Eliminating excessive spending could mean windfall for U.S., study suggests
The respected national Institute of Medicine estimates that $750 billion is lost each year to wasteful or excessive health care spending. This sum includes excess administrative costs, inflated prices, unnecessary services and fraud — dollars that add no value to health and well-being.
If those wasteful costs could be corralled without sacrificing health care quality, how might that money be better spent? (more…)
Gender disparity in journalism still exists, but is improving
COLUMBIA, Mo. —The Pulitzer Prize in Journalism is one of the world’s most prestigious awards. Despite progress in the last few decades, gender disparities in the field of journalism have existed as long as the profession has. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that female Pulitzer Prize winners are more likely to have greater qualifications than their male counterparts in order to win the coveted award.
In a study to be published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Yong Volz, an assistant professor of journalism studies in the MU School of Journalism, along with Francis Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, studied biographical data from all 814 historical winners of the Pulitzer Prize from 1917 to 2010. They found that the majority of the 113 female Pulitzer Prize winners enjoyed access to greater resources than the average male winner. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — Some called it “witchcraft.” Others just watched in awe as their scanned fingerprints were used to pull up their records on a computer.
They were paprika farmers in Malawi participating in a new study that shows fingerprinting can help encourage borrowers to repay their loans.
Like many impoverished countries, Malawi lacks a national identification system. Most of the population lives in rural areas with few government services. Even ID as basic as a birth certificate is rare in the southeastern African nation. (more…)
Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.
—Voltaire
In the first scientific study to test whether doubts about getting married are more likely to lead to an unhappy marriage and divorce, UCLA psychologists report that when women have doubts before their wedding, their misgivings are often a warning sign of trouble if they go ahead with the marriage.
The UCLA study demonstrates that pre-wedding uncertainty, especially among women, predicts higher divorce rates and less marital satisfaction years later. (more…)
Parents are generally considered to be the pillar of the family, but are they? It is mostly said that parents come after God but where are such examples? Nowadays, parents are lying in old age homes and kids are enjoying their life with their partners in their homes. Is this correct? We cannot comment on what is right and what is wrong. We cannot pin point somebody’s thinking or decision. But yes, there are places where these unwanted parents can live their life happily and peacefully.
These are the organizations which provide place to elderly people to live and in return they get rent. They are the one who care for them; bestow them all the major items for living and an amazing atmosphere to live in. These old age homes are also known as “retirementhomes” where these elderly people can live their second inning of life happily and peacefully with all the facilities of daily living, available with them. (more…)
Whether you’re a new blogger trying to gain some recognition for your blog or a seasoned veteran looking for something new to do, guest posting for other bloggers is one of the best things you can do to both expand your blog and improve your writing. It can be a little intimidating at first, trying to reach out to other bloggers and pitch topic ideas or submit articles, however there’s a lot to be gained from doing so.
1. Exposure: Writing for other blogs, big or small, exposes your writing to an entirely new audience. This is one of the major factors in helping your blog grow, because when someone reads your guest post and appreciates your writing style or the information you shared they will almost always click over to your blog to see what else you have to offer.
2. Links: Backlinks on other websites are what every blogger works so hard to gain because they offer another way for people to find your blog. Since most bloggers will allow their guest posters to put a link in the byline to their blog, it’s the perfect way for you to obtain a new link on the web. (more…)
Parents can use knowledge to help steer teens through life changes
COLUMBIA, Mo. — During adolescence, the stories young people tell about themselves reflects their development of a personal identity and sense of self, and those autobiographical narratives vary depending on the teens’ gender, according to a University of Missouri psychologist and her colleagues. Parents can use this knowledge of how teens talk about themselves to help understand the tumultuous transitions of their children into adults.
“Autobiographical stories tell us details about adolescent psychology that questionnaires and observations of behavior cannot,” said Jennifer Bohanek, assistant professor of psychological sciences in the College of Arts and Science. “Narratives provide information about how adolescents interpret memories as well as how they come to know themselves. Other people then come to know the teens by the stories they tell about themselves. The differences between study participants’ stories suggest there may be differences in the way male and female teens understand themselves and present themselves to the world.” (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Witch hunts are common and sometimes deadly in the tea plantations of Jalpaiguri, India. But a surprising source – small groups of women who meet through a government loan program – has achieved some success in preventing the longstanding practice, a Michigan State University sociologist found.
Soma Chaudhuri spent seven months studying witch hunts in her native India and discovered that the economic self-help groups have made it part of their agenda to defend their fellow plantation workers against the hunts. (more…)
