Comparative Study of Workplace Policy and Practices Contributing to Disability Nondiscrimination

Objective: To assess the impact of disability nondiscrimination legislation on employer practices in the United States and the United Kingdom. Study Design: U.S. and U.K. human resource professionals were surveyed about their experience with implementation of the legislation. Results: Both U.S. and U.K. employers are responding to their respective legislation by making accommodations-adjustments needed by applicants and employees with disabilities. Conclusions: Rehabilitation psychologists and other health care professionals working with people with disabilities must understand employee rights and employer responsibilities under this legislation, know where employers may have difficulty in responding to an accommodation request, and be familiar with the existing workplace resources and processes that can support an effective response to such requests

Differences in Disability among Older Women and Men in Egypt and Tunisia

[Excerpt] Research on child survival and health has indicated disparities between boys and girls in selected Middle Eastern countries. Health disparities in later life are understudied in this region. In this article, we examine differences between women and men in later-life activity limitation in Egypt and Tunisia. Difficulty executing physical tasks is more common for women than for men in both study sites, although differences are smaller after adjustment for underlying illness. Differences in the difficulty of executing physical tasks also are sensitive to environmental controls in variable ways across the study sites. The findings caution against the sole use of reported disability in comparative studies of gender and agin

Sacramento River Predator Diet Analysis: A Comparative Study

This study examined diets of two predatory fish species, the native Sacramento Pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus grandis) and the introduced Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis), in the Sacramento River, California, USA. Both species have been implicated in native species declines through predation, eliciting our investigation of their diets in the Sacramento River. Sampling occurred between March and November 2017, and was conducted via hook and line on a 35-km reach near Chico, California. Habitat types sampled include engineered structures (water diversions and beam bridges), rip-rapped channel edges, and natural riverbank. Stomach contents were collected via gastric lavage and later processed using visual, gravimetric, and genetic techniques. Diets of Sacramento Pikeminnow and Striped Bass were highly similar as determined through index of relative importance and PERMANOVA modeling. Water temperature was the only variable that significantly affected diet composition. Results reflect similar dietary niches for both species in the Sacramento River

"Domestic Innovation and Chinese Regional Growth, 1991-2004"

We examine the return to innovation in terms of economic growth at the provincial level to assess whether or not policies that promote R&D, such as China’s Science and Technology Policy, have been productive for all of China’s regions. The return to innovation at the provincial level is estimated using a value-added Cobb-Douglas production function. The measure of the effect of innovation (patenting activity) is valued-added industrial output. The data are a balanced panel for 30 provinces for the period 1991-2004. We find that the production function including innovation fits the Chinese provincial level data well. These estimates indicate that technology plays a positive role in industrial growth at the provincial level; however, the contribution of technology is far too small, which indicates that China’s economic growth is largely driven by the factor inputs. The results support the views that the linkages between innovation activity and commercialization of new technology are weak within Chinese domestic firms which have difficulties in exploiting and adopting the new technologies. The results also indicate that the inter-regional technology spillovers are positive but relatively small and weak, compared to the European regions and the states in the US. The estimated results further confirm that the impact of industrial reforms during the period of 1994-99 on China’s technological development is negative, as there seems to be neither exogenous technical progress nor technology’s contribution to the value-added industrial output during those years.China, patents, productivity, innovation, regions

Modeling association between DNA copy number and gene expression with constrained piecewise linear regression splines

DNA copy number and mRNA expression are widely used data types in cancer studies, which combined provide more insight than separately. Whereas in existing literature the form of the relationship between these two types of markers is fixed a priori, in this paper we model their association. We employ piecewise linear regression splines (PLRS), which combine good interpretation with sufficient flexibility to identify any plausible type of relationship. The specification of the model leads to estimation and model selection in a constrained, nonstandard setting. We provide methodology for testing the effect of DNA on mRNA and choosing the appropriate model. Furthermore, we present a novel approach to obtain reliable confidence bands for constrained PLRS, which incorporates model uncertainty. The procedures are applied to colorectal and breast cancer data. Common assumptions are found to be potentially misleading for biologically relevant genes. More flexible models may bring more insight in the interaction between the two markers.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOAS605 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

NEW EVIDENCE ON THE CAUSAL LINKAGES BETWEEN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS IN MALAYSIA

By extending Wong and Tang’s (2007) study, this study aims to further explore the causal relations between FDI (foreign direct investment), exports and imports. There is a unique long-run causal relationship running from exports as well as imports to FDI. A bidirectional causal relationship exists between exports and imports. These findings provide useful policy implications for sustaining FDI inflows on one hand and promoting links between multinational corporations (MNCs) and local firms on the other.Causality; exports; imports; foreign direct investment