Finding What Works in Health Care

Finding What Works in Health Care

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2011-07-20

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0309164257

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Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.


Introduction to Time Series and Forecasting

Introduction to Time Series and Forecasting

Author: Peter J. Brockwell

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1475725264

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Some of the key mathematical results are stated without proof in order to make the underlying theory acccessible to a wider audience. The book assumes a knowledge only of basic calculus, matrix algebra, and elementary statistics. The emphasis is on methods and the analysis of data sets. The logic and tools of model-building for stationary and non-stationary time series are developed in detail and numerous exercises, many of which make use of the included computer package, provide the reader with ample opportunity to develop skills in this area. The core of the book covers stationary processes, ARMA and ARIMA processes, multivariate time series and state-space models, with an optional chapter on spectral analysis. Additional topics include harmonic regression, the Burg and Hannan-Rissanen algorithms, unit roots, regression with ARMA errors, structural models, the EM algorithm, generalized state-space models with applications to time series of count data, exponential smoothing, the Holt-Winters and ARAR forecasting algorithms, transfer function models and intervention analysis. Brief introducitons are also given to cointegration and to non-linear, continuous-time and long-memory models. The time series package included in the back of the book is a slightly modified version of the package ITSM, published separately as ITSM for Windows, by Springer-Verlag, 1994. It does not handle such large data sets as ITSM for Windows, but like the latter, runs on IBM-PC compatible computers under either DOS or Windows (version 3.1 or later). The programs are all menu-driven so that the reader can immediately apply the techniques in the book to time series data, with a minimal investment of time in the computational and algorithmic aspects of the analysis.


Country Risk Assessment

Country Risk Assessment

Author: Michel Henry Bouchet

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2003-10-31

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 047086818X

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One of the few books on the subject, Country Risk Assessment combines the theoretical and practical tools for managing international country risk exposure. - Offers a comprehensive discussion of the specific mechanisms that apply to country risk assessment. - Discusses various techniques associated with global investment strategy. - Presents and analyses the various sources of country risk. - Provides an in depth coverage of information sources and country risk service providers. - Gives techniques for forecasting country financial crises. - Includes practical examples and case studies. - Provides a comprehensive review of all existing methods including the techniques on the cutting-edge Market Based Approaches such as KMV, CreditMetrics, CountryMetrics and CreditRisk+.


Applied Econometrics with R

Applied Econometrics with R

Author: Christian Kleiber

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0387773185

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R is a language and environment for data analysis and graphics. It may be considered an implementation of S, an award-winning language initially - veloped at Bell Laboratories since the late 1970s. The R project was initiated by Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in the early 1990s, and has been developed by an international team since mid-1997. Historically, econometricians have favored other computing environments, some of which have fallen by the wayside, and also a variety of packages with canned routines. We believe that R has great potential in econometrics, both for research and for teaching. There are at least three reasons for this: (1) R is mostly platform independent and runs on Microsoft Windows, the Mac family of operating systems, and various ?avors of Unix/Linux, and also on some more exotic platforms. (2) R is free software that can be downloaded and installed at no cost from a family of mirror sites around the globe, the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN); hence students can easily install it on their own machines. (3) R is open-source software, so that the full source code is available and can be inspected to understand what it really does, learn from it, and modify and extend it. We also like to think that platform independence and the open-source philosophy make R an ideal environment for reproducible econometric research.


Sustainable Value Management–New Concepts and Contemporary Trends

Sustainable Value Management–New Concepts and Contemporary Trends

Author: Dariusz Zarzecki

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2020-12-29

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 3039365533

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Sustainable value management reveals a new space for studying business models. The traditional approach is based on the assumption that the goal of any business is to make money. All decisions regarding supply and production should be made to maximize profit. The discrepancy in creating non-economic value is sometimes the result of separating ownership from control over an enterprise. Although shareholders are interested in maximizing profit, management that actually makes decisions can also pursue other goals. In addition to economic aspects, the management intentions of modern managers are also influenced by factors arising from the organizational culture built, co-created within the organization and sometimes with the participation of external actors such as suppliers and customers. The sources of the creation of social values will be the management intentions of top management, often initiated by the adopted values and rules on the basis of which resources are bound within the structure of the business model. The value of sustainability is based on the identification of those creative sources that relate to economic and social value. Economic value is created through social value and vice versa. This allows the complementarity of the value created to be mutually supportive. The business model that integrates both of these values should be more resistant to crises than the one that is oriented only toward producing economic value. Concurrent implementation of economic and social goals increases resilience and affects the success of modern business models. This is due to the specificity of the business ecosystem that is built as part of the business model, which, in essence, is based on the use of social factors to merge the business model into a complex ecosystem capable of producing value.


A Beginner's Guide to Structural Equation Modeling

A Beginner's Guide to Structural Equation Modeling

Author: Randall E. Schumacker

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2004-06-24

Total Pages: 590

ISBN-13: 1135641919

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The second edition features: a CD with all of the book's Amos, EQS, and LISREL programs and data sets; new chapters on importing data issues related to data editing and on how to report research; an updated introduction to matrix notation and programs that illustrate how to compute these calculations; many more computer program examples and chapter exercises; and increased coverage of factors that affect correlation, the 4-step approach to SEM and hypothesis testing, significance, power, and sample size issues. The new edition's expanded use of applications make this book ideal for advanced students and researchers in psychology, education, business, health care, political science, sociology, and biology. A basic understanding of correlation is assumed and an understanding of the matrices used in SEM models is encouraged.


Econometrics by Example

Econometrics by Example

Author: Damodar Gujarati

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-16

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1137375027

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The second edition of this bestselling textbook retains its unique learning-by-doing approach to econometrics. Rather than relying on complex theoretical discussions and complicated mathematics, this book explains econometrics from a practical point of view by walking the student through real-life examples, step by step. Damodar Gujarati's clear, concise, writing style guides students from model formulation, to estimation and hypothesis-testing, through to post-estimation diagnostics. The basic statistics needed to follow the book are covered in an appendix, making the book a flexible and self-contained learning resource. The textbook is ideal for undergraduate students in economics, business, marketing, finance, operations research and related disciplines. It is also intended for students in MBA programs across the social sciences, and for researchers in business, government and research organizations who require econometrics. New to this Edition: - Two brand new chapters on Quantile Regression Modeling and Multivariate Regression Models. - Two further additional chapters on hierarchical linear regression models and bootstrapping are available on the book's website - New extended examples accompanied by real-life data - New student exercises at the end of each chapter