Structural ambiguity of the Chinese version of the hospital anxiety and depression scale in patients with coronary heart disease

Background The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) is a widely used screening tool designed as a case detector for clinically relevant anxiety and depression. Recent studies of the HADS in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients in European countries suggest it comprises three, rather than two, underlying sub-scale dimensions. The factor structure of the Chinese version of the HADS was evaluated in patients with CHD in mainland China. Methods Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on self-report HADS forms from 154 Chinese CHD patients. Results Little difference was observed in model fit between best performing three-factor and two-factor models. Conclusion The current observations are inconsistent with recent studies highlighting a dominant underlying tri-dimensional structure to the HADS in CHD patients. The Chinese version of the HADS may perform differently to European language versions of the instrument in patients with CHD

The Endowment Effect in a Public Good Experiment

Previous tests of the endowment effect have usually observed WTA-WTP disparities. Here, a public good experiment is employed. Both account framing and duration framing treatments are introduced to alter subjects’ perceived control over an initial endowment. Results do not indicate that preferences shift in a way consistent with the endowment effect.endowment effect, public good, willingness to pay

On the separable quotient problem for Banach spaces

While the classic separable quotient problem remains open, we survey general results related to this problem and examine the existence of a particular infinitedimensional separable quotient in some Banach spaces of vector-valued functions, linear operators and vector measures. Most of the results presented are consequence of known facts, some of them relative to the presence of complemented copies of the classic sequence spaces c_0 and l_p, for 1 <= p <= \infty. Also recent results of Argyros - Dodos - Kanellopoulos, and Sliwa are provided. This makes our presentation supplementary to a previous survey (1997) due to Mujica

RETAIL OLIGOPOLY POWER AND FLUID MILK PRICES IN BOSTON

This paper assesses the independent and joint impacts of oligopoly power of market intermediaries and the Northeast Dairy Compact (NEDC) on fluid milk prices in Boston. Empirical results reveal that price increases due to oligopoly power far outweighed those caused by the NEDC by more than 10 times. In fact, markups are estimated at approximately 33% of the retail milk price, translating into approximately $1/gallon overcharge at 2002 milk prices averaging around$3/gallon.Demand and Price Analysis,

A Supermarket-Level Analysis of Demand for Breakfast Cereals: A Random Coefficients Approach

This paper applies the BLP approach to the demand for ready-to-eat cereals (RTECs) at the supermarket-chain level in Boston using IRI monthly data. The Random Coefficient Model is used to estimate the demand for 37 brands of RTECs at the leading supermarkets in the Boston area. The empirical results provide a wealth of consumer behavior information, including own- and cross-price elasticites for 37 brands of RTECs at four leading supermarkets in Boston. The demand for RTECs is generally price elastic (ranging between -3 and -8). Consumers respond positively and strongly to promotion, negatively and strongly to price, calories and fiber, and weakly to sugar content. Income has a strong interactive effect with product characteristics and thus is a useful variable for market segmentation. In comparison, the results with the more commonly used Logit model indicate significantly lower price elasticities, provide a limited window on consumer behavior, and yield predicted brand and supermarket market shares that are quite divergent from observed values.Demand and Price Analysis,