The econometric modeling of social Preferences

Experimental data on social preferences present a number of features that need to be incorporated in econometric modelling. We explore a variety of econometric modelling approaches to the analysis of such data. The approaches under consideration are: the random utility approach (in which it is assumed that each possible action yields a utility with a deterministic and a stochastic component, and that the individual selects the action yielding the highest utility); the random behavioural approach (which assumes that the individual computes the maximum of a deterministic utility function, and that computational error causes their observed behaviour to depart stochastically from this optimum); and the random preference approach (in which all variation in behaviour is attributed to stochastic variation in the parameters of the deterministic component of utility). These approaches are applied in various ways to an experiment on fairness conducted by Cappelen et al. (2007). At least two of the models that we estimate succeed in capturing the key features of the data set.Econometric modelling and estimation, model evaluation, individual behaviour, fairness

GreenPhylDB: A Gene Family Database for plant functional Genomics

With the increasing number of genomes being sequenced, a major objective is to transfer accurate annotation from characterised proteins to uncharacterised sequences. Consequently, comparative genomics has become a usual and efficient strategy in functional genomics. The release of various annotated genomes of plants, such as _O. sativa_ and _A. thaliana_, has allowed setting up comprehensive lists of gene families defined by automated methods. However, like for gene sequence, manual curation of gene families is an important requirement that has to be undertaken. GreenPhylDB comprises protein sequences of 12 plant species fully sequenced that were grouped into homeomorphic families using similarity-based methods. Clusters are finally processed by phylogenetic analysis to infer orthologs and paralogs that will be particularly helpful to study genome evolution. Previously, each cluster has to be curated (i.e. properly named and classified) using different sources of information. A web interface for plant gene families’ curation was developed for that purpose. This interface, accessible on GreenPhylDB ("http://greenphyl.cirad.fr":http://greenphyl.cirad.fr), centralizes external references (e.g. InterPro, KEGG, Swiss-Prot, PIRSF, Pubmed) related to all gene members of the clusters and shows statistics and automatic analysis. We believe that this synthetic view of data available for a gene cluster, combined with basic guidelines, is an efficient way to provide reliable method for gene family annotations

Assessing the Performance Differences Between Hospitals With and Without Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records on Care Outcomes

Background and Purpose of the Study: The U.S. healthcare system at $3 trillion, is the sixth largest economy in the world. The federal government is the largest purchaser of healthcare in the country. In the past decade it has been on a quest to refocus its purchasing from volume to value. While spending nearly double per capita than every other industrialized nation, U.S. healthcare outcomes are consistently in the lowest quartile for every major indicator from life expectancy to ambulatory sensitive conditions. The Crossing the Quality Chasm Report (IOM) focused a lens on the dearth of electronic health record (EHR) systems nationally. Resultant legislation, the HITECH Act, funded a$50 billion investment to close this gap along with promulgation of standards known as Meaningful Use (MU) to achieve interoperability. This investment and related MU protocols for implementation warrant a careful examination to establish if the intended improved outcomes have been achieved. Methods: The study is a cross-sectional, retrospective design; it employs two cohorts, Meaningful Use (MU) vs Non-MU hospitals. Publicly reported data on clinical outcomes, cost and safety from 4221 or 95% of the nation’s hospitals were included in the analysis to identify if there is a difference in outcomes between the hospital cohorts. Results: 2315 of the 4221 or 55% hospitals who were included in the study met MU standards by 2013. The profile of an MU hospital was a non-teaching (70%), geographically southern (40%), not-for-profit hospital (61%). Non-Mu hospital had a similar profile, 78% non-teaching, 35% Southern and 60% not-for-profit. Those hospitals who met MU had statistically lower mortality (p Conclusion: The HITECH Act that committed over $50 billion in subsidy incentive funds has dramatically increased EHR adoption nationally from 8% in 2009 to over 50% by 2013. The results from this suggest hospitals that had implemented EHRs’ that meet MU standards demonstrate mortality and cost outcomes that result in statistically significant cost and clinical care benefit

Assessing the Performance Differences Between Hospitals With and Without Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records on Care Outcomes

Background and Purpose of the Study: The U.S. healthcare system at $3 trillion, is the sixth largest economy in the world. The federal government is the largest purchaser of healthcare in the country. In the past decade it has been on a quest to refocus its purchasing from volume to value. While spending nearly double per capita than every other industrialized nation, U.S. healthcare outcomes are consistently in the lowest quartile for every major indicator from life expectancy to ambulatory sensitive conditions. The Crossing the Quality Chasm Report (IOM) focused a lens on the dearth of electronic health record (EHR) systems nationally. Resultant legislation, the HITECH Act, funded a$50 billion investment to close this gap along with promulgation of standards known as Meaningful Use (MU) to achieve interoperability. This investment and related MU protocols for implementation warrant a careful examination to establish if the intended improved outcomes have been achieved. Methods: The study is a cross-sectional, retrospective design; it employs two cohorts, Meaningful Use (MU) vs Non-MU hospitals. Publicly reported data on clinical outcomes, cost and safety from 4221 or 95% of the nation’s hospitals were included in the analysis to identify if there is a difference in outcomes between the hospital cohorts. Results: 2315 of the 4221 or 55% hospitals who were included in the study met MU standards by 2013. The profile of an MU hospital was a non-teaching (70%), geographically southern (40%), not-for-profit hospital (61%). Non-Mu hospital had a similar profile, 78% non-teaching, 35% Southern and 60% not-for-profit. Those hospitals who met MU had statistically lower mortality (p Conclusion: The HITECH Act that committed over $50 billion in subsidy incentive funds has dramatically increased EHR adoption nationally from 8% in 2009 to over 50% by 2013. The results from this suggest hospitals that had implemented EHRs’ that meet MU standards demonstrate mortality and cost outcomes that result in statistically significant cost and clinical care benefit

Regional Yield Insurance for Arable Crops in EU-27

Replaced with revised version of paper 11/18/08.Area yield insurance, index insurance, yield risk, Agricultural Finance, Risk and Uncertainty,

An efficient and fast parallel method for Volterra integral equations of Abel type

In this paper we present an efficient and fast parallel waveform relaxation method for Volterra integral equations of Abel type, obtained by reformulating a nonstationary waveform relaxation method for systems of equations with linear coefficient constant kernel. To this aim we consider the Laplace transform of the equation and here we apply the recurrence relation given by the Chebyshev polynomial acceleration for algebraic linear systems. Back in the time domain, we obtain a three term recursion which requires, at each iteration, the evaluation of convolution integrals, where only the Laplace transform of the kernel is known. For this calculation we can use a fast convolution algorithm. Numerical experiments have been done also on problems where it is not possible to use the original nonstationary method, obtaining good results in terms of improvement of the rate of convergence with respect the stationary method

Screening of Rayleigh Waves by Open Trenches

This paper presents results of a numerical study on the effectiveness of open trenches in reducing the ground vibration caused by propagating Rayleigh waves. The analysis is performed in the frequency domain and under conditions of plane strain using the Boundary Element Method. The soil is modelled as a homogeneous isotropic linear elastic half space. In order to represent the screening effect due to the installation of the barrier, the index ER is introduced. ER is defined as the ratio of the rate of energy transmission over the area to be protected in the presence of the trench and that without the trench. By means of ER, the influence of several parameters on the screening efficiency of the trench is investigated in some detail