Sample records for additional important information
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Evon, Donna M.; Golin, Carol E.; Stoica, Teodora; Jones, Rachel; Willis, Sarah; Galanko, Joseph; Fried, Michael W.
2017-01-01
Background & Objectives Multiple treatment options with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) are now available for hepatitis C virus (HCV). Study aims were to understand (1) The informational topics patients want to have to make informed treatment decisions; (2) The importance patients place on each topic; and (3) The topics patients prioritize as most important. Methods Mixed methods study utilizing two samples recruited from an academic liver center. Participants were not currently on treatment. Sample I (n=45) free-listed all informational topics deemed important to decision-making. Raw responses were coded into several broad and subcategories. Sample II (n=38) rated the importance of the subcategories from Sample I and ranked their highest priorities on two surveys, one containing topics for which sufficient research existed to inform patients (“static”), and the other containing topics that would require additional research. Results The topics listed by Sample I fell into 6 broad categories with 17 total subcategories. The most oft-cited informational topics were harms of treatment (100%), treatment benefits (62%) and treatment regimen details (84%). Sample II rated 16 of 17 subcategories as “pretty important’ or “extremely important.” Sample II prioritized (1) viral cure, (2) long-term survival, and (3) side effects on the survey of topics requiring additional research, and (1) liver disease, (2) lifestyle changes, and (3) medication details on the second survey of the most important static topics patients needed. Conclusions Patients weighed several informational topics to make an informed decision about HCV treatment. These findings lay the groundwork for future patient-centered outcomes research in HCV and patient-provider communication to enhance patients’ informed decision-making regarding DAA treatment options. PMID:27882509
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Intellectual property and networked health information: issues and principles.
Cate, F H
1996-04-01
Information networks offer enormous potential for improving the delivery of health care services, facilitating health-related decision-making, and contributing to better health. In addition, advanced information technologies offer important opportunities for new markets, targeted information products and services, greater accessibility, lower costs and prices, and more rapid and efficient distribution. Realizing the full potential of those information resources requires the resolution of significant intellectual property issues, some of which may be affected by special features of health information. For example, the government is a significant funder and originator of health-related information. In addition, much of that information is of great importance to the population and benefits not only individual users, but also employers, insurance companies, the government, and society as a whole. The government must therefore continue to provide particularly important health information to the public, and facilitate that information's accessibility and reliability, while avoiding unnecessary competition with private information providers. Congress and courts must modify or interpret current copyright law as necessary to guarantee that it does not interfere with innovation in tailored health information or exceed its constitutional boundaries and restrict access to information, as opposed to expression. Both producers and users of information must work with the government to educate the public about the availability of health information and the rights of and limitations upon users under copyright law.
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Intellectual property and networked health information: issues and principles.
Cate, F H
1996-01-01
Information networks offer enormous potential for improving the delivery of health care services, facilitating health-related decision-making, and contributing to better health. In addition, advanced information technologies offer important opportunities for new markets, targeted information products and services, greater accessibility, lower costs and prices, and more rapid and efficient distribution. Realizing the full potential of those information resources requires the resolution of significant intellectual property issues, some of which may be affected by special features of health information. For example, the government is a significant funder and originator of health-related information. In addition, much of that information is of great importance to the population and benefits not only individual users, but also employers, insurance companies, the government, and society as a whole. The government must therefore continue to provide particularly important health information to the public, and facilitate that information's accessibility and reliability, while avoiding unnecessary competition with private information providers. Congress and courts must modify or interpret current copyright law as necessary to guarantee that it does not interfere with innovation in tailored health information or exceed its constitutional boundaries and restrict access to information, as opposed to expression. Both producers and users of information must work with the government to educate the public about the availability of health information and the rights of and limitations upon users under copyright law. PMID:8826629
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Context-Aware Recommender Systems
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Adomavicius, Gediminas; Tuzhilin, Alexander
The importance of contextual information has been recognized by researchers and practitioners in many disciplines, including e-commerce personalization, information retrieval, ubiquitous and mobile computing, data mining, marketing, and management. While a substantial amount of research has already been performed in the area of recommender systems, most existing approaches focus on recommending the most relevant items to users without taking into account any additional contextual information, such as time, location, or the company of other people (e.g., for watching movies or dining out). In this chapter we argue that relevant contextual information does matter in recommender systems and that it is important to take this information into account when providing recommendations. We discuss the general notion of context and how it can be modeled in recommender systems. Furthermore, we introduce three different algorithmic paradigms - contextual prefiltering, post-filtering, and modeling - for incorporating contextual information into the recommendation process, discuss the possibilities of combining several contextaware recommendation techniques into a single unifying approach, and provide a case study of one such combined approach. Finally, we present additional capabilities for context-aware recommenders and discuss important and promising directions for future research.
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76 FR 25542 - Information Required in Prior Notice of Imported Food
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2011-05-05
..., Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 381(m)) to require that additional information be provided... Subjects in 21 CFR Part 1 Cosmetics, Drugs, Exports, Food labeling, Imports, Labeling, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements. Therefore, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and under authority...
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Evaluation of the painful athletic hip: imaging options and imaging-guided injections.
Jacobson, Jon A; Bedi, Asheesh; Sekiya, Jon K; Blankenbaker, Donna G
2012-09-01
This article reviews diagnostic imaging tests and injections that provide important information for clinical management of patients with sports-related hip pain. In the evaluation of sports-related hip symptoms, MR arthrography is often used to evaluate intraarticular pathology of the hip. The addition of short- and long-acting anesthetic agents with the MR arthrography injection adds additional information that can distinguish between symptomatic and asymptomatic imaging findings. Osseous abnormalities can be characterized with radiography, MRI, or CT. Ultrasound is important in the assessment of iliopsoas abnormalities, including tendon snapping, and to guide diagnostic anesthetic injection.
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"Party Line" Information Use Studies and Implications for ATC Datalink Communications
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Hansman, R. John; Pritchett, Amy; Midkiff, Alan
1995-01-01
The perceived importance and utilization of 'party line' information by air carrier flight crews was investigated through pilot surveys and a flight simulation study. The importance, availability, and accuracy of party line information elements were explored through surveys of pilots of several operational types. The survey identified numerous traffic and weather party line information elements which were considered important. These elements were scripted into a full-mission flight simulation which examined the utilization of party line information by studying subject responses to specific information element stimuli. The awareness of the different Party Line elements varied, and awareness was also affected by pilot workload. In addition, pilots were aware of some traffic information elements, but were reluctant to act on Party Line Information alone. Finally, the results of both the survey and the simulation indicated that the importance of party line information appeared to be greatest for operations near or on the airport. This indicates that caution should be exercised when implementing datalink communications in tower and close-in terminal control sectors.
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'Party Line' Information Use Studies and Implications for ATV Datalink Communications
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Pritchett, Amy; Hansman, R. John; Midkiff, Alan
1995-01-01
The perceived importance and utilization of 'party line' information by air carrier flight crews was investigated through pilot surveys and a flight simulation study. The Importance, Availability, and Accuracy of party line information elements were explored through surveys of pilots of several operational types. The survey identified numerous traffic and weather party line information elements which were considered important. These elements were scripted into a full-mission flight simulation which examined the utilization of party line information by studying subject responses to specific information element stimuli. The awareness of the different Party Line elements varied, and awareness was also affected by pilot workload. In addition, pilots were aware of some traffic information elements, but were reluctant to act on Party Line Information alone. Finally, the importance of party line information appears to be greatest for operations near or on the airport. This indicates that caution should be exercised when implementing datalink communications in tower and close-in terminal control sectors.
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The timing and sources of information for the adoption and implementation of production innovations
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Ettlie, J. E.
1976-01-01
Two dimensions (personal-impersonal and internal-external) are used to characterize information sources as they become important during the interorganizational transfer of production innovations. The results of three studies are reviewed for the purpose of deriving a model of the timing and importance of different information sources and the utilization of new technology. Based on the findings of two retrospective studies, it was concluded that the pattern of information seeking behavior in user organizations during the awareness stage of adoption is not a reliable predictor of the eventual utilization rate. Using the additional findings of a real-time study, an empirical model of the relative importance of information sources for successful user organizations is presented. These results are extended and integrated into a theoretical model consisting of a time-profile of successful implementations and the relative importance of four types of information sources during seven stages of the adoption-implementation process.
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40 CFR 1068.325 - What are the temporary exemptions for imported engines/equipment?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-07-01
... AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR POLLUTION CONTROLS GENERAL COMPLIANCE PROVISIONS FOR ENGINE PROGRAMS Imports... under the Clean Air Act. (6) Include any additional information we specify for demonstrating that you...
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40 CFR 1068.325 - What are the temporary exemptions for imported engines/equipment?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-07-01
... AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR POLLUTION CONTROLS GENERAL COMPLIANCE PROVISIONS FOR ENGINE PROGRAMS Imports... under the Clean Air Act. (6) Include any additional information we specify for demonstrating that you...
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Media influence on risk competence in self-medication and self-treatment
Schweim, Harald; Ullmann, Marcela
2015-01-01
Media play an important role in the reception of health risks; thus, media competence is important for enhancing the risk competence of patients and consumers. In addition to life-long health education, risk competence particularly requires careful handling of health information because, at present, the key problem is not the lack of sufficient information on health topics but the quality of such information. Patients and consumers of health procedures and health products also require information which relates to their daily life and matches their life style. PMID:26195923
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Media influence on risk competence in self-medication and self-treatment.
Schweim, Harald; Ullmann, Marcela
2015-01-01
Media play an important role in the reception of health risks; thus, media competence is important for enhancing the risk competence of patients and consumers. In addition to life-long health education, risk competence particularly requires careful handling of health information because, at present, the key problem is not the lack of sufficient information on health topics but the quality of such information. Patients and consumers of health procedures and health products also require information which relates to their daily life and matches their life style.
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Information Literacy Education on College of Technology at Kyushu Area
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kozono, Kazutake; Ikeda, Naomitsu; Irie, Hiroki; Fujimoto, Yoichi; Oshima, Shunsuke; Murayama, Koichi; Taguchi, Hirotsugu
Recently, the importance of an engineering education increases by the development of the information technology (IT) . Development of the information literacy education is important to deal with new IT in the education on college of technology. Our group investigated the current state of information literacy education on college of technology at Kyushu area and the secondary education. In addition, we investigated about the talent whom the industrial world requested. From these investigation results, this paper proposed cooperation with the elementary and secondary education, enhancement of intellectual property education, introduction of information ethics education, introduction of career education and enhancement of PBL to information literacy education on college of technology.
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POS-Tagging for informal language (study in Indonesian tweets)
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Suryawati, Endang; Munandar, Devi; Riswantini, Dianadewi; Fatchuttamam Abka, Achmad; Arisal, Andria
2018-03-01
This paper evaluates Part-of-Speech Tagging for the formal Indonesian language can be used for the tagging process of Indonesian tweets. In this study, we add five additional tags which reflect to social media attributes to the existing original tagset. Automatic POS tagging process is done by stratified training process with 1000, 1600, and 1800 of annotated tweets. It shows that the process can achieve up to 66.36% accuracy. The experiment with original tagset gives slightly better accuracy (67.39%) than the experiment with five additional tags, but will lose important informations which given by the five additional tagset.POS-Tagging for Informal Language (Study in Indonesian Tweets).
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David J. Nowak; Jeffrey T. Walton; James Baldwin; Jerry Bond
2015-01-01
Information on street trees is critical for management of this important resource. Sampling of street tree populations provides an efficient means to obtain street tree population information. Long-term repeat measures of street tree samples supply additional information on street tree changes and can be used to report damages from catastrophic events. Analyses of...
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Health Insurance for "Humans": Information Frictions, Plan Choice, and Consumer Welfare.
Handel, Benjamin R; Kolstad, Jonathan T
2015-08-01
Traditional models of insurance choice are predicated on fully informed and rational consumers protecting themselves from exposure to financial risk. In practice, choosing an insurance plan is a complicated decision often made without full information. In this paper we combine new administrative data on health plan choices and claims with unique survey data on consumer information to identify risk preferences, information frictions, and hassle costs. Our additional friction measures are important predictors of choices and meaningfully impact risk preference estimates. We study the implications of counterfactual insurance allocations to illustrate the importance of distinguishing between these micro-foundations for welfare analysis.
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Hueston, W; Travis, D; van Klink, E
2011-04-01
The effectiveness of risk mitigation may be compromised by informal trade, including illegal activities, parallel markets and extra-legal activities. While no regulatory system is 100% effective in eliminating the risk of disease transmission through animal and animal product trade, extreme risk aversion in formal import health regulations may increase informal trade, with the unintended consequence of creating additional risks outside regulatory purview. Optimal risk mitigation on a national scale requires scientifically sound yet flexible mitigation strategies that can address the competing risks of formal and informal trade. More robust risk analysis and creative engagement of nontraditional partners provide avenues for addressing informal trade.
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The intelligent clinical laboratory as a tool to increase cancer care management productivity.
Mohammadzadeh, Niloofar; Safdari, Reza
2014-01-01
Studies of the causes of cancer, early detection, prevention or treatment need accurate, comprehensive, and timely cancer data. The clinical laboratory provides important cancer information needed for physicians which influence clinical decisions regarding treatment, diagnosis and patient monitoring. Poor communication between health care providers and clinical laboratory personnel can lead to medical errors and wrong decisions in providing cancer care. Because of the key impact of laboratory information on cancer diagnosis and treatment the quality of the tests, lab reports, and appropriate lab management are very important. A laboratory information management system (LIMS) can have an important role in diagnosis, fast and effective access to cancer data, decrease redundancy and costs, and facilitate the integration and collection of data from different types of instruments and systems. In spite of significant advantages LIMS is limited by factors such as problems in adaption to new instruments that may change existing work processes. Applications of intelligent software simultaneously with existing information systems, in addition to remove these restrictions, have important benefits including adding additional non-laboratory-generated information to the reports, facilitating decision making, and improving quality and productivity of cancer care services. Laboratory systems must have flexibility to change and have the capability to develop and benefit from intelligent devices. Intelligent laboratory information management systems need to benefit from informatics tools and latest technologies like open sources. The aim of this commentary is to survey application, opportunities and necessity of intelligent clinical laboratory as a tool to increase cancer care management productivity.
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77 FR 56639 - Certain New Chemicals; Receipt and Status Information
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-09-13
... notice end Manufacturer/ Use Chemical date date importer P-12-0488 08/01/2012 10/29/2012 CBI (G) Additive... 10/29/2012 CBI (G) Additive to (G) Hydroxy polyurethane containing oil, foam. polymer with alkylene.../2012 CBI (G) Additive to (G) Alkanol, polyurethane oxybis-, foam. polymer with aromatic isocyanate...
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Program on Public Conceptions of Science, Newsletter 12.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shelanski, Vivien, Ed.; Blanpied, William A., Ed.
This newsletter presents a summary of important, but little publicized, issues involving the National Science Foundation. In addition, it also contains a timetable of impending actions to be taken by congressional committees, and a list of documents and articles where additional information can be found. In addition to the regular sections, News…
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2010-02-16
... forgings did not contribute importantly to worker separations at the subject firm and no shift of... additional information regarding customers of the subject firm and imports of steel forgings and like or...
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The benefits, risks and costs of privacy: patient preferences and willingness to pay.
Trachtenbarg, David E; Asche, Carl; Ramsahai, Shweta; Duling, Joy; Ren, Jinma
2017-05-01
Multiple surveys show that patients want medical privacy; however, there are costs to maintaining privacy. There are also risks if information is not shared. A review of previous surveys found that most surveys asked questions about patient's privacy concerns and willingness to share their medical information. We found only one study that asked about sharing medical information for better care and no survey that asked patients about the risk, cost or comparison between medical privacy and privacy in other areas. To fill this gap, we designed a survey to: (1) compare medical privacy preferences to privacy preferences in other areas; (2) measure willingness to pay the cost of additional privacy measures; and (3) measure willingness to accept the risks of not sharing information. A total of 834 patients attending physician offices at 14 sites completed all or part of an anonymous questionnaire. Over 95% of patients were willing to share all their medical information with their treating physicians. There was no difference in willingness to share between primary care and specialty sites including psychiatry and an HIV clinic. In our survey, there was no difference in sharing preference between standard medical information and information with additional legal protections including genetic testing, drug/alcohol treatment and HIV results. Medical privacy was ranked lower than sharing social security and credit card numbers, but was deemed more private than other information including tax returns and handgun purchases. There was no statistical difference for any questions by site except for HIV/AIDS clinic patients ranking privacy of the medical record more important than reducing high medical costs and risk of medical errors (p < .05). Most patients were willing to spend a modest amount of additional time for privacy, but few were willing to pay more for additional medical privacy. Most patients were unwilling to take on additional risks to keep medical information hidden. Patients were very willing to share medical information with their providers. They were able to see the importance of sharing medical information to provide the best possible care. They were unwilling to hide information from providers if there was increased medical risk. Patients were willing to spend additional time for privacy, but most were unwilling to spend extra money. Sixty-eight percent of patients favored reducing medical costs over privacy.
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Hop limited epidemic-like information spreading in mobile social networks with selfish nodes
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Wu, Yahui; Deng, Su; Huang, Hongbin
2013-07-01
Similar to epidemics, information can be transmitted directly among users in mobile social networks. Different from epidemics, we can control the spreading process by adjusting the corresponding parameters (e.g., hop count) directly. This paper proposes a theoretical model to evaluate the performance of an epidemic-like spreading algorithm, in which the maximal hop count of the information is limited. In addition, our model can be used to evaluate the impact of users’ selfish behavior. Simulations show the accuracy of our theoretical model. Numerical results show that the information hop count can have an important impact. In addition, the impact of selfish behavior is related to the information hop count.
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40 CFR 80.512 - May an importer treat diesel fuel as blendstock?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-07-01
... 40 Protection of Environment 16 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false May an importer treat diesel fuel as... PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Motor Vehicle Diesel Fuel; Nonroad, Locomotive, and Marine Diesel Fuel; and ECA Marine Fuel General Information § 80.512 May an importer treat diesel...
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40 CFR 80.512 - May an importer treat diesel fuel as blendstock?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-07-01
... 40 Protection of Environment 16 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false May an importer treat diesel fuel as... PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Motor Vehicle Diesel Fuel; Nonroad, Locomotive, and Marine Diesel Fuel; and ECA Marine Fuel General Information § 80.512 May an importer treat diesel...
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The Importance of State and Context in Safe Interoperable Medical Systems
Jaffe, Michael B.; Robkin, Michael; Rausch, Tracy; Arney, David; Goldman, Julian M.
2016-01-01
This paper describes why “device state” and “patient context” information are necessary components of device models for safe interoperability. This paper includes a discussion of the importance of describing the roles of devices with respect to interactions (including human user workflows involving devices, and device to device communication) within a system, particularly those intended for use at the point-of-care, and how this role information is communicated. In addition, it describes the importance of clinical scenarios in creating device models for interoperable devices. PMID:27730013
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dick, Rhonda Wiegman; Manson, Spero M.; Hansen, Amy L.; Huggins, Annie; Trullinger, Lori
2007-01-01
The development and dissemination of culturally relevant health care information has traditionally taken a "top-down" approach. Governmental funding agencies and research institutions have too often dictated the importance and focus of health-related research and information dissemination. In addition, the digital divide has affected rural…
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The IT in Secondary Science Book. A Compendium of Ideas for Using Computers and Teaching Science.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Frost, Roger
Scientists need to measure and communicate, to handle information, and model ideas. In essence, they need to process information. Young scientists have the same needs. Computers have become a tremendously important addition to the processing of information through database use, graphing and modeling and also in the collection of information…
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Patients' Values in Clinical Decision-Making.
Faggion, Clovis Mariano; Pachur, Thorsten; Giannakopoulos, Nikolaos Nikitas
2017-09-01
Shared decision-making involves the participation of patient and dental practitioner. Well-informed decision-making requires that both parties understand important concepts that may influence the decision. This fourth article in a series of 4 aims to discuss the importance of patients' values when a clinical decision is made. We report on how to incorporate important concepts for well-informed, shared decision-making. Here, we present patient values as an important issue, in addition to previously established topics such as the risk of bias of a study, cost-effectiveness of treatment approaches, and a comparison of therapeutic benefit with potential side effects. We provide 2 clinical examples and suggestions for a decision tree, based on the available evidence. The information reported in this article may improve the relationship between patient and dental practitioner, resulting in more well-informed clinical decisions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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77 FR 31296 - WTO Agricultural Safeguard Trigger Levels
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-05-25
... listed products. DATES: Effective Date: May 25, 2012. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Safeguard Staff... by telephone at (202) 720-0638, or by email at [email protected] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Article 5 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture provides that additional import duties may be imposed on...
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2010-11-30
...; Gasoline Volatility AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: In compliance... entities: Entities potentially affected by this action are those who produce or import gasoline containing... Additives: Gasoline Volatility, Reporting Requirements for Parties Which Produce of Import Gasoline...
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Reference architecture of application services for personal wellbeing information management.
Tuomainen, Mika; Mykkänen, Juha
2011-01-01
Personal information management has been proposed as an important enabler for individual empowerment concerning citizens' wellbeing and health information. In the MyWellbeing project in Finland, a strictly citizen-driven concept of "Coper" and related architectural and functional guidelines have been specified. We present a reference architecture and a set of identified application services to support personal wellbeing information management. In addition, the related standards and developments are discussed.
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Chambers, Christina D; Tutuncu, Zuhre N; Johnson, Diana; Jones, Kenneth L
2006-01-01
For female patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the availability of a host of new disease modifying antirheumatic drugs has raised important questions about fetal safety if a woman becomes pregnant while she is being treated. In addition, there is limited safety information regarding many of the older medications commonly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis in women of reproductive age. Current summary pregnancy risk information for selected medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis is reviewed in the context of the pregnancy label category. In addition, the strengths and weaknesses of post-marketing strategies for developing new pregnancy safety information are described. PMID:16774693
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Argelagós, Esther; Pifarré, Manoli
2016-01-01
Internet has become one of the most important information sources for students' personal and academic life. In addition, the World Wide Web is receiving increased attention in education because of its potential to support new forms of learning. However, using the information from the net for learning requires the development of a set of abilities…
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Censored data treatment using additional information in intelligent medical systems
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Zenkova, Z. N.
2015-11-01
Statistical procedures are a very important and significant part of modern intelligent medical systems. They are used for proceeding, mining and analysis of different types of the data about patients and their diseases; help to make various decisions, regarding the diagnosis, treatment, medication or surgery, etc. In many cases the data can be censored or incomplete. It is a well-known fact that censorship considerably reduces the efficiency of statistical procedures. In this paper the author makes a brief review of the approaches which allow improvement of the procedures using additional information, and describes a modified estimation of an unknown cumulative distribution function involving additional information about a quantile which is known exactly. The additional information is used by applying a projection of a classical estimator to a set of estimators with certain properties. The Kaplan-Meier estimator is considered as an estimator of the unknown cumulative distribution function, the properties of the modified estimator are investigated for a case of a single right censorship by means of simulations.
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Clayton, Alfred; Almony, John
The curriculum guide for commercial foods instruction is designed to aid the teacher in communicating the importance of menu cycles in commercial food production. It also provides information about the necessary steps in getting food from the raw form to the finished product, and then to the consumer. In addition to providing information on how to…
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[The informed consent in international clinical trials including developing countries].
Montenegro Surís, Alexander; Monreal Agüero, Magda Elaine
2008-01-01
The informed consent procedure has been one of the most important controversies of ethical debates about clinical trials in developing countries. In this essay we present our recommendations about important aspects to consider in the informed consent procedure for clinical trials in developing countries. We performed a full publications review identified by MEDLINE using these terms combinations: informed consent, developing countries, less developed countries and clinical trials. To protect volunteers in less developed countries should be valuated the importance of the community in the informed consent proceeding. The signing and dating of the informed consent form is not always the best procedure to document the informed consent. The informed consent form should be written by local translators. Alternative medias of communications could be needed for communicatios of the information to volunteers. Comparing with developed countries the informed consent proceeding in clinical trials in developing countries frequently require additional efforts. The developing of pragmatic researches is needed to implement informed consent proceedings assuring subjects voluntarily in each developing country. The main aspects to define in each clinical trial for each country are the influence of the community, the effective communication of the information, the documentation of the informed consent and local authority's control.
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So Many Graphs, So Little Time
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wall, Jennifer J.; Benson, Christine C.
2009-01-01
Interpreting graphs found in various content areas is an important skill for students, especially in light of high-stakes testing. In addition, reading and understanding graphs is an important part of numeracy, or numeric literacy, a skill necessary for informed citizenry. This article explores the different categories of graphs, provides…
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33 CFR 148.107 - What additional information may be required?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-07-01
... HOMELAND SECURITY (CONTINUED) DEEPWATER PORTS DEEPWATER PORTS: GENERAL Application for a License § 148.107...), in coordination with MARAD, may determine whether compliance with the requirement is important to processing the application within the time prescribed by the Act. (3) If the requirement is important to...
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Allmer, Jens; Kuhlgert, Sebastian; Hippler, Michael
2008-07-07
The amount of information stemming from proteomics experiments involving (multi dimensional) separation techniques, mass spectrometric analysis, and computational analysis is ever-increasing. Data from such an experimental workflow needs to be captured, related and analyzed. Biological experiments within this scope produce heterogenic data ranging from pictures of one or two-dimensional protein maps and spectra recorded by tandem mass spectrometry to text-based identifications made by algorithms which analyze these spectra. Additionally, peptide and corresponding protein information needs to be displayed. In order to handle the large amount of data from computational processing of mass spectrometric experiments, automatic import scripts are available and the necessity for manual input to the database has been minimized. Information is in a generic format which abstracts from specific software tools typically used in such an experimental workflow. The software is therefore capable of storing and cross analysing results from many algorithms. A novel feature and a focus of this database is to facilitate protein identification by using peptides identified from mass spectrometry and link this information directly to respective protein maps. Additionally, our application employs spectral counting for quantitative presentation of the data. All information can be linked to hot spots on images to place the results into an experimental context. A summary of identified proteins, containing all relevant information per hot spot, is automatically generated, usually upon either a change in the underlying protein models or due to newly imported identifications. The supporting information for this report can be accessed in multiple ways using the user interface provided by the application. We present a proteomics database which aims to greatly reduce evaluation time of results from mass spectrometric experiments and enhance result quality by allowing consistent data handling. Import functionality, automatic protein detection, and summary creation act together to facilitate data analysis. In addition, supporting information for these findings is readily accessible via the graphical user interface provided. The database schema and the implementation, which can easily be installed on virtually any server, can be downloaded in the form of a compressed file from our project webpage.
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77 FR 41981 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Final Collection; Comment Request
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-07-17
... review and comments request. Form Title: EIB 99-14 Export-Import Bank Trade Reference form. SUMMARY: The... Reference form provides essential credit information used by Ex-Im Bank credit officers when analyzing... (longer than 360 days), for the export of their U.S. goods and services. Additionally, this form is an...
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2010-04-22
... Radiological Health (CDRH) fiscal year (FY) 2010 priorities. In addition, FDA is interested in engaging in... information and discuss issues of importance to the medical device industry. CDRH is specifically interested... through Friday. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Background CDRH has announced four priority areas of...
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Schmidt, Anna; Ernstmann, Nicole; Wesselmann, Simone; Pfaff, Holger; Wirtz, Markus; Kowalski, Christoph
2016-02-01
After a short hospital stay of just some days follows long-term outpatient care for breast cancer patients. The aim of the study is to describe the information needs of breast cancer outpatients and to get in touch with aspects of health literacy, as well as contact various health care workers. In a multicenter study, patients were asked about their information needs 10 weeks after surgery. The analysis on hand includes data about 1248 female patients. In addition to descriptive analyses identifying the most prevalent information needs, logistic regression analyses were calculated to identify factors associated with these. The results show that information needs of breast cancer outpatients are mainly in "follow-up after acute treatment", "coping with long-term side effects", and "heredity of breast cancer". In addition to sociodemographic patient characteristics, perceived helpful contacts with various health care workers as well as a satisfactory patient's level of health literacy reduced the probability of unmet information needs. Breast cancer outpatients have numerous information needs. In addition to provide information at the right time regarding a specific disease phase, it is important that health professionals' support affected breast cancer patients in coping with the new situation.
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Weiss, Emily; Miller, Katherine; Mohan-Gibbons, Heather; Vela, Carla
2012-01-01
Simple Summary This study examined reasons why adopters chose their pet in an animal shelter, what behaviors were first exhibited by the pet to the adopter, what information was important during their selection process, and the relative importance of seeing the animals’ behavior in various contexts. Abstract Responses from an adopter survey (n = 1,491) determined reasons for pet selection, type of information received by the adopter, and the context in which the animal’s behavior was observed. Appearance of the animal, social behavior with adopter, and personality were the top reasons for adoption across species and age groups. Most adopters stated that information about the animal from a staff member or volunteer was more important than information on cage cards, and health and behavior information was particularly important. Adopters found greater importance in interacting with the animal rather than viewing it in its kennel. The results of this study can be used by shelters to create better adoption matches, prioritize shelter resources and staff training, and potentially increase adoptions. Additionally, some simple training techniques are suggested to facilitate adopter-friendly behaviors from sheltered dogs and cats. PMID:26486914
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Enhancing security and improving interoperability in healthcare information systems.
Gritzalis, D A
1998-01-01
Security is a key issue in healthcare information systems, since most aspects of security become of considerable or even critical importance when handling healthcare information. In addition, the intense need for information exchange has revealed interoperability of systems and applications as another key issue. Standardization can play an important role towards both these issues. In this paper, relevant standardization activities are briefly presented, and existing and emerging healthcare information security standards are identified and critically analysed. The analysis is based on a framework which has been developed for this reason. Therefore, the identification of gaps and inconsistencies in current standardization, the description of the conflicts of standards with legislation, and the analysis of implications of these standards to user organizations, are the main results of this paper.
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Impact of Health Information Exchange on Emergency Medicine Clinical Decision Making.
Gordon, Bradley D; Bernard, Kyle; Salzman, Josh; Whitebird, Robin R
2015-12-01
The objective of the study was to understand the immediate utility of health information exchange (HIE) on emergency department (ED) providers by interviewing them shortly after the information was retrieved. Prior studies of physician perceptions regarding HIE have only been performed outside of the care environment. Trained research assistants interviewed resident physicians, physician assistants and attending physicians using a semi-structured questionnaire within two hours of making a HIE request. The responses were recorded, then transcribed for qualitative analysis. The transcribed interviews were analyzed for emerging qualitative themes. We analyzed 40 interviews obtained from 29 providers. Primary qualitative themes discovered included the following: drivers for requests for outside information; the importance of unexpected information; historical lab values as reference points; providing context when determining whether to admit or discharge a patient; the importance of information in refining disposition; improved confidence of provider; and changes in decisions for diagnostic imaging. ED providers are driven to use HIE when they're missing a known piece of information. This study finds two additional impacts not previously reported. First, providers sometimes find additional unanticipated useful information, supporting a workflow that lowers the threshold to request external information. Second, providers sometimes report utility when no changes to their existing plan are made as their confidence is increased based on external records. Our findings are concordant with previous studies in finding exchanged information is useful to provide context for interpreting lab results, making admission decisions, and prevents repeat diagnostic imaging.
