Generous Level Research Articles

Variation in Total Phenolic and In-vitro Antioxidant Activities of Mentha longifolia L. From Azad Jammu and Kashmir Territory

The examination was done to decide the all-out phenolics, all-out flavonoids, and in-vitro antioxidants of M. longifolia gathered from various areas (Rawalakot, Khaigala, Akhorban, Alisojal, Phirkot, Bhaikh, and Singola) of Poonch, Azad Jammu, and Kashmir. The watery concentrates of M. longifolia were surveyed for absolute phenolics, all-out flavonoids, restraint against thiobarbituric acid reactive species (TBARS) prompt by various star oxidants (10µM FeSo4 and 5µM sodium nitroprusside) in mice liver and brain homogenates, DPPH radical searching limit, iron-chelating power. The outcomes demonstrated that M. longifolia contained a generous level of phenolic (192.10±2.10 mg/g) and flavonoid compounds (4.23±0.03 mg/g) separately. Among various areas, the Alisojal indicated the most elevated antioxidant movement against lipid peroxidation prompted by iron in mice liver (IC50, 23.67±2.67 µg/ml) and brain (IC50, 13.85±0.85 µg/ml) and showed the most noteworthy cell reinforcement action against sodium nitroprusside in mice liver (IC50, 14.76±1.76 µg/ml) and brain (IC50, 14.05±1.05 µg/ml). The concentrates of various areas likewise demonstrated promising DPPH radical searching (IC50, 30.47±1.47 - 71.77±2.77 µg/ml) and metal-chelating activities (IC50, 40.67±0.89 - 90.92±3.92 µg/ml). In general, it was presumed that M. longifolia may be an expected wellspring of phenolic and flavonoid mixes bearing a considerate of the antioxidant character towards animal tissues.

Combining parenthood and work: transmission channels and heterogeneous returns to early public childcare

We exploit local and temporal variation in the availability of public childcare for children under the age of three that induces exogenous variation in childcare attendance. We find a weak, positive average treatment effect (ATE) on maternal labor supply. The estimation of the average treatment effect is interesting – however, possibly masking important effect heterogeneity. Examining selection behavior and estimating marginal treatment effects along the distribution of observables and unobservables that drive individual treatment decisions reveal transmission channels and uncover substantial heterogeneity in marginal returns from public childcare reforms. By estimating marginal returns, we detect reverse selection on gains at the intensive margin, whereas a substantial share (40 percent) of mothers with median desire to public childcare react with increased probability to work full time. Thus, if the supply of public childcare is expanded from a modest to a more generous level of coverage, those with average resistance towards early public childcare do gain. At the extensive margin, positive selection on gains is found; however, only a small fraction of mothers with the lowest distaste for early public childcare shift from non-employment to part-time jobs.

Age Difference in Social Discounting: Generous Level Also Makes a Difference

Social discounting refers to the phenomenon that individuals’ generous behaviors decline as the social distance increases. But little is known how age could influence social discounting. The present study aimed at a more comprehensive understanding of age-related differences in social discounting. Moreover, as previous studies suggested that older adults are more loss aversion, we would also test whether framing (gain vs loss) could influence social discounting between two age groups. A mixed-model factorial design of 2 (age group: younger vs. older adults) × 2 (framing: gain vs. loss) × 2 (generous level: low vs. high) × 8 (social distance) was conducted, with a total of 78 younger adults and 82 older adults. A significant social distance × age interaction was found, which replicated previous studies suggesting that older adults are more generous toward socially distant others. Interestingly, a significant age × framing × generous interaction was also found, such that in low generous condition, older adults tend to be more generous than younger adults under both gain and loss framing, while such age difference disappeared in high generous condition. These findings indicate that generous level has a positive impact on people social discounting, inducing younger adults to get more generous. Contrary to our expectation, the framing of gain and loss seems not to wave individuals’ social discounting. It seems that people think more seriously about the amount of allocation rather than framing.

Gerasimos Filippatos MD FESC FHFA, outgoing president of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.

Gerasimos Filippatos MD FESC FHFA, outgoing president of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.

