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We examine the relation between within-firm office changes and audit quality in the United States. Our primary analysis documents a reduction in audit quality, measured using abnormal discretionary accruals and restatements, when the client is transferred to a smaller within-firm office (downsize effect). We are unable to find evidence that clients experience significant improvement in audit quality among transfers to a larger within-firm office (upsize effect). We then condition our sample on the change in the number of public clients of the receiving office to better understand the source of the underlying association. We find that our downsize effect is driven by offices experiencing a decrease in the number of public clients, suggesting that our main association is not entirely the result of resource constraints for the receiving office. We posit that this finding is consistent with audit quality deterioration among within-firm office changes to smaller offices driven, in part, by the receiving office's inability to adequately overcome the knowledge transfer frictions that accompany a move to a new office. Our findings offer empirical evidence on consequences of within-firm office changes and are particularly relevant to regulators and preparers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Technology transfer (TT) is a necessary, yet complex process to convey and disseminate scientific knowledge to the commercial sector. However, multiple barriers in TT can impede commercialization and innovative progress. To cultivate a deeper understanding, we conducted five interviews with strategic, elite leaders in different areas of TT in the United States. Experts shared their perspectives on the current state of TT, what needs improvement, and potential solutions to enhance the TT landscape, with a focus on biotechnology and medical devices. The formation of strongmanagement teams, a comprehension of the regulatory, reimbursement, and funding pathways and policies, and thorough market assessments were noted as key aspects for venture success. Collaboration with Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), industry experts, and strategic partners are also essential to support academic innovators and guide them throughout the complex commercialization process. There is agreement that a venture should have a defined vision and clear goals with a robust business case for the innovation; early involvement of TTOs is essential. Comprehension of the complexities and key facets of TT, while also streamlining the process, will better position biomedical innovators for success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1800s, there have been live load surveys and analyses carried out, particularly of area-dependent loads in office buildings. While some occupancies have received careful examination, there has been no systematic review and consideration of reliability-based scenarios for office gathering space live loads. The results of the research reported here indicates (supports) a more consistent, reliable, and economic design load for office gathering spaces in buildings. These results provide the theoretical and practical basis for design live loads for gathering spaces within offices, a step toward possible enactment in the current standard, and subsequently by adoption into the International Building Code and materials standards. Following a review of historical load surveys and theoretical models, the paper presents models and observations of crowding, serving as a basis for a different approach for such areas, including a Delphi among leading design firms in the United States. The paper concludes with recommendations for a new live load use category for gathering spaces for offices. Modern office usage often contains work spaces for meeting, gathering, and collaboration. The current standard for minimum design loads and associated criteria for buildings and other structures does not directly address this situation. Interpretation has led to conflicting requirements for the design loads of such spaces, including the possibility of assigning them as assembly areas. This can lead to overdesign and uneconomical structures. This research reviews historical office surveys with an emphasis on assembly spaces, presents the results of a Delphi of design firms throughout the United States, and contains a stochastic maximum load analysis. These various assessments lead to a consistent evaluation of plausible loads for such spaces, and a recommendation for a new subcategory in the standard live load table. The study recommends treating these spaces similar to general offices, with a basic live load of 2.39 kN/m2 (50 psf), and permissible live load reduction as is currently in the standard for offices. Exception is made for such work spaces that are directly accessible from outside and intended for use by the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opioid use disorder (OUD) represents a public health crisis in the United States. Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) with buprenorphine in primary care is a proven OUD treatment strategy. MOUD induction is when patients begin withdrawal and receive the first doses of buprenorphine. Differences between induction methods might influence short-term stabilization, long-term maintenance, and quality of life. This paper describes the protocol for a study designed to: (1) compare short-term stabilization and long-term maintenance treatment engagement in MOUD in patients receiving office, home, or telehealth induction and (2) identify clinically-relevant practice and patient characteristics associated with successful long-term treatment. The study design is a randomized, parallel group, pragmatic comparative effectiveness trial of three care models of MOUD induction in 100 primary care practices in the United States. Eligible patients are at least 16 years old, have been identified by their clinician as having opioid dependence and would benefit from MOUD. Patients will be randomized to one of three induction comparators: office, home, or telehealth induction. Primary outcomes are buprenorphine medication-taking and illicit opioid use at 30, 90, and 270 days post-induction. Secondary outcomes include quality of life and potential mediators of treatment maintenance (intentions, planning, automaticity). Potential moderators include social determinants of health, substance use history and appeal, and executive function. An intent to treat analysis will assess effects of the interventions on long-term treatment, using general/generalized linear mixed models, adjusted for covariates, for the outcomes analysis. Analysis includes practice- and patient-level random effects for hierarchical/longitudinal data. No large-scale, randomized comparative effectiveness research has compared home induction to office or telehealth MOUD induction on long-term outcomes for patients with OUD seen in primary care settings. The results of this study will offer primary care providers evidence and guidance in selecting the most beneficial induction method(s) for specific patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Older adults suffer from falls. 30% of the elderly fall annually in United States of America (Otorhinolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 5:1-4 2020). Falls have also cost society and people heavily. The aim of this study is to identify fall risk factors in elderly visiting the audio-vestibular clinic and propose a screening strategy. Methods: The study included 500 elderly participants over 60 years old who visited the audio-vestibular clinic for hearing and/or vestibular evaluations. All participants in this study underwent a full audiological and neuro-otological history, general examination, otological examination, audiological evaluation, and office vestibular testing. Results: One hundred fifty-nine out of 500 (32%) of the study group had a history of vertigo, and 153 out of 500 (31%) had fallen at least once in the past two years. Dizziness and age were significantly associated. Dizziness was more common in people over 70 years old. Similar results were found for the fall history and age. Falls were more common in elderly participants with dizziness. 25% of participants with a history of falls had dizziness, compared to 14.5 percent of those without. Systemic diseases and falls were significantly associated. Falls and abnormal office vestibular test results were statistically significant. Multiple regression analysis showed that Diabetes Mellitus, hypertension, orthostatic hypotension, positional and positioning nystagmus, Romberg and Fukuda tests, and falls were all associated. Multiple risk factors cause older adult to fall. Dizziness increases the risk of falling, especially in the elderly. In our study, hypertension and diabetes were the two greatest independent fall risk factors. Office vestibular tests can detect elderly fallers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subnational input–output (IO) tables capture industry- and region-specific production, consumption, and trade of commodities and serve as a common basis for regional and multi-regional economic impact analysis. However, subnational IO tables are not made available by national statistical offices, especially in the United States (US), nor have they been estimated with transparent methods for reproducibility or updated regularly for public availability. In this article, we describe a robust StateIO modeling framework to develop state and two-region IO models for all 50 states in the US using national IO tables and state industry and trade data from reliable public sources such as the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. We develop 2012-2017 state IO models and two-region IO models at the BEA summary level. The two regions are state of interest and rest of the US. All models are validated by a series of rigorous checks to ensure the results are balanced at state and national levels. We then use these models to calculate a 2012–2017 time series of macro economic indicators and highlight results for 11 states that have distinct economies with respect to size, geography, and industry structure. We also compare selected indicators to state IO models created by popular licensed and open-source software. Our StateIO modeling framework is consolidated in an open-source R package, stateior, to ensure transparency and reproducibility. Our StateIO models are US-focused, which may not be transferrable to international accounts, and form the economic base of state versions of the US environmentally-extended IO models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveys of Catholic priests in the United States dating back to the 1980s have shown that newer priests—and the priesthood in the aggregate—are becoming more conservative on moral, ecclesial, political, and theological issues. The present study examined whether this long-observed conservative shift has continued up to the present day using data from two surveys of Catholic priests: a 2002 Los Angeles Times survey of priests and the 2020–2021 Survey of American Catholic Priests, which largely replicated the former. Comparisons of means across surveys and analyses based on decade of ordination both revealed that Catholic priests in the United States are increasingly conservative