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A Conceptual Model of the Cognitive Processing of Environmental Distance Information
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Montello, Daniel R.
I review theories and research on the cognitive processing of environmental distance information by humans, particularly that acquired via direct experience in the environment. The cognitive processes I consider for acquiring and thinking about environmental distance information include working-memory, nonmediated, hybrid, and simple-retrieval processes. Based on my review of the research literature, and additional considerations about the sources of distance information and the situations in which it is used, I propose an integrative conceptual model to explain the cognitive processing of distance information that takes account of the plurality of possible processes and information sources, and describes conditions under which particular processes and sources are likely to operate. The mechanism of summing vista distances is identified as widely important in situations with good visual access to the environment. Heuristics based on time, effort, or other information are likely to play their most important role when sensory access is restricted.
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[Survey on medical information education for radiologic technologists working at hospitals].
Ikeda, Ryuji; Ogasawara, Katsuhiko; Okuda, Yasuo; Konishi, Yasuhiko; Ohoba, Hisateru; Hoshino, Shuhei; Hosoba, Minoru
2011-01-01
Recently, the importance of medical information for radiologic technologists has increased. The purpose of this questionnaire survey was to clarify the method of acquiring skill in medical information for radiologic technologists from the point of view of the managers of radiology departments. The questionnaire was sent to 260 hospitals that had introduced picture archiving and communication systems (PACSs) for the person responsible for medical information in the radiology department. The response rate was 35.4% (92 hospitals). The results of this survey clarified that few hospital have staff for medical information in the radiology department. Nevertheless, the excellent staff who have the skills to troubleshoot and develop systems are earnestly needed in radiology departments. To solve this problem, many technologists should understand the content, work load, and necessity of medical information. In addition, cooperation between radiologic technologist schools and hospitals is important in the field of medical information education.
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Swindle, T. D.
2001-01-01
Time is an important parameter in understanding the interaction of the surface and subsurface of Europa. It should be possible to determine potassium-argon and cosmic ray exposure ages in situ on the surface of Europa. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
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Arts and Afterschool: A Powerful Combination. Afterschool Alert. Issue Brief No. 21
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Afterschool Alliance, 2005
2005-01-01
In an increasingly competitive information age and creative economy, knowledge and skills in the arts and music are important in their own right. Additionally, the integration of the arts into after-school programs helps build and reinforce important student learning. It helps strengthen teamwork, responsibility, persistence, self-discipline, and…
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Erdner, Anette; Magnusson, Annabella
2012-10-01
It is well known that people with severe mental illness often suffer from constant fatigue, insomnia, and somatic complaints that are too often overlooked. In addition, these persons die earlier in life than others in the population. The purpose of this study was to investigate patients' descriptions of activities and the importance of these activities for their health. Eight persons living in their own home were interviewed about both their views about exercise and their exercising activities. Two themes emerged: Getting Control over One's Life and The Need for Contact with Family & Friends. All of the informants were aware of the importance of physical activity to feel good. The informants described three different forms of activities: daily activities in the home, activities in a rehabilitation centre, and various forms of jogging. These different forms of activity were important to the informants since they reduced their anxiety and stress.
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The Importance of the Medical Record: A Critical Professional Responsibility.
Ngo, Elizabeth; Patel, Nachiket; Chandrasekaran, Krishnaswamy; Tajik, A Jamil; Paterick, Timothy E
2016-01-01
Comprehensive, detailed documentation in the medical record is critical to patient care and to a physician when allegations of negligence arise. Physicians, therefore, would be prudent to have a clear understanding of this documentation. It is important to understand who is responsible for documentation, what is important to document, when to document, and how to document. Additionally, it should be understood who owns the medical record, the significance of the transition to the electronic medical record, problems and pitfalls when using the electronic medical record, and how the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act affects healthcare providers and health information technology.
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Students' trust judgements in online health information seeking.
Rowley, Jennifer; Johnson, Frances; Sbaffi, Laura
2015-12-01
As one of the most active groups of Internet users, students and other young people are active users of digital health information. Yet, research into young people's evaluation of health information is limited, and no previous studies have focused on trust formation. In addition, prior studies on adults' use of digital information do not reach a consensus regarding the key factors in trust formation. This study seeks to address this gap. A questionnaire-based survey was used to collect data from undergraduate students studying a variety of disciplines in one UK university. The Trust in Online Health Information Scale is proposed, and it includes the following dimensions: authority, style, content, usefulness, brand, ease of use, recommendation, credibility, and verification. In addition, inspection of responses to specific items/questions provides further insights into aspects of the information that were of specific importance in influencing trust judgements. © The Author(s) 2014.
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[Problems and ethical challenges in public health communication].
Loss, J; Nagel, E
2009-05-01
Health communication, e.g., mass media campaigns, patient information leaflets or websites, plays an important role in public health. It contributes to citizen empowerment and helps them make informed decisions in health matters. However, public health communication can lead to adverse effects on both individual and societal level, e.g., by inaccurate or partial information, discriminatory messages, scandalizing coverage or inadequate tailoring to relevant target groups. It seems important to suggest ethical criteria for health information, e.g., (1) accuracy, completeness and balance, (2) transparency, (3) participation of the target group, (4) respect for human dignity, (5) social justice and equity, (6) appropriateness. Thoughtfulness is important in order not to stigmatize population subgroups. In addition, it is laborious to comprehensively and correctly present benefits and risks of a certain health behavior. Marketing principles guide how to 'sell' a certain health behavior, but health campaigns should not manipulate target persons for the sake of a population health aim. It remains unclear, however, how the different providers of health information can be held ethically responsible.
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The Statue of Liberty: Books for Kindergarten through Grade 8.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
San Diego County Office of Education, CA.
This short annotated bibliography of books for students in kindergarten through grade 8 contains information on the history of the Statue of Liberty and its renovation that will enable students to learn more about this important American symbol. In addition to the eight books listed, information is provided on a photograph collection, a teacher's…
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Limit Pricing with Incomplete Information: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sorenson, Timothy L.
2004-01-01
Strategic pricing is an important and exciting topic in industrial organization and the economics of strategy. A wide range of texts use what has become a standard version of the Milgrom and Roberts (1982a) limit-pricing model to convey the essential ideas of strategic pricing under incomplete information. In addition to providing a formal, but…
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-10-03
... country of origin of the fish or wildlife. In addition, certain information, such as the airway bill or bill of lading number, the location of the fish or wildlife for inspection, and the number of cartons.... Campbell, Chief, Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. [FR Doc...
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koppi, Tony; Sheard, Judy; Naghdy, Fazel; Edwards, Sylvia L.; Brookes, Wayne
2010-01-01
An online survey was conducted of recent information and communications technology (ICT) graduates from 21 Australian universities. A range of abilities including personal/interpersonal, cognitive, business and technical were examined in relation to importance in the workplace and university preparation of those abilities. In addition, a set of…
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Effects of the Knowledge Base on Children's Rehearsal and Organizational Strategies.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ornstein, Peter A.; Naus, Mary J.
In addition to the important role of memory strategies in mediating age changes in recall performance, it is clear that the permanent memory system (or information available in the knowledge base) exerts a significant influence on the acquisition and retention of information. Age changes in memory performance will be fully understood only through…
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Gender Differences and Intra-Gender Differences amongst Management Information Systems Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beyer, Sylvia
2008-01-01
Few women major in Management Information Systems (MIS). The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for women's underrepresentation in MIS. In addition to examining gender differences, an important and novel goal of this study is to examine intra-gender differences in undergraduate students, i.e., differences among female MIS majors and…
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The Role of the IT Department in Information System and Organizational Redesign.
Stub Petersen, Lone
2015-01-01
This paper is based on a qualitative study of IT organization and clinical practice over a period of 3 years supported by additional data during the last 2 years. This paper argues that redesign is central to understanding and developing both healthcare information systems and organizations. The importance of the IT organization is also stressed throughout this paper as a pertinent partner and power when considering organizational change and learning in hospitals as it can serve both as a barrier and a catalyst of change and flexibility in the organization through information systems management. Therefore it is important to consider and secure appropriate forms for redesign and learning in cooperation with the IT department.
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2012-01-01
Background Little information is known about what information women want when choosing a birth facility. The objective of this study was to inform the development of a consumer decision support tool about birth facility by identifying the information needs of maternity care consumers in Queensland, Australia. Methods Participants were 146 women residing in both urban and rural areas of Queensland, Australia who were pregnant and/or had recently given birth. A cross-sectional survey was administered in which participants were asked to rate the importance of 42 information items to their decision-making about birth facility. Participants could also provide up to ten additional information items of interest in an open-ended question. Results On average, participants rated 30 of the 42 information items as important to decision-making about birth facility. While the majority of information items were valued by most participants, those related to policies about support people, other women’s recommendations about the facility, freedom to choose one’s preferred position during labour and birth, the aesthetic quality of the facility, and access to on-site neonatal intensive care were particularly widely valued. Additional items of interest frequently focused on postnatal care and support, policies related to medical intervention, and access to water immersion. Conclusions The women surveyed had significant and diverse information needs for decision-making about birth facility. These findings have immediate applications for the development of decision support tools about birth facility, and highlight the need for tools which provide a large volume of information in an accessible and user-friendly format. These findings may also be used to guide communication and information-sharing by care providers involved in counselling pregnant women and families about their options for birth facility or providing referrals to birth facilities. PMID:22708648
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Thompson, Rachel; Wojcieszek, Aleena M
2012-06-18
Little information is known about what information women want when choosing a birth facility. The objective of this study was to inform the development of a consumer decision support tool about birth facility by identifying the information needs of maternity care consumers in Queensland, Australia. Participants were 146 women residing in both urban and rural areas of Queensland, Australia who were pregnant and/or had recently given birth. A cross-sectional survey was administered in which participants were asked to rate the importance of 42 information items to their decision-making about birth facility. Participants could also provide up to ten additional information items of interest in an open-ended question. On average, participants rated 30 of the 42 information items as important to decision-making about birth facility. While the majority of information items were valued by most participants, those related to policies about support people, other women's recommendations about the facility, freedom to choose one's preferred position during labour and birth, the aesthetic quality of the facility, and access to on-site neonatal intensive care were particularly widely valued. Additional items of interest frequently focused on postnatal care and support, policies related to medical intervention, and access to water immersion. The women surveyed had significant and diverse information needs for decision-making about birth facility. These findings have immediate applications for the development of decision support tools about birth facility, and highlight the need for tools which provide a large volume of information in an accessible and user-friendly format. These findings may also be used to guide communication and information-sharing by care providers involved in counselling pregnant women and families about their options for birth facility or providing referrals to birth facilities.
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Jones, Teresa H; Hanney, Steve; Buxton, Martin J
2007-01-01
Background Implementation of health research findings is important for medicine to be evidence-based. Previous studies have found variation in the information sources thought to be of greatest importance to clinicians but publication in peer-reviewed journals is the traditional route for dissemination of research findings. There is debate about whether the impact made on clinicians should be considered as part of the evaluation of research outputs. We aimed to determine first which information sources are generally most consulted by paediatricians to inform their clinical practice, and which sources they considered most important, and second, how many and which peer-reviewed journals they read. Methods We enquired, by questionnaire survey, about the information sources and academic journals that UK medical paediatric specialists generally consulted, attended or read and considered important to their clinical practice. Results The same three information sources – professional meetings & conferences, peer-reviewed journals and medical colleagues – were, overall, the most consulted or attended and ranked the most important. No one information source was found to be of greatest importance to all groups of paediatricians. Journals were widely read by all groups, but the proportion ranking them first in importance as an information source ranged from 10% to 46%. The number of journals read varied between the groups, but Archives of Disease in Childhood and BMJ were the most read journals in all groups. Six out of the seven journals previously identified as containing best paediatric evidence are the most widely read overall by UK paediatricians, however, only the two most prominent are widely read by those based in the community. Conclusion No one information source is dominant, therefore a variety of approaches to Continuing Professional Development and the dissemination of research findings to paediatricians should be used. Journals are an important information source. A small number of key ones can be identified and such analysis could provide valuable additional input into the evaluation of clinical research outputs. PMID:17224061
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Garcia-Retamero, Rocio; Hoffrage, Ulrich
2013-04-01
Doctors and patients have difficulty inferring the predictive value of a medical test from information about the prevalence of a disease and the sensitivity and false-positive rate of the test. Previous research has established that communicating such information in a format the human mind is adapted to-namely natural frequencies-as compared to probabilities, boosts accuracy of diagnostic inferences. In a study, we investigated to what extent these inferences can be improved-beyond the effect of natural frequencies-by providing visual aids. Participants were 81 doctors and 81 patients who made diagnostic inferences about three medical tests on the basis of information about prevalence of a disease, and the sensitivity and false-positive rate of the tests. Half of the participants received the information in natural frequencies, while the other half received the information in probabilities. Half of the participants only received numerical information, while the other half additionally received a visual aid representing the numerical information. In addition, participants completed a numeracy scale. Our study showed three important findings: (1) doctors and patients made more accurate inferences when information was communicated in natural frequencies as compared to probabilities; (2) visual aids boosted accuracy even when the information was provided in natural frequencies; and (3) doctors were more accurate in their diagnostic inferences than patients, though differences in accuracy disappeared when differences in numerical skills were controlled for. Our findings have important implications for medical practice as they suggest suitable ways to communicate quantitative medical data. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Aminostratigraphy of Organisms in Antarctic and Siberian Permafrost Cores
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Brinton, K. L. F.; Tsapin, A. I.; McDonald, G. D.; Gilichinsky, D.
1999-01-01
Amino acid racemization dating (or aminostratigraphy) in Antarctic and Siberian permafrost core samples can be used to evaluate the age of organisms in frozen environments. The potential for subsurface permafrost on Mars makes terrestrial permafrost an important source of information regarding the preservation of both living organisms and their remains. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
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Eliciting consumer preferences for health plans.
Booske, B C; Sainfort, F; Hundt, A S
1999-10-01
To examine (1) what people say is important to them in choosing a health plan; (2) the effect, if any, that giving health plan information has on what people say is important to them; and (3) the effect of preference elicitation methods on what people say is important. A random sample of 201 Wisconsin state employees who participated in a health plan choice experiment during the 1995 open enrollment period. We designed a computer system to guide subjects through the review of information about health plan options. The system began by eliciting the stated preferences of the subjects before they viewed the information, at time 0. Subjects were given an opportunity to revise their preference structures first after viewing summary information about four health plans (time 1) and then after viewing more extensive, detailed information about the same options (time 2). At time 2, these individuals were also asked to rate the relative importance of a predefined list of health plan features presented to them. Data were collected on the number of attributes listed at each point in time and the importance weightings assigned to each attribute. In addition, each item on the attribute list was content analyzed. The provision of information changes the preference structures of individuals. Costs (price) and coverage dominated the attributes cited both before and after looking at health plan information. When presented with information on costs, quality, and how plans work, many of these relatively well educated consumers revised their preference structures; yet coverage and costs remained the primary cited attributes. Although efforts to provide health plan information should continue, decisions on the information to provide and on making it available are not enough. Individuals need help in understanding, processing, and using the information to construct their preferences and make better decisions.
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A Potential Role of the Curry Spice Curcumin in Alzheimer’s Disease
Ringman, John M.; Frautschy, Sally A.; Cole, Gregory M.; Masterman, Donna L.; Cummings, Jeffrey L.
2005-01-01
There is substantial in-vitro data indicating that curcumin has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-amyloid activity. In addition, studies in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) indicate a direct effect of curcumin in decreasing the amyloid pathology of AD. As the widespread use of curcumin as a food additive and relatively small short-term studies in humans suggest safety, curcumin is a promising agent in the treatment and/or prevention of AD. Nonetheless, important information regarding curcumin bioavailability, safety and tolerability, particularly in an elderly population is lacking. We are therefore performing a study of curcumin in patients with AD to gather this information in addition to data on the effect of curcumin on biomarkers of AD pathology. PMID:15974909
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-07-24
... contacting the individual listed below (FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT), or online at: http://www.nmfs.noaa... of recruitment or survival.'' In addition, NMFS must prescribe regulations that include permissible...
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COS Target Acquisition Guidelines, Recommendations, and Interpretation
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Keyes, Charles (Tony) D.; Penton, Steven V.
2010-06-01
Based upon analysis of SMOV and Cycle 17 observations through April 2010, this ISR expands, updates, and supersedes recommendations and information provided about target acquisitions (TA) in the COS Instrument Handbook version 2. This ISR provides an overview of COS TA, presents general guidelines and recommendations for crafting COS TAs, establishes COS TA centering accuracy requirements to achieve COS photometric, velocity, and resolution objectives, and summarizes the performance of the COS on-board TA modes as compared to these centering requirements. Updated TA strategy recommendations are given where appropriate, a user-oriented table lists where to find important quantities for the analysis and interpretation of COS TAs, and a brief appendix with additional supporting information is included. An overview of COS TA strategies is provided in Section 2 and Table 1; important updates to ACQ/SEARCH requirements and SEARCH-SIZE recommendations as a function of target coordinate accuracy are given in Tables 2 and 3; COS TA performance by mode is described in Section 5; important header keywords that are useful for evaluating the quality of COS TAs are listed in Table 5 along with where to find them; Table 6 gives a summary of COS TA modes, options, and recommended values; Section 7 summarizes updated recommendations and guidelines for COS TA; and Appendix A provides additional useful COS TA information.
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Assessing the role of informal sector in WEEE management systems: A System Dynamics approach.
Ardi, Romadhani; Leisten, Rainer
2016-11-01
Generally being ignored by academia and regulators, the informal sector plays important roles in Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) management systems, especially in developing countries. This study aims: (1) to capture and model the variety of informal operations in WEEE management systems, (2) to capture the dynamics existing within the informal sector, and (3) to assess the role of the informal sector as the key player in the WEEE management systems, influencing both its future operations and its counterpart, the formal sector. By using System Dynamics as the methodology and India as the reference system, this study is able to explain the reasons behind, on the one hand, the superiority of the informal sector in WEEE management systems and, on the other hand, the failure of the formal systems. Additionally, this study reveals the important role of the second-hand market as the determinant of the rise and fall of the informal sector in the future. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Importance-performance analysis as a guide for hospitals in improving their provision of services.
Whynes, D K; Reed, G
1995-11-01
As a result of the 1990 National Health Services Act, hospitals now compete with one another to win service contracts. A high level of service quality represents an important ingredient of a successful competitive strategy, yet, in general, hospitals have little external information on which to base quality decisions. Specifically, in their efforts to win contracts from fundholding general practitioners, hospitals require information on that which these purchasers deem important with respect to quality, and on how these purchasers assess the quality of their current service performance. The problem is complicated by the fact that hospital service quality, in itself, is multi-dimensional. In other areas of economic activity, the information problem has been resolved by importance-performance analysis and this paper reports the findings of such an analysis conducted for hosptials in the Trent region. The importance and performance service quality ratings of fundholders were obtained from a questionnaire survey and used in a particular variant of importance-performance analysis, which possesses certain advantages over more conventional approaches. In addition to providing empirical data on the determinants of service quality, as perceived by the purchasers of hospital services, this paper demonstrates how such information can be successfully employed in a quality enhancement strategy.
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Quantum information and the problem of mechanisms of biological evolution.
Melkikh, Alexey V
2014-01-01
One of the most important conditions for replication in early evolution is the de facto elimination of the conformational degrees of freedom of the replicators, the mechanisms of which remain unclear. In addition, realistic evolutionary timescales can be established based only on partially directed evolution, further complicating this issue. A division of the various evolutionary theories into two classes has been proposed based on the presence or absence of a priori information about the evolving system. A priori information plays a key role in solving problems in evolution. Here, a model of partially directed evolution, based on the learning automata theory, which includes a priori information about the fitness space, is proposed. A potential repository of such prior information is the states of biologically important molecules. Thus, the need for extended evolutionary synthesis is discussed. Experiments to test the hypothesis of partially directed evolution are proposed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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GBIS: the information system of the German Genebank
Oppermann, Markus; Weise, Stephan; Dittmann, Claudia; Knüpffer, Helmut
2015-01-01
The German Federal ex situ Genebank of Agricultural and Horticultural Crop Species is the largest collection of its kind in the countries of the European Union and amongst the 10 largest collections worldwide. Beside its enormous scientific value as a safeguard of plant biodiversity, the plant genetic resources maintained are also of high importance for breeders to provide new impulses. The complex processes of managing such a collection are supported by the Genebank Information System (GBIS). GBIS is an important source of information for researchers and plant breeders, e.g. for identifying appropriate germplasm for breeding purposes. In addition, the access to genebank material as a sovereign task is also of high interest to the general public. Moreover, GBIS acts as a data source for global information systems, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) or the European Search Catalogue for Plant Genetic Resources (EURISCO). Database URL: http://gbis.ipk-gatersleben.de/ PMID:25953079
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Schorer, Jörg; Rienhoff, Rebecca; Fischer, Lennart; Baker, Joseph
2013-09-01
The importance of perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport has been repeatedly demonstrated. In this study we examined the role of different sources of visual information (i.e., foveal versus peripheral) in anticipating volleyball attack positions. Expert (n = 11), advanced (n = 13) and novice (n = 16) players completed an anticipation task that involved predicting the location of volleyball attacks. Video clips of volleyball attacks (n = 72) were spatially and temporally occluded to provide varying amounts of information to the participant. In addition, participants viewed the attacks under three visual conditions: full vision, foveal vision only, and peripheral vision only. Analysis of variance revealed significant between group differences in prediction accuracy with higher skilled players performing better than lower skilled players. Additionally, we found significant differences between temporal and spatial occlusion conditions. Both of those factors interacted separately, but not combined with expertise. Importantly, for experts the sum of both fields of vision was superior to either source in isolation. Our results suggest different sources of visual information work collectively to facilitate expert anticipation in time-constrained sports and reinforce the complexity of expert perception.
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Applications of Augmented Reality in Informal Science Learning Sites: a Review
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Goff, Eric E.; Mulvey, Kelly Lynn; Irvin, Matthew J.; Hartstone-Rose, Adam
2018-05-01
The importance of increasing interest in the STEM disciplines has been noted in a number of recent national reports. While many previous studies have focused on such efforts inside of the formal classroom, comparatively few have looked closely at informal learning environments. We investigate the innovative use of technology in informal learning by reviewing research on the incorporation of augmented reality (AR) at exhibit-based informal science education (ISE) settings in the literature. We report on the common STEM-focused topics that are covered by current AR applications for ISE learning, as well as the different devices used to support these applications. Additionally, we report on the prevalence of positive learning outcomes and engagement factors commonly associated with the use AR applications in informal environments. This review aims to foster continued development and implementation of AR technology in exhibit-based ISE settings by informing the community of recent findings and promoting additional rigorous research for the future.
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Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations
2007-12-12
additional contributions from Germany , Japan, and Switzerland. For more information on the MFO, see [http://www.mfo.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1]. On the...and deregulation between 2006 and 2007 ranked first worldwide. In recent years, the state has reinvigorated its privatization program by divesting...shares in the state-dominated banking and insurance sectors. Additionally, the government removed import service fees and surcharges and reduced the
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A Development of Automatic Audit System for Written Informed Consent using Machine Learning.
Yamada, Hitomi; Takemura, Tadamasa; Asai, Takahiro; Okamoto, Kazuya; Kuroda, Tomohiro; Kuwata, Shigeki
2015-01-01
In Japan, most of all the university and advanced hospitals have implemented both electronic order entry systems and electronic charting. In addition, all medical records are subjected to inspector audit for quality assurance. The record of informed consent (IC) is very important as this provides evidence of consent from the patient or patient's family and health care provider. Therefore, we developed an automatic audit system for a hospital information system (HIS) that is able to evaluate IC automatically using machine learning.
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77 FR 4023 - Hewlett-Packard Company, Provisional Acceptance of a Settlement Agreement and Order
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-01-26
... December 2004 and July 2006, HP imported approximately 32,000 lithium-ion battery packs (the ``Products... April 2007, HP conducted a study, from which it obtained additional information about the Products. 9...
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Midkiff, Alan H.; Hansman, R. John, Jr.
1992-01-01
Air/ground digital datalink communications are an integral component of the FAA's Air Traffic Control (ATC) modernization strategy. With the introduction of datalink into the ATC system, there is concern over the potential loss of situational awareness by flight crews due to the reduction in the "party line" information available to the pilot. "Party line" information is gleaned by flight crews overhearing communications between ATC and other aircraft. In the datalink environment, party line information may not be available due to the use of discrete addressing. Information concerning the importance, availability, and accuracy of party line elements was explored through an opinion survey of active air carrier flight crews. The survey identified numerous important party line elements. These elements were scripted into a full-mission flight simulation. The flight simulation experiment examined the utilization of party line information by studying subject responses to the specific information elements. Some party line elements perceived as important were effectively utilized by flight crews in the simulated operational environment. However, other party line elements stimulated little or no increase in situational awareness. The ability to assimilate and use party line information appeared to be dependent on workload, time availability, and the tactical/strategic nature of the situations. In addition, the results of both the survey and the simulation indicated that the importance of party line information appeared to be greatest for operations near or on the airport. This indicates that caution must be exercised when implementing datalink communications in these high workload, tactical sectors. This document is based on the thesis of Alan H. Midkiff submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Differential use of sensory information in sexual behavior as a function of gender.
Herz, R S; Cahill, E D
1997-09-01
Olfactory information is critical to mammalian sexual behavior. Based on parental investment theory the relative importance of olfaction compared with vision, touch, and hearing should be different for human males and females. In particular, because of its link to immunological profile and offspring viability, odor should be a more important determinant of sexual choice and arousal for females than for males. To test this hypothesis a questionnaire was developed and administered to 332 adults (166 males, 166 females). Subjects used a 1-7 scale to indicate how much they agreed with a series of statements concerning the importance of olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile information for their sexual responsivity. The data reveal that males rated visual and olfactory information as being equally important for selecting a lover, while females considered olfactory information to be the single most important variable in mate choice. Additionally, when considering sexual activity, females singled out body odor from all other sensory experiences as most able to negatively affect desire, while males regarded odors as much more neutral stimuli for sexual arousal. The present results support recent findings in mice and humans concerning the relation of female preferences in body odor and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) compatibility and can be explained by an evolutionary analysis of sex differences in reproductive strategies. This work represents the first direct examination of the role of different forms of sensory information in human sexual behavior.
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Where Non-Science Majors Get Information about Science and How They Rate that Information
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Buxner, Sanlyn; Impey, Chris; Nieberding, Megan; Romine, James
2014-11-01
College non-science major courses represent one of the last science courses many students will ever take. We report on a study of 400 undergraduate non-majors students enrolled in introductory astronomy courses at the University of Arizona to gain insight into where they get their information about science and their perception of that information. Students completed an online survey during the 2013-2014 school year. In addition to demographic information, students reported where they obtained information about science when they want to know something both for their own knowledge as well as information for a course assignment. They reported their interest in different science topics, rated the reliability of different sources of information, and reported how important science was to their life, including their future career choice.Overall, students reported getting information from a variety of online sources when looking up a topic for their own knowledge, including internet searches (71%), Wikipedia (46%), and online science sites (e.g. NASA) (45%). When asked where they got information for course assignments, most reported from assigned readings (82%) but a large percentage still reported getting information from online sources such as internet searches (60%), Wikipedia (30%) and online science sites (e.g. NASA) (20%). Overall, students rated professors/teachers and textbooks at the most reliable sources of scientific information and rated social media sites, blogs and Wikipedia as the least reliable sources of scientific information. Additionally, friends and family members were rated as less reliable sources of scientific information than similar information found on multiple websites. Students’ interest in science and self-reported knowledge in science was positively correlated. There was a significant positive correlation between those who reported that they liked science and felt that science was important to their future career. Overall, our results are giving us insights into how our non-science majors get and evaluate scientific information.
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Rare Diseases on the Internet: An Assessment of the Quality of Online Information.
Pauer, Frédéric; Litzkendorf, Svenja; Göbel, Jens; Storf, Holger; Zeidler, Jan; Graf von der Schulenburg, Johann-Matthias
2017-01-18
The importance of the Internet as a medium for publishing and sharing health and medical information has increased considerably during the last decade. Nonetheless, comprehensive knowledge and information are scarce and difficult to find, especially for rare diseases. Additionally, the quality of health or medical information about rare diseases is frequently difficult to assess for the patients and their family members. The aim of this study is to assess the quality of information on the Internet about rare diseases. Additionally, the study aims to evaluate if the quality of information on rare diseases varies between different information supplier categories. A total of 13 quality criteria for websites providing medical information about rare diseases were transferred to a self-disclosure questionnaire. Identified providers of information on the Internet about rare diseases were invited to fill out the questionnaire. The questionnaire contained questions about the information provider in general (eg, supplier category, information category, language, use of quality certificates, and target group) and about quality aspects that reflect the 13 quality criteria. Differences in subgroup analyses were performed using t tests. We identified 693 websites containing information about rare diseases. A total of 123 questionnaires (17.7%) were completely filled out by the information suppliers. For the remaining identified suppliers (570/693, 82.3%), the questionnaires were filled out by the authors based on the information available on their website. In many cases, the quality of websites was proportionally low. Furthermore, subgroup analysis showed no statistically significant differences between the quality of information provided by support group/patient organization compared to medical institution (P=.19). The quality of information by individuals (patient/relative) was significantly lower compared to information provided by support group/patient organization (P=.001), medical institution (P=.009), and other associations and sponsoring bodies (P=.001) as well. Overall, the quality of information on the Internet about rare diseases is low. Quality certificates are rarely used and important quality criteria are often not fulfilled completely. Additionally, some information categories are underrepresented (eg, information about psychosocial counseling, social-legal advice, and family planning). Nevertheless, due to the high amount of information provided by support groups, this study shows that these are extremely valuable sources of information for patients suffering from a rare disease and their relatives. ©Frédéric Pauer, Svenja Litzkendorf, Jens Göbel, Holger Storf, Jan Zeidler, Johann-Matthias Graf von der Schulenburg. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 18.01.2017.
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Christopher A. Lepczyk; Aaron Wunnicke; Volker C. Radeloff; Curtis H. Flather; Anna M. Pidgeon; Roger B. Hammer
2013-01-01
Numerous measures of human influence on the environment exist, but one that is of particular importance is houses as they can impact the environment from species through the landscape level. Furthermore, because the addition of houses represents an important component of landscape change, housing information could be used to assess ecological responses (e.g., decline...