Adverse selection and its consequences on medical and health insurance andtakafulin Malaysia

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate first, the consumer buying behaviour and claims pattern of medical and health insurance (MHI)/medical and healthtakaful(MHT) policies and second, to determine whether moral hazard exists among policyholders at the time of application for the product and during claiming for compensation.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted on respondents from the insurance industry in Malaysia.FindingsIt was found that most claims were rejected due to the discovery of some irregularities by the managed care organizations (MCO) while the Islamic insurer's claims experience, was otherwise. During the buying behaviour stage of MHT, there are fewer tendencies to withhold information but during the claiming stage, due to the generous level of compensation and their awareness of the coverage available naturally influence them to submit excessive claims. To a certain extent moral hazard is present when claims are made for longer disability durations than necessary, and having high average claims per person even for shorter duration disabilities.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper concentrates only on the MHI/MHT in Malaysia.Practical implicationsThe results provide insights on how the Malaysian insurance industry and other organizations of a similar structure could improve on their business performance.Originality/valueThis paper is perhaps one of the first to address adverse selection and its consequences on MHI/MHT in Malaysia.

In plain sight: simple, difficult lessons from New Jersey's expensive effort to close the achievement gap

This is a story about what happens when a state education department partners with city school districts in an attempt to close the achievement gap between poor, minority city students and their counterparts in the predominantly white and more affluent suburban districts. It is set in New Jersey, but the lessons apply in any American city that has concentrations of poor children in failing school districts. What sets New Jersey apart is the generous level of court-mandated funding available, and the fact that preschool in the state begins at age three. A preliminary look at the results of New Jersey's expensive efforts resulting from the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case Abbott v. Burke suggests an unsurprising conclusion: when additional funds are concentrated on supporting and enhancing teachers' efforts to assess the needs of their students and tailor their instruction to those needs, dramatically better results are possible. If no coherent plan for improved classroom instruction is implemented, more money makes no difference, and can, instead, produce confusion and declining performance. New Jersey has demonstrated remarkable success in improving children's educational attainment-for example, only in Massachusetts did fourth graders score higher than those in New Jersey, a much more diverse state, on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test. And, remarkably, New Jersey was the only state in which scores in all ethnic categories improved over 2005. It is Gordon MacInnes' contention that New Jersey's fairly dramatic improvement is a product of a focused effort by many of the state's poorest school districts to introduce effective early literacy practices. No one is better equipped to tell the story of New Jersey's success in closing the achievement gap than MacInnes, and his remarkably frank and comprehensive examination of those districts where poor, minority students demonstrated continued academic improvement provides invaluable lessons for improving the academic prospects for all.

Enforcing the Right to Property Properly

Of all patrimonial rights, the right to property is considered by far the most powerful. The owner is entitled to the exclusive use of the object, the word ‘use’ is understood in a very wide meaning and the owner has a strong position as far as enforcement of his right is concerned. He can reclaim the object from anyone (revindicatio), he is usually entitled to both positive injunctions (removal of objects from his premises) and prohibitory injunctions (in case of trespass). And finally, when the owner has to put up with infringements, he is entitled to damages. There seems, however, to be quite a gap between the position of the owner who is entitled to an injunction and that of the owner who has to bear infringements and is only entitled to damages. In the first situation (injunction), the owner can vindicate his right according to a property rule which allows him to set the price for infringements. In the second case (damages), the owner is left to compensatory standards. In this paper, the consequences of the substantial shift in protection from an injunction to (different levels of) compensation will be illustrated with examples from the modern civil code of The Netherlands. Dutch law offers examples of different regimes of protection of the owner: a rather strong position (injunctive power) in the area of neighbour law, a relatively strong position in case of expropriation (a generous level of compensation), a typical liability rule (compensation according to objective standards) when a pressing societal interest prohibits injunctive relief, and a weak level of protection in case of a limited restraint of the owners capacity in case of a public development plan (only ‘fair’ compensation). These examples, which show a sliding scale of levels of protection, raise the question whether the right to property is vindicated properly when injunctive power is left for some form of compensation in money. They also raise the question according to which standards of compensation the right to property can and should be adequately protected.

The Incorporation Choices of Privately Held Corporations

Exploiting a large new database, this article explores the incorporation choices of closely held U.S. corporations. The majority of corporations in our sample incorporate in the state in which their primary place of business (PPB) is located. However, among the corporations with 1000 or more employees, only about half incorporate in their PPB state, and of those that do not, more than half are incorporated in Delaware. We find statistically significant and robust evidence that corporations from states with judiciaries that are held in low esteem are more likely to incorporate outside of their PPB state. Furthermore, corporations are more likely to migrate away from states where the risk of veil piercing is perceived to be high, that have adopted so-called exculpation statutes, or that offer a particularly generous level of minority shareholder protection. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

