Enhancement of workers’ capability to analyze the latent factors in troubles

We examined the cross-cultural equivalence of a widely used instrument that assesses perceived parental rearing, the EMBU-C, among native Dutch and immigrant adolescents living in The Netherlands. The results of a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the factor structure of the EMBU-C, consisting of three latent factors (Warmth, Rejection, and Overprotection), and reliabilities of these scales are similar in both samples. These findings lend further support for the factorial and construct validity of this instrument. The comparison of perceived child rearing between native Dutch and immigrant adolescents showed cultural differences in only one of the assessed dimensions: Immigrant adolescents perceive their parents as more overprotective than do Dutch adolescents.

Download Full-text

Detecting irrelevant variables in possible proxies for the latent factors in macroeconomics and finance

Economics Letters ◽

10.1016/j.econlet.2018.12.012 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 176 ◽

pp. 60-63

Author(s):

Jianhong Wu

Keyword(s):

Latent Factors

Download Full-text

Examination of Construct Validity and Criterion-Related Validity of the German Motor Test in Egyptian Schoolchildren

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18168341 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (16) ◽

pp. 8341

Author(s):

Osama Abdelkarim ◽

Julian Fritsch ◽

Darko Jekauc ◽

Klaus Bös

Keyword(s):

Construct Validity ◽

Physical Fitness ◽

Large Scale ◽

Body Height ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Latent Factors ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

First Order ◽

Motor Test ◽

Health Related

Physical fitness is an indicator for children’s public health status. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the construct validity and the criterion-related validity of the German motor test (GMT) in Egyptian schoolchildren. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a total of 931 children aged 6 to 11 years (age: 9.1 ± 1.7 years) with 484 (52%) males and 447 (48%) females in grades one to five in Assiut city. The children’s physical fitness data were collected using GMT. GMT is designed to measure five health-related physical fitness components including speed, strength, coordination, endurance, and flexibility of children aged 6 to 18 years. The anthropometric data were collected based on three indicators: body height, body weight, and BMI. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted with IBM SPSS AMOS 26.0 using full-information maximum likelihood. The results indicated an adequate fit (χ2 = 112.3, df = 20; p < 0.01; CFI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.07). The χ2-statistic showed significant results, and the values for CFI and RMSEA showed a good fit. All loadings of the manifest variables on the first-order latent factors as well as loadings of the first-order latent factors on the second-order superordinate factor were significant. The results also showed strong construct validity in the components of conditioning abilities and moderate construct validity in the components of coordinative abilities. GMT proved to be a valid method and could be widely used on large-scale studies for health-related fitness monitoring in the Egyptian population.

Download Full-text

The distribution of wealth in Spain and the USA: the role of socioeconomic factors

SERIEs ◽

10.1007/s13209-021-00232-w ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Pedro Salas-Rojo ◽

Juan Gabriel Rodríguez

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Factors ◽

Parental Education ◽

Wealth Inequality ◽

Latent Factors ◽

Distribution Of Wealth ◽

The Usa ◽

Value Decomposition ◽

Counterfactual Decomposition ◽

Distribution Of Income

AbstractThe literature has typically found that the distribution of socioeconomic factors like education, labor status and income does not account for the remarkable wealth inequality disparities between countries. As a result, their different institutions and other latent factors receive all the credit. Here, we propose to focus on one type of wealth inequality, the inequality of opportunities (IOp) in wealth: the share of overall wealth inequality explained by circumstances like inheritances and parental education. By means of a counterfactual decomposition method, we find that imposing the distribution of socioeconomic factors of the USA into Spain has little effect on total, financial and real estate wealth inequality. On the contrary, these factors play an important role when wealth IOp is considered. A Shapley value decomposition shows that the distribution of education and labor status in the USA consistently increase wealth IOp when imposed into Spain, whereas the opposite effect is found for the distribution of income.

Download Full-text

Safety Leadership as a Means for Safe and Sustainable Shipping

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13147841 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 7841

Author(s):

Nermin Hasanspahić ◽

Vlado Frančić ◽

Srđan Vujičić ◽

Mario Mandušić

Keyword(s):

Transactional Leadership ◽

Work Performance ◽

Safety Training ◽

Environment Protection ◽

Human Relations ◽

Latent Factors ◽

Safety Leadership ◽

Safe Work ◽

Transformational And Transactional Leadership ◽

Marine Accidents

Safety leadership is critical in high-risk industries such as shipping since inadequate leadership can cause marine accidents, resulting in injuries, fatalities, damage to property and environmental pollution. One of the aspects of good and effective safety leadership is creating good human relations and satisfaction among crewmembers, considered a precondition for effective teamwork. Officers on board ships should establish effective teamwork and implement adequate safety leadership, positively affecting safety culture, increasing safety in general and improving marine environment protection. Safety leadership onboard ships comprises several characteristics, including maintaining safe work performance, carrying out safety training, and encouraging crewmember morale. Therefore, it is essential for all stakeholders in shipping industries that officers onboard ships can identify those characteristics, adapt, and apply them adequately. This paper presents the characteristics and skills that shipboard officers need to apply in order to be excellent leaders and serve with adequate safety leadership abilities. One tool for recognizing those characteristics and skills was a survey carried out among experienced professional seafarers. Analysis of the survey data revealed latent factors, these being transformational and transactional leadership elements affecting safety leadership onboard ships.

Download Full-text

Decomposition of multivariate spatial data into latent factors

Computers & Geosciences ◽

10.1016/j.cageo.2021.104773 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 153 ◽

pp. 104773

Author(s):

Felipe Cabral Pinto ◽

Johnathan G. Manchuk ◽

Clayton V. Deutsch

Keyword(s):

Spatial Data ◽

Latent Factors ◽

Multivariate Spatial Data

Download Full-text

Bayesian cumulative shrinkage for infinite factorizations

Biometrika ◽

10.1093/biomet/asaa008 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 107 (3) ◽

pp. 745-752 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sirio Legramanti ◽

Daniele Durante ◽

David B Dunson

Keyword(s):

Monte Carlo ◽

Factor Analysis ◽

Monte Carlo Algorithm ◽

Model Complexity ◽

Latent Factors ◽

Shrinkage Process ◽

Shrinkage Prior ◽

Performance Gains ◽

Shrinkage Priors ◽

Model Dimension

Summary The dimension of the parameter space is typically unknown in a variety of models that rely on factorizations. For example, in factor analysis the number of latent factors is not known and has to be inferred from the data. Although classical shrinkage priors are useful in such contexts, increasing shrinkage priors can provide a more effective approach that progressively penalizes expansions with growing complexity. In this article we propose a novel increasing shrinkage prior, called the cumulative shrinkage process, for the parameters that control the dimension in overcomplete formulations. Our construction has broad applicability and is based on an interpretable sequence of spike-and-slab distributions which assign increasing mass to the spike as the model complexity grows. Using factor analysis as an illustrative example, we show that this formulation has theoretical and practical advantages relative to current competitors, including an improved ability to recover the model dimension. An adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed, and the performance gains are outlined in simulations and in an application to personality data.

Download Full-text