Item response theory (IRT) has moved beyond the confines of educational measurement into assessment domains such as personality, psychopathology, and patient-reported outcomes. Classic and emerging IR
A prime contemporary concern - how to maintain fair market relations - is addressed through this study of the regulation of bread prices. This was the single most important economic reality of Europe's daily life in the early modern period. Jan de Vries uses the Dutch Republic as a case study of how the market functioned and how the regulatory system evolved and acted. The ways in which consumer behaviour adapted to these structures, and the state interacted with producers and consumers in the pursuit of its own interests, had major implications for the measurement of living standards in this period. The long-term consequences of the Dutch state's interventions reveal how capitalist economies, far from being the outcome of unfettered market economics, are inextricably linked with regulatory fiscal regimes. The humble loaf serves as a prism through which to explore major developments in early modern European society and how public market regulation affected private economic life.
Notable advances resulting from new research findings, measurement approaches, widespread uses of the Internet, and increasingly sophisticated approaches to sampling and polling, have stimulated a new
This is the first single volume about the collapse theories of quantum mechanics, which is becoming a very active field of research in both physics and philosophy. In standard quantum mechanics, it is postulated that when the wave function of a quantum system is measured, it no longer follows the Schrödinger equation, but instantaneously and randomly collapses to one of the wave functions that correspond to definite measurement results. However, why and how a definite measurement result appears is unknown. A promising solution to this problem are collapse theories in which the collapse of the wave function is spontaneous and dynamical. Chapters written by distinguished physicists and philosophers of physics discuss the origin and implications of wave-function collapse, the controversies around collapse models and their ontologies, and new arguments for the reality of wave function collapse. This is an invaluable resource for students and researchers interested in the philosophy of phys
Although Outcome Measurement has become an important tool in the evaluation of health promotion patient education and other health services interventions, problems remain in locating reliable measurem
The debate over the age of the Earth has been ongoing for over two thousand years, and has pitted physicists and astronomers against biologists, and religious philosophers against geologists. The Chronologers' Quest tells the fascinating story of our attempts to determine the age of the Earth. This book investigates the many novel methods used in the search for the Earth's age, from James Ussher and John Lightfoot examining biblical chronologies, and from Comte de Buffon and Lord Kelvin determining the length of time for the cooling of the Earth, to the more recent investigations of Arthur Holmes and Clair Patterson into radioactive dating of rocks and meteorites. The Chronologers' Quest is a readable account of the measurement of geological time. It will be of great interest to a wide range of readers, from those with little scientific background to students and scientists in a wide range of the Earth sciences.
Learn how to implement demand driven metrics for vast improvement in measuring performance. "Demand Driven Performance" details why the outdated forms of measurement are inappropriate for current circumstances and reveals an elegant set of global and local metrics to fit today's demand driven world. The book shows how to minimize the organizational and supply chain conflicts that impede flow, and eventually, corporate success.Metrics are used to create a benchmark for measuring improvement and to identify and focus on those improvements that are most needed, and that have the highest ROI. However, the world has fundamentally changed in terms of delivering value and driving strong financial performance and growth. The continued use of outdated metrics is driving companies in the wrong direction giving them false signals, putting their personnel into conflict at all levels of the organization, and also wreaking havoc in the supply chain. This book offers solutions to remedy these issues.
Discussing the evaluator's role in performance measurement, this volume focuses on ways to select, develop, and analyze tests. It reviews a variety of potential performance measures--including differ
By using familiar concepts from classical measurement methods and basic statistics, this book introduces the basics of item response theory (IRT) and explains the application of IRT methods to problem
Few communication behaviors are more consequential to the development and maintenance of close relationships than the expression of affection. Indeed, people often use affectionate gestures to initiate or accelerate relationship development. In contrast, the absence of affection in established relationships frequently coincides with relational deterioration. This text explores the scientific research on affection exchange that has emerged from the disciplines of communication, social and clinical psychology, family studies, psychophysiology, sociology, nursing, and behavioral health. Specific points of focus include the individual and relational benefits - including health benefits - of affectionate behavior, the significant detriments associated with lacking sufficient affection, and the risks of expressing affection. It also discusses the primary social and cultural influences on affection exchange, critiques principal theories and measurement models, and offers suggestions for futur
Moynihan (public affairs, U. of Wisconsin-Madison) surveys the management process, showing how governments have emphasized some aspects such as building measurement systems to acquire more performance
This book provides an up-to-date review of the principles, practical applications, and state of the art in semiconductor x-ray detectors. It describes all aspects of x-ray detection and measurement us
Measurement in the social sciences often refers to standardized answers to close-ended questions, in which answers are analyzed as if they were measurements on an interval scale. This volume presents
Focusing on situations in which analysis of variance (ANOVA) involving the repeated measurement of separate groups of individuals is needed, Girden reveals the advantages, disadvantages, and counterba
One of the major contributions of Husserl's phenomenology has been to show that things present themselves to us in strikingly different ways. There are various kinds of presentations and something like logical structures in them that allow the truth of things to appear. Being pictured is different from being named, and also different from being distinguished from something else. The fourteen essays in this volume provide concrete and colorful examples of strategic forms of presentation, and they also shed light on us as persons who exercise our intelligence when we let things appear in these various ways. Even our moral conduct takes place because something appears to us as to be done or to be avoided in a situation that calls for action. When we quote what someone has said, for example, we express things as they have been expressed by someone else, and we invoke the authority of that other speaker. In measurement, we either bring external units, such as inches or yards, to determine t
The most sophisticated theories of judicial behavior depict judges as rational actors who strategically pursue multiple goals when making decisions. However, these accounts tend to disregard the possibility that judges have heterogeneous goal preferences - that is, that different judges want different things. Integrating insights from personality psychology and economics, this book proposes a new theory of judicial behavior in which judges strategically pursue multiple goals, but their personality traits determine the relative importance of those goals. This theory is tested by analyzing the behavior of justices who served on the US Supreme Court between 1946 and 2015. Using recent advances in text-based personality measurement, Hall evaluates the influence of the 'big five' personality traits on the justices' behavior during each stage of the Court's decision-making process. What Justices Want shows that personality traits directly affect the justices' choices and moderate the influen
This text introduces students to the process of program evaluation and the experimental and quasi-experimental approaches to evaluation. The book covers approaches to outcome evaluations, measurement,
