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.     

Sources of Productivity Growth Dynamics: Is Japan Suffering From Baumol's Growth Disease?

This study examines the sources of labor productivity growth dynamics in Japan (1970–2010) and investigates the extent to which Japanese economic performance has been affected by Baumol's growth disease (BGD). We find that BGD silently undermines Japanese economic growth. However, the magnitude is miniscule, and consequently the aggregate labor productivity growth rate has not been decreasing monotonically. We also explore how BGD is arising and why it is small in the Japanese economy. BGD is weak because (1) the positive Baumol growth effect is also working in certain services sectors and (2) BGD is not a durable phenomenon: even if a sector begins to suffer from BGD, it is likely to recover quickly.     

COMPARING PPP WITH TRADITIONAL PROCUREMENT: THE CASE OF SCHOOLS PROCUREMENT IN IRELAND

Advocates of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) argue that they can deliver public infrastructure more efficiently than traditional procurement through timelier completion and superior value for money. Despite these claims comparative analysis of the performance of both procurement methods has received scant attention in the PPP literature to date. This paper addresses this issue by providing an in‐depth, case‐based comparison of PPP versus traditional procurement in the schools sector in Ireland. Through detailed semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders and an examination of the available documentation, we assess whether the key objectives of using PPP have been achieved. Overall, we find no evidence that PPP leads to faster delivery of infrastructure when the overall procurement process from contract notice to delivery is accounted for. In addition, we find only limited evidence to suggest that PPP results in better value for money.     

Identifying “best” applicants in recruiting using data envelopment analysis

Selecting the most promising candidates to fill an open position can be a difficult task when there are many applicants. Each applicant achieves certain performance levels in various categories and the resulting information can be overwhelming. We demonstrate how data envelopment analysis (DEA) can be used as a fair screening and sorting tool to support the candidate selection and decision-making process. Each applicant is viewed as an entity with multiple achievements. Without any a priori preference or information on the multiple achievements, DEA identifies the non-dominated solutions, which, in our case, represent the “best” candidates. A DEA-aided recruiting process was developed that (1) determines the performance levels of the “best” candidates relative to other applicants; (2) evaluates the degree of excellence of “best” candidates’ performance; (3) forms consistent tradeoff information on multiple recruiting criteria among search committee members, and, then, (4) clusters the applicants.     

Negotiation support using the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution

The Graph Model for Conflict Resolution is a flexible methodology for systematically studying strategic conflicts in the real world, and is therefore a natural tool for negotiation support. The basic definitions underlying the graph model are reviewed, and the techniques for analysis and interpretation are discussed. The modeling and analysis of a case study, an international trade negotiation concerning the export of Canadian softwood lumber to the United States, are used to demonstrate the practical application of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution as a negotiation support tool. The modeling and analysis is carried out using the GMCR software system. The ability of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution to provide insights and advice to negotiators is emphasized.     

Firm ownership and internal labour practices in a transition economy

One feature common to many post‐socialist transition economies is a relatively compressed wage structure in the state‐owned sector. We conjecture that this compressed wage structure creates weak incentives for work effort and worker skill acquisition and thus presents adverse consequences for the entire transition economy if a substantial portion of the labour force works in the state sector. We explore firm wage incentives and worker training, as well as other labour practices and outcomes, in a transition setting with matched firm and worker data collected in one of the largest provinces of Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese state sector exhibits a compressed wage distribution in relation to privately owned firms with foreign ownership. State wage practices stress tenure over worker productivity and their wage policies result in flatter wage–experience profiles and lower returns to education. The state work force is in greater need of formal training, a need that is in part met through direct government financing. In spite of the opportunities for government financed training and at least partly due to inefficient worker incentives, state firms, by certain measures, exhibit lower levels of labour productivity. The private sector comparison group to state firms for all of these findings is foreign owned firms. The internal labour practices of foreign firms are more consistent with a view of profit‐maximizing firms operating with no political constraints. This is not the case for Vietnamese de novo private firms that exhibit much more idiosyncratic behaviour and whose labour practices are often indistinguishable from state firms. The exact reasons for this remain a topic of on‐going research yet we conjecture that various private sector constraints, including limited access to formal capital, play an important role.     

小学生体型特征及其随年龄变化规律

该文对嘉兴市6个年级共600个小学生的人体测量数据，进行了统计分析，探讨了男女小学生体型随年龄变化的规律。     

各向异性厚板固有频率的精确解

该文抛弃薄板理论的位移和应力假设，利用矩阵分析和三维弹性动力学理论，导出四边简支各向异性厚板的固有频率方程。该方法可推广应用于各向异性层合板动力分析。     

教育产权概念解析

文章在分析教育产权客观存在的基础上,对教育产权的含义和内容进行了分析。文章认为,教育产权是参与教育活动的组织和个人围绕教育财产而形成的一组权利关系。从内容上看,教育产权是包括对教育财产的狭义所有权或归属权、占有权、使用权、收益权,以及处分权在内的权利集合。     

辽宁省农产品电子商务发展对策分析

文章运用SWOT方法分析了辽宁省农产品电子商务的应用现状，运用SPSS软件进行了电子商务与第一产业关系的实证研究，并在此基础上提出了有针对性的对策建议。