Multilevel Test Research Articles

Use of an at-home multilevel pregnancy test and an automated telephone system to simplify medical abortion follow-up

Use of an at-home multilevel pregnancy test and an automated telephone system to simplify medical abortion follow-up

A novel global methodology to analyze the embeddability of real-time image processing algorithms

Advanced driver assistance systems applications increasingly use cameras and image processing algorithms. To embed and achieve real-time execution of these algorithms, semiconductor companies propose heterogeneous systems-on-chip (SoCs). Embedding algorithms on this type of hardware is not trivial: One needs to determine how to partition the computational load on the different processing units. In addition, it is not easy to predict whether a given algorithm can be executed on a given heterogeneous SoC while meeting real-time constraints. We propose a novel global methodology to assist with embedding image processing algorithms on heterogeneous SoC while meeting real-time constraints (using a soft real-time analysis). Our approach proposes several heuristics predicting delays and execution times and is based on a set of multi-level test vectors which extract key features of heterogeneous architectures.

A Multilevel Test of the Racial Threat Hypothesis in One State’s Juvenile Court

Noting the paucity of research on the racial threat hypothesis in the juvenile courts, this study examined the interplay of defendant characteristics and country-level characteristics on dispositions. Data were retrieved from the Department of Juvenile Justice files in South Carolina and were analyzed using multinomial logistic hierarchical linear modeling. Results revealed support for the racial threat hypothesis, as racial inequity operated in a different manner (more punitively) for Black defendants. Larger Black populations in counties also led to an increased use of punitive sanctions. In addition, concentrated disadvantage effects were found, and heightened levels of teenage population led to higher incarceration rates for Black defendants. Limitations of this study, implications for stakeholders/practitioners, and directions for future research are discussed.

A Multilevel Test of Constrained Choices Theory: The Case of Tobacco Clean Air Restrictions.

According to Bird and Rieker's sociology of constrained choices, decisions and priorities concerning health are shaped by the contexts-including policy, community, and work/family-in which they are formulated. While each level received attention in the original and subsequent research, we contend their constrained choices theory provides a powerful multilevel framework for modeling health outcomes. We apply this framework to tobacco clean air restrictions, combining a comprehensive database of tobacco policies with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 from ages 19 to 31. Using multilevel panel models, we find that clean air policies lower the odds of past 30 day smoking and dependence while controlling for other policy-, city-, and individual-level constraints. We also find unique between- and within-person effects, as well as gender effects, for the constraint levied by smoking bans. We argue for the theory's broad applicability beyond commonly cited findings regarding gender and biological influences.

Aplikasi Teori Rasch untuk Penyekalaan Vertikal Tes Catur Wulan

This article discusses a part of findings of a study performed by Kumaidi and associates. The issue discussed in this article mainly focused on the aplication of Rasch model in analyzing data across classrooms and demonstrated the worth of the analysis. Data used in this article were responses of SMUN students in answering tests of English as an end of first quarter (Cawu I) test. The results of the study sugget that Rasch approach might be implemented to plot items from different classes in one single metric scale. This single metric would be useful to monitor student's progress in learning. It is suggested that the testing procedures be implemented which give rise a multilevel testing for end quarter tests in the future

Earthquake forecasting: statistics and information

<div class="abstract"><div class="abstract_item"><p>The paper presents a decision rule forming a mathematical basis of earthquake forecasting problem. We develop an axiomatic approach to earthquake forecasting in terms of multicomponent random fields on a lattice. This approach provides a method for constructing point estimates and confidence intervals for conditional probabilities of strong earthquakes under conditions on the levels of precursors. Also, it provides an approach for setting a multilevel alarm system and hypothesis testing for binary alarms. We use a method of comparison for different algorithms of earthquake forecasts in terms of the increase of Shannon information. ‘Forecasting’ (the calculation of the probabilities) and ‘prediction’ (the alarm declaring) of earthquakes are equivalent in this approach.</p></div></div>

Making Sense of Community Action and Voluntary Participation—A Multilevel Test of Multilevel Hypotheses: Do Communities Act?

