In this contribution, we evaluate the degree of measurement equivalence between countries and over time for a measure of experienced holiday quality that has repeatedly been included in a public opinion survey series of high policy relevance: the Flash Eurobarometer survey series (2014–2016). The results indicate that using the measurement instrument for cross-national comparisons between 35 countries may be quite problematic, as neither metric nor scalar measurement equivalence was established. The longitudinal analyses show that for 19 out of 28 countries, scalar measurement equivalence holds between the waves. For the countries for which longitudinal scalar measurement equivalence was established, the comparison of the mean overall score of satisfaction with the holiday shows a very high level of stability. In general, the findings underscore the importance of assessing measurement equivalence of empirical tourism and leisure-related constructs when making systematic comparisons between groups or over time.
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The global agenda to move societies towards a more sustainable course of development also affects the lives of older people in our ageing populations. Therefore, it is important to understand the drivers, intentions and behaviours concerning sustainability among older adults. The aim of this study is to translate and cross-culturally validate an existing instrument (SustainABLE-16 Questionnaire), developed in the Netherlands, which measures how older people view the theme of environmental sustainability in their daily lives, for use in Romania, Poland, North Macedonia and Israel. The SustainABLE-16 covers three domains: 1) Pro-environmental behaviours; 2) Financial position; and 3) Beliefs. The scale was translated in Romanian, Polish, Macedonian, Albanian and Hebrew. Its 16 items were appraised for relevance by older people and experts in the field. A total of 2299 older people, including the original Dutch respondents, were included for the assessment of the level of measurement invariance across six languages, spoken in five countries. As the initial validation of the SustainABLE-16 did not meet internationally-recognised fit requirements, the shorter SustainABLE-8 was validated instead. This instrument proved valid for use in all participating countries (configural validity). Subsequently, increasingly constrained structural equation models were applied to test their fit with the data, ensuring that the fit did not deteriorate. The test results of measurement invariance across the countries indicated that items were stable, achieving partial scalar invariance, with five items demonstrating full scalar invariance. The shorter SustainABLE-8 functions uniformly across all language groups and can, therefore, be used to evaluate sustainable practices among older people. A better understanding of the drivers and practices among older citizens across Europe could, in turn, feed into more fitting public policies on sustainability in the built environment.
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From the article: Abstract Adjustment and testing of a combination of stochastic and nonstochastic observations is applied to the deformation analysis of a time series of 3D coordinates. Nonstochastic observations are constant values that are treated as if they were observations. They are used to formulate constraints on the unknown parameters of the adjustment problem. Thus they describe deformation patterns. If deformation is absent, the epochs of the time series are supposed to be related via affine, similarity or congruence transformations. S-basis invariant testing of deformation patterns is treated. The model is experimentally validated by showing the procedure for a point set of 3D coordinates, determined from total station measurements during five epochs. The modelling of two patterns, the movement of just one point in several epochs, and of several points, is shown. Full, rank deficient covariance matrices of the 3D coordinates, resulting from free network adjustments of the total station measurements of each epoch, are used in the analysis.
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Background: In Turkey, nursing care in hospitals has gradually included more older patients, resulting in a need for knowledgeable geriatric nurses. It is unknown, however, whether the nursing workforce is ready for this increase. Therefore, the aim of this study is to validate the Knowledge about Older Patients Quiz (KOPQ) in the Turkish language and culture, to describe Turkish hospital nurses’ knowledge about older patients, and to compare levels of knowledge between Turkish and Dutch hospital nurses. Conclusions: The KOPQ-TR is promising for use in Turkey, although psychometric validation should be repeated using a better targeted sample with a larger ability variance to adequately assess the Person Separation Index and Person Reliability. Currently, education regarding care for older patients is not sufficiently represented in Turkish nursing curricula. However, the need to do so is evident, as the results demonstrate that knowledge deficits and an increase in older patients admitted to the hospital will eventually occur. International comparison and cooperation provides an opportunity to learn from other countries that currently face the challenge of an aging (hospital) population.
