Assessment of Real Estate Brokerage Service Quality with a Practicing Professional's Instrument

This study explores factors that affect service quality for a large residential real estate brokerage in a diverse midwestern city. It examines the extent to which overall service quality influences homebuyers to recommend the brokerage firm and to use the firm for future transactions. A Linear Structural Relations model is fit to data using the firm's service quality instrument. Results indicate statistically significant relationships between both agent characteristics and the tangible aspects of the firm, and three measures of overall service quality. Implications for the real estate industry are discussed and suggestions for improvement and future research are provided.

Maintaining the diversity of the professional healthcare workforce through higher education qualification routes

In England many professional healthcare qualifications, including nursing, are only achievable through higher education, for which tuition fees are payable from this year (2017-18) onwards. This paper is concerned about maintaining both the number and diversity of healthcare professionals to meet the needs of a diverse and ageing population. It reviews student views and the available statistical evidence about the impact of the introduction of tuition fees on applicants, and literature and empirical evidence about what higher education institutions are doing to recruit and retain students from different backgrounds to meet the health needs of the population. It concludes that because professions such as nursing have traditionally recruited from a diverse population minimal knowledge or practical expertise has been developed to widen participation in healthcare education in general and nurse education in particular. Moving forward, the healthcare and higher education sectors will need to work in joined up ways to develop strategies to both attract and retain a wide range of diverse students to higher education professional healthcare qualification courses – and maintain the supply of qualified healthcare professionals.http://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/HEAD/HEAD18Thomas, L.; Duckworth, V. (2018). Maintaining the diversity of the professional healthcare workforce through higher education qualification routes. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD18.2018.8198OC

Switching patients from other inhaled corticosteroid devices to the Easyhaler(®) : historical, matched-cohort study of real-life asthma patients

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Joining the dots between teacher education and widening participation in higher education

In England and Australia, higher education institutions are required to widen participation in higher education by including students from under-represented and non-traditional groups. Widening participation is most effective when it starts early – during compulsory education and other forms of pre-tertiary education. Higher education institutions are providers of pre-service and in-service teacher education, and therefore have the potential to ‘join the dots’ between teacher education and widening participation. Two approaches are identified: recruiting more diverse cohorts of students to teacher education through targeted, relevant and engaging pre-entry experiences in schools and communities with low rates of progression to higher education, and preparing all teachers to better support the tenets of widening participation through their professional roles in schools, colleges and communities. This paper focuses on the former, using a structural theoretical lens to understand low participation by particular groups of students. This framework is used to analyse two empirical examples, one from Australia and one from England. The paper concludes by recommending a more systemic approach to widening participation through teacher education, and makes practical suggestions informed by theory, practice and research

Information, digital and media literacy for active global citizenship

This paper will present work in progress, led by the IATUL Special Interest Group for Information Literacy (SIG IL) to develop an open educational resource to support librarians seeking to liberate information literacy. The resource positions information literacy as an approach to develop students as capable global citizens. Open educational resources provide an opportunity for integration of good practice through a continuous cycle of iterative and reflective updates, making them well suited to this emerging field. Our work is being led using the organisational change technique of appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider, 2008). Appreciative inquiry is a strengths based approach to change which works through a 4D model - discover, dream, design and deliver. As part of the discovery phase, global experts in the field will be invited to share their perspectives on liberating IL. In addition, conference attendees will be engaged to participate in this groundbreaking movement by sharing examples of innovations from their own practice and experience.Specifically, our discoveries will address the role of the information literacy librarian seeking to decolonise the library for social justice, including for race equality, disability justice and LGBTQ rights. We will push the boundaries of traditional approaches to information literacy by blending theory from digital and media literacy to show how format and technology contribute to the movement towards information justice

Modeling the public health impact of malaria vaccines for developers and policymakers