on issues of moral belief, attitudes concerning who should and should not qualify for ordination, as well as politics and theology. Regression models demonstrated that having been ordained more recently was consistently associated with holding more conservative beliefs, net of other factors. More religiously observant priests, captured by frequency of praying the Divine Office, were more likely to be conservative on every question asked. The major exception to the conservative shift are priests self-reporting as entirely homosexual, who tend to be more liberal than heterosexual priests on a range of topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an increasingly competitive environment, defense organizations are met with more difficult decisions than in years past. This problem is especially apparent in security cooperation, that is, defense diplomacy, conducted by the United States. Both the United States and its competitors offer military assistance to third-party nations who, in turn, select an offer based on their own self-interest. Unfortunately, current security cooperation planning practices adopt an ad hoc approach to such problems. Therefore, we set forth herein a decision-analytic-planning framework by (1) provisioning a generic utility model for security cooperation planning applicable to myriad stakeholders and (2) developing a Bayesian solution that allows the stakeholder to select an action that maximizes their expected utility. This combination of value-focused thinking and adversarial risk analysis improves upon standard U.S. defense practices; it tractably encodes planning assumptions and more comprehensively considers the relevant uncertainties. The efficacy of this planning approach is illustrated on a notional U.S. Air Force case study in which a host nation must choose between security assistance from the United States or a competing nation. Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant DMS-1638521] and Air Force Office of Scientific Research [Grant 21RT0867]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States (US) National Science Foundation's (NSF's) National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale observation facility, constructed and operated by Battelle, that collects long-term ecological data to better understand and forecast how US ecosystems are changing. All data and samples are collected using standardized methods at 81 field sites across the US and are freely and openly available through the NEON data portal, application programming interface (API), and the NEON Biorepository. NSF led a decade-long design process with the research community, including numerous workshops to inform the key features of NEON, culminating in a formal final design review with an expert panel in 2009. The NEON construction phase began in 2012 and was completed in May 2019, when the observatory began the full operations phase. Full operations are defined as all 81 NEON sites completely built and fully operational, with data being collected using instrumented and observational methods. The intent of the NSF is for NEON operations to continue over a 30-year period. Each challenge encountered, problem solved, and risk realized on NEON offers up lessons learned for constructing and operating distributed ecological data collection infrastructure and data networks. NEON's construction phase included offices, labs, towers, aquatic instrumentation, terrestrial sampling plots, permits, development and testing of the instrumentation and associated cyberinfrastructure, and the development of community-supported collection plans. Although colocation of some sites with existing research sites and use of mostly "off the shelf" instrumentation was part of the design, successful completion of the construction phase required the development of new technologies and software for collecting and processing the hundreds of samples and 5.6 billion data records a day produced across NEON. Continued operation of NEON involves reexamining the decisions made in the past and using the input of the scientific community to evolve, upgrade, and improve data collection and resiliency at the field sites. Successes to date include improvements in flexibility and resilience for aquatic infrastructure designs, improved engagement with the scientific community that uses NEON data, and enhanced methods to deal with obsolescence of the instrumentation and infrastructure across the observatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the United States, State Education Agencies (SEAs) are using tiered strategies, such as Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) frameworks, to ensure that all students, including diverse learners, receive equal, high-quality education. However, little is known about the extent to which SEAs are encouraging use of MTSS to address the needs of students with moderate-to-severe cognitive disabilities. The present study aimed to examine how SEAs conceptualize and support the implementation of MTSS as an approach to inclusionary education. Data were collected through interviews with key informants in SEAs across 19 states. Members of the research team identified and coded portions of interview transcripts that related to legal requirements for MTSS at the state level, local control as an enabler of or impediment to states' MTSS work, and levels of inclusiveness in MTSS provisions. Three criteria emerged as important to MTSS inclusiveness: (1) inclusiveness in the espoused MTSS scope; (2) extensiveness of inclusive MTSS practices; and (3) specific application of MTSS to students with significant cognitive disabilities. Analyses showed variability across states regarding their