OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of joining HMOs (health maintenance organizations) on the inpatient utilization of Medicare beneficiaries. DATA SOURCES We linked enrollment data on Medicare beneficiaries to patient discharge data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) for 1991-1995. DESIGN AND SAMPLE A quasi-experimental design comparing inpatient ...

BACKGROUND There are few published studies on the relationship between occupational lumbar load and facet joint degeneration (FJD). This cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the effect of physical lumbar load on FJD by comparing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of firefighters (FFs) and hospital office workers (HOWs). METHODS We randomly sampled 341 male FFs and 80 male HO...

The paper reports the obtained results for the projection and realization of a digitally system aiming to assist the equipment for a regulatory and pre-regulatory tools and holding tools within the flexible fabrication systems (FFS). Moreover, based on the present results, the same methodology can be applied for assisting tools from the point of view of their integrity and to wear compensation ...

Research results [ROSE91] demonstrate that a log-structured file system (LFS) offers the potential for dramatically improved write performance, faster recovery time, and faster file creation and deletion than traditional UNIX file systems. This paper presents a redesign and implementation of the Sprite [ROSE91] log-structured file system that is more robust and integrated into the vnode interfa...

This paper explores the effectiveness of Data Mining (DM) classification techniques in detecting firms that issue fraudulent financial statements (FFS) and deals with the identification of factors associated to FFS. In accomplishing the task of management fraud detection, auditors could be facilitated in their work by using data mining techniques. This study investigates the usefulness of Decis...

Although dimensional analysis suggests sound functional forms (FFs) to calculate longitudinal dispersion coefficient (Kx), no attempt has been made quantify both reliability of the estimated Kx value and its sensitivity variation FFs' parameters. This paper introduces a new index named bandwidths similarity factor (bws–factor) FFs based on rigorous distinct calibration datasets tune FFs. We mod...

Some methods of fabrication make it economically attractive to construct counters (and other devices) by connecting sets of identical flip-flops(FFs), if the FFs have a common clock input, the state transitions of the whole counters are as rapid as the state transitions of each FFs, so that the counter is further restricted to be synchronous. In order to simplify the process for analysis of syn...

Little research has examined whether Medicaid managed care plans (MCPs) that incorporate case management are effective in coordinating services for children with special health care needs (CSHCN). This study evaluates the effects of enrollment of special needs children into a partially capitated MCP (with ongoing case management) versus the fee-for-service (FFS) option on use of therapeutic ser...

The study was conducted among the two farmer groups in Bhaktapur and Kavre districts of Nepal. The main objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of IPM FFS on creating awareness and disseminating the knowledge on sustainable pest management to the farmers and to assess the relationships between enhanced IPM knowledge and adoption of IPM strategies by the farmers. The study has be...