Efforts to develop malaria vaccines show promise. Mathematical model-based estimates of the potential demand, public health impact, and cost and financing requirements can be used to inform investment and adoption decisions by vaccine developers and policymakers on the use of malaria vaccines as complements to existing interventions. However, the complexity of such models may make their outputs inaccessible to non-modeling specialists. This paper describes a Malaria Vaccine Model (MVM) developed to address the specific needs of developers and policymakers, who need to access sophisticated modeling results and to test various scenarios in a user-friendly interface. The model's functionality is demonstrated through a hypothetical vaccine.; The MVM has three modules: supply and demand forecast; public health impact; and implementation cost and financing requirements. These modules include pre-entered reference data and also allow for user-defined inputs. The model includes an integrated sensitivity analysis function. Model functionality was demonstrated by estimating the public health impact of a hypothetical pre-erythrocytic malaria vaccine with 85% efficacy against uncomplicated disease and a vaccine efficacy decay rate of four years, based on internationally-established targets. Demand for this hypothetical vaccine was estimated based on historical vaccine implementation rates for routine infant immunization in 40 African countries over a 10-year period. Assumed purchase price was $5 per dose and injection equipment and delivery costs were$0.40 per dose.; The model projects the number of doses needed, uncomplicated and severe cases averted, deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) averted, and cost to avert each. In the demonstration scenario, based on a projected demand of 532 million doses, the MVM estimated that 150 million uncomplicated cases of malaria and 1.1 million deaths would be averted over 10 years. This is equivalent to 943 uncomplicate cases and 7 deaths averted per 1,000 vaccinees. In discounted 2011 US dollars, this represents $11 per uncomplicated case averted and$1,482 per death averted. If vaccine efficacy were reduced to 75%, the estimated uncomplicated cases and deaths averted over 10 years would decrease by 14% and 19%, respectively.; The MVM can provide valuable information to assist decision-making by vaccine developers and policymakers, information which will be refined and strengthened as field studies progress allowing further validation of modeling assumptions

Ipratropium/Salbutamol Comparator Versus Originator for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbations : USA Observational Cohort Study Using the Clinformatics™ Health Claims Database

Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Priyanka Raju Konduru of Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute Pte Ltd (OPRI) for assistance with data extraction. This study was sponsored and funded by Teva Branded Pharmaceutical Products, R&D, Inc. Lynanne McGuire, PhD, of MedVal Scientific Information Services, LLC (Princeton, NJ, USA) provided medical writing and editorial assistance. This manuscript was prepared according to the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals’ ‘Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research: the GPP3 Guidelines.’ Funding to support medical writing assistance was provided to MedVal by Teva Branded Pharmaceutical Products R&D, Inc., Frazer, PA, USA. Teva provided a full review of the article and provided funding of the journal’s article processing charges. All named authors meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship for this manuscript, take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, and have given final approval to the version to be published. All authors had full access to all of the data in this study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and accuracy of the data analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Current perspectives on profiling and enhancing wheelchair court-sport performance

Despite the growing interest in Paralympic sport, the evidence-base for supporting elite wheelchair sport performance remains in its infancy when compared to able-bodied (AB) sport. Subsequently, current practice is often based on theory adapted from AB guidelines, with a heavy reliance on anecdotal evidence and practitioner experience. Many principles in training prescription and performance monitoring with wheelchair athletes are directly transferable from AB practice, including the periodisation and tapering of athlete loads around competition. Yet, a consideration for the physiological consequences of an athlete’s impairment and the interface between athlete and their equipment are vital when targeting interventions to optimise in-competition performance. Researchers and practitioners are faced with the challenge of identifying and implementing reliable protocols that detect small but meaningful changes in impairment-specific physical capacities and on-court performance. Technologies to profile both linear and rotational on-court performance are an essential component of sports science support in order to understand sport-specific movement profiles and prescribe training intensities. In addition, an individualised approach to the prescription of athlete training and optimisation of the ‘wheelchair/user interface’ is required, accounting for an athlete’s anthropometrics, sports classification and positional role on court. As well as enhancing physical capacities, interventions must also focus on the integration of the athlete and their equipment as well as techniques for limiting environmental influence on performance. Taken together, the optimisation of wheelchair sport performance requires a multi-disciplinary approach based on the individual requirements of each athlete