Towards statistical multicriteria decision modelling: a first approach

Many real life situations result from decisions taken by a very large number of decision makers. Among them, we may cite road traffic congestion, crowding during shopping, equity market behaviour, distribution of holiday destinations, etc. Furthermore, these decisions often depend on the optimisation of several conflicting criteria. In this paper, we introduce a new multicriteria tool based on Markov chains to model and manage these macroscopic phenomena. Finally, the road traffic congestion problem will be considered to illustrate the applicability of our approach. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

艾滋病、非洲与国际援助

艾滋病的流行不仅严重地影响了人类的健康,而且对社会经济等诸多方面都产生了不利的影响。从艾滋病在全球流行的基本状况入手,指出艾滋病对流行地区,尤其是撒哈拉以南非洲社会经济等方面的影响程度,并结合该地区多数国家经济发展水平落后和发达国家对外援助的现实状况,提出加大国际援助非洲控制艾滋病的紧迫性。     

网络环境下获取心理学外文电子期刊全文的 主要途径和方法

利用互联网获取心理学外文期刊全文的主要途径和方法：（1）直接途径———通过检索各种全文数据库获取,（2）间接途径———通过检索大型的外文期刊篇名目次、文摘、引文数据库,获取所需文献线索,借助图书馆馆际互借、文献传递服务机构,获取全文。     

A comparison of methods to teach foreign-language targets to young children

Using instructional strategies based on derived relational responding (DRR) to teach foreign-language targets may result in emergent, untrained foreign-language relations. One benefit of using DRR instructional strategies is the efficiency with which an individual acquires additional stimulus relations as a result of emergent responding following acquisition of one or a small number of relations. In the current study, we compared the efficiency of tact training alone to a traditional foreign-language teaching strategy (i.e., teaching all relations concurrently—mixed training) with four, 4-year-old children. The results demonstrated that tact training was more efficient than mixed training for 5 of 7 stimulus sets. The findings add to the research demonstrating that DRR instructional strategies, specifically tact training, may be more efficient than concurrently teaching all targeted relations.     

外语焦虑、紧张情绪与认知负荷对外语说谎的影响：来自中-英双语者的证据

采用错误陈述范式探究中-英双语者用母语和外语说真话和说谎时的认知神经差异, 涉及外语焦虑、认知负荷和说谎诱发的紧张情绪。对P200和CNV观察发现：(1)中-英双语者用英语说真话的P200波幅比用母语大, 说明被试用英语说话时受外语焦虑情绪影响; (2)中-英双语者用英语说谎与说真话的P200波幅无显著差异, 但用母语说谎和讲真话的P200波幅差异显著, 说明被试用外语说谎没有用母语说谎诱发的紧张情绪大; (3)中-英双语者说谎时的CNV波幅比说真话时大, 说明被试说谎比说真话的认知负荷更大; (4)中-英双语者用英语说谎时的CNV波幅比用汉语说谎时大, 说明被试用外语说谎比用母语说谎产生了更大的认知负荷。相关分析表明, 英语熟练程度是影响中-英双语者用母语和外语说谎时的认知神经差异的重要变量。     

Making Decisions in Foreign Languages: Weaker Senses of Ownership Attenuate the Endowment Effect

Although the number of bilingual consumers is expanding, research on the impact of language on consumer decision making is scarce. The current research examines the endowment effect, which is a fundamental consumer decision‐making regularity, under native versus foreign language processing. I show that the endowment effect, which refers to higher valuation of a given product by sellers than buyers, is attenuated when sellers and buyers process information in a foreign language due to a decrease in sellers’ valuation of the product. I further document empirical evidence for the underlying mechanism of this finding. Thinking in a foreign language diminishes the impact of affective reactions on sellers’ judgment, which results in lowered sense of psychological ownership. This lowered sense of psychological ownership significantly decreases sellers’ valuation to a level comparable to the valuation of buyers. The implications of these results for theory and practice, and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Remuneration differences in the emerging economies of China and India

Emerging economies by definition tend to be less dependent on expatriate skills and labour than lower-income countries, yet remuneration (pay plus benefits) differences between expatriate and local workers persist in them to some degree. According to relative deprivation theory, economic development paradoxically elevates the salience of relatively small gaps in remuneration. We therefore expected workers to report injustice and demotivation regarding relative remuneration, despite the closing of remuneration gaps between expatriate and local workers due to the economic development of recent years. To explore that possibility, 482 skilled professionals from a variety of sectors and organizations in two emerging economies, India (n = 233, response rate = 54%) and China (n = 249, response rate = 58%), participated in the research. International salaries were greater than local salaries by a factor of 2.73:1 in India and 1.90:1 in China; these mean ratios bordered on intolerable in the India sample and were largely tolerable among the sample from China. In both countries, differently remunerated workers differed in their justice cognitions and their demotivation, with lowered motivation and fewer justice cognitions in the locally salaried, local workers. These differences were however more statistically significant between people working in India than in China. Insofar as the motivational and justice gaps persisted, the findings support relative deprivation theory. Insofar as the same gaps appear to be sharper in the country with the higher-not lower-mean remuneration differential, they do not. An in-country workshop with local experts who interpreted the findings (in India), and content analysis of the participants' recommendations (in China) jointly recommended linking remuneration to (i) workplace performance instead of (ii) economy-of-origin, to help promote (iii) fairness.     

助听器对听障学生唇读汉字语音识别的作用

本研究探讨了听觉障碍学生唇读语音识别中助听器和音素可见性的影响。结果表明,助听器与音素可见性之交互作用在正确率上表现显著,在反应时上不显著,音素可见性在唇读语音识别过程中作用明显,助听器明显作用于单韵母、复韵母的语音识别过程。     

Predicting staff retention from employee motivation and job satisfaction

This study investigated the role of employee motivation and job satisfaction as predictors of staff retention in a foreign exchange bank. Participants were 341 employees of a South African foreign exchange bank division (female?=?62.8%; black?=?31.1%; managers?=?37%, mean years of experience?=?10 years). The employees completed the following self-report measures: Work Preference Inventory, Job Satisfaction Survey, and Employee Retention Questionnaire. Structural equation modelling was applied in the analysis to test the prediction effect of employee motivation and job satisfaction on staff retention. The findings of the model fit revealed that the model (employee motivation and employee job satisfaction) explained an estimated 46% of the variance in the employee retention construct. The job satisfaction construct in the model explained an estimated 66% of the variance in the employee retention construct; while the employee motivation construct explained only 8% of the variance. Organisational talent management should seek to identify employee motivation and job satisfaction interventions that might help to retain talented staff.     

Ethical Guidelines for Counselors When Working With Clients With Terminal Illness Requesting Physician Aid in Dying

In 2005, the American Counseling Association (ACA) introduced a new ethical standard for counselors working with clients with terminal illness who are considering hastened death options. The authors’ purpose is to inform counselors of the Death With Dignity Act and explore relevant ethical guidelines in the ACA Code of Ethics ( ACA, 2005 ).