Search

This paper describes some important aspects of the first two years of operation of the Educational Management Development Center (EMDEC). EMDEC was created in 1974 through a joint effort of the Carnegie-Mellon School of Urban and Public Affairs, the Kettering Foundation, and the Allegheny County Intermediate Unit in an attempt to extend the management capabilities of school administrators. Separate sections of the paper describe the organizational structure and objectives of EMDEC, EMDEC's activities during its first year of operation, the activities planned by EMDEC for its second year of operation, and suggested approaches for evaluating the impact of EMDEC's activities. Included in the discussion of organizational objectives is a description of a survey of school administrators conducted by EMDEC shortly after its formation. Significant findings about administrators' attitudes toward administrator preparation programs and school system priorities are summarized in two data tables. In addition, the complete survey questionnaire is included in the appendix. (JG)

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are a relatively new healthcare delivery model in which various provider organizations assume joint responsibility for the care of a defined patient population. A primary purpose of ACOs is to curb the growth in healthcare costs through an incentive structure that jointly assesses performance and disburses rewards. We argue in this study that a fuller understanding of the impact of ACOs on cost performance requires examination of theories that can predict the relationship between the ACO incentive structure and performance. To this end, we examined two competing hypotheses that have contradictory predictions on the relationship between participation in ACOs and cost performance. We also investigated how the size of ACOs and Medicare intensity, or the proportion of Medicare patients served by hospitals, matter in the relationships examined. We used a panel dataset of U.S. hospitals and relied on a doubly robust estimator that consisted of propensity score-weights and the difference-in-difference estimator to identify the effects of hospital participation in ACOs on cost performance and on the moderating roles of ACO size and Medicare intensity in the relationship. Our results show that hospital participation in ACOs is associated with worsened cost performance. Free riding is identified as a key factor that affects this relationship. The results of supplemental analysis also show that whereas the negative effects of free riding on cost performance are worse for hospitals participating in larger ACOs, it is attenuated for hospitals serving higher proportions of Medicare patients (i.e., hospitals with higher Medicare intensity) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the gross anatomy of malpighian tubules and internal male genitalia of Scelioninae or Hymenoptera: Platygastroidea: Platygastridae, with phylogenetic implications. The family Platygastridae (Hymenoptera) is a group of parasitoids comprising of almost 4,460 species. It is stated that the scelionids used in the study are small wasps which are 0.5 to 12 millimeters in length, predominantly black, rarely yellow, multi-colored or with metallic colors.