Comparison of hospital length of stay and hospitalization costs among patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation treated with apixaban or warfarin: An early view

Objective: To quantify and compare hospital length of stay (LOS) and costs between hospitalized non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients treated with either apixaban or warfarin via a large claims database.

Methods: Adult patients hospitalized with AF were selected from the Premier Perspective Claims Database (01JAN2013-31MARCH2014). Patients with evidence of valvular heart disease, valve replacement procedures, or pregnancy during the index hospitalization were excluded. Patients treated with apixaban or warfarin during hospitalization were identified. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to control for baseline imbalances between patients treated with apixaban or warfarin. Primary outcomes were hospital LOS (days), post-medication administration LOS, and index hospitalization costs, and were compared using paired t-tests in the matched sample.

Results: Before PSM, 2894 apixaban and 124,174 warfarin patients were identified. Patients treated with warfarin were older and sicker compared to those treated with apixaban. After applying PSM, a total of 2886 patients were included in each cohort, and baseline characteristics were balanced. The mean (standard deviation [SD] and median) hospital LOS was significantly (p?=?0.002) shorter for patients treated with apixaban for 5.1 days (5.7 and 3) compared to warfarin for 5.5 days (4.8 and 4). The trend appeared consistent in the hospital LOS from point of apixaban or warfarin administration to discharge (4.5 vs 4.7 days, p?=?0.051). Patients administered apixaban incurred significantly lower hospitalization costs compared to those administered warfarin ($11,262 vs $12,883; p?<?0.001).

Conclusions: Among NVAF patients, apixaban treatment was associated with significantly shorter hospital LOS and lower costs when compared to warfarin treatment.     

SALCUSTOR: A Multidimensional Scale for Salespersons’ Customer Orientation and Implications for Customer-Oriented Selling: Empirical Evidence From India

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have highlighted the limitations in the applicability of the selling-versus-customer orientation scale as a measure of a salesperson's customer orientation. Therefore, few scholars call for new research on identifying the underlying dimensions of customer-oriented selling and for developing a new scale. This study provides a new conceptualization of a salesperson's customer orientation and develops and validates a multidimensional scale to measure it. This scale, SALCUSTOR, uses multiple samples of data from salespersons from India. SALCUSTOR assesses the degree to which a salesperson (a) provides relevant and correct information to his/her customers, (b) understands and learns the underlying needs of the customers, and (c) maintains relationships with customers and thinks about their long-term benefits. We establish the reliability, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of SALCUSTOR. Managers can use SALCUSTOR to identify specific gaps in the three dimensions of customer-oriented selling behaviors of the salespersons, using appropriate intervention strategies.     

The In-House Advertising Agency

This study attempts a comparative analysis of advertisers with in-house agency vs. those using an independent advertising agency. Issues under consideration are:

1. The relationship between the advertisers and the advertising agency.

2. Advertiser's satisfaction with the compensation system, i.e., 15% commission.

3. Evaluation of advertising agency performance, i.e., creative media buying, and other services.

4. The importance of advertising to the company's marketing mix.     

An approach to detecting plagiarism in spreadsheet assignments: A digital answer to digital cheating

Accounting instructors often experience frustration when confronted by plagiarism in student assignments. Also, they face difficulty verifying and proving cases of plagiarism. Students have increasingly found it easier to plagiarize assignments because of digitization in education. Instructors face an important pedagogical challenge due to digitization based plagiarism. Digitization, however, provides instructors with tools to address this issue. This paper showcases three tried and tested methods built into spreadsheet software to identify and detect plagiarism in spreadsheet based assignments. The first method is a manual method of hiding unique markers in files sent to students. The second method involves hiding a formula that can track plagiarism in more detail. The third method uses a program code to track issues related to authorship of assignments. These methods along with a compiled list of strategies discussed in this paper can help reduce plagiarism.     

Herding behaviour in the Chinese and Indian stock markets

The existence of herding behaviour challenges the validity of the “efficient market hypothesis”. This study examines herding behaviour in the Chinese and Indian stock markets; our findings suggest that herding behaviour exists in both. The level of herding depends on market conditions. In the Chinese market, herding behaviour is greater when the market is falling and the trading volume is high. On the other hand, in India the study finds that it occurs during up-swings in market conditions. Herding behaviour is more prevalent during large market movements in both markets. In relative terms, a lower prevalence of herding behaviour was detected in the Indian stock market.     

Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey

This study surveys the literature on the relationship between international trade and economic growth, and succinctly reviews the role of GATT/WTO in fostering free trade. Most studies support the gains of trade and recognise the substantive contributions of GATT/WTO in fostering free trade; the evidence is, however, not ubiquitously unambiguous. The macroeconomic evidence provides a dominant support for the positive and significant effects of trade on output and growth, while the microeconomic evidence lends larger support to the exogenous effects of productivity on trade, as compared to the effects of trade on productivity. The GATT/WTO remains surrounded by barriers to trade and avowed preferences for preferential trade agreements. The strength of the argument for the gains of trade needs to be evaluated in juxtaposition with several methodological and measurement issues that surround the trade‐growth empirics. Most studies focus on partial equilibrium analysis of trade policy and ignore the general equilibrium aspects of macroeconomic policy. It is difficult to disentangle the effects of trade policies from those of other macroeconomic policies and unequivocally interpret the observed correlations between trade policies and economic growth. Trade is one of the several catalysts of productivity and growth and hence its contribution is contingent on its weight in economic activity.     

Multi‐faceted feedback for organisational heads for self and organisational development: experiences of school principals in India

The design and use of multi‐faceted feedback as a developmental tool for organisational heads is the focus of this paper. A customised feedback instrument was designed for school principals to enable assessment by self and various stakeholders. The instrument was designed to assess principals’ administrative, managerial and leadership competencies and school policies and systems that are designed, regulated, supervised and/or controlled by the principal. The multi‐faceted feedback made it possible to provide a comparison of principals’ own evaluation of their efficacy with reference to that of the relevant stakeholders. The feedback received is analysed and interpreted to aid in the preparation of a developmental plan for future action. Insights obtained from this experience are used to discuss issues in the use, design and administration of multi‐faceted feedback for organisational heads. The underlining concern is to fine‐tune each aspect of the feedback process to maximise gains for the receiver of the feedback and the organisation.     

On the flow of funds accounts and inter-sectoral mobility of capital in India

This study uses the flow of funds accounts framework and undertakes an in-depth analysis of the inter-sectoral mobility of capital in India. Unlike previous studies, the FH model is estimated at the sectoral level using annual data for the period 1950–51 to 2012–13. The model estimated in one-regime setting with no structural break provides a weak and mixed support and that estimated in a sample-split setting with a single structural break provides no support for the presence of a long-run relationship between saving and investment for all the sectors. In contrast, the model estimated with multiple structural breaks provides dominant support for the presence of cointegration between saving and investment for all the sectors. The end-of-sample cointegration breakdown tests suggest the breakdowns of cointegration between saving and investment in all the sub-sample periods for the household and PCB sectors, but not for the public sector. The FOF accounts could be used to monitor the borrowing and lending operations of both financial and non-financial sectors and to identify any deformities in the system. The regulatory and supervisory policies need to be put in place promptly to resolve the identified deformities at their early stages, before they magnify and make the entire system dysfunctional.