4,201 research outputs found
Measuring the Efficiency and Productivity of British Universities: An Application of DEA and the Malmquist Approach
This paper uses data envelopment analysis to examine the technical efficiency (TE) of 45 British universities in the period 1980/81 to 1992/93. This period was chosen primarily because it was characterized by major changes in public funding and in student : staff ratios. To shed light on the causes of variations in efficiency, TE is decomposed into pure technical efficiency (PTE), congestion efficiency (CE) and scale efficiency (SE). The analysis indicates that there was a substantial rise in the weighted geometric mean TE score during the study period, although this rise was most noticeable between 1987/88 and 1990/91. The rising TE scores are attributed largely to the gains in PTE and CE, with SE playing a minor role. The Malmquist approach is then used to distinguish between changes in technical efficiency and intertemporal shifts in the efficiency frontier. The results reveal that total factor productivity rose by 51.5% between 1980/81 and 1992/93, and that most of this increase was due to a substantial outward shift in the efficiency frontier during this period.Efficiency; Productivity; Universities; DEA; Malmquist
Teaching public policy in East Asia: aspirations, potentials and challenges
10.1080/13876988.2012.724965Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis145376-39
A Study of Wellness Education as a Burnout Coping Strategy
Introduction: The MedScape National Physician Burnout & Depression 2018 report states that over 40% of responding physicians reported burnout, with 12% reporting clinical depression. As such, there is a need to study burnout mitigation.
Objective: This study seeks to validate the hypothesis that intervention will prevent burnout and promote physician well-being.
Methods: 200 medical professionals attending the November 2018 NMPRA conference in Orlando were administered a survey to assess attitudes and prevalence of burnout. Education about burnout was provided through an information booth, handouts, and discussions. A monthly newsletter about wellness will seek to inspire participants. Another survey after 6 months will re-assess attitudes and burnout and the data will be analyzed.
Results: Of 56 surveys returned, 66% were female respondents. 34% of responders have been practicing under 5 years, while 28% have over 20 years of practice. 63% of males and 86% of females reported burnout. While 72% reported participation in wellness activities, over 93% thought they worked too hard. At least 50% thought they were appreciated and supported at work by their colleagues, and 85-90% thought their work was meaningful. 73% of males and 62% of females blamed lack of sleep for burnout.
Discussion: While physicians by and large are satisfied with their job and feel well supported, burnout is widespread, especially among females. Time pressure and wellness being lower priority may be issues, and this seems to indicate that the planned interventions should have a positive effect on wellness outcomes
The coupling of a young stellar disc with the molecular torus in the Galactic centre
The Galactic centre hosts, according to observations, a number of early-type
stars. About one half of those which are orbiting the central supermassive
black hole on orbits with projected radii 0.03 pc form a coherently
rotating disc. Observations further reveal a massive gaseous torus and a
significant population of late-type stars. In this paper, we investigate, by
means of numerical N-body computations, the orbital evolution of the stellar
disc, which we consider to be initially thin. We include the gravitational
influence of both the torus and the late-type stars, as well as the
self-gravity of the disc. Our results show that, for a significant set of
system parameters, the evolution of the disc leads, within the lifetime of the
early-type stars, to a configuration compatible with the observations. In
particular, the disc naturally reaches a specific - perpendicular - orientation
with respect to the torus, which is indeed the configuration observed in the
Galactic centre. We, therefore, suggest that all the early-type stars may have
been born within a single gaseous disc.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
First principles predictions of thermophysical properties of refrigerant mixtures
We present pair potentials for fluorinated methanes and their dimers with CO2 based on ab initio potential energy surfaces. These potentials reproduce the experimental second virial coefficients of the pure fluorinated methanes and their mixtures with CO2 without adjustment. Ab initio calculations on trimers are used to model the effects of nonadditive dispersion and induction. Simulations using these potentials reproduce the experimental phase-coexistence properties of CH3F within 10% over a wide range of temperatures. The phase coexistence curve of the mixture of CH2F2 and CO2 is reproduced with an error in the mole fractions of both phases of less than 0.1. The potentials described here are based entirely on ab initio calculations, with no empirical fits to improve the agreement with experiment
Core-Level X-Ray Photoemission Satellites in Ruthenates: A New Mechanism Revealing the Mott Transition
Ru 3d core-level x-ray photoemission spectra of various ruthenates are
examined. They show in general two-peak structures, which can be assigned as
the screened and unscreened peaks. The screened peak is absent in a Mott
insulator, but develops into a main peak in the metallic regime. This spectral
behavior is well explained by the dynamical mean-field theory calculation for
the single-band Hubbard model with on-site core-hole potential using the exact
diagonalization method. The new mechanism of the core-level photoemission
satellite can be utilized to reveal the Mott transition phenomenon in various
strongly correlated electron systems, especially in nano-scale devices and
phase-separated materials.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR
High angular resolution integral-field spectroscopy of the Galaxy's nuclear cluster: a missing stellar cusp?
We report on the structure of the nuclear star cluster in the innermost 0.16
pc of the Galaxy as measured by the number density profile of late-type giants.
Using laser guide star adaptive optics in conjunction with the integral field
spectrograph, OSIRIS, at the Keck II telescope, we are able to differentiate
between the older, late-type ( 1 Gyr) stars, which are presumed to be
dynamically relaxed, and the unrelaxed young ( 6 Myr) population. This
distinction is crucial for testing models of stellar cusp formation in the
vicinity of a black hole, as the models assume that the cusp stars are in
dynamical equilibrium in the black hole potential. Based on the late-type stars
alone, the surface stellar number density profile, , is flat, with . Monte Carlo simulations of
the possible de-projected volume density profile, n(r) ,
show that is less than 1.0 at the 99.73 % confidence level. These
results are consistent with the nuclear star cluster having no cusp, with a
core profile that is significantly flatter than predicted by most cusp
formation theories, and even allows for the presence of a central hole in the
stellar distribution. Of the possible dynamical interactions that can lead to
the depletion of the red giants observable in this survey -- stellar
collisions, mass segregation from stellar remnants, or a recent merger event --
mass segregation is the only one that can be ruled out as the dominant
depletion mechanism. The lack of a stellar cusp around a supermassive black
hole would have important implications for black hole growth models and
inferences on the presence of a black hole based upon stellar distributions.Comment: 35 pages, 5 tables, 12 figures, accepted by Ap
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