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Practical Response (practical + response)
Selected AbstractsQuality-adjusted life years: how useful in medico economic studiesFUNDAMENTAL & CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY, Issue 6 2005Carmen A. Brauer Abstract Cost-effectiveness analysis has evolved as a practical response to the need to allocate limited resources for health care. It can be used to compare interventions whose effects on health are different if the measure of effectiveness captures all the important health dimensions of the effects of the interventions. Using the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) as the unit of effectiveness attempts to approach this ideal and is currently the approach recommended by many consensus groups. Conventional QALYs represent time spend in a series of "quality-weighted" health states, where the quality weights reflect the desirability of living in the state. Many challenges arise when preferences are incorporated into an economic analysis. The purpose of this paper is to highlight some of the issues surrounding the use of QALYs and to encourage researchers to present their methodology in a clear and transparent way. [source] Not Crossing the "Extra Line": How Cohabitors With Children View Their UnionsJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 5 2006Joanna M. Reed I use qualitative interview data from a sample of 44 cohabiting couples who have children together to investigate how they view their unions and how the presence of children influences the meanings they attach to them. I find most cohabiting parents begin cohabiting in response to a pregnancy but do not believe they should stay in a relationship because of shared children. They view cohabitation as a practical response to parenthood that allows them to coparent and share expenses yet avoid the greater expectations of commitment, relationship quality, and more traditional and scripted family roles they associate with marriage. Cohabiting parents do not believe they should marry because they have a child together but value the symbolic aspects of marriage. [source] What Macroeconomic Measures Are Needed for Free Trade to Flourish in the Western Hemisphere?LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2004Barry Eichengreen ABSTRACT Recent experience has made clear the importance of macroeconomic stability, and exchange rate stability in particular, in generating support for regional integration. The tensions created by exchange-rate and financial volatility are clearly evident in the recent history of Mercosur and may also hinder the development of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. This essay argues that ambitious schemes for a single regional currency are not a practical response to this problem. Nor would a system of currency pegs or bands be sufficiently durable to provide a lasting solution. Instead, countries must solve this problem at home. In practice, this means adopting sound and stable monetary policies backed by a clear and coherent operating strategy, such as inflation targeting. With such policies in place, exchange rate volatility can be reduced to levels compatible with regional integration. [source] Beyond the ivory tower: from business aims to policy makingPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2006Richard Tudway Abstract This article explores the provenance of some of those deepest heart-felt anxieties of modern times,and offers a practical response. There is a pervasive sense of angst in OECD countries about where we are headed. Somehow the values, public and private, we once thought we all stood for are compromised. The democratic process looks tired and shop-soiled. This backdrop plays upon deeper existential fears. Do we have any real control over our individual or collective destinies? The effect is morally and spiritually debilitating. This is, in brief, the core of the Argument from the first section. It is followed in section two by a presentation of the Facts that support this rather uninviting scenario. After looking at how things are shaping up on the socio-economic and political fronts, one provisional conclusion is that values and beliefs, along with policies and institutions, are in a state of poor repair. Section three on Findings adds to the sense of existential woe. It does so by exploring the real or imagined psychological disjunction which is common in the today's work-place and everyday living. The alienation and the loss of direction that affects the wellbeing and even the balance of otherwise normal people is striking. We are left with unanswered questions at many different levels. Why are the prospects of progress in dealing positively and constructively with these problems so uncertain? Is there any all-in-one solution, or are we simply to address each symptom as it comes along, and disregard the wider context? Section four of the paper tries to provide a holistic Prognosis of the situation, seen from an all-level encompassing perspective. It does so in the belief we cannot meaningfully begin to address specific symptoms outside the context of the wider whole. It concludes with a few simple, in some ways ageless aspirations of mankind, whose aim is to equate what we say with what we do. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||