Showing papers on "Tipping point (climatology) published in 2007"

Toward The ‘Tipping Point’: Decision Aids And Informed Patient Choice

Abstract: Preference-sensitive treatment decisions involve making value trade-offs between benefits and harms that should depend on informed patient choice. There is strong evidence that patient decision aid...

Toward The 'Tipping Point': Decision Aids And Informed Patient Choice Access to high-quality patient decision aids is accelerating, but not at the point of clinical care.

Abstract: Preference-sensitive treatment decisions involve making value trade-offs be- tween benefits and harms that should depend on informed patient choice. There is strong evidence that patient decision aids not only improve decision quality but also prevent the overuse of options that informed patients do not value. This paper discusses progress in implementing decision aids and the policy prospects for reaching a "tipping point" in the adoption of "informed patient choice" as a standard of practice. (Health Affairs 26, no. 3

Pay for performance at the tipping point

Abstract: It is hard to dispute the rationale behind realigning payment incentives in health care to encourage higher quality and more efficient care. Indeed, across the country and beyond, the number of “pay for performance” programs, as such realignment is called, has reached a tipping point. In the United States, more than half the health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the private sector have now initiated such programs, covering more than 80% of the country's HMO enrollees.1 Congress has mandated that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) develop plans to introduce a pay-for-performance program into Medicare.2 The British have gone . . .

Editor's afterword let's create a tipping point: what academics and practitioners can do, alone and together

Abstract: In this article the author explores ways in which research into personnel management matters in an academic setting can be incorporated into daily business practice in a real-world work environment. A number of suggestions are provided including a way in which academic findings can be made more relevant, the idea that real situations be considered from the start of research and that aspects of knowledge management and transfer be taken into account. The article also suggests a role for professional associations such as the Academy of Management and the Society for Human Resource Management.

The genesis and emergence of Education 3.0 in higher education and its potential for Africa

Abstract: This paper presents a scenario in which education is approaching a potential tipping point, where major changes are about to happen as a result of developments in technology, social networking, deeper understanding of educational process, as well as new legal and economic frames of reference. The set of changes constitute what we refer to as Education 3.0, and it impacts on the roles and behavior of key stakeholders. Education 1.0 is mainly a one-way process, Education 2.0 uses the technologies of Web 2.0 to create more interactive education but largely within the constraints of Education 1.0. Education 2.0 is laying the groundwork for Education 3.0, which we believe will see a breakdown of most of the boundaries, imposed or otherwise within education, to create a much more free and open system focused on learning. The scenario we describe suggests that Africa can shape these changes to benefit its own development, but that if it fails to do so, it will be left behind and will end up impacted negatively by the changes that are inevitable. We list the adjustments required at the level of institutions of higher education to become leaders of Education 3.0 and present some of the activities that the University of the Western Cape is undertaking in this area. Finally, we offer a fictional short story to provide an Education 3.0 narrative.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference

Abstract: Victor Hugo, the famous French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the 19th century, is credited with the saying, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” The statement sugge...

Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Abstract: Introduction PART I: STOP THE PRESSES Byte Flight Us and Them Newspapers Are No Longer News PART II: THE DIGITAL TIPPING POINT Generation Download Generation Upload On Demand Everything eBooks and the Revolution that Didn't Happen PART III: SAYING GOODBYE TO THE BOOK Writers in a Digital Future Readers in a Digital Future Will Books Disappear? Afterword Acknowledgements Notes

The Carbon-Neutral Individual

Abstract: Reducing the risk of catastrophic climate change will require leveling off greenhouse gas emissions over the short term and reducing emissions by an estimated 60–80% over the long term. To achieve these reductions, we argue that policymakers and regulators should focus not only on factories and other industrial sources of emissions but also on individuals. We construct a model that demonstrates that individuals contribute roughly one-third of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. This one-third share accounts for roughly 8% of the world’s total, more than the total emissions of any other country except China, and more than several continents. We contend that it is desirable, if not imperative, that governments address emissions from individual behavior. This task will be difficult because individual behaviors, including idling cars and wasting electricity, are resistant to change, even when the change is rational. Mindful of the costs, we propose measures that have a high likelihood of success. We draw on norms theory and empirical studies to demonstrate how legal reforms can tie the widely held abstract norm of personal responsibility to the emerging concrete norm of carbon neutrality. We suggest that these legal reforms could push carbon neutrality past a tipping point, directly influencing many carbon-emitting individual behaviors and building the public support necessary for policymakers to address the remaining sources.

