bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Sensitivity analysis in economic evaluation: A review of published studies
Authors: Briggs Andrew , Sculpher Mark 
Published: May 2012

AbstractA structured methodological review of journal articles published in 1992 was undertaken to determine whether recently published economic evaluation studies deal systematically and comprehensively with uncertainty. Ninety three journal articles were identified from a range of searches including a computerised search of the MEDLINE CD‐Rom database. Articles were reviewed to determine how they had handled uncertainty in: a) data sources; b) generalisability; c) extrapolation; and d) analytic method. Articles were subsequently assessed to determine how they had represented this uncertainty in terms of the overall results of their analysis. Finally, studies were rated on the basis of their overall performance with respect to dealing systematically and comprehensively with uncertainty.Despite the numerous books and articles devoted to the appropriate methods to be employed by analysts conducting economic evaluation, 22 (24%) studies failed to consider uncertainty at all and 35 (38%) studies employed sensitivity analysis in a manner judged as inadequate. In all, 36 (39%) studies were judged to have given at least an adequate account of uncertainty with 13 (14%) of those judged to have provided a good account of uncertainty.Such disappointing results may reflect a general lack of detail in much of the methods literature concerning how sensitivity analysis should be applied and how results should be presented. Journal editors and readers of economic evaluation articles should acquaint themselves with the methods for handling uncertainty in order that they can critically evaluate the extent to which authors have allowed for uncertainties inherent in their analysis.
Controlling for mental health in earnings equations: What do we gain and what do we lose?
Authors: Savoca Elizabeth 
Published: May 2012

AbstractThis paper examines the biases in estimating wage equations that may arise from measurement errors in various mental health indicators—two subjective proxies and one clinical assessment. The results suggest that a self‐reported measure based on whether the individual reported missing school or work for mental‐health‐related reasons leads to the smallest measurement error bias in the coefficients of the explanatory variables in an earnings equation. Two specific results lead to this conclusion. For one, the variance of the random component of its measurement error is the smallest among the three indicators leading to the least biased estimates of the impact of mental health on wages. Second, systematic reporting biases which vary with the non‐health regressors in a wage equation do not appear to exit in this measure. Consequently, this indicator follows the classical measurement error model. This implies that the coefficient estimates of the impact of non‐health variables are always improved, in the sense of having a smaller bias, when this mental health proxy is included in the regression.The measurement error in a self‐evaluation according to the scale of excellent, good, fair, or poor has the largest variance thus leading to a substantial understatement of the impact of mental health on earnings. This measure also contains significant reporting biases that vary with gender, race, and education—many of the non‐health regressors in a wage equation.The measurement error variance in the simulated diagnostic measure analyzed in this paper is also large. Thus this proxy will yield poor estimates of the impact of mental health on earnings.
Relative fees and the utilization of physicians' services in Canada
Authors: Hurley Jeremiah , Labelle Roberta 
Published: May 2012

AbstractStudy Question: The study objective is to estimate the relationship between changes in the relative fee physicians receive for a procedure and the utilization of the procedure.Data Sources/Study Setting: The study uses claims‐based, procedure‐specific, quarterly, aggregate utilization data for physicians in three specialties and four provinces in Canada for the period 1977–1989.Study Design: The unit of analysis is an individual procedure. Multi‐variate regression methods for cross‐sectional/times‐series data are applied to estimate the utilization‐fee relationship while controlling for supply‐ and demand‐side determinants of utilization.Principal Findings: There is no evidence of a strong, uniform utilization response among the 11 procedures analyzed. The results include a mixture of significant and non‐significant fee coefficients, and among the significant coefficients, a mixture of signs is observed. The results are consistent with utility‐maximizing behaviour by physicians rather than with profit‐maximizing behaviour.Conclusions: The fact that the direction and degree of the utilization effect associated with changing fees is procedure‐specific has direct implications for our ability to develop effective policies to modify physician behaviour that are based primarily on financial incentives, particularly those based on manipulating fees. The study also highlights the limitations of analyses based on aggregate data and suggests methodological approaches that have potential to overcome some of these limitations to fill gaps in our current knowledge.
Explaining the utilisation of dental care. Experiences from the finnish dental market
Authors: Sintonen Harri , Maljanen Timo 
Published: May 2012

