Situational Judgment Tests: An Overview of Development Practices and Psychometric Characteristics

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are popular assessment methods often used for personnel selection and promotion. SJTs present problem scenarios to examinees, who then evaluate each response option for addressing the issue described in the scenario. As guidance for practitioners and researchers alike, this paper provides experience- and evidence-based best practices for developing SJTs: writing scenarios and response options, creating response instructions, and selecting a response format. This review describes scoring options, including key stretching and within-person standardization. The authors also describe research on psychometric issues that affect SJTs, including reliability, validity, group differences, presentation modes, faking, and coaching

An overview of key technology thrusts at Bell Helicopter Textron

Insight is provided into several key technologies at Bell. Specific topics include the results of ongoing research and development in advanced rotors, methodology development, and new configurations. The discussion on advanced rotors highlight developments on the composite, bearingless rotor, including the development and testing of full scale flight hardware as well as some of the design support analyses and verification testing. The discussion on methodology development concentrates on analytical development in aeromechanics, including correlation studies and design application. New configurations, presents the results of some advanced configuration studies including hardware development

Resource utilization and outcome at a university versus a community teaching hospital in tPA treated stroke patients: a retrospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Comparing patterns of resource utilization between hospitals is often complicated by biases in community and patient populations. Stroke patients treated with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) provide a particularly homogenous population for comparison because of strict eligibility criteria for treatment. We tested whether resource utilization would be similar in this homogenous population between two hospitals located in a single Midwestern US community by comparing use of diagnostic testing and associated outcomes following treatment with t-PA.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Medical records from 206 consecutive intravenous t-PA-treated stroke patients from two teaching hospitals (one university, one community-based) were reviewed. Patient demographics, clinical characteristics and outcome were analyzed, as were the frequency of use of CT, MRI, MRA, echocardiography, angiography, and EEG.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seventy-nine and 127 stroke patients received t-PA at the university and community hospitals, respectively. The two patient populations were demographically similar. There were no differences in stroke severity. All outcomes were similar at both hospitals. Utilization of CT scans, and non-invasive carotid and cardiac imaging studies were similar at both hospitals; however, brain MR, TEE, and catheter angiography were used more frequently at the university hospital. EEG was obtained more often at the community hospital.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Utilization of advanced brain imaging and invasive diagnostic testing was greater at the university hospital, but was not associated with improved clinical outcomes. This could not be explained on the basis of stroke severity or patient characteristics. This variation of practice suggests substantial opportunities exist to reduce costs and improve efficiency of diagnostic resource use as well as reduce patient exposure to risk from diagnostic procedures.</p

Addressing the psychology of weight loss and maintenance: a feasibility study of the Skills for weight loss and Maintenance weight management programme

Objectives: Building on prior theory, we aimed to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of integrating novel, weight loss maintenance strategies into existing weight management programmes. We also piloted recruitment and data collection procedures for future research. Design: Two phases of action research nested within a single‐arm feasibility study. The intervention was refined between phases using feedback from intervention fidelity analysis and qualitative exploration of patient and provider experiences. Changes in outcomes were assessed up to 18 months post‐baseline. Methods: One hundred adults with a mean body mass index of 37 kg/m2 were offered the Skills for weight loss and Maintenance (SkiM) intervention. This included existing weight management programme content and additional weight loss maintenance techniques delivered fortnightly for 6 months in local community centres to groups of 11–15 people. Results: Of the 100 participants, 65%, 58% and 56% provided data at 7, 12 and 18 months. Across both phases, the mean initial weight loss was 4.2 kg (95% CI: 2.4–5.9) and 3.1 kg at 18 months (95% CI: .8–5.5). In Phase 2, we observed better weight loss maintenance (.5 kg [13.2%] regain from 7 to 18 months, vs. 1.7 kg [36.2%] in Phase 1). Variation in outcomes, high early dropout rates and qualitative feedback indicated that, although delivery of the intervention and trial procedures was feasible and acceptable, there was scope to refine the intervention to engage a wider range of participants. Intervention fidelity was acceptable, particularly in Phase 2. Conclusions: The SkiM intervention seems promising, but more research is needed to improve recruitment and retention prior to further evaluation

Multi-Messenger Gravitational Wave Searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays: Application to 3C66B Using the NANOGrav 11-year Data Set

When galaxies merge, the supermassive black holes in their centers may form binaries and, during the process of merger, emit low-frequency gravitational radiation in the process. In this paper we consider the galaxy 3C66B, which was used as the target of the first multi-messenger search for gravitational waves. Due to the observed periodicities present in the photometric and astrometric data of the source of the source, it has been theorized to contain a supermassive black hole binary. Its apparent 1.05-year orbital period would place the gravitational wave emission directly in the pulsar timing band. Since the first pulsar timing array study of 3C66B, revised models of the source have been published, and timing array sensitivities and techniques have improved dramatically. With these advances, we further constrain the chirp mass of the potential supermassive black hole binary in 3C66B to less than $(1.65\pm0.02) \times 10^9~{M_\odot}$ using data from the NANOGrav 11-year data set. This upper limit provides a factor of 1.6 improvement over previous limits, and a factor of 4.3 over the first search done. Nevertheless, the most recent orbital model for the source is still consistent with our limit from pulsar timing array data. In addition, we are able to quantify the improvement made by the inclusion of source properties gleaned from electromagnetic data to `blind' pulsar timing array searches. With these methods, it is apparent that it is not necessary to obtain exact a priori knowledge of the period of a binary to gain meaningful astrophysical inferences.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Ap

The Opportunity Cost of the Conservation Reserve Program: A Kansas Land Example

The effects of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) on farmland values is investigated using a set of parcel-level data for land sales in Kansas over the period 1998 to 2014. The sales data are used to estimate a hedonic model of land values that allows for the opportunity cost of CRP enrollment to vary across space and time. Factors impacting the opportunity costs include the relative productivity of land, returns to farming, and the time remaining under the CRP contracts. We find that the discount associated with having land under CRP contract averages 7%

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes