New Zealand secondary technology teachers’ perceptions: “technological” or “technical” thinking?

Technology education in the New Zealand context has seen significant change since it’s inception as a technical subject. The changing nature of the subject in New Zealand secondary schools is influenced by some teachers’ preoccupation with the making of quality product outcomes, rather than their enactment of the curriculum, which conceptualises a wider remit. Research into the perceptions of technology teachers’ interpretation and enactment of the curriculum suggests that to enable change, teachers need to adopt a form of “technological thinking”, in support of their “technical thinking”. Technological thinking is a notion presented to support teachers to explore a range of differing pedagogical approaches and learning outcomes, reflective of the intent of the New Zealand curriculum, which aims to foster learning environments that are innovative and responsive to students’ social and academic needs.     

Country of origin labeling for complex supply chains: the case for labeling the location of different supply chain links

We investigate the value of a country of origin label (COOL) that separately identifies the geographic location of different stages in a food product's supply chain. We estimate the willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) of U.S. consumers for a packaged cereal product where the key grain ingredient may be grown in one country and processed in a second country (multicountry supply chain) and compare it to equivalent products that have both stages located in a single country. We find consumer WTP for products with single‐country and multicountry supply chains are statistically different, meaning that simplifying a multicountry label by listing only the country where the ingredients are grown or only the country where the ingredients are processed can result in different consumer values. We also find that for countries with a poor quality reputation, consumers respond more negatively when that country has the “last touch” than when that country's involvement is limited to upstream supply chain links.     

Literature-related discovery (LRD): Lessons learned, and future research directions

Literature-related discovery (LRD) is the linking of two or more literature concepts that have heretofore not been linked (i.e., disjoint), in order to produce novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge (i.e., potential discovery). The open discovery systems (ODS) component of LRD starts with a problem to be solved, and generates solutions to that problem through potential discovery. We have been using ODS LRD to identify potential treatments or preventative actions for challenging medical problems, among myriad other applications. The five immediately preceding papers in this Special Issue describe the application of ODS LRD to Raynaud's Phenomenon (RP), cataracts, Parkinson's Disease (PD), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Water Purification (WP). We describe the lessons learned from each application, and how the techniques can be improved further.Generation of much potential discovery using ODS LRD is possible when the conceptual roadblocks to discovery are removed. Some of these roadblocks include use of numerical filters that are unrelated to generating discovery, and excessive reliance on literatures directly related to the problem literature of interest. The issue of how to handle large amounts of potential discovery has not been addressed in the literature, since most ODS LRD researchers have tried to find a relatively few potential discovery items. We present a development strategy that capitalizes on the large amounts of potential discovery we have identified.     

The economic burden of tuberous sclerosis complex in UK patients with renal manifestations: a retrospective cohort study in the clinical practice research datalink (CPRD)

Background: Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a multi-system genetic disorder in which renal manifestations occur in ～50% of children and 80% of adults. Since these often present alongside other manifestations, renal TSC is likely to incur significant costs. This study aims to quantify healthcare resource use (HCRU) and costs for renal TSC patients in the UK.

Methods: TSC patients in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) linked to Hospital Episodes Statistics were identified from January 1987–June 2013. Clinical data were extracted over the entire history and costs were reported over the most recent 3-year period. HCRU was compared with a matched comparator cohort. Incremental costs were reported and the key cost drivers by primary manifestation category were identified by regression modeling.

Results: A total of 79 renal TSC patients were identified with manifestations including chronic kidney disease stage 3–5 (with prevalence increasing with age) and renal angiomyolipoma. Renal TSC patients consistently reported greater HCRU than the comparator. Inpatient hospitalizations were more frequent for renal TSC patients (3.2 vs 1.6), but length of stay was comparable; however, 70.9% of renal TSC patients recorded no kidney-related procedures ever and averaged <1 test per year in the 3-year period. Average costs for renal TSC patients were nearly 3-fold greater than the comparator (£15,162 vs £5672). Costs increased with additional manifestation categories (£3600: only renal; £27,531: renal with ≥4 additional manifestation categories [25% of patients]). Additional nervous system and dermatology/psychiatric manifestations significantly (p?Conclusions: Renal TSC patients have greater HCRU than the general CPRD population, likely to result from progression of renal disease and additional manifestations; however, surveillance for disease progression appears to be deficient. Inadequate monitoring may contribute to a lack of co-ordinated care and increased healthcare-associated costs. Efforts should be made to follow the TSC guidelines to effectively monitor and treat patients.     

