Public perception of scientific uncertainty in relation to food hazards

The research reported here aims to understand how people react to statements expressing risk uncertainty information in the context of a commonly experienced potential hazard, food related risks. Public perception of seriousness of risk for themselves, and for other people was examined for different types of uncertainty, for each of five different food hazards. The results indicated that participants responded to the different types of uncertainty in a uniform way, suggesting that perception of risk associated with uncertainty is not affected by the 'type' of uncertainty. The results further indicated that the seriousness of risk, in the presence of statements of uncertainty, was perceived to be greater for pesticides and genetic modification compared to BSE, high fat diets and Salmonella . It was argued that this could be due to the perceptions of low personal control, and high societal responsibility to protect people and societal control over exposure to the potential risks of pesticides and genetic modification. Under circumstances where people feel they have little personal control over their exposure to a particular hazard, and those social institutions that are perceived to be in control of protecting the public indicate that there is uncertainty associated with risk estimates, the hazard may appear to be 'out of control', which is associated with a perception of serious risk.     

On Choosing Among House Price Index Methodologies

This paper compares housing price indices estimated using three models with several sets of property transaction data. The commonly used hedonic price model suffers from potential specification bias and inefficiency, while the weighted repeat-sales model presents potentially more serious bias and inefficiency problems. A hybrid model combining hedonic and repeat-sales equations avoids most of these sources of bias and inefficiency. This paper evaluates the performance of each type of model using a particularly rich local housing market database. The results, though ambiguous, appear to confirm the problems with the repeat sales model but suggest that systematic differences between repeat-transacting and single-transacting properties lead to bias in the hedonic and hybrid models as well.     

Precautionary Saving by Young Immigrants and Young Natives

This paper uses data from the 1979 Youth Cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLSY79) to explore the wealth accumulation patterns of younger cohorts as well as immigrants' and natives' precautionary saving in response to income uncertainty. We use two measures of wealth and construct a time-varying, conditional measure of income uncertainty, instead of relying on a constant, unconditional, summary measure of income uncertainty. We use a buffer-stock model of savings, and find that immigrants accumulate less wealth than do natives. Additionally, young natives' wealth accumulation patterns appear more responsive than those of their immigrant counterparts to income uncertainty.     

Using FTE and RVU performance measures to assess financial viability of academic nurse-managed centers

Financial performance measures are essential to improve the fiscal management of academic nurse-managed centers (ANMCs). Measures are compared among six ANMCs in a consortium and against an external, self-sustainable, profitable ANMC and national data for family practice physicians. Performance measures help identify a center's strengths and weaknesses facilitating the development of strategies aimed at a variety of targets (business practices related to revenue and costs) to improve financial viability. Using a variety of financial performance measures to inform decision making will aid ANMCs in keeping their doors open for business.     

Comparing variations in labor costs for two vs. one full-time nurse manager

Labor costs for two versus one full-time nurse manager were compared. Results revealed reductions in nursing costs per patient day. These results suggest that innovative models may hold promise as organizations struggle to retain nurses and decrease costs.