592 research outputs found
Physicians' Multitasking and Incentives: Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment
We analyse how physicians respond to contractual changes and incentives within a multitasking environment. In 1999 the Quebec government (Canada) introduced an optional mixed compensation system, combining a fixed per diem with a discounted (relative to the traditional fee-for-service system) fee for services provided. We combine panel survey and administrative data on Quebec physicians to evaluate the impact of this change in incentives on their practice choices. We highlight the differentiated impact of incentives on various dimensions of physician behaviour by considering a wide range of labour supply variables: time spent on seeing patients, time devoted to teaching, administrative tasks or research, as well as the volume of clinical services and average time per clinical service. Our results show that, on average, the reform induced physicians who changed from FFS to MC to reduce their volume of (billable) services by 6.15% and to reduce their hours of work spent on seeing patients by 2.57%. Their average time spent per service increased by 3.58%, suggesting a potential quality-quantity substitution. Also the reform induced these physicians to increase their time spent on teaching and administrative duties (tasks not remunerated under the fee-for-service system) by 7.9%.Physician payment mechanisms, multitasking, mixed-payment systems, incentive contracts, labour supply, self-selection, panel estimation
Physicians' Multitasking and Incentives: Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment
We analyse how physicians respond to contractual changes and incentives within a multitasking environment. In 1999 the Quebec government (Canada) introduced an optional mixed compensation system, combining a xed per diem with a partial (relative to the traditional fee-for-service system) fee for services provided. We combine panel survey and administrative data on Quebec physicians to evaluate the impact of this change in incentives on their practice choices. We highlight the dierentiated impact of incentives on various dimensions of physician behaviour by considering a wide range of labour supply variables: time spent on seeing patients, time devoted to teaching, administrative tasks or research, as well as the volume of clinical services and average time per clinical service. Our results show that, on average, the reform induced physicians who changed from FFS to MC to reduce their volume of (billable) services by 6.15% and to reduce their hours of work spent on seeing patients by 2.57%. Their average time spent per service increased by 3.58%, suggesting a potential quality-quantity substitution. Also the reform induced these physicians to increase their time spent on teaching and administrative duties (tasks not remunerated under the fee-for-service system) by 7.9%.physician payment mechanisms; multitasking; mixed-payment systems; incentive contracts; labour supply; self-selection; panel estimation
Physiciansâ Multitasking and Incentives: Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment
We analyse how physicians respond to contractual changes and incentives within a multitasking environment. In 1999 the Quebec government (Canada) introduced an optional mixed compensation (MC) system, combining a fixed per diem with a partial (relative to the traditional fee-for-service system) fee for services provided. We combine panel survey and administrative data on Quebec physicians to evaluate the impact of this change in incentives on their practice choices. We highlight the differentiated impact of incentives on various dimensions of physician behaviour by considering a wide range of labour supply variables: time spent on seeing patients, time devoted to teaching, administrative tasks or research, as well as the volume of clinical services and average time per clinical service. Our results show that, on average, the reform induced physicians who changed from FFS to MC to reduce their volume of (billable) services by 6.15% and to reduce their hours of work spent on seeing patients by 2.57%. Their average time spent per service increased by 3.81%, suggesting a potential quality-quantity