The Incorporation Choices of Privately Held Corporations

Exploiting a large new database, this paper explores the incorporation choices of closely held U.S. corporations. The majority of corporations in our sample incorporate in the state in which their primary place of business (PPB) is located. However, among the corporations with more than 1000 employees, only about half incorporate in their PPB state, and of those that do not, more than half are incorporated in Delaware. We find statistically significant and robust evidence that corporations from states with low quality judiciaries are more likely to incorporate outside of their PPB state. Furthermore, corporations are more likely to migrate away from states where the risk of veil piercing is perceived to be high or that offer a particularly generous level of minority shareholder protection. The study complements empirical studies of incorporation choices of public companies, and offers new empirical evidence related to several theoretical debates concerning the market for corporate law.

Analysis of soil carbon outcomes from interaction between climate and grazing pressure in Australian rangelands using Range-ASSESS

This paper uses a scenario analysis system – Range-ASSESS – to examine the potential for gains and losses of soil carbon in the Australian rangelands as affected by grazing and climate. The analysis involves a factorial examination of the effect of stocking rates and all possible 5-year historical climates between 1889 and 1999. The analysis also looks at the sensitivity of results to the method of calculation of safe carrying capacity, and to the thresholds used to calculate grazing and dryness indices that drive transitions in state and transition models. The analysis showed that different vegetation zones produced different responses to changes in stocking depending upon the spatial distribution of dryness index, nature of carbon state and transition model, rules governing transitions, and relative significance of soil carbon. At a stocking density equivalent to 100% of 1997 levels, the soil carbon loss from rangelands was about 400 Mt C in 40% of the 5-year periods using a sensitive growth deviation threshold to determine dryness index. If a less sensitive threshold was used, potential loss was reduced to about 200 Mt C. If the grazing pressure threshold for a grazing index of four is adjusted to a more generous level, then potential losses in the dry periods are substantially reduced. The analysis is intended to be indicative of a likely approximate outcome rather than a quantitative measure of system response. The results indicate that the interpretation of the effect of the drought-grazing pressure interaction on perennial plant survival, and consequent organic carbon input to soils, is a major source of uncertainty and a critical area for more experimental measurement.

A Single Welfare Benefit Level for Europe? Efficiency Implications of Policy Harmonization in a Federal System

Within the European Union, it has been suggested that greater economic integration will help European economies regardless of the kind of integration Europe chooses to pursue. In this paper, I examine economic integration in the context of redistributive policy and find that the effects of such integration are crucially dependent upon the level of redistribution to be adopted as a common policy, with higher welfare benefit levels associated with lower levels of federation output. This suggests that the case for policy harmonization at a generous level must rest on equity rather than efficiency considerations.

A Single Welfare Benefit Level for Europe? Efficiency Implications of Policy Harmonization in a Federal System

Within the European Union, it has been suggested that greater economic integration will help European economies regardless of the kind of integration Europe chooses to pursue. In this paper, I examine economic integration in the context of redistributive policy and lind that the effects of such integration are crucially dependent upon the level of redistribution to be adopted as a common policy, with higher welfare benefit levels associated with lower levels of federation output. This suggests that the case for policy harmonization at a generous level must rest on equity rather than efficiency considerations.

Impact of generosity level of outpatient prescription drug coverage on prescription drug events and expenditure among older persons.

This study examined the impact of drug coverage generosity on older persons' prescription events (fills) and expenditures. A cross-sectional study was conducted of 6237 older persons from the 1995 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey. Dependent variables were per capita prescription events and expenditures. Independent variables were insurance type and drug coverage generosity. Control variables included sociodemographic and health status factors. Regardless of insurance type, per capita prescription events increased as drug coverage generosity improved and then decreased at the most generous level. Per capita prescription expenditures increased as generosity improved; with generous prescription coverage, prescription expenditures were approximately 3 times those with Medicare only. Even when factors that affect drug use and insurance selection are controlled, prescription coverage generosity influences prescription use.

Why don't people like me?

Why don't people like me?