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Endelman, Jeffrey B; Carley, Cari A Schmitz; Bethke, Paul C; Coombs, Joseph J; Clough, Mark E; da Silva, Washington L; De Jong, Walter S; Douches, David S; Frederick, Curtis M; Haynes, Kathleen G; Holm, David G; Miller, J Creighton; Muñoz, Patricio R; Navarro, Felix M; Novy, Richard G; Palta, Jiwan P; Porter, Gregory A; Rak, Kyle T; Sathuvalli, Vidyasagar R; Thompson, Asunta L; Yencho, G Craig
2018-05-01
As one of the world's most important food crops, the potato ( Solanum tuberosum L.) has spurred innovation in autotetraploid genetics, including in the use of SNP arrays to determine allele dosage at thousands of markers. By combining genotype and pedigree information with phenotype data for economically important traits, the objectives of this study were to (1) partition the genetic variance into additive vs. nonadditive components, and (2) determine the accuracy of genome-wide prediction. Between 2012 and 2017, a training population of 571 clones was evaluated for total yield, specific gravity, and chip fry color. Genomic covariance matrices for additive ( G ), digenic dominant ( D ), and additive × additive epistatic ( G # G ) effects were calculated using 3895 markers, and the numerator relationship matrix ( A ) was calculated from a 13-generation pedigree. Based on model fit and prediction accuracy, mixed model analysis with G was superior to A for yield and fry color but not specific gravity. The amount of additive genetic variance captured by markers was 20% of the total genetic variance for specific gravity, compared to 45% for yield and fry color. Within the training population, including nonadditive effects improved accuracy and/or bias for all three traits when predicting total genotypic value. When six F 1 populations were used for validation, prediction accuracy ranged from 0.06 to 0.63 and was consistently lower (0.13 on average) without allele dosage information. We conclude that genome-wide prediction is feasible in potato and that it will improve selection for breeding value given the substantial amount of nonadditive genetic variance in elite germplasm. Copyright © 2018 by the Genetics Society of America.
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McCarron, C Elizabeth; Pullenayegum, Eleanor M; Thabane, Lehana; Goeree, Ron; Tarride, Jean-Eric
2013-04-01
Bayesian methods have been proposed as a way of synthesizing all available evidence to inform decision making. However, few practical applications of the use of Bayesian methods for combining patient-level data (i.e., trial) with additional evidence (e.g., literature) exist in the cost-effectiveness literature. The objective of this study was to compare a Bayesian cost-effectiveness analysis using informative priors to a standard non-Bayesian nonparametric method to assess the impact of incorporating additional information into a cost-effectiveness analysis. Patient-level data from a previously published nonrandomized study were analyzed using traditional nonparametric bootstrap techniques and bivariate normal Bayesian models with vague and informative priors. Two different types of informative priors were considered to reflect different valuations of the additional evidence relative to the patient-level data (i.e., "face value" and "skeptical"). The impact of using different distributions and valuations was assessed in a sensitivity analysis. Models were compared in terms of incremental net monetary benefit (INMB) and cost-effectiveness acceptability frontiers (CEAFs). The bootstrapping and Bayesian analyses using vague priors provided similar results. The most pronounced impact of incorporating the informative priors was the increase in estimated life years in the control arm relative to what was observed in the patient-level data alone. Consequently, the incremental difference in life years originally observed in the patient-level data was reduced, and the INMB and CEAF changed accordingly. The results of this study demonstrate the potential impact and importance of incorporating additional information into an analysis of patient-level data, suggesting this could alter decisions as to whether a treatment should be adopted and whether more information should be acquired.
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Wallace, Mark T.; Stevenson, Ryan A.
2014-01-01
Behavior, perception and cognition are strongly shaped by the synthesis of information across the different sensory modalities. Such multisensory integration often results in performance and perceptual benefits that reflect the additional information conferred by having cues from multiple senses providing redundant or complementary information. The spatial and temporal relationships of these cues provide powerful statistical information about how these cues should be integrated or “bound” in order to create a unified perceptual representation. Much recent work has examined the temporal factors that are integral in multisensory processing, with many focused on the construct of the multisensory temporal binding window – the epoch of time within which stimuli from different modalities is likely to be integrated and perceptually bound. Emerging evidence suggests that this temporal window is altered in a series of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, dyslexia and schizophrenia. In addition to their role in sensory processing, these deficits in multisensory temporal function may play an important role in the perceptual and cognitive weaknesses that characterize these clinical disorders. Within this context, focus on improving the acuity of multisensory temporal function may have important implications for the amelioration of the “higher-order” deficits that serve as the defining features of these disorders. PMID:25128432
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Porosity, permeability and 3D fracture network characterisation of dolomite reservoir rock samples
Voorn, Maarten; Exner, Ulrike; Barnhoorn, Auke; Baud, Patrick; Reuschlé, Thierry
2015-01-01
With fractured rocks making up an important part of hydrocarbon reservoirs worldwide, detailed analysis of fractures and fracture networks is essential. However, common analyses on drill core and plug samples taken from such reservoirs (including hand specimen analysis, thin section analysis and laboratory porosity and permeability determination) however suffer from various problems, such as having a limited resolution, providing only 2D and no internal structure information, being destructive on the samples and/or not being representative for full fracture networks. In this paper, we therefore explore the use of an additional method – non-destructive 3D X-ray micro-Computed Tomography (μCT) – to obtain more information on such fractured samples. Seven plug-sized samples were selected from narrowly fractured rocks of the Hauptdolomit formation, taken from wellbores in the Vienna basin, Austria. These samples span a range of different fault rocks in a fault zone interpretation, from damage zone to fault core. We process the 3D μCT data in this study by a Hessian-based fracture filtering routine and can successfully extract porosity, fracture aperture, fracture density and fracture orientations – in bulk as well as locally. Additionally, thin sections made from selected plug samples provide 2D information with a much higher detail than the μCT data. Finally, gas- and water permeability measurements under confining pressure provide an important link (at least in order of magnitude) towards more realistic reservoir conditions. This study shows that 3D μCT can be applied efficiently on plug-sized samples of naturally fractured rocks, and that although there are limitations, several important parameters can be extracted. μCT can therefore be a useful addition to studies on such reservoir rocks, and provide valuable input for modelling and simulations. Also permeability experiments under confining pressure provide important additional insights. Combining these and other methods can therefore be a powerful approach in microstructural analysis of reservoir rocks, especially when applying the concepts that we present (on a small set of samples) in a larger study, in an automated and standardised manner. PMID:26549935
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Porosity, permeability and 3D fracture network characterisation of dolomite reservoir rock samples.
Voorn, Maarten; Exner, Ulrike; Barnhoorn, Auke; Baud, Patrick; Reuschlé, Thierry
2015-03-01
With fractured rocks making up an important part of hydrocarbon reservoirs worldwide, detailed analysis of fractures and fracture networks is essential. However, common analyses on drill core and plug samples taken from such reservoirs (including hand specimen analysis, thin section analysis and laboratory porosity and permeability determination) however suffer from various problems, such as having a limited resolution, providing only 2D and no internal structure information, being destructive on the samples and/or not being representative for full fracture networks. In this paper, we therefore explore the use of an additional method - non-destructive 3D X-ray micro-Computed Tomography (μCT) - to obtain more information on such fractured samples. Seven plug-sized samples were selected from narrowly fractured rocks of the Hauptdolomit formation, taken from wellbores in the Vienna basin, Austria. These samples span a range of different fault rocks in a fault zone interpretation, from damage zone to fault core. We process the 3D μCT data in this study by a Hessian-based fracture filtering routine and can successfully extract porosity, fracture aperture, fracture density and fracture orientations - in bulk as well as locally. Additionally, thin sections made from selected plug samples provide 2D information with a much higher detail than the μCT data. Finally, gas- and water permeability measurements under confining pressure provide an important link (at least in order of magnitude) towards more realistic reservoir conditions. This study shows that 3D μCT can be applied efficiently on plug-sized samples of naturally fractured rocks, and that although there are limitations, several important parameters can be extracted. μCT can therefore be a useful addition to studies on such reservoir rocks, and provide valuable input for modelling and simulations. Also permeability experiments under confining pressure provide important additional insights. Combining these and other methods can therefore be a powerful approach in microstructural analysis of reservoir rocks, especially when applying the concepts that we present (on a small set of samples) in a larger study, in an automated and standardised manner.
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Wiese, Holger; Schweinberger, Stefan R
2015-01-01
The present study examined whether semantic memory for newly learned people is structured by visual co-occurrence, shared semantics, or both. Participants were trained with pairs of simultaneously presented (i.e., co-occurring) preexperimentally unfamiliar faces, which either did or did not share additionally provided semantic information (occupation, place of living, etc.). Semantic information could also be shared between faces that did not co-occur. A subsequent priming experiment revealed faster responses for both co-occurrence/no shared semantics and no co-occurrence/shared semantics conditions, than for an unrelated condition. Strikingly, priming was strongest in the co-occurrence/shared semantics condition, suggesting additive effects of these factors. Additional analysis of event-related brain potentials yielded priming in the N400 component only for combined effects of visual co-occurrence and shared semantics, with more positive amplitudes in this than in the unrelated condition. Overall, these findings suggest that both semantic relatedness and visual co-occurrence are important when novel information is integrated into person-related semantic memory.
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Finding online health-related information: usability issues of health portals.
Gurel Koybasi, Nergis A; Cagiltay, Kursat
2012-01-01
As Internet and computers become widespread, health portals offering online health-related information become more popular. The most important point for health portals is presenting reliable and valid information. Besides, portal needs to be usable to be able to serve information to users effectively. This study aims to determine usability issues emerging when health-related information is searched on a health portal. User-based usability tests are conducted and eye movement analyses are used in addition to traditional performance measures. Results revealed that users prefer systematic, simple and consistent designs offering interactive tools. Moreover, content and partitions needs to be shaped according to the medical knowledge of target users.
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Computers and information technologies in psychiatric nursing.
Repique, Renee John R
2007-04-01
There is an assumption that psychiatric nurses are late adopters of technology because psychiatric nursing has been traditionally viewed as a nontechnological nursing specialty. This article will review current nursing literature to outline the value and significance of computers and information technologies to psychiatric nursing. Existing bodies of research literature related to computers and information technology for psychiatric nurses. Three areas of psychiatric nursing are identified and the specific advantages and benefits of computers and information technologies in each of these areas are discussed. In addition, the importance of informatics competencies for psychiatric nursing practice is reiterated in order to accelerate its acquisition.
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Comprehensive review on additives of topical dosage forms for drug delivery.
Garg, Tarun; Rath, Goutam; Goyal, Amit K
2015-12-01
Skin is the largest organ of the human body and plays the most important role in protecting against pathogen and foreign matter. Three important modes such as topical, regional and transdermal are widely used for delivery of various dosage forms. Among these modes, the topical dosage forms are preferred because it provides local therapeutic activity when applied to the skin or mucous membranes. Additives or pharmaceutical excipients (non-drug component of dosage form) are used as inactive ingredients in dosage form or tools for structuring dosage forms. The main use of topical dosage form additives are controling the extent of absorption, maintaining the viscosity, improving the stability as well as organoleptic property and increasing the bulk of the formulation. The overall goal of this article is to provide the clinician with information related to the topical dosage form additives and their current major applications against various diseases.
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The NAS Computational Aerosciences Archive
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Miceli, Kristina D.; Globus, Al; Lasinski, T. A. (Technical Monitor)
1995-01-01
In order to further the state-of-the-art in computational aerosciences (CAS) technology, researchers must be able to gather and understand existing work in the field. One aspect of this information gathering is studying published work available in scientific journals and conference proceedings. However, current scientific publications are very limited in the type and amount of information that they can disseminate. Information is typically restricted to text, a few images, and a bibliography list. Additional information that might be useful to the researcher, such as additional visual results, referenced papers, and datasets, are not available. New forms of electronic publication, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), limit publication size only by available disk space and data transmission bandwidth, both of which are improving rapidly. The Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center is in the process of creating an archive of CAS information on the WWW. This archive will be based on the large amount of information produced by researchers associated with the NAS facility. The archive will contain technical summaries and reports of research performed on NAS supercomputers, visual results (images, animations, visualization system scripts), datasets, and any other supporting meta-information. This information will be available via the WWW through the NAS homepage, located at http://www.nas.nasa.gov/, fully indexed for searching. The main components of the archive are technical summaries and reports, visual results, and datasets. Technical summaries are gathered every year by researchers who have been allotted resources on NAS supercomputers. These summaries, together with supporting visual results and references, are browsable by interested researchers. Referenced papers made available by researchers can be accessed through hypertext links. Technical reports are in-depth accounts of tools and applications research projects performed by NAS staff members and collaborators. Visual results, which may be available in the form of images, animations, and/or visualization scripts, are generated by researchers with respect to a certain research project, depicting dataset features that were determined important by the investigating researcher. For example, script files for visualization systems (e.g. FAST, PLOT3D, AVS) are provided to create visualizations on the user's local workstation to elucidate the key points of the numerical study. Users can then interact with the data starting where the investigator left off. Datasets are intended to give researchers an opportunity to understand previous work, 'mine' solutions for new information (for example, have you ever read a paper thinking "I wonder what the helicity density looks like?"), compare new techniques with older results, collaborate with remote colleagues, and perform validation. Supporting meta-information associated with the research projects is also important to provide additional context for research projects. This may include information such as the software used in the simulation (e.g. grid generators, flow solvers, visualization). In addition to serving the CAS research community, the information archive will also be helpful to students, visualization system developers and researchers, and management. Students (of any age) can use the data to study fluid dynamics, compare results from different flow solvers, learn about meshing techniques, etc., leading to better informed individuals. For these users it is particularly important that visualization be integrated into dataset archives. Visualization researchers can use dataset archives to test algorithms and techniques, leading to better visualization systems, Management can use the data to figure what is really going on behind the viewgraphs. All users will benefit from fast, easy, and convenient access to CFD datasets. The CAS information archive hopes to serve as a useful resource to those interested in computational sciences. At present, only information that may be distributed internationally is made available via the archive. Studies are underway to determine security requirements and solutions to make additional information available. By providing access to the archive via the WWW, the process of information gathering can be more productive and fruitful due to ease of access and ability to manage many different types of information. As the archive grows, additional resources from outside NAS will be added, providing a dynamic source of research results.
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Zapka, Jane G; Geller, Berta M; Bulliard, Jean-Luc; Fracheboud, Jacques; Sancho-Garnier, Helene; Ballard-Barbash, Rachel
2006-10-01
To profile and compare the content and presentation of written communications related to informed decision-making about mammography. Materials from 16 screening programs organized at the national or regional level were analyzed according to five major information domains suggested by the international literature. A majority of countries provided information on the program (interval, cost and quality). There was considerable variability in comprehensiveness of elements in the domains, e.g., test characteristics (false positive/negative) and pros and cons of screening. The majority noted the likelihood of recall for further tests, few commented on the risks of additional tests or finding unimportant tumors. The audit also found variation in presentation (words and pictures). Presentation of comprehensive, but balanced information on screening benefits and risks is complex and daunting. Issues such as framing effects, coupled with debate about screening efficacy are challenging to the design of effective information tools. The objective of increasing screening prevalence at the population level must be balanced with objectively presenting complete and clear information. Additional research is needed on how information (and mode of presentation) impact screening decisions. Public health officials need to articulate their objectives and review written communication according to important decision-making domains.
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Krause, Jane; Van Lieshout, Jan; Klomp, Rien; Huntink, Elke; Aakhus, Eivind; Flottorp, Signe; Jaeger, Cornelia; Steinhaeuser, Jost; Godycki-Cwirko, Maciek; Kowalczyk, Anna; Agarwal, Shona; Wensing, Michel; Baker, Richard
2014-08-12
The tailoring of implementation interventions includes the identification of the determinants of, or barriers to, healthcare practice. Different methods for identifying determinants have been used in implementation projects, but which methods are most appropriate to use is unknown. The study was undertaken in five European countries, recommendations for a different chronic condition being addressed in each country: Germany (polypharmacy in multimorbid patients); the Netherlands (cardiovascular risk management); Norway (depression in the elderly); Poland (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease--COPD); and the United Kingdom (UK) (obesity). Using samples of professionals and patients in each country, three methods were compared directly: brainstorming amongst health professionals, interviews of health professionals, and interviews of patients. The additional value of discussion structured through reference to a checklist of determinants in addition to brainstorming, and determinants identified by open questions in a questionnaire survey, were investigated separately. The questionnaire, which included closed questions derived from a checklist of determinants, was administered to samples of health professionals in each country. Determinants were classified according to whether it was likely that they would inform the design of an implementation intervention (defined as plausibly important determinants). A total of 601 determinants judged to be plausibly important were identified. An additional 609 determinants were judged to be unlikely to inform an implementation intervention, and were classified as not plausibly important. Brainstorming identified 194 of the plausibly important determinants, health professional interviews 152, patient interviews 63, and open questions 48. Structured group discussion identified 144 plausibly important determinants in addition to those already identified by brainstorming. Systematic methods can lead to the identification of large numbers of determinants. Tailoring will usually include a process to decide, from all the determinants that are identified, those to be addressed by implementation interventions. There is no best buy of methods to identify determinants, and a combination should be used, depending on the topic and setting. Brainstorming is a simple, low cost method that could be relevant to many tailored implementation projects.
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Rhebergen, Martijn D F; Hulshof, Carel T J; Lenderink, Annet F; van Dijk, Frank J H
2010-10-22
Common information facilities do not always provide the quality information needed to answer questions on health or health-related issues, such as Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) matters. Barriers may be the accessibility, quantity and readability of information. Online Question & Answer (Q&A) network tools, which link questioners directly to experts can overcome some of these barriers. When designing and testing online tools, assessing the usability and applicability is essential. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess the usability and applicability of a new online Q&A network tool for answers on OSH questions. We applied a cross-sectional usability test design. Eight occupational health experts and twelve potential questioners from the working population (workers) were purposively selected to include a variety of computer- and internet-experiences. During the test, participants were first observed while executing eight tasks that entailed important features of the tool. In addition, they were interviewed. Through task observations and interviews we assessed applicability, usability (effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction) and facilitators and barriers in use. Most features were usable, though several could be improved. Most tasks were executed effectively. Some tasks, for example searching stored questions in categories, were not executed efficiently and participants were less satisfied with the corresponding features. Participants' recommendations led to improvements. The tool was found mostly applicable for additional information, to observe new OSH trends and to improve contact between OSH experts and workers. Hosting and support by a trustworthy professional organization, effective implementation campaigns, timely answering and anonymity were seen as important use requirements. This network tool is a promising new strategy for offering company workers high quality information to answer OSH questions. Q&A network tools can be an addition to existing information facilities in the field of OSH, but also to other healthcare fields struggling with how to answer questions from people in practice with high quality information. In the near future, we will focus on the use of the tool and its effects on information and knowledge dissemination.
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Self-Concealment and Suicidal Behaviors
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Friedlander, Adam; Nazem, Sarra; Fiske, Amy; Nadorff, Michael R.; Smith, Merideth D.
2012-01-01
Understanding self-concealment, the tendency to actively conceal distressing personal information from others, may be important in developing effective ways to help individuals with suicidal ideation. No published study has yet assessed the relation between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors. Additionally, most self-concealment research has…
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The mutual causality analysis between the stock and futures markets
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Yao, Can-Zhong; Lin, Qing-Wen
2017-07-01
In this paper we employ the conditional Granger causality model to estimate the information flow, and find that the improved model outperforms the Granger causality model in revealing the asymmetric correlation between stocks and futures in the Chinese market. First, we find that information flows estimated by Granger causality tests from futures to stocks are greater than those from stocks to futures. Additionally, average correlation coefficients capture some important characteristics between stock prices and information flows over time. Further, we find that direct information flows estimated by conditional Granger causality tests from stocks to futures are greater than those from futures to stocks. Besides, the substantial increases of information flows and direct information flows exhibit a certain degree of synchronism with the occurrences of important events. Finally, the comparative analysis with the asymmetric ratio and the bootstrap technique demonstrates the slight asymmetry of information flows and the significant asymmetry of direct information flows. It reveals that the information flows from futures to stocks are slightly greater than those in the reverse direction, while the direct information flows from stocks to futures are significantly greater than those in the reverse direction.
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Qatmosh, Sandra A; Koni, Amer A; Qeeno, Baraa G; Arandy, Dina A; Abu-Hashia, Maysa W; Al-Hroub, Bahaa M; Zyoud, Sa'ed H
2017-09-25
Package inserts (PIs) as a reliable reference for patients and health care providers should provide accurate, complete and up-to-date information. The purpose of the current study is to assess and compare the PIs of antihypertensive agents locally produced in Palestine and their imported counterparts. Thirty-five PIs were assessed for the presence of 31 information statements using a scoring method. Word counting of 20 headings and subheadings was used to evaluate and compare local and imported PIs for information quantity. None of the analysed PIs fulfilled the criteria. All of them included the brand name, active ingredients, indications, directions for use, adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions, pregnancy and lactation considerations, and storage. Whereas none of them, either local or imported PIs, included the shelf life and instructions to convert tablets or capsules into liquid forms. Additionally, only one (5%) imported and no (0%) local PIs mentioned the duration of therapy. Moreover, 93.4% of local PIs were deficient in areas regarding the inactive ingredients and date of last revision, and 86.7% did not mention the drug dose and possibility of tablet splitting. Furthermore, the maximum dose was not indicated in 90% of imported and 86.7% of local PIs. In general, imported PIs contained more detailed information than their local counterparts, where the range of differences in medians between the local and imported PIs was from 1.5-fold for pregnancy considerations to >42.00-fold for the effect on the ability to drive and use machines. The findings of this study revealed the superiority of imported over local PIs in both quality and quantity of information provided. This emphasises the need for appropriate measures to be taken by the Ministry of Health and local manufacturers to ensure efficiency of local PIs in providing accurate, complete and up-to-date information.
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Laugesen, John; Hassanein, Khaled; Yuan, Yufei
2015-06-11
Patients have been increasingly seeking and using Internet health information to become more active in managing their own health in a partnership with their physicians. This trend has both positive and negative effects on the interactions between patients and their physicians. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact that the increasing use of Internet health information has on the patient-physician relationship and patients' compliance with their treatment regimens. This study examines the impact of patients' use of Internet health information on various elements that characterize the interactions between a patient and her/his physician through a theoretical model based on principal-agent theory and the information asymmetry perspective. A survey-based study consisting of 225 participants was used to validate a model through various statistical techniques. A full assessment of the measurement model and structural model was completed in addition to relevant post hoc analyses. This research revealed that both patient-physician concordance and perceived information asymmetry have significant effects on patient compliance, with patient-physician concordance exhibiting a considerably stronger relationship. Additionally, both physician quality and Internet health information quality have significant effects on patient-physician concordance, with physician quality exhibiting a much stronger relationship. Finally, only physician quality was found to have a significant impact on perceived information asymmetry, whereas Internet health information quality had no impact on perceived information asymmetry. Overall, this study found that physicians can relax regarding their fears concerning patient use of Internet health information because physician quality has the greatest impact on patients and their physician coming to an agreement on their medical situation and recommended treatment regimen as well as patient's compliance with their physician's advice when compared to the impact that Internet health information quality has on these same variables. The findings also indicate that agreement between the patient and physician on the medical situation and treatment is much more important to compliance than the perceived information gap between the patient and physician (ie, the physician having a higher level of information in comparison to the patient). In addition, the level of agreement between a patient and their physician regarding the medical situation is more reliant on the perceived quality of their physician than on the perceived quality of Internet health information used. This research found that only the perceived quality of the physician has a significant relationship with the perceived information gap between the patient and their physician and the quality of the Internet health information has no relationship with this perceived information gap.
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Smart cards--the key to trustworthy health information systems.
Neame, R.
1997-01-01
Some 20 years after they were first developed, "smart cards" are set to play a crucial part in healthcare systems. Last year about a billion were supplied, mainly for use in the financial sector, but their special features make them of particular strategic importance for the health sector, where they offer a ready made solution to some key problems of security and confidentiality. This article outlines what smart cards are and why they are so important in managing health information. I discuss some of the unique features of smart cards that are of special importance in the development of secure and trustworthy health information systems. Smart cards would enable individuals' identities to be authenticated and communications to be secured and would provide the mechanisms for implementing strong security, differential access to data, and definitive audit trails. Patient cards can also with complete security carry personal details, data on current health problems and medications, emergency care data, and pointers to where medical records for the patient can be found. Provider cards can in addition carry authorisations and information on computer set up. PMID:9055719
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[Prevention of skin cancer: considerations on strategic communication].
Anders, M P; Baumann, E; Breitbart, E W
2014-03-01
In recent decades the numbers of cases of skin cancer have been increasing worldwide in light skinned populations. In Germany skin cancer is the most common form of cancer. To reduce the burden of skin cancer protection from ultraviolet radiation (primary prevention) and early detection (secondary prevention) of the disease play a decisive role. In this context information to the population about preventive behavior and the support of informed decision-making in skin cancer screening are important aspects in communication. This paper gives an overview about communicational aspects in the promotion of skin cancer prevention. In the development of communicational interventions it is important to identify the relevant target groups. Relevant key opinion leaders have to be included in the information process. Additionally, interventions should be based on a theoretical framework and be designed for the respective target group. Furthermore, different forms of communication and communication tools are provided for the realization of an information intervention. To appraise the intervention elements of summative and formal evaluation are available. The current results provide important findings about different effects of communicational aspects on knowledge and behavior of the population; however, due to the complexity of information interventions a particular effect cannot be explained by a single communicational element.
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Provenance information as a tool for addressing engineered nanoparticle reproducibility challenges
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Baer, Donald R.; Munusamy, Prabhakaran; Thrall, Brian D.
Nanoparticles of various types are of increasing research and technological importance in biological and other applications. Difficulties in the production and delivery of nanoparticles with consistent and well defined properties appear in many forms and have a variety of causes. Among several issues are those associated with incomplete information about the history of particles involved in research studies including the synthesis method, sample history after synthesis including time and nature of storage and the detailed nature of any sample processing or modification. In addition, the tendency of particles to change with time or environmental condition suggests that the time betweenmore » analysis and application is important and some type of consistency or verification process can be important. The essential history of a set of particles can be identified as provenance information tells the origin or source of a batch of nano-objects along with information related to handling and any changes that may have taken place since it was originated. A record of sample provenance information for a set of particles can play a useful role in identifying some of the sources and decreasing the extent of particle variability and the observed lack of reproducibility observed by many researchers.« less
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Roberto, C A; Khandpur, N
2014-07-01
Accurate and easy-to-understand nutrition labeling is a worthy public health goal that should be considered an important strategy among many to address obesity and poor diet. Updating the Nutrition Facts Panel on packaged foods, developing a uniform front-of-package labeling system and providing consumers with nutrition information on restaurant menus offer important opportunities to educate people about food's nutritional content, increase awareness of reasonable portion sizes and motivate consumers to make healthier choices. The aims of this paper were to identify and discuss: (1) current concerns with nutrition label communication strategies; (2) opportunities to improve the communication of nutrition information via food labels, with a specific focus on serving size information; and (3) important future areas of research on nutrition labeling as a tool to improve diet. We suggest that research on nutrition labeling should focus on ways to improve food labels' ability to capture consumer attention, reduce label complexity and convey numeric nutrition information in simpler and more meaningful ways, such as through interpretive food labels, the addition of simple text, reduced use of percentages and easy-to-understand presentation of serving size information.
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Library Association, London (England).
The most important developments now taking place or being planned are emphasized in this collection of eight papers on the emerging aspects of information technology. In addition to an introduction by Ric Foot and a keynote address by John Butcher, the specific papers are as follows: (1) "Telesoftware as Part of the Knowledge Network,"…
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[Gonioscopy - How, Why, What for?
Unterlauft, J D
2017-08-01
Aim Gonioscopy is used to exam the anterior chamber angle and the neighbouring structures. Gonioscopy can be performed using a contact lens, with the patient sitting at the slit lamp or in a supine position. Due to the total inner reflection of the cornea, the anterior chamber angle would otherwise be invisible in a healthy eye. During normal daily clinical routine, gonioscopy is often omitted, due to lack of time, although additional information could be gained. Materials and Methods The aim is to give a summary of the diagnostic possibilities using gonioscopy and to emphasise the importance of this relatively easy clinical method. Results The development of gonioscopy, the appropriate tools, proper procedure at the slit lamp and the most popular grading systems are described. In addition, an overview of detectable pathological changes in the anterior chamber angle is given and future prospects about developments in gonioscopy. Conclusion Gonioscopy can provide additional information otherwise missed by slit lamp examination or ophthalmoscopy alone. Up to now, no (semi-)automatic devices have been developed which could completely replace gonioscopy. Therefore gonioscopy remains an important part of a complete ophthalmological examination and should be learned, mastered and performed regularly by every ophthalmologist. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.
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Predictors for the Number of Warning Information Sources During Tornadoes.
Cong, Zhen; Luo, Jianjun; Liang, Daan; Nejat, Ali
2017-04-01
People may receive tornado warnings from multiple information sources, but little is known about factors that affect the number of warning information sources (WISs). This study examined predictors for the number of WISs with a telephone survey on randomly sampled residents in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri, approximately 1 year after both cities were struck by violent tornadoes (EF4 and EF5) in 2011. The survey included 1006 finished interviews and the working sample included 903 respondents. Poisson regression and Zero-Inflated Poisson regression showed that older age and having an emergency plan predicted more WISs in both cities. Education, marital status, and gender affected the possibilities of receiving warnings and the number of WISs either in Joplin or in Tuscaloosa. The findings suggest that social disparity affects the access to warnings not only with respect to the likelihood of receiving any warnings but also with respect to the number of WISs. In addition, historical and social contexts are important for examining predictors for the number of WISs. We recommend that the number of WISs should be regarded as an important measure to evaluate access to warnings in addition to the likelihood of receiving warnings. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:168-172).
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Distributed Mobile Device Based Shooter Detection Simulation
2013-09-01
three signatures of a gunshot ( muzzle flash [optical], muzzle blast [auditory], and shock wave [auditory]), we focus only on information from the...bullet, while this proximity is important when using information from the shock wave. Detecting and using the muzzle flash would require accurate...Additionally, the mobile device would need to be aimed towards the blast to even have a chance detect the muzzle flash . 2.1 Single Microphone When a sound is
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78 FR 23927 - Forms and Procedures for Submitting Attest Engagements Under Various Subparts
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2013-04-23
... gasoline, anti-dumping, gasoline sulfur, benzene content, and the renewable fuel standard. DATES: The... the reformulated gasoline, anti-dumping, gasoline sulfur, and benzene programs, and the renewable fuel...; Confidential business information; Diesel fuel; Fuel additives; Gasoline; Imports; Motor vehicle pollution...
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50 CFR 17.52 - Permits-similarity of appearance.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-10-01
... (CONTINUED) TAKING, POSSESSION, TRANSPORTATION, SALE, PURCHASE, BARTER, EXPORTATION, AND IMPORTATION OF... issued. In making his decision, the Director shall consider, in addition to the general criteria, in § 13.21(b) of this subchapter, the following factors: (1) Whether the information submitted by the...
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Fast Multiscale Algorithms for Information Representation and Fusion
2011-07-01
We are also developing convenient command-line invocation tools in addition to the previously developed APIs . Various real-world data sets...This knowledge is important in geolocation applications where knowing whether a received signal is line-of-sight or not is necessary for the
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Approaches to ab initio molecular replacement of α-helical transmembrane proteins.
