study poverty dynamicswith longitudinal panel data. We presentfigures on the size and the social distributionof the `poor' population in Belgium andBritain. These figures indicate that theresults of our multidimensional measurementprocedure are both plausible and substantivelyinterpretable.

This paper proposes a method for analysing multidimensional measurement comparison data containing occasional erratic data points. The statistics described exhibit robustness to the effects of such points, while being relatively simple to understand. They are introduced pictorially to emphasise their multidimensional "spatial" nature before a more formal mathematical description is given.

Binary designation of a residential neighbourhood as either traditional or suburban is a distortion of reality, since a location may have some characteristics of both types and since residents in different parts of the neighbourhood may perceive its character differently. This paper presents and applies a methodology for assessing neighbourhood type that results in a measure that is continuous rather than binary, disaggregate rather than aggregate, and potentially multidimensional. Specifically, 18 variables identified by the literature as distinguishing traditional and suburban locations are measured for 852 residents of 5 San Francisco area neighbourhoods. These data are factor-analysed to develop scales on which each individual has a person-specific score. Although we expected a single 'traditionalness' dimension to result, instead we found two factors: traditional and suburban. Study neighbourhoods could and did score highly on both dimensions, and considerable individual variation within neighbourhood was observed. By more accurately capturing the complexity in classifying a neighbourhood and the heterogeneity of individual perception within a neighbourhood, use of this methodology to measure neighbourhood type is expected to improve models involving residential location as an endogenous or exogenous variable.

Objective: To investigate the reliability of repeated measurements of normal physiological tremor made with a multidimensional measurement system. Equipment: Measurements of postural upper limb tremor at the hand were made in 10 normal subjects using a 3Space Fastrak® (Polhemus, Inc.) which detects movement over six degrees-of-freedom (three of the measurement directions were examined). Data collection: Reliability was assessed for two alternative upper limb postures (arm straight or bent) and data were collected on two days, twice at each session, to determine the repeatability between and within recording sessions. Data analysis: The data were split into segments and subjected to autoregressive (AR) modelling. Three parameters (one for each of the measurement directions examined) were extracted from the models and used as variables for the reliability analysis. Statistical tests: Variation within and between sessions was assessed by finding the median differences between efforts and days for each subject and then finding the overall median value and the corresponding 97.9% confidence intervals for each movement. This produced estimates of the population median value and indicated the precision of the estimates. Results: All the confidence intervals encompassed the zero median difference point indicating that, in the population, this technique would produce repeatable results. For between-efforts comparisons there was some evidence that data collected for the bent arm posture were more repeatable than for a straight arm. Conclusion: Normal physiological tremor can be measured reliably, within and between sessions, using the 3Space Fastrak system.

The aim of the present study was to determine the nature of the knowledge and skills related to professional expertise, and to develop means by which such expertise may be individually measured. An instrument was developed consisting of five different scales (with contents ranging from 12 to 19 items each), each reflecting one of five dimensions: knowledge, meta-cognitive knowledge, skills, social recognition, growth and flexibility. Participants were two different, but relevant, groups of raters: individual employees (N = 558) and their immediate supervisors (N = 454). The item-sets for both groups are nominally identical, except that the wording was adapted when necessary to suit one group or the other. The reliabilities of the developed scales were high with Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.83 to 0.94, for both the self-ratings and the supervisor ratings. All five scales are homogeneous and distinctive as corroborated by Multitrait-Multimethod and LISREL analyses. Background and construction of the instrument are discussed at length and the instrument is appended in two versions: the original Dutch questionnaire and an English version.

The continuum mechanics approach to characterizing the function of the heart wall uses mechanical variables such as the stress and strain tensors and the relation between them, that is, the material properties of myocardium. Difficulties with the measurement of stresses and material properties in the beating heart have led investigators to pursue the study of local deformation or strain that is more amenable to observation. However, the complexity of ventricular deformation under both normal and pathophysiologic conditions has provided the impetus for increasingly sophisticated strain measurements during the last decade. In this chapter, a brief review is given of attempts to quantify ventricular function using one-dimensional measurements including their inherent drawbacks, the analysis of deformation and strain in two and three dimensions is delineated, results and their interpretation are given for strains measured in the normal heart, and observations of abnormal strain patterns under conditions of ventricular pacing and acute ischemia are described.

1. Experience in the use of the considered measuring attachments for the monitoring of elements of large turbine blades under production conditions testifies to the high reliability and operational capability of the developed monitoring means. Their universality, high measurement accuracy, and rapid readjustment make it proper to recommend these attachments for introduction into turbine-building and machinebuilding enterprises. 2. The method of multidimensional measurement adopted as the basis for the instrument for monitoring arborescent tails of blades can be widely used for determination of step parameters of different machinebuilding parts.

Administered a variety of attitudinal and behavioral measures of Delayed Gratification Preference (DGP) to 48 incarcerated offenders. Intercorrelations on these variables were generally low. In view of the highly diverse procedures used to measure DGP it is suggested that a combination of measures be developed in order to avoid excessive operationalism and to increase comparability and generalizability of results. Multiple regression analyses did yield significant multiple correlations with two unobtrusive criterion measures of prison behavior, specifically, Canteen Spending and Planning behaviors found in Ss' correspondence. Multiple regression analysis therefore is suggested as a means of constructing a combined DGP measure.

While the complexity of death attitudes has been recognized, the measurement of different dimensions of the concept is problematic. Through analysis of data collected from 587 undergraduate students, a 15-item instrument was developed which measures three attitudinal factors: avoidance of death symbols and the dead (death avoidance), reluctance to confront death processes (disengagement from death), and fear of personal death (death fear). Internal consistency reliabilities are adequate for each factor; alpha coefficients range from.71 to.76. Tests of discriminant and predictive validity indicate that the instrument may have research utility.

This study reports the development of a version of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) in Vietnamese and compares responses of Vietnamese cancer patients in pain with patients in the US. Reports that the BPI is able to separately measure the severity of pain and the interference caused by pain are supported. Factor analysis indicates that US an Vietnamese cancer patients give similar responses to pain severity and pain interference items. Because Vietnamese patients receive few analgesics, we predicted they would report greater pain severity. A discriminant function was formed from pain ratings the BPI which separated Vietnamese patients from patients from two Wisconsin hospitals. Vietnamese patients reported higher pain severity but not higher pain interference.