Plasma arginine and leucine kinetics and urea production rates in burn patients

We measured plasma arginine and leucine kinetics and rates of urea production (appearance) in 12 severely burned patients (mean body surface burn area, 48%) during a basal state (low-dose intravenous glucose) and while receiving routine, total parenteral nutrition ([TPN] fed state) including an l-amino acid mixture, supplying a generous level of nitrogen (mean, 0.36 g N · kg −1 · d −1). The two nutritional states were studied in random order using a primed 4-hour constant intravenous tracer infusion protocol. Stable-nuclide-labeled tracers were l-[guanidino- 13C]arginine, l-[1- 13C]leucine, [ 18O]urea, and NaH 13CO 3 (prime only), with blood and expired air samples drawn at intervals to determine isotopic abundance of arginine, citrulline, ornithine, α-ketoisocaproate ([KIC] for leucine), and urea in plasma and 13CO 2 in breath. Results are compared with data obtained in these laboratories in healthy adults. Leucine kinetics (flux and disappearance into protein synthesis) indicated the expected higher turnover in burn patients than in healthy controls. Mean leucine oxidation rates are also higher and compared well with values predicted from urea production rates, provided that urea nitrogen recycling via intestinal hydrolysis is taken into account. The plasma urea flux was also higher than for normal subjects. Arginine fluxes as measured in the systemic whole body, via the plasma pool, were correspondingly higher in burned patients than in healthy controls and were in good agreement with values predicted from leucine-KIC kinetics. However, systemic whole-body arginine flux measured via the plasma pool was only 20% of the arginine flux estimated from the urea flux plus the rate of protein synthesis. This finding is strong evidence that there is a significant synthesis of arginine (probably via recycling of ornithine) occurring in a sequestered pool (presumably in the hepatocyte) that is not in close communication with the plasma pool. Further, these data for plasma arginine flux suggest that the net rate of arginine degradation is increased in burn trauma, while there also appears to be a continued low and possibly unchanged net rate of de novo arginine synthesis contributing arginine to the plasma pool. This interpretation leads to the conclusion that there are at least two significant metabolic pools of arginine, one highly sequestered related specifically to urea synthesis and the other a systemic pool in equilibrium with the plasma. Because the hepatic urea-arginine cycle does not contribute substantially to making arginine available for protein synthesis, we propose from these findings that arginine is a conditionally essential (indispensable) amino acid in the nutrition of severely burned patients and that an exogenous arginine source is needed to maintain arginine balance.

Commitment Problems Justify Subsidies for Medical Insurance

Consumers who believe that government will provide them with some public medical care, even if they did not purchase medical insurance, may choose to purchase no such insurance. The amount of medical care consumed will then be less than the first-best optimum. Under specified conditions government can then increase the welfare of consumers by subsidizing insurance, or by providing public health care at a more generous level than the minimum it would otherwise give.

The role of income and health risk in the choice of health insurance: Evidence from Australia

Health insurance choice is investigated using individual data from Australia where all people faced a common limited set of possible health insurance policies. The data cover two separate regimes: one in which insurance choice was for a more generous level of coverage; and one in which the choice was a more dramatic one between insurance and no insurance coverage. In determining health insurance choice, the results indicate a major role for income; a major role for premium, notably in the first regime; and a minor role for observed factors related to health risk, aside from age and sex.

The effect of different distributions of the same total dietary between late pregnancy and early lactation on the performance of twin-bearing suckler cows

The advent of twinning in suckler cows, through the application of multiple ovulation and embryo transfer techniques has provided a means of increasing the biological efficiency of the suckled calf system of beef production. However, even with improvement in output the need remains for twin-bearing suckler cows to be fed economically. This can be achieved by making effective use of summer and autumn grazing which on most farms provides a high plane of nutrition and allows the cows to increase their body reserves. This generous level of feeding may be followed by more stringent and controlled feeding in winter and early spring, when conserved feeds, grain and by-products are fed. This restriction leads to a reduction in feed costs and also to a depletion of the accumulated resrves.

Constraints on the Uptake of Improvement Grants

The Housing Act, 1969, introduced more generous financial assistance for people wishing to improve and modernise ‘sound older houses’. The standard grant now covers half the cost of improvement up to a normal maximum of £200. Discretionary grants aiming at a more generous level of improvement or the conversion of houses of unsatisfactory size into, say, flats, were increased to maxima of £1000 for improvement and £1200 for conversion. Additional finance, whilst important in explaining the recent increase in the numbers of both types of grant is, however, only one of the relevant factors to be considered when looking at the possibilities of yet further and needed increases in the rate of improvement. Increases in finance presuppose both a knowledge of possibilities and an incentive to realise them on the part of the householder, as well as an assumption of a capacity or at least an elasticity in the supply of other relevant factors of production. The purpose of this article is to identify and examine those factors which may act as constraints upon the speed with which improvement policies can be implemented, and therefore we look at both the demand and the supply side.