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.     

严寒地区高速铁路混凝土基床聚氨酯保温特性试验研究

基于严寒区京沈客专朝阳试验段路基基床的温度监测资料分析,研究不同厚度聚氨酯保温板对高速铁路路基混凝土基床温度变化特性影响.测试结果表明:①铺设聚氨酯保温板能够有效阻断严寒区环境与路基基床间的热量传递,保温效果与板厚相关;②地温大多数时间呈阳高阴低现象,同时阴、阳坡路基温差波动幅度随埋深逐渐减小;③基床表层阴、阳面各测点的温度变化起始时间一致,而阴面的冻结时间比阳面晚一个月.由此表明,保温板能够有效降低环境与混凝土道床之间的热交换,但是对路基阴、阳坡的影响存在差异.建议在严寒地区高速铁路路基阳、阴坡可以采取不同厚度的聚氨酯保温板,减小阴阳坡地温差异,保持季冻土路基温度变化稳定.     

20kV及以下配电网工程造价的确定与有效控制方法分析

随着我国电网逐渐向智能电网迈进,信息技术在电能传输、转换、分配、调度等方面的应用,使电力企业可以进行结构调整,提高电力系统管理水平。据统计,2011年,我国电力信息化投资达220亿元,2012-2015年,电力工程建设稳步推进。为了促进电力企业全面开展项目成本核算和有效控制,提高电力工程项目的效益,确定了典型方案设计模块,通过定额规则库与典型方案设计相匹配的方法,解决了安装过程中定额第一版遗留的一些问题,并通过设计选型等措施加强了成本控制。     

LT码新型度分布及其在电力线通信中的应用

Luby变换(Luby Transform,LT)码作为信道编码应用于电力线通信(Power Line Communication,PLC)，可实现电信号的可靠传输。度分布对LT码编译码性能的影响至关重要。为了得到更优的度分布，首先调整二进制指数分布(Binary Exponential Distribution,BED)中的度数比例，获得一种译码性能更优的改进的二进制指数分布(Improved BED,IBED)。然后，根据IBED在冗余度较小时译码成功率高，而冗余度增大后鲁棒孤子分布(Robust Soliton Distribution,RSD)的译码性能表现更佳的特点，通过求和归一化的方式将IBED与RSD两种度分布的优势进行有机结合，提出一种新型二进制鲁棒孤子分布(Binary RSD,BRSD)。仿真结果表明，与其他方法及传统的RSD相比，采用新度分布进行LT编码，可明显降低译码开销，并节约编译码耗时。将新型度分布应用于基于LT码的PLC系统中，能有效地抑制PLC信道中各种噪声对电信号的干扰，并提高通信效率。     

Discussion on the Benefits Distributing Structure in Village Land Deal

According to everyone average welfare value of land resources; this paper constitutes the base line of glebe usufruct deal value by analyzing the factors, which are affecting glebe usufruct deal value. Having adopted share＇s quotient of ownership and contracting power, the paper erects assigning mechanism to the income of glebe deal. Because of the share dynarnicity being adopted which shows the flexible strong points, the shares of ownership and contracting power avoid many unnecessary otiose disputes on income of glebe deal, adding the stability to the glebe usufruct deal. It is beneficial to the freedom flow and validity manufacture factor installment and also to the nonagricultural changing course.     

改进后的PERT方法在进度风险分析中的应用

风险分析是进度控制中的重要内容。针对经典PERT网络的假设和计算过程,分析出它存在的三方面缺陷。并提出解决问题的三种具体措施,从概率论与数理统计的角度,对关键线路和关键工作进行了重新定义和确定的方法。     

对我国上市银行非经常性损益披露的分析和建议

本文通过分析2001至2004年上市银行年报非经常性损益的披露状况,对照监管部门法规,发现存在披露不充分的现象,对非经常性损益的确认也有理解偏颇,由此造成很多重大的可疑事项未计入非经常性损益。本文认为这对银行利润的真实性产生一定的影响,故建议政策制定者制定更详细的法规来规范披露行为,并就一些特殊事项做出释疑。     

旅行社的旅游线路优化设置问题探讨

尽管在旅游线路的设计过程中需要解决的问题很多,但从优化的角度而言,如何设计出一条能实现出发地与目的地间的最短路径目标,便是其中的最为关键性的一个问题。由于不同的交通方式的不同组合能对应着不同的路程、时间与成本问题,因而,如何通过有效的选择来形成最佳的旅游线路也就有了相当的必要性。此外,在旅游线路设计与安排过程中,旅行社除了要合理安排和规划旅游线路的长度以力求不走回头路、不走冤枉路和形成有效的闭合回路外,还需充分考虑到其中的线路在时间安排上的合理问题;否则,再好的线路安排也会失去其内在的价值与影响力。     

Learning across the life cycle: Experimentation and performance among the hollywood studio heads

Guided by notions from the literature on organizational learning, this paper investigates how product line experimentation and organizational performance change across the careers of top managers. Its subjects are the studio heads who ran all the major Hollywood film studios from 1936 to 1965. The study found first, that product line experimentation declines over the course of executive tenures; second, that there is an inverse U‐shaped relationship between top executive tenure and an organization's financial performance; and third, that product line experimentation is more likely to benefit financial performance late in top executives' tenures. These findings are consistent with a three‐stage ‘executive life cycle’. During the early years of their tenures, top managers experiment intensively with their product lines to learn about their business; later on their accumulated knowledge allows them to reduce experimentation and increase performance; finally, in their last years, executives reduce experimentation still further, and performance declines. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On estimating the mean of the selected normal population under the LINEX loss function

Following Parsian and Farsipour (1999), we consider the problem of estimating the mean of the selected normal population, from two normal populations with unknown means and common known variance, under the LINEX loss function. Some admissibility results for a subclass of equivariant estimators are derived and a sufficient condition for the inadmissibility of an arbitrary equivariant estimator is provided. As a consequence, several of the estimators proposed by Parsian and Farsipour (1999) are shown to be inadmissible and better estimators are obtained. Received January 2001/Revised May 2002