Ultrashort Version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-3): A Psychometric Assessment

The objective was to determine the validity of the UWES-3, an ultrashort measure of work engagement lacking evidence in Hispanic populations. In total, 200 workers with heterogeneous positions and careers from Metropolitan Lima were enrolled via nonprobabilistic sampling. The UWES-3 and measures of external variables (work accidents, stress overload, and others) were used. Data were collected through a web platform. Items were analysed, nonparametric response theory methods (Mokken scale analysis and Ramsay curves) were applied to the items, and ordinal and linear regression were used to determine the relationships with external variables. The items had statistically similar distributional properties and monotonic associations with external variables but with fewer functional response options. The UWES-3 complied with the monotonic homogeneity model and invariant ordering of items; the scaling of the items, score (greater than 0.80), and reliability (0.94) were high. With the effects of age and sex controlled, the UWES-3 significantly predicted minor accidents at work and job satisfaction and revealed effects of stress overload and perceived efficacy. The theoretical implications of the UWES-3 as a brief unidimensional measure integrating the three original dimensions of the instrument and the practical implications of its use for research and professional practice are discussed.

On Statistical Development of Neutrosophic Gamma Distribution with Applications to Complex Data Analysis

In the absence of a correct distribution theory for complex data, neutrosophic algebra can be very useful in quantifying uncertainty. In applied data analysis, implementation of existing gamma distribution becomes inadequate for some applications when dealing with an imprecise, uncertain, or vague dataset. Most existing works have explored distributional properties of the gamma distribution under the assumption that data do not have any kind of indeterminacy. Yet, analytical properties of the gamma model for the more realistic setting when data involved uncertainties remain largely underdeveloped. This paper fills such a gap and develops the notion of neutrosophic gamma distribution (NGD). The proposed distribution represents a generalized structure of the existing gamma distribution. The basic distributional properties, including moments, shape coefficients, and moment generating function (MGF), are established. Several examples are considered to emphasize the relevance of the proposed NGD for dealing with circumstances with inadequate or ambiguous knowledge about the distributional characteristics. The estimation framework for treating vague parameters of the NGD is developed. The Monte Carlo simulation is implemented to examine the performance of the proposed model. The proposed model is applied to a real dataset for the purpose of dealing with inaccurate and vague statistical data. Results show that the NGD has better flexibility in handling real data over the conventional gamma distribution.

Distributional properties of semantic interference in picture naming: Bayesian meta-analyses

Studies of word production often make use of picture-naming tasks, including the picture-word-interference task. In this task, participants name pictures with superimposed distractor words. They typically need more time to name pictures when the distractor word is semantically related to the picture than when it is unrelated (the semantic interference effect). The present study examines the distributional properties of this effect in a series of Bayesian meta-analyses. Meta-analytic estimates of the semantic interference effect first show that the effect is present throughout the reaction time distribution and that it increases throughout the distribution. Second, we find a correlation between a participant’s mean semantic interference effect and the change in the effect in the tail of the reaction time distribution, which has been argued to reflect the involvement of selective inhibition in the naming task. Finally, we show with simulated data that this correlation emerges even when no inhibition is used to generate the data, which suggests that inhibition is not needed to explain this relationship.

Distributional semantics insights on agentive suffix rivalry in French

The formation of French agent nouns (ANs) involves a large variety of morphological constructions, and particularly of suffixes. In this study, we focus on the semantic counterpart of agentive suffix diversity and investigate whether the morphological variety of ANs correlates with different agentive subtypes. We adopt a distributional semantics approach and combine manual, computational and statistical analyses applied to French ANs ending in -aire, -ant, -eur, -ien, -ier and -iste. Our methodology allows for a large-scale study of ANs and involves both top-down and bottom-up procedures. We first characterize agentive suffixes with respect to their morphosemantic and distributional properties, outlining their specificities and similarities. Then we automatically cluster ANs into distributionally relevant subsets and examine their properties. Based on quantitative analysis, our study provides a new perspective on agentive suffix rivalry in French that both confirms existing claims and sheds light on previously unseen phenomena.

Morphosyntactic vagueness and directionality

This paper shows that morphosyntactic vagueness exists between several minor morphosyntactic categories in Mandarin (modal, protasis connective and types of classifier): these categories share formal distributional properties and functional similarities such that their morphosyntactic distinctions become neutralized in some contexts. Consequently, bidirectionality rather than unidirectionality may characterize these categories diachronically. This paper proposes that any direction of change that is motivated by morphosyntactic vagueness should be regarded as regular and systematic, even if it is not unidirectional, and identifies some directions for future research on morphosyntactic vagueness in diachrony.

A New Two-Parametric Maxwell-Rayleigh Distribution: Application to the Analysis of Engineering Data

In this study a new generalisation of Rayleigh Distribution has been studied and referred it is as “A New Two-Parametric Maxwell-Rayleigh Distribution”. This distribution is obtained by adopting T-X family procedure. Several distributional properties of the formulated distribution including moments, moment generating function, Characteristics function and incomplete moments have been discussed. The expressions for ageing properties have been derived and discussed explicitly. The behaviour of the pdf and Hazard rate function has been illustrated through different graphs. The parameters are estimated through the technique of MLE. Eventually the versatility and the efficacy of the formulated distribution have been examined through real life data sets related to engineering science.

On the habitual verb pflegen in German. Its use, origin, and development

In this article, I examine the distributional properties, emergence conditions, and development of the habitual verbal head pflegen ‘use(d) to’ in the history of German. Synchronically, I argue that Present-day German possesses subject to subject raising verbs and that they can all be brought down to a common denominator: They allow promotion of the embedded subject into the matrix subject position (= A-movement). However, at the same time I argue that German subject to subject raising verbs differ and that their heterogeneity follows from their semantics. What all this boils down to is that German subject to subject raising verbs do not form a uniform class, neither semantically nor syntactically. As for pflegen, I account for its syntactic peculiarities referring to its functional status, i.e., the status of being a habitual head. Diachronically, I show that pflegen grammaticalized into an AspHAB-head in the transition from Old High German (750–1050) to Middle High German (1050–1350) and that this grammaticalization process restricted the way it behaves in Present-day German.