Library Cooperation in an Urban Setting: The Pittsburgh Story

published or submitted for publicatio

Early Implementation of Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans: Providing an Interim Safety Net for the Uninsurable

Outlines enrollment trends and enrollee traits in a temporary program designed to provide affordable coverage to the uninsured with preexisting conditions, changes to structures and premiums, and estimated out-of-pocket costs by utilization and plan type

Active Learning for Hidden Attributes in Networks

In many networks, vertices have hidden attributes, or types, that are correlated with the networks topology. If the topology is known but these attributes are not, and if learning the attributes is costly, we need a method for choosing which vertex to query in order to learn as much as possible about the attributes of the other vertices. We assume the network is generated by a stochastic block model, but we make no assumptions about its assortativity or disassortativity. We choose which vertex to query using two methods: 1) maximizing the mutual information between its attributes and those of the others (a well-known approach in active learning) and 2) maximizing the average agreement between two independent samples of the conditional Gibbs distribution. Experimental results show that both these methods do much better than simple heuristics. They also consistently identify certain vertices as important by querying them early on

A proper test of overconfidence

In this paper we conduct two proper tests of overconfidence. We reject the hypothesis "the data cannot be generated by a rational model" in both experiments.Overconfidence; Better than Average; Experimental Economics; Irrationality; Signalling Models

Does the Better-Than-Average Effect Show That People Are Overconfident?: An Experiment.

We conduct a proper test of the claim that people are overconfident, in the sense that they believe that they are better than others. The results of the experiment we present do not allow us to reject the hypotheses that the data has been generated by perfectly rational, unbiased, and appropriately confident agents.Overconfidence; Better than Average; Experimental Economics; Irrationality; Signalling Models

Health professions regulation in the United States

A regulação das profissões de saúde nos Estados Unidos é uma responsabilidade primária dos estados. A estrutura e conteúdo das regulações específicas de cada estado impactam a prestação de serviços de saúde, afetando os custos, a qualidade e o acesso. Existe uma preocupação que as atuais estruturas regulatórias com base estadual e específicas por profissão não poderão servir de base para as inovações que a forca de trabalho em saúde necessita para a reforma do sistema de saúde. Este artigo revisa aspectos da regulação de profissões de saúde de base estadual que limitam o uso efetivo dos trabalhadores de saúde e também uma de suas principais vantagens: sua capacidade de dar fundamento a soluções locais para enfrentar problemas de acesso. Descrevem-se os elementos geradores das mudanças na demanda por serviços de saúde e por prestadores de saúde. Por último, recomendam-se estratégias para melhorar as decisões em relação à práticas, incluindo: padronização de escopos de práticas entre diferentes estados; atualização permanente de atos de prática profissional específicos de cada estado, de acordo com a evolução das competências profissionais; uso das melhores evidências para autorizar novas profissões ou expandir o escopo das práticas já existentes e, quando esta evidência não existir, promover programas para testar novas modalidades de trabalho. Levando em conta o ritmo das transformações do sistema de saúde nos Estados Unidos, existe uma urgência crescente para que as reformas assegurem uma força de trabalho adequadamente dimensionada e treinada para o futuro.The regulation of health professions in the United States is a primary responsibility of states. The structure and content of the specific regulations of each state impact the provision of health services, affecting costs, quality and access. There is concern that current state-based and profession-specific regulatory structures cannot serve as a basis for the innovations the health workforce needs for health reform. This paper reviews aspects of state-based health professions regulations that limit the effective use of health workers and also one of its key advantages: their ability to provide local solutions to address access problems. The paper describes elements that generate changes in the demand for health services and health care providers. Finally, strategies are recommended to improve decision-making related to practice including: standardization of practice scopes between different states; permanent updating of specific acts of professional practice in each state, in accordance with the evolution of professional competencies; use of the best evidence to authorize new professions or expand the scope of practice of the existing ones and, when this evidence does not exist, to promote programs to test new modalities of work. Taking into account the pace of changes in the health system in the United States, there is a growing urgency for reforms to ensure adequate size and training of the workforce for the future

The role of ras gene in the development of haemic neoplasia in Mytilus trossulus

Disseminated neoplasia has been reported in mussels (Mytilus spp) from numerous locations worldwide. This condition is progressive and fatal and the aetiology is unknown. In vertebrates, oncogenes such as ras, and tumour suppressor genes such as p53, play important roles in carcinogenesis. We have cloned a Mytilus trossulus homologue of the vertebrate ras gene, which shows conserved sequence in regions of functional importance. Neoplastic hemolymph samples derived from M. trossulus have been investigated for the presence of ras gene mutations and changes in expression

A Follow-up Study of Graduates in Education/Counseling

This study ascertained what happened to the graduates of the Education/Counseling program at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. A questionnaire was mailed to 155 graduates from this program. 59 usable questionnaires were returned which determined what happened to the graduates after they received their degrees and what changes should be .considered for the program. Results showed that overall the program at UTPB is an adequate program and many of the respondents are working.in the field of counseling