AbstractIn this paper a model based on the theory of demand for health and of supplier inducement is developed to explain the utilisation of dental care. Of special interest are the effects of money price and various forms of inducement. It is also explored how the results are affected if different model specifications and estimation techniques are applied and what is the most appropriate one, when utilisation is measured by dental expenditure. The data come from a sample of 1779 employees, whose dental expenditure is refunded from 0 to 99.75%. Other things being equal, the methodological choices make a clear difference in parameter estimates. Only a log‐linear two‐part model and two‐part tobit with selectivity were suitable for explaining expenditure and produced quite similar results. Money price elasticity was small, but significant (–0.069). General and personal inducement appear to have a considerable effect on utilisation, but did not have any systematic connection with dentist/population ratio.
Primeval health economics in Britain: A personal retrospect of the pre‐HESG period
Authors: Williams Alan 
Published: May 2012

AbstractThere is a danger that the history of health economics in Britain comes to be regarded as roughly co‐terminous with the history of the Health Economists' Study Group (HESG). As one of the founders of that Group, I would take some pride from that, if it were true. But it is not. Just as primitive human societies existed before recorded history, so there was primeval health economics in Britain prior to 1972. There is probably more of this primeval health economics than even I know about, but as one of the ancient relics of that period I have been offered the opportunity to reminisce about what I saw during those dark ages! When one reaches the advanced age of 70, there is no escaping the fact that your past is bound to be more extensive (and probably more enjoyable) than your future, which is why the old enjoy looking back more than they enjoy looking forward! I am no exception. Hence this essay, which may either be seen as a rather self‐indulgent bout of nostalgia concerning the early days of health economics in Britain, or as an archaeological enterprise, exhibiting, for all to wonder at, the treasures to be found at carefully selected ancient (i.e., pre‐HESG) sites in Britain. Either way, my purpose is to suggest that most of the fundamental issues with which health economists have grappled in the last 25 years had already been identified and addressed in a careful way during the decade preceding the formation of the HESG.
US and UK health economics: Two disciplines separated by a common language?
Authors: Newhouse Joseph P. 
Published: May 2012

AbstractVictor Fuchs recently conducted two survey questionnaires of American health economists, showing substantial consensus among them on positive questions and much less consensus on policy questions. I attempted to replicate Fuch's surveys for members of the HESG. I dropped some items that were specific to an American context and added some new questions. Overall there was less agreement on positive questions and more on policy questions than among the US economists. Alan Williams' 1985 article ‘Economics of Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting’ was deemed the most influential by a British author on health economics as a discipline and British health policy.
Acoustic Risk Management
Authors: Sinay Juraj , Balážiková Michaela 
Published: May 2012

AbstractModern civilization moves ahead with strong economical growth. Using a large number of new technologies and new machines in working procedures brings a proportional growth of noise and vibration. Noise and vibration have become an essential part of active safety measures because they are endangering the health of the employee as well as the public. Preventive solutions are ensured in new legislation and standards too. They facilitate high levels of unification of safety requirements for machines as well as the working environment from the acoustics point of view. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Push/Pull Risk Factors at Workstations: A Case‐Control Study of Mexican Industrial Workers
Authors: Prado‐León Lilia R. 
Published: May 2012

AbstractThe objective of this study was to quantify and assess whether push/pull tasks in the workplace are risk factors for lower back pain etiology. A case‐control study was conducted of 231 industrial workers 18–55 years old who were insured by the Mexican Social Security Institute (MSSI) in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area of Jalisco, Mexico. Exposure was evaluated via a questionnaire. Multivariate analysis using conditional logistic regression showed risks for push/pull tasks (odds ratio = 5.7, 95% confidence interval, 1.4–23.1) adjusted for lifting, carrying, and driving work. The fraction attributable to push/pull tasks was 0.58, suggesting that the risk of developing lumbar spondyloarthrosis might be reduced by 58% with ergonomic redesign for pushing and pulling tasks at workstations. Additional research is needed to confirm this relationship and will ideally incorporate a greater number of subjects to assure detailed analyses of exposure categories and facilitate new comparisons with the results of the present study. © 2012Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Alternating predictive and short‐term memory modes of entorhinal grid cells
Authors: De Almeida Licurgo , Idiart Marco , Villavicencio Aline , Lisman John 
Published: May 2012