Thomas, Jens M H; Simkovic, Felix; Keegan, Ronan; Mayans, Olga; Zhang, Chengxin; Zhang, Yang; Rigden, Daniel J
2017-12-01
α-Helical transmembrane proteins are a ubiquitous and important class of proteins, but present difficulties for crystallographic structure solution. Here, the effectiveness of the AMPLE molecular replacement pipeline in solving α-helical transmembrane-protein structures is assessed using a small library of eight ideal helices, as well as search models derived from ab initio models generated both with and without evolutionary contact information. The ideal helices prove to be surprisingly effective at solving higher resolution structures, but ab initio-derived search models are able to solve structures that could not be solved with the ideal helices. The addition of evolutionary contact information results in a marked improvement in the modelling and makes additional solutions possible.
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Efficiently passing messages in distributed spiking neural network simulation.
Thibeault, Corey M; Minkovich, Kirill; O'Brien, Michael J; Harris, Frederick C; Srinivasa, Narayan
2013-01-01
Efficiently passing spiking messages in a neural model is an important aspect of high-performance simulation. As the scale of networks has increased so has the size of the computing systems required to simulate them. In addition, the information exchange of these resources has become more of an impediment to performance. In this paper we explore spike message passing using different mechanisms provided by the Message Passing Interface (MPI). A specific implementation, MVAPICH, designed for high-performance clusters with Infiniband hardware is employed. The focus is on providing information about these mechanisms for users of commodity high-performance spiking simulators. In addition, a novel hybrid method for spike exchange was implemented and benchmarked.
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DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Scharf, S.C.; Blaufox, M.D.
Radionuclide renography and renal scanning techniques are ideally suited to the initial and follow-up evaluation of patients with obstructive uropathy. While other modalities are superior in their ability to provide anatomic information, the radionuclide study yields functional information for each kidney without the necessity to resort to invasive studies. In addition, the Nuclear Medicine study is well suited to the evaluation of obstruction where serial studies often are required because of a lower radiation burden compared to urography. This lower radiation dose is especially important in obstruction because of the recurrent nature of several kinds of obstructive uropathy and becausemore » of the high incidence in the pediatric age group. The ability to control urine flow rate during the procedure through dehydration or administration of diuretics is an additional benefit. Increasing availability of computerization of nuclear medicine procedures as well as interest in studies employing physiologic intervention (including the diuresis renogram) have assured an important place for radionuclide studies in the evaluation of patients with urinary obstruction.« less
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Estimation of photosynthetic capacity using MODIS polarization: 1988 proposal to NASA Headquarters
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Vanderbilt, Vern C.
1992-01-01
The remote sensing community has clearly identified the utility of NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) and SR (simple ratio) and other vegetation indices for estimating such metrics of landscape ecology as green foliar biomass, photosynthetic capacity, and net primary production. Both theoretical and empirical investigations have established cause and effect relationships between the photosynthetic process in plant canopies and these combinations of remotely sensed data. Yet it has also been established that the relationships exhibit considerable variability that appears to be ecosystem-dependent and may represent a source of ecologically important information. The overall hypothesis of this proposal is that the ecosystem-dependent variability in the various vegetation indices is in part attributable to the effects of specular reflection. The polarization channels on MODIS provide the potential to estimate this specularly reflected light and allow the modification of the vegetation indices to better measure the photosynthetic process in plant canopies. In addition, these polarization channels potentially provide additional ecologically important information about the plant canopy.
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Kessler, Sabrina Heike; Zillich, Arne Freya
2018-04-20
In Germany, the Internet is gaining increasing importance for laypeople as a source of health information, including information about vaccination. While previous research has focused on the characteristics of online information about vaccination, this study investigated the influence of relevant user-specific cognitive factors on users' search behavior for online information about vaccination. Additionally, it examined how searching online for information about vaccination influences users' attitudes toward vaccination. We conducted an experimental study with 56 undergraduate students from a German university that consisted of a survey and eye-tracking while browsing the Internet, followed by a content analysis of the eye-tracking data. The results show that the users exposed themselves to balanced and diverse online information about vaccination. However, none of the examined cognitive factors (attitude toward vaccination, attitude salience, prior knowledge about vaccination, need for cognition, and cognitive involvement) influenced the amount of time users spent searching the Internet for information about vaccination. Our study was not able to document any effects of attitude-consistent selective exposure to online information about vaccination. In addition, we found no effect on attitude change after having searched the Internet for vaccine-related information. Thus, users' search behavior regarding vaccination seems to be relatively stable.
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Groundwater recharge in Wisconsin--Annual estimates for 1970-99 using streamflow data
Gebert, Warren A.; Walker, John F.; Hunt, Randall J.
2011-01-01
The groundwater component of streamflow is important because it is indicative of the sustained flow of a stream during dry periods, is often of better quality, and has a smaller range of temperatures, than surface contributions to streamflow. All three of these characteristics are important to the health of aquatic life in a stream. If recharge to the aquifers is to be preserved or enhanced, it is important to understand the present partitioning of total streamflow into base flow and stormflow. Additionally, an estimate of groundwater recharge is important for understanding the flows within a groundwater system-information important for water availability/sustainability or other assessments. The U.S. Geological Survey operates numerous continuous-record streamflow-gaging stations (Hirsch and Norris, 2001), which can be used to provide estimates of average annual base flow. In addition to these continuous record sites, Gebert and others (2007) showed that having a few streamflow measurements in a basin can appreciably reduce the error in a base-flow estimate for that basin. Therefore, in addition to the continuous-record gaging stations, a substantial number of low-flow partial-record sites (6 to 15 discharge measurements) and miscellaneous-measurement sites (1 to 3 discharge measurements) that were operated during 1964-90 throughout the State were included in this work to provide additional insight into spatial distribution of annual base flow and, in turn, groundwater recharge.
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Puhan, Milo A; Yu, Tsung; Boyd, Cynthia M; Ter Riet, Gerben
2015-07-02
When faced with uncertainties about the effects of medical interventions regulatory agencies, guideline developers, clinicians, and researchers commonly ask for more research, and in particular for more randomized trials. The conduct of additional randomized trials is, however, sometimes not the most efficient way to reduce uncertainty. Instead, approaches such as value of information analysis or other approaches should be used to prioritize research that will most likely reduce uncertainty and inform decisions. In situations where additional research for specific interventions needs to be prioritized, we propose the use of quantitative benefit-harm assessments that illustrate how the benefit-harm balance may change as a consequence of additional research. The example of roflumilast for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease shows that additional research on patient preferences (e.g., how important are exacerbations relative to psychiatric harms?) or outcome risks (e.g., what is the incidence of psychiatric outcomes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease without treatment?) is sometimes more valuable than additional randomized trials. We propose that quantitative benefit-harm assessments have the potential to explore the impact of additional research and to identify research priorities Our approach may be seen as another type of value of information analysis and as a useful approach to stimulate specific new research that has the potential to change current estimates of the benefit-harm balance and decision making.
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Snohomish Estuary Wetlands Study. Volume I. Summary Report
1979-05-01
Large marine facilities are structures used for _.. argy development (oil rigs and platforms), raw material pro-cessing, and marine terminals. Such...State) * Wetlands Land Use 20. A9rTlACT (Camthaism revaes ebb N rNeeaa-7 maid Identifr by block number) The study underlines the importance of wetlands...function of a habitat. This study was conducted using information on these and all other subjects. Additional data will provide important refinements
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77 FR 37997 - Importation of Dracaena Plants From Costa Rica
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-06-26
... Dracaena spp. plants will be of greater value than the smaller plants currently allowed entry, and we... addition, copies may be obtained by writing to the individual listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT...(y). (banana rust thrips); Coccus viridis (green scale); Diplosolenodes occidentalis (spotted...
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Extension Resources for International Trade
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Seal, Susan D.
2016-01-01
With the opening of additional trade partnerships, the reduction of global transportation and communication costs, and the increase in demand for U.S. agricultural products and services, international trade is an area of great importance to more and more Extension clients and stakeholders. This article provides information about the primary…
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APPENDIX C - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON FLUSHING IN ESTUARIES
Water residence time is an important determinant of the sensitivity of the response of estuaries and other water bodies to nutrient loading. A variety of terms such as residence time, flushing time, transit time, turnover time, and age are used to describe time scales for transpo...
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Iowa Supplement...For Commercial Applicators. IC-427.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Iowa State Univ. of Science and Technology, Ames. Cooperative Extension Service.
This manual provides information needed to meet specific standards for certification as a pesticide applicator. The text outlines the procedures to be followed for certification. Additionally, a general overview of important data such as toxicity of pesticides, poison control centers, record keeping, equipment maintenance and liability is…
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Handbook of Early Literacy Research. Volume 2
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dickinson, David K., Ed.; Neuman, Susan B., Ed.
2006-01-01
Current research increasingly highlights the role of early literacy in young children's development--and informs practices and policies that promote success among diverse learners. This handbook presents cutting-edge knowledge on all aspects of literacy learning in the early years. Volume 2 provides additional perspectives on important topics…
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"Green" Hangtag Project Combines Design and Language Arts
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lazaros, Edward J.; Shackelford, Ray
2010-01-01
Reducing water consumption and pollution are important concerns for all people. This article describes an activity--production of water conservation hangtags for hotel rooms--that provides students with information about water conservation, in addition to excellent practice with graphic communication and language skills. The activity gives…
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Genomic tools and and prospects for new breeding techniques in flower bulb crops
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
For many of the new breeding techniques, sequence information is of the utmost importance. In addition to current breeding techniques, such as marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genetic modification (GM), new breeding techniques such as zinc finger nucleases, oligonucleotide-mediated mutagenesis, R...
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The Information System at CeSAM
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Agneray, F.; Gimenez, S.; Moreau, C.; Roehlly, Y.
2012-09-01
Modern large observational programmes produce important amounts of data from various origins, and need high level quality control, fast data access via easy-to-use graphic interfaces, as well as possibility to cross-correlate informations coming from different observations. The Centre de donnéeS Astrophysique de Marseille (CeSAM) offer web access to VO compliant Information Systems to access data of different projects (VVDS, HeDAM, EXODAT, HST-COSMOS,…), including ancillary data obtained outside Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) control. The CeSAM Information Systems provides download of catalogues and some additional services like: search, extract and display imaging and spectroscopic data by multi-criteria and Cone Search interfaces.
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DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Bruce, G.M.; Walker, L.B.; Widner, T.E.
1993-09-01
The purpose of Task 6 of Oak Ridge Phase I Health Studies is to provide summaries of current knowledge of toxic and hazardous properties of materials that are important for the Oak Ridge Reservation. The information gathered in the course of Task 6 investigations will support the task of focussing any future health studies efforts on those operations and emissions which have likely been most significant in terms of off-site health risk. The information gathered in Task 6 efforts will likely also be of value to individuals evaluating the feasibility of additional health,study efforts (such as epidemiological investigations) in themore » Oak Ridge area and as a resource for citizens seeking information on historical emissions.« less
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Towards Socially-Responsible Management of Personal Information in Social Networks
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Morin, Jean-Henry
Considering the increasing number of Personal Information (PI) used and shared in our now common social networked interactions, privacy issues, retention and how such information are manages have become important. Most approaches rely on one-way disclaimers and policies, often complex, hard to find and lacking ease of understanding for ordinary users of such common networks. Thus leaving little room for users to actually retain any control how the released information is actually used and managed once it has been put online. Additionally, personal information (PI) may include digital artifacts and contributions for which people would legitimately like to retain some rights over their use and their lifetime. Of particular interest in this category is the notion of the "right to forget" we no longer have control over, given the persistent nature of the Internet and its ability to retain information forever. This paper examines this issue from the point of view of the user and social responsibility, arguing for the need to augment information with an additional set of metadata about its usage and management. We discuss the use of DRM technologies in this context as a possible direction.
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Docherty, D.E.
1999-01-01
This chapter provides information on a recently identified disease of the American woodcock. Little is known about the disease or the virus that causes it. It has been included in this Manual to enhance awareness that such a disease exists and to stimulate additional interest in further investigations to define the importance of woodcock reovirus. More information about this disease is needed because it is not known whether or not this virus is a factor in the decline of woodcock populations within the United States.
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The impact of extended longitudinal observation on the assessment of personality disorders.
Pedersen, G; Karterud, S; Hummelen, B; Wilberg, T
2013-11-01
Multiple sources of information are necessary for a valid assessment of personality disorders (PDs). This study investigates the impact of longitudinal observation. The sample comprised 1217 patients from 15 different treatment units. PDs were assessed at admission to treatment using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID-II) and additional clinical information (best estimate diagnosis). After approximately 18 weeks of treatment, the SCID-II protocols were re-examined at clinical conferences and the diagnostic status reassessed on the basis of longitudinal observations in multiple group situations (longitudinal, expert, all data principle). Using this procedure, 78% of the patients' diagnostic criteria sets were changed, and 32% of patients' diagnostic statuses were changed. Many (32%) patients who were evaluated initially as not having a PD received a PD diagnosis after re-examination. The information provided by customary clinical assessment has important limitations, and longitudinal observation provides additional information that may change the diagnostic status in approximately one-third of PD cases. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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van de Belt, Tom H; Engelen, Lucien J L P G; Verhoef, Lise M; van der Weide, Marian J A; Schoonhoven, Lisette; Kool, Rudolf B
2015-01-15
Social media has become mainstream and a growing number of people use it to share health care-related experiences, for example on health care rating sites. These users' experiences and ratings on social media seem to be associated with quality of care. Therefore, information shared by citizens on social media could be of additional value for supervising the quality and safety of health care services by regulatory bodies, thereby stimulating participation by consumers. The objective of the study was to identify the added value of social media for two types of supervision by the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate (DHI), which is the regulatory body charged with supervising the quality and safety of health care services in the Netherlands. These were (1) supervision in response to incidents reported by individuals, and (2) risk-based supervision. We performed an exploratory study in cooperation with the DHI and searched different social media sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and healthcare rating sites to find additional information for these incidents and topics, from five different sectors. Supervision experts determined the added value for each individual result found, making use of pre-developed scales. Searches in social media resulted in relevant information for six of 40 incidents studied and provided relevant additional information in 72 of 116 cases in risk-based supervision of long-term elderly care. The results showed that social media could be used to include the patient's perspective in supervision. However, it appeared that the rating site ZorgkaartNederland was the only source that provided information that was of additional value for the DHI, while other sources such as forums and social networks like Twitter and Facebook did not result in additional information. This information could be of importance for health care inspectorates, particularly for its enforcement by risk-based supervision in care of the elderly. Further research is needed to determine the added value for other health care sectors.
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Using Patient Experiences on Dutch Social Media to Supervise Health Care Services: Exploratory Study
Engelen, Lucien JLPG; Verhoef, Lise M; van der Weide, Marian JA; Schoonhoven, Lisette; Kool, Rudolf B
2015-01-01
Background Social media has become mainstream and a growing number of people use it to share health care-related experiences, for example on health care rating sites. These users’ experiences and ratings on social media seem to be associated with quality of care. Therefore, information shared by citizens on social media could be of additional value for supervising the quality and safety of health care services by regulatory bodies, thereby stimulating participation by consumers. Objective The objective of the study was to identify the added value of social media for two types of supervision by the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate (DHI), which is the regulatory body charged with supervising the quality and safety of health care services in the Netherlands. These were (1) supervision in response to incidents reported by individuals, and (2) risk-based supervision. Methods We performed an exploratory study in cooperation with the DHI and searched different social media sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and healthcare rating sites to find additional information for these incidents and topics, from five different sectors. Supervision experts determined the added value for each individual result found, making use of pre-developed scales. Results Searches in social media resulted in relevant information for six of 40 incidents studied and provided relevant additional information in 72 of 116 cases in risk-based supervision of long-term elderly care. Conclusions The results showed that social media could be used to include the patient’s perspective in supervision. However, it appeared that the rating site ZorgkaartNederland was the only source that provided information that was of additional value for the DHI, while other sources such as forums and social networks like Twitter and Facebook did not result in additional information. This information could be of importance for health care inspectorates, particularly for its enforcement by risk-based supervision in care of the elderly. Further research is needed to determine the added value for other health care sectors. PMID:25592481
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The Development of the E-Learning Course "Sociology"
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Aleksic-Maslac, Karmela; Magzan, Masa; Maslac, Ilena
2008-01-01
The fast development of information and communication technologies (ICT) improves greatly education quality. E-learning is an important education component at Zagreb School of Economics and Management (ZSEM) and, in addition, it is obligatory for all our teachers and students. In this paper, the development process of course "Sociology"…
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40 CFR 80.810 - Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-07-01
... gasoline toxics program? 80.810 Section 80.810 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Toxics General Information § 80.810 Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program? (a) Refiners and importers...
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40 CFR 80.810 - Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR
2012-07-01
... gasoline toxics program? 80.810 Section 80.810 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Toxics General Information § 80.810 Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program? (a) Refiners and importers...
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40 CFR 80.810 - Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-07-01
... gasoline toxics program? 80.810 Section 80.810 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Toxics General Information § 80.810 Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program? (a) Refiners and importers...
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40 CFR 80.810 - Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-07-01
... gasoline toxics program? 80.810 Section 80.810 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Toxics General Information § 80.810 Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program? (a) Refiners and importers...
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40 CFR 80.810 - Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR
2014-07-01
... gasoline toxics program? 80.810 Section 80.810 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Toxics General Information § 80.810 Who shall register with EPA under the gasoline toxics program? (a) Refiners and importers...
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Evaluator Training: Content and Topic Valuation in University Evaluation Courses
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Davies, Randall; MacKay, Kathryn
2014-01-01
Quality training opportunities for evaluators will always be important to the evaluation profession. While studies have documented the number of university programs providing evaluation training, additional information is needed concerning what content is being taught in current evaluation courses. This article summarizes the findings of a survey…
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Jones, R. H.; Leshin, L. A.; Guan, Y.
2002-01-01
Two chondrules from Mokoia contain olivine in which oxygen isotopes are extremely heterogeneous, with some grains highly enriched in O-16. These data provide an important link between CAIs and chondrules. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
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78 FR 22266 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; Comment Request
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2013-04-15
... changes. AHRQ has developed survey instruments (questions) and, with this project, will test the... surveys of physicians conducted over the last decade and through discussions with our technical expert... current surveys in two important ways. First, we are testing the addition of questions for all physicians...
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Gaffey, Michael J.; Kelley, Michael S.; Hardersen, Paul S.
2002-01-01
Studies of meteorites and observations of asteroids can provide important constraints on the formation and evolution of asteroid families. The iron meteorites alone require the disruption of 85 differentiated asteroids, and the potential formation of 85 families. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
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Learning Group Formation Based on Learner Profile and Context
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Muehlenbrock, Martin
2006-01-01
An important but often neglected aspect in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is the formation of learning groups. Until recently, most support for group formation was based on learner profile information. In addition, the perspective of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence allows for a wider perspective on group formation,…
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2013-12-20
..., without extension, of the following report: Report title: Banking Organization Systemic Risk Report... aimed at measuring systemic importance, was implemented in December 2012 (77 FR 76484). In addition to...) analyzing the systemic risk implications of proposed mergers and acquisitions, the Federal Reserve uses the...
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Navigating the Measurement and Monitoring Maze
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brigham, Frederick J.; Berkeley, Sheri; Walker, Erin
2012-01-01
Assessment of students with disabilities is a critical component of special education. In addition to the complexity of assessment (e.g., high-stakes assessments, progress monitoring, diagnosis), the issue is complicated further by the use of acronyms. This can make both explaining and understanding important information related to students very…
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Carlisle, Katie
2011-01-01
Arts education partnerships have become an important means for developing and sustaining school arts programs that engage students, teachers, and communities. Tapping into additional perspectives, resources, and support from arts agencies and postsecondary institutions, arts education partnerships strengthen arts education infrastructure within…
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Big Data Goes Personal: Privacy and Social Challenges
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bonomi, Luca
2015-01-01
The Big Data phenomenon is posing new challenges in our modern society. In addition to requiring information systems to effectively manage high-dimensional and complex data, the privacy and social implications associated with the data collection, data analytics, and service requirements create new important research problems. First, the high…
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Developing a GIS Program at a Tribal College
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kostelnick, John C.; Rowley, Rex J.; McDermott, David; Bowen, Carol
2009-01-01
Programs in geographic information systems (GIS) and related areas (e.g., GPS, remote sensing) have become important additions to the curriculum at colleges and universities of all sizes and types, including tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) such as Haskell Indian Nations University. This article discusses the recent development of a GIS…
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Young Children's Drawings in Problem Solving
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bakar, Kamariah Abu; Way, Jennifer; Bobis, Janette
2016-01-01
This paper explores young children's drawings (6 years old) in early number and addition activities in Malaysia. Observation, informal interviews and analysis of drawings revealed two types of drawing, and gave insight into the transitional process required for children to utilise drawings in problem solving. We argue the importance of valuing and…
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
McGovern, Patrick J.; Solomon, Sean C.; Smith, David E.; Zuber, Maria T.; Neumann, Gregory A.; Head, J. W., III; Phillips, Roger J.; Simons, Mark
2001-01-01
We calculate localized gravity/topography admittances for Mars, in order to estimate elastic lithosphere thickness. A finite-amplitude correction to modeled gravity is required to properly interpret admittances in high-relief regions of Mars. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2011-09-21
... required under the standards enable EPA to identify coating formulations manufactured, imported or... records. In addition, regulated entities are required to submit triennial reports of formulation data and... period. Burden means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate...
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Successful IT-Intensive Interorganizational Relationships: The Role of Governance
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jacobson, Dax D.
2012-01-01
The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the role of governance in successful information technology-intensive interorganizational relationships (IT-IORs). The importance of "IT" in IT-IORs means that in addition to the challenges associated with managing organizational relationships there are also challenges that come with IT…
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40 CFR 80.190 - Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-07-01
... sulfur program? 80.190 Section 80.190 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Sulfur General Information § 80.190 Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program? (a) Refiners and importers who are...
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40 CFR 80.190 - Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-07-01
... sulfur program? 80.190 Section 80.190 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Sulfur General Information § 80.190 Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program? (a) Refiners and importers who are...
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40 CFR 80.190 - Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR
2012-07-01
... sulfur program? 80.190 Section 80.190 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Sulfur General Information § 80.190 Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program? (a) Refiners and importers who are...
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40 CFR 80.190 - Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR
2014-07-01
... sulfur program? 80.190 Section 80.190 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Sulfur General Information § 80.190 Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program? (a) Refiners and importers who are...
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40 CFR 80.190 - Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-07-01
... sulfur program? 80.190 Section 80.190 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS (CONTINUED) REGULATION OF FUELS AND FUEL ADDITIVES Gasoline Sulfur General Information § 80.190 Who must register with EPA under the sulfur program? (a) Refiners and importers who are...
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12 CFR 350.4 - Contents of annual disclosure statement.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-01-01
... for each such year. The annual disclosure statement may, at the option of bank management, consist of... Reserve System: (i) Schedule RC (Balance Sheet); (ii) Schedule RC-N (Past Due and Nonaccrual, Loans... option, provide additional information that bank management considers important to an evaluation of the...
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77 FR 1947 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Jade Act
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2012-01-12
... technology; and (e) the annual costs burden to respondents or record keepers from the collection of... CBP Form 7501, Entry Summary, which serves as the importer's certification. In addition, at the time... Number of Annual Responses per Respondent: 20. Estimated Total Annual Responses: 443,940. Estimated Time...
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Investment Evaluation of RFID TechnologyApplications: An Evolution Perspective
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Dimakopoulou, Andriana; Pramatari, Katerina; Karagiannaki, Angeliki; Papadopoulos, George; Paraskevopoulos, Antonis
Prior empirical research on the evaluation of RFID technologytreats and assesses individual RFID applications independently and in isolation from each other. However, literature on investment evaluation of information technologies has recognised and utilised the significance of evaluating "interdependent" information systems (IS) projects with synergies. Moreover, previous studies when appraising the business value of an RFID investment ignore its opportunity to offer and evolve into additional follow-on investments in the future. Nevertheless, the importance of this notion has been acknowledged by the pertinent literature for the evaluation of other information technologies. This chapter proposes an approach for the investment evaluation of RFID applications considering them rather as a bundle of interdependent and sequential investments than as stand-alone ones. The results from a case study demonstrate how the proposed approach can be employed for the evaluation of RFID projects and offering an additional insight into evaluating investments in RFID applications.
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Capezza, Nicole M; Najavits, Lisa M
2012-04-01
Trauma-informed treatment increasingly is recognized as an important component of service delivery. This study examined differences in treatment-related characteristics of facilities that offer moderate or high levels of trauma-informed counseling versus those that offer no or low levels of such counseling. Responses from 13,223 substance abuse treatment facilities surveyed in 2009 by the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (NSSATS) were used. A majority (66.6%) of facilities reported using trauma counseling sometimes or always or often. Facilities that provided moderate or high levels of trauma counseling were more likely to provide additional treatment services, such as disease testing and specialized group therapy, as well as child care, employment counseling, and other ancillary services. A majority of facilities reported provision of trauma counseling. Additional training and resources may be needed for programs that reported low rates of trauma counseling.
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Hassanein, Khaled; Yuan, Yufei
2015-01-01
Background Patients have been increasingly seeking and using Internet health information to become more active in managing their own health in a partnership with their physicians. This trend has both positive and negative effects on the interactions between patients and their physicians. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact that the increasing use of Internet health information has on the patient-physician relationship and patients’ compliance with their treatment regimens. Objective This study examines the impact of patients’ use of Internet health information on various elements that characterize the interactions between a patient and her/his physician through a theoretical model based on principal-agent theory and the information asymmetry perspective. Methods A survey-based study consisting of 225 participants was used to validate a model through various statistical techniques. A full assessment of the measurement model and structural model was completed in addition to relevant post hoc analyses. Results This research revealed that both patient-physician concordance and perceived information asymmetry have significant effects on patient compliance, with patient-physician concordance exhibiting a considerably stronger relationship. Additionally, both physician quality and Internet health information quality have significant effects on patient-physician concordance, with physician quality exhibiting a much stronger relationship. Finally, only physician quality was found to have a significant impact on perceived information asymmetry, whereas Internet health information quality had no impact on perceived information asymmetry. Conclusions Overall, this study found that physicians can relax regarding their fears concerning patient use of Internet health information because physician quality has the greatest impact on patients and their physician coming to an agreement on their medical situation and recommended treatment regimen as well as patient’s compliance with their physician’s advice when compared to the impact that Internet health information quality has on these same variables. The findings also indicate that agreement between the patient and physician on the medical situation and treatment is much more important to compliance than the perceived information gap between the patient and physician (ie, the physician having a higher level of information in comparison to the patient). In addition, the level of agreement between a patient and their physician regarding the medical situation is more reliant on the perceived quality of their physician than on the perceived quality of Internet health information used. This research found that only the perceived quality of the physician has a significant relationship with the perceived information gap between the patient and their physician and the quality of the Internet health information has no relationship with this perceived information gap. PMID:26068214
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Vobecky, Jitka S.
1982-01-01
Almost 60% of food additives are colorings, flavorings and other appearance enhancers. Growth of the world's population and growth in demand for food represent the greatest technological challenge of our era. Consequently, usage of substances which preserve the quality and diminish spoilage of food is of prime importance. Nevertheless, the consumer fears that the cumulative effect of additives can lead to cancer, hyperkinesis or other disorders. Given the widespread use of additives, their impact on the health of populations is difficult to study even if certain observed differences between countries are attributed to their diet. Additives introduced during the last few years have satisfied rigorous testing—to which the majority of natural products are not submitted. In contrast, overeating, inactivity, excess saturated fat, alcohol and cigarets are still prevalent, even though the health risks they represent are clearly established. Seeing that the doctor is an authority on health matters, his or her contribution in dispensing information on nutrition and health is important in the battle against fear without scientific proof. PMID:21286202
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Exploring the role of contextual information in bloodstain pattern analysis: A qualitative approach.
Osborne, Nikola K P; Taylor, Michael C; Zajac, Rachel
2016-03-01
During Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA), an analyst may encounter various sources of contextual information. Although contextual bias has emerged as a valid concern for the discipline, little is understood about how contextual information informs BPA. To address this issue, we asked 15 experienced bloodstain pattern analysts from New Zealand and Australia to think aloud as they classified bloodstain patterns from two homicide cases. Analysts could request items of contextual information, and were required to state how each item would inform their analysis. Pathology reports and additional photographs of the scene were the most commonly requested items of information. We coded analysts' reasons for requesting contextual information--and the way in which they integrated this information--according to thematic analysis. We identified considerable variation in both of these variables, raising important questions about the role and necessity of contextual information in decisions about bloodstain pattern evidence. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Friend, M.
2002-01-01
This issue of Hydrobiologia brings together a series of papers resulting from an intensified effort to describe the current status of the physical and biological conditions present at California's Salton Sea. Most of the studies were contract investigations that were part of a project initiated in January 1998 to pursue the improvement of environmental conditions at the Salton Sea. The remainder are independent investigations resulting in information of importance for the Salton Sea Restoration Project. The information provided by those investigations resulting in information of importance for the Salton Sea Restoration Project. The information provided by those investigations is the most holistic assembly of scientific knowledge about the Salton Sea ever brought together in a single publication. The resulting findings provide an important foundation of knowledge for what has been stated to be '. . . one of the worlds' most dynamic salt lakes . . .' (Hart et al., 1998). We hope this publication will serve as a catalyst to stimulate additional scientific investigations that will further enhance understanding of the dynamics of this unique ecosystem. The purpose for these introductory comments is to place the scientific investigations reported on and the Salton Sea Restoration Project in context and entities, and to one another.
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Buckley, Thomas; Stasa, Helen; Cashin, Andrew; Stuart, Meg; Dunn, Sandra V
2015-02-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate the sources, both print and electronic formats, which Australian nurse practitioners (NPs) currently use to obtain information regarding quality use of medicines (QUM). An additional aim was to document NPs' preferences for continuing education in relation to QUM. A national electronic survey of Australian NPs was conducted in 2007 and again in 2010. Eighty percent of respondents accessed information on QUM from professional literature, which may include scholarly journal articles, reports, and independent publications. There was a decrease in the percentage of respondents who obtained information from drug industry representatives. NPs prefer to receive medicines information in an electronic form, rather than a paper-based version, and over the time period more NPs are utilizing electronic sources rather than paper. These findings provide important insights into medical information products for the developers who may be able to use these results to ensure that their products meet the needs of NP clinicians. Additionally, the finding that NPs prefer to receive their continuing information related to medicines in electronic format, but also highly value conference proceedings, may help to inform future planning of NP education needs in relation to QUM. ©2014 American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
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Social roles and the evolution of networks in extreme and isolated environments
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Johnson, Jeffrey C.; Boster, James S.; Palinkas, Lawrence A.
2003-01-01
This article reports on the evolution of network structure as it relates to formal and informal social roles in well-bounded, isolated groups. Research was conducted at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Data were collected on crewmembers' networks of social interaction over each of three winter-over periods, when the station is completely isolated. In addition, data were collected on the informal roles played by crewmembers (e.g., instrumental leadership, expressive leadership). The study found that globally coherent networks in winter-over groups were associated with group consensus on the presence of critically important informal social roles (e.g., expressive leadership) where global coherence is the extent to which a network forms a single group composed of a unitary core and periphery as opposed to being factionalized into two or more subgroups. Conversely, the evolution of multiple subgroups was associated with the absence of consensus on critical informal social roles, above all the critically important role of instrumental leader.
