Semiannual Report Research Articles

Report on the Incidence of Longer-Term Program Engagement

During the discussion of the conclusions of the Task Force on Prolonged Use of Fund Resources, the Executive Board requested semi annual reports on the incidence of Longer-Term Program Engagement (LTPE). This is the sixth such report which provides information through June 2006.

Pigsties and Sunsets: L. M. Montgomery, A Tangled Web, and a Modernism of Her Own

Pigsties and Sunsets: L.M. Montgomery, A Tangled Web, and a Modernism of Her Own Benjamin Lefebvre University of Winnipeg "My sales have been slipping a bit of late years," L.M. Montgomery noted in her journal in 1928, commenting on a semi-annual report she had received from her American publisher. "Well, I suppose I have had my day and must make way for newer favorites. For twenty years I have been in the van and that is considered a long time for the fickle public to be faithful" (Selected Journals III [1 October 1928] 378–79). By 1928, two decades after her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), thrust her permanently into the public eye, Montgomery had published thirteen novels, two collections of short stories (one unauthorized), a collection of poems, and numerous periodical pieces. While her comment of resignation may have been realistic for a popular writer in mid-career, Montgomery immediately contradicted that expectation: "Yet my publishers tell me there is another reason—and a rather flattering one. It seems the sales of my old books are keeping up too well and they cut the market from my new ones to a large extent" (379). While Montgomery could afford to be smug about her continued high sales, there were some changes about which she could not feel so self-assured during this time period. After rereading Marie Corelli's Sorrows of Satan (1895) during a night of insomnia in 1930, she reflected, "What a [End Page 123] commotion that book made when it came out over thirty years ago. And now I suppose nobody under thirty has ever heard of it. It was about as wild and absurd as any book could be—but Marie could tell a story. After all, I prefer the Satanic sorrows to the modern sex putridity" (Selected Journals IV [30 August 1930] 65; see also After Green Gables [26 April 1931] 187). An avid reader who mixed recent popular fiction interchangeably with rereadings of favourite texts by canonical writers of the nineteenth century and whose choice of reading materials does not seem to have been affected by her public role as the wife of a Presbyterian minister, Montgomery was nonetheless not completely indiscriminate when it came to modern taste in fiction, given that she had difficulty adjusting to some of the latest literary trends. After reading a scene in Valentine Dobrée's Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind (1927) that included "the most hideous, loathsome bestial incident—the vilest thing I ever read in any book," something so obscene she refused to describe it, her reaction was so violent that "It turned me sick": I think what hurt me worst was that it was so unjustifiable. There was no need for it—it didn't belong to the book…. I am no prude. I have read a great many books where sex played a prominent part—great books which I enjoyed. But I have no use for the filth that is being spewed out by the presses of the world today. It is not sex—it is plain dirt. This was worse than dirt—it was verminous. (Selected Journals III [17 November 1927] 359; see also After Green Gables [7 April 1929] 162–63)1 As Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston note in their Introduction to the fourth volume of Montgomery's Selected Journals (1998), which includes entries from 1929 to 1935, literary trends that evolved gradually after World War I gave a new set of tastes and offerings to Montgomery's "fickle public," which would cause sales of her books to decline steadily throughout the 1930s. "Fragmentation, angst, and disillusionment were [End Page 124] the vogue, and Montgomery's novels, set in pre-war Prince Edward Island, appeared to be works of nostalgia and sentimentalism to the Modernist critical eye," they write. Moreover, her books "were about domestic women at a time when the heroes...

Lipoprotein Peroxidation and Mobility Limitation

Oxidative damage plays an important role in leading to major health-related events. The aim of this study was to assess the predictive value of a lipoprotein peroxidation marker, oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL) for incident mobility limitation (ML). Data are from 2985 well-functioning elders enrolled in the Health ABC study (median follow-up, 4.1 years). All oxLDL levels were measured at the baseline assessment. The oxLDL/LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) ratio (log value) was used as a measure of lipoprotein peroxidation. Mobility limitation was defined by 2 consecutive semiannual reports of any difficulty either walking 1/4 mile or climbing up 10 steps without resting. Severe ML was defined by 2 consecutive reports of great difficulty or inability to do the same tasks. Cox proportional hazards models were performed to assess hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The mean (SD) age of the sample was 74.2 (2.9) years. After adjustment for potential confounders (sociodemographic factors, smoking, physical activity, body mass index, clinical conditions, biological markers, and medications), the relationship between the oxLDL/LDL-C ratio and disability events was statistically significant (per log-unit difference in the oxLDL/LDL-C ratio) (for ML: HR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.06-1.41; for severe ML: HR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.15-1.79). Consistent results were found when interleukin 6 level was included as a covariate in the adjusted models (ML: HR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.98-1.31; severe ML: HR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.05-1.64). No significant sex, race, interleukin 6 level, or clinical conditions interaction was found with the oxLDL/LDL-C ratio and mobility disability. Lipoprotein peroxidation predicts the onset of ML in older persons. The oxLDL predictive value for ML is partly explained by interleukin 6 levels.

