Association between provider specialty and healthcare costs and glycemic control for patients with diabetes

Aims: To analyze the association between provider, healthcare costs, and glycemic control for patients with diabetes mellitus (DM).

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study identified adults with type 1 or 2?DM (T1D, T2D) in the Optum database. The main independent variable was provider (endocrinologist or primary care). Regression analysis compared total medical and pharmacy costs, adjusting for health status and other patient differences, by provider.

Results: For all patients, HbA1C improvement was greater, and medical costs significantly lower with an endocrinologist rather than a primary care provider. The largest HbA1C improvement (4%) occurred for insulin-dependent patients seen by endocrinologists. Significant medical savings with endocrinologist management occurred within the Medicare Advantage population in every sub-group of patients, with 14% lower costs ($4,767) for patients with T1D, 11% lower costs ($3,160) for patients with macro- and microvascular complications, and 10% lower costs ($2,237) for insulin-dependent patients. Within the commercial insurance population, medical costs were reduced by ≥9% in every sub-group of patients, with a 20% reduction ($8,450) for patients with micro- and macrovascular complications. Overall total costs (medical and pharmacy) were 8% ($1,541) higher for patients receiving endocrinologist rather than primary care, although endocrinologist care resulted in a 9% reduction (–$3,710) in costs for Medicare Advantage patients with T1D. Total medical costs (excluding pharmacy costs) may be a more accurate indicator of costs associated with patients in various stages of DM.

Limitations: There was insufficient data to develop risk-adjustment payments for pharmacy costs based on disease severity. The cross-sectional design identifies associations and not cause–effect relationships.

Conclusion: DM management by an endocrinologist was associated with greater HbA1C improvement and significantly lower medical costs. Total costs were higher with an endocrinologist, but for patients with T1D lower costs were seen, ranging from 2–9% regardless of insurance type.     

基于航空运输的应急物资配送网络优化研究

近年来突发事件的频发给我国带来了重大的生命财产损失,应急物资配送网络的合理构建是提高我国突发事件应急处置能力的重要途径之一.提出一个抗风险能力强、反应速度快、成本节约的基于航空系统的应急物资配送网络目标规划模型,优化应急物资配送中心布局以及应急配送网络的组织形式,并选取全国100个通用机场为例进行实证分析.研究结果表明,最佳的应急物资航空配送网络是以长春、乌鲁木齐、济南、成都、南昌为配送点的中心辐射式网络,且该网络布局形式的投入成本随应急反应时间的缩小而大幅上升.     

Determinants of Ethical Behavior: A Study of Autosalespeople

This study proposes a model that explains the ethical behavior of automobile salespeople in terms of their ethical perception, legal perception, method of compensation (commission-based or salary-based), age, and education. The model is estimated by using five scenarios that involve ethical issues commonly found in the automobile industry and responses from 184 automobile salespeople in a mid-Atlantic metropolitan area. The findings suggest that ethical perception is the most important determinant of ethical behavior. Also, method of compensation is a major determinant in four of five scenarios, and legal perception in two out of five scenarios. However, age and education are not significantly related to ethical behavior. A discussion of the results, limitations, and implications is presented for managers.     

Technical nomenclature,everyday language,and consumer inference

Marketing Letters - The use of technical language in marketing communications has more complex effects than what the previous research suggests. Three studies show that the effect of technical...     