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Texas State Technical Coll., Waco.
This volume developed by the Machine Tool Advanced Skill Technology (MAST) program contains key administrative documents and provides additional sources for machine tool and precision manufacturing information and important points of contact in the industry. The document contains the following sections: a foreword; grant award letter; timeline for…
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Berger, W. H.; Crowell, J. C.
1982-01-01
Complex atmosphere-ocean-land interactions govern the climate system and its variations. During the course of Earth history, nature has performed a large number of experiments involving climatic change; the geologic record contains much information regarding these experiments. This information should result in an increased understanding of the climate system, including climatic stability and factors that perturb climate. In addition, the paleoclimatic record has been demonstrated to be useful in interpreting the origin of important resources-petroleum, natural gas, coal, phosphate deposits, and many others.
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FCRD Transmutation Fuels Handbook 2015
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Janney, Dawn Elizabeth; Papesch, Cynthia Ann
2015-09-01
Transmutation of minor actinides such as Np, Am, and Cm in spent nuclear fuel is of international interest because of its potential for reducing the long-term health and safety hazards caused by the radioactivity of the spent fuel. One important approach to transmutation (currently being pursued by the DOE Fuel Cycle Research & Development Advanced Fuels Campaign) involves incorporating the minor actinides into U-Pu-Zr alloys, which can be used as fuel in fast reactors. It is, therefore, important to understand the properties of U-Pu-Zr alloys, both with and without minor actinide additions. In addition to requiring extensive safety precautions, alloysmore » containing U and Pu are difficult to study for numerous reasons, including their complex phase transformations, characteristically sluggish phase-transformation kinetics, tendency to produce experimental results that vary depending on the histories of individual samples, and sensitivity to contaminants such as oxygen in concentrations below a hundred parts per million. Many of the experimental measurements were made before 1980, and the level of documentation for experimental methods and results varies widely. It is, therefore, not surprising that little is known with certainty about U-Pu-Zr alloys, and that general acceptance of results sometimes indicates that there is only a single measurement for a particular property. This handbook summarizes currently available information about U, Pu, Zr, and alloys of two or three of these elements. It contains information about phase diagrams and related information (including phases and phase transformations); heat capacity, entropy, and enthalpy; thermal expansion; and thermal conductivity and diffusivity. In addition to presenting information about materials properties, it attempts to provide information about how well the property is known and how much variation exists between measurements. Although the handbook includes some references to publications about modeling, its primary focus is experimental data. Most of the data has been published elsewhere (although scattered throughout numerous references, some quite obscure); however, some data is presented here for the first time.« less
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Comparing object recognition from binary and bipolar edge images for visual prostheses.
Jung, Jae-Hyun; Pu, Tian; Peli, Eli
2016-11-01
Visual prostheses require an effective representation method due to the limited display condition which has only 2 or 3 levels of grayscale in low resolution. Edges derived from abrupt luminance changes in images carry essential information for object recognition. Typical binary (black and white) edge images have been used to represent features to convey essential information. However, in scenes with a complex cluttered background, the recognition rate of the binary edge images by human observers is limited and additional information is required. The polarity of edges and cusps (black or white features on a gray background) carries important additional information; the polarity may provide shape from shading information missing in the binary edge image. This depth information may be restored by using bipolar edges. We compared object recognition rates from 16 binary edge images and bipolar edge images by 26 subjects to determine the possible impact of bipolar filtering in visual prostheses with 3 or more levels of grayscale. Recognition rates were higher with bipolar edge images and the improvement was significant in scenes with complex backgrounds. The results also suggest that erroneous shape from shading interpretation of bipolar edges resulting from pigment rather than boundaries of shape may confound the recognition.
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Butler, Julie M; Maruska, Karen P
2016-01-01
Animals use multiple senses during social interactions and must integrate this information in the brain to make context-dependent behavioral decisions. For fishes, the largest group of vertebrates, the mechanosensory lateral line system provides crucial hydrodynamic information for survival behaviors, but little is known about its function in social communication. Our previous work using the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, provided the first empirical evidence that fish use their lateral line system to detect water movements from conspecifics for mutual assessment and behavioral choices. It is unknown, however, where this socially-relevant mechanosensory information is processed in the brain to elicit adaptive behavioral responses. To examine for the first time in any fish species which brain regions receive contextual mechanosensory information, we quantified expression of the immediate early gene cfos as a proxy for neural activation in sensory and socially-relevant brain nuclei from lateral line-intact and -ablated fish following territorial interactions. Our in situ hybridization results indicate that in addition to known lateral line processing regions, socially-relevant mechanosensory information is processed in the ATn (ventromedial hypothalamus homolog), Dl (putative hippocampus homolog), and Vs (putative medial extended amygdala homolog). In addition, we identified a functional network within the conserved social decision-making network (SDMN) whose co-activity corresponds with mutual assessment and behavioral choice. Lateral line-intact and -ablated fight winners had different patterns of co-activity of these function networks and group identity could be determined solely by activation patterns, indicating the importance of mechanoreception to co-activity of the SDMN. These data show for the first time that the mechanosensory lateral line system provides relevant information to conserved decision-making centers of the brain during territorial interactions to mediate crucial behavioral choices such as whether or not to engage in a territorial fight. To our knowledge, this is also the first evidence of a subpallial nucleus receiving mechanosensory input, providing important information for elucidating homologies of decision-making circuits across vertebrates. These novel results highlight the importance of considering multimodal sensory input in mediating context-appropriate behaviors that will provide broad insights on the evolution of decision-making networks across all taxa.
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Multi-task learning with group information for human action recognition
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Qian, Li; Wu, Song; Pu, Nan; Xu, Shulin; Xiao, Guoqiang
2018-04-01
Human action recognition is an important and challenging task in computer vision research, due to the variations in human motion performance, interpersonal differences and recording settings. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-task learning framework with group information (MTL-GI) for accurate and efficient human action recognition. Specifically, we firstly obtain group information through calculating the mutual information according to the latent relationship between Gaussian components and action categories, and clustering similar action categories into the same group by affinity propagation clustering. Additionally, in order to explore the relationships of related tasks, we incorporate group information into multi-task learning. Experimental results evaluated on two popular benchmarks (UCF50 and HMDB51 datasets) demonstrate the superiority of our proposed MTL-GI framework.
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Construction of In-house Databases in a Corporation
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Koga, Kunitoshi; Kijima, Seiichi
The rapid technological innovation and alternation of the economical society have increased the importance of obtaining the accurate information promptly in order to make a timely decision. Therefore, UBE Industries Ltd. has developed “UMATIS”, an information manegement system, since July in 1985, where not only the technical but also manegerial information is accumulated and one can obtain it quickly as occasion demands. In addition to the brief introduction of an outline and the progress of the system, this gives the detailed description of the contents of the registered items, the indexing method, the utilization of retrieval, the manegerial method and so on in the main technical information system. The personal relation information system and the inorgnanic material data base system are also explained briefly.
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Information Theory Broadens the Spectrum of Molecular Ecology and Evolution.
Sherwin, W B; Chao, A; Jost, L; Smouse, P E
2017-12-01
Information or entropy analysis of diversity is used extensively in community ecology, and has recently been exploited for prediction and analysis in molecular ecology and evolution. Information measures belong to a spectrum (or q profile) of measures whose contrasting properties provide a rich summary of diversity, including allelic richness (q=0), Shannon information (q=1), and heterozygosity (q=2). We present the merits of information measures for describing and forecasting molecular variation within and among groups, comparing forecasts with data, and evaluating underlying processes such as dispersal. Importantly, information measures directly link causal processes and divergence outcomes, have straightforward relationship to allele frequency differences (including monotonicity that q=2 lacks), and show additivity across hierarchical layers such as ecology, behaviour, cellular processes, and nongenetic inheritance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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The Evolution of Networks in Extreme and Isolated Environment
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Johnson, Jeffrey C.; Boster, James S.; Palinkas, Lawrence A.
2000-01-01
This article reports on the evolution of network structure as it relates to the formal and informal aspects of social roles in well bounded, isolated groups. Research was conducted at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station over a 3-year period. Data was collected on crewmembers' networks of social interaction and personal advice over each of the 8.5-month winters during a time of complete isolation. In addition, data was collected on informal social role structure (e.g., instrumental leadership, expressive leadership). It was hypothesized that development and maintenance of a cohesive group structure was related to the presence of and group consensus on various informal social roles. The study found that core-periphery structures (i.e., reflecting cohesion) in winter-over groups were associated with the presence of critically important informal social roles (e.g., expressive leadership) and high group consensus on such informal roles. On the other hand, the evolution of clique structures (i.e., lack of cohesion) were associated with the absence of critical roles and a lack of consensus on these roles, particularly the critically important role of instrumental leader.
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A Systematic Review of the Factors that Patients Use to Choose their Surgeon.
Yahanda, Alexander T; Lafaro, Kelly J; Spolverato, Gaya; Pawlik, Timothy M
2016-01-01
Given surgery's inherent risks, a patient should be able to make the most informed decisions possible in selecting surgical treatment. However, there is little information on what factors patients deem important when choosing a surgeon. We performed a systematic review of the literature focused on how patients select surgical care, focusing on identification of factors that influence patient choice as well as important sources of information used by patients. A search of all available literature on factors associated with choice of surgeon/surgical care, as well as sources of information used by patients before undergoing surgery, was conducted using the MEDLINE/PubMed electronic database. Of the 2315 publications identified, 86 studies met inclusion criteria. Overall, patients draw upon a wide range of factors when choosing surgical care. Surgeon reputation and competency stood out as the most valued professional attributes. Patients also often selected surgeons based on their interpersonal skills. Many patients chose surgical care using hospital, rather than surgeon, characteristics. For these patients, hospital reputation and hospital distance were factors of primary importance. Importantly, most patients relied on word-of-mouth and physician referrals when choosing a surgeon. Patients also expressed interest in quality information on surgeons, indicating that these data would be useful in decision-making. Patients draw upon a myriad of factors when choosing a surgeon and the circumstances surrounding patients' decisions maybe differ based on sociodemographic, cultural, as well as other factors. Additional information on how patients choose surgeons or hospitals will help providers assist patients in finding their preferred caregivers.
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Schaack, Todd K.; Lenzen, Allen J.; Johnson, Donald R.
1991-01-01
This study surveys the large-scale distribution of heating for January 1979 obtained from five sources of information. Through intercomparison of these distributions, with emphasis on satellite-derived information, an investigation is conducted into the global distribution of atmospheric heating and the impact of observations on the diagnostic estimates of heating derived from assimilated datasets. The results indicate a substantial impact of satellite information on diagnostic estimates of heating in regions where there is a scarcity of conventional observations. The addition of satellite data provides information on the atmosphere's temperature and wind structure that is important for estimation of the global distribution of heating and energy exchange.
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Newby, Gavin; Groom, Christina
2010-04-01
Information provision is an important resource for those living with acquired brain injury (ABI) and their families. Web-based health information services are now common additions to health service provision. Ideally, they should be easy to use and provide useful, relevant and accurate information. ABI injuries do not affect individuals in the same way, and survivors can have a wide range of abilities and impairments. Therefore, any informational resource intended for this group should take account of their needs and help to compensate for their limitations. This pilot study recruited a group of individuals with ABI (of a median Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale rating of "lower moderate disability") who were clients of a UK National Health Service rehabilitation service and asked them to assess a specialised website provided by that service and hosted by their employing Primary Care Trust organisation. Participants completed a practical task and then gave their opinions on various aspects of website design, and content. They were also asked to suggest improvements and recommend additions. Overall the results were favourable. However, improvements in the legibility, layout and writing style were identified. There were also requests to add more information on the existing topics and add additional topics. The discussion also evaluates the utility of the methodology and the implications of the results for others considering constructing their own website.
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Kandasamy, Sujane; Khalid, Ahmad Firas; Majid, Umair; Vanstone, Meredith
2017-01-01
Background Men with low- to intermediate-risk prostate cancer are typically asked to choose from a variety of treatment options, including active surveillance, radical prostatectomy, or brachytherapy. The Prolaris cell cycle progression test is intended to provide additional information on personal risk status to assist men with prostate cancer in their choice of treatment. To assist with assessing that new technology, this report synthesizes qualitative research on how men with prostate cancer use information to make decisions about treatment options. Methods We performed a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis to retrieve and synthesize findings across primary qualitative studies that report on patient perspectives during prostate cancer treatment decision-making. Results Of 8,610 titles and abstracts reviewed, 29 studies are included in this report. Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer express that their information-seeking pathway extends beyond the medical information received from their health care provider. They access other social resources to attain additional medical information, lived-experience information, and medical administrative information to help support their final treatment decision. Men value privacy, trust, honesty, control, power, organization, and open communication during interactions with their health care providers. They also emphasize the importance of gaining comfort with their treatment choice, having a chance to confirm their health care provider's recommendations (validation of treatment plan), and exercising their preferred level of independence in the treatment decision-making process. Conclusions Although each prostate cancer patient is unique, studies suggest that most patients seek extensive information to help inform their treatment decisions. This may happen before, during, and after the treatment choice is made. Given the amount of information patients may access, it is important that they also establish the trustworthiness of the various types and sources of information. When information conflicts, patients may be unsure about how to proceed. Open collaboration between patients and their health care providers can help patients manage and navigate their concerns so that their values and perspectives are captured in their treatment choices. PMID:28572868
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Andronis, Lazaros; Barton, Pelham M
2016-04-01
Value of information (VoI) calculations give the expected benefits of decision making under perfect information (EVPI) or sample information (EVSI), typically on the premise that any treatment recommendations made in light of this information will be implemented instantly and fully. This assumption is unlikely to hold in health care; evidence shows that obtaining further information typically leads to "improved" rather than "perfect" implementation. To present a method of calculating the expected value of further research that accounts for the reality of improved implementation. This work extends an existing conceptual framework by introducing additional states of the world regarding information (sample information, in addition to current and perfect information) and implementation (improved implementation, in addition to current and optimal implementation). The extension allows calculating the "implementation-adjusted" EVSI (IA-EVSI), a measure that accounts for different degrees of implementation. Calculations of implementation-adjusted estimates are illustrated under different scenarios through a stylized case study in non-small cell lung cancer. In the particular case study, the population values for EVSI and IA-EVSI were £ 25 million and £ 8 million, respectively; thus, a decision assuming perfect implementation would have overestimated the expected value of research by about £ 17 million. IA-EVSI was driven by the assumed time horizon and, importantly, the specified rate of change in implementation: the higher the rate, the greater the IA-EVSI and the lower the difference between IA-EVSI and EVSI. Traditionally calculated measures of population VoI rely on unrealistic assumptions about implementation. This article provides a simple framework that accounts for improved, rather than perfect, implementation and offers more realistic estimates of the expected value of research. © The Author(s) 2015.
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Dai, Chien-Yun; Chen, Hsiao-Ming; Chen, Wan-Fei; Wu, Chia-Huei; Li, Guodong; Wang, Jiangtao
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among employees' usage intention pertaining to mobile information devices, focusing on subjective judgement, technology acceptance tendency, information sharing behavior and information transfer. A research model was established to verify several hypotheses. The research model based on integrated concepts of knowledge management and technology acceptance modeling. Participants were employees of enterprises in Taiwan, selected by combining snowball and convenience sampling. Data obtained from 779 e-surveys. Multiple-regression analysis was employed for hypothesis verification. The results indicate that perceived ease-of-use of mobile devices was affected by computer self-efficacy and computer playfulness directly; meanwhile, perceived ease-of-use directly affects perceived usefulness. In addition, perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness can predict information-sharing behavior in a positive manner, and impact knowledge transfer as well. Based on the research findings, it suggested that enterprises should utilize mobile information devices to create more contact with customers and enrich their service network. In addition, it is recommended that managers use mobile devices to transmit key information to their staff and that they use these devices for problem-solving and decision-making. Further, the staff’s skills pertaining to the operation of mobile information devices and to fully implement their features are reinforced in order to inspire the users' knowledge transfer. Enhancing the playfulness of the interface is also important. In general, it is useful to promote knowledge transfer behavior within an organization by motivating members to share information and ideas via mobile information devices. In addition, a well-designed interface can facilitate employees' use of these devices. PMID:28886088
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Yuan, Yu-Hsi; Tsai, Sang-Bing; Dai, Chien-Yun; Chen, Hsiao-Ming; Chen, Wan-Fei; Wu, Chia-Huei; Li, Guodong; Wang, Jiangtao
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among employees' usage intention pertaining to mobile information devices, focusing on subjective judgement, technology acceptance tendency, information sharing behavior and information transfer. A research model was established to verify several hypotheses. The research model based on integrated concepts of knowledge management and technology acceptance modeling. Participants were employees of enterprises in Taiwan, selected by combining snowball and convenience sampling. Data obtained from 779 e-surveys. Multiple-regression analysis was employed for hypothesis verification. The results indicate that perceived ease-of-use of mobile devices was affected by computer self-efficacy and computer playfulness directly; meanwhile, perceived ease-of-use directly affects perceived usefulness. In addition, perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness can predict information-sharing behavior in a positive manner, and impact knowledge transfer as well. Based on the research findings, it suggested that enterprises should utilize mobile information devices to create more contact with customers and enrich their service network. In addition, it is recommended that managers use mobile devices to transmit key information to their staff and that they use these devices for problem-solving and decision-making. Further, the staff's skills pertaining to the operation of mobile information devices and to fully implement their features are reinforced in order to inspire the users' knowledge transfer. Enhancing the playfulness of the interface is also important. In general, it is useful to promote knowledge transfer behavior within an organization by motivating members to share information and ideas via mobile information devices. In addition, a well-designed interface can facilitate employees' use of these devices.
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Shen, Zhaocun; Shi, Lin; Tang, Zhiyong
2015-01-01
Although the importance of circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials has been widely recognized, the CPL responses of supramolecular gels are still rarely studied. Moreover, developing CPL materials based on supramolecular gels is of great significance, due to their special advantages and important applications. Herein, we report the first circularly polarized supramolecular gels self-assembled exclusively from a simple achiral C 3-symmetric molecule. Most importantly, the excellent tunability of these novel CPL materials, which benefits from achiral molecular building blocks as well as the nature of supramolecular gels, has been investigated. Thus, the CPL intensity of these supramolecular gels is easily enhanced by mechanical stirring or doping chiral amines. The handedness of CPL signals is controlled by the chirality of organic amines. PMID:29218194
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Identifying Factors for Worker Motivation in Zambia's Rural Health Facilities.
Cross, Samuel S; Baernholdt, Dr Marianne
2017-01-01
Within Zambia there is a shortage of health workers in rural areas. This study aims to identify motivating factors for retaining rural health workers. Sixty rural health workers completed surveys and 46 were interviewed. They rated the importance of six motivating factors and discussed these and other factors in interviews. An interview was conducted with a Government Human Resources Manager (HR Manager) to elicit contextual information. All six factors were identified as being very important motivators, as were two additional factors. Additional career training was identified by many as the most important factor. Comparison of results and the HR Manager interview revealed that workers lacked knowledge about opportunities and that the HR manager was aware of barriers to career development. The Zambian government might better motivate and retain rural health workers by offering them any combination of identified factors, and by addressing the barriers to career development.
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The journals of importance to UK clinicians: a questionnaire survey of surgeons
Jones, Teresa H; Hanney, Steve; Buxton, Martin J
2006-01-01
Background Peer-reviewed journals are seen as a major vehicle in the transmission of research findings to clinicians. Perspectives on the importance of individual journals vary and the use of impact factors to assess research is criticised. Other surveys of clinicians suggest a few key journals within a specialty, and sub-specialties, are widely read. Journals with high impact factors are not always widely read or perceived as important. In order to determine whether UK surgeons consider peer-reviewed journals to be important information sources and which journals they read and consider important to inform their clinical practice, we conducted a postal questionnaire survey and then compared the findings with those from a survey of US surgeons. Methods A questionnaire survey sent to 2,660 UK surgeons asked which information sources they considered to be important and which peer-reviewed journals they read, and perceived as important, to inform their clinical practice. Comparisons were made with numbers of UK NHS-funded surgery publications, journal impact factors and other similar surveys. Results Peer-reviewed journals were considered to be the second most important information source for UK surgeons. A mode of four journals read was found with academics reading more than non-academics. Two journals, the BMJ and the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, are prominent across all sub-specialties and others within sub-specialties. The British Journal of Surgery plays a key role within three sub-specialties. UK journals are generally preferred and readership patterns are influenced by membership journals. Some of the journals viewed by surgeons as being most important, for example the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, do not have high impact factors. Conclusion Combining the findings from this study with comparable studies highlights the importance of national journals and of membership journals. Our study also illustrates the complexity of the link between the impact factors of journals and the importance of the journals to clinicians. This analysis potentially provides an additional basis on which to assess the role of different journals, and the published output from research. PMID:16762051
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Macleod, Adrian K; Stanley, Michele S; Day, John G; Cook, Elizabeth J
2016-01-01
Knowledge of biofouling typical of marine structures is essential for engineers to define appropriate loading criteria in addition to informing other stakeholders about the ecological implications of creating novel artificial environments. There is a lack of information regarding biofouling community composition (including weight and density characteristics) on floating structures associated with future marine renewable energy generation technologies. A network of navigation buoys were identified across a range of geographical areas, environmental conditions (tidal flow speed, temperature and salinity), and deployment durations suitable for future developments. Despite the perceived importance of environmental and temporal factors, geographical location explained the greatest proportion of the observed variation in community composition, emphasising the importance of considering geography when assessing the impact of biofouling on device functioning and associated ecology. The principal taxa associated with variation in biofouling community composition were mussels (Mytilus edulis), which were also important when determining loading criteria.
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Numazaki, M; Kudo, E
1995-04-01
The present study was conducted to examine determinants of information-gathering behavior with regard to one's own characteristics. Four tasks with different self-congruent and incongruent diagnosticity were presented to subjects. As self-assessment theory predicted, high diagnostic tasks were preferred to low tasks. And as self-verification theory predicted, self-congruent diagnosticity had a stronger effect on task preference than self-incongruent diagnosticity. In addition, subjects who perceived the relevant characteristics important inclined to choose self-assessment behavior more than who did not. Also, subjects who were certain of their self-concept inclined to choose self-verification behavior more than who were not. These results suggest that both self-assessment and self-verification motivations play important roles in information-gathering behavior regarding one's characteristics, and strength of the motivations is determined by the importance of relevant characteristics or the certainty of self-concept.
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Dimension yields from yellow-poplar lumber
R. C. Gilmore; J. D. Danielson
1984-01-01
The available supply of yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.), its potential for new uses, and its continuing importance to the furniture industry have created a need to accumulate additional information about this species. As an aid to better utilization of this species, charts for determining cutting stock yields from yellow poplar lumber are presented for each...
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Daily Management of Work and Family Goals in Employed Parents
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hoppmann, Christiane A.; Klumb, Petra L.
2012-01-01
This study uses one-week time-sampling information from 104 employed parents with pre-school children to examine the association between daily workloads, control strategies, and goal progress. In addition, it examines relationships between work- and family-goal progress and important stress indices such as positive/negative affect and cortisol…
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Tier 3 Vehicle and Gasoline Sulfur Program The Tier 3 Vehicle and Gasoline Sulfur Program requires run on gasoline, diesel, or alternative fuels. Additionally, this program requires gasoline refiners and importers to reduce the sulfur content of gasoline sold in the United States. For more information
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2011-09-29
... airport terminal facilities that receive Federal financial assistance. The proposed rule includes new... important element of the proposed rule is the addition of a new provision that requires U.S. airport... placed in docket. E. Paperwork Reduction Act This proposed rule adopts new and revised information...
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15 CFR 705.8 - Public hearings.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-01-01
... additional information or to request time to speak at the hearing shall also be included. Public hearings may... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 2 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Public hearings. 705.8 Section 705.8... IMPORTED ARTICLES ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY § 705.8 Public hearings. (a) If it is deemed appropriate by the...
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15 CFR 705.8 - Public hearings.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR
2012-01-01
... additional information or to request time to speak at the hearing shall also be included. Public hearings may... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 2 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Public hearings. 705.8 Section 705.8... IMPORTED ARTICLES ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY § 705.8 Public hearings. (a) If it is deemed appropriate by the...
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Research Report: Schools as Effective Data Users
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Protheroe, Nancy
2010-01-01
Data use and decision-making--these two phrases have appeared together in probably hundreds of education articles and have been the topic of a host of presentations during the past decade. In addition, research studies have confirmed the importance of data-informed decision-making to school improvement. Thus, school leaders have found it makes…
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Evaluating Cognitive Theory: A Joint Modeling Approach Using Responses and Response Times
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Klein Entink, Rinke H.; Kuhn, Jorg-Tobias; Hornke, Lutz F.; Fox, Jean-Paul
2009-01-01
In current psychological research, the analysis of data from computer-based assessments or experiments is often confined to accuracy scores. Response times, although being an important source of additional information, are either neglected or analyzed separately. In this article, a new model is developed that allows the simultaneous analysis of…
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Thinking Skills and Bloom's Taxonomy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Crossland, John
2015-01-01
Thinking and other non-cognitive skills are becoming more important because the information explosion means less reliance on memorising facts and more on the ability to understand, analyse, apply, evaluate and create. In addition, many learners entering schools today will work in job categories not yet imagined; therefore a teaching focus on fact…
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15 CFR 705.8 - Public hearings.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-01-01
... additional information or to request time to speak at the hearing shall also be included. Public hearings may... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Public hearings. 705.8 Section 705.8... IMPORTED ARTICLES ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY § 705.8 Public hearings. (a) If it is deemed appropriate by the...
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15 CFR 705.8 - Public hearings.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-01-01
... additional information or to request time to speak at the hearing shall also be included. Public hearings may... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 2 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Public hearings. 705.8 Section 705.8... IMPORTED ARTICLES ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY § 705.8 Public hearings. (a) If it is deemed appropriate by the...
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2010-07-14
... Radiological Health (CDRH) Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Priorities. In addition, FDA is interested in engaging in... and discuss issues of importance to the medical device industry. CDRH is specifically interested in... through Friday. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Background CDRH has announced four priority areas of...
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Using Niche-Market Magazines to Teach Audience
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tichenor, Stuart
2006-01-01
In technical writing classes, audience is one of the most important concepts. Technical writing is typically written to a specific audience for a specific purpose. In addition, as audiences change, so must the way a document is written. An audience's lack of knowledge in a technical area, for example, would require more background information or…
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eCOMPAGT – efficient Combination and Management of Phenotypes and Genotypes for Genetic Epidemiology
Schönherr, Sebastian; Weißensteiner, Hansi; Coassin, Stefan; Specht, Günther; Kronenberg, Florian; Brandstätter, Anita
2009-01-01
Background High-throughput genotyping and phenotyping projects of large epidemiological study populations require sophisticated laboratory information management systems. Most epidemiological studies include subject-related personal information, which needs to be handled with care by following data privacy protection guidelines. In addition, genotyping core facilities handling cooperative projects require a straightforward solution to monitor the status and financial resources of the different projects. Description We developed a database system for an efficient combination and management of phenotypes and genotypes (eCOMPAGT) deriving from genetic epidemiological studies. eCOMPAGT securely stores and manages genotype and phenotype data and enables different user modes with different rights. Special attention was drawn on the import of data deriving from TaqMan and SNPlex genotyping assays. However, the database solution is adjustable to other genotyping systems by programming additional interfaces. Further important features are the scalability of the database and an export interface to statistical software. Conclusion eCOMPAGT can store, administer and connect phenotype data with all kinds of genotype data and is available as a downloadable version at . PMID:19432954
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Miscellaneous bacterial diseases
Friend, M.
1999-01-01
Disease in free-ranging birds is caused by many other pathogenic bacteria in addition to those illustrated within this section. These other diseases are currently considered less important because of their infrequent occurrence, the small numbers of birds generally lost annually, or because they primarily result from infection by opportunistic pathogens and they require concurrent disease processes for them to become apparent. The following brief highlights about the more important of these diseases are included to acquaint readers with their existence and provide some basic information about their ecology.
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smwrBase—An R package for managing hydrologic data, version 1.1.1
Lorenz, David L.
2015-12-09
This report describes an R package called smwrBase, which consists of a collection of functions to import, transform, manipulate, and manage hydrologic data within the R statistical environment. Functions in the package allow users to import surface-water and groundwater data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Information System database and other sources. Additional functions are provided to transform, manipulate, and manage hydrologic data in ways necessary for analyzing the data.
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A layered trust information security architecture.
de Oliveira Albuquerque, Robson; Villalba, Luis Javier García; Orozco, Ana Lucila Sandoval; Buiati, Fábio; Kim, Tai-Hoon
2014-12-01
Information can be considered the most important asset of any modern organization. Securing this information involves preserving confidentially, integrity and availability, the well-known CIA triad. In addition, information security is a risk management job; the task is to manage the inherent risks of information disclosure. Current information security platforms do not deal with the different facets of information technology. This paper presents a layered trust information security architecture (TISA) and its creation was motivated by the need to consider information and security from different points of view in order to protect it. This paper also extends and discusses security information extensions as a way of helping the CIA triad. Furthermore, this paper suggests information representation and treatment elements, operations and support components that can be integrated to show the various risk sources when dealing with both information and security. An overview of how information is represented and treated nowadays in the technological environment is shown, and the reason why it is so difficult to guarantee security in all aspects of the information pathway is discussed.
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Voorn, Maarten; Barnhoorn, Auke; Exner, Ulrike; Baud, Patrick; Reuschlé, Thierry
2015-04-01
Fractured reservoir rocks make up an important part of the hydrocarbon reservoirs worldwide. A detailed analysis of fractures and fracture networks in reservoir rock samples is thus essential to determine the potential of these fractured reservoirs. However, common analyses on drill core and plug samples taken from such reservoirs (including hand specimen analysis, thin section analysis and laboratory porosity and permeability determination) suffer from various problems, such as having a limited resolution, providing only 2D and no internal structure information, being destructive on the samples and/or not being representative for full fracture networks. In this study, we therefore explore the use of an additional method - non-destructive 3D X-ray micro-Computed Tomography (μCT) - to obtain more information on such fractured samples. Seven plug-sized samples were selected from narrowly fractured rocks of the Hauptdolomit formation, taken from wellbores in the Vienna Basin, Austria. These samples span a range of different fault rocks in a fault zone interpretation, from damage zone to fault core. 3D μCT data is used to extract porosity, fracture aperture, fracture density and fracture orientations - in bulk as well as locally. The 3D analyses are complemented with thin sections made to provide some 2D information with a much higher detail than the μCT data. Finally, gas- and water permeability measurements under confining pressure provide an important link (at least in order of magnitude) of the µCT results towards more realistic reservoir conditions. Our results show that 3D μCT can be applied efficiently on plug-sized samples of naturally fractured rocks, and that several important parameters can be extracted. μCT can therefore be a useful addition to studies on such reservoir rocks, and provide valuable input for modelling and simulations. Also permeability experiments under confining pressure provide important additional insights. Combining these and other methods can therefore be a powerful approach in microstructural analysis of reservoir rocks, especially when applying the concepts that we present (on a small set of samples) in a larger study, in an automated and standardised manner.
