Scientific and technical change in the USSR

The rapid development ot science and technology, a historical Soviet goal, would bring radical changes—for which the leadership may be unprepared. The complex programme, an ambitious forecast and plan for the period 1980–2000, is nearing completion. Its measures are designed to relieve a potential labour shortage, to ensure energy and resource supplies, to increase agricultural productivity, and to raise living standards. Success depends on major structural changes, which in turn require the adoption of more flexible organisation, the extension of planning horizons beyond the traditional five-year term, and the acceleration of technical innovation. There is considerable scope for international collaboration and the creative potential of the Soviet economy should not be underestimated.     

Exploring the potential value of improved care for secondary hyperparathyroidism with a novel calcimimetic therapy

Aims: This study explored the use of a value-based pricing approach for the new calcimimetic etelcalcetide indicated for the treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) in patients receiving hemodialysis. It used the US payer perspective and applied the cost-effectiveness framework. Because etelcalcetide is an intravenous therapy that can be titrated for individual patients, and because its utilization is yet to be assessed in real world settings, a range of plausible doses were estimated for etelcalcetide to define a range of prices. These were either in relation to the existing oral calcimimetic cinacalcet or compared to no calcimimetic treatment.

Materials and methods: The value-based price of etelcalcetide was determined via a Markov model. This model combined data from the etelcalcetide trials and previously published cost-effectiveness models in SHPT, and allowed extrapolation of treatment effects on mortality, cardiovascular events, fracture, and parathyroidectomy. Several dosing scenarios were explored covering the dose ranges of 30.0–64.18?mg per day for cinacalcet and 1.07–3.11?mg per day for etelcalcetide. These included the mean dose from the etelcalcetide trials, the preliminary defined daily dose, and the expected most common dose in real world. An acceptable price range for etelcalcetide was assessed by comparing the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios obtained with the willingness-to-pay threshold range of $100,000–$300,000/quality-adjusted life-years.

Results: Cost-effectiveness analysis supported value-based prices for etelcalcetide ranging from $21.15–$49.97/mg vs cinacalcet, and $13.79–$119.45/mg vs no calcimimetics.

Limitations: There is uncertainty around what the real-world dosing will be for etelcalcetide. Another important nuance is that no studies have examined etelcalcetide effects on hard outcomes and, therefore, this modeling exercise relied on an extrapolation approach.

Conclusions: This cost-effectiveness analysis, including scenarios to address uncertainties, allowed estimation of a value-based price range to aid reimbursement decisions in the US.     

Goal‐efficacy framework: an examination of domestic and international accounting students' academic performance

This study considers the psychological influences on academic performance using a goal‐efficacy framework. Data were gathered using a survey questionnaire (N = 375). The paper is motivated by a repeated high failure rate for a second‐year core accounting unit and anecdotal evidence that international students perform poorly in comparison with domestic students. The results demonstrate the role of self‐regulated learning strategy as a mediating variable for goal orientation and academic performance. While the analyses suggest no significant differences between domestic and international students with respect to the main psychological variables and academic performance, further analyses reveal that four specific factors of the main psychological variables are significantly different between domestic and international students.     

A Joint Framework for Analysis of Agri-Environmental Payment Programs

This article presents an approach for simultaneously estimating farmers' decisions to accept incentive payments in return for adopting a bundle of environmentally benign best management practices. Using the results of a multinomial probit analysis of surveys of over 1,000 farmers facing five adoption decisions in a voluntary program, we show how the farmers' perceptions of the desirability of various bundles change with the offer amounts and with which practices are offered in the bundle. We also demonstrate an estimator for the mean minimum willingness to accept for the adoption of a practice conditional on the cost share offers for other practices.     

Specialized new graduate RN critical care orientation: retention and financial impact

New graduate RN retention in the first year of employment is a challenge for hospitals, ranging from a low of 25% to a high of 64%. he objectives of this study were to determine the retention and costs associated with the employment of new graduate RNs before and after the initiation of a specialized year-long critical care orientation program. Retention was compared between two independent groups of graduate RNs in the critical care units of two tertiary hospitals in a multi-hospital health care system in metropolitan New York. The major study findings were a significant difference in retention between the two groups at 3 months, 9 months, and 12 months, and an annual financial savings related to decreased nursing turnover. Specialized orientation programs that support new graduate RNs have documented increased retention and decreased turnover. Health care finances are positively impacted by specialized orientation programs.     

Accounting for human rights: Doxic health and safety practices – The accounting lesson from ICL

This paper is concerned with a specific human right – the right to work in a safe environment. It sets out a case for developing a new form of account of health and safety in any organisational setting. It draws upon the theoretical insights of Pierre Bourdieu taking inspiration from his assertion that in order to understand the “logic” of the worlds we live in we need to immerse ourselves into the particularity of an empirical reality. In this case the paper, analyses a preventable industrial disaster which occurred in Glasgow, Scotland which killed nine people¹ and injured 33 others. The paper unearths the underlying structures of symbolic violence of the UK State, the Health and Safety Executive and capital with respect to health and safety at work in the case. While dealing with one specific country (Scotland) and arguably an anomalous event we contend that Bourdieu's objective of constructing a special case of what is possible can equally be used to question health and safety regimes and other forms of symbolic violence across the globe.

Bourdieu (1998, p. 2) “My entire scientific enterprise is indeed based upon the belief that the deepest logic of the social world can be grasped only if one plunges into the particularity of an empirical reality, historically located and dated, but with the objective of constructing it as a “special case of what is possible,” as Bachelard puts it, that is, as an exemplary case in a finite world of possible configurations.