Organizational Sustainability Determinants in Different Cultural Settings: A Conceptual Framework

Since the link between organizations’ sustainability initiatives and effects from the societal environment has not been consistently established in the literature, this paper provides a conceptual framework to demonstrate the antecedents to the levels of sustainability initiatives undertaken by firms. Taking insights from institutional theory, it proposes that the relationship between the sustainability determinants and the level of sustainability initiatives is mediated by coercive, mimetic and normative isomorphic pressures. Moreover, it suggests that culture plays a significant role in moderating the extent to which the various types of isomorphic pressure on firms may influence the levels of firms’ sustainability initiatives. The implications of the framework are discussed in the light of encouraging sustainability initiatives and overall sustainable development in various cultural settings as well as undertaking future research to enhance the framework and its applicability. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The correlates of international financial‐center status

We consider the correlates of international financial‐center status. Our estimates point to the flexibility, transparency, and stability of the economic and social environment as determinants of financial center‐status. They point also to roles for monetary and financial stability, financial openness, financial scale and development, technology and size of government. We draw out the implications of this analysis for the future prospects of actual and aspiring international financial centers such as London, New York, and Shanghai.     

Creating advocates: understanding the roles of CSR and firm innovativeness

Although previous studies revealed the positive effect of CSR perceptions on customer behaviour, the relationship between CSR and perceived firm innovativeness (PFI) has been underexplored. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it attempts to propose and validate a model to comprehend the relationship between CSR and PFI. Second, it aims to investigate the mediating role of corporate image stemming from CSR and PFI in order to foster customer advocacy intentions. Data were collected from 360 customers of the retail banking industry in Pakistan, and the results indicate that customers’ CSR perceptions directly and positively influence PFI. Interestingly, corporate image fully mediates the relationship between PFI and advocacy intentions, whereas it plays a partial mediation role in the CSR-advocacy intentions relationship. The findings of this research expand the corpus regarding the roles of CSR and PFI in creating advocacy intentions among customers through the corporate image.

     

建筑《使用说明书》编写方法探索

章阐述了建筑《使用说明书》在建筑物业管理等方面的作用，讨论了其编写的方法并给出实例。     

Historical path of traditional and modern idea of ‘conscious universe’

What this study shows is that although the ‘idea of conscious universe’ is given further advance by some discoveries of modern sciences, it was articulated by many ancient and previous thinkers. Philosophically, the idea of ‘Consciousness’ can be traced back to ancient times and can be proven through historical documents in various traditions, cultures and religions. In this study, the ideas are provided from perspectives of West, East and Islam. Simply, the term ‘awareness’ and the concept of ‘ability to be aware of the environment’ imply the notion of ‘Consciousness’ in linguistic and psychology. In a comparative study, we show that philosophical and scientific views in the past and contemporary period highly recommended the existence of ‘Consciousness’ attribute. In fact, all of the mentioned studies are talking about the same ideology based on the qualitative perceptions. However, there are some differences in parts, but the major theme is same.     

Analysing the correlation between social network analysis measures and performance of students in social network-based engineering education

Social network-based engineering education (SNEE) is designed and implemented as a model of Education 3.0 paradigm. SNEE represents a new learning methodology, which is based on the concept of social networks and represents an extended model of project-led education. The concept of social networks was applied in the real-life experiment, considering two different dimensions: (1) to organize the education process as a social network-based process; and (2) to analyze the students’ interactions in the context of evaluation of the students learning performance. The objective of this paper is to present a new model for students evaluation based on their behavior during the course and its validation in comparison with the traditional model of students’ evaluation. The validation of the new evaluation model is made through an analysis of the correlation between social network analysis measures (degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and average tie strength) and the grades obtained by students (grades for quality of work, grades for volume of work, grades for diversity of work, and final grades) in a social network-based engineering education. The main finding is that the obtained correlation results can be used to make the process of the students’ performance evaluation based on students interactions (behavior) analysis, to make the evaluation partially automatic, increasing the objectivity and productivity of teachers and allowing a more scalable process of evaluation. The results also contribute to the behavioural theory of learning performance evaluation. More specific findings related to the correlation analysis are: (1) the more different interactions a student had (degree centrality) and the more frequently the student was between the interaction paths of other students (betweenness centrality), the better was the quality of the work; (2) all five social network measures had a positive and strong correlation with the grade for volume of work and with the final grades; and (3) a student with high average tie strength had a higher grade for diversity of work than those with low ties.