The Physician/Patient Interaction: Patient Satisfaction, Communication Apprehension, and Health Locus of Control

The purpose of this investigation was to discover the nature of the relationships between a patient’s communication apprehension with physicians and health locus of control and his/her satisfaction with the physician/patient interaction. No significant relationship was found between communication apprehension and a patient’s health locus of control. However, a positive correlation was found between communication apprehension and overall patient satisfaction and patient satisfaction with information. Possible explanations exist for this unexpected result within the uncertainty literature, and by considering that individuals with high communication apprehension may still communicate well despite their anxiety. Statistical analysis also showed that communication apprehension predicts patient satisfaction with information. This may be a result of a patient’s concern with a physician’s affect, rather than the information he/she is given, thus he/she may overestimate his/her satisfaction with the information received during the interaction. In addition, a highly anxious patient may be grateful that he/she does not have to communicate with the physician, thus leading to an increase in satisfaction with information. Perhaps the most important finding of this investigation was the existence of a curvilinear relationship between internal health locus of control and patient satisfaction with information. This finding serves as a bridge between the conflicting sets of research on health locus of control and patient satisfaction

Information Technology Usage and Project Performance: The Mediating Role of Process Capabilities

The impact of information technology on improving the productivity of knowledge and information-intensive work has been mixed. Prior research has primarily focused on the impact of IT spending on firm-level performance. To further this line of research, it is necessary to understand the operational and process-level changes, and isolate the impact of IT application usage on process-level capabilities associated with information work. We focus at the level of business process in information work contexts and measure the impact of IT usage on organizational performance based on business process-level measures such as project cycle time, cost, and completion rates. The central research contribution is the development of an empirically validated research framework to improve our understanding of the operational impact of technology on the effectiveness of information work. Our results indicate that the impact of IT on project performance is mediated through its enablement of process capabilities which explains differences in process-level performance across a cross-section of companies

Bias in Closed Population Capture-Recapture

Our primary question was the effect of departures from assumptions on population estimates obtained using three maximum likelihood population size estimators: M0 (all individuals have the same capture probability on all occasions), Mb (behavior is affected by prior capture) and Mt (all individuals have the same capture probability that varies by occasion). After examining the initial results and observing substantial negative bias (underestimates), we attempted to model the bias for M0 and Mb capture scenarios as these situations had consistent patterns. The Mt scenario with its erratic behaviors was not modeled. We noted that M0 and Mt performed equally well for the M0 and Mb captures. Mb did better as an estimator for the Mb capture scenario than for the M0 scenario. The Mt estimator for Mt captures did not perform well. Depending on actual capture probabilities, either of the other two estimators may give better, less biased results

For Whom is the Rural Economy Resilient? Initial Effects of Drought in Western Sudan

This discussion piece addresses two recent debates: entitlement theory and the resilience of rural systems. The authors find that in western Sudan entitlement theory provides a specific and useful framework for understanding the nature of the crisis confronting the society. Arguments about the resilience of rural systems, however, need to be more closely examined and will depend on site-specific factors. The rural economy and society of western Sudan were not found to be resilient

MIDAS vs. mixed-frequency VAR: Nowcasting GDP in the Euro Area

This paper compares the mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) approaches to model speci.cation in the presence of mixed-frequency data, e.g., monthly and quarterly series. MIDAS leads to parsimonious models based on exponential lag polynomials for the coe¢ cients, whereas MF-VAR does not restrict the dynamics and therefore can su¤er from the curse of dimensionality. But if the restrictions imposed by MIDAS are too stringent, the MF-VAR can perform better. Hence, it is di¢ cult to rank MIDAS and MF-VAR a priori, and their relative ranking is better evaluated empirically. In this paper, we compare their performance in a relevant case for policy making, i.e., nowcasting and forecasting quarterly GDP growth in the euro area, on a monthly basis and using a set of 20 monthly indicators. It turns out that the two approaches are more complementary than substitutes, since MF-VAR tends to perform better for longer horizons, whereas MIDAS for shorter horizons.nowcasting, mixed-frequency data, mixed-frequency VAR, MIDAS

Application and Selection of Nuclear Event Investigation Methods, Tools and Techniques