AbstractTo what extent does community context influence individuals’ proclivity to participate in community‐oriented activities and projects? In this article we utilize survey data from residents of 99 Iowa communities to conduct a multilevel analysis of voluntary participation and community action, simultaneously addressing voluntary participation at the individual level and “community action” at the community level. Additionally, we test the suggestion that community attachment may constitute a unique form of social capital. The robustness of these data allows us to overcome the obstacles that have led to the conflation of individual‐ and community‐level attributes in many community studies. We show that community attachment and community‐oriented action are determined almost entirely by individuals’ characteristics rather than by the characteristics of communities, and thus do not constitute community‐level phenomena, calling into question the assumptions on which certain theoretical approaches to community are based.

Organizational context and employee reactions to psychological contract breach: A multilevel test of competing theories

This study examines how organizational context affects employee reactions to perceived psychological contract breach. Using Conservation of Resources and Social Comparison theories, the authors develop competing hypotheses regarding the potential exacerbating vs. buffering effects of organizational context on the relationships between psychological contract breach and job security satisfaction, job satisfaction, work–family conflict, and burnout. They collected a multi-source, multilevel data set composed of faculty and departmental administrators at a university experiencing repeated budget reductions. It was found that psychological contract breach was related to detrimental job outcomes (i.e., decreased job security satisfaction and job satisfaction, increased work–family conflict, and burnout). However, this relationship was stronger among faculty in departments reporting low rather than high departmental budget cuts, thus supporting Social Comparison theory rather than Conservation of Resources theory. Social comparison matters when it comes to psychological contract breach.

Does impression management really help? A multilevel testing of the mediation role of impression management between personality traits and leader–member exchange

In this present study, we propose a multilevel research framework within which we identify personality traits as the primary source of the positive influence on leader–member exchange (LMX) through the mechanism of impression management behavior. Data are obtained from 23 branches of a large commercial bank in central Taiwan, with the samples collected from both managers and employees forming 228 manager–employee dyads, and thereby avoiding common method variance. Our results reveal that personality traits have significantly positive effects on LMX, with impression management behavior also playing a mediating role between them. Interestingly, we also find that group cohesiveness moderates the relationship between impression management behavior and LMX. Our study includes a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Androgen correlates of male reproductive effort in wild male long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis): A multi-level test of the challenge hypothesis

The challenge hypothesis (Wingfield et al., 1990) has been broadly utilised as a conceptual framework to study male androgen correlates of reproductive challenges in mammals. These studies mainly assessed male androgen responsiveness to a general degree of challenge over extended periods of time. Short term co-variation between the socio-sexual challenging context and androgen levels remains, however, largely understudied. We thus aim at providing a multi-level test of the challenge hypothesis by investigating the inter- and intra-individual variations in faecal androgen excretion associated to 1) breeding seasonality, 2) dominance rank, 3) mate-guarding activity and 4) value of the guarded female. We studied long-tailed macaques, a species in which males engage in highly challenging monopolisation of females over discreet periods of time. This particularity allows testing specifically the predicted increase from level B to level C in the challenge hypothesis. The study was carried out during two reproductive seasons on three groups of wild long-tailed macaques. We combined behavioural observations and non-invasive measurements of faecal androgen metabolite (fAM) levels. We found that, as predicted by the challenge hypothesis, male long-tailed macaques respond not only to seasonal but also to short term reproductive challenges by adapting their androgen levels. First, males exhibited a seasonal rise in fAM levels during the mating period which may be triggered by fruit availability as shown by our phenological data. Second, males had increased androgen levels when mate-guarding females and, across mate-guarding periods, males had higher fAM levels when monopolising high-ranking parous females than when monopolising low-ranking ones. Finally, high-ranking males had higher fAM levels than low-ranking males year round. Our study confirms that, in species with a high degree of female monopolisability, androgen may be an important physiological fitness enhancing tool for males by increasing female monopolisation efficiency (in particular with highly valuable females) and helping males to respond to rank take-over challenges.

Multi-Direction Bridge Model Updating Using Static and Dynamic Measurement

This research present a multi-direction bridge finite element model updating method based on the static and dynamic test. A fiber optics structural health monitoring system was installed on the bridge site and 73 fiber optic sensors captured the static and dynamic data in local-level. A portable accelerometer system was used to record the ambient loading test and 15 force-balanced accelerometers were placed along bridge center to record the bridge global behavior. The original model was built according to the construction draw. The bridge model was updating by using multi-level test data. A new multi-direction model updating approach was established to separate the model updating into several stages based on the member’s direction. In each stage, the uni-direction members were updating in local-global level. This study found the multi-direction model updating can reduce the number of objective functions and variables in each stage and bridge model updating in the uni-direction has limited influence on the other directions. It is necessary to update steel girder bridge’s finite element model in the multi-direction in order to ensure the model’s accuracy.