commitment to an MTSS approach across the three domains of inclusiveness. Findings showed the value of developing and disseminating MTSS models offering tiered support for all students and the need for SEA offices to engage in collaborative efforts to support the implementation of inclusive MTSS models. The study also raised questions about the role of rhetoric (i.e., "All means all") in promoting or hindering increased inclusiveness in MTSS implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) was performed to assess the impact of assimilating hyperspectral infrared (IR) radiances from geostationary orbit on numerical weather prediction, with a focus on the proposed sounder on board the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) program's central satellite. Infrared sounders on a geostationary platform would fill several gaps left by IR sounders on polar-orbiting satellites, and the increased temporal resolution would allow the observation of weather phenomena evolution. The framework for this OSSE was the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) OSSE system, which includes a full suite of meteorological observations. The experiment additionally assimilated four identical IR sounders from geostationary orbit to create a "ring" of vertical profiling observations. Based on the experimentation, assimilation of the IR sounders provided a beneficial impact on the analyzed mass and wind fields, particularly in the tropics, and produced an error reduction in the initial 24–48 h of the subsequent forecasts. Specific attention was paid to the impact of the GeoXO Sounder (GXS) over the contiguous United States (CONUS) as this is a region that is well-observed and as such difficult to improve. The forecast sensitivity to observation impact (FSOI) metric, computed across all four synoptic times over the CONUS, reveals that the GXS had the largest impact on the 24-h forecast error of the assimilated hyperspectral infrared satellite radiances as measured using a moist energy error norm. Based on this analysis, the proposed GXS has the potential to improve numerical weather prediction globally and over the CONUS. Significance Statement: The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of the proposed geostationary hyperspectral infrared sounder as part of the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) program on numerical weather prediction. The evaluation was done using a simulated environment, and showed a beneficial impact on the tropical mass and wind fields and an error reduction in the initial 24–48 h forecasts. Over the contiguous United States, the GeoXO Sounder (GXS) performed well and had the largest impact of the assimilated infrared satellite radiances on the 24 h forecast as measured by a moist energy error norm. Based on the results of this study, the proposed GXS has the potential to improve numerical weather prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an increasing number of women pursuing careers in science, engineering, and medicine, gender disparities in patents persist. This study sought to analyze trends in inventor's gender for surgical device patents filed and granted in Canada and the United States from 2015 to 2019. This study analyzed patents filed and granted by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) in the category of "Diagnosis; Surgery; Identification" and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the category of "Surgery" from 2015 to 2019. The gender of the patent applicants was determined using a gender algorithm that predicts gender based on first names. Gender matches with names having a probability of less than 95% were excluded. We identified 14,312 inventors on patents filed and 12,737 inventors on patents granted by the CIPO for "Diagnosis; Surgery; Identification". In the USPTO category of "Surgery," we identified 75,890 inventors on patents filed and 44,842 inventors on patents granted. Female inventors accounted for 7%-10% of inventors from 2015 to 2019 for both patents filed and granted. The proportion of female inventors on patents granted was significantly lower than for patents filed for four of the 5 y analyzed for both the USPTO and CIPO. Female representation in surgical device patenting has stagnated, between 7 and 10%, from 2015 to 2019 in Canada and the United States. This underrepresentation of female inventors in surgical device patenting represents sizable gender disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Expanding access to immunization services is essential for improving low-income communities' access to health care.Objective: The purpose of this analysis was to assess whether adults who live in low-income communities, and adults 65 years old and older who live in low-income communities, have greater access to pharmacies for immunization services than to relevant physician offices.Methods: Databases of the number of physician practices and pharmacy locations were geocoded into ZIP Code tabulation areas (ZCTAs). The ZCTAs where the share of families living at or below the federal poverty threshold exceeded 30% were defined as low-income communities for purposes of the analysis. The raw access comparisons were adjusted to reflect whether physician practices have Medicare Part D billing capability, an access constraint for patients aged 65 years and over, and to reflect the differences in hours of operation.Results: There were 15.1% more pharmacy locations within the low-income communities than the availability of physician practices. After adjusting for the hours of operation, the pharmacy locations offered 95.7% more operating hours than the physician practice sites. Compared to the physician practices