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Resource allocation under poor growth conditions. A major role for growth substances in developmental plasticity.

This article argues that the basic function for growth substance is resource allocation under poor growth conditions. The following scheme is suggested. Plants in the wild frequently suffer a paucity of resources which result from interplant competition and ecological and local environmental variation. The strategy adopted by many plants particularly ruderals (from which crops may have evolved) to help mitigate these problems is phenotypic plasticity; the growth of the plant body is adjusted to best exploit the scarce resources and help achieve desirable growth and reproductive goals. Phenotypic plasticity requires decisions to be made concerning the diversion of scarce growth resources to one facet of development rather than another; for example, to height or leaf area rather than thickness; or, between tissues, stem rather than leaves. Growth substances are coupled to these individual facets of development. They represent a simple way in which the extent of resource diversion can be controlled. Cells in specific tissues acquire sensitivity to particular growth substances at a stage in their development when environmental variability often necessitates choices to be made. This acquisition of ontogenetic sensitivity may be all or none. It may reflect acquisition of receptor proteins coupled to specific metabolic events. However in well-nourished plants these phases of development are relatively insensitive to changes in the level of the growth substance/receptor complex. Cells become more sensitive under certain well-defined but specific circumstances, characterized by the general term, poor growth conditions. These are produced by imbalances in one or more of the major environmental (nutritional) requirements for growth, light, nitrogen, water and oxygen. Imbalance in one or more of these produces characteristic and far-reaching metabolic and protein synthesis changes which normally constrain the synthetic processes for growth but amplify metabolic events coupled to growth substances. It is the function of growth substances to circumvent some of these metabolically constraining steps and by applying a constant stimulus to one specific aspect of growth or metabolism permit continued development. The additional input of growth substances into particular facets of development ensures the better maintenance (protection) of that character when competition for resources inside the plant is severe. However competition for scarce resources ensures that continuation of one growth aspect generally leads to relative depletion of others.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adaptation, Physiological

Resources and dual-task performance; resource allocation versus task integration.

This study aims at contributing to the explanation of dual-task performance in terms of either resource allocation or of task interference and integration. Twenty-four subjects carried out, single and in combination, a motor interval production task and a perceptual target detection task on the basis of combined memory and display search. The demands of the target detection task were varied by increasing or decreasing the presentation rate of successive search displays. Furthermore, the presentation rate was either constant or variable. The dual-task condition had a negative effect on interval production, the extent of which was unaffected by either rate or variability of display presentation. This means that there was no evidence for synchronizing interval production with display presentation, so that the major opportunity for task integration did not substantiate. It is suggested that the two tasks use different resource pools in addition to a common mechanism, the limited capacity of which causes a general interference in dual-task conditions.

Adolescent

Applying resource allocation formulae to constituent parts of the U.K.

If the health care budgets of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom in 1977-78 are added together and then redistributed on the RAWP formula there would be a significant movement of resources from Scotland and Northern Ireland and to England and Wales. The differential geographical allocation of resources within the U.K. is critically appraised, and it is argued that the higher resource allocations of the Thames regions and of Scotland and Northern Ireland have been examined imperfectly with polemics rather than analysis. However, the political costs are such that RAWP-type goals for the U.K. would be difficult to achieve.

England

Depressive deficits in memory: processing initiative and resource allocation.

Hertel and Hardin investigated the effects of depressed mood states on recognition memory in three experiments. They report that mood effects on memory depend on the subjects' awareness of the task. Four issues are considered in this article: natural and induced moods, processing initiative, initiative versus resource allocation, and strategies.

Adult

Ethics, economics, and endocarditis. The physician's role in resource allocation.

Medical decisions are increasingly shaped by financial considerations. Biomedical ethicists have encouraged the practicing physician to remain the agent of the individual patient, sometimes pitting physicians against health care institutions. The limitation of medical resources has given rise to the need for a clear conceptual basis for allocating scarce resources. The role of resource gatekeeper may be used to the indigent patient's disadvantage when the principles of triage are used incorrectly in situations of relative scarcity. To allocate limited resources fairly under changing policy and economic conditions, health care institutions should ensure that systematic processes, such as those of ethics consultants and committees, are readily available to help resolve problematic cases and policies. Physicians with clinical judgment and a primary commitment to patient care must assume active roles in these processes in order to build an ethically sound framework for clinical decision making in times of relatively scarce resources.

Adult

The north-south divide in England: implications for health care resource allocation.

Published regional data show that the Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR) for the northern half of England has recently increased from 113 to 115 per cent of the SMR for the south, and that the north is at least as disadvantaged in respect of morbidity and material deprivation and uses much less private medical care than the south. It is concluded that the north's share of National Health Service (NHS) resources should not be reduced, as it would be if recent proposals by the NHS Management Board were implemented; that a mortality index which gives different weights to deaths at different ages should possibly be used instead of the simple SMR to weight regional resource allocations for need; and that these allocations should also be weighted by some measure of the extent to which regional populations look to the NHS rather than to the private sector for hospital and specialist care.

