Different Levels Of Measurement Research Articles

The influence of mandibular divergence on facial soft tissue thickness in class I patients: a cephalometric study.

The aims of this study were to evaluate the association between mandibular divergence and facial soft tissue thickness (FSTT) measured at different profile levels, and the gender difference in FSTT. Lateral cephalograms were used to examine nine linear distances: the glabella area (G-G1), nasal (N-N1) and subnasal area (A-Sn), upper (Sd-Ls) and lower lip thickness (Id-Li), mentolabial sulcus (B-Sm), chin area (Pg-Pg1), gnathion area (Gn-Gn1) and menton area (Me-Me1) in 155 adult Caucasian subjects (79 males, 76 females) from the central Balkan area. Subjects were divided into three groups according to the ANB angle, Wit's appraisal and SN/GoGn angle into normodivergent (28 male, 27 female subjects), hypodivergent (26 males, 25 females) and hyperdivergent (25 males, 24 females). Progressive decreasing in the soft tissue thickness from hypo- towards hyperdivergent group was established in N-N1, A-Sn, Gn-Gn1, Me-Me1. There are significant differences in Gn-Gn1 and Me-Me1 (p < 0.02). Progressive increasing of FSTT happens only at the level of mentolabial sulcus and these differences are significant. Significant gender differences were established for the following distances: N-N1 in hyperdivergent, A-Sn in all three examined groups, the upper lip thickness in normo- and hyperdivergent, the lower lip thickness in hypodivergent, the thickness of mentolabial sulcus in hypo- and normodivergent, Pg-Pg1 in hyperdivergent and Me-Me1 in normodivergent subjects (p < 0.05). Facial soft tissue thickness showed a various degree of dependence on vertical developmental pattern at different levels of measurement. The areas whose thickness is significantly conditioned by this pattern were established: the chin area at level Gn-Gn1, Me-Me1 and the region of the mentolabial sulcus (B-Sm). At most levels, male subjects have thicker soft tissues and these differences are significant for all three groups in the subnasal area.

Ordered Regression Models: a Tutorial.

Ordinal outcomes are common in the social, behavioral, and health sciences, but there is no commonly accepted approach to analyzing them. Researchers make a number of different seemingly arbitrary recoding decisions implying different levels of measurement and theoretical assumptions. As a result, a wide array of models are used to analyze ordinal outcomes, including the linear regression model, binary response model, ordered models, and count models. In this tutorial, we present a diverse set of ordered models (most of which are under-utilized in applied research) and argue that researchers should approach the analysis of ordinal outcomes in a more systematic fashion by taking into consideration both theoretical and empirical concerns, and prioritizing ordered models given the flexibility they provide. Additionally, we consider the challenges that ordinal independent variables pose for analysts that often go unnoticed in the literature and offer simple ways to decide how to include ordinal independent variables in ordered regression models in ways that are easier to justify on conceptual and empirical grounds. We illustrate several ordered regression models with an empirical example, general self-rated health, and conclude with recommendations for building a sounder approach to ordinal data analysis.

Ultrasound Ulnar Nerve Measurement in a Healthy Population.

IntroductionUlnar tunnel syndrome at the elbow is a common pathology. The ultrasound cross-sectional area is a well-known metric widely accepted in radiology for the description of nerve entrapment. However, the pathological cut-off value remains challenging. The objectives of this study were to (1) describe the ultrasound cross-sectional area measurement of the ulnar nerve at three locations, and (2) to evaluate the inter-observer reliability by two independent ultrasonographers.MethodsOne-hundred ulnar nerves of 50 asymptomatic individuals were scanned using B-mode and power Doppler ultrasonography. The ultrasound cross-sectional area measurements of the ulnar nerve were performed at three different levels: 2 cm proximal to the epicondyle, at the level of the epicondyle, and 2 cm distal to the epicondyle.ResultsIn our healthy population, we found 21, 24 and 7% of ultrasound cross-sectional area ulnar nerve > 8 mm2, respectively, at three different levels of measurement and 4, 7, and 0% US-CSA ulnar nerve > 10 mm2. The intraclass correlation coefficient measured at three different site levels were good (0.7943, 0.7509) to moderate (0.5701).ConclusionsAlmost one-quarter of our healthy population had an ultrasound cross-sectional area ulnar nerve more than 8 mm2 and few more than 10 mm2. A cut-off of ultrasound cross-sectional area ulnar nerve measurement more than 10 mm2 could be considered as pathological. No abnormal elbow ulnar nerve vascularization has been seen. This is the first step towards normal B-mode ulnar nerve values at the elbow to further detect pathological US findings as ulnar nerve entrapment.