Talking about…

Talking about…

The IMF on Policies Responding to Demographic Change

In its semiannual report World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund presents its analysis of major economic policy issues and assessment of economic prospects, along with more detailed treatment of a selected current topic. The special topic in the 300‐page report published in September 2004 is “The Global Demographic Transition,” treated in Chapter III of the document. An excerpt from the section of that chapter titled “Policies to Meet the Challenges of Global Demographic Change” is reproduced below with the permission of the IMF. Footnotes and the figure included in the excerpt have been renumbered.The title of Chapter III is “How Will Demographic Change Affect the Global Economy?” The tone of the discussion is set by the opening epigraph, a quotation from the UK's 1949 Report of the Royal Commission on Population: “It seems possible that a society in which the proportion of young people is diminishing will become dangerously unprogressive, falling behind other communities not only in technical efficiency and economic welfare, but in intellectual and artistic achievement as well.” Accordingly, the focus of the analysis, like that of the commentary by US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan reprinted in the preceding Document item in this issue, is on the consequences of population aging and on the desirable policy responses to that process. The discussion broadly parallels Greenspan's but with a wider compass, including some consideration of the effects of aging in developing countries. It emphasizes the need for counteracting adverse effects of demographic change through a combination of policy measures, since “the size of the reforms” (such as increasing labor force participation, inducing later retirement, and attracting more immigrants) “that would be needed in any single area [is] sufficiently large that they would be politically and economically difficult to achieve.”

The Market Consequences of Voluntary Auditing: Evidence from Interim Reports in China

The Chinese stock market provides a unique institutional setting to investigate empirically why listed firms voluntarily have their financial reports audited and whether auditing enhances their credibility. While auditing of interim reports is not mandatory in China except for a subset of firms in circumstances specified by the state regulator, a number of Chinese firms voluntarily purchase audits for their interim reports. In this study, we investigate the determinants of voluntary auditing and test whether investors distinguish between voluntarily audited and unaudited interim reports. Based on a sample of 2,458 semi-annual interim reports released by listed Chinese firms from 1996 to 1999, we find that the choice of voluntary auditing is positively associated with profitability and company size, and negatively with the percentage of non-tradable shares. We also document that the ERCs of audited firms are higher than those of unaudited firms, especially when the auditing is voluntary. Overall, our results are consistent with theoretical propositions that (1) managers voluntarily acquire auditing service to make a commitment to disclose accurate and credible financial data to reduce agency costs and, (2) auditing enhances the credibility of accounting numbers.

Research, Ownership, Misconduct—Readers Respond

Research, Ownership, Misconduct—Readers Respond

Using Hospital Performance Data in Quality Improvement: The Cleveland Health Quality Choice Experience

Cleveland Health Quality Choice is a regional initiative to assess hospital performance which was implemented in 1989. The project developed and validated CHOICE, a severity adjustment system that includes diagnosis-specific models for medical, surgical, and obstetrical patients which are based on clinical data abstracted from patients' medical records. Since 1992 Cleveland Health Quality Choice has disseminated semi-annual reports that profile hospital mortality rates, lengths of stay, and cesarean section rates using the CHOICE severity adjustment models. Hospitals receive tabular and graphical representations of hospital outcomes and electronic patient-level data files that can be used to further examine outcomes in clinical subgroups. Four case studies illustrate how outcomes data derived from the CHOICE models led to the development of successful hospital programs to decrease lengths of stay, cesarean section rates, and hospital mortality rates. Although each case study reflected a unique approach to process improvement, several common characteristics were observed: (1) establishment of interdisciplinary process improvement teams with senior physician and nursing leadership; (2) detailed review of the process of care to identify modifiable clinical practices likely to affect outcomes; (3) development of practice guidelines based on group consensus or published recommendations that were designed to affect modifiable practices; and (4) aggressive sharing of serial data with individual practitioners. Although outcomes data can provide powerful insight on where to target quality improvement efforts, hospitals must identify influential and modifiable clinical practices. Such efforts are most likely to be successful if driven by interdisciplinary work groups, supported by senior clinicians and administrators, and based on locally accepted practice standards.

