Background Stigmatizing attitudes among healthcare providers are an important barrier to accessing services among people living with HIV (PLHIV). This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the status and correlates of HIV-related stigma among healthcare providers in Kerman, Iran.   M...

Computer networks today typically do not provide any mechanisms to the users to learn, in a reliable manner, which paths have (and have not!) been taken by their packets. Rather, it seems inevitable that as soon as a packet leaves the network card, the user is forced to trust the network provider to forward the packets as expected or agreed upon. This can be undesirable, especially in the light...

The early peer-to-peer applications eschewed commercial arrangements and instead established a grass-roots model in which the collection of end-users provided their own distributed computational infrastructure. While this cooperative end-user approach works well in many application settings, it does not provide a sufficiently stable platform for certain peer-to-peer applications (e.g., DHTs as ...

We consider a situation where wireless service providers compete for heterogenous wireless users. The users differ in their willingness to pay as well as in their individual channel gains. We prove existence and uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium for the competition of two service providers, for a generic channel model. Interestingly, the competition of two providers leads to a globally optimal...

Contrary to the recent emphasis upon the "Information Highway", the situation for one of the most predestined service providers, the printing and publishing industry, remains quite unchanged. Despite the decrease in prices for hard-and software, most companies operate with increasing costs in the field of information technology.[1] The existence of antiquated and centralized information systems...

The use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in many fields is based on total flexibility of the weights. However, the problem of allowing total flexibility of the weights is that the values of the weights obtained by solving the unrestricted DEA program are often in contradiction to prior views or additional available information. Also, many applications of DEA assume complete discretionary of d...

An effort is underway to enable digital cinema distribution with new products and new standards covering a wide range of technology. Exhibitors, studios, equipment manufacturers, and others involved in this effort require a universal, long-term digital cinema standard. Complicating the drive toward a single standard, however, are two issues: 1) not all players have the same priorities in specif...

M ANY CHILDREN EXPERIence or are exposed to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) (those likely to lead to posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], ie, potentially threatening to life or physical safety and with responses involving intense fear, horror, or helplessness) such as child abuse, domestic violence, community violence, or deaths of a traumatic nature prior to reaching adulthood. Recent stu...

Medicare uses a variety of administered price systems to pay health care providers. In setting the amounts it pays, it faces significant challenges both to avoid distorting the care patients receive and not to overpay. This article describes issues in paying physicians, post-acute care providers, and health plans, all areas of recent ferment that are likely to see continued change. The conclusi...

,. . This introduction to the major concepts of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is intended,for individuals involved in fiealth care provider education who are attempting to measure the costs and benefiti of their educational activities. Ater. tracing the development of CBA, the paper dafines it as afi attempt o quantify and compare the zpanditures for a project with the valu of the finished projec...