Listening to the voice of primary stakeholders : Differences of measuring quality among the operation levels of higher education institutions

The growing number of students enrolled in higher education and of the offered courses increasingly emphasizes the need for student-focused activities. Therefore, if sufficient attention is not paid to the evaluation of educational services and to the analyses of the results obtained, the quality of higher education services provided to students as key customers becomes unmanageable. In order to gain competitive advantage in the higher education sector where increasing marketization takes place, institutions have to identify their primary stakeholders as well as their needs and expectations. However, they should not only focus on students, since there are many other stakeholder groups involved in the key processes including e.g. academic staff with whom students have direct interactions and perceive educational service quality primarily through their lecturers' activity. When examining the quality of institutional services, different levels of measurement can be distinguished to each of which primary stakeholders, customers and quality dimensions could be identified. At all three levels (including institutional, program/faculty, course level), the state of the art focuses primarily on the voice of students and lecturers. In this research, the differences and similarities between the three aforementioned levels are demonstrated from the viewpoints of students and lecturers. As a result, three groups of quality attributes are identified on which quality measurement issues should be focused at each level.

Gender abdominal features, determining depth of incisional wound in abdominal surgeries

Aim. To determine the mean values of the anterior abdominal wall thickness and abdominal cavity depth for men and women with different types of constitution and reveal the mechanisms, allowing the surgeon to predict these parameters in the preoperative period.&#x0D; Materials and methods. One hundred twenty male and female computer tomograms of the abdominal cavity were studied.&#x0D; Results. The anterior abdominal wall thickness and abdominal cavity depth values for men and women with different types of constitution at different levels of measurement were determined. The depth of laparotomy wound was found to be dependent on the distance between the anterior upper iliac spines.&#x0D; Conclusions. The gender features of the anterior abdominal wall thickness and abdominal cavity depth were revealed. There were determined the coefficients, permitting to predict the depth of laparotomy wound in the preoperative period.

Error Measurement Between Anatomical Porcine Spine, CT Images, and 3D Printing

3D printers are increasingly used in medical applications such as surgical planning, creation of implants and prostheses, and medical education. For the creation of reliable 3D printed models of the vertebral column, processing must be performed on CT images. This processing must be assessed and validated so that any error of the printed model can be recognized and minimized. In order to perform this validation, 10 CT scans of porcine lumbar spinal vertebra were used, which were then dissected and scanned again. CT image processing was performed to obtain a mesh and perform 3D printing. There was no statistical difference among the four different levels of vertebrae measurements (first CT images, second CT images, anatomical piece of porcine bone and 3D printing of porcine bone; One Way repeated measure ANOVA, F < F_crit, p value > α = 0.05). The Intraclass Correlation also revealed a mean intraclass correlation coefficient (3,1) = 0.9553, which describes the reliability of all four levels in addition to the reliability of the data between porcine samples subjected to different levels of measurement. This shows that the average error is less than 1 mm. The measurements of models created with 3D printers using the pipeline described in this paper have an average error of 0.60 mm with CT images and 0.73 mm with anatomical piece. Thus, 3D printed models accurately reflect in vivo bones and provide accurate 3D impressions to assist in surgical planning.

Birds of a feather flock together: Evidence of prominent correlations within but not between self-report, behavioral, and electrophysiological measures of impulsivity

Despite many studies examining a combination of self-report, behavioral, and neurophysiological measures, only few address whether these different levels of measurement indeed reflect one construct. The present study aids in filling this gap by exploring the association between self-report, behavioral, and electrophysiological measures of impulsivity and related constructs such as sensation seeking, reward responsiveness, and ADHD symptoms. Individuals across two large samples (n = 133 and n = 142) completed questionnaires and performed behavioral tasks (the Eriksen Flanker task, the Go/No-Go task, the Reward task, and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task) during which brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG). The resulting data showed that even though the correlations within each level of measurement were prominent, there was no evidence of significant correlations across the three measurement levels. These findings contradict the outcomes of some previous, smaller studies, which did report significant associations between self-reported impulsivity(-related) measures and behavior and/or electrophysiology. Therefore, we suggest using sufficiently large samples when investigating associations between different levels of measurement.