Comment on Alternative Models for Clearance and Settlement: The Case of the Single European Capital Market

Investing in securities of foreign companies and foreign governments involves economic and political risks and considerations not typically associated with investing in U.S. companies and the U.S. Government. These considerations include changes in exchange rates and exchange rate controls (which may include suspension of the ability to transfer currency from a given country), costs incurred in conversions between currencies, non-negotiable brokerage commissions, less publicly available information, different accounting standards, lower trading volume, delayed settlement and greater market volatility, the difficulty of enforcing obligations in other countries, less securities regulation, different tax provisions (including withholding on dividends paid to the Fund), war, expropriation, political and social instability and diplomatic developments. (Tweedy, Browne Global Value Fund, Investment Manager's Semi-Annual Report, September 30,1995, p. 28)

Promuovere la competitività europea (Enhancing European competitiveness)

Europe's bid to improve its competitive advantage is hampered by underutilization of its productive potential, as gleaned from its high unemployment rate, and the dissociation of economic growth and employment, where economic development is no longer accompanied by rise in employment. The Competitiveness Advisory Group addresses these issues in its work program and identifies sectors showing the greatest potential for enhancing competitive edge, among which are infrastructure, trade and investment. It also urges the implementation of key policy programs. The Group's proceedings and the main themes of its first two semi-annual reports (June and December 1995) are discussed. JEL: F00

National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) Semiannual Report, May 1995 A report from the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) System

National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) Semiannual Report, May 1995 A report from the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) System

Validation of the structural scales of the CPI for predicting the performance of junior officers in the U. S. Coast Guard

This article applies the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) to the prediction of the rated performance of junior officers in the U. S. Coast Guard. The study uses Harrison Gough's recently published structural scales or “vectors” for the CPI and contrasts the predictive validity of the structural scales with that of the original scales based on “folk concepts.” For 85 graduates of the U. S. Coast Guard Academy's class of 1986, performance during the first two years following graduation was summarized in an overall rating derived from regular, semi-annual effectiveness reports. CPI vectors calculated from data that had been gathered during the summer of 1982 effectively predicted leadership performance and provided some support for Gough's typological “cuboid” model of personality. While the structural scales offered a relatively compact description of personality, several of the individual folk scales, notablyDominance, performed as well as or better than the structural scales as predictors of the performance criterion. The implications of the results, both for the use of the CPI and for the utility of the higher-order personality constructs represented by the structural scales, are discussed.

5.5 Is a semiannual report required if a device user facility has submitted no reports for that period?

5.5 Is a semiannual report required if a device user facility has submitted no reports for that period?

Inspector general reports as instruments of governmental accountability

Inspectors General in all major Federal agencies report semiannually to Congress on the integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness of program management in their agencies. The reporting mechanism is intended to serve as an instrument of governmental accountability to Congress and the public, but there is evidence that it falls short of that goal. The study examines the semiannual reports from the perspective of their usefulness in conveying information about the character and quality of administration in Federal agencies. Negative factors are unclear definition of the role and responsibilities of Inspectors General, proliferation of detail and paucity of generalization in the reports, and inadequate public distribution. Nonetheless, the reports contain large quantities of significant information unavailable from any other public source.

Creation of a semiannual report for a multicentre co-operative clinical trials group.

The Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) is a multicentre co-operative group that performs prospective clinical trials in cancer. The SWOG Statistical Center is responsible for preparing a report of studies for the semiannual meetings. The report includes a summary of study design and eligibility criteria, current accrual, baseline patient characteristics, toxicity, and, for studies closed to accrual and with sufficiently mature outcome data, tumour response or patient survival. A software program, Statisticians' Report Worksheet (SRW), has been developed by the programming staff at the SWOG Statistical Center. This program enables each disease specific chapter to be created independently, but ensures that tables and graphs for all chapters are of uniform style. We describe here the coordination of the report, and the use of the SRW program. This reporting system can serve as a model for other groups.

