Priority Points Research Articles

Priority points and cardiac events while waiting for coronary bypass surgery

OBJECTIVETo assess the risk of important cardiac events while waiting for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) in relation to the New Zealand priority scoring system; to compare clinical characteristics of...

A hierarchical model of contraceptive use in urban and rural Bangladesh

In this paper, a model is developed for examining the hierarchical effects of contraceptive use and its determinants in urban-rural Bangladesh by employing data from the 1989 Bangladesh Fertility Survey (BFS). In the survey, a total of 11,905 ever-married women of reproductive age were interviewed in urban and rural situations. An investigation has been carried out in this study using a set of demographic, socio-economic, cultural, and decision-making variables. A number of new findings emerge from this study. It has been found that contraceptive use has no significant variation between regions; however, a statistically significant variation exists between the blocks (census tracts) of Bangladesh. Findings also indicate that mother's parity, her education, family planning decisions, and female independence score are found to have a significant positive effect on the use of contraception in urban and rural Bangladesh, whereas child death has a significant negative influence. Religion and work experience of women are found to have little effect on contraceptive use. The findings of the study indicate priority points for policy purposes.

Construction Grants Program: Capital Budgeting

State project priority lists pursuant to the Federal Wastewater Construction Grants Program are examined from the viewpoint of cost‐effective capital budgeting. Integer programming (IP) or, alternatively, ranking on the basis of the priority‐to‐cost ratio (PCR) is found to be more cost‐effective in project selection than the current “funding line” approach. The IP is structured to select a project set that optimizes the total priority points gained under a fixed budget. The method is applied to the actual project priority lists of four states (New York, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Ohio). The number of projects to be funded in the first year, as determined by the IP approach, is 112% more than the number found by the conventional approach, and the total sum of priority points (effectiveness) is 86.0% more. The IP approach funds 63.6% of the eligible projects in the first year, while the conventional approach funds only 30.0%. Improvements to multiyear funding plans should approximate these figures under ...