Estimating the degree cost functions of the Philippines public and private higher educational Institutions     

Cesar C. Rufino 《Asia Pacific Education Review》2006,7(1):32-40

A flexible one-output and two-input cost function is estimated for the degree program offerings of public and private higher educational institutions (HEIs) of the Philippines, employing the data from a nationally representative sample of 29 HEIs. This model, called Flexible Fixed Cost Quadratic cost function includes as output—full time equivalent degree program enrollment, and the two factor inputs—teaching cost and operating cost per student. Units of observation are the degree programs being offered by the sample HEIs. Results indicate that public and private HEIs exhibit structurally different cost functions, with the public sector enjoying markedly better cost efficiency and over-all scale economy.  相似文献   

Utility of icteric index in clinical laboratories: more than a preanalytical indicator     

Rufino Mondejar  María Mayor Reyes  Enrique Melguizo Madrid  Consuelo Caavate Solano  Santiago Prez Ramos 《Biochemia medica : ?asopis Hrvatskoga dru?tva medicinskih biokemi?ara / HDMB》2021,31(2)

IntroductionTotal bilirubin tests are highly demanded in clinical laboratories. Since icteric index (I-index) has zero cost, we aimed to evaluate its clinical utility and cost-effectiveness to determine if total bilirubin is necessary to be tested. We took into account if haemolysis could interfere to icteric index determination.Material and methodsRetrospectively we reviewed I-index results in two cohorts (43,372 and 8507 non-haemolysed and haemolysed samples, respectively). All determinations were done using Alinity c chemistry analysers (Abbott Diagnostics). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine the optimal index cut-off to discriminate between normal and abnormal bilirubin concentration (20.5 µmol/L).ResultsThe ROC curve analysis suggested 21.4 µmol/L as the optimal I-index cut-off but differences in sensitivity and specificity were detected between patient derivation. For rejecting purpose, 15.4 µmol/L and 17.1 µmol/L I-index thresholds were selected based on patient derivation (inpatients and emergency room; and primary care and outpatients, respectively) with 97% sensitivity and 0.25% false negative results. Sensitivity was much lower in haemolysed samples. We selected 34.2 µmol/L I-index as threshold to detect hyperbilirubinemia with 99.7% specificity and 0.26% false positive results, independent of haemolysis. With the icteric index cut-offs proposed, we would save 66% of total bilirubin requested and analyse total bilirubin in around 2% of samples without total bilirubin requested.ConclusionsThis study supports the use of I-index to avoid bilirubin determination and to identify patients with hyperbilirubinemia. This work considers that the economic and test savings could help to increase the efficiency in clinical laboratories.  相似文献   

lilacs search strategy for systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies     

Rogrio Aparecido Pereira  Maria Eduarda dos Santos Puga  lvaro Nagib Atallah  Elizeu Coutinho Macedo  Cristiane Rufino Macedo 《Health information and libraries journal》2019,36(3):223-243

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