Alien Registration- Allen, Mary A. (Baldwin, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/32851/thumbnail.jp

The Coexistence of Multiple Distributions Systems for Financial Services: The Case of Property-Liability Insurance

Property-liability insurance is distributed by two different types of firms, those that distribute their product through independent agents, who represent more than one insurer,and direct writing insurers that distribute insurance through exclusive agents, who represent only one insurer. This paper analyzes the reasons for the long term coexistence of the independent agency and direct writing distribution systems. Two primary hypotheses explain the coexistence of independent and exclusive agents. The market imperfections hypothesis suggests that firms that use independent agents survive while providing essentially the same service as firms using exclusive agents because of market imperfections such as price regulation, slow diffusion of information in insurance markets, or search costs that permit inefficient firms to survive alongside efficient firms. Efficient firms are expected to earn super-normal risk-adjusted profits, while inefficient firms will earn risk-adjusted profits closer to normal levels. The product quality hypothesis suggests that higher costs of independent agents represent unobserved differences in product quality or service intensity, such as the providing of additional customer assistance with claims settlement,offering a greater variety of product choice sand reducing policyholder search costs. This hypothesis predicts normal risk-adjusted profits for both independent and exclusive agency firms. Because product quality in insurance is essentially unobserved, researchers have been unable to reach consensus on whether the market imperfections hypothesis or the product quality hypothesis is more consistent with the observed cost data. This lack of consensus leaves open the economic question of whether the market works well in solving the problem of minimizing product distribution costs and leaves unresolved the policy issue of whether marketing costs in property-liability insurance are excessive and perhaps should receive regulatory attention. The authors propose a new methodology for distinguishing between market imperfection sand product quality using frontier efficiency methods. They estimate both profit efficiency and cost efficiency for a sample of independent and exclusive agency insurers. Measuring profit efficiency helps to identify unobserved product quality differences because customers should be willing to pay extra for higher quality. This approach allows for the possibility that some firms may incur additional costs providing superior service and be compensated for these costs through higher revenues. Profit efficiency also implicitly incorporates the qualities floss control and risk management services,since insurers that more effectively control losses and manage risk should have higher average risk-adjusted profits but not necessarily lower costs than less effective insurers. The empirical results confirm that independent agency firms have higher costs on average than do direct writers. The principal finding of the study is that most of the average differential between the two groups of firms disappears in the profit function analysis. This is a robust result that holds both in the authors tables of averages and in the regression analysis and applies to both the standard and non-standard profit functions. Based on averages, the profit efficiency differential is at most one-third as large as the profit efficiency differential.Based on the regression analysis, the profit inefficiency differential is at most one-fourth as large as the cost inefficiency differential,and the profit inefficiency differential is not statistically significant in the more fully specified models that control for size,organizational form and business mix. The results provide strong support for the product quality hypothesis and do not support the market imperfections hypothesis. The higher costs of independent agents appear to be due almost entirely to the provision of higher quality services, which are compensated for by additional revenues. A significant public policy implication is that regulatory decisions should not be based on costs alone. The authors findings imply that marketing cost differentials among insurers are mostly attributable to service differentials rather than to inefficiency and therefore do not represent social costs. The profit inefficiency results show that there is room for improvement in both the independent and direct writing segments of the industry. However, facilitating competition is likely to be a more effective approach to increasing efficiency than restrictive price regulation.

Conglomeration Versus Strategic Focus: Evidence from the Insurance Industry

We provide evidence on the validity of the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for financial institutions using data on U.S. insurance companies. We distinguish between the hypotheses using profit scope economies, which measures the relative efficiency of joint versus specialized production, taking both costs and revenues into account. The results suggest that the conglomeration hypothesis dominates for some types of financial service providers and the strategic focus hypothesis dominates for other types. This may explain the empirical puzzle of why joint producers and specialists both appear to be competitively viable in the long run.

Connecting Access from Metadata to MARC

Making a connection between digital repositories and library catalogs is an issue many libraries and archives face, especially when dealing with items that traditionally received full cataloging records. This poster will explore different workflows for reusing metadata to create catalog records, connecting the two resources together. In order to have one interface to search both the older physical items and newer digital items, the archives and technical services department of the University of Arkansas Libraries worked together to create different workflows to save time and eliminate the need for double entry, using the open source software MarcEdit and XML Notepad. We created two processes for distinct materials in different repositories. The first process transforms metadata for undergraduate theses in DSpace from Dublin Core to MARC. The second process transforms metadata from music concert recordings in Islandora from MODS to MARC

From digital repositories to the library catalogue: Two workflows for transforming metadata