that have Medicare Part D billing capability, there were 203.0% more pharmacy locations.Conclusion: Based on the results, lower-income families had greater access to pharmacies than to physician practices, which indicates that pharmacies can play a valuable role in expanding immunization access and could warrant considering policy reforms that enhance the authority of pharmacists to administer vaccinations. State-level potential reforms could include expanding and harmonizing laws governing pharmacist authority to deliver such services, creating health enterprise zones, and granting special tax breaks, regulatory exemptions, or public assistance to encourage the establishment of physician offices and pharmacies in low-income communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our retrospective cohort study, we evaluated trends in pharmacist-administered pediatric influenza vaccination rates in the United States and corresponding state-level pharmacist pediatric vaccination authorization models, including minimum age requirements, vaccination protocols, and/or prescription requirements. An administrative health claims database was used to capture influenza vaccinations in children less than 18 years old with 1 year of continuous enrollment and joinpoint regression was used to assess trends. Of the 3,937,376 pediatric influenza vaccinations identified over the study period, only 3.2% were pharmacist-administered (87.7% pediatrician offices, 2.3% convenience care clinics, 0.8% emergency care, and 6.0% other locations). Pharmacist-administered pediatric influenza vaccination was more commonly observed in older children (mean age 12.65 ± 3.26 years) and increased significantly by 19.2% annually over the study period (95% confidence interval 9.2%-30.2%, p < 0.05). The Northeast, with more restrictive authorization models, represented only 2.2% (n = 2816) of all pharmacist-administered pediatric influenza vaccinations. Utilization of pharmacist-administered pediatric influenza vaccination remains low. Providing children with greater access to vaccination with less restrictions may increase overall vaccination rates. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, pharmacists will play a major role in vaccinating children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate clinical management of primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in the United States using real-world evidence and to examine healthcare resource utilization (HCRU), medication adherence/persistence, and procedure use. Design: A cross-sectional, retrospective analysis of Optum's de-identified Market Clarity Dataset (July 1, 2013–December 31, 2019). Patients and Methods: Patients ≥ 18 years with POAG diagnosis and continuous enrollment for 1-year pre- and post-index were eligible and categorized into four mutually exclusive cohorts: CH1, treated with antiglaucoma medication(s) only; CH2, underwent glaucoma procedure(s) only; CH3, treated with antiglaucoma medication(s) and underwent procedure(s); and CH4, received no treatment for POAG. Adherence and persistence with antiglaucoma medications, and disease-specific HCRU were analyzed. Pairwise two-sample comparisons and multivariate regressions were conducted. Results: Examined 232,572 eligible patients (CH1=60,895; CH2=4330; CH3=6027; CH4=161,320). Prostaglandin analogs were most prescribed antiglaucoma medications (CH1: 69.7%; CH3: 62.7%), of which latanoprost was most common (CH1: 51.3%; CH3: 46.1%). Disease-specific office visits occurred in 26.3%, 78.2%, 75.0%, 23.8%, and surgical services visits occurred in 3.8%, 36.3%, 42.5%, 3.3%, in CH1-CH4, respectively. Adherence was higher (medication possession ratio: 47.1% vs 39.4%; P< 0.0001), and more patients remained persistent across 1-year post-index period in CH1 vs CH3 (25.4% vs 16.1%; P< 0.0001). Positive predictors of medication persistence included being female, ≥ 55 years, and history of dyslipidemia or thyroid disease (all P≤ 0.0003). Conclusion: Overall, 70% POAG patients might not have received antiglaucoma treatment. Since POAG is a slowly progressive blinding disease, the lack of antiglaucoma treatment and suboptimal adherence/persistence with medications are of major concerns. Targeted screening and educational approaches are needed to improve POAG management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States requires asylum applicants to bring their own interpreters to the Asylum Office. However, asylum officers have discretion to provide interpreters in extraordinary circumstances. When do asylum officers exercise this discretion? Is it exercised uniformly? How do interpreters affect interview dynamics? To explore these questions, I conducted 28 attorney interviews. Interviewees reported that asylum officers inconsistently exercised discretion and provided unaccompanied children with interpreters more often than adults. Interviewees noted that some bilingual officers conducted interviews in a language other than English, and some interpreters exacerbated communication challenges. Since the Asylum Office does not collect interpretation data, this study provides a glimpse into interpretation challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In studies of discrimination, researchers often seek to estimate a causal effect of race or gender on outcomes. For example, in the criminal justice context, one might ask whether arrested individuals would have been subsequently charged or convicted had they been a different race. It has long been known that such counterfactual questions face measurement challenges related to omitted-variable bias, and conceptual challenges related to the definition of causal estimands for