Attendance Figures Research Articles

Breast cancer screening; cost-effective in practice?

The main aim of national breast screening is a reduction in breast cancer mortality. The data on the reduction in breast cancer mortality from three (of the five) Swedish trials in particular gave rise to the expectation that the Dutch programme of 2-yearly screening for women aged 50–70 would produce a 16% reduction in the total population. In all likelihood, many of the years of life gained as a result of screening are enjoyed in good health. According to its critics the actual benefit that can be achieved from the national breast cancer screening programmes is overstated. Considerable benefits have recently been demonstrated in England and Wales. However, the fall was so considerable in such a relatively short space of time that screening (started in 1987) was thought to only have played a small part. As far as the Dutch screening programme is concerned it is still too early to reach any conclusions about a possible reduction in mortality. The first short-term results of the screening are favourable and as good as (or better than) expectations. In Swedish regions where mammographic screening was introduced, a 19% reduction in breast cancer mortality can be estimated at population level, and recently a 20% reduction was presented in the UK. In countries where women are expected to make appointments for screening themselves, the attendance figures are significantly lower and the quality of the process as a whole is sometimes poorer. The benefits of breast cancer screening need to be carefully balanced against the burden to women and to the health care system. Mass breast screening requires many resources and will be a costly service. Cost-effectiveness of a breast cancer screening programme can be estimated using a computer model. Published cost-effectiveness ratios may differ tremendously, but are often the result of different types of calculation, time periods considered, including or excluding downstream cost. The approach of simulation and estimation is here the same for all countries. The effects of a breast-screening program depend on many factors, such as the epidemiology of the disease, the health care system, costs of health care, the quality of the screening programme and the attendance rate. The estimated CE-ratio ranges from 2650 euros per life-year gained in Navarra to 9650 in Germany. Although relatively low incidence levels expected, the CE-ratio in Navarra is most favourable probably due to a relatively unfavourable clinical stage distribution before screening and the increasing incidence. The UK has a screening situation that is almost similar with the Netherlands. Therefore, the CE-ratios of both countries are comparable. The differences between countries make it impossible to set up one uniform screening policy. The theoretical outcomes of the benefit that can be achieved are generally from small-scale trials involving a limited number of experts, persons examined, and areas. On a national scale, with hundreds of professional practitioners, it can be expected to be more difficult to attain uniform quality. Continuous quality control, monitoring and evaluation are therefore crucial.

Community Impact of Science Centers: Is There Any?

In a competitive environment, established cultural institutions need to justify their activities and to provide measurable indications of success when applying for public and private funds. Science centers are part of the movement striving to enhance public understanding of science. The educational aspects of science centers have been the subject of numerous studies, while there is much less tangible information on the economic, political, or public impact of our institutions. There is clear evidence that learning behaviors occur in non-formal settings. Crude assessments of the economic contribution by a cultural institution to the local economy can fairly easily be made. These include the direct purchasing power of the institutional budget and the salaries that the employees get, and an estimate of the direct costs related to the visits. An indication of the impact on local communities may be estimated from the attendance figures as a percentage of the total metropolitan population. Science centers tend to attract media attention for the exhibitions, programs, and events that they stage. This can be measured. The impact on the local economy, on political agendas, and on public perception of science has been only rudimentarily studied. Methods have not been developed, nor have the critical questions been clarified. More research, including compilation of existing scattered proprietary data, is needed. An active role in promoting a research agenda, or at least in compiling and accessing relevant data, could be taken by the professional organizations of science centers.

IPC releases printed circuits Expo attendance figures

IPC releases printed circuits Expo attendance figures

A major sporting event does not necessarily mean an increased workload for accident and emergency departments. Euro96 Group of Accident and Emergency Departments.

AIM: To determine whether there were any changes in attendance at accident and emergency departments that could be related to international football matches (Euro96 tournament). METHOD: Fourteen accident and emergency...

Les effectifs scolarisés en France: XIXème et XXème siècles

This article aims to present an analysis of the change over long periods in school attendance figures in France in the 19th and 20th centuries. The interest of the approach is twofold. Firstly it is of immediate practical interest insofar as it is an original reconstruction of the French educational system. It is also of theoretical interest, as it provides better knowledge of the mechanism regulating the development of the system over a long period. In this respect, reflection is in three parts. First, the chronological series compiled are presented to prepare the statistical analysis. The trends observed are then described and finally a preliminary analysis of the causes of the change is provided, with stress laid on the institutional aspects.

