Economic Foundations of Cost Effective Analysis

In order to address several controversies in the application of cost-effectiveness analysis, we investigate the principles underlying the technique and discuss the implications for the evaluation of medical interventions. Using a standard von Neumann-Morgenstern utility framework, we show how a cost-effectiveness criterion can be derived to guide resource allocation decisions. We investigate its relation to age, gender, income level, and risk aversion. Cost-effectiveness analysis can be a useful and powerful tool for resource allocation decisions, but in the presence of heterogeneous preferences and personal characteristics, a cost-effectiveness criterion that is applied at the population level is unlikely to yield pareto-optimal resource allocations.

Diet of Tripletail, Lobotes surinamensis, from Mississippi Coastal Waters

The diet of tripletail, Lobotes surinamensis, collected from the Mississippi Sound and Mississippi\u27s offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico between April and September 1995-1997, was investigated through analysis of stomach contents. Of 178 tripletail stomachs examined, 136 (76%) contained prey items, and 42 (24%) were empty. Tripletail with prey in their stomachs ranged from 183 to 787 mm total length (mean 522.6 mm) and 0.14 to 10.5 kg total weight (mean 3.64 kg). The diet consisted of 32 different prey types and was comprised of shrimp, crabs, and teleost fishes which were represented by about equal number and volume of prey but differed in relative importance to the diet, with fishes having greater importance. Principal contributors to the diet were Farfantepenaeus aztecus, Callinectes sapidus, Brevoortia patronus, and Chloroscombrus chrysurus. The variety of prey in the diet suggested that tripletail fed opportunistically

Linguistic incompetence: giving an account of researching multilingually

This paper considers the place of linguistic competence and incompetence in the context of researching multilingually. It offers a critique of the concept of competence and explores the performative dimensions of multilingual research and its narration, through the philosophy of Judith Butler, and in particular her study Giving an account of oneself. It explores aspects of risk, justice, narrative limit and a morality of multilingualism in emergent multilingual research frameworks. These theoretical dimensions are explored through consideration of ‘linguistically incompetent’ ethnographic work with refugees and asylum seekers, in contexts of hospitality and in life long learning research in the Gaza Strip, and of early attempts to learn new languages. The paper offers a prospect of a relational approach to researching multilingually and affirms the vulnerability at the heart of linguistic hospitality