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Empirical studies on operation costs and financial performances of dialysis service providers in Taiwan
No full text本論文主要探討影響台灣血液透析服務供應商營運成本與財務績效的主要因素，全文包含兩個章節。第一章先以台灣某大型連鎖血液透析集團所提供的內部營運資料，來探討影響血液透析成本的因素（成本動因）。研究方法採用複回歸模型，應變數為總醫療變動成本，自變數則強調管理相關的成本動因，同時控制臨床治療項目、病患特性與醫療品質。實證的結果發現，血液透析的醫療成本會受到管理因素的影響，尤其是產能利用率、醫師持股率與透析中心的地理位置等三項。而其它控制變數中的臨床治療項目與病患特性，則跟過去文獻的發現相似，也對成本具有影響。此發現將有助於血液透析集團的經營者釐清什麼是重要的成本動因，得以進行有效的成本管控。同時本研究之結果，也讓透析中心瞭解病患特性的差異，將會影響到經營的利潤。最後，對於醫療與健康保險的決策者（健保局）而言，則該注意在現有的給付制度下，透析中心基於營運成本的考量，難保不會出現挑選病患的可能，因此必須建立適當的監控機制去預防這個問題。
第二章則進一步討論醫療服務品質與血液透析中心財務績效的關連性，藉由此分析掌握在現有健保給付制度下，驅動透析中心獲利的主要品質因素。關於醫療服務品質，本文同時採用主觀（利用問卷取之病患滿意度）與客觀（三項血液檢驗）兩類指標。研究樣本包含492位來自10家透析中心的病患。研究方法採用複回歸分析，除以兩類品質指標為主要之自變數外，同時包含治療項目與病患特性作為控制變數。研究結果發現，只有主觀的病患滿意度與財務績效具有顯著正向關連，而客觀的血液檢驗則與財務績效無關。因此現有給付政策下，透析中心將無誘因去提升客觀品質指標。而對透析集團的經營者來說，持續監控所屬透析心中的病患滿意度，並提供適當的行政支援，為當前管理上的重要課題。此外，在病患滿意度的不同構面中，以對醫師專業能力的滿意最能驅動財務績效，故需視為改善滿意度的最優先項目。The main purpose of the dissertation is to discuss operation costs and financial performances of dialysis service providers in Taiwan from a management accounting perspective. There are two independent chapters in the study.
Chapter 1 (pp. 5-38) analyzes factors influencing dialysis costs (i.e., cost drivers) using administrative data obtained from a large renal clinic chain in Taiwan. We use multiple linear regression analysis to examine factors that influence costs of dialysis. Specifically, the cost under investigation is total variable costs for medical treatments. We examine how cost drivers related to managerial incentives affect medical costs in dialysis by controlling for factors associated with medical treatments, patient characteristics and medical qualities. Our results indicate that treatment costs of dialysis are influenced by managerial factors such as capacity utilization rate, physicians’ shares holding rate, and location of clinics. Consistent with prior literature, cost drivers associated with medical treatments and patient characteristics also affect the medical variable costs. The findings help renal clinics identify areas important to cost control. In addition, our refined cost analysis help clinic better understand profitability resulting from differences in patient profiles. Finally, our findings suggest that health regulators should be cautious about that the dialysis providers may tend to reject costly patients and should establish appropriate monitoring mechanisms accordingly.
Chapter 2 (pp. 39-80) investigates the relationship between health service quality and financial performances of dialysis providers (i.e. renal clinics) to help dialysis providers clarify how quality drives profitability under Taiwan’s National Health Insurance. In our analysis, we employ two types of quality measures, i.e., subjective (four factors of patient satisfaction which are collected by questionnaires) and objective (three biochemical examinations) indicators. Data provided by the sample company consist of 492 patients from 10 different clinics. We use the regression analysis to examine how quality factors influence financial performance of the dialysis clinics by also controlling for other relevant variables. Our results indicate that only subjective measures are positively related to profits while objective measures are not. Thus, renal clinics may not have incentives to invest in clinical quality that bears no financial returns. Concerning financial management, the chain company should focus on patient satisfaction supervision and related administrative supports. In particular, satisfaction over the professional ability of physicians is the most critical quality factor relating to profits
Direct Amidation of Aldoses and Decarboxylative Amidation of α-Keto Acids: An Efficient Conjugation Method for Unprotected Carbohydrate Molecules
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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