China's Emergence and the Prospects for Global Sustainability

Abstract: China's rapid development is influencing global patterns of resource use and their associated environmental and geopolitical impacts. Trend projections suggest that China's rise will have unprecedented impacts on the rest of the world. I examine three key drivers affecting China's emergence (scale of development, government policy decisions, and globalization), along with four factors that may constrain development (environmental degradation, political instability, coal and oil consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions). China's rise represents a tipping point between fossil fuel–based economies and still emergent sustainable alternatives. Policy precedents between the United States and China over the next decade may well determine the future course of global sustainability.

Tipping and the Dynamics of Segregation

Abstract: In a classic paper, Schelling (1971) showed that extreme segregation can arise from social interactions in white preferences: once the minority share in a neighborhood exceeds a critical "tipping point," all the whites leave. We use regression discontinuity methods and Census tract data from 1970 through 2000 to test for discontinuities in the dynamics of neighborhood racial composition. White population flows exhibit tipping-like behavior in most cities, with a distribution of tipping points ranging from 5% to 20% minority share. The estimated discontinuities are robust to controls for a wide variety of neighborhood characteristics, and are as strong in the suburbs as in tracts close to high-minority neighborhoods, ruling out the main alternative explanations for apparent tipping behavior. In contrast to white population flows, there is no systematic evidence that rents or housing prices exhibit non-linearities around the tipping point. Finally, we relate the location of the estimated tipping points in different cities to measures of the racial attitudes of whites, and find that cities with more tolerant whites have higher tipping points.

Global Climate Change Control: Is There a Better Strategy than Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Abstract: Many environmentalists and some developed nations appear to have concluded that there is one Many environmentalists and some developed nations appear to have concluded that there is one climate change problem, global warming, and that there is only one solution to it, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, usually through the Kyoto Protocol. This paper argues instead that there are actually four major inter-related problems and concludes that several different approaches, including engineered climate selection, would be required to solve all of them. Although some measures can address certain climate change problems, none can address all of them. The paper first reviews the four major climate change problems, analyses whether the most prominent of the greenhouse gas control approaches (the Kyoto Protocol) is likely to be either effective or efficient in solving them, and then analyses both management and technological alternatives to this approach. The paper concludes that the most efficient and effective approach would be to actively pursue both engineered climate selection approaches involving radiative forcing using stratospheric particles optimized for this purpose as well as a new effort to reduce ocean acidification, with immediate priority given to the former in order to solve all the non-ocean acidification problems quickly while the more difficult, much slower, and much more costly effort to reduce ocean acidification is analyzed and carried out. This two-fold approach could be used to rapidly reduce the risks from adverse feedback/tipping point problems from global warming and from global cooling from major volcanic eruptions, and to rapidly stabilize average global temperatures at any desired level. This should also allow a little time for a new effort to better understand ocean acidification and design and carry out a careful program to reduce it directly, or possibly to decrease the carbon dioxide levels themselves to the extent that this is the most effective and lowest cost approach. If the latter, this should result in the lowest possible costs of carbon dioxide control by stretching out the period in which they would be made given the sensitivity of the costs of carbon dioxide emissions reductions to the rapidity with which they occur.

The Future of Employment-Based Health Benefits: Have Employers Reached a Tipping Point?

Abstract: This paper examines the notion that employers have reached a tipping point over health costs and will cease offering health care benefits to their workers. In the end, an evaluation of recent data does not suggest that the end of employment-based health benefits is upon us. However, the message from some associations representing employers is that the existing employment-based system must be reformed because the status quo is unsustainable. Some individual employers, including leaders in the field, appear to share this new vision. However, many individual employers believe that there is a business case for offering health benefits to their workers, and they continue to invest substantial amounts of money in their health programs. They also tend to agree that if one major employer were to drop health benefits, others would follow. And they tend to agree that public policy changes, such as the erosion or elimination of ERISA (federal) pre-emption of state insurance regulation, could mean the end of voluntary employment-based health benefits. The first section of this report examines recent trends in health benefits. It then discusses whether employers have reached a tipping point with health benefits. This is followed by a discussion of what is driving employers to a tipping point with respect to retiree health benefits.

Toward evidence-based policy making and standardized assessment of health policy reform.

