The economic burden of depression among adults with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States

Aims: Depression is the most frequent comorbidity reported among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Comorbid depression negatively impacts RA patients’ health-related quality-of-life, physical function, mental function, mortality, and experience of pain and symptom severity. The objective of this study was to assess healthcare utilization, expenditures, and work productivity among patients with RA with or without depression.

Materials and methods: Data from adult patients who had at least two visits each related to RA and depression over a 1-year period were extracted from the Truven Health MarketScan research databases. Outcomes comprised healthcare resource utilization, work productivity loss, and direct healthcare costs comparing patients with RA with depression (n?=?3,478) vs patients with RA without depression (n?=?43,222).

Results: Patients with RA and depression had a significantly greater relative risk of hospitalization and number of all-cause and RA-related hospitalizations, utilization of emergency services, days spent in the hospital, physician visits, and RA-related surgeries compared with RA patients without depression. Patients with RA and depression had a higher risk of and experienced more events and days of short-term disability compared with patients without depression. The incremental adjusted annual all-cause and RA-related direct costs were $8,488 (95% CI = $6,793–$10,223) and $578 (95% CI = –$98–$1,243), respectively, when comparing patients with RA and depression vs RA only.

Limitations: The current analysis is subject to the known limitations of retrospective studies based on administrative claims data.

Conclusions: This study suggested increased healthcare utilization, work productivity loss, and economic burden among RA patients due to comorbid depression. These findings emphasize the importance of managing depression and including depression as a factor when devising treatment algorithms for patients with RA.     

Complex Network of Aviation E-Services in the Belt and Road Initiative: A Heuristic Study of Small Data based on Block Modeling

ABSTRACT

The aviation e-service system is an important part of support for business communication in regions covered by Belt and Road initiative. In exploring the role of airline companies in this system, we examine the structure of the network, which consists of airlines interconnections based on small data of individual attributes of aviation companies in aviation e-services, and study these interconnections across different groups using block modeling. The heuristic solution of airline companies in development of international communication and cooperation is further discussed. Among our policy implications for global managers, we suggest the enhancement of cross-regional cooperation among airlines.     

我国“一带一路”沿线地区风险投资时空分布及影响因素研究

深入分析我国“一带一路”沿线地区风险投资时空格局及影响因素，有助于促进创新创业与企业发展、提高区域科技创新水平。运用空间分析方法和空间计量模型，对2003-2018年我国“一带一路”沿线139个城市风险投资的时空分布特征及影响因素进行分析，结果表明：①沿线地区的风险投资发展具有不均衡性，呈现为沿海高、西部低的分异格局；②风险投资的全局自相关系数均为正，呈现出明显的空间集聚特征；③风险投资机构数、国家高新区数量、风险投资退出、政府引导基金发展、财政科技支出对区域风险投资具有显著促进作用，环境污染对风险投资有一定抑制作用。随着ESG投资理念逐渐获得认可，沿线地区可以通过提升绿色发展水平促进风险投资发展。     

Board directors with foreign experience and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of board directors with foreign experience (BDFEs) on stock price crash risk. We find that BDFEs help reduce crash risk. This association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including a firm fixed effects model, controlling for possibly omitted variables, and instrumental variable estimations. Moreover, we find that the negative association between BDFEs and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with more agency problems, weaker corporate governance, and less overall transparency. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of board directors matter in determining stock price crash risk.     

智能制造有利于增加企业技术创新投入吗——基于智能制造试点的准自然实验

智能制造是我国制造业转型升级的主攻方向,而如何准确客观评价智能制造的实施效果成为亟待解决的问题.从技术创新投入视角,将智能制造试点政策实施视为一次准自然实验,采用2011-2019年制造业上市企业面板数据,通过PSM-DID方法研究智能制造对企业技术创新投入的影响.研究结果表明,智能制造显著影响企业技术创新投入,即通过提升客户集成度、供应商集成度进而提高企业技术创新投入,且促进作用仅发生在民营企业和非高新技术行业中.该发现扩展了现有研究外延,同时,为解决当前国际困局和促进智能制造的持续推广提供了重要实践价值.     

(Under)Mining local residential property values: A semiparametric spatial quantile autoregression

Rock mining operations, including limestone and gravel production, have considerable adverse effects on residential quality of life due to elevated noise and dust levels resulting from dynamite blasting and increased truck traffic. This paper provides the first estimates of the effects of rock mining—an environmental disamenity—on local residential property values. We focus on the relationship between a house's price and its distance from a nearby rock mine. Our analysis studies Delaware County, Ohio, which, given its unique features, provides a natural environment for the valuation of property‐value‐suppressing effects of rock mines on nearby houses. We improve upon the conventional approach to evaluating adverse effects of environmental disamenities based on hedonic house price functions. Specifically, in the pursuit of robust estimates, we develop a novel (semiparametric) partially linear spatial quantile autoregressive model which accommodates unspecified nonlinearities, distributional heterogeneity, as well as spatial dependence in the data. We derive the consistency and normality limit results for our estimator as well as propose a consistent model specification test. We find statistically and economically significant property‐value‐suppressing effects of being located near an operational rock mine which gradually decline to insignificant near‐zero values at roughly a 10‐mile distance. Our estimates suggest that, all else equal, a house located a mile closer to a rock mine is priced, on average, at about 2.3–5.1% discount, with more expensive properties being subject to larger markdowns.     

Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.     

基于社会服务的示范性高职院校师资队伍建设——以广东农工商职业技术学院为例

服务是高职院校的第一宗旨,而社会服务能力的高低关键在于示范院校师资队伍建设。该文从广东农工商职业技术学院社会服务能力的实际情况出发,分析了该院师资队伍建设存在的问题,认为,首先应通过体制创新,提高教师社会服务意识;其次通过不同途径打造"双师型"教师团队,从而提升教师社会服务能力。     

产研协同提高创新链整体效能的新探索 ——基于新型科研机构的考察

我国国家创新系统和公共研发体系在应对当前国际竞争中发挥了巨大作用,但也暴露出在基础研究—应用研究—试验开发创新链过度分工问题,使各创新主体脱节.定位于工业研究院的新型科研机构,在创新组织和成果转化中正在逐渐显露出独特的优势,成为提高创新链整体效能的重要突破口.中国科学院深圳先进技术研究院以科学技术为枢纽、以产业协同为触媒的"渡船模式",通过协同创新克服科研与产业之间的缺失环节,成为贯通创新链、提高创新链整体效能的有效路径之一.     

C++对象布局分析

分析了目前最为流行的面向对象的开发工具C 的对象布局，并进一步分析了其形成原因。