Towards a Triadic Quality Measurement Framework for U.S. Healthcare

ABSTRACTAlthough there are various measures of healthcare quality, such as those used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), an inclusive perspective that considers the patient, the hospital's external and internal relationships, and the nodal organizations is missing. Medical practitioner comments from the authors' interactions, coupled with the findings from their literature review, have motivated the authors to suggest that healthcare quality should be measured using a triadic approach. In this study, the authors offer an overarching conceptual framework for measuring quality in the U.S. healthcare system that utilizes a triadic approach integrating various aspects of quality at three different levels of measurement. At the micro-level, the focus is on patients–admitted and treated–and their perceptions of a hospital's service as well as outcomes. The authors suggest measures related to the healthcare teamwork quality at the meso-level. At the macro- level, in which the organization interacts with external entities, the focus is on the measurement of hospital quality performance. The authors conclude with the managerial implications of the framework and suggest future directions for triadic healthcare quality measurement.

The Difficulty of Measuring Institutions: a Methodological Approach to the Comparative Analysis of Institutions

In the social sciences it is hardly contested that “institutions matter”. Consequently the analysis of differences and similarities of institutions should be a routine task. Prevailing methods to the measurement of institutions are however problematic, in particular when they have to deal with different levels of measurement. To overcome this, in this paper we present an innovative method to the quantification of qualitative institutional data. We do this by, first, developing benchmarks for comparison based on Weberian ideal types. Then we identify and operationalise the dimensions and indicators to a nuanced measurement of institutions, after which we apply a careful and differentiated scoring, weighting and aggregation procedure in order to guarantee the highest standards of comparability, transparency and reliability of the method. Finally, we demonstrate our method by applying it to the analysis of institutional individualisation in European welfare institutions.

ESTUDO DA PRODUÇÃO DE ENERGIA EÓLICA A PARTIR DE MEDIÇÕES ANEMOMÉTRICAS DA ESTAÇÃO DE CRAÍBAS/AL E SIMULAÇÕES COM O MODELO WASP

Wind energy is seen as one of the promising generation of electricity, as a source of cheap and renewable, is benefit to reduce the environmental impacts of the dam. Along with the hydroelectric networks, the energy produced by the wind will help to increase power generation capacity in the country. That from speed data and direction municipality Wind Craíbas in the corresponding period 2014 - 2015, estimated the wind potential of the region. The tool used in the treatment of the collected data was the Wasp, making simulations of three different levels of measurement, producing a fictitious wind farm with powerful wind turbine. With the model, WASP helps estimate the probability distribution of Weibull and scale parameters A and K. he predominant wind direction is southeast and the best wind power and intensity density levels took place in 70m and 100m high , with about 201 W / m² and 243 W / m² respectively. But when evalua ted the inclusion of fictitious wind farm, the best use happened at 100m tall with production around 73.039 GWh , which can be attributed this improvement to increased efficiency of the wind turbine used in the simulation.

Decomposing the relationship between mental speed and mental abilities

It is unclear whether different elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) are associated with intelligence because these tasks tap the same basic cognitive process (suggesting a single mental speed factor) or different ones (suggesting several mental speed factors), as it is not known which specific cognitive processes are measured in ECTs and because the factor structure of these processes is unknown. To address these questions, 40 participants (50% males) between 18 and 75years drawn from a community sample completed the Hick paradigm, the Sternberg memory scanning paradigm, and the Posner letter matching paradigm while an EEG was recorded. We applied a diffusion model approach to the response-time data, which allows the mathematical decomposition of different cognitive parameters involved in speeded binary decisions. Behavioral and electrophysiological results indicated that ECT conditions varied in different neuro-cognitive components of information processing. Further analyses revealed that all speed and latency variables had substantial loadings on a second-order general factor marked by general intelligence, and that the association between ERP latencies and general intelligence was mediated by reaction times. These results suggest that there is a general neuro-cognitive speed factor across different tasks and different levels of measurement that is associated with general intelligence.