Demand for Ballet: A Non-Parametric Analysis of the 1995 Royal Ballet Summer Season

Attendance figures for individual seat categories during the 1995 Royal Ballet Summer Season are analysed using a non-parametric median technique. For three out of five categories, demand for full-length ballet turns out to be significantly downward-sloping. The (point) estimates suggest that during the period of observation substantial margins for price cuts existed which would have increased both attendance and revenue.

Bread and Circuses

BREAD AND CIRCUSES: PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN CINEMA GIDEON Bachmann speaks to Ulrich Gregor, the renowned German historian and critic who organises the long-running Forum series of programmes at the Berlin Film Festival. The conversation took place on 6th June 1995, in Berlin. GB: How healthy is European cinema? Is it true that its existence is threatened by the conquest of European screens by American movies? Can you see in which direction this form of art -- or, if you wish, this branch of business -- is heading? If the threat is real, does the European cinema have a chance, or will it always be a minority pleasure?UG: The threat certainly exists. It is enough to look at attendance figures: their language is clear. The market for European films in Europe itself has never been lower. Even in those countries traditionally seen as pivots of film...

Increasing attendance at immunisation clinics: lessons from a trial program that failed

Previous studies suggested that the use of a baby-enrolment and reminder system for early childhood immunisation increased public immunisation clinic attendance. It was decided to run a trial to assess the effects of introducing a baby-enrolment program on attendances at local government immunisation clinics. Enrolment leaflets were distributed to each mother of a new child in six areas of greater Sydney while the mother was in the postnatal ward of the local hospital. Clinic attendance figures were monitored, interviews were conducted with mothers as well as professionals involved in early childhood health services, and the conduct of clinics was observed. The trial failed to increase attendance at public clinics. Mothers' reasons for choice of service, particularly their desire for what they believed to be a more personalised service, and the attitude of the professionals (particularly community nurses) with whom they came in contact were considered to be more influential in determining their use (or lack of use) of public immunisation services. Baby enrolment may be effective in increasing attendance at public immunisation clinics only where there is willing cooperation of all stakeholders in supporting public immunisation services.

Simulated Seas: Exhibition Design in Contemporary Aquariums

In 1857, British naturalist H. Noel Humphreys published Ocean Gardens, one of first handbooks on aquarium care. In his opening chapter, Humphreys admonished his reader: To appreciate Nature... mind requires a education, without which eye and ear perceive but little of miracles passing before them... .The wonders of ocean floor do not reveal themselves to eyes.' Today, in an era of growing environmental awareness, Humphreys's call to develop our vulgar eyes is as important as it was almost 150 years ago. is seeing that is everything, Humphreys told his readers.2 What has changed in intervening years are means and opportunities available for special he considered imperative in order to appreciate nature. A visit to an aquarium (or related institutions such as marine parks, zoos, and natural history museums) is one form such education can assume. It is character of contemporary seeing-in particular, multiple forms of vision afforded visitors to public aquariums-that constitutes subject of this essay. The recent literature on aquariums is filled with journalistic hyperbole. The steady increase in attendance and growth of new facilities have prompted writers to coin phrases such as of and Aquatic Fever to account for popularity of what Wall Street Journal labeled the ultimate in environmentally correct family entertainment. 3 Attendance figures are impressive; for example, more than 80 percent of adult Americans have visited an aquarium.4 In 1993, number of visitors to major American aquariums reached 35.4 million, up from 2+3 million in 1989.5 Aquarium visits are now so popular that new aquariums, or major additions to existing facilities, are projected or already under construction in dozens of cities. For those individuals charged with serving growing numbers of visitors, challenges inherent in aquarium design involve far more than solving practical problems associated with circulation, lighting and life-support systems. The Age of Aquariums requires that curators, educators and exhibit designers consider design problem of how to provide a built environment to accommodate plants, animals and experiences usually encountered in an unbuilt, natural environment. Public aquariums are hardly new institutions (the New York City aquarium, for example, opened in 1896; and Detroit's Belle Isle Aquarium opened in 1904).6 In recent decades, however, way 1 H. Noel Humphreys, Ocean Gardens (London: Sampson Low & Sons, 1857), 3-9. 2 Humphreys, Ocean Gardens, 9. 3 Robert Frank, Fishing for Business: Cities Hope if They Build an Aquarium, Crowds will come, The Wall Street Journal (27 October 1994); also see: Elaine Underwood, Aquatic Fever, Adweek's Marketing Week (10 February 1992): 22. 4 Andrew J. Nelson, Going Wild, American Demographics 12, no. 2 (February 1990): 36. Nelson reports that, between 1980 and 1987, attendance at aquariums increased by 50 percent and, in 1987, combined attendance figures for aquariums, zoos and wildlife parks reached 103 million visitors. 5 Recent attendance figures for aquariums are reported in: Frank, Fishing for Business. 6 For an account of early history of aquariums, see: Leighton Taylor, Aquariums: Windows to Nature (New York: Prentice Hall, 1993).

