Health - Medical Malpractice Defenses: Appling Good Samaritan Laws to In-Hospital Emergencies

Chamley v. Khokha, 2007 ND 6

Tax Collection Methods: Understanding Business Tax Collection and the Psyche of Evasion

“Taxes are the life-blood of government, and their prompt and certain availability an imperious need (Justice Owen J Roberts, Bull V US 295 U. S. 247 (1935))” (Scharf). Tax collection is necessary to ensure revenues are collected to fund governmental services. States are losing tax revenue for a variety of reasons; this paper explores some of the major factors causing states to lose out on tax revenue. It addresses the tax gap, or unpaid taxes due and the economic inefficiencies caused by tax evasion. It analyzes the psyche of noncompliance in an attempt to discover the most efficient manner of collecting taxes. This understanding of noncompliant behavior is used to help identify the most effective tax collection methods available. This study focuses on the Kentucky Department of Revenue, Division of Collections, Corporation/Limited Liability Company Branch. The CP/LLC Branch focuses on enforced collection activities against corporations and limited liability companies. The enforced collection tools available to the branch are: jeopardy assessments, corporate officer notice of assessments, limited liability company member notice of assessments, final notice before seizures, liens, bank levies, and wage levies. Data from the CP/LLC Branch from July 2006-June 2009 were used to determine which of the enforced collection activities listed above have the most effect on total collections revenue. A lag regression analysis model was used. This was to account for mail float and response time. This analysis found a positive relationship between only one of the enforced collection activities and collections revenue, officer Notice of Assessments (NOA). A positive relationship was also discovered between total collections revenue and both the total number of cases in a previous month and incoming calls in the current month. These three factors, officer NOA’s, number of collection cases, and incoming phone calls all effect total collections in a statistically significant positive manner. There are other collection activities that a priori might seem to be related to these factors as well, but this analysis showed no connection. First, though the number of cases in collections has a positive effect on collections revenue, the total amount of accounts receivable for collections does not have the same relationship. This analysis showed that more cases entering collection leads to more collections revenue, independent of accounts receivable. This relationship could mean that cases new to collections are more likely to make payments. With this knowledge, management could decide to have collection officers focus on cases new to collections. Second, incoming calls have a positive influence on collections revenue. This was the least surprising part of the analysis. An incoming call from a business ensures that someone is contacting DOR concerning the case. When taxpayers are contacting the CP/LLC branch they are usually trying to work toward resolution. Another possible explanation for the correlation could be that taxpayers are calling in due to a refund offset. If a taxpayer owes tax liability for a business or for their individual income and he or she has been properly assessed as an officer of the business, then any tax refund due to that person, state or federal, will be offset and applied to the tax debt. These offsets often prompt an incoming call. This information emphasizes the importance of adequate phone coverage to CP/LLC Collections. The only enforced collection action shown to have a statistically significant effect on collections revenue is the officer NOA. Currently, collectors are instructed to wait until there is a total trust tax due of at least $1000(including tax, penalty, and interest) before starting officer NOA action. I recommend that management decide to lower this threshold, at least for the purpose of corporate collections (the same relationship was not found between LLC member NOA’s and collections revenue)

Improving Management of Mineral Bone Disease in Dialysis Patients with End Stage Renal Disease

Dialysis patients suffer from a far greater mortality rate than the general population, making health promotion and management essential to prevent hospitalizations and complications. Mineral bone disease (MBD) remains a major complication for many of these patients. Maintaining strict dietary goals is necessary in preventing this complication, as well as decreasing morbidity and mortality for those on dialysis. This project aimed to provide education related to mineral bone disease and dietary guidelines that aid in prevention, to increase patient knowledge and allow them to make better dietary choices. All patients were provided with in person education, given a booklet containing the information and dietary choices, and given a pocket guide with better food options and foods to limit. Participants in the study were requested to complete a 6-question questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale to assess their choices and knowledge regarding foods that aid in prevention of MBD both before and after the education. There was statistically significant increase in the patient reported knowledge of mineral bone disease and a decrease in patient reported attempts to eat healthy using a 2-sample t-test. The staff at the clinics were happy with the education packets and planned to continue using the resources provided

Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture: Essays on Marginality, Difference, and Reading Practices in Honor of Thomas Hahn

Thomas Hahn’s work laid the foundations for medieval romance studies to embrace the study of alterity and hybridity within Middle English literature. His contributions to scholarship brought Robin Hood studies into the critical mainstream, normalized the study of historically marginalized literature and peoples, and encouraged scholars to view medieval readers as actively encountering others and exploring themselves. This volume employs his methodologies – careful attention to texts and their contexts, cross-cultural readings, and theoretically-informed analysis – to highlight the literary culture of late medieval England afresh. Addressing long-established canonical works such as Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, and Malory alongside understudied traditions and manuscripts, this book will be of interest to literary scholars of the later Middle Ages who, like Hahn, work across boundaries of genre, tradition, and chronology.https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/mip_fopl/1004/thumbnail.jp

Digital Games in the Science Classroom: Leveraging Internal and External Scaffolds during Game Play

We have developed a disciplinarily integrated game (DIG) to support students in interpreting, translating, and manipulating across formal representations in the domain of Newtonian kinematics. In this study, we seek to understand what game play looks like in a classroom context with particular attention given to how students leverage internal and external scaffolds to progress through the game and deepen their conceptual knowledge. We investigate the following questions: (1) In what ways do students interact with the game, with each other, and with their teacher when they play SURGE Symbolic in a classroom environment? (2) How do game scaffolds, both within and outside of the game, support or impede student learning and game play? (3) What are the implications of these observations for teachers and game designers? We found that although most students used internal scaffolds in some way to assist their game play, many found that these scaffolds were insufficient to get through challenges. They quickly sought help from external resources available to them outside the game to help them advance in the game. The source of information they needed to make progress came from various people or resources outside the game, what we are calling “knowers.

