Quanta:拥有笔记本,拥有广达

你肯定认为一家销售额超过100亿美元的制造商会很乐于夸耀它的成功。如果这种成功发生在最大的ODM(原始设计制造商),注册于中国台湾省的广达计算机公司(Quanta Computer,Inc)时,那就需要重新思考这个问题。实际     

The suitability of computer‐based training for workers with limited formal education: a case study from the US agricultural sector

The suitability of computer‐based instruction (CBI) for workers with limited education was evaluated in an Hispanic orchard workforce that reported little computer experience and 5.6 mean years of formal education. Ladder safety training was completed by employees who rated the training highly (effect size [d_gain] = 5.68), and their knowledge of ladder safety improved (d_gain = 1.45). There was a significant increase (p < 0.01) in safe work practices immediately after training (d_gain = 0.70), at 40 days post training (d_gain = 0.87) and at 60 days (d_gain = 1.40), indicating durability. As in mainstream populations, reaction or affective ratings correlated well with utility ratings, but not with behavior change. This demonstrates that an agricultural workforce with limited formal education can learn job safety from CBI and translate the knowledge to work practice changes, and those changes are durable.     

PRICING CURRENCY FUTURES OPTIONS WITH LOGNORMALLY DISTRIBUTED JUMPS

We find that a mixed diffusion-jump process fits most daily currency futures price series better than a mixture of normal densities and, especially, an asymmetric stable Paretian model. We also find that Merton's (1976) mixed diffusion-jump option pricing model outperforms Black's (1 976) model for valuing currency futures options. Our results suggest that researchers should begin to consider the possibility of jump processes as time-independent models of other futures price series.     

Religion and the reception of marginalism in Britain

Did their religious beliefs play any role in the interest British economists took in marginal utility theory in the final third of the Nineteenth Century? I contrast the beliefs of the leading economists—Mill and his followers—who were unsympathetic to marginalism with the beliefs of those economists who embraced it. Mill’s followers were themselves sharply divided on key methodological questions, and I ask whether or not this division, too, may owe something to differing religious beliefs. I conclude, provisionally, that religion may indeed have played a significant role in determining the methodological predisposition of British economists between 1860 and 1900.     

Re‐evaluating the concept of working time: an analysis of recent case law

Controversy abounds the Working Time Directive seven years since its implementation as the European Commission seeks to unpick the compromise that led to the notorious individual opt‐out from maximum weekly working time. This article explores the roots of that controversy in the context of the Court of Justice’s expansive interpretation of the concept of ‘working time’. To what extent is it possible to maintain a health and safety guarantee but allow for more flexibility in the organisation of working time for individual workers in an increasingly heterogeneous working environment?     

Cost-effectiveness analysis of oxycodone with naloxone versus oxycodone alone for the management of moderate-to-severe pain in patients with opioid-induced constipation in Canada

Background:

Approximately 20–30% of Canadians suffer from chronic pain. Guidelines for the management of chronic pain support the use of controlled-release (CR) opioids to treat chronic pain. Although effective in managing chronic pain, oxycodone is associated with high rates of opioid-induced constipation (OIC). The cost-effectiveness of a combination of oxycodone for the management of pain and naloxone for the relief of OIC has not previously been evaluated for Canada.

Methods:

A decision analytic model was developed to estimate the cost-utility of combination oxycodone/naloxone compared to oxycodone alone in four populations. Drug costs for managing pain and healthcare costs related to managing OIC were included in the analysis and the primary measure of effectiveness was quality adjusted life years (QALYs) derived from OIC rates observed in clinical trials. The analysis was conducted from a healthcare system perspective, used a 1-year time horizon, and results were expressed in 2015 Canadian dollars.

Results:

In all four patient populations, there was a trade-off between slightly higher total expected costs for Targin treated patients compared to oxycodone treated patients, but also improved clinical benefits in terms of reduced OIC, which resulted in higher QALYs for patients. Although analgesic costs were found to be slightly higher for Targin treated patients, Targin also resulted in cost offsets to the healthcare system in terms of less rescue laxative drug use and other resources required for the management of OIC. The resulting 1-year cost-utility of Targin compared to oxycodone ranged from $2178–$7732 per QALY gained in the base case analysis, and it was found that these cost-utility results remained robust and at low values throughout a series of one-way deterministic analyses of uncertainty.

Conclusion:

The clinical effectiveness of oxycodone/naloxone in managing pain and OIC compared to CR oxycodone alone resulted in low cost-utility estimates.     

Do EHR investments lead to lower staffing levels?

A study used FTE employees per adjusted occupied bed (FTE/AOB) as a measure to ascertain the effect of EHR investments on labor productivity. The study focused on three primary questions: Do FTE/AOB decline as the number of EHR applications used in a hospital increases? Is impact on FTE/AOB greater with some EHR applications than with others? Do FTE/AOB decline overtime, as the hospital continues to use the EHR application?     

Identity Talk of Aspirational Ethical Leaders

This study investigates how business leaders dynamically narrate their aspirational ethical leadership identities. In doing so, it furthers understanding of ethical leadership as a process situated in time and place. The analysis focuses on the discursive strategies used to narrate identity and ethics by ethnic Chinese business leaders in Indonesia after their conversion to Pentecostal–charismatic Christianity. By exploring the use of metaphor, our study shows how these business leaders discursively deconstruct their ‘old’ identities and construct their ‘new’ aspirational identities as ethical leaders. This leads to the following contributions. First, we show that ethical leadership is constructed in identity talk as the business leaders actively narrate aspirational identities. Second, the identity narratives of the business leaders suggest that ethical leadership is a context-bound and situated claim vis-à-vis unethical practice. Third, we propose a conceptual template, identifying processes of realisation and inspiration followed by significant shifts in understanding, for the study of aspirational ethical leadership.     

We Have Never Been Secular: Religious Identities,Duties, and Ethics in Audit Practice

Contemporary research highlights multiple societal and environmental benefits in addition to potential economic advantages associated with renewable energy (RE) utilization. As federal and state incentives for investments in RE technologies become more prevalent, RE sources represent increasingly viable alternatives to established fossil fuel energy. RE utilization is recognized as a key component of “green” product innovation that helps firms reduce the environmental impact of production processes and diminish their ecological footprints and energy consumption. Yet, despite consistent evidence that corporate sustainability initiatives are favorably associated with firm performance, the limited research that examines associations between RE initiatives and firm performance yields mixed results and an explicit link has yet to be established. Drawing on the natural resource-based view of the firm, we examine the association between RE utilization and firm financial performance over time. Annual ROI, Tobin’s Q, and operating margin for large U.S. firms identified as exceptional users of RE in the EPA’s Fortune 500 Top Green Power Partners list are compared with their respective industry medians over a 7-year period (2007–2013) and post hoc bootstrapping and sensitivity analyses are performed to further validate the study findings. Our research advances current knowledge about the influence of RE utilization by demonstrating that top RE user firms consistently generated superior financial performance compared to their industry competitors. As such, the study findings lend credence to the existence of a business case that complements the societal and environmental benefits of RE utilization.