Integration of quality assessment and physician incentives

The ultimate challenge in dealing with any type of risk incentive system is to be able to integrate the quality of care and the cost of care into an equitable system and to monitor the system and detect either barriers to care or the withholding of appropriate services. We believe it is possible to do this and have based our incentive model upon this premise. At U.S. Healthcare, we have been successful in developing some measures of quality in the ambulatory setting and have tied the measurements to our payment mechanism.     

哲学的当前趋势

哲学的当前趋势是什么? 为了试图澄清哲学的现状,我打算从三个方面来探讨。首先是关于哲学现代性的特点。从单纯描述的观点来看,仅仅从最粗略的表象来判断,当前的哲学为什么不同于人们一直认为可以与之等同起来的悠久传统? 其次是分析和试图说明这种现实性。如果哲学的现代性始于同传统的决裂,那么它的特点是什么?我们能不能把它的各种流派、方法和风格归结为同一种倾向? 最后,我试图弄清当前的哲学之所以确实不是最古老的哲学,它之所以只是表现西方本体论的特点之一。     

当代资产阶级利润理论的演变

在资本主义总危机的情况下,资产阶级一些经济学家企图重新证明资本主义利润范畴的有效性,并企图利用它来强化垄断资本的统治。在19世纪到20世纪之交,资产阶级政治经济学中形成了理论方法上两个主要派别——新古典派和制度学派。资产阶级关于资本主义总危机前夜的利润学说,实际上是由新古典这一学派所代表的。新古典作家的利润理论,乃是当代资产阶级的一切利润理论的出发点,它获得了各种不同的现代化说法。同时,在同新古典利润理论的斗争中又形成了凯恩斯的和制度学派的利润概念。基于劳动价值论的基础上,资产阶级政治经济学的古典作家斯密和李嘉图建立了自己的利润理论,接近于理解利润是剩余价值的普遍形式。古典学派在利润学说方面的成就在于,他们把对利润范畴的研究同资本积累、社会财富增长的要素,即同经济动态问题密切地联系起来。古典作家们论证了利润在资本主义经济体系中的重要地位。但是,只     

围绕思想科学方法的讨论——评《作为思想科学方法的释义学》

自1955年发表《一般释义论——原著释义论》巨著以后,E.贝迪于1962年为德国读者撰写了题为《作为思想科学一般方法的释义学》的小册子,扼要阐释了自己对释义学的观点。在此期间,准确地讲是1960年,伽达默尔出版过一本著作《真理与方法》,因此我们可以认为贝迪的小册子是他同海德格尔和伽达默尔在释义学领域展开争论的开始。一门新学科就这样在热烈的讨论中问世了。《伽达默尔-贝迪书信集》(1961年出版)并不标志着他们之间争论的结束,恰恰是书信     

马克思主义者如何看待人类的未来

在我们这个令人忧虑的、已经看到过许多事变、成就和历史转折关头的世纪,人们的思想越来越经常地转向了未来.当代两种基本的意识形态和政治倾向——资产阶级的倾向和科学社会主义——必然会为他们提供些什么呢?第一种倾向充满了悲观主义,对未来缺乏信心.奥尔德斯·赫胥黎那曾经轰动一时的《美好的新世界》(1932年),乔治·奥威尔的《1984年》,在西方都已经成为笑柄,     

为新的现实构筑新的框架——作为大众哲学的社会科学

德·托克维尔的同龄人和同胞A·孔德虽然是传播所谓社会科学神话(即认为社会科学不久就会变得同自然科学一样)的热心人之一,但是没有理由可以相信托克维尔也同意这种观点.确实,托克维尔所主张的一种新科学是建立在下述概念上的:研究的对象(即一个新世界中的社会)是新的,因而需要一种新的探讨方法.托克维尔的一生再现     

Finite approximations in demography

Abstract Conventions exist for carrying out the arithmetic of population projection, finding the intrinsic rate of natural increase, and other demographic calculations. These are good approximations only for populations which are stationary or increasing very slowly. For rapidly increasing populations, which are presently the subject of much study, they can be readily improved. The improved formulae take account of the way in which the increase shifts the distribution of population within the five-year age group. A number of examples are given of the derivation of corrections to existing formulae. While the corrections are smaller than the error of the data available for most countries, such formulae are worth introducing in anticipation of better data. They in no way depend on machine computation, but the computer makes them especially easy to apply.     

A question of perception: Bourdieu, art and the postmodern

Bourdieu and Darbel's classic study of European art museum audiences, The Love of Art (1991), remains one of the most influential academic studies of the social indices of art perception. Its findings were central to Bourdieu's on-going study of culture-mediated power relations, as found in the book Distinction (Bourdieu 1984), as well as social surveys of the behaviour of museum audiences across the world. Much in Bourdieu's account of art perception, however, has begun to appear dated and in need of supplementation. This paper will be a critical but sympathetic re-reading of Bourdieu's sociology of art perception in the light of recent criticisms of his approach. Whilst fine art and its institutions continue to function as sources of social identification and differentiation, this paper argues that the relationship between perception and stratification is somewhat looser than connoted in Bourdieu's work. Beyond the shift to a less rigid taxonomy of social formations, the immense expansion of the visual arts complex has opened up possibilities for the dissemination of art knowledge beyond the cultivated bourgeois. The erosion of boundaries between the aesthetic and the economic, between art and popular culture, are the result of processes of commodification that have placed museums alongside shopping malls within the realms of consumption and entertainment. New audiences have emerged from this mix with less dichotomized - that is, either cultivated or popular - ways of seeing culture that suggest a revision of Bourdieu's overly integrated account of class and cognition. An alternative, 'postmodern', approach to art perception is entertained, where an aesthetics of distinction is replaced by a culture of distraction, but this abstracts culture from any structural grounding. Capturing the shift to an accelerated cultural present, instead, requires a warping of Bourdieu's categories to account for broader patterns of culture and economy and the accentuation of modern visual culture.     

Perceptions of drinking among Hispanic college students: how qualitative research can inform the development of collegiate alcohol abuse prevention programs

Alcohol abuse on college campuses continues to be a significant public health issue and health promotion strategies are being directed at changing the culture of collegiate drinking. From a qualitative research perspective such efforts remain uniformed since this area of research is currently dominated by large-scale surveys that illuminate little regarding undergraduate perceptions of alcohol use. This study describes results conducted on perceptions of drinking among college students, and discusses the implications these results may have for developing collegiate alcohol abuse prevention programs.