Urban land-use planning in the U.S. has traditionally been bas ed on the Euclidean zoning model, the separation of land uses. The long-term impacts of this development pattern, often termed “urban sprawl”, have been a continued source of controversy (1). This research determines if expert opinion regarding sprawl’s negative effects, specifically, that regarding the public/ private capital and o...

Renewable and sustainable energy production systems offer promising perspectives for the future, as their maintenance prices decrease, efficiency reliability increase, favouring competitiveness of this industry. Thereby, wind is one most used developed renewable energy, since it a cost-effective way to generate clean energy. Wind divided into onshore offshore depending on farm location. Offshor...

Much evidence points to the fact that managed care plans (health maintenance organizations and preferred provider insurance) reduce costs and offer value for money. Yet they apparently have not helped to slow national health expenditures. One explanation is that the practices of purchasers (including government and employers), the tax laws, and other market imperfections have reduced the demand...

A pilot study to evaluate the direct cost of treating 51 adults and 50 children with bronchial asthma was conducted. All aspects of the medical care provided over a 6-month period were considered. The mean treatment costs per month were US dollars 22.97 (adults) and US dollars 15.56 (children). The cost of maintenance therapy accounted for 55.5% and 73.4% of the total direct cost treatment for ...

This paper investigates how hospital affiliation in a multi-hospital system (contract managed, owned, sponsored), the number of system hospitals, HMO and PPO contracts, and other factors, impacts hospital cost efficiency. Using a 1996-1999 panel of 248 hospitals, results show that for urban hospitals, increasing the number of hospitals in the system, system ownership and contract management/spo...

This study provided a national profile of health insurance of certain vulnerable populations including children, racial/ethnic minorities, low-income families, non-metropolitan statistical area (MSA) residents, and those with poor health status. The study shows an increase in the proportion of uninsured nonelderly population. While public insurance helped reduce the employment- and health-relat...