substitution. Also the reform induced these physicians to increase their time spent on teaching and administrative duties (tasks not remunerated under the fee-for-service system) by 7.9%. En 1999, le ministĂšre de la SantĂ© et des Services Sociaux du QuĂ©bec introduisait un mode de rĂ©munĂ©ration mixte optionnel pour rĂ©munĂ©rer lâactivitĂ© hospitaliĂšre des mĂ©decins spĂ©cialistes. Ce mode combine une rĂ©munĂ©ration forfaitaire pour chaque jour de travail (per diem ou demi per diem) et une rĂ©munĂ©ration partielle Ă lâacte sâexprimant en un pourcentage du tarif habituellement applicable pour un service donnĂ©. Cette Ă©tude jumelle en panel des donnĂ©es de sondage du CollĂšge des MĂ©decins du QuĂ©bec et des donnĂ©es administratives de la RĂ©gie de lâassurance maladie du QuĂ©bec pour Ă©valuer lâimpact de ce mode de rĂ©munĂ©ration sur les choix de pratique des spĂ©cialistes. Nous mettons lâaccent sur lâeffet de la rĂ©munĂ©ration mixte sur plusieurs dimensions du comportement professionnel du mĂ©decin : heures consacrĂ©es aux patients, heures consacrĂ©es Ă lâenseignement, aux activitĂ©s mĂ©dicales administratives et Ă la recherche, volume de services mĂ©dicaux et temps moyen par service mĂ©dical. Nos rĂ©sultats montrent que lâintroduction de la rĂ©munĂ©ration mixte a incitĂ© les mĂ©decins qui sont passĂ©s de la rĂ©munĂ©ration Ă lâacte Ă la rĂ©munĂ©ration mixte Ă rĂ©duire leur nombre de services mĂ©dicaux (facturables) de 6,15 % et Ă rĂ©duire leurs heures de travail consacrĂ©es aux patients de 2,57 %. En revanche, le temps moyen par service mĂ©dical sâest accru de 3,81 %, ce qui peut suggĂ©rer une substitution entre la quantitĂ© et la qualitĂ© des services. La rĂ©forme a aussi incitĂ© ces mĂ©decins Ă accroĂźtre le temps consacrĂ© Ă lâenseignement et aux activitĂ©s mĂ©dicales administratives (activitĂ©s non rĂ©munĂ©rĂ©es par la rĂ©munĂ©ration Ă lâacte) de 7,9 %. En outre, le temps consacrĂ© par ces mĂ©decins Ă la recherche (activitĂ© non rĂ©munĂ©rĂ©e par lâun ou lâautre des modes de rĂ©munĂ©ration) a diminuĂ© de 14,7 %. Enfin, le revenu des mĂ©decins qui sont passĂ©s Ă la rĂ©munĂ©ration mixte sâest accru de 8,05 %, indiquant quâil Ă©tait financiĂšrement rentable pour ceux-ci de choisir ce mode de rĂ©munĂ©ration.physician payment mechanisms, multitasking, mixed-payment systems, incentive contracts, labour supply, self-selection, panel estimation., mĂ©canismes de rĂ©munĂ©ration des mĂ©decins, fonctionnement multitĂąche, rĂ©munĂ©ration mixte, contrats incitatifs, offre de travail, auto-sĂ©lection, estimation en panel
Firmware implementation of a recurrent neural network for the computation of the energy deposited in the liquid argon calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment
The ATLAS experiment measures the properties of particles that are products
of proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The ATLAS detector will undergo a major
upgrade before the high luminosity phase of the LHC. The ATLAS liquid argon
calorimeter measures the energy of particles interacting electromagnetically in
the detector. The readout electronics of this calorimeter will be replaced
during the aforementioned ATLAS upgrade. The new electronic boards will be
based on state-of-the-art field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) from Intel
allowing the implementation of neural networks embedded in firmware. Neural
networks have been shown to outperform the current optimal filtering algorithms
used to compute the energy deposited in the calorimeter. This article presents
the implementation of a recurrent neural network (RNN) allowing the
reconstruction of the energy deposited in the calorimeter on Stratix 10 FPGAs.
The implementation in high level synthesis (HLS) language allowed fast
prototyping but fell short of meeting the stringent requirements in terms of
resource usage and latency. Further optimisations in Very High-Speed Integrated
Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) allowed fulfilment of the
requirements of processing 384 channels per FPGA with a latency smaller than
125 ns.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
Landscape host abundance and configuration regulate periodic outbreak behavior in spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.)
