1,720,991 research outputs found
Do Waiting Times Affect Health Outcomes?:Evidence from Coronary Bypass
Full text linkLong waiting times for non-emergency services are a feature of several publicly-funded health systems. A key policy concern is that long waiting times may worsen health outcomes: when patients receive treatment, their health condition may have deteriorated and health gains reduced. This study investigates whether patients in need of coronary bypass with longer waiting times are associated with poorer health outcomes in the English National Health Service over 2000–2010. Exploiting information from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), we measure health outcomes with in-hospital mortality and 28-day emergency readmission following discharge. Our results, obtained combining hospital fixed effects and instrumental variable methods, find no evidence of waiting times being associated with higher in-hospital mortality and weak association between waiting times and emergency readmission following a surgery. The results inform the debate on the relative merits of different types of rationing in healthcare systems. They are to some extent supportive of waiting times as an acceptable rationing mechanism, although further research is required to explore whether long waiting times affect other aspects of individuals’ life
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
Essays on causal inference and applied health economics
No full textThis dissertation consists of three self-contained essays concerned with estimating causal relationships with microeconometric methods. The goal of causal inference is to draw conclusions about the causal nexus between distinct but possibly related processes or events, the cause and the effect. If a causal link between the two events exists, the effect originates from the cause, and testing the existence and the strength of this link is the aim of causal inference. Causation analysis differs from association analysis, in that the former aims to make inference regarding probabilities and beliefs under dynamic conditions, i.e. changes, and not only static ones. This means that the identification of a causal relationship typically requires a variation in both the cause and the effect, while all the other confounding factors being controlled for or remaining invariant
Essays in Empirical Microeconomics
Full text link"This thesis uses Italian micro-level data to examine three issues in different strands of the Economics literature.Chapter 1 investigates how contract conversions affect workers' well-being, by studying if individuals update consumption plans when they shift contractual regime. It shows that consumption increases following the transformation of a temporary contract. It also suggests that the consumption response to unemployment is less pronounced for temporary employees, who can anticipate the shock from the predetermined duration of their contract. The findings draw from the permanent income hypothesis and highlight the consumption implications of policies promoting stable employment.Chapter 2 studies the relationship between popularity shocks and electoral accountability. It compares the electoral performance of mayors replaced by the central government as a result of a city council dismissal with that of mayors completing the term. It shows that voters reduce their support for candidates accountable for an early government termination. This effect becomes more pronouncedwhen I account for the positive self-selection of incumbents into new elections. The findings suggest that the value of information for appointing better politicians may be greater than what highlighted by previous studies.Chapter 3 examines the effects of voting on COVID-19 spread by using the Italian elections held in September 2020 as case of study. It exploits the fact that in 36% of Italian municipalities citizens cast a ballot not only for a national-level referendum, but also for electing either the new regional governor or the new municipality mayor. This setting resulted in an exogenous increase in turnout where multiple polls took place. A control function approach in an event-study design shows that higher turnout was associated with a significant rise in post-pollCOVID-19 infections. The findings inform about the potential public health consequences of holding elections during peak periods of an epidemic.
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