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ABSTRACT Psychopathy in females has been understudied. Extant data on gender comparisons using the predominant measure of assessment in clinical practice, the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), points to a potential lack of measurement invariance (MI). If indeed the instrument does not perform equally (well) in both genders, straightforward comparison of psychopathy scores in males and females is unwarranted. Using a sample of female and male forensic patients (N ¼ 110 and N ¼ 147 respectively), we formally tested for MI in a structural equation modeling framework. We found that the PCL-R in its current form does not attain full MI. Four items showed threshold biases and particularly Factor 2 (the Social Deviance Factor) is gender biased. Based on our findings, it seems reasonable to expect that specific scoring adjustments might go a long way in bringing about more equivalent assessment of psychopathic features in men and women. Only then can we begin to meaningfully compare the genders on the prevalence, structure, and external correlates of psychopathy
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Author supplied: "This paper gives a linearised adjustment model for the affine, similarity and congruence transformations in 3D that is easily extendable with other parameters to describe deformations. The model considers all coordinates stochastic. Full positive semi-definite covariance matrices and correlation between epochs can be handled. The determination of transformation parameters between two or more coordinate sets, determined by geodetic monitoring measurements, can be handled as a least squares adjustment problem. It can be solved without linearisation of the functional model, if it concerns an affine, similarity or congruence transformation in one-, two- or three-dimensional space. If the functional model describes more than such a transformation, it is hardly ever possible to find a direct solution for the transformation parameters. Linearisation of the functional model and applying least squares formulas is then an appropriate mode of working. The adjustment model is given as a model of observation equations with constraints on the parameters. The starting point is the affine transformation, whose parameters are constrained to get the parameters of the similarity or congruence transformation. In this way the use of Euler angles is avoided. Because the model is linearised, iteration is necessary to get the final solution. In each iteration step approximate coordinates are necessary that fulfil the constraints. For the affine transformation it is easy to get approximate coordinates. For the similarity and congruence transformation the approximate coordinates have to comply to constraints. To achieve this, use is made of the singular value decomposition of the rotation matrix. To show the effectiveness of the proposed adjustment model total station measurements in two epochs of monitored buildings are analysed. Coordinate sets with full, rank deficient covariance matrices are determined from the measurements and adjusted with the proposed model. Testing the adjustment for deformations results in detection of the simulated deformations."
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Purpose: To establish age-related, normal limits of monocular and binocular spatial vision under photopic and mesopic conditions. Methods: Photopic and mesopic visual acuity (VA) and contrast thresholds (CTs) were measured with both positive and negative contrast optotypes under binocular and monocular viewing conditions using the Acuity-Plus (AP) test. The experiments were carried out on participants (age range from 10 to 86 years), who met pre-established, normal sight criteria. Mean and ± 2.5σ limits were calculated within each 5-year subgroup. A biologically meaningful model was then fitted to predict mean values and upper and lower threshold limits for VA and CT as a function of age. The best-fit model parameters describe normal aging of spatial vision for each of the 16 experimental conditions investigated. Results: Out of the 382 participants recruited for this study, 285 participants passed the selection criteria for normal aging. Log transforms were applied to ensure approximate normal distributions. Outliers were also removed for each of the 16 stimulus conditions investigated based on the ±2.5σ limit criterion. VA, CTs and the overall variability were found to be age-invariant up to ~50 years in the photopic condition. A lower, age-invariant limit of ~30 years was more appropriate for the mesopic range with a gradual, but accelerating increase in both mean thresholds and intersubject variability above this age. Binocular thresholds were smaller and much less variable when compared to the thresholds measured in either eye. Results with negative contrast optotypes were significantly better than the corresponding results measured with positive contrast (p < 0.004). Conclusions: This project has established the expected age limits of spatial vision for monocular and binocular viewing under photopic and high mesopic lighting with both positive and negative contrast optotypes using a single test, which can be implemented either in the clinic or in an occupational setting.
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See Springer link - available under Open Access
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Thermal comfort -the state of mind, which expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment- is an important aspect of the building design process as modern man spends most of the day indoors. This paper reviews the developments in indoor thermal comfort research and practice since the second half of the 1990s, and groups these developments around two main themes; (i) thermal comfort models and standards, and (ii) advances in computerization. Within the first theme, the PMV-model (Predicted Mean Vote), created by Fanger in the late 1960s is discussed in the light of the emergence of models of adaptive thermal comfort. The adaptive models are based on adaptive opportunities of occupants and are related to options of personal control of the indoor climate and psychology and performance. Both models have been considered in the latest round of thermal comfort standard revisions. The second theme focuses on the ever increasing role played by computerization in thermal comfort research and practice, including sophisticated multi-segmental modeling and building performance simulation, transient thermal conditions and interactions, thermal manikins.
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In the literature about web survey methodology, significant e orts have been made to understand the role of time-invariant factors (e.g. gender, education and marital status) in (non-)response mechanisms. Time-invariant factors alone, however, cannot account for most variations in (non-)responses, especially fluctuations of response rates over time. This observation inspires us to investigate the counterpart of time-invariant factors, namely time-varying factors and the potential role they play in web survey (non-)response. Specifically, we study the effects of time, weather and societal trends (derived from Google Trends data) on the daily (non-)response patterns of the 2016 and 2017 Dutch Health Surveys. Using discrete-time survival analysis, we find, among others, that weekends, holidays, pleasant weather, disease outbreaks and terrorism salience are associated with fewer responses. Furthermore, we show that using these variables alone achieves satisfactory prediction accuracy of both daily and cumulative response rates when the trained model is applied to future unseen data. This approach has the further benefit of requiring only non-personal contextual information and thus involving no privacy issues. We discuss the implications of the study for survey research and data collection.
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