Measuring an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

How do you measure your entrepreneurial ecosystem? How should you interpret the data about your startup community? What economic indicators should matter for vibrancy and growth? These questions come up repeatedly in conversations with entrepreneurs, program heads, event organizers, investors, policymakers, and others. The frequency of these queries reflects the phenomenon: With the rapid spread of efforts to build entrepreneurial ecosystems, it’s only natural to wonder what outcomes should be tracked. And, what you track depends on what you’re trying to achieve.In some places, the desired outcome is simply more: more entrepreneurs, more companies, and more jobs. Other communities design their ecosystem efforts around a particular type of company or type of job. Some regions, moreover, see the “entrepreneurial ecosystem” as a marketing effort, and focus on a particular type of individual they hope to attract to their area. For other cities, the only thing that matters is the “exit” - initial public offerings and acquisitions. These are all worthy objectives, and communities must define their own goals. Yet where most places fail is in reliance on a handful of limited input metrics rather than outcomes. To judge the vibrancy of their entrepreneurial ecosystems, many states and regions focus on things like research and development funding at universities, available investment capital, and engineering degrees. These may be associated with more entrepreneurial activity, but they are inputs, not necessarily the outcomes to be tracked. Other regions focus on patents or technology licenses out of universities - these are a piece of the puzzle, but they’re not necessarily the leading indicators of entrepreneurial vibrancy. At the other end of the spectrum is the kitchen-sink approach - because every part of an entrepreneurial ecosystem is critically important, you must track everything. This approach has the admirable quality of avoiding Campbell’s Law but provides no sense of prioritization or focus for those community leaders involved in the ecosystem. There must be some middle ground between trying to capture every dimension of an entrepreneurial ecosystem and overly focusing on only one or two indicators. There are also different levels of measurement for entrepreneurial ecosystems. In this paper, we focus on the overall performance of the ecosystem in terms of outcomes and vibrancy. In future work, we will explore measurement indicators that can be instituted at the level of programs and organizations.

Service supply chain environmental performance evaluation using grey based hybrid MCDM approach

Contribution of service supply chains to economic growth is significant and recent climate change issues expect services to be greener. The entire supply chain will be green if their suppliers adopt the requirements of the focal company and customers. Hence, it is essential that every organization constantly analyses and monitors the green performance of different members of the supply chains. Furthermore comprehensive studies have been carried out to identify criteria to evaluate green performance of manufacturing supply chain. However there is lack of studies to identify criteria and evaluate the performance of service supply chain. Service supply chain green performance evaluation necessitates methods to consider both qualitative and quantitative factors. Many conventional multi- criteria decision making (MCDM) methods have drawbacks such as inability to capture realistic fuzziness in decision making (human judgment), inadaptability to different levels of measurement, complexity in calculation and requirement of intricate details, which render them unsuitable for the task of environmental performance evaluation of service supply chains. In this paper, a grey based hybrid framework for evaluating the environmental performance of service supply chains is proposed by integrating grey based method with ELECTRE and VIKOR approaches. Two case studies were carried out to understand the effectiveness of criteria and method to evaluate environmental performance of service supply chains in a developing country context.

Measurement and theory in legislative networks: The evolving topology of Congressional collaboration

The examination of legislatures as social networks represents a growing area of legislative scholarship. We examine existing treatments of cosponsorship data as constituting legislative networks, with measures aggregated over entire legislative sessions. We point out ways in which the direct application of models from the social networks literature legislative networks aggregated over entire sessions could potentially obscure interesting variation at different levels of measurement. We then present an illustration of an alternative approach, in which we analyze disaggregated, dynamic networks and utilize multiple measures to guard against overly measure-dependent inferences. Our results indicate that the cosponsorship network is a highly responsive network subject to external institutional pressures that more aggregated analyses would overlook.

The therapeutic alliance in adolescent substance abuse treatment: A one-with-many analysis.

Studies of the therapeutic alliance typically use a one-with-many (OWM) design in which each therapist (the one) treats multiple clients (the many). This study used Kenny, Kashy, and Cook's (2006) OWM method to examine the composition of the therapeutic alliance and to analyze the association between alliance and outcome in a sample of 398 adolescents treated for substance abuse by 14 therapists. Both the client and therapist alliance ratings yielded large relationship variances, with limited consensus among clients treated by the same therapist about the quality of the alliance. If a client reported an especially strong alliance with his or her therapist, the therapist was likely to also report an especially strong alliance with that client (dyadic reciprocity). The association between the components of the alliance and treatment outcome was complicated, with different levels of measurement and different components of the alliance (perceiver, partner, or relationship) derived from different informants (therapist or client) relating to different outcomes.

Sistemas de medição de desempenho: uma revisão e classificação da literatura

O objetivo do presente artigo é classificar sistemas de medição de desempenho (SMD) de acordo com as abordagens utilizadas. Foram revisadas 140 abordagens sobre o tema, no período de 1980 a 2007. Após a revisão, as abordagens foram classificadas baseando-se em cinco critérios: quanto à abrangência; quanto ao tipo de abordagem; quanto ao foco; quanto ao nível de medição; quanto ao grau de complexidade; bem como a algumas questões complementares. Verifica-se que o ambiente em que os SMD estão mais difundidos é o corporativo, no entanto, atualmente, várias abordagens vêm tratando da cadeia de suprimentos, serviços e indivíduo. A maioria das abordagens analisadas foi do tipo prática, com foco não financeiro e nos mais diversos níveis de medição e grau de complexidade. As contribuições deste trabalho concentram-se na geração de um melhor e sistematizado conhecimento sobre o tema de sistemas de medição de desempenho, bem como na identificação das tendências futuras dentro deste tema.

