The Toxic Activity of Main Trunk Wood From Diseased Dutch Elm Trees

The Dutch Elm disease is caused by Ceratostomella ulmi (Schwartz) Buis (1); and, two types of elm bark beetles (9) are its vectors (3,4,9). Growth of the fungus occurs in the xylem tissue, which predominantly is concerned with conduction of water to the foliage. The spores and bud cells of C. ulmi are smaller than the elm wood vessels (1,2). C. ulmi, too, can be transmitted through root grafts

Analysis of Lithium

The technology of lithium and its compounds was accorded little consideration a few years ago. Immediately following World War II fundamental knowledge of lithium began to be greatly expanded and its importance in industry has risen. Lithium and its compounds are used in porcelain enamels, and glazes; in air conditioning units; in greases, cosmetics and the like, just to cite a few examples. Lithium is the lightest of all the metals having an atomic weight of 6.94. The lithium ion has the smallest ionic radius of the alkalies and is approximately the same size as the magnesium ion. Its chemical properties frequently parallel those attributed to alkaline earths; this is the property which sets lithium apart from the other alkalies

Evaluation Research and Institutional Pressures: Challenges in Public-Nonprofit Contracting

This article examines the connection between program evaluation research and decision-making by public managers. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, a framework is presented for diagnosing the pressures and conditions that lead alternatively toward or away the rational use of evaluation research. Three cases of public-nonprofit contracting for the delivery of major programs are presented to clarify the way coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures interfere with a sound connection being made between research and implementation. The article concludes by considering how public managers can respond to the isomorphic pressures in their environment that make it hard to act on data relating to program performance.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 23. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Director Characteristics and Firm Performance

The traditional methodology examining optimal boards relates a simple board variable (e.g. independence or board demography) to firm performance, however, ig- noring other board characteristics. This paper investigates how the education and business experience of directors affect firm performance. The sample consists of 1,574 directorships from 224 listed firms in Switzerland. Using OLS and including control variables, the results show that graduates of minor Swiss universities are negatively related to Tobin’s Q, and industrial knowledge and Tobin’s Q are nega- tively correlated if the firm has more divisions. In addition, director fixed effects (or unobserved characteristics) are significant, but improve the explanatory power of the models only by 5 percent

Incentivised chronic disease management and the inverse equity hypothesis: findings from a longitudinal analysis of Scottish primary care practice-level data

Background: The inverse equity hypothesis asserts that new health policies initially widen inequality, then attenuate inequalities over time. Since 2004, the UK’s pay-for-performance scheme for chronic disease management (CDM) in primary care general practices (the Quality and Outcomes Framework) has permitted practices to except (exclude) patients from attending annual CDM reviews, without financial penalty. Informed dissent (ID) is one component of exception rates, applied to patients who have not attended due to refusal or non-response to invitations. ‘Population achievement’ describes the proportion receiving care, in relation to those eligible to receive it, including excepted patients. Examination of exception reporting (including ID) and population achievement enables the equity impact of the UK pay-for-performance contract to be assessed. We conducted a longitudinal analysis of practice-level rates and of predictors of ID, overall exceptions and population achievement for CDM to examine whether the inverse equity hypothesis holds true. Methods: We carried out a retrospective, longitudinal study using routine primary care data, analysed by multilevel logistic regression. Data were extracted from 793 practices (83% of Scottish general practices) serving 4.4 million patients across Scotland from 2010/2011 to 2012/2013, for 29 CDM indicators covering 11 incentivised diseases. This provided 68,991 observations, representing a total of 15 million opportunities for exception reporting. Results: Across all observations, the median overall exception reporting rate was 7.0% (7.04% in 2010–2011; 7.02% in 2011–2012 and 6.92% in 2012–2013). The median non-attendance rate due to ID was 0.9% (0.76% in 2010–2011; 0.88% in 2011–2012 and 0.96% in 2012–2013). Median population achievement was 83.5% (83.51% in 2010–2011; 83.41% in 2011–2012 and 83.63% in 2012–2013). The odds of ID reporting in 2012/2013 were 16.0% greater than in 2010/2011 (p < 0.001). Practices in Scotland’s most deprived communities were twice as likely to report non-attendance due to ID (odds ratio 2.10, 95% confidence interval 1.83–2.40, p < 0.001) compared with those in the least deprived; rural practices reported lower levels of non-attendance due to ID. These predictors were also independently associated with overall exceptions. Rates of population achievement did not change over time, with higher levels (higher remuneration) associated with increased rates of overall and ID exception and more affluent practices. Conclusions: Non-attendance for CDM due to ID has risen over time, and higher rates are seen in patients from practices located in disadvantaged areas. This suggests that CDM incentivisation does not conform to the inverse equity hypothesis, because inequalities are widening over time with lower uptake of anticipatory care health checks and CDM reviews noted among those most in need. Incentivised CDM needs to include incentives for engaging with the ‘hard to reach’ if inequalities in healthcare delivery are to be tackled