AbstractSeveral lines of evidence indicate that the entorhinal cortex has memory functions, but such functions have not been previously found in grid cells, a cell type that provides major input to the hippocampus. We examined the firing of grid cells as rats crossed (runs) through grid cell vertices. We found that on some runs, firing tended to occur mostly inbound as the rat approached a vertex center while on other runs firing occurred mainly outbound. These results suggest that cells have a predictive mode (inbound firing) in which they represent a position ahead of the animal and a short term memory (STM) mode (outbound firing) in which they represent positions just passed through. Analysis of cell pairs showed that when vertex crossings were less than 1 second apart, the two cells tended to have the same mode. This indicates that modes are a network property. The tendency to have the same mode disappeared if crossings were separated by 2‐3 seconds, suggesting that modes alternate on the time scale of seconds. There was a small but statistically significant behavioral correlate of modes: velocity was slightly less in the STM mode. Both modes were organized by theta and gamma oscillations. The results suggest that the dual requirement for hippocampal storage and recall is met by rapidly alternating modes appropriate for predicting the future and storing the recent past. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Peat deformation and biogenic gas bubbles control seasonal variations in peat hydraulic conductivity
Authors: Kettridge Nicholas , Kellner Erik , Price Jonathan S. , Waddington James M. 
Published: May 2012

AbstractThe hydraulic conductivity (K) of peat beneath the water table varies over short (annual) periods. Biogenic gas bubbles block pores and reduce K, and seasonal changes in the water table position cause peat deformation, altering peat pore size distribution. Although it has been hypothesized that both processes reduce K during warm dry summer conditions, temporal variations in K under field conditions have been explained previously by peat volume changes (strain) alone. We determine the effect of both controls on K by monitoring changes in gas content (Δγ), strain and K within a poor fen. Over the growing season, K decreased by an order of magnitude. In the near‐surface peat (0.3–0.7 m), this reduction is more strongly correlated with Δγ, providing the first field‐based evidence that biogenic gas bubbles reduce K. In the deeper peat (0.7–1.3 m), K is correlated principally with strain. However, causality is uncertain because of multicollinearity between strain and Δγ. To mitigate for multicollinearity, we took advantage of a peatland drainage experiment where the water table was artificially dropped at the beginning of the growing season, reducing correlations between strain and Δγ. Δγ remained the primary cause of K variations just beneath the water table at a depth of 0.5–0.7 m, although further down through the peat profile (0.7–1.2 m) changes in K were controlled by strain. We suggest that the larger pore structure of the poorly decomposed peat just below the water table is impacted less by volume changes than that of the more decomposed peat at depth. However, within this poorly decomposed peat, K is reduced by the high gas contents that result from higher rates of methane production. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Simulating effect of anthropogenic activities and climate variation on Liulin Springs discharge depletion by using the ARIMAX model
Authors: Hao Yonghong , Wu Jing , Sun Qingxia , Zhu Yuen , Liu Yan , Li Zhongtang , Yeh Tian‐Chyi J. 
Published: May 2012

AbstractBased on the groundwater development process, and regional economic and social developing history, we divided the spring hydrological process of the Liulin Springs Basin into two periods: pre‐1973 and post‐1974. In the first period (i.e. 1957–1973), the spring discharge was affected by climate variation alone, and in the second period (i.e. 1974–2009), the spring discharge charge was influenced by both climate variation and human activities. A piecewise analysis strategy was used to differentiate the contribution of anthropogenic activities from climate variation on karst spring discharge depletion in the second period. Then, the ARIMAX model was applied to spring flow time series of the first period to develop a model for the effects of climate variation only. Using this model, we estimated the spring discharge in the second period solely under the influence of climate variation. Based on the water budget, we subtracted observed spring discharge from the estimated spring discharge and acquired the contribution of human activities on spring discharge depletion for the second period. The results of the analysis indicated that the contribution of climate variation to the spring discharge depletion is−0.20 m3/s from 1970s to 2000s. The contribution of anthropogenic activities to the spring flow depletion was −2.56 m3/s in 2000s, which was about 13 times more than that of climate variation. Our analysis further indicates that groundwater exploitation only accounts for 29% of the spring flow depletion due to the effects of human activities. The remaining 71% of the depletion is likely to be caused by other human activities, including dam building, dewatering during coal mining, and deforestation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Benchmarking observational uncertainties for hydrology: rainfall, river discharge and water quality
Authors: McMillan Hilary , Krueger Tobias , Freer Jim 
Published: May 2012