A Functional Polymorphism in the Epidermal Growth Factor Gene Independently Predicts Clinical Decompensation in HCV-Related Cirrhosis

Background and Aims: Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), including rs4444903 in the epidermal growth factor (EGF) gene, rs12979860 near the interleukin-28B (IL28B) gene, and rs738409 in the patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) gene, have been linked to treatment response, steatosis, fibrosis, and development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in chronic hepatitis C (HCV). No study has comprehensively examined the effects of these SNPs on the natural history of HCV-related cirrhosis. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of 169 subjects with chronic HCV and biopsy-proven cirrhosis who had long term followup for clinical events. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded liver biopsy specimens were genotyped for EGF, IL28B, and PNPLA3 using a TaqMan assay with commercial probes and primers. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to determine the hazard ratio for clinical decompensation, defined as the development of ascites, encephalopathy, variceal hemorrhage, HCC, or cirrhosis-related death. Results: During a median followup of 6.6 years, 66 patients (39%) experienced clinical decompensation. On univariate analysis, EGF non-A/A, PNPLA3 non-C/C, and IL28B non-C/C genotypes were each associated with increased risk of decompensation. In multivariable Cox regression modeling, EGF non-A/A genotype was independently associated with an increased rate of clinical decompensation (HR = 3.00, p = 0.005). Conclusions: HCV cirrhotics with the EGF A/G and G/G genotypes at rs4444903, a functional polymorphism associated with higher intrahepatic EGF levels, have an increased risk of clinical decompensation. Further study of the predictive value of EGF genotyping in patients with earlier stages and other etiologies of liver disease is warranted

Virtual voices and contrapuntal melodies: exploring the liminal experiences of part-time, adult learners as they embark on undergraduate, online study

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the University of Wolverhampton for the award of the degree of Doctor of Education.Using liminal spaces as a heuristic tool, this study explores the experiences of fifteen adult learners as they complete the first academic module of their part-time, online degree. Online undergraduate programmes enable adult learners to make decisions of how their aspirations are best met. The convenience and flexibility of hybrid spaces, enables them to take control of their learning. However, these benefits are reliant upon negotiating new ideas, technologies, constructs of learning and emergent identities which may sit at the counterpoint of existing roles, responsibilities and experiences. For some, this period of transition can consequently be characterised by disorientation and liminality. The findings provide new insights into the context of the decision to study online, highlighting the extent of the emotion and entanglement between an individual’s choice to participate in learning and their personal lifeworld. It shows how online learning provides a degree of agency for some students where participation in other settings could be difficult. This research conceptualises the decision to return to study, in order to identify the interplay of the personal, institutional and circumstantial domains which shape these early encounters. It uses a narrative approach to explore participant experiences in forging their emergent identities, the opportunities and challenges presented by hybrid online spaces, the importance of networks and a sense of belonging and what tools and strategies are deployed in negotiating boundary encounters. Although the data for this study was collected and analysed before the Covid-19 pandemic, the study examines what we, as educator-researchers, can learn from their narratives and how this might inform our professional practice in the Covid-19 context. It makes a methodological contribution to the literature in the growing field of online research methods through its innovative use of online reflective journals and Skype interviews alongside examining the implications of the findings for both policy and practice

Capturing virtual voices: using online reflective journals to explore the lived experiences of part-time adult learners

The opportunities for discovering students' lived experiences and perspectives on online learning are often limited. Embarking upon an undergraduate programme marks a period of transition which, for some adults, can be disorientating and challenging especially as an individual’s lifeworld becomes increasingly entangled with the decision to participate in learning. Educational interactions take place within prescribed and structured virtual fora, each with a clear delineated purpose set out by the university, whether that be social or academic, task-based or informative. Further insights may be gleaned from end-of module questionnaires, internal surveys or the National Student Survey (NSS), but there is little opportunity for informal engagements, insights or snapshots without it being captured in a discussion forum or recorded in the learner management system. This study set out to employ a co created online reflective journal as a space through which to better understand the experiences of adult learners as they begin online study in order to explore how they forge their identities, progress emotionally and socially between the stages of their learning, and navigate the complex interrelationship between the personal, circumstantial and emotional domains

Tool Selection Among Qualitative Data Reusers

This paper explores the tension between the tools that data reusers in the feld of education prefer to use when working with qualitative video data and the tools that repositories make available to data reusers. Findings from this mixed-methods study show that data reusers utilizing qualitative video data did not use repository-based tools. Rather, they valued common, widely available tools that were collaborative and easy to use.This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant # LG-06-14-0122-14. We also acknowledge the University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), which supported one of the authors.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162592/1/Frank_etal_2020_DeepBlueA.pdfDescription of Frank_etal_2020_DeepBlueA.pdf : Main articleSEL