The Minimum Data Set (MDS) is a uniform instrument used in nursing homes to assess residents. In January 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published a draft of a new MDS--version 3.0. This article traces the instrument's development and the design decisions that shaped it, discusses the MDS's manifest functions--data collection…

In this article, a new indicator designed to capture the multidimensionality of the social health of the French regions is put to the test. Drawing on regional data for 2004, this indicator of social health (ISH) sheds new light on the social performance of the French regions. The worst performers are the highly urbanised regions, whereas others,…

This paper develops an empirical methodology for the construction of a synthetic multi-dimensional cross-country comparison of the performance of governments around the world in improving the livelihood of their younger population. The devised "Youth Welfare Index" is based on the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology and…

The common approach to scaling, according to Christopher Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is to jump in and say, "Let's go out and find more money, recruit more participants, hire more people. Let's just keep doing the same thing, bigger and bigger." That, he observes, "tends to…