AbstractThis review and commentary sets out the need for authoritative and concise information on the expected error distributions and magnitudes in observational data. We discuss the necessary components of a benchmark of dominant data uncertainties and the recent developments in hydrology which increase the need for such guidance. We initiate the creation of a catalogue of accessible information on characteristics of data uncertainty for the key hydrological variables of rainfall, river discharge and water quality (suspended solids, phosphorus and nitrogen). This includes demonstration of how uncertainties can be quantified, summarizing current knowledge and the standard quantitative results available. In particular, synthesis of results from multiple studies allows conclusions to be drawn on factors which control the magnitude of data uncertainty and hence improves provision of prior guidance on those uncertainties. Rainfall uncertainties were found to be driven by spatial scale, whereas river discharge uncertainty was dominated by flow condition and gauging method. Water quality variables presented a more complex picture with many component errors. For all variables, it was easy to find examples where relative error magnitudes exceeded 40%. We consider how data uncertainties impact on the interpretation of catchment dynamics, model regionalization and model evaluation. In closing the review, we make recommendations for future research priorities in quantifying data uncertainty and highlight the need for an improved ‘culture of engagement’ with observational uncertainties. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Carbon and suspended sediment transport in an impounded alpine river (Isère, France)
Authors: Némery Julien , Mano Vincent , Coynel Alexandra , Etcheber Henri , Moatar Florentina , Meybeck Michel , Belleudy Philippe , Poirel Alain 
Published: May 2012

AbstractCarbon and total suspended sediment (TSS) loads were investigated from April 2006 to March 2008 in the mountainous watershed of the Isère River, French Alps (5570 km2). The river bed has been highly impounded for hydroelectricity production during the last century. Hydraulic flushes are managed every year to prevent TSS storage within upstream dams. The Isère River has been instrumented for high‐frequency monitoring of water, TSS by turbidity and carbon (organic, inorganic, dissolved and particulate) in order to evaluate the impact of natural floods and hydraulic flushes on annual loads. Annual TSS load which was estimated between 1.3 and 2.3 MT y−1 (i.e. 233 to 413 T km−2 y−1) highlighted the high erodibility of the Isère watershed. Annual carbon load was estimated between 173 103 T y−1 and 199 103 T y−1 (i.e 31 to 36 T km−2 y−1). About 80% of the annual carbon loads were inorganic. The impact of hydraulic flushes on annual loads appeared limited (less than 3% for annual TSS load and about 1.5% for annual carbon load), whereas the most important natural flood event contributed to 20% of the annual TSS load and 10% of the annual carbon load. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
New Times for Multimodality? Confronting the Accountability Culture
Authors: Siegel Marjorie 
Published: May 2012

AbstractAs new times become hard times, there may be little time for multimodality in school unless educators confront the accountability culture. This commentary reviews the arguments for multimodal transformations of school literacy curricula and explores the potential of reflective talk about multimodal meaning‐making as an assessment practice. Talking about how multimodality works may enable educators and students alike to talk back to an accountability culture that limits what counts as literacy.
On the Road: Examining Self‐Representation and Discourses of Homelessness in Young Adult Texts
Authors: Rogers Theresa , Marshall Elizabeth 
Published: May 2012

AbstractIn this article, the authors analyze representations of social issues within contemporary memoirs written for and marketed to a young adult audience and multimodal zines produced by homeless youth. To read across these distinctly different texts (mass marketed and do‐it‐yourself cultural productions) and genres (memoir and zines), the authors introduce “discourse tagging” as a strategy for tracing these self‐representations of homelessness across discreet social locations and contexts. The authors demonstrate how this approach provides a way for teacher educators to engage students in a critical inquiry into the ways in which certain “truths” (i.e. homelessness is the direct result of an individual's choice or personal failing) are represented in texts and how those representations might be resisted or contested in other cultural contexts.
Understanding Responses to High School Exit Exams in Literacy: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Poetic Transcriptions
Authors: Huddleston Andrew P. 
Published: May 2012

AbstractIn this article, the author demonstrates how a Bourdieusian analysis of poetic transcriptions offers great potential for helping teachers and students to understand how they are responding to state policy mandates in schools. Specifically, the author uses Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, and habitus to analyze two poetic transcriptions, “Fodder for Factories” and “Playing the Testing Game” to show how Nick, an ESOL teacher, and his students respond to the high school exit exams in their state. The Bourdieusian analysis helps explain why Nick is willing to “play the testing game” and his students, most of whom are immigrants, “retreat” from public school experiences. The author concludes by considering how a Bourdieusian analysis of poetic transcriptions can be used by teachers and students themselves to raise awareness of oppressive testing policies and to imagine and create more just accountability systems.