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Transparency of chemical risk assessment data under REACH.
Ingre-Khans, Ellen; Ågerstrand, Marlene; Beronius, Anna; Rudén, Christina
2016-12-08
The REACH regulation requires EU manufacturers and importers of substances to register information on the hazard and risk of their substances with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). Risk management of the substances is based on the provided information. It is known that conclusions on hazard and risk are influenced by expert judgements as well as potential conflict of interests. Thus, it is important that hazard and risk assessments are transparent and can be evaluated by a third party. The aim of this study is to scrutinize the transparency, i.e. the accessibility and comprehensibility, of information on substances registered under REACH. Data on repeated dose toxicity and hazard assessment conclusions were extracted for 60 substances from the REACH registration database available on the ECHA website. The data were compiled in a database for systematically evaluating the transparency of information related to the conclusions on hazard or risk. In addition, chemical safety reports (CSR) were requested from ECHA for five substances. The transparency of information on the hazard and risk of substances was found to be limited for several reasons. First, certain information was removed due to confidentiality and certain fields were not published because they could contain confidential information although the information had not been claimed confidential. Also, the extent to which registrants reported information varied, and the presentation of some data and certain terminology required further clarification. In addition, the data source for the majority of the key and supporting studies could not be identified due to confidentiality. Since registrants are only required to summarise studies, it cannot be verified whether all relevant information from non-public industry reports have been reported. Lastly, certain information related to the hazard and risk assessment were only reported in the CSR which is only available upon request; a time-consuming and work-intensive process. As information on registered chemicals is currently provided to the public, it is difficult to follow steps that are undertaken in the hazard and risk assessment. This limits the possibility for a third party to evaluate the assessment.
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The etiology of social aggression: a nuclear twin family study.
Slawinski, Brooke L; Klump, Kelly L; Burt, S Alexandra
2018-04-02
Social aggression is a form of antisocial behavior in which social relationships and social status are used to damage reputations and inflict emotional harm on others. Despite extensive research examining the prevalence and consequences of social aggression, only a few studies have examined its genetic-environmental etiology, with markedly inconsistent results. We estimated the etiology of social aggression using the nuclear twin family (NTF) model. Maternal-report, paternal-report, and teacher-report data were collected for twin social aggression (N = 1030 pairs). We also examined the data using the classical twin (CT) model to evaluate whether its strict assumptions may have biased previous heritability estimates. The best-fitting NTF model for all informants was the ASFE model, indicating that additive genetic, sibling environmental, familial environmental, and non-shared environmental influences significantly contribute to the etiology of social aggression in middle childhood. However, the best-fitting CT model varied across informants, ranging from AE and ACE to CE. Specific heritability estimates for both NTF and CT models also varied across informants such that teacher reports indicated greater genetic influences and father reports indicated greater shared environmental influences. Although the specific NTF parameter estimates varied across informants, social aggression generally emerged as largely additive genetic (A = 0.15-0.77) and sibling environmental (S = 0.42-0.72) in origin. Such findings not only highlight an important role for individual genetic risk in the etiology of social aggression, but also raise important questions regarding the role of the environment.
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From Data to Knowledge: GEOSS experience and the GEOSS Knowledge Base contribution to the GCI
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Santoro, M.; Nativi, S.; Mazzetti, P., Sr.; Plag, H. P.
2016-12-01
According to systems theory, data is raw, it simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence; while, information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. The appropriate collection of information, such that it contributes to understanding, is a process of knowledge creation.The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) developed by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is a set of coordinated, independent Earth observation, information and processing systems that interact and provide access to diverse information for a broad range of users in both public and private sectors. GEOSS links these systems to strengthen the monitoring of the state of the Earth. In the past ten years, the development of GEOSS has taught several lessons dealing with the need to move from (open) data to information and knowledge sharing. Advanced user-focused services require to move from a data-driven framework to a knowledge sharing platform. Such a platform needs to manage information and knowledge, in addition to datasets linked to them. For this scope, GEO has launched a specific task called "GEOSS Knowledge Base", which deals with resources, like user requirements, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), observation and processing ontologies, publications, guidelines, best practices, business processes/algorithms, definition of advanced concepts like Essential Variables (EVs), indicators, strategic goals, etc. In turn, information and knowledge (e.g. guidelines, best practices, user requirements, business processes, algorithms, etc.) can be used to generate additional information and knowledge from shared datasets. To fully utilize and leverage the GEOSS Knowledge Base, the current GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) model will be extended and advanced to consider important concepts and implementation artifacts, such as data processing services and environmental/economic models as well as EVs, Primary Indicators, and SDGs. The new GCI model will link these concepts to the present dataset, observation and sensor concepts, enabling a set of very important new capabilities to be offered to GEOSS users.
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Hunter, Lawrence; Lu, Zhiyong; Firby, James; Baumgartner, William A; Johnson, Helen L; Ogren, Philip V; Cohen, K Bretonnel
2008-01-01
Background Information extraction (IE) efforts are widely acknowledged to be important in harnessing the rapid advance of biomedical knowledge, particularly in areas where important factual information is published in a diverse literature. Here we report on the design, implementation and several evaluations of OpenDMAP, an ontology-driven, integrated concept analysis system. It significantly advances the state of the art in information extraction by leveraging knowledge in ontological resources, integrating diverse text processing applications, and using an expanded pattern language that allows the mixing of syntactic and semantic elements and variable ordering. Results OpenDMAP information extraction systems were produced for extracting protein transport assertions (transport), protein-protein interaction assertions (interaction) and assertions that a gene is expressed in a cell type (expression). Evaluations were performed on each system, resulting in F-scores ranging from .26 – .72 (precision .39 – .85, recall .16 – .85). Additionally, each of these systems was run over all abstracts in MEDLINE, producing a total of 72,460 transport instances, 265,795 interaction instances and 176,153 expression instances. Conclusion OpenDMAP advances the performance standards for extracting protein-protein interaction predications from the full texts of biomedical research articles. Furthermore, this level of performance appears to generalize to other information extraction tasks, including extracting information about predicates of more than two arguments. The output of the information extraction system is always constructed from elements of an ontology, ensuring that the knowledge representation is grounded with respect to a carefully constructed model of reality. The results of these efforts can be used to increase the efficiency of manual curation efforts and to provide additional features in systems that integrate multiple sources for information extraction. The open source OpenDMAP code library is freely available at PMID:18237434
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Bjerregaard, Peter; Becker, Ulrik
2013-01-01
Questionnaires are widely used to obtain information on health-related behaviour, and they are more often than not the only method that can be used to assess the distribution of behaviour in subgroups of the population. No validation studies of reported consumption of tobacco or alcohol have been published from circumpolar indigenous communities. The purpose of the study is to compare information on the consumption of tobacco and alcohol obtained from 3 population surveys in Greenland with import statistics. Estimates of consumption of cigarettes and alcohol using several different survey instruments in cross-sectional population studies from 1993-1994, 1999-2001 and 2005-2010 were compared with import statistics from the same years. For cigarettes, survey results accounted for virtually the total import. Alcohol consumption was significantly under-reported with reporting completeness ranging from 40% to 51% for different estimates of habitual weekly consumption in the 3 study periods. Including an estimate of binge drinking increased the estimated total consumption to 78% of the import. Compared with import statistics, questionnaire-based population surveys capture the consumption of cigarettes well in Greenland. Consumption of alcohol is under-reported, but asking about binge episodes in addition to the usual intake considerably increased the reported intake in this population and made it more in agreement with import statistics. It is unknown to what extent these findings at the population level can be inferred to population subgroups.
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Shannon entropy and particle decays
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Carrasco Millán, Pedro; García-Ferrero, M. Ángeles; Llanes-Estrada, Felipe J.; Porras Riojano, Ana; Sánchez García, Esteban M.
2018-05-01
We deploy Shannon's information entropy to the distribution of branching fractions in a particle decay. This serves to quantify how important a given new reported decay channel is, from the point of view of the information that it adds to the already known ones. Because the entropy is additive, one can subdivide the set of channels and discuss, for example, how much information the discovery of a new decay branching would add; or subdivide the decay distribution down to the level of individual quantum states (which can be quickly counted by the phase space). We illustrate the concept with some examples of experimentally known particle decay distributions.
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Fuel characteristics pertinent to the design of aircraft fuel systems
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Barnett, Henry C; Hibbard, R R
1953-01-01
Because of the importance of fuel properties in design of aircraft fuel systems the present report has been prepared to provide information on the characteristics of current jet fuels. In addition to information on fuel properties, discussions are presented on fuel specifications, the variations among fuels supplied under a given specification, fuel composition, and the pertinence of fuel composition and physical properties to fuel system design. In some instances the influence of variables such as pressure and temperature on physical properties is indicated. References are cited to provide fuel system designers with sources of information containing more detail than is practicable in the present report.
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Factors associated with patient preferences for communication of bad news.
Fujimori, Maiko; Akechi, Tatsuo; Uchitomi, Yosuke
2017-06-01
Communication based on patient preferences can alleviate their psychological distress and is an important part of patient-centered care for physicians who have the task of conveying bad news to cancer patients. The present study aimed to explore the demographic, medical, and psychological factors associated with patient preferences with regard to communication of bad news. Outpatients with a variety of cancers were consecutively invited to participate in our study after their follow-up medical visit. A questionnaire assessed their preferences regarding the communication of bad news, covering four factors-(1) how bad news is delivered, (2) reassurance and emotional support, (3) additional information, and (4) setting-as well as on demographic, medical, and psychosocial factors. A total of 529 outpatients with a variety of cancers completed the questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses indicated that patients who were younger, female, had greater faith in their physician, and were more highly educated placed more importance on "how bad news is delivered" than patients who were older, male, had less faith in their physician, and a lower level of education. Female patients and patients without an occupation placed more importance on "reassurance and emotional support." Younger, female, and more highly educated patients placed more importance on "additional information." Younger, female, and more highly educated patients, along with patients who weren't undergoing active treatment placed more importance on "setting." Patient preferences with regard to communication of bad news are associated with factors related to patient background. Physicians should consider these characteristics when delivering bad news and use an appropriate communication style tailored to each patient.
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Scaltritti, Michele; Balota, David A; Peressotti, Francesca
2013-01-01
Stimulus quality and word frequency produce additive effects in lexical decision performance, whereas the semantic priming effect interacts with both stimulus quality and word frequency effects. This pattern places important constraints on models of visual word recognition. In Experiment 1, all three variables were investigated within a single speeded pronunciation study. The results indicated that the joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency were dependent upon prime relatedness. In particular, an additive effect of stimulus quality and word frequency was found after related primes, and an interactive effect was found after unrelated primes. It was hypothesized that this pattern reflects an adaptive reliance on related prime information within the experimental context. In Experiment 2, related primes were eliminated from the list, and the interactive effects of stimulus quality and word frequency found following unrelated primes in Experiment 1 reverted to additive effects for the same unrelated prime conditions. The results are supportive of a flexible lexical processor that adapts to both local prime information and global list-wide context.
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Melas, Christos D; Zampetakis, Leonidas A; Dimopoulou, Anastasia; Moustakis, Vassilis
2011-08-01
Recent empirical research has utilized the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to advance the understanding of doctors' and nurses' technology acceptance in the workplace. However, the majority of the reported studies are either qualitative in nature or use small convenience samples of medical staff. Additionally, in very few studies moderators are either used or assessed despite their importance in TAM based research. The present study focuses on the application of TAM in order to explain the intention to use clinical information systems, in a random sample of 604 medical staff (534 physicians) working in 14 hospitals in Greece. We introduce physicians' specialty as a moderator in TAM and test medical staff's information and communication technology (ICT) knowledge and ICT feature demands, as external variables. The results show that TAM predicts a substantial proportion of the intention to use clinical information systems. Findings make a contribution to the literature by replicating, explaining and advancing the TAM, whereas theory is benefited by the addition of external variables and medical specialty as a moderator. Recommendations for further research are discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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McMahon, Camilla M.; Solomon, Marjorie
2015-01-01
Parent- and adolescent-report of social skill importance and social skill engagement on the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990) were assessed in higher-functioning adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Compared to parents, adolescents reported that social skills were less important. Additionally, adolescents reported that they engaged in social skills more frequently than parents reported them to be engaging in social skills. Parents, but not adolescents, reported a discrepancy between importance and engagement, such that the importance of social skills was rated higher than the frequency of adolescent engagement in social skills. These results suggest that social skills interventions for individuals with ASD may need to target awareness of social skill importance and accurate monitoring of social skill engagement. PMID:26077952
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How is quantum information localized in gravity?
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Donnelly, William; Giddings, Steven B.
2017-10-01
A notion of localization of information within quantum subsystems plays a key role in describing the physics of quantum systems, and in particular is a prerequisite for discussing important concepts such as entanglement and information transfer. While subsystems can be readily defined for finite quantum systems and in local quantum field theory, a corresponding definition for gravitational systems is significantly complicated by the apparent nonlocality arising due to gauge invariance, enforced by the constraints. A related question is whether "soft hair" encodes otherwise localized information, and the question of such localization also remains an important puzzle for proposals that gravity emerges from another structure such as a boundary field theory as in AdS/CFT. This paper describes different approaches to defining local subsystem structure, and shows that at least classically, perturbative gravity has localized subsystems based on a split structure, generalizing the split property of quantum field theory. This, and related arguments for QED, give simple explanations that in these theories there is localized information that is independent of fields outside a region, in particular so that there is no role for "soft hair" in encoding such information. Additional subtleties appear in quantum gravity. We argue that localized information exists in perturbative quantum gravity in the presence of global symmetries, but that nonperturbative dynamics is likely tied to a modification of such structure.
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van Heuven, Walter J. B.; Pitchford, Nicola J.; Ledgeway, Timothy
2017-01-01
Databases containing lexical properties on any given orthography are crucial for psycholinguistic research. In the last ten years, a number of lexical databases have been developed for Greek. However, these lack important part-of-speech information. Furthermore, the need for alternative procedures for calculating syllabic measurements and stress information, as well as combination of several metrics to investigate linguistic properties of the Greek language are highlighted. To address these issues, we present a new extensive lexical database of Modern Greek (GreekLex 2) with part-of-speech information for each word and accurate syllabification and orthographic information predictive of stress, as well as several measurements of word similarity and phonetic information. The addition of detailed statistical information about Greek part-of-speech, syllabification, and stress neighbourhood allowed novel analyses of stress distribution within different grammatical categories and syllabic lengths to be carried out. Results showed that the statistical preponderance of stress position on the pre-final syllable that is reported for Greek language is dependent upon grammatical category. Additionally, analyses showed that a proportion higher than 90% of the tokens in the database would be stressed correctly solely by relying on stress neighbourhood information. The database and the scripts for orthographic and phonological syllabification as well as phonetic transcription are available at http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/greeklex/. PMID:28231303
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Bao, Yukun; Hoque, Rakibul; Wang, Shiyu
2017-06-01
The increasing number of older people and the dissemination of health information via the Internet have emerged and both are challenging to Chinese society. Available online health information highlights the importance of decision making processes, specially in relation to the elderly who almost have no online presence and depend on their adult children's help. The researchers mostly focus on parents' health information search for their children, however, they overlook the adult children's intention to use online health information for their aged parents. This study fills this gap by extending the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify the determinants of adult children's intention to use online health information for their aged parents. Relying on survey method, the data were collected from teachers and students at different participating Universities in Wuhan, China. The Partial Least Squares (PLS), a structural equation modeling technique, was employed to test the research model. This study found that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and risk (p<0.05) were the predictors of intention to use online health information, whereas, trust (p>0.05) was not listed among the predictors. This study is a significant addition to the literature, in that it confirms the utility of the TPB with additional variables in predicting adults' children intention to use online health information for their aged parents. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Kyparissiadis, Antonios; van Heuven, Walter J B; Pitchford, Nicola J; Ledgeway, Timothy
2017-01-01
Databases containing lexical properties on any given orthography are crucial for psycholinguistic research. In the last ten years, a number of lexical databases have been developed for Greek. However, these lack important part-of-speech information. Furthermore, the need for alternative procedures for calculating syllabic measurements and stress information, as well as combination of several metrics to investigate linguistic properties of the Greek language are highlighted. To address these issues, we present a new extensive lexical database of Modern Greek (GreekLex 2) with part-of-speech information for each word and accurate syllabification and orthographic information predictive of stress, as well as several measurements of word similarity and phonetic information. The addition of detailed statistical information about Greek part-of-speech, syllabification, and stress neighbourhood allowed novel analyses of stress distribution within different grammatical categories and syllabic lengths to be carried out. Results showed that the statistical preponderance of stress position on the pre-final syllable that is reported for Greek language is dependent upon grammatical category. Additionally, analyses showed that a proportion higher than 90% of the tokens in the database would be stressed correctly solely by relying on stress neighbourhood information. The database and the scripts for orthographic and phonological syllabification as well as phonetic transcription are available at http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/greeklex/.
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Raybould, Grace; Babatunde, Opeyemi; Evans, Amy L; Jordan, Joanne L; Paskins, Zoe
2018-05-08
This systematic review identified patients have unmet information needs about the nature of osteoporosis, medication, self-management and follow-up. Clinician knowledge and attitudes appear to be of key importance in determining whether these needs are met. Unmet information needs appear to have psychosocial consequences and result in poor treatment adherence. Patient education is an integral component of the management of osteoporosis, yet patients are dissatisfied with the information they receive and see this as an area of research priority. This study aimed to describe and summarise the specific expressed information needs of patients in previously published qualitative research. Using terms relating to osteoporosis, fragility fracture and information needs, seven databases were searched. Articles were screened using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Full-text articles selected for inclusion underwent data extraction and quality appraisal. Findings were drawn together using narrative synthesis. The search identified 11,024 articles. Sixteen empirical studies were included in the review. Thematic analysis revealed three overarching themes relating to specific information needs, factors influencing whether information needs are met and the impact of unmet information needs. Specific information needs identified included the following: the nature of osteoporosis/fracture risk; medication; self-management and understanding the role of dual energy x-ray absorptiometry and follow-up. Perceived physician knowledge and attitudes, and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of patients were important factors in influencing whether information needs were met, in addition to contextual factors and the format of educational resources. Failure to elicit and address information needs appears to be associated with poor treatment adherence, deterioration of the doctor-patient relationship and important psychosocial consequences. This is the first study to describe the information needs of patients with osteoporosis and fracture, the impact of this information gap and possible solutions. Further research is needed to co-design and evaluate educational interventions with patients.
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Battery Data MI Importer Template Quick Start Guide
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Levinson, Laurie H.
2017-01-01
In order to ensure the persistent availability and reliability of test data generated over the course of the project, the M-SHELLS Project has decided to store acquired test data, as well as associated pedigree information, in the Granta Materials Intelligence (MI) database. To facilitate that effort, an importer template and associated graphical user interface (GUI) software have been developed, with this guide providing the operating instructions for their use. The template and automation software GUI are contained in the BatteryDataImporter.xlsm Excel workbook, and are to be used to import M-SHELLS summary, or pedigree, data and the associated raw test data results into an importer template-based file, formatted in such a way as to be ready for immediate upload to the Test Data: Battery Performance table of the Granta MI database. The provided GUI enables the user to select the appropriate summary data file(s), with each file containing the required information to identify any associated raw test data file(s) to be processed. In addition to describing the setup and operation of the importer template and GUI software, this guide also provides instructions for uploading processed data to the database and for viewing the data following upload.
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A Generalized Information Theoretical Model for Quantum Secret Sharing
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Bai, Chen-Ming; Li, Zhi-Hui; Xu, Ting-Ting; Li, Yong-Ming
2016-11-01
An information theoretical model for quantum secret sharing was introduced by H. Imai et al. (Quantum Inf. Comput. 5(1), 69-80 2005), which was analyzed by quantum information theory. In this paper, we analyze this information theoretical model using the properties of the quantum access structure. By the analysis we propose a generalized model definition for the quantum secret sharing schemes. In our model, there are more quantum access structures which can be realized by our generalized quantum secret sharing schemes than those of the previous one. In addition, we also analyse two kinds of important quantum access structures to illustrate the existence and rationality for the generalized quantum secret sharing schemes and consider the security of the scheme by simple examples.
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State-of-the-art research on electromagnetic information security
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Hayashi, Yu-ichi
2016-07-01
As information security is becoming increasingly significant, security at the hardware level is as important as in networks and applications. In recent years, instrumentation has become cheaper and more precise, computation has become faster, and capacities have increased. With these advancements, the threat of advanced attacks that were considerably difficult to carry out previously has increased not only in military and diplomatic fields but also in general-purpose manufactured devices. This paper focuses on the problem of the security limitations concerning electromagnetic waves (electromagnetic information security) that has rendered attack detection particularly difficult at the hardware level. In addition to reviewing the mechanisms of these information leaks and countermeasures, this paper also presents the latest research trends and standards.
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The World Bank Atlas, 1995. 27th Edition.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
World Bank, Washington, DC.
This twenty-seventh World Bank Atlas presents key social and economic information for every country on the globe organized under three headings, People, Economy, and Environment. The emphasis is on how these themes are important in the development process. A new addition is that of a new measure of GNP per capita converted at purchasing power…
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Are Future Teachers Methodically Trained to Distinguish Good from Bad Educational Software?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pjanic, Karmelita; Hamzabegovic, Jasna
2016-01-01
In the era of information technology and general digitization of society, invasion of every kind of software is evident. No matter how laudable is the existence and development of educational software, taking into account its role, its quality and whether it achieves the desired goal is very important. In addition to programming experts it is…
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Walton, Kristen L. W.; Baker, Jason C.
2009-01-01
Communication of scientific and medical information and collaborative work are important skills for students pursuing careers in health professions and other biomedical sciences. In addition, group work and active learning can increase student engagement and analytical skills. Students in our public health microbiology class were required to work…
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APPA's BOK: Are You Ready to Participate?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Reynolds, Gary L.
2013-01-01
The BOK (Body of Knowledge) is APPA's "Facilities Management" online manual. It makes information readily available, anytime and anywhere, to not only its members at all its institutions, but to anyone. Web media allows the BOK to be updated as needed, and includes links to additional resources. Because the BOK is an important part…
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Whiskey springs long-term coast redwood density management; final growth, sprout, and yield results
Lynn A. Webb; James L. Lindquist; Erik Wahl; Andrew Hubb
2012-01-01
Multi-decadal studies of commercial and precommercial thinning in redwood stands are rare and consequently of value. The Whiskey Springs study at Jackson Demonstration State Forest has a data set spanning 35 years. In addition to growth and yield response to commercial thinning, the results provide important information for evaluating regeneration and...
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Adamec, Ludwig W., Ed.
Combining the most important geographical data with historical, political, and cultural information, this work, one of six volumes designed as a tool of research and a general reference source, updates and includes a previous publication compiled in 1914 with corrections and additions of maps and considerable new material to take into account…
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What Sports Advertising Tell to Us? Semiotic Analysis
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Balci, Velittin; Özgen, Caner
2017-01-01
A very important parts of TV commercials are the messages and how they convinced people. In addition, the information given in commercials may contain messages that seem like a fact however, they may not be true. To understand these commercials it is more beneficial to observe how they say instead of what they say. In many studies (Ferreira, et…
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Allen, Johnny Mac
Increasing competition in higher education for college students has given the term "enrollment management" wide acceptance in academia. Many factors are important to the success of enrollment management, including an informed enrollment management team of upper-level administrators committed to adopting a new philosophy in addition to…
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Preference for Popular and World Music: A Review of Literature
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Williams, Matthew
2017-01-01
Reviews of literature on music preference may provide music educators with a variety of research on information, techniques, and methods to implement in the music classroom. Calls to widen the types of music used in curricula seem to underscore the importance of research exploring preference using music other than, and in addition to, Western art…
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A Review of "Intended for Pleasure: Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage"
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Huff, Scott C.
2012-01-01
"Intended for Pleasure" presents information regarding sex and sexuality oriented towards Christian couples. Written by a medical doctor with his wife, the book is particularly strong in describing common sexual problems with an additional strength of focusing not only sexual intercourse but also on the whole relationship as being important to…
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Lycopodium: growth form, morphology, and sustainability of a non-timber forest product
Elizabeth A. Nauertz; John C. Zasada
2001-01-01
Several species of Lycopodium or clubmoss belong in the category of non-timber forest products and are often gathered for a variety of traditional uses. It is important to evaluate baseline information for these species, such as abundance and frequency of occurrence, before making any management decision. In addition, understanding the biology of the...
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Wang, Alian; Haskin, Larry A.; Kuebler, Karla E.; Jolliff, Bradley L.; Walsh, Maud M.
2001-01-01
The detection of reduced carbon in martian rocks and soils is important in the search for evidence of life. A Raman spectroscopic study of South Africa chert reveals that 50 ppm carbon or less can be determined by this technique. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
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9 CFR 98.34 - Import permits for poultry semen and animal semen.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-01-01
... eartag; the region of origin; the name and address of the exporter; the port of embarkation in the foreign region; the mode of transportation, route of travel, and the port of entry in the United States... delivery will be made from the port of entry. Additional information may be required in the form of...
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9 CFR 98.34 - Import permits for poultry semen and animal semen.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-01-01
... eartag; the region of origin; the name and address of the exporter; the port of embarkation in the foreign region; the mode of transportation, route of travel, and the port of entry in the United States... delivery will be made from the port of entry. Additional information may be required in the form of...
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The Importance of Decision Making: A Gifted Case Report
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nauta, Noks; Ronner, Sieuwke; Groeneveld, Benno
2009-01-01
In this article the story of a fictional young university-educated woman is presented who struggles with making choices in her career and in her life. In this case report background information on gifted people at work is provided. In addition to that jobs and companies which are appropriate for highly gifted are mentioned. Besides that…
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Imaging experiment: The Viking Lander
Mutch, T.A.; Binder, A.B.; Huck, F.O.; Levinthal, E.C.; Morris, E.C.; Sagan, C.; Young, A.T.
1972-01-01
The Viking Lander Imaging System will consist of two identical facsimile cameras. Each camera has a high-resolution mode with an instantaneous field of view of 0.04??, and survey and color modes with instantaneous fields of view of 0.12??. Cameras are positioned one meter apart to provide stereoscopic coverage of the near-field. The Imaging Experiment will provide important information about the morphology, composition, and origin of the Martian surface and atmospheric features. In addition, lander pictures will provide supporting information for other experiments in biology, organic chemistry, meteorology, and physical properties. ?? 1972.
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Quality and Safety in Health Care, Part XXI: PSOs and the Vascular Quality Initiative.
Harolds, Jay A
2017-04-01
Congress provided for the formation of patient safety organizations (PSOs) so that physicians and other providers would come forward to improve the safety and quality of health care. Important legal safeguards for the providers and patients were put in place for PSOs. The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) PSO operates the Vascular Quality Initiative. The latter gathers information from certain commonly done vascular procedures. First, information is collected so a risk adjustment determination of each individual patient can be done. Then the details of every procedure are recorded for later analysis of the processes of the patient's care. In addition, outcome analysis from all procedures is carried out. This registry is an important source of data for research improving health care safety and quality.
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Devadiga, Arishka
2014-01-01
Dental records are essential for dentist and patient protection, and its maintenance is considered an ethical and legal obligation of the dentist: Ethical, because it satisfies the duty of care that the dentist has toward his patient and legal, as it is an investment for future protection against medico-legal complications. In addition to its legal and ethical role, the dental fraternity in India is slowly waking up to its importance in forensic dentistry. Dentists could play a vital role in assisting forensic investigators in providing information that would help in the identification of perpetrators or victims of crime and natural or manmade disaster situations. This information would be easily available and accessible through well-maintained patient records under dental care. PMID:24695875
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Pharmacotherapy for hyperglycemia in pregnancy - Do oral agents have a place?
Corcoy, Rosa; Balsells, Montserrat; García-Patterson, Apolonia; Shmueli, Anat; Hadar, Eran
2018-04-19
Diabetes is a frequent condition in pregnancy and achieving adequate glycemic control is of paramount importance. Insulin treatment is the gold standard, oral agents are more attractive, but their safety and efficiency should be a prerequisite for their use. We have more information regarding treatment of women with gestational diabetes mellitus where glyburide can induce a picture of fetal hyperinsulinism (higher birthweight and more neonatal hypoglycemia) whereas metformin requires supplemental insulin in a larger proportion of women but achieves satisfactory perinatal outcomes with the exception of preterm birth. Information in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus is much more limited but also favors metformin. Combinations provide additional possibilities. However, as to long-term outcomes, we have no information on the impact of exposure to glyburide and it is still unclear if in utero exposure to metformin will have any effect on the offspring and the direction of this effect. Women prefer oral agents, indicating the need of additional studies. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Comparing object recognition from binary and bipolar edge images for visual prostheses
Jung, Jae-Hyun; Pu, Tian; Peli, Eli
2017-01-01
Visual prostheses require an effective representation method due to the limited display condition which has only 2 or 3 levels of grayscale in low resolution. Edges derived from abrupt luminance changes in images carry essential information for object recognition. Typical binary (black and white) edge images have been used to represent features to convey essential information. However, in scenes with a complex cluttered background, the recognition rate of the binary edge images by human observers is limited and additional information is required. The polarity of edges and cusps (black or white features on a gray background) carries important additional information; the polarity may provide shape from shading information missing in the binary edge image. This depth information may be restored by using bipolar edges. We compared object recognition rates from 16 binary edge images and bipolar edge images by 26 subjects to determine the possible impact of bipolar filtering in visual prostheses with 3 or more levels of grayscale. Recognition rates were higher with bipolar edge images and the improvement was significant in scenes with complex backgrounds. The results also suggest that erroneous shape from shading interpretation of bipolar edges resulting from pigment rather than boundaries of shape may confound the recognition. PMID:28458481
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Jennings, Jacky M; Stover, Jeffrey A; Bair-Merritt, Megan H; Fichtenberg, Caroline; Munoz, Mary Grace; Maziad, Rafiq; Ketemepi, Sherry Johnson; Zenilman, Jonathan
2009-01-01
Integrated infectious disease surveillance information systems have the potential to provide important new surveillance capacities and business efficiencies for local health departments. We conducted a case study at a large city health department of the primary computer-based infectious disease surveillance information systems during a 10-year period to identify the major challenges for information integration across the systems. The assessment included key informant interviews and evaluations of the computer-based surveillance information systems used for acute communicable diseases, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis. Assessments were conducted in 1998 with a follow-up in 2008. Assessments specifically identified and described the primary computer-based surveillance information system, any duplicative information systems, and selected variables collected. Persistent challenges to information integration across the information systems included the existence of duplicative data systems, differences in the variables used to collect similar information, and differences in basic architecture. The assessments identified a number of challenges for information integration across the infectious disease surveillance information systems at this city health department. The results suggest that local disease control programs use computer-based surveillance information systems that were not designed for data integration. To the extent that integration provides important new surveillance capacities and business efficiencies, we recommend that patient-centric information systems be designed that provide all the epidemiologic, clinical, and research needs in one system. In addition, the systems should include a standard system of elements and fields across similar surveillance systems.