A school‐based action research project on truancy: Within‐school factors

The publication of the government White Paper Choice and Diversity has drawn attention to the problems of truancy. George Pasternicki and his colleagues have been deeply involved with this issue for some time. Here they examine a 14–18 college that has taken important steps to identify and rectify the problem. An interesting list of suggestions emerges from this investigation. We will undoubtedly be hearing more about truancy as the publication of attendance figures reaches a wider audience.

Why 100 Patients Failed to Keep an Outpatient Appointment — Audit in a Dermatology Department

Failure to keep outpatient appointments is common at all clinics and various explanations may be offered. One hundred attending patients who had failed to keep their previous dermatology clinic appointment were asked the reason for their non-attendance. Many and varied reasons were given but illness (28%), and problems related to appointments (33%) were prominent. They were also asked how. they had obtained a further appointment. Stricter follow-up of non-attenders by the hospital including informingthe GP, and subsequent GP action if necessary, may improve attendance figures.

School Effectiveness and School Attendance

ABSTRACT Given that the British Government is proposing to require all schools to provide the Secretary of State with details of, amongst other things, their respective truancy rates, this article sets out to demonstrate that attendance figures, as well as examination results, should be modified before publication. It reports on a study involving 5,429 pupils in their final year of primary education attending 138 junior/primary schools in a single authority in Wales and utilises child, home and school data.

Evaluating effectiveness in education social work

Abstract The marginalisation of the Education Welfare Service has been well documented. This paper identifies effective practice and suggests how the service can establish performance indicators which will more accurately identify effective practice. It will be argued that consistent monitoring and evaluation will enable the service to move away from the use of either anecdotal case studies or crude attendance figures and demonstrate how the service can become accountable in preventive work. The importance of such a move is related to developments associated with the Children Act 1989, the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work's proposals for the Diploma in Social Work and the recommendations in the 1989 Department of Education and Science, Her Majesty's Inspectorate report, Attendance at School.

Marriage and the Churches in the 1930s: Royal Abdication and Divorce Reform, 1936–7

In a general history of modern England A. J. P. Taylor stated that by the 1920s England ‘had ceased to be, in any real sense, a Christian nation’. He was no doubt referring to declining membership and attendance figures in most Protestant Churches (not the Roman Catholic Church), and may have been implying that there had been substantial abandonment of traditional belief. In regard to traditional morality, based on Christian precepts, he found greater laxity but no very noticeable decline; and this conclusion seems to be generally supported by Church experience in trying to uphold established morality in the inter-war years. Church assembly records and church newspapers show constant concern with familiar moral enemies such as drunkenness and gambling, and possible new dangers in the shape of films, broadcasting and information about birth control. Gambling was increasing because of the popularity of football pools and greyhound racing, but drunkenness appeared less common than before 1914, and the cinema was reasonably harmless (a Cinema Christian Council and other bodies striving to keep it so), as also was television when its broadcasts began in 1936. None the less, the general decline in church attendance was an indication of an increasingly secularised society in which the Churches, taken as a whole, had diminishing influence, and arguably this had a weakening effect on traditional morality.

The Complexities of Assimilation in the 1906 Whitechapel Art Gallery Exhibition 'Jewish Art and Antiquities'

Between 12 noon and 10 p.m. for the six weeks between November 7 and December 16, 1906 over 150,000 people visited the exhibition Jewish Art and Antiquities at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.) The Gallery, founded by Canon and Henrietta Barnett, was opened on 12 March 1901 by Lord Rosebery. It was the outcome of twenty years of exhibitions organised by the Barnetts in St Jude's Schools, Whitechapel where the attendance figures had risen from 10,000 in 1881 to 55,300 in 1886.2 The success of the venture meant that extra space was desperately needed. In 1897 Canon Barnett decided to purchase land to build a 'permanent Picture Gallery scheme'.3 Within two weeks he had raised the ?6,000 necessary for the project and commissioned the architect Charles Harrison Townsend to design the building. The site chosen for the gallery was next to the Passmore Edwards Library4 in Whitechapel High Street. The decision to build the gallery next to the library was significant: their social functions were seen as compatible. It was considered that both provided the means for the social advancement of the working classes and gave them a respectable and sober form of recreation. Townsend had established a reputation as architect of the Bishopsgate Institute (1894) which provided a library and accommodation for the cultural activities of the working classes. The architectural style of the Whitechapel Gallery was to be modern and modern in a particular sense. It was described by The Studio as 'a building that attempts to strike its own note, to be personal, and to speak 1897, not 1797 or 1597'.5 The language of its design had affinities with that of the Arts and Crafts movement, which had come to be associated with forms of church socialism. Indeed, in 1875 William Morris had been commissioned to decorate St Jude's church by Barnett, who argued that:

