The use of injury surveillance databases to identify emerging injury hazards

Among the many valuable uses of injury surveillance is the potential to alert health authorities and societies in general to emerging injury trends, facilitating earlier development of prevention measures. Other than road safety, to date, few attempts to forecast injury data have been made, although forecasts have been made of other public health issues. This may in part be due to the complex pattern of variance displayed by injury data. The profile of many injury types displays seasonality and diurnal variance, as well as stochastic variance. The authors undertook development of a simple model to forecast injury into the near term. In recognition of the large numbers of possible predictions, the variable nature of injury profiles and the diversity of dependent variables, it became apparent that manual forecasting was impractical. Therefore, it was decided to evaluate a commercially available forecasting software package for prediction accuracy against actual data for a set of predictions. Injury data for a 4-year period (1996 to 1999) were extracted from the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset and were used to develop forecasts for the year 2000, for which data was also held. The forecasts for 2000 were compared to the actual data for 2000 by independent t-tests, and the standard errors of the predictions were modelled by stepwise hierarchical multiple regression using the independent variables of the standard deviation, seasonality, mean monthly frequency and slope of the base data (R = 0.93, R(2) = 0.86, F(3, 27) = 55.2, p < 0.0001). Significant contributions to the model included the SD (beta = 1.60, p < 0.001), mean monthly frequency (beta = -0.72, p < 0.002), and the seasonality of the data (beta = 0.16, p < 0.02). It was concluded that injury data could be reliably forecast and that commercial software was adequate for the task. Variance in the data was found to be the most important determinant of prediction accuracy. Importantly, automated forecasting may provide a vehicle for identifying emerging trends.     

Is There a Link Between Money Illusion and Homeowners’ Expectations of Housing Prices?

Money illusion is a behavioral bias in which a person thinks in terms of nominal rather than real values. This article reports homeowners’ responses to a survey designed to measure the extent of money illusion as well as homeowners’ expectations regarding home valuations. Our survey respondents suffer from money illusion, yet they have reasonable expectations of home prices. Our analysis did not identify any unique individual characteristic that correlates with homeowners’ choices and suggests that the relationship between money illusion and mispricing is subtle and multifaceted.     

Investing in Perennial Pasture Improvement: A Real Options Analysis

In investment analysis, uncertainty and irreversibility can undermine net present value (NPV) as a decision rule since the option to delay investment may have value. We apply the real option theory of investment to the pasture investment decision facing livestock producers in southwest Western Australia. In 2006, livestock producers thinned their herds as pasture availability dwindled due to extreme drought conditions. This left producers with a unique opportunity to either establish new perennial pastures for their cattle or utilize volunteer annual pasture and invest in more sheep breeders. In either case, large and irreversible investments fraught with multiple sources of uncertainty implies that one can gain useful insights by casting the investment problem in a real option context. The results suggest that required rates of return for each investment alternative are about 1% to 1.5% higher than standard NPV would suggest with sheep production having the lower required rate of return.     

Determinants of Investor Demand for Cross‐Listed Firms

By focusing on the decisions of investors to invest in cross‐listed stocks, this paper presents new evidence on why we observe striking differences in the percentage of trade in foreign markets for cross‐listed stocks. With a large sample of Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) stocks cross‐listed in the U.S. and Canada, we document the effect of investor recognition and risk characteristics on the distribution of trading volume. Firms that are more visible to American investors are traded more heavily in the U.S. At the same time, firms that offer diverse risk characteristics are attractive to Americans. While investors understand the benefits of international diversification, as they are attracted to stocks that are different (e.g., the stock of small firms with few assets in the U.S.), they also seek stocks that provide them with high returns.     