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Panteli, Dimitra; Wagner, Caroline; Verheyen, Frank; Busse, Reinhard
2015-08-01
Continuity of care is important for outcomes and patient satisfaction and includes additional considerations in the context of cross-border health care. Although this has been discussed in research and was picked up in the recently transposed Directive on patients' rights (2011/24/EU), there is limited evidence about related issues actually encountered by patients crossing borders. An anonymous postal survey was carried out by the Techniker Krankenkasse, one of the largest sickness funds in Germany. The questionnaire was sent to 45 189 individuals who had received treatment in EU/EEA countries and included items on relational, management and informational continuity. The survey had a response rate of 41% (n = 17 543). Of those respondents who had travelled for care (n = 3307), ∼19% (n = 570) did so due to a relationship of trust with a given provider. Only 8% of all respondents required emergency follow-up services due to complications, the majority of which was obtained back in Germany. Twelve percentage of those who were prescribed medication abroad (n = 4208) reported problems, spanning unknown products, dispensation and reimbursement. Information exchange between providers across borders was rare and largely carried out by the patients themselves. Although relational continuity may be important to specific groups of patients travelling for care, it is primarily informational continuity and its interrelation with management continuity that need to be addressed in the cross-border context. Information exchange should be endorsed at European level. Additional focus is required on informing patients about documentation rights and requirements and providing health records that are comprehensive and comprehensible. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.
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2010-01-01
Background Primer and probe sequences are the main components of nucleic acid-based detection systems. Biologists use primers and probes for different tasks, some related to the diagnosis and prescription of infectious diseases. The biological literature is the main information source for empirically validated primer and probe sequences. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important for researchers to navigate this important information. In this paper, we present a four-phase method for extracting and annotating primer/probe sequences from the literature. These phases are: (1) convert each document into a tree of paper sections, (2) detect the candidate sequences using a set of finite state machine-based recognizers, (3) refine problem sequences using a rule-based expert system, and (4) annotate the extracted sequences with their related organism/gene information. Results We tested our approach using a test set composed of 297 manuscripts. The extracted sequences and their organism/gene annotations were manually evaluated by a panel of molecular biologists. The results of the evaluation show that our approach is suitable for automatically extracting DNA sequences, achieving precision/recall rates of 97.98% and 95.77%, respectively. In addition, 76.66% of the detected sequences were correctly annotated with their organism name. The system also provided correct gene-related information for 46.18% of the sequences assigned a correct organism name. Conclusions We believe that the proposed method can facilitate routine tasks for biomedical researchers using molecular methods to diagnose and prescribe different infectious diseases. In addition, the proposed method can be expanded to detect and extract other biological sequences from the literature. The extracted information can also be used to readily update available primer/probe databases or to create new databases from scratch. PMID:20682041
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Ground-plane influences on size estimation in early visual processing.
Champion, Rebecca A; Warren, Paul A
2010-07-21
Ground-planes have an important influence on the perception of 3D space (Gibson, 1950) and it has been shown that the assumption that a ground-plane is present in the scene plays a role in the perception of object distance (Bruno & Cutting, 1988). Here, we investigate whether this influence is exerted at an early stage of processing, to affect the rapid estimation of 3D size. Participants performed a visual search task in which they searched for a target object that was larger or smaller than distracter objects. Objects were presented against a background that contained either a frontoparallel or slanted 3D surface, defined by texture gradient cues. We measured the effect on search performance of target location within the scene (near vs. far) and how this was influenced by scene orientation (which, e.g., might be consistent with a ground or ceiling plane, etc.). In addition, we investigated how scene orientation interacted with texture gradient information (indicating surface slant), to determine how these separate cues to scene layout were combined. We found that the difference in target detection performance between targets at the front and rear of the simulated scene was maximal when the scene was consistent with a ground-plane - consistent with the use of an elevation cue to object distance. In addition, we found a significant increase in the size of this effect when texture gradient information (indicating surface slant) was present, but no interaction between texture gradient and scene orientation information. We conclude that scene orientation plays an important role in the estimation of 3D size at an early stage of processing, and suggest that elevation information is linearly combined with texture gradient information for the rapid estimation of 3D size. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Joubert, Karin; Githinji, Esther
2014-02-01
The implementation of early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) programmes is necessary in order to facilitate the early identification of hearing loss. An important component of EHDI is parental education. International and national guidelines stipulating that comprehensive, unbiased and appropriate information pamphlets should be provided to parents as part of EHDI programmes, however little is known about the availability and readability of such materials in South Africa. The objectives of this study were therefore to determine the availability of information pamphlets on hearing and hearing loss in children at public hospitals in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. In addition, the quality and readability levels of these pamphlets were determined. A non-experimental, descriptive research design was employed for this study. Information on the availability of leaflets at public health hospitals was obtained through a telephonic survey. Twenty-one information pamphlets available at these hospitals were then evaluated to determine the quality and readability levels. It was found that 73% of audiology departments at public hospitals in Gauteng had information pamphlets available on hearing and hearing loss in children. Of the pamphlets evaluated, the majority were rated to 'present with serious problems' questioning the quality of the content included. In addition, it was found that on average the readability level of these pamphlets were at a sixth-grade level, much higher that the recommended fourth-grade reading level. The need for development of quality educational material focused on providing parents with unbiased, comprehensive and appropriate information on hearing and hearing loss in children has been highlighted. Proposed guidelines were recommended to assist audiologists in this endeavour. The importance of providing appropriate parental educational materials for the success of EHDI in South Africa should not be underestimated. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Laboratory Spectroscopy of Ices of Astrophysical Interest
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Hudson, Reggie; Moore, M. H.
2011-01-01
Ongoing and future NASA and ESA astronomy missions need detailed information on the spectra of a variety of molecular ices to help establish the identity and abundances of molecules observed in astronomical data. Examples of condensed-phase molecules already detected on cold surfaces include H2O, CO, CO2, N2, NH3, CH4, SO2, O2, and O3. In addition, strong evidence exists for the solid-phase nitriles HCN, HC3N, and C2N2 in Titan's atmosphere. The wavelength region over which these identifications have been made is roughly 0.5 to 100 micron. Searches for additional features of complex carbon-containing species are in progress. Existing and future observations often impose special requirements on the information that comes from the laboratory. For example, the measurement of spectra, determination of integrated band strengths, and extraction of complex refractive indices of ices (and icy mixtures) in both amorphous and crystalline phases at relevant temperatures are all important tasks. In addition, the determination of the index of refraction of amorphous and crystalline ices in the visible region is essential for the extraction of infrared optical constants. Similarly, the measurement of spectra of ions and molecules embedded in relevant ices is important. This laboratory review will examine some of the existing experimental work and capabilities in these areas along with what more may be needed to meet current and future NASA and ESA planetary needs.
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Ariff, Mohd Shoki Md; Shan, Tay Kai; Zakuan, Norhayati; Ishak, Nawawi; Ridzuan Wahi, Mohd
2014-06-01
E-satisfaction (eSAT) is an important success factor of online service providers such as social networking sites (SNSs). The utilitarian and hedonic information systems are crucial in determining users' eSAT of SNSs, especially among young users. The utilitarian aspect of an information system is productivity-oriented which aims to enhance the users' task performance, and it is important in measuring eSAT of SNSs. In this study, the original constructs of Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) of TAM of utilitarian information system was first developed in this research framework. The use of SNSs, such as Facebook, is pleasure-oriented, in which self-fulfilling values to the users are important in determining users' satisfaction towards the SNSs. Therefore, Perceived Enjoyment (PE) of hedonic information system is added to the framework. Thus, the research framework of this study includes both utilitarian (PEOU and PU) and hedonic (PE) aspects of information systems to determine Malaysian young users' eSAT in the usage of Facebook, a social networking site. In this framework, the effects of PEOU, PU and PE on eSAT in the usage of Facebook are examined among Facebook's users in the age of 18 - 24 years old. The effects of PEOU on PU and PE are also examined. Online questionnaire survey was employed and a total of 384 sets of questionnaires were gathered from users of Facebook. The results indicated that PEOU has positive effects on PU and PE in the context of Facebook. In addition, PEOU, PU and PE are also found to have positive effects on eSAT. PE of hedonic information system exerted higher effect on eSAT, compared to PEOU and PU of utilitarian information system, highlighting the importance of pleasure orientation in the usage of Facebook of SNSs. Managerial and theoretical implications of the study are discussed in term of measuring and enhancing users' eSAT in the usage of SNSs, particularly Facebook.
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The role of inhibition for working memory processes: ERP evidence from a short-term storage task.
Getzmann, Stephan; Wascher, Edmund; Schneider, Daniel
2018-05-01
Human working memory is the central unit for short-term storage of information. In addition to the selection and adequate storage of relevant information, the suppression of irrelevant stimuli from the environment seems to be of importance for working memory processes. To learn more about the interplay of information uptake and inhibition of irrelevant information, the present study used ERP measures and a short-term storage and retrieval task, in which pairs of either numbers or letters had to be compared. Random sequences of four stimuli (two numbers and two letters) were presented, with either the numbers or the letters being relevant for comparison. The analysis of ERPs to each of the four stimuli indicated more pronounced P2 and P3b amplitudes for relevant than irrelevant stimuli. In contrast, the N2 (reflecting inhibitory control) was only elicited by irrelevant stimuli. Moreover, the N2 amplitude of the second irrelevant stimulus was associated with behavioral performance, indicating the importance of inhibition of task-irrelevant stimuli for working memory processes. In sum, the findings demonstrate the role of cognitive control mechanisms for protecting relevant contents in working memory against irrelevant information. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
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Information needs of adolescent and young adult cancer patients and their parent-carers.
McCarthy, Maria C; McNeil, Robyn; Drew, Sarah; Orme, Lisa; Sawyer, Susan M
2018-05-01
This study aimed to explore health-related information needs of adolescent and young adults (AYAs) and their parent-carers and to examine demographic and clinical variables associated with unmet information needs, including patient activation. In a national cross-sectional study, 196 Australian AYAs diagnosed with cancer between 15 and 25 years and within 24 months of diagnosis and 204 parent-carers reported on total and unmet needs for cancer and health-related information. Fifty-one percent of AYAs were male, 81% had completed treatment and 86% were treated in adult hospitals. AYAs and parents reported high levels of total need for information. The mean number of unmet needs was 5.63 and 6.82 for AYAs and parents, respectively. AYAs reported the highest unmet needs in relation to their cancer (e.g. late effects and cancer recurrence, and having children in the future). The highest unmet parent information needs were related to medical information about their child as well as information on financial issues for their children and themselves. Unmet information need was associated with psychological distress (posttraumatic stress symptoms) for AYAs and parents. Patient activation was negatively associated with unmet information needs for AYAs. Demographic and treatment variables were not significantly associated with information needs. These findings indicate the importance of information needs for AYAs and their carers. The association between patient activation and information needs suggests that promoting young people's engagement with healthcare is a key opportunity within AYA care. Parent information needs and associated emotional distress additionally highlight the importance of family-centered care.
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DAM Safety and Deformation Monitoring in Dams
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kalkan, Y.; Bilgi, S.; Potts, L.; Miiama, J.; Mahgoub, M.; Rahman, S.
2013-12-01
Water is the life and necessity to water is increasing day by day with respect to the World population, rising of living standards and destruction of nature. Thus, the importance of water and water structures have been increasing gradually. Dams are among the most important engineering structures used for water supplies, flood controls, agricultural purposes as well as drinking and hydroelectric power. There are about 150.000 large size dams in the World. Especially after the Second World War, higher and larger capacity dams have been constructed. Dams create certain risks like the other manmade structures. No one knows precisely how many dam failures have occurred in the World, whereas hundreds of dam failures have occurred throughout the U.S. history. Some basic physical data are very important for assessing the safety and performance of dams. These are movement, water pressure, seepage, reservoir and tail-water elevations, local seismic activities, total pressure, stress and strain, internal concrete temperature, ambient temperature and precipitation. These physical data are measured and monitored by the instruments and equipment. Dams and their surroundings have to be monitored by using essential methods at periodic time intervals in order to determine the possible changes that may occur over the time. Monitoring programs typically consist of; surveillance or visual observation. These programs on dams provide information for evaluating the dam's performance related to the design intent and expected changes that could affect the safety performance of the dam. Additionally, these programs are used for investigating and evaluating the abnormal or degrading performance where any remedial action is necessary. Geodetic and non-geodetic methods are used for monitoring. Monitoring the performance of the dams is critical for producing and maintaining the safe dams. This study provides some information, safety and the techniques about the deformation monitoring of the dams. Therefore, this study gives essential information about the dam safety and related analysis. Monitoring of dams is crucial since deformation might have occurred as a result of erosion, water load, hydraulic gradients, and water saturation. The case study is the deformation measurements of Ataturk Dam. This dam was constructed on Firat River and it has importance for providing drinking water, hydroelectric power and especially irrigation. In addition, brief information is given about this dam and the methods of geodetic and non-geodetic monitoring measurements applied by various disciplines. Geodetic monitoring methods are emphasized in this study. Some results have been obtained from this method for nearly seven years are presented in this work. In addition, some deformation predictions have been made especially for the cross sections where the maximum deformations took place.
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Developing a simplified consent form for biobanking.
Beskow, Laura M; Friedman, Joëlle Y; Hardy, N Chantelle; Lin, Li; Weinfurt, Kevin P
2010-10-08
Consent forms have lengthened over time and become harder for participants to understand. We sought to demonstrate the feasibility of creating a simplified consent form for biobanking that comprises the minimum information necessary to meet ethical and regulatory requirements. We then gathered preliminary data concerning its content from hypothetical biobank participants. We followed basic principles of plain-language writing and incorporated into a 2-page form (not including the signature page) those elements of information required by federal regulations and recommended by best practice guidelines for biobanking. We then recruited diabetes patients from community-based practices and randomized half (n = 56) to read the 2-page form, first on paper and then a second time on a tablet computer. Participants were encouraged to use "More information" buttons on the electronic version whenever they had questions or desired further information. These buttons led to a series of "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) that contained additional detailed information. Participants were asked to identify specific sentences in the FAQs they thought would be important if they were considering taking part in a biorepository. On average, participants identified 7 FAQ sentences as important (mean 6.6, SD 14.7, range: 0-71). No one sentence was highlighted by a majority of participants; further, 34 (60.7%) participants did not highlight any FAQ sentences. Our preliminary findings suggest that our 2-page form contains the information that most prospective participants identify as important. Combining simplified forms with supplemental material for those participants who desire more information could help minimize consent form length and complexity, allowing the most substantively material information to be better highlighted and enabling potential participants to read the form and ask questions more effectively.
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Lu, Xiaodong; Arfaoui, Helene; Mori, Kinji
In highly dynamic electronic commerce environment, the need for adaptability and rapid response time to information service systems has become increasingly important. In order to cope with the continuously changing conditions of service provision and utilization, Faded Information Field (FIF) has been proposed. FIF is a distributed information service system architecture, sustained by push/pull mobile agents to bring high-assurance of services through a recursive demand-oriented provision of the most popular information closer to the users to make a tradeoff between the cost of information service allocation and access. In this paper, based on the analysis of the relationship that exists among the users distribution, information provision and access time, we propose the technology for FIF design to resolve the competing requirements of users and providers to improve users' access time. In addition, to achieve dynamic load balancing with changing users preference, the autonomous information reallocation technology is proposed. We proved the effectiveness of the proposed technology through the simulation and comparison with the conventional system.
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A Layered Trust Information Security Architecture
de Oliveira Albuquerque, Robson; García Villalba, Luis Javier; Sandoval Orozco, Ana Lucila; Buiati, Fábio; Kim, Tai-Hoon
2014-01-01
Information can be considered the most important asset of any modern organization. Securing this information involves preserving confidentially, integrity and availability, the well-known CIA triad. In addition, information security is a risk management job; the task is to manage the inherent risks of information disclosure. Current information security platforms do not deal with the different facets of information technology. This paper presents a layered trust information security architecture (TISA) and its creation was motivated by the need to consider information and security from different points of view in order to protect it. This paper also extends and discusses security information extensions as a way of helping the CIA triad. Furthermore, this paper suggests information representation and treatment elements, operations and support components that can be integrated to show the various risk sources when dealing with both information and security. An overview of how information is represented and treated nowadays in the technological environment is shown, and the reason why it is so difficult to guarantee security in all aspects of the information pathway is discussed. PMID:25470490
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Crawford-Williams, Fiona; Steen, Mary; Esterman, Adrian; Fielder, Andrea; Mikocka-Walus, Antonina
2015-04-01
While it is well established that alcohol can cross the placenta to the foetus and can affect an infant's development, many women continue to drink during pregnancy. For this reason it is important to determine what information is being provided, what information may be missing, and the preferred sources of information on this issue. In order to improve prevention strategies, we sought to understand the knowledge and experiences of pregnant women and their partners regarding the effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. The current study utilised a qualitative study design in order to gain insight into the views and experiences of pregnant women, newly delivered mothers and their partners. Focus groups examined the participant's knowledge about the effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, the sources of information on this issue, and the psycho-social influences on their drinking behaviour. Five focus groups were conducted involving a total of 21 participants (17 female). A six-stage thematic analysis framework was used to analyse all focus group discussions in a systematic way. Seven major themes were identified from the focus group data: 1) knowledge of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders; 2) message content and sources; 3) healthcare system; 4) society and culture; 5) partner role; 6) evaluation of risk; and 7) motivation. The findings indicated that although the majority of participants knew not to drink alcohol in pregnancy they had limited information on the specific harmful effects. In addition, routine enquiry and the provision of information by health care professionals were seen as lacking. The findings of this research provide important insights in to the relationship between pregnant women, their partners, and their healthcare providers. Several recommendations can be made on the basis of these findings. Firstly, public health messages and educational materials need to provide clear and consistent information about the effects of alcohol consumption on the developing baby. Additionally, more thorough and consistent routine enquiry for alcohol consumption in pregnant women needs to occur. Finally, it is important to ensure ongoing education for health professionals on the issue of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.
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Biedrzycki, Barbara A
2011-07-01
To describe the adequacy of research information among people with cancer at the time they accept or decline participation in a cancer clinical trial. Cross-sectional, descriptive. An urban, academic, National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. 197 patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer. Mailed survey; self-reported data. Adequacy of research information (actual knowledge, perceived adequacy of information, and perceived understanding), cancer clinical trial participation, and satisfaction with the decision to participate. Most respondents (88%) perceived themselves as having adequate information to make an informed decision regarding cancer clinical trial participation. In addition, 35% demonstrated adequate knowledge of basic clinical research. Patients decide to accept or decline cancer clinical trials without having adequate knowledge. Nurses have an important role in educating patients regarding cancer clinical trials. The ideal teachable moment may not occur at the time of diagnosis; other less stressful opportunities may present when the patient is more receptive.
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Development of pair distribution function analysis
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Vondreele, R.; Billinge, S.; Kwei, G.
1996-09-01
This is the final report of a 3-year LDRD project at LANL. It has become more and more evident that structural coherence in the CuO{sub 2} planes of high-{Tc} superconducting materials over some intermediate length scale (nm range) is important to superconductivity. In recent years, the pair distribution function (PDF) analysis of powder diffraction data has been developed for extracting structural information on these length scales. This project sought to expand and develop this technique, use it to analyze neutron powder diffraction data, and apply it to problems. In particular, interest is in the area of high-{Tc} superconductors, although wemore » planned to extend the study to the closely related perovskite ferroelectric materials andother materials where the local structure affects the properties where detailed knowledge of the local and intermediate range structure is important. In addition, we planned to carry out single crystal experiments to look for diffuse scattering. This information augments the information from the PDF.« less
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From Objects to Landmarks: The Function of Visual Location Information in Spatial Navigation
Chan, Edgar; Baumann, Oliver; Bellgrove, Mark A.; Mattingley, Jason B.
2012-01-01
Landmarks play an important role in guiding navigational behavior. A host of studies in the last 15 years has demonstrated that environmental objects can act as landmarks for navigation in different ways. In this review, we propose a parsimonious four-part taxonomy for conceptualizing object location information during navigation. We begin by outlining object properties that appear to be important for a landmark to attain salience. We then systematically examine the different functions of objects as navigational landmarks based on previous behavioral and neuroanatomical findings in rodents and humans. Evidence is presented showing that single environmental objects can function as navigational beacons, or act as associative or orientation cues. In addition, we argue that extended surfaces or boundaries can act as landmarks by providing a frame of reference for encoding spatial information. The present review provides a concise taxonomy of the use of visual objects as landmarks in navigation and should serve as a useful reference for future research into landmark-based spatial navigation. PMID:22969737
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Chasing the negawatt: visualization for sustainable living.
Bartram, Lyn; Rodgers, Johnny; Muise, Kevin
2010-01-01
Energy and resource management is an important and growing research area at the intersection of conservation, sustainable design, alternative energy production, and social behavior. Energy consumption can be significantly reduced by simply changing how occupants inhabit and use buildings, with little or no additional costs. Reflecting this fact, an emerging measure of grid energy capacity is the negawatt: a unit of power saved by increasing efficiency or reducing consumption.Visualization clearly has an important role in enabling residents to understand and manage their energy use. This role is tied to providing real-time feedback of energy use, which encourages people to conserve energy.The challenge is to understand not only what kinds of visualizations are most effective but also where and how they fit into a larger information system to help residents make informed decisions. In this article, we also examine the effective display of home energy-use data using a net-zero solar-powered home (North House) and the Adaptive Living Interface System (ALIS), North House's information backbone.
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Gärling, T
1996-09-01
How people choose between sequences of actions was investigated in an everyday errand-planning task. In this task subjects chose the preferred sequence of performing a number of errands in a fictitious environment. Two experiments were conducted with undergraduate students serving as subjects. One group searched information about each alternative. The same information was directly available to another group. In Experiment 1 the results showed that for two errands subjects took into account all attributes describing the errands, thus suggesting a tradeoff between priority, wait time, and travel distance with priority being the most important. Consistent with this finding predominantly intraalternative information search was observed. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 for three errands. In addition choice outcomes, information search, and sequence of responding suggested that for more than two actions sequence choices are made in stages.
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Kim, Su Hyun; Utz, Sonja
2018-02-28
Low health literacy has been recognized as a potential barrier to obtaining knowledge and maintaining self-care in older people. However, little is known about information-seeking preference in relation to health literacy among older people. The aim of the present study was to understand the influence of health literacy on the information-seeking preference of older people. A total of 129 community-residing Korean older people completed a survey in 2016. The findings revealed that health literacy was a significant predictor of information-seeking preference in older people after controlling for demographic and illness variables. Our study highlights the important need to incorporate strategies to increase the desire for information seeking in older people, in addition to adopting communication strategies that address low health literacy. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.
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Snow, Stephanie L; Panton, Rachel L; Butler, Lorna J; Wilke, Derek R; Rutledge, Robert D H; Bell, David G; Rendon, Ricardo A
2007-05-01
To determine whether there is a gap between what patients know about early-stage prostate cancer and what they need to know to make treatment decisions, and whether the information patients receive varies depending on their treating physician. Needs assessment was performed using a questionnaire consisting of 41 statements about early-stage prostate cancer. Statements were divided into six thematic subsets. Participants used a 5-point Likert scale to rate statements in terms of knowledge of the information and importance to a treatment decision. Information gaps were defined as significant difference between the importance and knowledge of an item. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic subscale scores. The information gap was analyzed by a paired t test for each thematic subset. One-way analyses of variance were used to detect any differences on the basis of treating physician. Questionnaires were distributed to 270 men (135 treated by radical prostatectomy, 135 by external beam radiotherapy). The return rate was 51% (138 questionnaires). A statistically significant information gap was found among all six thematic subsets, with five of the six P values less than 0.0001. Statistically significant variation was observed in the amount of information patients received from their treating physicians among four of the thematic subsets. There is an information gap between what early-stage prostate cancer patients need to know and the information they receive. Additionally there is a difference in the amount of information provided by different physicians.
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The evolution of information-driven safeguards
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Budlong-sylvester, Kory W; Pilat, Joseph F
2010-10-14
From the adoption of the Model Additional Protocol and integrated safeguards in the 1990s, to current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) efforts to deal with cases of noncompliance, the question of how the Agency can best utilize all the information available to it remains of great interest and increasing importance. How might the concept of 'information-driven' safeguards (IDS) evolve in the future? The ability of the Agency to identify and resolve anomalies has always been important and has emerged as a core Agency function in recent years as the IAEA has had to deal with noncompliance in Iran and themore » Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Future IAEA safeguards implementation should be designed with the goal of facilitating and enhancing this vital capability. In addition, the Agency should utilize all the information it possesses, including its in-house assessments and expertise, to direct its safeguards activities. At the State level, knowledge of proliferation possibilities is currently being used to guide the analytical activities of the Agency and to develop inspection plans. How far can this approach be extended? Does it apply across State boundaries? Should it dictate a larger fraction of safeguards activities? Future developments in IDS should utilize the knowledge resident within the Agency to ensure that safeguards resources flow to where they are most needed in order to address anomalies first and foremost, but also to provide greater confidence in conclusions regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear activities. The elements of such a system and related implementation issues are assessed in this paper.« less
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Opinion Dynamics with Disagreement and Modulated Information
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Sîrbu, Alina; Loreto, Vittorio; Servedio, Vito D. P.; Tria, Francesca
2013-04-01
Opinion dynamics concerns social processes through which populations or groups of individuals agree or disagree on specific issues. As such, modelling opinion dynamics represents an important research area that has been progressively acquiring relevance in many different domains. Existing approaches have mostly represented opinions through discrete binary or continuous variables by exploring a whole panoply of cases: e.g. independence, noise, external effects, multiple issues. In most of these cases the crucial ingredient is an attractive dynamics through which similar or similar enough agents get closer. Only rarely the possibility of explicit disagreement has been taken into account (i.e., the possibility for a repulsive interaction among individuals' opinions), and mostly for discrete or 1-dimensional opinions, through the introduction of additional model parameters. Here we introduce a new model of opinion formation, which focuses on the interplay between the possibility of explicit disagreement, modulated in a self-consistent way by the existing opinions' overlaps between the interacting individuals, and the effect of external information on the system. Opinions are modelled as a vector of continuous variables related to multiple possible choices for an issue. Information can be modulated to account for promoting multiple possible choices. Numerical results show that extreme information results in segregation and has a limited effect on the population, while milder messages have better success and a cohesion effect. Additionally, the initial condition plays an important role, with the population forming one or multiple clusters based on the initial average similarity between individuals, with a transition point depending on the number of opinion choices.
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Estimating Local Chlamydia Incidence and Prevalence Using Surveillance Data
White, Peter J.
2017-01-01
Background: Understanding patterns of chlamydia prevalence is important for addressing inequalities and planning cost-effective control programs. Population-based surveys are costly; the best data for England come from the Natsal national surveys, which are only available once per decade, and are nationally representative but not powered to compare prevalence in different localities. Prevalence estimates at finer spatial and temporal scales are required. Methods: We present a method for estimating local prevalence by modeling the infection, testing, and treatment processes. Prior probability distributions for parameters describing natural history and treatment-seeking behavior are informed by the literature or calibrated using national prevalence estimates. By combining them with surveillance data on numbers of chlamydia tests and diagnoses, we obtain estimates of local screening rates, incidence, and prevalence. We illustrate the method by application to data from England. Results: Our estimates of national prevalence by age group agree with the Natsal-3 survey. They could be improved by additional information on the number of diagnosed cases that were asymptomatic. There is substantial local-level variation in prevalence, with more infection in deprived areas. Incidence in each sex is strongly correlated with prevalence in the other. Importantly, we find that positivity (the proportion of tests which were positive) does not provide a reliable proxy for prevalence. Conclusion: This approach provides local chlamydia prevalence estimates from surveillance data, which could inform analyses to identify and understand local prevalence patterns and assess local programs. Estimates could be more accurate if surveillance systems recorded additional information, including on symptoms. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B211. PMID:28306613
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A randomized trial of pictorial versus prose-based medication information pamphlets.
Thompson, Andrew E; Goldszmidt, Mark A; Schwartz, Alan J; Bashook, Philip G
2010-03-01
The goal of this study was to compare prose and pictorial-based information pamphlets about the medication methotrexate in the domains of free recall, cued recall, comprehension and utility. A single blind, randomized trial of picture versus prose-based information pamphlets including 100 participants aged 18-65 years of age, who had not completed high school, could read English, and had no prior knowledge about methotrexate. Superiority of pamphlet type was assessed using immediate free recall, cued recall and comprehension. There were no differences between picture and prose pamphlets in free recall, cued recall, and comprehension either immediately or after a 1-week interval. Immediate free recall of important information was 17-26%; free recall fell even lower to 7-16% after 1 week. The pictorial pamphlet was preferred over the prose-based pamphlet. This study found no benefit in free recall, cued recall, or comprehension through the addition of pictograms to a simple prose-based medication pamphlet. In order for them to be effective in clinical practice, even simple medication information pamphlets that have been assessed for patients' ability to comprehend them cannot be used as the sole means for conveying important medication-related information to patients. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Challenges and Issues of Radiation Damage Tools for Space Missions
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Tripathi, Ram; Wilson, John
2006-04-01
NASA has a new vision for space exploration in the 21st Century encompassing a broad range of human and robotic missions including missions to Moon, Mars and beyond. Exposure from the hazards of severe space radiation in deep space long duration missions is `the show stopper.' Thus, protection from the hazards of severe space radiation is of paramount importance for the new vision. Accurate risk assessments critically depend on the accuracy of the input information about the interaction of ions with materials, electronics and tissues. A huge amount of essential experimental information for all the ions in space, across the periodic table, for a wide range of energies of several (up to a Trillion) orders of magnitude are needed for the radiation protection engineering for space missions that is simply not available (due to the high costs) and probably never will be. In addition, the accuracy of the input information and database is very critical and of paramount importance for space exposure assessments particularly in view the agency's vision for deep space exploration. The vital role and importance of nuclear physics, related challenges and issues, for space missions will be discussed, and a few examples will be presented for space missions.
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Genetic exchange in eukaryotes through horizontal transfer: connected by the mobilome.
Wallau, Gabriel Luz; Vieira, Cristina; Loreto, Élgion Lúcio Silva
2018-01-01
All living species contain genetic information that was once shared by their common ancestor. DNA is being inherited through generations by vertical transmission (VT) from parents to offspring and from ancestor to descendant species. This process was considered the sole pathway by which biological entities exchange inheritable information. However, Horizontal Transfer (HT), the exchange of genetic information by other means than parents to offspring, was discovered in prokaryotes along with strong evidence showing that it is a very important process by which prokaryotes acquire new genes. For some time now, it has been a scientific consensus that HT events were rare and non-relevant for evolution of eukaryotic species, but there is growing evidence supporting that HT is an important and frequent phenomenon in eukaryotes as well. Here, we will discuss the latest findings regarding HT among eukaryotes, mainly HT of transposons (HTT), establishing HTT once and for all as an important phenomenon that should be taken into consideration to fully understand eukaryotes genome evolution. In addition, we will discuss the latest development methods to detect such events in a broader scale and highlight the new approaches which should be pursued by researchers to fill the knowledge gaps regarding HTT among eukaryotes.