largely immutable characteristics. Another concern, which has been the subject of recent debates, is post-treatment bias: many studies of discrimination condition on apparently intermediate outcomes, like being arrested, that themselves may be the product of discrimination, potentially corrupting statistical estimates. There is, however, reason to be optimistic. By carefully defining the estimand—and by considering the precise timing of events—we show that a primary causal quantity of interest in discrimination studies can be estimated under an ignorability condition that may hold approximately in some observational settings. We illustrate these ideas by analyzing both simulated data and the charging decisions of a prosecutor's office in a large county in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The medicolegal system relies on forensic anthropologists to construct accurate biological profiles from skeletal remains to narrow the pool of potential missing persons and provide support for positive identifications. The ancestry estimation component of the profile offers physical descriptions of decedents through a combination of metric analysis and the interpretation of discrete traits believed to correlate with visible physical features. Forensic anthropologists employed in medical examiners' offices in the United States regularly construct these profiles in casework. However, ancestry estimation methods have been questioned in their ability to accurately describe the racial classification of the deceased. Although validation studies have documented the accuracy of ancestry estimation methods on skeletal collections, it is unknown how well they operate in forensic casework and the assumption that methods mirror the results observed in academic research studies remains unproven. In an effort to understand how well methods preform, this research was designed to evaluate the accuracy ancestry estimation practices within three medical examiners' offices in the United States. The results show an accuracy rate of 99% among 177 cases when both definitive and ambiguous ancestral and racial terminology was used to describe remains. Because unidentified cases lack antemortem information, it remains unknown if the ancestral assessments of the 280 unidentified individuals included in this study confer the same level of accuracy shown in resolved cases. The results presented here are informative not only for the vital statistics obtained, but also for what this data reveals about the factors influencing ancestry estimation in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the extent to which disparities in Black and White students' risks of receiving office discipline referrals (ODRs), and out-of-school suspensions (OSSs) were related to differences in implicit and explicit racial biases assessed at the community level. The sample consisted of discipline records for 1,354,010 students enrolled in 2,100 U.S. schools in 183 communities distributed across the United States. Analyses estimated and compared the contributions of average implicit and explicit racial biases in schools' localities to school-level disproportionality in ODRs, OSSs, and OSSs controlling for disproportionality in ODRs. Results showed that community-level racial biases were related to racial disparities in ODRs and OSSs in schools, with some important differences by type of discipline decision. Impact Statement This study provides evidence that community-level explicit and implicit racial biases are associated with school-level racial disproportionality. Results indicate that a significant proportion of racial disproportionality may result from the effects of bias on the decision to issue an office discipline referral, as opposed to the decision tosuspend a student, indicating that a focus on classroom systems has the strongest potential to increase equity in school discipline. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2020.1838232 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of the consolidation of local agencies publicly providing services, focusing on the prosecution of crime. In many states in the United States, prosecution is a county office with a head prosecutor directing decisions. Other states merge counties into prosecutorial districts. We show that, along with the cost savings that arises, the evidence suggests that prosecutorial services benefit from increasing returns to scale. The efficiency of prosecutorial output is higher in consolidated districts. Further, we show that it is not owing to differing outcomes of the criminal justice system but to fewer inputs used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. weather warning system is designed to help operational forecasters identify hazards and issue alerts to assist people in taking life-saving actions. Assessing risks for separate hazards, such as flash flooding, can be challenging for individuals, depending on their contexts, resources, and abilities. When two or more hazards co-occur in time and space, such as tornadoes and flash floods, which we call TORFFs, risk assessment and available actions people can take to stay safe become increasingly complex and potentially dangerous. TORFF advice can suggest contradictory action—that people get low for a tornado and seek higher ground for a flash flood. The origin of risk information about such threats is the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Office. This article contributes to an understanding of the warning and forecast system though a naturalistic study of the NWS during a TORFF event in the southeastern United States. Drawing on literature for the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, this