The clinical and economic burden of significant bleeding during lung resection surgery: A retrospective matched cohort analysis of real-world data

Objectives: The objective of this retrospective study was to quantify the clinical and economic burden of significant bleeding in lung resection surgery in the US.

Methods: This study utilized 2009–2012 data from the Premier Perspective Database^TM. Adult patients with primary pulmonary lobectomy or segmentectomy procedures were categorized by the surgical approach (VATS vs open) and primary diagnosis (primary or metastatic lung cancer vs non-lung cancer). Patients requiring ≥3 units of blood products with at least 1 unit of PRBCs: “significant bleeding” cohort; those requiring <3 units: “non-significant bleeding” cohort; and those not requiring blood products: “no bleeding” cohort. A matched cohort analysis was performed between the “significant bleeding” and the “no bleeding cohort” using matching variables: hospital, lung cancer diagnosis, year of surgery, APR-DRG severity score, procedure type and approach, age, and gender.

Results: The “All-patient” cohort comprised 21,429 patients: 213 “significant bleeding”; 2,780 “non-significant bleeding”; and 18,436 “no bleeding”. Overall incidence of significant chest bleeding was 0.99%. Patients from “significant bleeding” cohort and “non-significant bleeding” cohort had 2.5 days and 2 days (p?p?Conclusions: Although significant bleeding during lung resection surgery is rare, patients with such complication could stay longer at the hospital and cost an average of $13,103 more than those without.     

Terror attacks and stock-market fluctuations: evidence based on a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test for the G7 countries

We use a novel nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test to study the effects of terror attacks on stock-market returns and volatility in G7 countries. We also use the novel test to study the international repercussions of terror attacks. Test results show that terror attacks often have significant effects on returns, whereas the effect on volatility is significant only for Japan and the UK for several quantiles above the median. The effects on returns in many cases become stronger in terms of significance for the upper and lower quantiles of the conditional distribution of stock-market returns. As for international repercussions, we find that terror attacks mainly affect the tails of the conditional distribution of stock-market returns. We find no evidence of a significant cross-border effects of terror attacks on stock-market volatility, where again Japan and the UK are exceptions as far as terror attacks on the US are concerned. Finally, our results continue to hold following various robustness checks involving model structure, lag-lengths and possible omitted variable bias.     

The French first employment contract: efficient screening device or Kleenex contract?

The controversial novelty in the French Labor Law reform, withdrawn in April 2006, was a contract form under which employers could dismiss young workers on probation without justification. Proponents argued that the reform would improve screening and boost employment whereas opponents dubbed it the “Kleenex contract.” We show that the new contract can produce an incentive to dismiss even suitable workers but that this harmful effect could be mitigated by instituting public ratings of firms according to their propensity to dismiss young workers. Informed workers could then respond to job offers according to firms’ layoff records, which in turn would restore promotion incentives and efficient screening.      

Effects of comparative advertising format on consumer responses: The moderating effects of brand image and attribute relevance

In this research we distinguish between ads that compare two different brands (Across-Brand Comparison or ABC ads) and those that compare different versions of the same brand (Within-Brand Comparison or WBC ads). Results from an experiment indicate that when comparative ads use attributes that are relevant to product performance, ad type and brand image interact such that an ABC ad leads to less favorable consumer perceptions than a WBC ad when image of the sponsor brand is low but not when it is high. However, when the ads use attributes that are irrelevant to product performance an ABC ad leads to less favorable consumer outcomes than a WBC ad, regardless of the image of the sponsor brand. We further propose and show that ad believability mediates these effects. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed and directions for future research are provided.     

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure on Financial Performance: Evidence from the GCC Islamic Banking Sector

We examine corporate governance diversity within a Coasian framework of stakeholder rights, where the central role of governance is to ensure that necessary firm-specific investments are made. This Coasian perspective on stakeholder theory offers a unifying framework towards a global theory of comparative corporate governance, bridging the gap between economic theories of the firm and stakeholder theory, also offering an economics-based alternative to agency theory that explicitly accounts for stakeholder rights. The Coasian perspective encompasses a diversity of corporate governance systems, but does not imply a unique global corporate governance benchmark. We posit that governance is firm dependent and endogenous conditional on the constraints imposed by a national governance system; consequently, there should be no systematic relationship between governance and firm performance once the national constraints are controlled for. However, the same national corporate governance system constraints confer comparative advantages to firms whose efficient levels of firm-specific investments are favored.     

