Investment in capital projects is essential for economic growth and development. Yet there is widespread dissatisfaction with the outcomes of construction investment. Major challenges in developing countries include inappropriate projects, high prices, poor quality, excessive time and cost overruns, inadequate maintenance and low returns. These problems impact negatively on development and pove...

A number of authors have attempted to defend ecologic (aggregate) studies by claiming that the goal of those studies is estimation of ecologic (contextual or group-level) effects rather than individual-level effects. Critics of these attempts point out that ecologic effect estimates are inevitably used as estimates of individual effects, despite disclaimers. A more subtle problem is that ecolog...

Widespread inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics in UK hospitals has led to the introduction of specialist antibiotic pharmacists. Their role is to monitor antibiotic use, advise clinicians, educate all grades of healthcare workers and help to develop policy. Antibiotic pharmacists have been shown to be effective in many situations. As these practitioners become more accomplished it will be ...

The experience of an emotion considered to be culturally unique (i.e., Japanese Amae) was tested in the United States, where there is no word to describe the concept. North American and Japanese participants read scenarios in which a friend made an inappropriate request (Amae), made no request, or made the request to another friend. Both American and Japanese participants felt more positive emo...

The paper presents an analysis of roadway factors and posted speed limits that affect the operating speed at multi-lane highways in Egypt. Field data on multi-lane highways in Egypt are used in this investigation. The analysis considers two categories of highways. The first consists of two desert roads (Cairo-Alexandria and Cairo-Ismailia desert roads) and the second consists of two agricultura...

The launching of the JOT provides a welcome opportunity to resume the Eiffel column that ran for many years in JOOP from 1998 (edited first by Rock Howard from whom I took over in 1998). It will run pretty much like its predecessor, with a mix of contributions by guest columnists and by me, and a mix of topics — from language matters to methodological issues of object-oriented software construc...

abstract background: inappropriate prescription of vancomycin has been shown to be asso- ciated with induction of antibiotic resistance. the objective of this study was to deter- mine the incidence of inappropriate use of vancomycin in a tertiary care hospital in iran. methods: a descriptive cross-sectional investigation was performed from september 2004 to march 2005 in all units of a general ...