article argues that during TORFFs, elements of the NWS warning operations can unintentionally amplify or attenuate one threat over the other. Our results reveal three ways this amplification or attenuation might occur: 1) underlying assumptions that forecasters understandably make about the danger of different threats; 2) threat terminology and coordination with national offices that shape the communication of risks during a multihazard event; and 3) organizational arrangements of space and forecaster expertise during operations. We conclude with suggestions for rethinking sites of amplification and attenuation and additional areas of future study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the unique functions of corporate headquarters in diversified firms and reports on a survey of the structure and staffing of more than 600 headquarters in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Chile. It explores the extent to which corporate headquarters are contingent on size of the company, corporate strategy (corporate portfolio and corporate structure and policies), and governance system (ownership and regulation, and country of origin). The results confirm that factors in each of these areas are important determinants of the size and structure of headquarters. Performance data suggest that these findings are not merely descriptive but that corporate headquarters should be designed to fit the corporate strategy. Although the results are capable of alternative interpretations, analysis provides no support for the view that ‘lean and mean’ headquarters lead to better performance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing a large sample of office sales in the United States, we examine the price distortion associated with dual brokerage, and how the distortion varies with the price of the building, market conditions, types of market participants, and geographic locations. We find that after controlling for observables, dual broker transactions are associated with a 5.83% average discount, on average. The dual broker discount emerges after the onset of the global financial crisis (GFC) and demonstrates significant geographic heterogeneity. Moreover, the discount occurs primarily with expensive properties held in private ownership and sold by small brokers. Our results are robust to endogeneity, unobservables, and model misspecification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secure messaging, or "e-visits," between patients and providers has sharply increased in recent years, and many hope they will help improve healthcare quality, while increasing provider capacity. Using a panel data set from a large healthcare system in the United States, we find that e-visits trigger about 6% more office visits, with mixed results on phone visits and patient health. These additional visits come at the sacrifice of new patients: physicians accept 15% fewer new patients each month following e-visit adoption. Our data set on nearly 100,000 patients spans from 2008 to 2013, which includes the rollout and diffusion of e-visits in the health system we study. Identification comes from difference-in-differences estimates leveraging variation in the timing of e-visit adoption by both patients and providers. We conduct several robustness checks, including matching analyses and an instrumental variable analysis to account for possible time-varying characteristics among patient e-visit adopters. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post Office is a customer service facility forming part of a national portal system. Prior to the advent of Postal and Zip Codes, postal system would route items to specific post office for receipt of delivery. The evolution and genesis of postal system is a very significant and important subject matter of study which dates back to 2400 B.C. The most powerful countries of the world like the United States of America, the Egypt and the United Kingdom were the pioneer in this line. In India too, the genesis of the postal system is a very important and interesting subject matter of study. During the process of development, the Postal system has evolved greatly affected by factors known and unknown. Here in this present study, an effort has been made to visualize the different factors which are responsible for evolution of the postal system around the globe and of course in India both pre and post independence. It is worth mentioning that the Postal system has evolved along with development of modern digital system. The whole postal system has ramified with the latest development of postal banking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the determinants of office capitalization rates across three major U.S. cities: New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Analyzing a sample of 1,804 office properties for the 2000 to 2013 time period, the findings suggest that the drivers of capitalization rates vary considerably across the three cities, even for comparable properties. These differences can hypothetically be beneficial for diversifying real estate portfolio investments. The results further demonstrate that capitalization rates are largely driven by local, as well as property-specific variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses whether foreign investment affect office real estate prices in the U.S. Topics discussed include the effect of cross-border real estate investment flows on office market capitalization rates; how increasing integration of real estate markets effect real estate capitalization rates; and the extent of variation in the level of foreign investment in the office markets of 38 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).