The physically disabled South African female consumer’s problems in purchasing clothing

Physically disabled women today have to face the inconvenience of shopping for their own as well as their families’ clothes and the inability of finding fashionable clothes that fit any disability. A total of 40 physically disabled women between the ages of 21 years and 60 years were interviewed on the problems they experienced when shopping for fashionable clothes that fit their disabilities. A total of 40 clothing shops were observed to get information on the extent to which the shops cater for the needs of the physically disabled consumer. Results from the interviews showed that the majority of physically disabled female clothing consumers experienced major problems in finding fashionable clothes that fit their disabilities. It was also clear that these women experienced problems with unusable access routes, unsuitable parking lots, display racks that are too high, spaces between racks that are too narrow, inadequate space in fitting rooms and a lack of assistance in shops. The observations were compared with the complaints the women had and it was found that these women had not overestimated their problems.     

年度评估管用吗

工作评估就是两人之间签订的一种契约，通常带有尴尬的情绪、虚假的乐观主义和令人厌烦的责任。     

GOOGLE一下自己吧

大规模的Google搜索使职场上每个人的情况都变糟了。对雇员而言，这意味着没有隐私，而且无法逃避过去的尴尬：对雇主而言，这意味着他们不仅要担心自己的名誉，也要担心所雇用的每个人的名誉。     

The Dynamics of Efficiency Improving Input Allocation

A dynamic theory of efficiency improving input reallocations is presented which relaxes the assumption that decision-making units have the ability to reorganize their activities instantaneously to achieve efficient input allocations. Explicit account is taken of the decision-making unit’s gradual transition to an efficient input allocation. A balanced panel data set covering 906 U.S. agricultural banks is constructed for the period 1996–2000 and we find that these banks are allocatively efficient but technically inefficient. The explicit solution for the optimal input use finds evidence of gradual transitions for two of the three inputs, with the labor input transition being the slowest. The efficiency improving path finds the firm transitions toward an efficient allocation by simultaneously improving on technical efficiency instantaneously and on allocative efficiency intertemporally, which suggests a non-linear path toward the most efficient allocation.     

Resilience and the (micro-)dynamics of organizational ambidexterity: implications for strategic HRM

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, resilience has emerged as a seminal and important topic linked to calls for adaptability, well-being and organizational performance. Extant strategic human resource management (HRM) literature and practices have developed many insights into resilience. However, overall, they have a propensity to conceptualise resilience as being associated with ‘macro-’ and ‘extreme’ situations. This paper complements the prevailing perspective by developing a micro-focus on resilience through the conceptual framework of organizational ambidexterity surfacing under-examined individual resilience in connection with HRM practices. Methodologically, the paper adopts a qualitative approach presenting data from two illustrative contexts: an ‘everyday’ quasi-governmental institution and a prima facie ‘extreme’ pan-international military organization. Using template analysis, a number of valuable themes and similarities are identified. The findings and discussion underline the managerial challenges in handling organizational ambidextrous dynamics and tensions surrounding resilience, positive and sceptical approaches in relation to individual and organizational stances towards HRM practices. As such, the results point at value in HRM managers and practices recontextualising and appreciating ‘extremes’ and resilience more as an everyday (rather than exceptional) phenomenon wherein myriad micro-moments are highly significant in constructing and influencing macro-contexts. This also implies a need to see cynical resistance as normative rather than automatically negatively.     

Unintended trajectories: liberalization and the geographies of private business flight

The global commercial aviation industry has undergone significant regulatory reform during the last 30 years. This paper explores something of the relationship between air transport liberalization and the growth of private business aviation and suggests that the sector’s development is largely an unintended consequence of the increasingly deregulated operating environment in that it has developed to overcome some of liberalization’s negative impacts, including delays, congestion, and perceptions of poor customer service. We argue that liberalization has created innovative market opportunities for private business aviation and illustrate how the sector’s operating models are facilitating new, as yet largely undocumented, forms of aerial mobility. The paper examines: the advantages of private business aviation over scheduled services; business strategies in the sector, especially the idea of fractional jets; the impact of new technologies, particularly the Very Light Jet (VLJ); and, finally, employs Europe as an example of the spatialities of private business aviation.