England

The planner as public health resource allocator: post-Proposition 13 county health services in California and the role of the HSAs in budget review and public hearings.

Immediately following adoption of Proposition 13 in California in June of 1978, the state legislature adopted a Bail-Out program which included procedures for monitoring the detrimental effects of disproportionate reductions in public health, inpatient and outpatient county budgets. For a variety of reasons, the methodology and procedures employed failed to reveal the adverse effects of Proposition 13 on health services. This paper deals with the actual and potential role of health systems agencies (HSAs) in monitoring such effects, commenting in public hearings on budget review and, in general, playing a policy analysis role that links local government with the citizenry on the one hand and the state government on the other. In addition to identifying the weakness of the State's monitoring effort in identifying negative effects in program analysis and staffing reductions, the findings point out the limited role of HSAs. Specific recommendations are offered for improvement of HSA involvement in future resource allocation planning in California and the United States as a whole.

California

A framework for optimizing resource allocation for health education programs.

Health education programs conventionally are implemented in four sites: school, clinical, occupational, and community settings. One problem encountered by health education specialists, community health planners, and policy makers, is ascertaining the optimal allocation of health education resources to these four settings. This paper proposes a framework to assist in making this decision. The framework incorporates considerations of the target group, the health problem, the desired health behaviors, and administrative aspects of the program, which are broken down into 26 different "criteria", (e.g., age of target group, stage of disease intervention). Each of the 26 criteria has its respective "dimensions" (e.g., age of target group: preschool children, school children, and adults), and each dimension in turn suggests the optimal health education setting(s). An improved understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of implementing health education programs in the different sites will facilitate better coordination between practitioners in school, clinical, occupational, and community settings.

Child, Preschool

Allocating resources to health care: is the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) a technical solution to a political problem?

The allocation of health care resources has always been and will remain a contentious issue. Classically, the arguments have been posed in terms of the "need" for health care and/or the "right" to treatment. More recently, there have been attempts to shape the debate in consequentialist terms, by introducing a composite outcome measure. In the United Kingdom, the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) has been promoted enthusiastically. But, like many other such proposals, it is a dodo, and one that is potentially politically dangerous.

Decision Making

Mortality, morbidity, and resource allocation.

The correlation between age and sex standardised mortality-rates, and morbidity-rates from the General Household Survey (G.H.S.) similarly standarised, were examined for the 10 standard statistical regions for 1972 and 1973 combined. The correlations between mortality and acute sickness and between mortality and bed sickness were not significant. A significant correlation was found between mortality and chronic sickness, but not between mortality and work or school absence due to illness or injury in males. It is concluded that, on present evidence, there is some doubt whether mortality can be considered to be a valid indicator of morbidity in a population. Serious consideration should therefore be given to the removal of standarised mortality ratios (S.M.R.S.) from the formula for the distribution of revenue as recommended by the Resource Allocation Working Party (RAWP).

Absenteeism

Resource allocation. Some problems in applying the national formula to area and district revenue allocations.

The inadequacy of the current national formula in dealing with flows of patients across administrative boundaries is illustrated. In particular, the problems of dealing with varying admission rates for inpatients and in allocating revenues for outpatient services are discussed. We draw attention to an oversight in the recommendations concerning psychiatric services and criticise the general approach to the allocation of revenue under this heading. It is concluded that the national formula should not be applied for revenue allocation at district level in an unmodified form.

Catchment Area, Health

Comparison of two scores for allocating resources to doctors in deprived areas.

Current proposals in the general practitioner contract include additional payments to doctors working among deprived populations. The underprivileged area score will be used to identify local authority wards with the greatest levels of deprivation, thus acting as the basis for distributing considerable resources. Two methods of identifying deprived populations--the underprivileged area score and the material deprivation score--were compared to determine whether they result in similar allocation of resources to regions. Financial allocations to regions based on figures derived from the contract differed considerably if the material deprivation score was used instead of the underprivileged area score: Northern and Mersey regions gained over 50% of their allocation whereas East Anglia, Oxford, and South West Thames regions lost more than 30% of theirs. Such differences have considerable implications for doctors working among deprived populations as up to 60m pounds each year might be distributed by these payments.

England

Waiting for care. Queuing and resource allocation.

Queues arise in medical care and serve as allocators in the absence of an effective market and when resources become perceptibly constrained. This is essentially the case in all countries where money is not the means for gaining access to medical services. A study estimated that the total wait in England was 96 days for nonemergency care leading to hospitalization, including primary and specialty ambulatory care, for that one quarter of patients who had been placed on a waiting list. Of the remaining hospitalized population one half were admitted immediately and another one fourth were either booked or transferred from other hospitals. The widely accepted notion that a large majority of hospitalized patients wait a long time for care in Britain is mistaken. The emphasis on primary ambulatory care means that essentially no one has to wait for general practitioner care. The wait for elective ambulatory specialty care averaged approximately 8 weeks for all patients. Although mortality is rarely an issue for those who wait, an argument can be made that convenience and quality of life are importantly affected.

Ambulatory Care