Development of a Flight Simulation Test-Bed for a General Propeller-Driven Unmanned Aircraft

This paper presents the development of a flight simulator for a fixed-wing propeller-driven UAV. A new architecture for UAV low-level functional units is presented. The work involves modeling main low-level units of the UAV, which includes modeling of aircraft lateral and longitudinal dynamics and controlling of flight-path states holding. Key characteristics for aerodynamics and propulsion properties are calculated. A nested PID loops are used to provide a low-level control necessary for intelligent control and mission planning and execution. Simulation results are demonstrated in order to validate the effectiveness of the flight simulator and thereby providing an infrastructure low-level abstraction platform that can be used for various multi-level algorithms testing.

Characterization and modelling of the viscous behaviour of adhesives using the modified Arcan device

The non-linear behaviour of an epoxy adhesive has been studied thanks to the use of a modified Arcan test device. Multilevel creep tests have been performed in order to characterize the time-dependent behaviour. A visco-elastic model has been chosen to describe the behaviour of the adhesive. This model is based on the decomposition of the visco-elastic strain into elementary viscous mechanisms. The non-linear behaviour of the visco-elasticity is taken into account thanks to a non-linear function which depends on the stress. A specific identification procedure based on a single test has been proposed. Finally, the model has been validated using tests that have not been used for the identification. The model proposed in this paper enables the time-dependent non-linear behaviour of adhesives to be reproduced in a correct manner.

An accelerated multilevel test and design procedure for polymer gears

This paper presents a new accelerated testing procedure for plastic gears that is based on several different levels of testing. The iterative testing procedure fulfils requests from the product development process. The following criteria are considered for testing: reduced number of tests, shorter test time and reliable results for different applications. The proposed method was applied over the full range on a gear pair made from polyacetal (POM) and polyamide 6 (PA6). Different rotational speeds and torque loads, and therefore different transferred powers, were used for testing. During testing, gear temperature and cycles to failure were monitored. The paper also includes a comparison between the measured and theoretically calculated gear temperatures. A prediction of the life span on the basis of statistical methods is a part of the proposed test procedure. The presented procedure enables testing within acceptable cost and time consumption limits. The testing method can be reproduced and applied to plastic gears from different materials.Testing has shown that polymer gears fail in two typical ways: by fatigue and by sudden melting. The wear fail mode can be avoided by using an appropriate material pair. Fatigue can be measured by life span tests and is predictable. However, the melting of gears, which is a consequence of high gear temperatures, is not easily predictable. In most cases, melting failure mode occurs during the first few hours of gear testing. For reliable and optimal gear design, gear testing cannot be avoided because the tribological interaction between gears is specific for each combination of materials.

Improving the systems engineering process with multilevel analysis of interactions

AbstractThe systems engineering V (SE-V) is an established process model to guide the development of complex engineering projects (INCOSE, 2011). The SE-V process involves decomposition and integration of system elements through a sequence of tasks that produce both a system design and its testing specifications, followed by successive levels of build, integration, and test activities. This paper presents a method to improve SE-V implementation by mapping multilevel data into design structure matrix (DSM) models. DSM is a representation methodology for identifying interactions between either components or tasks associated with a complex engineering project (Eppinger & Browning, 2012). Multilevel refers to SE-V data on complex interactions that are germane either at multiple levels of analysis (e.g., component versus subsystem) conducted either within a single phase or across multiple time phases (e.g., early or late in the SE-V process). This method extends conventional DSM representation schema by incorporating multilevel test coverage data as vectors into the off-diagonal cells. These vectors provide a richer description of potential interactions between product architecture and SE-V integration test tasks than conventional domain mapping matrices. We illustrate this method with data from a complex engineering project in the offshore oil industry. Data analysis identifies potential for unanticipated outcomes based on incomplete coverage of SE-V interactions during integration tests. In addition, assessment of multilevel features using maximum and minimum function queries isolates all the interfaces that are associated with either early or late revelations of integration risks based on the planned suite of SE-V integration tests.

Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis

This study departs from extant work on diversity and development in several respects. Using DHS data from a large number of developing countries, we adopt four human development outcomes: child mortality, fertility, education, and wealth. We exploit evidence at multiple levels—country, subnational region, and district—and we measure diversity in a variety of ways. This unique approach reveals that although diversity may have negative ramifications on human development at national levels it is very unlikely to have these same effects at subnational levels.

