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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the effectiveness of systems for ensuring cooperation in online transactions is impacted by a positivity bias in the evaluation of the work that is produced. The presence of this bias can reduce the informativeness of the reputation system and negatively impact its ability to ensure quality.

This research combines survey and experimental methods, collecting data from 1,875 Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers in five studies designed to investigate the informativeness of the MTurk reputation system.

The findings demonstrate the presence of a positivity bias in evaluations of workers on MTurk, which leaves them undifferentiated, except at the extremity of the reputation system and by status markers.

Because MTurk workers self-select tasks, the findings are limited in that they may only be generalizable to those who are interested in research-related work. Further, the tasks used in this research are largely subjective in nature, which may decrease their sensitivity to differences in quality.

For researchers, the results suggest that requiring 99 per cent approval rates (rather than the previously advised 95 per cent) should be used to identify high-quality workers on MTurk.

The research provides insights into the design and use of reputation systems and demonstrates how design decisions can exacerbate the effect of naturally occurring biases in evaluations to reduce the utility of these systems.

Within earned value management, the cost performance index (CPI) and the critical ratio (CR) are used to generate the estimates at completion (EACs). According to the research in the 1990s, estimating the final contract’s cost at completion (CAC) using EAC_CR is a quicker predictor of the actual final cost versus using EAC_CPI. This paper aims to investigate whether this trend stills holds for modern department of defense contracts.

Accessing the Cost Assessment Data Enterprise (CADE) database, 451 contracts consisting of 863 contract line item numbers (CLINs) were initially retrieved and analyzed in three stages. The first replicated the work conducted in 1990s. The second stage entailed calculating 95 per cent confidence intervals and hypothesis tests regarding percentage accuracy of EACs for a contract’s final CAC. Lastly, regression analysis was conducted to characterize major, moderate and minor influencers on EAC reliability.

For modern contracts, EAC_CR aligns more with EAC_CPI and no longer demonstrates early accuracy of a contract’s final CAC. Contract percentage completion strongly reduced the per cent error of estimating CAC, while cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts and those with no work breakdown structure greater than Level 2 negatively affected accuracy.

To militate against optimism of early assessment of a contract's true cost.

This paper provides empirical evidence that EAC_CR behaves more like EAC_CPI with respect to modern contracts, suggesting that today’s contracts have relatively high SPI. Therefore, caution is warranted for program managers when estimating the CAC from contract initiation up to and slightly beyond the mid-point of completion.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the implementation of the European Working Time Directive in August 2004 has dramatically decreased junior doctors' working hours, as a consequence of which new ways of working will need to be found. Traditionally both doctors and nurses record the same generic history (past medical history, social and family history, drug history and allergies) in their own notes. This is unnecessary duplication and maybe only nursing staff should record this information. This study is undertaken to identify the differences between junior doctors' and nurses' clerking to assess whether they are comparable.

A prospective study of 100 case notes from elective and emergency admissions was undertaken. The completeness of various parts of the history and the recording of the vital signs were compared between nurses and house officers.

The Past Medical History was complete in only 30 per cent of the house officers' notes and 42 per cent of nursing records. The social history was complete in all the nursing records but only 35 per cent of the doctors' notes. Nurses recorded a complete personal history more than doctors (62 per cent v. 13 per cent respectively). The drug history was poorly recorded in house officers' notes, being complete in 22 per cent, whereas this was complete in 73 per cent of nursing records. The record of the history of allergies was poor in both groups at just over 10 per cent. Finally 87 per cent of nurses managed to record vital signs but these were missing from nearly half of the house officers' notes.

The study has shown that details of the generic medical history are recorded more completely by the nursing staff and only they should record this information. This will allow junior doctors more time to deal with the increased demands and reduced hours of work.

Clinicians working in UK child mental health services are faced with several challenges in providing accurate assessment and diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Within the South London & Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Trust, community Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are developing structured pathways for assessing and diagnosing ADHD in young people. To date, these pathways have not been formally evaluated. The main aims of this evaluation are to evaluate all ADHD referrals made to the service in an 18-month period, including the number of completed assessments and proportion of children diagnosed with ADHD; and investigate adherence to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guideline for diagnosing ADHD in children and young people.

Retrospective data analysis was performed using service databases and electronic patient records. Adherence to the clinical guideline was measured using the NICE data collection tool for diagnosing ADHD in children and young people. All completed ADHD assessments were compared to four key recommendation points in the guideline.

Within the time frame, 146 children aged 4-17 years were referred and accepted for an ADHD assessment. Of these, 92 families opted in and were seen for an initial appointment. In total, 36 ADHD assessments were completed, of which 19 children received a diagnosis of ADHD and 17 did not. Aside from structured recording of ADHD symptoms based on ICD-10 criteria (69%) and reporting of functional impairment (75%), adherence to all guidance points was above 90%. The study also found that although a greater proportion of children referred to the service were male and identified as White, these differences narrowed upon receipt of ADHD diagnosis.

Relationship to the existing literature is discussed in relation to the assessment process, demographic characteristics and rates of co-occurrence.

The findings demonstrate that in child mental health services, gold standard practice for diagnosing ADHD should be the adoption of clear, protocol-driven pathways to support appropriate access and treatment for young people and their families.

This article is unique in that it is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to describe and report clinician-adherence to a structured pathway for diagnosing ADHD in young people within a community CAMHS service in South London.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the cost and time performance of construction projects in public and private universities in Osun State, Nigeria.

Purposive sampling technique was adopted to select four universities (two public and two private) used for the study. Archival data on 40 completed construction projects (ten from each university) was used in the study. Data were analysed with percentile and t-test.

