Family and nonfamily firms both must align owner and employee interests. However, family firms may experience lower labor productivity because of adverse selection problems from labor market sorting and attenuation. Incentive compensation reduces alignment of interest problems in family and nonfamily firms. Importantly, incentive compensation signals to potential employees that performance will be rewarded, which should improve the relative labor productivity in family firms by reducing adverse selection. Analysis of matched data on 216,768 firms supports our hypotheses, implying that incentive compensation has a broader impact on firm performance than commonly recognized in the family firm or human resource literatures.

The objective of the study was to identify potential barriers and facilitators to improve clinical practice using computer-based Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS). Studies published since 2000 were found using PubMed database, PsychInfo, CINAHL, EBSCOhost database, and Google scholar. Twenty-six relevant publications were examined. Thirty-five unique barriers and twenty-five unique facilitators were identified in the literature as important determinants of CDSS's adoption in clinical practice. The list of barriers and facilitators collected from each study were then organized under the four dimensions of The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Some of the important barriers to CDSS use include; lack of time or time constraints, economic constraints (e.g., finance and resources), lack of knowledge of system or content, reluctance to use system in front of patients, obscure workflow issues, less authenticity or reliability of information, lack of agreement with the system, and physician or user attitude toward the system. The study contributes immensely to the literature by identifying the important barriers and facilitators of CDSS.

ObjectiveMiR-486 and miR-146a are cardiomyocyte-enriched microRNAs that control cell survival and self-regulation of inflammation. These microRNAs are released into circulation and are detected in plasma or in circulating exosomes. Little is known whether heart failure affects their release into circulation, which this study investigated.ResultsTotal and exosome-specific microRNAs in plasma of 40 heart failure patients and 20 controls were prepared using the miRVana Kit. We measured exosomal and total plasma microRNAs separately because exosomes serve as cargos that transfer biological materials and alter signaling in distant organs, whereas microRNAs in plasma indicate the level of tissue damage and are mostly derived from dead cells. qRT-PCR was used to quantify miR-486, miR-146a, and miR-16. Heart failure did not significantly affect plasma miR-486/miR-16 and miR-146a/miR-16 ratio, although miR-146a/miR-16 showed a trend of elevated expression (2.3 ± 0.79, p = 0.27). By contrast, circulating exosomal miR-146a/miR-16 ratio was higher in heart failure patients (2.46 ± 0.51, p = 0.05). miR-146a is induced in response to inflammation as a part of inflammation attenuation circuitry. Indeed, Tnfα and Gm-csf increased miR-146a but not miR-486 in the cardiomyocyte cell line H9C2. These results, if confirmed in a larger study, may help to develop circulating exosomal miR-146a as a biomarker of heart failure.

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Aims Implantable cardioverter‐defibrillator (ICD) therapy reduces mortality in patients with heart failure and current guidelines advise implantation of ICDs in patients with a life expectancy of >1 year. We examined trends in all‐cause mortality in patients who underwent primary or secondary prevention ICD placement in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Health System. Methods and results US veterans receiving a new ICD placement for primary or secondary prevention of sudden cardiac death between January 2007 and January 2015, who had heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) were included in the analysis. We assessed all‐cause mortality 1 year post‐ICD implantation. ICD implantation and HFrEF diagnosis were established with associated ICD‐9 codes. The VA death registry was utilized to identify mortality rates following ICD placement. Results were subsequently age‐stratified. There were 17 901 veterans with HFrEF with ICD placement nationwide. There was no statistically significant difference in 1‐year mortality from 2007 (13.1%) to 2014 (13.4%, P > 0.05). There was a significant increase in 1‐year mortality in patients in the oldest age quartile (81.6 years, 32.3% mortality) compared to the youngest quartile (55.5 years, 7% mortality). The finding of diverging clinical outcomes extended to the 30‐day but also 8‐year mark. Conclusions Our data suggest there is a high 1‐year mortality in aging HFrEF patients undergoing primary and secondary prevention ICD placement. This highlights the importance of developing better predictive models for mortality in our ICD eligible patient population.

Patients with HFrEF taking carvedilol had improved survival as compared to metoprolol succinate. The data supports the need for furthering testing to determine optimal choice of beta blockers in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

This research examines tax increment financing (TIF), a widely used economic development tool, and property values to determine whether TIFs capture activity that would have occurred anyway. Using 2003–2012 data from Indiana counties, we test a two‐stage model focusing on TIF adoption (stage 1) and impact on assessed value within the TIF district and outside the TIF district (stage 2). Model results show that TIF adoption is positively related to TIF use in surrounding counties, median household income and employment growth, which suggests that TIF is used to capture existing growth. The results of the impact model show that as the share of county assessed value in TIF increases, assessed value in non‐TIF areas decreases and assessed value within TIF districts does not increase, which raises concerns about the efficacy of TIF.