Industrial museums in Scotland: development and prospects

ABSTRACT Industrial museums are often viewed as a means of supporting economic development, chiefly through the expansion of tourism which in Scotland is still heavily dependent on scenery. The development of industrial museums in Scotland has lagged behind that in England and attendance figures are substantially lower. Industrial museums, which in Scotland are concentrated chiefly in or near urban centres in the Central Lowlands, utilise historical industrial sites, displays of traditional industrial processes and industrial artefacts in thematic collections and reconstructions of social, industrial and urbanhistory; all types are represented in Scotland. Most industrial museums are owned and operated by private individuals or trusts. Although many have been successful in obtaining funds from central- government agencies for capital purposes in the name of economic development, operating support has been more difficult to obtain on a long-term basis, the Manpower Services Commission and local authorities...

Conservation Today: the Preservation and Re-use of Older Buildings Exhibition at the Royal Academy, 17 May–25 June 1989, and subsequently on tour

THE axiom that people won't go to architecture exhibitions was first overturned by the astonishing success of the Lutyens Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery seven years ago. Though architecture still does not appear as regularly in the London exhibition calendar as it does in Paris, Frankfurt or Chicago, it can no longer be tenably asserted that non-architects are scared or bored by the prospect of viewing plans and sketches from architects' drawing-boards. The RIBA has been caught by surprise at the attendance figures for some of its shows not just the ones featuring contemporary architectural superstars and smaller specialist galleries have been established to catch the same tide of public attention. In 1986 the Royal Academy finally acknowledged this renewed interest in architecture by mounting a seductive exhibition about the work of its three best-known architectural Fellows Foster, Rogers, and Stirling. Though given its first showing at Burlington House, Conservation Today is in no sense a sequel, let alone a rebuttal, to the architectural spectacle that filled the main galleries there three years ago. It has been organised not by the Royal Academy, but by the Royal Fine Arts Commission as part of its campaign to spread awareness of the issues it encompasses in its deliberations. Consisting mainly of photographs and text, plus an odd collection of architectural fragments, the display has been kept deliberately small so that it can be shown around the country during the coming year. There is an accompanying book by David Pearce (Conservation Today, Routledge, £11.95) which follows the same story more fully. Since the exhibition includes nothing curious or rare the book can stand as an ample substitute for it, though in both layout and style it is a discredit to its subject. Nothing ties this exhibition to an anniversary in conservation history. The centenary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the vanguard body of its kind, has been and gone, as has the centenary of the first British legislation in the field. Likewise there has been no one outstanding project nearing completion this year that has cried out for attention. In the absence of a particular occasion for celebration the organisers have chosen instead to examine the progress of conservation over the last 14years. They have selected 1975 as their starting-point because that was both European Architectural Heritage Year and the year that SAVE Britain's Heritage was founded: two events which, in their opinion, put some much-needed backbone into the conservation movement. Others might have taken a starting-point slightly earlier-the reaction to the demolition of the Euston Arch in 1961, the triumphant listing of St. Pancras station in 1967, or the rejection of the GLC Master Plan for Covent Garden in 1973but anyone of those dates might have extended the chronicle too much. 1975 is as good a year as any to act as baseline for a general stocktaking. Because it defines a period with no obvious celebratory connotations it has given the organisers freedom to develop their own interpretation of events; to approach the recent past untrammelled by pressing loyalties or constraints. Given such favourable circumstances, what is surprising is how unadventurous the exhibition has turned out to be. Even someone who knows nothing about the subject might suspect that the version of events that it presents is a bit too smoothly complacent. The series of examples that it gives (about

