Community health care in developing countries

Health care systems in many developing countries have shared characteristics. Government expenditures in poor countries are low for health care. The majority of people cannot easily reach a modern health facility. Most spending is for high-cost curative medicine, e.g., hospitals. Programs are often inefficient in their use of funds. The tragedy of disease in developing countreis is that many of the most serious problems are either preventable or curable by simple, inexpensive, safe methods. About 16 million children under age 5 died in 1979 in developing countries; 5 million of these deaths could have been prevented by immunization against measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and typhoid. Many countries are establishing community-level health care facilities that use community health workers instead of doctors. A 3-tiered program is being adopted in some areas: the community health center, the rural or urban polyclinic, and the referral hospital. The community health center seeks to provide two-thirds of the needed services, including supervision of pregnancy, midwifery, care of new-born children, treatment of endemic diseases, and emergency care for injuries. Early experience has taught that it is more important for the community health worker to have practical experience and the respect of the people he serves than formal education. Improvements in nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation are needed to reach the full health potential of most communities.     

Financial Opacity and Firm Performance: The Readability of REIT Annual Reports

We examine the capital market pricing implications of firm disclosure opacity as measured by the linguistic readability of REIT annual reports. The SEC has expressed concern that firms selectively manage the transparency of disclosures in order to hide adverse information. After controlling for other non-experimental factors that influence the readability of REIT financial statements, we find (1) financial opacity is negatively related to reported firm performance, and (2) the residual opacity that remains after controlling for other determinants of annual report readability has incremental explanatory power for returns beyond the Fama and French (1992, 1993) risk factors. The opacity risk-return premium persists after controlling for a (heretofore undocumented) stark monotonic decrease in annual report readability following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.     

Testing Market Efficiency: Evidence From The NFL Sports Betting Market

This article examines the efficiency of the National Football League (NFL) betting market. The standard ordinary least squares (OLS) regression methodology is replaced by a probit model. This circumvents potential econometric problems, and allows us to implement more sophisticated betting strategies where bets are placed only when there is a relatively high probability of success. In-sample tests indicate that probit-based betting strategies generate statistically significant profits. Whereas the profitability of a number of these betting strategies is confirmed by out-of-sample testing, there is some inconsistency among the remaining out-of-sample predictions. Our results also suggest that widely documented inefficiencies in this market tend to dissipate over time.     

Focus Groups and the Development of New Products by Technologically Driven Companies: Some Guidelines

Manufacturers of consumer goods frequently have used focus group discussions to learn about consumers' reactions to both new and existing products. Typically, results of these discussions have led to the exploration of new concepts and the identification of new opportunities. Edward McQuarrie and Shelby McIntyre have developed a series of practical guidelines to help industrial and technological companies use focus groups during the process of concept development and refinement. The group's discussion provides insight into how the product may be received by buyers in the marketplace.     

Espoused drum-buffer-rope flow control in serial lines: A comparative study of simulation models

This paper documents an investigation of drum-buffer-rope (DBR) scheduling and flow control methodology in single-product serial production lines. In particular, DBR flow control is reviewed and the importance of correctly representing this type of flow control mechanism in serial lines is discussed. Departures from valid DBR conceptual and simulation modeling are illustrated. It is shown that the model of a previously published paper is a push system not a DBR system, and that related conclusions regarding protective capacity and constraint location are unsupported. Correct modeling of DBR flow control is shown using discrete simulation experiments that compare the DBR model and a similar push model. Suggestions for additional research are offered.     

Cognitive style related to the design process

This paper describes the development of a new version of Witkin's Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and two further tests of a similar type using words and letters. The new form of the Group Embedded Figures Test Consists of a number of original two dimensional figures (complex and simple). Variations of the basic two dimensional figures were obtained by establishing a geometrical progression (from following a set of simple rules) to produce increasing degrees of complexity of the complex figures. This in turn generated more simple figures within them which were used in the test items.By using words and lettersas a means of generating embedded complex/simple shapes, not only are very different types of (overall) shape possible, but also the notion of field dependence/independence can (possibly) be applied to non-spatial (in the usual sense) modes of operating within the curriculum, i.e. the humanities as opposed to design and technology subject areas.