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND EMPLOYMENT IN DERIVED LABOUR DEMAND MODELS: A HIERARCHICAL META‐REGRESSION ANALYSIS

The effect of technological innovation on employment is of major concern for workers and their unions, policy makers and academic researchers. We meta‐analyse 570 estimates from 35 primary studies that estimate a derived labour demand model. We contribute to existing attempts at evidence synthesis by addressing the risks of selection bias and that of data dependence in observational studies. Our findings indicate that: (i) hierarchical meta‐regression models are sufficiently versatile for addressing both selection bias and data dependence in observational data; (ii) innovation's effect on employment is positive but small and highly heterogeneous; (iii) only a small part of residual heterogeneity is explained by moderating factors; (iv) selection bias tends to reflect preference for upholding prevalent hypotheses on the employment effects of process and product innovations; (v) country‐specific effect‐size estimates are related to labour market and product market regulation in six OECD countries in a U‐shaped fashion; and (vi) OLS estimates reflect upward bias whereas those based on time‐differenced or within estimators reflect a downward bias. Our findings point out to a range of data quality and modelling issues that should be addressed in future research.     

Development of education rights for disabled children in Northern Cyprus and evaluation of grants for their families

This paper focuses on the evaluation of education rights of disabled children and grants for families to foster social integration. In this respect, it is essential to conduct a research to set situation analysis on the social inclusion and development for equal life. Qualitative research nature was conducted in order to understand perceptions and experiences on current situation on rights and possible ideas for further development. In this respect, research study revealed that there is an intensified need to conduct project and studies to enhance rights and education facilities of disabled children and services for their families.

     

On exchange-rate movements and gold-price fluctuations: evidence for gold-producing countries from a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test

The links between exchange-rate movements and gold-price fluctuations have been extensively studied in earlier research using various econometric techniques. Our contribution to this research is that we apply a novel nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test to study the causal links between exchange-rate movements and gold-price fluctuations. We use daily data for the sample period 1994–2015 for major gold-producing countries to illustrate the novel test. We find that, for the majority of countries, gold-price fluctuations help to predict in sample the returns and the volatility of exchange rates. While exchange-rate movements predict in sample gold volatility, they do not predict gold returns.     

Food safety attitudes and practices of chefs in Cappadocia region,Turkey

ABSTRACT

Chefs working at hotels, restaurants, and public institutions play a major role in food safety. The aim of this study is to explore attitudes and practices regarding food safety issues among chefs in the Cappadocia region, Turkey. The data was collected using a convenience sampling method of the non-probability sampling technique. The survey was conducted between the period of September 2018 and November 2018, and 108 chefs working at hotels, restaurants, and public institutions participated. The data were analyzed using frequencies, exploratory factor analysis, independent sample t-test, ANOVA, correlation, and simple linear regression analyses. Most of the chefs (79.6%) had taken a basic food safety training course. The findings reveal that there are statistically significant (p < .05) differences between groups: (a) demographics and attitudes, and (b) demographics and practices. The findings also show that there is a significant (p < .05) and positive correlation (r = 0.48) between the attitudes and practices of chefs. This study posits that food safety trained chefs have higher scores in terms of both attitudes and practices than those who have not received. It is recommended that all chefs should be encouraged to attend food safety training programs. Practical and academic implications are discussed in detail.     

Long memory,economic policy uncertainty and forecasting US inflation: a Bayesian VARFIMA approach

We compare inflation forecasts of a vector autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average (VARFIMA) model against standard forecasting models. U.S. inflation forecasts improve when controlling for persistence and economic policy uncertainty (EPU). Importantly, the VARFIMA model, comprising of inflation and EPU, outperforms commonly used inflation forecast models.