Abstract: In the United States, deficiencies in health care quality, value, and access are well documented. Recent trends such as pay-for-performance, increased patient cost-sharing, and state health insurance expansion programs may represent important reforms and even a "tipping point" for the US health care system. Nevertheless, experts have cautioned that not only could unintended consequences occur but that no systems are in place to ensure accountability among policy makers. 8-9

Assertiveness and Effective Leadership: Is There a Tipping Point?

Abstract: This article discusses assertiveness in the workplace and its relationship to organizational leadership. Leaders with low levels of assertiveness may be viewed as too passive while leaders who exhibit extremely assertive behavior can be perceived as too hostile. The author explores assertiveness and its relationship to leader success or failure. Several studies have demonstrated that employees viewed extremes in assertiveness as weaknesses in leaders rather than strengths. The relationship between assertiveness and business success was also discussed.

Facilitating and Enabling Global Change: Towards a Model of Knowledge-Based Paradigm Shift

Abstract: At present, our society is near a tipping point where fundamental change must occur to ensure continued growth and prosperity for future generations. Can this change be managed for future benefit? This paper investigates how knowledge management (KM) principles and practice, exemplified by Holsapple and Joshi’s (2004) “KM episode,” may yield a set of fundamental strategies for global change. To this end, the notion of a KM episode is extended and supplemented with insights from Thomas Kuhn’s theory on the “Structure of scientific revolutions.” The resultant model describes and explains the interrelationships between knowledge triggers, resources, activities, influences, and potential outcomes associated with knowledge-based communal change. Moreover, an initial finding of this paper is that knowledge management practices and processes may provide the driving mechanism for required global change.

Tipping Points: Referral Homophily and Job Segregation

Abstract: How does referral recruitment contribute to job segregation? Current theory emphasizes the segregated nature of job-seekers’ information and contact networks. The job-seeker perspective characterizing most research on network effects in the labor market leaves little role for organizational influence. But referrals are necessarily initiated within a firm by referrers. This paper focuses on the neglected half of the referring dyad and seeks to explain the segregating effects of referring from the referrer’s perspective. Our main finding is that if a firm can get its under-represented group to refer more, referral recruitment can be made neutral to job segregation, or even integrative. Our analysis reveals a tipping point in referring dynamics – precisely how much more the under-represented group needs to refer to neutralize the segregating effects of referring. We build upon previous research to generate a formal model of referring dynamics as a regular Markov population process. We use this model to build theory regarding the segregating effects of referring, and the role of organizations in this process. In so doing, we show the prevailing wisdom fails to explain how referring contributes to job segregation. We reveal the conditions necessary for referring to segregate and identify policy levers for firms to mitigate this effect.

The future of employment-based health benefits: have employers reached a tipping point?

Abstract: This paper examines the notion that employers have reached a tipping point over health costs and will cease offering health care benefits to their workers. In the end, an evaluation of recent data does not suggest that the end of employment-based health benefits is upon us. However, the message from some associations representing employers is that the existing employment-based system must be reformed because the status quo is unsustainable. Some individual employers, including leaders in the field, appear to share this new vision. However, many individual employers believe that there is a business case for offering health benefits to their workers, and they continue to invest substantial amounts of money in their health programs. They also tend to agree that if one major employer were to drop health benefits, others would follow. And they tend to agree that public policy changes, such as the erosion or elimination of ERISA (federal) pre-emption of state insurance regulation, could mean the end of voluntary employment-based health benefits. The first section of this report examines recent trends in health benefits. It then discusses whether employers have reached a tipping point with health benefits. This is followed by a discussion of what is driving employers to a tipping point with respect to retiree health benefits.

We must all act now

Abstract: Almost everyone agrees that human production of greenhouse gases is driving global warming—more quickly than anticipated.1 The latest summary of the scientific evidence by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that by 2030 the earth will warm by 2.0°C—the tipping point at which warming may lead to more warming.2 Temperatures may rise by 6.4°C this century. In Bali, world leaders will try to agree how to …

Urban Sustainability Transition - A 'Tipping Point' Approach

Abstract: The Melbourne Principles for Sustainable Cities - developed through the United Nations Environment Programme and adopted at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg - are presented as providing the holistic framework required for setting urban sustainability goals and attracting the participation and commitment of key stakeholders to achieve them. Because of the multitude of 'actors' and the inherent complexity in the structure, processes and interactions in a city, we can expect myriad pathways. Aiming for efficiency (i.e. shortest path and best use of limited time and resources) and effectiveness (i.e. sustained change over time), this paper proposes a 'tipping point' approach. Key conditions that lead to tipping point are discussed with examples from various fields and as related to urban sustainability transitions. Combining the concept of leverage points, soft system methodology and complex systems modelling, it will be possible to understand transformation drivers, investigate transition pathways and identify tipping point conditions for urban sustainability. Our cities are already in a state of overshoot; time is the ultimate non- renewable resource. A tipping point approach that has the capacity to facilitate rapid rates of transformation is required.

