BACKGROUND AND AIMS Evidence on indirect cost of Crohn's disease (CD) is available but typically provides information on the loss of productivity at paid work of patients. In the present study, the quality of life and indirect costs of CD patients were assessed (overall and by disease severity). METHODS A self-report questionnaire-based study among adult Polish patients with CD was performed....

This article provides comments of three conference panel members on the analyses of the productivity adjustment used in the Medicare Economic Index (MEI), and on exploratory estimates of physician-specific productivity measures. Each has a different background and perspective.

In this paper we analyze the levels of technical efficiency and productivity growth attained by Spanish insurance companies during a period of deregulation. We compute Malmquist productivity indexes using the estimates of parametric distance function for several specialized insurance branches. In this way, we show that branch specialization matters a great deal and that firms combining two or t...

We analyze hospital efficiency and productivity growth using an innovative approach which employs the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity indicator. The primary advantage of our approach is that both input contractions and output expansions are considered. Our model generates a productivity indicator that is decomposed into the usual constituents of productivity growth...

Minimum aberration is a popular criterion for selecting fractional factorial designs. It aims at the minimization of aliasing among lower-order effects. Cheng, Steinberg and Sun (1999) showed that it is a good surrogate for maximum estimation capacity, a model robustness criterion, but they are not the same, especially for resolution IV designs. In this paper, the relationship between these two...

The index coding capacity is investigated through its structural properties. First, the capacity is characterized in three new multiletter expressions involving the clique number, Shannon capacity, and Lovász theta function of the confusion graph, the latter notion introduced by Alon, Hassidim, Lubetzky, Stav, and Weinstein. The main idea is that every confusion graph can be decomposed into a s...

in order to study stress tolerance indices and identifying tolerance genotypes to drought stress condition 16 genotypes of durum wheat were assessed in a randomized complete block design with four replications under two irrigated and rainfed conditions in the research station located in west of iran ilam in 2006- 2007. results showed that variation in among durum wheat genotypes under irrigated...

BACKGROUND Spondyloarthritis often affects young people, typically in their working years. The aim of our study was to investigate work productivity and its relationship with disease activity and physical functioning in Italian patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) with chronic back pain (CBP) for ≥3 months and ≤2 years, and onset  < 45 years of age. METHODS Baseline absenteeism, pres...