Chemical selection by the Interagency Testing Committee: use of computerized substructure searching to identify chemical groups for health effects, chemical fate and ecological effects testing

Since 1977, the Interagency Testing Committee has convened over 300 meetings, issued 27 semi-annual reports to the Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, screened about 26000 chemicals, reviewed about 4500 chemicals and recommended between 5000 and 7600 health effects, chemical fate or ecological effects tests for 114 chemicals and 27 chemical groups. The Committee has used three chemical selection processes to screen and identify chemicals for priority testing consideration. From 1977 to 1980, the Committee's processes consisted of examining large lists of chemicals and designating chemical categories that satisfied generic definitions. From 1980 to 1989, the Committee used sequential exposure and biological scoring processes followed by in-depth review. Since 1989, the Committee has used computerized processes to identify chemical groups that are associated with potentials to cause adverse health or ecological effects or that are likely to involve occupational or environmental exposure and that have common substructures, uses, testing information deficiencies, risk assessment uncertainties, etc. This paper focuses on use of the computerized processes to identify chemical groups containing common substructures that are associated with potentials to cause adverse ecological effects. The purpose of this paper is to describe how: (i) chemical substructures are selected, (ii) substructures are used to identify chemical groups, (iii) groups are processed, and (iv) reliability of the processes that were used to select chemical substructures are being assessed.

Community Hospital Surgeon-Specific Infection Rates

A one-year prospective study of surgeon-specific nosocomial infection rates was done in two community hospitals. Hospital A (93 beds) and Hospital B (158 beds) have nearly identical surgical staffs. Unified criteria for the diagnosis of infections, methods of data collection, and coding were used. Data were processed with an IBM 370 computer using Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Each surgeon received semiannual reports of 1) overall infection rate by site, 2) number of surgical wound infections by wound class and type of procedure, 3) pathogens for each deep and incisional infection, and 4) quarterly wound infection rates by wound class. Analysis of reports revealed high Class I surgical wound infection rates for both general and orthopedic surgeons. One person in each group had inordinately high infection rates. These data serve as an objective incentive to reduce surgical wound infections, identify individual problems, and suggest surgical privileges be evaluated by performance.

American Shipping and Trade, 1798–1820: The Evidence from Leghorn

The response of American merchants to the opportunities of neutral trade after 1793 was not limited to expanding the volume of their operations. Semi-annual reports on shipping submitted by American consuls to the Department of State provide a uniquely rich source of evidence about mercantile decisions. Analysis of the evidence from the port of Leghorn, Italy, between 1798 and 1820 reveals the growing productivity of American shipping and the characteristics of America's re-export trade to southern Europe.

Bank Holding Company Acquisitions and Their Impact on Market Shares: Comment

Two major studies of bank company acquisitions have found that holding company acquisitions . . . do not have a broad impact on the performance of acquired [5, p. 13] (also see [4]). Nevertheless it has been generally assumed in regulatory agency analysis that company acquisitions will increase the market shares of the acquired banks because of presumed economies of scale. Studies have typically found economies as banks moved out of the lower deposit sizes, but there are serious methodological problems with these studies.l Two types of acquisitions have been singled out for special attention in policy discussions of bank acquisitions: those in which the leading banks in a market are acquired and those in which the smallest are acquired. The term entrenchment is used when an organization acquiring a leading bank is accused of improving the market position of the acquired bank or slowing its loss of market share. Acquisition of a small bank, foothold entry, can have the opposite competitive implication. If bank company acquisitions improve market position, the acquisition of nonleading banks would make them more effective competitors than otherwise, and these acquisitions should be encouraged for competitive reasons.2 This study tests the hypothesis that acquired banks increase their market shares. In addition, the conditions most conducive to improved market position of acquired banks are considered. A sample of 71 banks acquired by companies in the unit banking states between 1965 and 1970 was analyzed for change in market share of total deposits where the market was considered to be either an SMSA or a county (for nonSMSA markets). Since our main source of data, the FDIC's semiannual Report of Condition, allocates all deposits to a head office, market shares are obscured when a bank has offices in more than one market. Thus, data for banks in branching states could not be used. Furthermore, every bank in the sample was required to

NASA ninth semiannual report to congress : January 1–June 30, 1963, dated July, 1964, 215 pgs.

NASA ninth semiannual report to congress : January 1–June 30, 1963, dated July, 1964, 215 pgs.