Landscape-level forest management has long been hypothesized to affect forest insect outbreak dynamics, but empirical evidence remains elusive. We hypothesized that the combination of increased hardwood relative to host tree species, prevalence of younger forests, and fragmentation of those forests due to forest harvesting legacies would reduce outbreak intensity, increase outbreak frequency, and decrease spatial synchrony in spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) outbreaks. We investigated these hypotheses using tree ring samples collected across 51 sites pooled into 16 subareas distributed across a large ecoregion spanning the international border between Ontario (Canada), and Minnesota (USA). This ecoregion contains contrasting land management zones with clear differences in forest landscape structure (i.e., forest composition and spatial configuration) while minimizing the confounding influence of climate. Cluster analyses of the 76-years time-series generally grouped by subareas found within the same land management zone. Spatial nonparametric covariance analysis indicated that the highest and lowest degree of spatial synchrony of spruce budworm outbreaks were found within unmanaged wilderness and lands managed at fine spatial scales in Minnesota, respectively. Using multivariate analysis, we also found that forest composition, configuration, and climate together accounted for a total of 40% of the variance in outbreak chronologies, with a high level of shared variance between composition and configuration (13%) and between composition and climate (9%). At the scale of our study, climate on its own did not explain any of the spatial variation in outbreaks. Outbreaks were of higher frequency, lower intensity, and less spatially synchronized in more fragmented, younger forests with a lower proportion of host species, with opposing outbreak characteristics observed in regions characterised by older forests with more concentrated host species. Our study is the first quantitative evaluation of the long-standing silvicultural hypothesis of spruce budworm management specifically conducted at a spatio-temporal scale for which it was intended
Great Lakes Runoff Intercomparison Project Phase 3: Lake Erie (GRIP-E)
Hydrologic model intercomparison studies help to evaluate the agility of models to simulate variables such as streamflow, evaporation, and soil moisture. This study is the third in a sequence of the Great Lakes Runoff Intercomparison Projects. The densely populated Lake Erie watershed studied here is an important international lake that has experienced recent flooding and shoreline erosion alongside excessive nutrient loads that have contributed to lake eutrophication. Understanding the sources and pathways of flows is critical to solve the complex issues facing this watershed. Seventeen hydrologic and land-surface models of different complexity are set up over this domain using the same meteorological forcings, and their simulated streamflows at 46 calibration and seven independent validation stations are compared. Results show that: (1) the good performance of Machine Learning models during calibration decreases significantly in validation due to the limited amount of training data; (2) models calibrated at individual stations perform equally well in validation; and (3) most distributed models calibrated over the entire domain have problems in simulating urban areas but outperform the other models in validation
Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at âs = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of âs = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}{{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}|\eta |\lt 1.9{{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques
Jet energy measurement with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV
The jet energy scale and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of âs = 7TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 38 pb-1. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R=0. 4 or R=0. 6. Jet energy and angle corrections are determined from Monte Carlo simulations to calibrate jets with transverse momenta pTâ„20 GeV and pseudorapidities {pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy systematic uncertainty is estimated using the single isolated hadron response measured in situ and in test-beams, exploiting the transverse momentum balance between central and forward jets in events with dijet topologies and studying systematic variations in Monte Carlo simulations. The jet energy uncertainty is less than 2. 5 % in the central calorimeter region ({pipe}η{pipe}<0. 8) for jets with 60â€pT<800 GeV, and is maximally 14 % for pT<30 GeV in the most forward region 3. 2â€{pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy is validated for jet transverse momenta up to 1 TeV to the level of a few percent using several in situ techniques by comparing a well-known reference such as the recoiling photon pT, the sum of the transverse momenta of tracks associated to the jet, or a system of low-pT jets recoiling against a high-pT jet. More sophisticated jet calibration schemes are presented based on calorimeter cell energy density weighting or hadronic properties of jets, aiming for an improved jet energy resolution and a reduced flavour dependence of the jet response. The systematic uncertainty of the jet energy determined from a combination of in situ techniques is consistent with the one derived from single hadron response measurements over a wide kinematic range. The nominal corrections and uncertainties are derived for isolated jets in an inclusive sample of high-pT jets. Special cases such as event topologies with close-by jets, or selections of samples with an enhanced content of jets originating from light quarks, heavy quarks or gluons are also discussed and the corresponding uncertainties are determined. © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration
Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets
containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass
energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The
measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1.
The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary
decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from
the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is
used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive
b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the
range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet
cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the
range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets
and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are
compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed
between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG +
Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet
cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive
cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse
momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version published in European Physical Journal
Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in âsNN=5.02ââTeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector
Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (ÎÏ) and pseudorapidity (Îη) are measured in âsNN=5.02ââTeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1ââÎŒb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ÎŁETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Îη|<5) ânear-sideâ (ÎÏâŒ0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ÎŁETPb. A long-range âaway-sideâ (ÎÏâŒÏ) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ÎŁETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Îη and ÎÏ) and ÎŁETPb dependence. The resultant ÎÏ correlation is approximately symmetric about Ï/2, and is consistent with a dominant cosâĄ2ÎÏ modulation for all ÎŁETPb ranges and particle pT
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