Refurbishing the East Hall of the Science Museum, London

Although designed by Sir Richard Allison in 1913 as the first major public building in London to be constructed of reinforced concrete, the First World War intervened and the Science Museum was not finished until 1928. The elegant low-key design, which for decades acted as a neutral foil to the often complex exhibits, has perhaps not always been fully appreciated in recent years for its positive qualities, and the crudely insensitive post-war installation of fluorescent light-fittings at ceiling level within each bay of the three floors opening into the daylit central space of the East Hall has seriously damaged the overall effect of what had once been a harmonious and coherent, if not particularly exciting, ensemble. The self-evident need to clean up the lighting and hopefully regain some of the lost overall coherence came to be addressed at the same time as the perceived need for a grand gesture to mark the Diamond Jubilee of the Opening by King George V in June 1928, as well as the demand by HM Government that the Science Museum increase its revenue, not least by levying entry charges. The Property Services Agency (PSA) was already installing new lifts in the south-east corner of the building and upgrading the staircases, and the museum itself upgrading display areas in the East Hall zone, when the Director, Dr Neil Cossons, called in Gordon Bowyer & Partners around Easter 1987. The outline design brief had been prepared by the retiring Head of Exhibitions, Michael Preston, and a !Z3/4 million budget was envisaged. Almost indecent haste, inadequate funds and mixed motives are never the most satisfactory basis for such a complex operation, and fundamental questions still hang over the basic design criteria. Apart from the perceived need to modernize the displays in the East Hall, the other parameters were, and remain today, ill-defined. On the one hand, in order to maximize future income, the displays must be as attractive as possible to an unsophisticated audience. On the other hand, however, what are the numbers of visitors likely to be after entry charges have been imposed, and what proportion of regular visitors will reduce their frequency of attendance? On the basis of the experience gained from other British national museums where entry charges have already been introduced, it has been calculated by the Institution of Professional Civil Servants that the Science Museum will lose some 40 percent of its three million or so visitors, and a reduction of well over one million visitors per annum cannot but have a relevance for the overall design and visitor services to be provided. From October 1988 entrance charges will have been levied, and it will be some months before their full impact can be judged adequately, but the circulation problems posed by the severely overcrowded Exhibition Road Entrance Hall would be greatly alleviated by a massive reduction in attendance figures, and there is no guarantee that following the introduction of entry charges either the

Internepcon UK, 1989

To ‘report’ on this year's Internepcon, 14–16 March, at the NEC, Birmingham, is going to prove more difficult than anticipated. The average journalist would report on such an event—whether as a eulogy or critique—from the standpoint of the visitor, having time to saunter up and down the aisles, amass briefcasefuls of press releases, sniff out the genuinely new products from those merely flaunting a ‘New’ label, interrogate the occasional exhibitor regarding impressions, etc. Well, I too had hoped to follow this format, anticipating the occasional lull in activity. However, as an exhibitor, I found little opportunity to ‘escape’ from the Circuit World stand—even on Wednesday when I had the assistance of a colleague to share ‘booth‐duty’ (pardon the Americanism). This surely speaks volumes for the increased success of this year's event. Numbers of visitors undoubtedly seemed to be higher than in recent years. Of course, we should compare like with like and check this year's attendance figures against the figures for the last combined Packaging and Production Show held in Brighton in 1985. Even that comparison is not entirely valid either, as this year saw for the first time the running of Semiconductor International concurrently with the combined Internepcon Show and under exactly the same roof in Hall 5.

The impact of video recorders on cinema attendance

Cinema attendances in the United Kingdom and the United States have been subject to severe declines in the post-war period. Fairly strong evidence (Belson, 1958) exists that the arrival and development of television contributed powerfully to the initial decline. As televisions now populate almost every home we would expect this influence to have worked itself out. The 1980's have seen the arrival of videos as a new threat to cinema takings. Analysts of the industry have been suggesting (Docherty et. al., 1986), (Variety, 1985) that the threat is more apparent than real with demographic factors and/or poor films being the cause of more recent audience declines. These claims derive from casual inspection of ticket receipts (Variety, 1985) or one-off surveys of consumer attitudes (Docherty et. al., 1986). To date there has been no concrete evidence offered for or against the impact of video. Such evidence is hard to gather because of data limitations. This is particularly the case for the U.S. where there is the added complication of diffusion of pay TV. The U.K. is free from this complication as pay TV is still extremely rare and monthly price and attendance figures are available until their publication ceased in May 1985. In this note we use a demand equation to discuss what ticket sales would have been in the period (January 1983 onwards) when video access began to gather impetus. Comparison of the equation results with actual ticket sales suggests a marked reduction which may tentatively be attributed to the VCR.