Economic burden associated with inadequate antidepressant medication management among patients with depression and known cardiovascular diseases: insights from a United States–based retrospective claims database analysis

Abstract

Aims: The current study examined the association between insufficient major depressive disorder (MDD) care and healthcare resource use (HCRU) and costs among patients with prior myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke.

Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted using the MarketScan Claims Database (2010–2015). The date of the first MI/stroke diagnosis was defined as the cardiovascular disease (CVD) index date and the first date of a subsequent MDD diagnosis was the index MDD date. Adequacy of MDD care was assessed during the 90 days following the index MDD date (profiling period) using 2 measures: dosage adequacy (average fluoxetine equivalent dose of ≥20?mg/day for nonelderly and ≥10?mg/day for elderly patients) and duration adequacy (measured as the proportion of days covered of 80% or higher for all MDD drugs). Study outcomes included all-cause and CVD-related HCRU and costs which were determined from the end of the profiling period until the end of study follow-up. Propensity-score adjusted generalized linear models (GLMs) were used to compare patients receiving adequate versus inadequate MDD care in terms of study outcomes.

Results: Of 1,568 CVD patients who were treated for MDD, 937 (59.8%) were categorized as receiving inadequate MDD care. Results from the GLMs suggested that patients receiving inadequate MDD care had 14% more all-cause hospitalizations, 4% more all-cause outpatient visits, 17% more CVD-related outpatient visits, 13% more CVD-related emergency room (ER) visits, higher per patient per year CVD-related hospitalization costs ($21,485 vs. $17,756), higher all-cause outpatient costs ($2,820 vs. $2,055), and higher CVD-related outpatient costs ($520 vs. $434) compared to patients receiving adequate MDD care.

Limitations: Clinical information such as depression severity and frailty, which are potential predictors of adverse CVD outcomes, could not be ascertained using administrative claims data.

Conclusions: Among post-MI and post-stroke patients, inadequate MDD care was associated with a significantly higher economic burden.     

Why Do Women Wait? Matching, Wage Inequality, and the Incentives for Fertility Delay

This paper explores the interaction between wage inequality and the marriage and fertility decisions of young women. We develop an equilibrium search model of marriage, divorce, and investment in children that allows for differential timing of fertility. We show how patterns of fertility timing in U.S. data can be explained by the incentives for fertility delay implied by marriage and labor markets. We find that these incentives help explain both the cross-sectional relationship between women's wages and fertility timing and the changes over the past 40 years in married women's fertility timing and labor supply. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: J12, J13.     

How Segmented are Skilled and Unskilled Labour Markets: the Case of Beveridge Curves

This paper tests whether there is evidence that two distinct Beveridge curves for the skilled and unskilled aggregate markets exist. The results support the hypothesis and specifically find that the unskilled labour segment is less efficient at matching workers with jobs, primarily due to higher labour turnover rates. Higher turnover rates can be indicative of a poor match between employers' and jobseekers' expectations. The results also indicate that other shift variables, such as the replacement rate, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the immigration rate and the market circumstances in the skilled segment were only important for the unskilled segment.     

The derived demand for faculty research

Estimation of the demands for many services supplied by government and charitable organizations are hampered by two practices common to the supply of these services. The suppliers often employ non‐price rationing of these services, and they price discriminate. The supply of college training, for example, is rationed on the basis of academic ability as well as willingness to pay, and more able students are typically quoted lower net prices (associated with scholarships) than less able students. This paper suggests a method for dealing with both practices in the analysis of cross‐sectional data. This methodology is used to investigate the question of why university faculty members are expected to do research as well as teach. One answer supported by our empirical work is that the customers (e.g., the students) demand it. Thus, controlling for price and non‐academic features, better students will choose to attend a university where more scholarly research is performed. Moreover, our empirical findings also support a strong negative link between faculty time devoted to teaching and the supply of research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Meta-Analytic Examination of Realistic Job Preview Effectiveness: A Test of Three Counterintuitive Propositions

We present a model of realistic job previews (RJPs) and, using separate meta-analyses, examine three counterintuitive hypotheses about their operation. We found modest support for two of the three hypotheses. Findings indicate that RJPs reduce the rate of job acceptance among persons with prior exposure to the job and increase the rate of job acceptance among persons with no prior exposure to the job. Results also indicate that RJPs can be more effective in reducing turnover if the organization is able to restrict the exit of new employees for a period of time after the RJP. Finally, RJPs show a pattern of being more effective in reducing turnover after longer periods of time following administration of the RJP; however, this pattern failed to reach conventional significance levels.