The dynamic brain: from spiking neurons to neural masses and cortical fields.

The cortex is a complex system, characterized by its dynamics and architecture, which underlie many functions such as action, perception, learning, language, and cognition. Its structural architecture has been studied for more than a hundred years; however, its dynamics have been addressed much less thoroughly. In this paper, we review and integrate, in a unifying framework, a variety of computational approaches that have been used to characterize the dynamics of the cortex, as evidenced at different levels of measurement. Computational models at different space–time scales help us understand the fundamental mechanisms that underpin neural processes and relate these processes to neuroscience data. Modeling at the single neuron level is necessary because this is the level at which information is exchanged between the computing elements of the brain; the neurons. Mesoscopic models tell us how neural elements interact to yield emergent behavior at the level of microcolumns and cortical columns. Macroscopic models can inform us about whole brain dynamics and interactions between large-scale neural systems such as cortical regions, the thalamus, and brain stem. Each level of description relates uniquely to neuroscience data, from single-unit recordings, through local field potentials to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalogram (EEG), and magnetoencephalogram (MEG). Models of the cortex can establish which types of large-scale neuronal networks can perform computations and characterize their emergent properties. Mean-field and related formulations of dynamics also play an essential and complementary role as forward models that can be inverted given empirical data. This makes dynamic models critical in integrating theory and experiments. We argue that elaborating principled and informed models is a prerequisite for grounding empirical neuroscience in a cogent theoretical framework, commensurate with the achievements in the physical sciences.

Towards re-definition of space-ness in the post-mechanical age: Methodological notes

The aim of this study is to describe a model of the dynamics of constituting a living place that is peculiar to the material condition of humanity today and that lends itself to empirical studies of meta-development and sustainability of the human-made environment. The empirical point of departure is the novel character of contemporary knowledge and knowing and the shift it leads to from the transparent, perspectival space to networked quasi-objects, from design to meta-design. It is argued that the self depends for its ability to recognise itself primarily on collisions that suspend the flow of spatialised complexity. The sites of such collisions are superpositions of virtual and material interactions—spatio-temporal instabilities or warps. The structure of such collisions mirrors the mechanisms characteristic of the functioning of our techno-scientific civilisation and associated with different levels of measurement, embodiment, and organisation that pattern the human unconscious, the material and knowledge systems, the ‘lifeworlds’. This proposition expands the notion of the Schmarsow–Benjamin ‘elbow room’ (Spielraum) and gives a perceptual-empirical meaning to the self's ontology, to the ‘living place’ and its ‘sustain-ability’. The ‘elbow room’ may be viewed as a dynamic impact parameter – an effective existence radius of the self – as an assemblage of the self, place and interactive narratives binding them dynamically together.

因子スコアや潜在変数得点を用いた構造方程式モデルの母数推定の偏りの解決

Structural Equation Modeling has two problems : (1) the form of the structural part aRects the estimates of the measurement part and (2) when continuous and discrete variables are mixed, simultaneous estimates are difficult to obtain. To avoid these problems, many researchers use some type of stepwise estimation procedure involving estimated latent variable scores. This paper shows this type of estimation to be biased, proposes a modified estimation method using estimated latent variable scores, and demonstrates consistency for the new method. Simulation studies illustrate that existing methods are biased even when sample sizes are large while the proposed method results in the parameter estimates close to the true values with relatively small sample sizes. The proposed method (1) is easy to apply even when the model contains different levels of measurement, (2) rarely yields improper solutions, (3) prevents the structural part from affecting the measurement part, and (4) is able to estimate the structural part without raw data.

Levels of measurement and analysis issues in organizational citizenship behaviour research

The majority of work in organizational behaviour has been conducted at the individual level of theory, measurement and analysis. While the field of organizational behaviour may be viewed as largely mixed‐level, incorporating individual, group and organizational‐level phenomena, relatively few group‐level and mixed‐level theories with corresponding levels of research exist. This is particularly problematic for organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) research, since OCB is theorized to exist at multiple levels. Several individual‐level and group‐level antecedents affect OCB, but it is OCB in the aggregate (i.e. group and organizational level) which impacts organizational effectiveness, which is another organizational‐level phenomenon.A brief review of group‐level and mixed‐level research methodology is presented and these methods are then applied to a burgeoning area of organizational behaviour research, one which is inherently group and mixed‐level, organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Implications of the different levels of measurement and analysis for OCB theory development and testing are discussed.