The study showed that only 35 per cent of the construction projects in public and 10 per cent of those in private universities were completed at the estimated cost. There were no construction projects completed within the planned time in public universities, but 20 per cent were completed within the planned time in private universities. The t-test showed there is no significant difference in performance of construction projects in public and private universities in Nigeria. The study concluded that time performance of public and private universities in Nigeria was still below acceptable international best practices.

The findings of this study are limited to universities’ construction projects and may be of little application to other construction projects outside university settings.

It is recommended that construction stakeholders be more proactive in ensuring that significant improvement is achieved in cost and time performance of construction projects both in public and private universities; the clients need to be more detailed in their briefs and requirements, the designers (architects and engineers) need to be more precise and avoid varying their designs, the quantity surveyors should use their professional competency in cost engineering adequately and the contractor should avoid spurious claims that result in increase in construction cost and time so that performance of construction projects can be improved.

The study is an attempt to compare cost and time performance of construction projects in public and private universities in Osun State, Nigeria.

Argues that, while the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (USA) is found to be a low to moderate risk area in terms of seismic vulnerability, it is vulnerable to future episodes which could be quite threatening to a sizeable population. Degree of seismic vulnerability varies across the Commonwealth. Pursuant to assessing Pennsylvania’s earthquake preparedness, the Commonwealth’s various state agencies (n = 12) and the campuses comprising Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (n = 14) were asked to complete a mail‐questionnaire which sought to determine their degree of earthquake experience, risk assessment activity, mitigation activity, and planning for response and recovery. A response rate of 78 per cent was attained. The experience, activity, and planning levels were found to be consistently low. These findings are consistent with research literature which describes the circumstances under which hazard reduction is likely to occur.

The purpose of this paper is to use survey data collected from 453 respondents, from over 40 countries, to determine the current levels of use of benchmarking as an improvement technique. It identifies where and how benchmarking is implemented within organisations and compares the popularity of benchmarking against other improvement tools. Finally, it provides an evidence based opinion on whether benchmarking is a fad or an established management technique.

An on‐line questionnaire was used to collect data. The questionnaire was translated into five languages and promoted by the Global Benchmarking Network, a network of benchmarking competency centres, representing 21 countries. The data were then analysed using SPSS statistical software.

The analysis suggests that benchmarking (informal and formal) is used by a majority of organisations although best practice benchmarking is only used by a core minority. Benchmarking effectiveness compares favourably with effectiveness of other improvement tools and a majority of respondents intend to continue using benchmarking in the future.

The responses from some of the countries that participated were small in number. This study also relied on a single respondent from each organisation. Inter‐country comparisons were not carried out.

Benchmarking will continue to be used to support the improvement of operations. For organisations that currently use benchmarking the paper provides some insights into how to obtain the full benefits from benchmarking. For those that do not use benchmarking the paper highlights how other organisations are using benchmarking to obtain operational benefits.

The paper presents a multinational survey of benchmarking. Carried out a quarter century after the start of benchmarking's growth, it helps to establish if benchmarking is an established improvement tool or a management fad. It also positions benchmarking relative to other improvement tools and is the most complete study on benchmarking adoption to date.

The purpose of this research is to explore the feasibility of using patient‐driven, hand‐held computers in primary care settings, in order to address the apparent failure to implement prevention initiatives into the routine delivery of health care services.

During an eight‐day period, patients of an English primary care practice who were at least 16 years of age were asked to complete a health‐related survey using a hand‐held computer. They received tailored, on‐screen feedback.

A total of 143 patients (approximately 55 per cent of all patients) began using a hand‐held computer, of whom 115 (80 per cent) answered all questions. Of these, 24 per cent reported being smokers, 7 per cent and 19 per cent were at‐risk of alcohol harm in the long and short term respectively and 14 per cent rated their overall health as poor or very poor. Most patients rated their level of satisfaction with the hand‐helds as excellent (36 per cent), very good (29 per cent) or good (24 per cent), while 89 per cent agreed to their primary care physician seeing a summary of their feedback.

This is the first study to evaluate the feasibility of using hand‐held computers to conduct patient screening and feedback in primary care settings.

A major concern for construction professionals at the rural road agency in Ghana is the problem of fixing contract duration for bridge construction projects in rural areas. The purpose of the study was to develop a tool for construction professionals to forecast duration for bridge projects.

In all, 100 questionnaires were distributed to professionals at the Department of Feeder Roads to ascertain their views on the work items in a bill of quantities (BOQ) that impact significantly on the duration of bridge construction projects. Historical data for 30 completed bridge projects were also collected from the same Department. The data collected were executed work items in BOQ and actual durations used in completing the works. The qualitative data were analysed using the relative importance index and the quantitative data, processed and analysed using both the stepwise regression method and artificial neural network (ANN) technique.

The identified predictors, namely, in-situ concrete, weight of prefabricated steel components, gravel sub-base and haulage of aggregates, used as independent variables resulted in the development of a regression model with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 25 per cent and an ANN model with a feed forward back propagation algorithm with an MAPE of 26 per cent at the validation stage. The study has shown that both regression and ANN models are appropriate for predicting the duration of a new bridge construction project.

The predictors used in the developed models are limited to work items in BOQs only of completed bridge construction projects as well as the small sample size.

The study has developed a working tool for practitioners at the agency to forecast contract duration for bridge projects prior to its commencement.

The study has quantified the relationship between the work items in BOQs and the duration of bridge construction projects using the stepwise regression method and the ANN techniques.

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.