The Impact of a Convention Boycott on Metropolitan Arizona

The convention industry has become an important component of tourism in the United States. It is a highly competitive industry which is susceptible to factors such as climate, economic conditions and political developments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of recent political events in Arizona, particularly the Martin Luther King holiday controversy, on the convention business. The paper concludes that the detrimental effects of politics are not limited only to tourism industries in politically unstable countries outside industrial nations

What is the potential for biogas digesters to improve soil carbon sequestration in Sub-Saharan Africa? Comparison with other uses of organic residues

Acknowledgments We are very grateful to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) New and Emerging Technologies Research Call for funding this work. PS is a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder.Peer reviewedPostprin

What is the potential for biogas digesters to improve soil fertility and crop production in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Acknowledgements We are very grateful to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) New and Emerging Technologies Research Call for funding this work. PS is a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder.Peer reviewedPostprin

The development and construct validation of a Spanish version of an academic self-concept scale for middle school Hispanic students from families of low socioeconomic levels.

Sin resume

Concentration of Physician Services Across Insurers and Effects on Quality: Early Evidence From Medicare Advantage.

BackgroundA growing proportion of Medicare beneficiaries is covered by private insurers through Medicare Advantage, yet little is known about how these plans are structured in terms of relationships with physicians and implications for quality of care.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to assess whether greater physician concentration of services across insurers was associated with higher quality in Medicare Advantage (MA), overall and particularly among MA insurers serving a high proportion of vulnerable enrollees.Research designA retrospective cohort design with regression analysis.Data sourcesThe primary dataset was 2014 MA encounter records submitted by insurers to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, covering 600,329 physicians across 119 insurers. These data were merged with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data on MA contract quality rating as well as physician characteristics in the Medicare Data on Provider Practice and Specialty file.MeasuresTwo measures were generated to capture the concentration of physician services across insurers: the percentage of a physician's Medicare services which was through MA (MA penetration); and the percentage of a physician's MA services with a specific insurer (insurer share of MA services).ResultsGreater MA penetration and insurer share of MA services were each associated with higher MA plan quality. The relationship between insurer share and quality was stronger in contracts with a relatively high percentage of disabled enrollees.ConclusionGreater physician concentration of services across MA insurers was associated with a higher quality of care overall and especially among vulnerable enrollees

Seasonal patterns of oral antihistamine and intranasal corticosteroid purchases from Australian community pharmacies : a retrospective observational study

Acknowledgments The abstract of this paper was presented at the Respiratory Effectiveness Group 2016 Annual Summit as a poster presentation with interim findings. The poster’s abstract was published in “Poster Abstracts” in The Journal of Thoracic Disease (Vol. 8, Supplement 5, 5 July 2016). http://jtd.amegroups.com/article/view/8504.Peer reviewedPublisher PD