Possible influence factors of technical tolerance

Legitimate users of agricultural areas can receive land-based payments based on the area of either the cultivated plants or the uncultivated land kept, in line with the provisions of community and national legislation, in condition eligible for support. Furthermore, land-based support can be received via other rural development measures as well.According to European Commission regulation the appropriate and eligible claim of the land-based supports shall be controlled by the member states. The most robust technique of this process is the remote sensing control. The observed discrepancies shall be sanctioned based on their extent and intentional nature. A measurement tolerance interval shall be set in case of remote sensing operations so that the extent of discrepancy is to be determined in the most objective way possible. As far as the measurement tolerance interval is concerned the goal is to minimise the cumulative faults appearing during the measurements (such as the scale of agricultural activities, the inaccuracy of farmers’ drawings necessary for the claiming of support and the inaccuracy of control materials and methods).The establishment of the measurement tolerance interval is based on the fact that the reference parcels selected by the validation protocol are made by several operators in iterations. As a result of this process the following conclusions can be drawn:The validation method of multi-level tests required by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) properly detects the measurement results strongly affected by faults. Although this method is to be used exclusively to determine the technical tolerance in the Control with Remote Sensing (CwRS) process of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), as independent validation process it does not take the further imagery and other vector references into account. In our examination we assessed the possible inclusion of the smallest identification unit of the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) – i.e. the physical block – as well as its impact on the value of technical tolerance.

Birth order and conservatism: A multilevel test of Sulloway’s “Born to rebel” thesis

We analysed differences in conservative values between firstborn and secondborn siblings, in the context of Sulloway’s (1996) idea that firstborns favour the status quo more than secondborns do. Using multilevel analysis to predict siblings’ conservatism, we tested two hypotheses from Sulloway’s theory: (a) firstborns are more conservative than are secondborns; and (b) firstborns internalize their parents’ conservative values stronger than secondborns do, independent from the degree of their parents’ conservatism. Ninety-six Italian families (composed of both parents, the firstborn and the secondborn, total N=384) filled out the Portrait Values Questionnaire (Schwartz et al., 2001). Results supported Sulloway’s first, but not his second prediction: Birth order fostered children’s conservatism directly, but not in interaction with parents’ conservatism. Implications of the results for the children’s socialization and their possible developments are discussed.

Long‐term analysis of osseointegrated implants in non‐smoker patients with a previous history of periodontitis

To evaluate long-term clinical and radiographic parameters of osseointegrated implants in non-smoker patients with a previous history of chronic periodontitis. Fifty-four screw-type implants with a moderately roughened surface and internal hexagonal implant-abutment connection were placed according to a two-phase protocol and 40 reference teeth were analysed at baseline, and after 5 and 10years. Pocket probing depth (PPD), clinical attachment level (CAL) and bleeding on probing were analysed 6x/tooth in all teeth, implants and reference teeth. Radiographic peri-implant bone level was measured on the mesial and distal surfaces. The prevalence of peri-implantitis and the survival rate of the implants were assessed at the patient and implant levels. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U-test, and Wald Z-test, at α=5%. In implants, the CAL at 5years was 0.3mm higher, and at 10years 1.2mm higher in comparison to baseline. The corresponding data for the reference teeth were 0mm and 0.5mm respectively. Multilevel testing showed statistical difference for PPD between implants and teeth over time. After 10years, the mean mesial bone loss was 0.63±0.26mm, and the mean distal bone loss was 0.56±0.25. The survival rates were 100% and 92.3% for the implants in the mandible and the implants in the maxilla respectively. Screw-type implants with internal hexagon placed in patients with a previous history of periodontitis attending a regular maintenance programme demonstrated stable clinical and radiographic results after 5 and 10years.

Evaluating the accuracy of value-at-risk forecasts: New multilevel tests

We propose independence and conditional coverage tests which are aimed at evaluating the accuracy of Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasts from the same model at different confidence levels. The proposed procedures are multilevel tests, i.e., joint tests of several quantiles corresponding to different confidence levels. In a comprehensive Monte Carlo exercise, we document the superiority of the proposed tests with respect to existing multilevel tests. In an empirical application, we illustrate the implementation of the tests using several VaR models and daily data for 15 MSCI world indices.