Around 14% of the UK labour force has informal care responsibilities and almost everyone in society will be an informal carer in their lifetime. A well-known fact in the small economic literature on informal care is the apparent negative relation between care responsibilities and labour market participation. Yet, caring and labour market participation may be endogenous. Using an instrumental va...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to update the previous estimate of the worldwide cost of dementia in 2005 to 2009. METHODS The cost model is based on prevalence estimates, country and region-specific data on Gross Domestic Product per person and average wage, with results from previously published cost-of-illness studies in different countries. Prevalence figures are updated to 2009 ...

Software inspections are widely regarded as a costeffective mechanism for removing defects in software, though performing them does not always reduce the number of customer-discovered defects. We present a case study in which an attempt was made to reduce such defects through inspection training that introduced program comprehension ideas. The training was designed to address the problem of und...

Introduction Informal patient payments for healthcare are common in the Western Balkans, negatively affecting public health and healthcare.   Aim To identify literature from the Western Balkans on what is known about informal patient payments and bought and brought goods, to examine their effects on healthcare and to determine what actions can be taken to tackle these payments.   Methods After ...

In recent years, the Government of Kenya has embarked on a new economic development strategy which emphasizes job creation in the informal sector through self-employment and apprenticeship training (Republic of Kenya, 1986). Informal apprenticeship training takes place at ordinary workplaces in the informal sector and makes production tasks part of the instruction as a means for acquiring techn...

The primary aim of this research was to study how mobile technology shapes, changes, and develops informal learning outside the classroom and school environment. In this study we provided each of the 30 Kenyan elite runners with a simple Android smartphone and free Internet for one year. This research project was a developmental intervention with a participatory action research approach, and ai...

PURPOSE Obtaining informed consent is an essential skill in internal medicine (IM). The authors' informal observations and formal testing revealed deficiencies in residents' informed consent skills. This study evaluated how residents acquire informed consent skills and how informed consent skills are addressed in Canadian IM residency programs. METHOD A questionnaire was delivered to all 16 I...

BACKGROUND Student mentoring is an important aspect of undergraduate medical education. While medical schools often assign faculty advisors to medical students as mentors to support their educational experience, it is possible for the students to pursue mentors informally. The possible role of these informal mentors and their interactions with the students in a faculty mentorship program has no...