Institutional Infrastructure to Support 'Super Growth' in Kenya: Governance Thresholds, Reversion Rates and Economic Development

Abstract: Kenya Growth Vision 2030 proposes policy and institutional reforms that make it possible for the country to achieve development status of a middle income country by 2030. This paper outlines the institutional framework necessary to achieve 'Super Growth,' which describes the character of growth required to meet targets stipulated in the Vision. The paper provides evidence confirming the importance of improving the quality of governance to the achievement of the Vision. The paper also demonstrates that the country is characterized by a high probability of reverting to poor governance. It is argued that, to achieve super growth, the country must attain an institutional tipping point which associates with low reversion rates to weaker institutions. The paper provides suggestions for institutional reforms that result in the achievement of an institutional tipping point and super growth.

Tipping and the Dynamics of Segregation

Abstract: In a classic paper, Schelling (1971) showed that extreme segregation can arise from social interactions in white preferences: once the minority share in a neighborhood exceeds a critical "tipping point," all the whites leave We use regression discontinuity methods and Census tract data from 1970 through 2000 to test for discontinuities in the dynamics of neighborhood racial composition White population flows exhibit tipping-like behavior in most cities, with a distribution of tipping points ranging from 5% to 20% minority share The estimated discontinuities are robust to controls for a wide variety of neighborhood characteristics, and are as strong in the suburbs as in tracts close to high-minority neighborhoods, ruling out the main alternative explanations for apparent tipping behavior In contrast to white population flows, there is no systematic evidence that rents or housing prices exhibit non-linearities around the tipping point Finally, we relate the location of the estimated tipping points in different cities to measures of the racial attitudes of whites, and find that cities with more tolerant whites have higher tipping points

Climate: game over.

Abstract: With respect to climate change, we have abruptly passed the tipping point in what until recently has been a tense political controversy. Why? Industry leaders, nongovernmental organizations, Al Gore, and public attention have all played a role. At the core, however, it9s about the relentless progress of science. As data accumulate, denialists retreat to the safety of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page or seek social relaxation with old pals from the tobacco lobby from whom they first learned to "teach the controversy." Meanwhile, political judgments are in, and the game is over. Indeed, on this page last week, a member of Parliament described how the European Union and his British colleagues are moving toward setting hard targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

Reactivity to Climate Change

Abstract: Once connections were made between tsunamis, Katrina, wild fires, floods, droughts, ice storms and undeniable changes in weather patterns, a picture of the whole constellated. The discourse eventually moved from conceptual and factual arguments to lived experience and pattern recognition. It seems that a “tipping point” in public recognition of climate change has been reached. At least from my North American observations, during the middle of 2007, a profound shift in public discourse has been occurring. It indicates an acceptance that climate change is really happening now, and that it is growing exponentially due to human activity. General public sentiment seems to have landed on the side of agreeing that we have a very real problem that needs to be faced collectively. The discourse has moved well beyond its former argumentative positioning to a place where shared meaning is possible. This new shared meaning might herald a take-off point that could support a comprehensive societal response. However, within just weeks or months of the development I described above, I have noted the formation of yet another polarity in the discourse. Both poles share the characteristic of faulting the other. One camp is faulting those who present forecasts of climate change as being too alarmist and too negative with potential to cause people to be overwhelmed and then shut down. The other camp is faulting those who present positive images of the future and human capacity to make a difference as being too soft, and not really dealing with the incredible challenges we are facing. The fault-finding voices have replaced conceptual and factual arguments. I have also observed a subtopic of that debate arising: the question of whether those who espouse the need to take action are themselves “pure.” For example, Al Gore, recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been publicly criticized for his large house and its energy usage. David Suzuki, Canada’s environmental guru and geneticist, is criticized by people who check out his grocery cart in the line to the teller, and then announce publicly that some of his food choices are not as wholesome as they “should” be.