This final report presents the results gained in the last step of a project launched in the frame of technical task “Comparative study of event assessment methodologies with recommendations for an optimized approach in the EU” for 2010 -2011. It contains analysis and evaluation of the existing practices and some developed conclusions and recommendations to facilitate selection and implementation of relevant instruments to improve quality of nuclear event investigations. Study is based on the results of the performed survey with participation of experts from nuclear power plants and regulatory bodies representing 12 European countries and USA. Main attention was paid to analysis of the existing practices and organizational aspects of nuclear event investigation, as well as to qualitative evaluation of currently employed event investigation methods, tools and techniques. Some methodological inconsistencies, existing barriers, bottlenecks and emerging traps in event investigation process were identified and analyzed more thoroughly. In order to avoid the existing ambiguities and misunderstandings in system of terms and definitions, used in event investigation and root cause analysis concretely, the several improved definitions were suggested. Aiming to distinguish better event investigation instruments of different levels and applicability, the original system of classification of basic root cause analysis methods and tools was suggested. This system should facilitate comparison of characteristics and selection of the most relevant instruments for event investigation. Some methodological and practical recommendations how to conduct analysis overcoming the identified obstacles were put forward. The detailed recommendations for selection of root cause analysis methods and tools are presented as well.JRC.F.5-Nuclear Reactor Safety Assessmen

Decomposition, Reformulation, and Diving in University Course Timetabling

In many real-life optimisation problems, there are multiple interacting components in a solution. For example, different components might specify assignments to different kinds of resource. Often, each component is associated with different sets of soft constraints, and so with different measures of soft constraint violation. The goal is then to minimise a linear combination of such measures. This paper studies an approach to such problems, which can be thought of as multiphase exploitation of multiple objective-/value-restricted submodels. In this approach, only one computationally difficult component of a problem and the associated subset of objectives is considered at first. This produces partial solutions, which define interesting neighbourhoods in the search space of the complete problem. Often, it is possible to pick the initial component so that variable aggregation can be performed at the first stage, and the neighbourhoods to be explored next are guaranteed to contain feasible solutions. Using integer programming, it is then easy to implement heuristics producing solutions with bounds on their quality. Our study is performed on a university course timetabling problem used in the 2007 International Timetabling Competition, also known as the Udine Course Timetabling Problem. In the proposed heuristic, an objective-restricted neighbourhood generator produces assignments of periods to events, with decreasing numbers of violations of two period-related soft constraints. Those are relaxed into assignments of events to days, which define neighbourhoods that are easier to search with respect to all four soft constraints. Integer programming formulations for all subproblems are given and evaluated using ILOG CPLEX 11. The wider applicability of this approach is analysed and discussed.Comment: 45 pages, 7 figures. Improved typesetting of figures and table

MIDAS versus mixed-frequency VAR: nowcasting GDP in the euro area

This paper compares the mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) approaches to model speci…cation in the presence of mixed-frequency data, e.g., monthly and quarterly series. MIDAS leads to parsimonious models based on exponential lag polynomials for the coe¢ cients, whereas MF-VAR does not restrict the dynamics and therefore can su¤er from the curse of dimensionality. But if the restrictions imposed by MIDAS are too stringent, the MF-VAR can perform better. Hence, it is di¢ cult to rank MIDAS and MF-VAR a priori, and their relative ranking is better evaluated empirically. In this paper, we compare their performance in a relevant case for policy making, i.e., nowcasting and forecasting quarterly GDP growth in the euro area, on a monthly basis and using a set of 20 monthly indicators. It turns out that the two approaches are more complementary than substitutes, since MF-VAR tends to perform better for longer horizons, whereas MIDAS for shorter horizons. --nowcasting,mixed-frequency data,mixed-frequency VAR,MIDAS

La Voz Winter 2018

In this issue: Hurricane María Metanoia events Speakers: Sir Hilary Beckles; Ailyn Morera Mead Lecture PRCAP: Puerto Rico Citizenship Archives Project Tinker Field Research Spotlight: Joseline Tlacomulco Poetry: Nicole Delgadohttps://opencommons.uconn.edu/lavoz/1018/thumbnail.jp