Making a connection between digital repositories and library catalogues is an issue many libraries and archives face, especially when dealing with items that traditionally received full cataloguing records. This paper explores different workflows for reusing metadata to create catalogue records, connecting the two resources together. In order to have one interface to search both the older physical items and newer digital items, the archives and technical services department of the University of Arkansas Libraries worked together to create different workflows to save time and eliminate the need for double entry, using the open source software MarcEdit and XML Notepad. Two different processes were created for different types of materials in different repositories. The first process transforms metadata for undergraduate theses in DSpace from Dublin Core to MARC. The second process transforms metadata from music concert recordings in Islandora from MODS to MARC. Readers will learn multiple options and techniques for converting metadata to MARC records

Partially dentate patient preferences

Objective: To identify factors influencing attitudes of partially dentate adults towards dental treatment in Ireland. Background: People are retaining more teeth later in life than ever before. Management of partially dentate older adults will be a major requirement for the future and it is important to determine factors which may influence patients’ attitudes to care. Methods: Subjects: A purposive sample of 22 partially dentate patients was recruited; 12 women and 12 men, ranging in age from 45 to 75 years. Data Collection: Semi-structured individual interviews. Results: Dental patients have increasing expectations in relation to (i) a more sophisticated approach to the management of missing teeth and (ii) their right to actively participate in decision making regarding the management of their tooth loss. There is some evidence of a cohort effect with younger patients (45–64 years) having higher expectations. Conclusions: The evidence of a cohort effect within this study in relation to higher patient expectations indicates that both contemporary and future patients are likely to seek a service based on conservation and restoration of missing teeth by fixed prostheses

The Metal-Enriched Outer Disk of NGC 2915

We present optical emission-line spectra for outlying HII regions in the extended neutral gas disk surrounding the blue compact dwarf galaxy NGC 2915. Using a combination of strong-line R23 and direct oxygen abundance measurements, we report a flat, possibly increasing, metallicity gradient out to 1.2 times the Holmberg radius. We find the outer-disk of NGC 2915 to be enriched to a metallicity of 0.4 Z_solar. An analysis of the metal yields shows that the outer disk of NGC 2915 is overabundant for its gas fraction, while the central star-foming core is similarly under-abundant for its gas fraction. Star formation rates derived from very deep ~14 ks GALEX FUV exposures indicate that the low-level of star formation observed at large radii is not sufficient to have produced the measured oxygen abundances at these galactocentric distances. We consider 3 plausible mechanisms that may explain the metal-enriched outer gaseous disk of NGC 2915: radial redistribution of centrally generated metals, strong galactic winds with subsequent fallback, and galaxy accretion. Our results have implications for the physical origin of the mass-metallicity relation for gas-rich dwarf galaxies.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ April 8th, 201

The Role of assessment in furthering student engagement, inclusion, and achievement

Assessment is a vital component of any program or initiative in terms of monitoring and strengthening its impact. Assessment involves establishing outcomes (programmatic, learning, etc.), verifying that efforts are aligned with those outcomes, assessing impact, and “closing the loop” by using what is learned to make improvements. This presentation focused on characteristics of quality assessment, such as the need for it to be valid, reliable, actionable, and efficient. AAC&U’s cluster of intellectual and practical skills for a liberal education include inquiry and analysis; critical and creative thinking; written and oral communication; quantitative literacy; and teamwork and problem solving. Information literacy relates to and incorporates many of these learning outcomes and was used as an example to illustrate how collaboration among campus professionals and robust assessment can lead to effective student engagement and learning

Therapists’ Perceptions of School-based Mental Health Services: A Qualitative Evaluation of two Behavioral Health Models

Therapists’ perceptions of school-based mental health programs are considered to be an important factor in determining the effectiveness of a school based behavioral health model. This qualitative evaluation summarizes the perceptions of participant therapists on two different behavioral health models called Full Service Schools (FSS) and Full-Service Schools (FSS) Plus model that are currently being implemented in a large school district in Florida. FSS therapists provide therapy at a hub location whereas FSS Plus therapists work at one particular school. The study utilizes therapists’ views of their respective programs to compare and contrast the effectiveness of each of the behavioral health models. Five focus groups involving 24 therapists from both models were held at five separate locations. Nvivo version 10 was used to conduct a thematic analysis of collected data. Study findings revealed better results for the FSS Plus model as compared to the FSS model in terms of successful elimination of barriers such as transportation and lack of physical space to provide therapy. This study suggests that improved and effective behavioral health services can be provided to students by assigning a designated therapist at each school

The Role of assessment in furthering student engagement, inclusion, and achievement

Mary Allen, consultant in higher education; Sylvia Hurtado, professor and director of the Higher Education Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles; and Patricia Iannuzzi, dean of libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas address the characteristics of quality assessment and review the assessment of information literacy. They highlight selected large-scale and course-based longitudinal assessments by the Higher Education Research Institute