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The US Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997: impact on consumers.
Golodner, L F
1998-01-01
This paper provides a consumer's perspective on an important issue that has a profound impact on all of us: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act of 1997. In addition, it provides some background information on the National Consumers League, an organization that promotes consumer safety and protection with the FDA and its predecessors.
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brusi, Rima; Portnoy, Arturo; Toro, Nilsa
2013-01-01
The Precalculus Mega Section project was developed with the main purpose of improving the overall performance of the student body in Precalculus, an important gatekeeper course that affects student engagement and completion, with typical drop/failure rates of over 50 percent. Strategies such as integration of technology and additional practice…
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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2010-07-13
....25) from India was granted. These articles are no longer eligible for duty-free treatment under GSP when imported from India. Additional information about the disposition of all requests to remove... revoked for gold mixed link necklaces and neckchains (HTS 7113.19.25) from India, as reflected in List IV...
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hsu, Ting-Chia; Hwang, Gwo-Jen
2017-01-01
Programming concepts are important and challenging to novices who are beginning to study computer programming skills. In addition to the textbook content, students usually learn the concepts of programming from the web; however, it could be difficult for novice learners to effectively derive helpful information from such non-structured open…
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In Search of ''Master Mindreaders'': Are Psychics Superior in Reading the Language of the Eyes?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dziobek, I.; Rogers, K.; Fleck, S.; Hassenstab, J.; Gold, S.; Wolf, O.T.; Convit, A.
2005-01-01
Much of the effort to understand the brain substrate of theory of mind and empathy has involved the study of individuals with deficits in that domain, such as those on the autism spectrum. Studying individuals with presumed superior abilities in picking up social signals may yield important additional information. We predicted that psychic readers…
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rizou, Ourania; Klonari, Aikaterini
2016-01-01
In the 21st century, the age of information and technology, there is an increasing importance to statistical literacy for everyday life. In addition, education innovation and globalisation in the past decade in Europe has resulted in a new perceived complexity of reality that affected the curriculum and statistics education, with a shift from…
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ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Quinn, Paul C.
2005-01-01
Vidic and Haaf (2004) questioned the idea that infants use head information to categorize cats as distinct from dogs (Quinn & Eimas, 1996) and argued instead that the torso region is important. However, only null results were observed in the critical test comparisons between modified and unmodified stimuli. In addition, a priori preferences for…
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Johnson, Kevin B; Ravich, William J; Cowan, John A
2004-09-01
Computer-based software to record histories, physical exams, and progress or procedure notes, known as computer-based documentation (CBD) software, has been touted as an important addition to the electronic health record. The functionality of CBD systems has remained static over the past 30 years, which may have contributed to the limited adoption of these tools. Early users of this technology, who have tried multiple products, may have insight into important features to be considered in next-generation CBD systems. We conducted a cross-sectional, observational study of the clinical working group membership of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) to generate a set of features that might improve adoption of next-generation systems. The study was conducted online over a 4-month period; 57% of the working group members completed the survey. As anticipated, CBD tool use was higher (53%) in this population than in the US physician offices. The most common methods of data entry employed keyboard and mouse, with agreement that these modalities worked well. Many respondents had experience with pre-printed data collection forms before interacting with a CBD system. Respondents noted that CBD improved their ability to document large amounts of information, allowed timely sharing of information, enhanced patient care, and enhanced medical information with other clinicians (all P < 0.001). Respondents also noted some important but absent features in CBD, including the ability to add images, get help, and generate billing information. The latest generation of CBD systems is being used successfully by early adopters, who find that these tools confer many advantages over the approaches to documentation that they replaced. These users provide insights that may improve successive generations of CBD tools. Additional surveys of CBD non-users and failed adopters will be necessary to provide other useful insights that can address barriers to the adoption of CBD by less computer literate physicians.
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Is There Value in Having Radiology Provide a Second Reading in Pediatric Orthopaedic Clinic?
Natarajan, Vivek; Bosch, Patrick; Dede, Ozgur; Deeney, Vincent; Mendelson, Stephen; Ward, Timothy; Brooks, Maria; Kenkre, Tanya; Roach, James
2017-06-01
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations specifically mandates the dual interpretation of musculoskeletal radiographs by a radiologist in addition to the orthopaedist in all hospital-based orthopaedic clinics. Previous studies have questioned the utility of this practice. The purpose of this study was to further investigate the clinical significance of having the radiologist provide a second interpretation in a hospital-based pediatric orthopaedic clinic. A retrospective review was performed of all patients who had plain radiographs obtained in the pediatric orthopaedic clinic at an academic children's hospital over a 4-month period. For each radiographic series, the orthopaedist's note and the radiology interpretation were reviewed and a determination was made of whether the radiology read provided new clinically useful information and/or a new diagnosis, whether it recommended further imaging, or if it missed a diagnosis that was reflected in the orthopaedist's note. The hospital charges associated with the radiology read for each study were also quantified. The charts of 1570 consecutive clinic patients who were seen in the pediatric orthopaedic clinic from January to April, 2012 were reviewed. There were 2509 radiographic studies performed, of which 2264 had both a documented orthopaedist's note and radiologist's read. The radiologist's interpretation added new, clinically important information in 1.0% (23/2264) of these studies. In 1.7% (38/2264) of the studies, it was determined that the radiologist missed the diagnosis or clinically important information that could affect treatment. The total amount of the professional fees charged for the radiologists' interpretations was $87,362. On average, the hospital charges for each occurrence in which the radiologist's read provided an additional diagnosis or clinically important information beyond the orthopaedist's note were $3798. The results of this study suggest that eliminating the requirement to have the radiologist interpret radiographs in the pediatric orthopaedic clinic would have few clinical consequences. Level III-This is a diagnostic retrospective cohort study.
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Verhees, Martine W F T; Ceulemans, Eva; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J; van IJzendoorn, Marinus H; de Winter, Simon; Bosmans, Guy
2017-07-14
Lack of trust in parental support is a transdiagnostic risk factor for the development of psychological problems throughout the lifespan. Research suggests that children's cognitive attachment representations and related information processing biases could be an important target for interventions aiming to build trust in the parent-child relationship. A paradigm that can alter these biases and increase trust is that of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM), during which a target processing bias is systematically trained. Trust-related CBM training effects could possibly be enhanced by oxytocin, a neuropeptide that has been proposed to play an important role in social information processing and social relationships. The present article describes the study protocol for a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) aimed at testing the individual and combined effects of CBM training and oxytocin administration on trust in maternal support. One hundred children (aged 8-12 years) are randomly assigned to one of four intervention conditions. Participants inhale a nasal spray that either contains oxytocin (OT) or a placebo. Additionally, they receive either a CBM training aimed at positively modifying trust-related information processing bias or a neutral placebo training aimed to have no trust-related effects. Main and interaction effects of the interventions are assessed on three levels of trust-related outcome measures: trust-related interpretation bias; self-reported trust; and mother-child interactional behavior. Importantly, side-effects of a single administration of OT in middle childhood are monitored closely to provide further information on the safety of OT administration in this age group. The present RCT is the first study to combine CBM training with oxytocin to test for individual and combined effects on trust in mother. If effective, CBM training and oxytocin could be easily applicable and nonintrusive additions to interventions that target trust in the context of the parent-child relationship. ClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT02737254 . Registered on 23 March 2016.
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Romeyke, Tobias; Noehammer, Elisabeth; Scheuer, Hans Christoph; Stummer, Harald
2017-01-01
As a disease of the musculoskeletal system, fibromyalgia is becoming increasingly important, because of the direct and indirect costs to health systems. The purpose of this study of health economics was to obtain information about staff costs differentiated by service provider, and staff and material costs of the nonmedical infrastructure in inpatient care. This study looked at 263 patients who received interdisciplinary inpatient treatment for severe forms of fibromyalgia with acute exacerbation of pain between 2011 and 2014. Standardized cost accounting and an analysis of additional diagnoses were performed. The average cost per patient was €3,725.84, with staff and material costs of the nonmedical infrastructure and staff costs of doctors and nurses accounting for the highest proportions of the costs. Each fibromyalgia patient had an average of 6.1 additional diagnoses. Severe forms of fibromyalgia are accompanied by many concomitant diseases and associated with both high clinical staff costs and high medical and nonmedical infrastructure costs. Indication-based cost calculations provide important information for health policy and hospital managers if they include all elements that incur costs in both a differentiated and standardized way.
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Ethics and community-based participatory research: perspectives from the field.
Bastida, Elena M; Tseng, Tung-Sung; McKeever, Corliss; Jack, Leonard
2010-01-01
Exploring the importance of ethical issues in the conduct of community-based participatory research (CBPR) continues to be an important topic for researchers and practitioners. This article uses the Beyond Sabor Project, a CBPR project implemented in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, as a case example to discuss ethical issues such as the importance of increasing community involvement in research, ensuring that communities benefit from the research, sharing leadership roles, and sensitive issues regarding data collection and sharing. Thereafter, this article concludes with a brief discussion of six principles that can inform the practice of ethical conduct when implementing CBPR studies. This article also lists additional reading resources on the importance of ethics in the conduct of CBPR.
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Pathophysiological significance and therapeutic applications of snake venom protease inhibitors.
Thakur, Rupamoni; Mukherjee, Ashis K
2017-06-01
Protease inhibitors are important constituents of snake venom and play important roles in the pathophysiology of snakebite. Recently, research on snake venom protease inhibitors has provided valuable information to decipher the molecular details of various biological processes and offer insight for the development of some therapeutically important molecules from snake venom. The process of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis, in addition to affecting platelet function, are well known as the major targets of several snake venom protease inhibitors. This review summarizes the structure-functional aspects of snake venom protease inhibitors that have been described to date. Because diverse biological functions have been demonstrated by protease inhibitors, a comparative overview of their pharmacological and pathophysiological properties is also highlighted. In addition, since most snake venom protease inhibitors are non-toxic on their own, this review evaluates the different roles of individual protease inhibitors that could lead to the identification of drug candidates and diagnostic molecules. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Privacy Is Become with, Data Perturbation
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Singh, Er. Niranjan; Singhai, Niky
2011-06-01
Privacy is becoming an increasingly important issue in many data mining applications that deal with health care, security, finance, behavior and other types of sensitive data. Is particularly becoming important in counterterrorism and homeland security-related applications. We touch upon several techniques of masking the data, namely random distortion, including the uniform and Gaussian noise, applied to the data in order to protect it. These perturbation schemes are equivalent to additive perturbation after the logarithmic Transformation. Due to the large volume of research in deriving private information from the additive noise perturbed data, the security of these perturbation schemes is questionable Many artificial intelligence and statistical methods exist for data analysis interpretation, Identifying and measuring the interestingness of patterns and rules discovered, or to be discovered is essential for the evaluation of the mined knowledge and the KDD process as a whole. While some concrete measurements exist, assessing the interestingness of discovered knowledge is still an important research issue. As the tool for the algorithm implementations we chose the language of choice in industrial world MATLAB.
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D’Souza, Malcolm J.; Kevill, Dennis N.
2014-01-01
Chloroformates are important laboratory and industrial chemicals with almost one hundred listed in the catalogs of leading suppliers. They are, for example, of prime importance as protecting groups in peptide synthesis. In some instances, the more stable fluoroformate is preferred. In recent years, the specific rates of solvolysis (k) for chloroformates and fluoroformates in solvents of widely ranging nucleophilicity and ionizing power have been studied. Analysis of these rates using the extended (two-term) Grunwald-Winstein equation has led to important information concerning reaction mechanism. Also assisting in this effort have been studies of kinetic solvent isotope effects (KSIE), of leaving group effects (especially kF/kCl ratios), and of entropies of activation from studies of specific rate variations with temperature. For solvolyses of chloroformate esters, two mechanisms (addition-elimination and ionization) are commonly encountered. For solvolyses of fluoroformates, mainly because of a strong C–F bond, the ionization pathway is rare and the addition-elimination pathway is in most situations the one encountered. PMID:25364780
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Memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 accelerate cognitive decline in cognitively normal elderly.
Dik, M G; Jonker, C; Comijs, H C; Bouter, L M; Twisk, J W; van Kamp, G J; Deeg, D J
2001-12-26
To investigate to what extent subjective memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 allele carriage predict future cognitive decline in cognitively intact elderly persons, by evaluating both their separate and combined effects. We selected 1,168 subjects from the population-based Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam who were 62 to 85 years of age and had no obvious cognitive impairment at baseline (Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE] score, > or =27). Memory complaints and APOE phenotypes were assessed at baseline. MMSE, the Auditory Verbal Learning Test (memory: immediate recall and delayed recall), and the Alphabet Coding Task-15 (information processing speed) were used to study cognitive decline. Follow-up data were collected after 3 and 6 years. Data were analyzed with generalized estimating equations, adjusted for age, sex, education, and depression. Baseline memory complaints were reported by 25.5% of the cognitively intact elderly persons. Overall, 25.3% of the subjects were carriers of at least one APOE-epsilon4 allele. Memory complaints were associated with a greater rate of decline in all cognitive measures, except immediate recall. In addition, APOE-epsilon4 allele carriers had a greater rate of cognitive decline shown by MMSE scores and slower information processing speeds after 6 years. The effects of both memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 allele carriage were additive: subjects with both factors had a two times higher cognitive decline than did subjects without both factors. Both memory complaints and APOE-epsilon4 allele carriage predict cognitive decline at an early stage. This finding highlights the importance of subjective memory complaints, which are important even at an early stage when objective tests are still unable to detect cognitive deficits and are especially important for elderly carriers of the APOE-epsilon4 allele because they have an additional risk.
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Tipple, B. J.; Valenzuela, L. O.; Ehleringer, J.
2012-12-01
Element concentrations and isotopes of human tissues are commonly used to understand how emissions and processes within urban ecosystems affect health. Thus, it is important to understand how these elements are incorporated and flow through the urban environment and are ultimately incorporated into human tissues. Here, we designed an experiment to identify the relative importance of strontium (Sr) sources (bedrock, dust, food, and water) to hair Sr isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr). To understand the contribution of Sr to human hair, we collected hair from individuals living in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to sample location, we compiled information regarding age, sex, ethnicity, and dietary habits. We found a significant association between 87Sr/86Sr value of hair and collection location. There were no significant relationships between 87Sr/86Sr value of hair and age, ethnicity, or sex. We had not predicted a relationship between 87Sr/86Sr values and collection location, because of the close proximities of sites to one another (all within an 8-km radius). We found that tap water 87Sr/86Sr values across the Salt Lake Valley varied with water management practice and this variation corresponded to hair 87Sr/86Sr value. These data suggest an additional geographically controlled source of Sr may be an important contributor to the 87Sr/86Sr value of hair. These findings suggest that local water is an important source of Sr in human hair and that hair is a sensitive temporal carrier of this environmental information. These observations have important implications to future studies of humans with regard to urban ecology, human health, forensic sciences, and anthropology.
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Using LTI Dynamics to Identify the Influential Nodes in a Network
Jorswieck, Eduard; Scheunert, Christian
2016-01-01
Networks are used for modeling numerous technical, social or biological systems. In order to better understand the system dynamics, it is a matter of great interest to identify the most important nodes within the network. For a large set of problems, whether it is the optimal use of available resources, spreading information efficiently or even protection from malicious attacks, the most important node is the most influential spreader, the one that is capable of propagating information in the shortest time to a large portion of the network. Here we propose the Node Imposed Response (NiR), a measure which accurately evaluates node spreading power. It outperforms betweenness, degree, k-shell and h-index centrality in many cases and shows the similar accuracy to dynamics-sensitive centrality. We utilize the system-theoretic approach considering the network as a Linear Time-Invariant system. By observing the system response we can quantify the importance of each node. In addition, our study provides a robust tool set for various protective strategies. PMID:28030548
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Computational Methods in Drug Discovery
Sliwoski, Gregory; Kothiwale, Sandeepkumar; Meiler, Jens
2014-01-01
Computer-aided drug discovery/design methods have played a major role in the development of therapeutically important small molecules for over three decades. These methods are broadly classified as either structure-based or ligand-based methods. Structure-based methods are in principle analogous to high-throughput screening in that both target and ligand structure information is imperative. Structure-based approaches include ligand docking, pharmacophore, and ligand design methods. The article discusses theory behind the most important methods and recent successful applications. Ligand-based methods use only ligand information for predicting activity depending on its similarity/dissimilarity to previously known active ligands. We review widely used ligand-based methods such as ligand-based pharmacophores, molecular descriptors, and quantitative structure-activity relationships. In addition, important tools such as target/ligand data bases, homology modeling, ligand fingerprint methods, etc., necessary for successful implementation of various computer-aided drug discovery/design methods in a drug discovery campaign are discussed. Finally, computational methods for toxicity prediction and optimization for favorable physiologic properties are discussed with successful examples from literature. PMID:24381236
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Graves, Sara J.
1994-01-01
Work on this project was focused on information management techniques for Marshall Space Flight Center's EOSDIS Version 0 Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). The centerpiece of this effort has been participation in EOSDIS catalog interoperability research, the result of which is a distributed Information Management System (IMS) allowing the user to query the inventories of all the DAAC's from a single user interface. UAH has provided the MSFC DAAC database server for the distributed IMS, and has contributed to definition and development of the browse image display capabilities in the system's user interface. Another important area of research has been in generating value-based metadata through data mining. In addition, information management applications for local inventory and archive management, and for tracking data orders were provided.
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Security analysis of RSA cryptosystem algorithm and it’s properties
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Liu, Chenglian; Guo, Yongning, E-mail: guoyn@163.com, E-mail: linjuanliucaihong@qq.com; Lin, Juan, E-mail: guoyn@163.com, E-mail: linjuanliucaihong@qq.com
2014-10-06
The information technology rapidly development and dramatically changed the life style people, in addition to shortening the distance of communication, but also promote the smooth exchange of information flows. However, derivatives to facilitate the relative safety of these issues, since into the digital information age, the majority of the practitioners of engineering and technical personnel and technical workers in terms of technology, information security is increasingly becoming an important issue. The RSA algorithm was published in 1978. It is a kind of very popular and widely application modem cryptosystem in the world. Even though there are lots of articles tomore » discuss about how to break the RSA, but it is still secure today. In this paper, the authors would like to introduce a variant attack to RSA.« less
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van Ginkel, R; Büller, H A; Heymans, H S; Taminiau, J A; Boeckxstaens, G E; Benninga, M A
2003-06-28
A detailed medical history in combination with a thorough physical examination, including rectal examination, form the cornerstone in the diagnostic work-up for children with functional defecation disorders. Additional investigations are often not informative and have only minor diagnostic or therapeutic implications. Medical therapy in children with functional constipation and solitary encopresis is primarily based on clinical experience. In both patient groups, the role of education, the use of diary cards and toilet training is important. In some patients behaviour interventions are important. Oral laxatives are the basis of treatment of children with functional constipation, whereas they are contra-indicated in children with solitary encopresis. In both groups, biofeedback training appears to be of little additional benefit. Long-term follow-up of children with functional defecation disorders shows that complaints continue far beyond puberty in many children.
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HOSPITAL MANAGERS' NEED FOR INFORMATION ON HEALTH TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS.
Ølholm, Anne Mette; Kidholm, Kristian; Birk-Olsen, Mette; Christensen, Janne Buck
2015-01-01
There is growing interest in implementing hospital-based health technology assessment (HB-HTA) as a tool to facilitate decision making based on a systematic and multidisciplinary assessment of evidence. However, the decision-making process, including the informational needs of hospital decision makers, is not well described. The objective was to review empirical studies analysing the information that hospital decision makers need when deciding about health technology (HT) investments. A systematic review of empirical studies published in English or Danish from 2000 to 2012 was carried out. The literature was assessed by two reviewers working independently. The identified informational needs were assessed with regard to their agreement with the nine domains of EUnetHTA's Core Model. A total of 2,689 articles were identified and assessed. The review process resulted in 14 relevant studies containing 74 types of information that hospital decision makers found relevant. In addition to information covered by the Core Model, other types of information dealing with political and strategic aspects were identified. The most frequently mentioned types of information in the literature related to clinical, economic and political/strategic aspects. Legal, social, and ethical aspects were seldom considered most important. Hospital decision makers are able to describe their information needs when deciding on HT investments. The different types of information were not of equal importance to hospital decision makers, however, and full agreement between EUnetHTA's Core Model and the hospital decision-makers' informational needs was not observed. They also need information on political and strategic aspects not covered by the Core Model.
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Model-guided suggestions for targeted surveillance based on cattle shipments in the U.S.
Gorsich, Erin E; McKee, Clifton D; Grear, Daniel A; Miller, Ryan S; Portacci, Katie; Lindström, Tom; Webb, Colleen T
2018-02-01
Risk-based sampling is an essential component of livestock health surveillance because it targets resources towards sub-populations with a higher risk of infection. Risk-based surveillance in U.S. livestock is limited because the locations of high-risk herds are often unknown and data to identify high-risk herds based on shipments are often unavailable. In this study, we use a novel, data-driven network model for the shipments of cattle in the U.S. (the U.S. Animal Movement Model, USAMM) to provide surveillance suggestions for cattle imported into the U.S. from Mexico. We describe the volume and locations where cattle are imported and analyze their predicted shipment patterns to identify counties that are most likely to receive shipments of imported cattle. Our results suggest that most imported cattle are sent to relatively few counties. Surveillance at 10 counties is predicted to sample 22-34% of imported cattle while surveillance at 50 counties is predicted to sample 43%-61% of imported cattle. These findings are based on the assumption that USAMM accurately describes the shipments of imported cattle because their shipments are not tracked separately from the remainder of the U.S. herd. However, we analyze two additional datasets - Interstate Certificates of Veterinary Inspection and brand inspection data - to ensure that the characteristics of potential post-import shipments do not change on an annual scale and are not dependent on the dataset informing our analyses. Overall, these results highlight the utility of USAMM to inform targeted surveillance strategies when complete shipment information is unavailable. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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,
2014-01-01
Tracking progress and working with partners. As of August 2013, the GLRI had funded more than 1,500 projects and programs of the highest priority to meet immediate cleanup, restoration, and protection needs. These projects use scientific analyses as the basis for identifying the restoration needs and priorities for the GLRI. Results from the science, monitoring, and other on-the-ground actions by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provide the scientific information needed to help guide the Great Lakes restoration efforts. This document highlights a selection of USGS projects for each of the five focus areas through 2013, demonstrating the importance of science for restoration success. Additional information for these and other USGS projects that are important for Great Lakes restoration is available at http://cida.usgs.gov/glri/glri-catalog/.
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Adoption of innovations by specialised nurses: personal, work and organisational characteristics.
van der Weide, Marian; Smits, Jeroen
2004-04-01
To gain insight in the factors that influence the adoption of professional information by specialised nurses, we studied the effects of individual, work and organisational characteristics on the extent to which continence nurses gained knowledge and made use of a book on nursing diagnosis and interventions for patients with urinary incontinence, which they received as a present. Subjects were all members of the Dutch Association of Continence Nurses. Data collection took place via a postal questionnaire with closed questions. In total, 109 valid questionnaires (78%) were received back. Stepwise selected ordered logit models were estimated with reading the book and knowledge and use of five selected parts of it as dependent variables and individual, work and organisational characteristics as independent variables. The most important factors found to promote reading of the book and taking knowledge of the parts of it were a personal characteristic of the nurses called "information directedness" (or eagerness to acquire professional information from other sources), the presence of an "innovative atmosphere" at the department, and "relevance" of the information for daily nursing practice. The most important factors found to promote the use of the book are (again) information directedness, working at a (relatively) small department and having experience with nursing diagnosis. Results suggest that nurses differ in the degree to which they are open to innovations and that information directedness might be a useful indicator of this characteristic. In addition, the degree of innovativeness of the atmosphere at the department and the relevance of the innovation for nursing practice are important factors influencing the success or failure of innovations in nursing practice.
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Lieberman, Lynne; Liu, Huiting; Huggins, Ashley A.; Katz, Andrea C.; Zvolensky, Michael J.; Shankman, Stewart A.
2016-01-01
Personality traits relate to risk for psychopathology and can inform predictions about treatment outcome. In an effort to obtain a comprehensive index of personality, informant-reports of personality are sometimes obtained in addition to self-reports of personality. However, there is limited research comparing the validity of self- and informant-reports of personality, particularly among those with internalizing psychopathology. This is important given that informants may provide an additional (and perhaps different) perspective on individuals’ personality. The present study therefore compared how both reports of positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA) relate to psychophysiological and subjective measures of emotional responding to positive and negative stimuli. Given that our sample (n = 117) included individuals with no history of psychopathology, as well as individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and/or panic disorder (PD), we were also able to explore whether these internalizing diagnoses moderated the association between personality reports and measures of emotional responding. Informant-reported PA predicted physiological responses to positive stimuli (but not negative). Informant reported NA predicted physiological responses to negative stimuli (but not positive). Self-reported personality did not predict physiological responding, but did predict subjectively measured emotional responding (NA for negative responding; PA for positive responding). Diagnoses of internalizing psychopathology (PD or MDD) did not moderate these associations. Results suggest self- and informant-reports of personality may each provide valid indices of an individual’s emotional response tendencies, but predict different aspects of those tendencies. PMID:27273802
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Haws, Kelly L; Liu, Peggy J
2016-02-01
Many restaurants are increasingly required to display calorie information on their menus. We present a study examining how consumers' food choices are affected by the presence of calorie information on restaurant menus. However, unlike prior research on this topic, we focus on the effect of calorie information on food choices made from a menu that contains both full size portions and half size portions of entrées. This different focus is important because many restaurants increasingly provide more than one portion size option per entrée. Additionally, we examine whether the impact of calorie information differs depending on whether full portions are cheaper per unit than half portions (non-linear pricing) or whether they have a similar per unit price (linear pricing). We find that when linear pricing is used, calorie information leads people to order fewer calories. This decrease occurs as people switch from unhealthy full sized portions to healthy full sized portions, not to unhealthy half sized portions. In contrast, when non-linear pricing is used, calorie information has no impact on calories selected. Considering the impact of calorie information on consumers' choices from menus with more than one entrée portion size option is increasingly important given restaurant and legislative trends, and the present research demonstrates that calorie information and pricing scheme may interact to affect choices from such menus. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Dinakaran, P; Mehrotra, Seema; Bharath, Srikala
2014-12-01
There are very few studies on user-perspectives about mental health care services that explore perspectives of family caregivers in India. An exploratory study was undertaken to understand the perceived importance of various aspects of interactions with mental health service providers during hospitalization, from the perspectives of family caregivers. In addition, it also aimed at documenting their actual experience of interactional aspects of care during the hospitalization of their relatives. The study was conducted on fifty family caregivers of patients with varied psychiatric diagnoses hospitalized in a tertiary psychiatric care setting in South India. Measures of Interactional aspects of care were developed to assess perceived importance of six different interactional domains of care and the actual experience of care in these domains. Provision of informational inputs and addressing of concerns raised emerged as the domains of care given highest importance. The item pertaining to 'sharing with the caregiver about different alternatives for treatment' received negative ratings in terms of actual experience by maximum number of participants (18%). Significant differences on perceived importance of four domains of interactional aspects of care (dignity, confidentiality and fairness, addressing concerns raised, informational inputs and prompt attention and consistent care) emerged between caregiver subgroups based on educational level of the caregiver, socio-economic status, hospitalization history and broad diagnostic categories. In addition, the care givers of patients with psychoses assigned significantly more positive ratings on actual experience for all the domains of interactional aspects of care. The findings have implications for further research and practice. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Portnoy, David B
2010-07-01
Waiting for medical test results that signal physical harm can be a stressful and potentially psychologically harmful experience. Despite this, interventionists and physicians often use this wait time to deliver behavior change messages and other important information about the test, possible results and its implications. This study examined how "bracing" for a medical test result impacts cognitive processing, as well as recall of information delivered during this period. Healthy U.S. university students (N = 150) were tested for a deficiency of a fictitious saliva biomarker that was said to be predictive of long-term health problems using a 2 (Test Result) x 2 (Expected immediacy of result: 10 min, 1 month) factorial design. Participants expecting to get the test result shortly should have been bracing for the result. While waiting for the test results participants completed measures of cognitive processing. After participants received the test result, recall of information about the biomarker was tested in addition to cognitive measures. One week later, participants who were originally told they did not have the deficiency had their recall assessed again. Results showed that anticipating an imminent test result increased cognitive distraction in the processing of information and lowered recall of information about the test and the biomarker. These results suggest that delivering critical information to patients after administering a test and immediately before giving the results may not be optimal.
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Pihlak, R; Liivand, R; Trelin, O; Neissar, H; Peterson, I; Kivistik, S; Lilo, K; Jaal, J
2014-03-01
Complementary medicine (CM) use is common among cancer patients. However, little is known about CM products that are utilised during radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. Out of 62 cancer patients who completed a specialised survey, 35 (56%) consumed some type of CM during active anti-cancer therapy. Cancer patients reported the use of herbal teas (52%), vitamins and other dietary supplements (45%), vegetables and juices (39%), special diets (19%), herbal medicines, including Chinese medicines (19%) and 'immunomodulators' (3%). Most of patients (86%) consumed CM products every day. However, nearly 47% of CM users did not admit this to their oncologists. Majority of CM users (85%) were convinced that supplementary products increase the efficacy of standard anti-cancer therapy and prolong their survival. Information about CM was mainly obtained through internet sources (36%), books and brochures (25%). Although most CM users (82%) trusted the received information, 73% of them admitted that additional information about CM methods would be necessary. Patients would like to receive additional information through a specialised consultation (60%), but also from brochures (44%) and the internet (20%). Adequate counselling of patients is of paramount importance since some CM methods may cause significant side effects and decrease the efficacy of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Battery electric vehicles - implications for the driver interface.
Neumann, Isabel; Krems, Josef F
2016-03-01
The current study examines the human-machine interface of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) from a user-perspective, focussing on the evaluation of BEV-specific displays, the relevance of provided information and challenges for drivers due to the concept of electricity in a road vehicle. A sample of 40 users drove a BEV for 6 months. Data were gathered at three points of data collection. Participants perceived the BEV-specific displays as only moderately reliable and helpful for estimating the displayed parameters. This was even less the case after driving the BEV for 3 months. A taxonomy of user requirements was compiled revealing the need for improved and additional information, especially regarding energy consumption and efficiency. Drivers had difficulty understanding electrical units and the energy consumption of the BEV. On the background of general principles for display design, results provide implications how to display relevant information and how to facilitate drivers' understanding of energy consumption in BEVs. Practitioner Summary: Battery electric vehicle (BEV) displays need to incorporate new information. A taxonomy of user requirements was compiled revealing the need for improved and additional information in the BEV interface. Furthermore, drivers had trouble understanding electrical units and energy consumption; therefore, appropriate assistance is required. Design principles which are specifically important in the BEV context are discussed.
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Ramírez, A Susana; Willis, Gordon; Rutten, Lila Finney
2017-05-01
Spanish-speaking Latinos account for 13% of the U.S. population yet are chronically under-represented in national surveys; additionally, the response quality suffers from low literacy rates and translation challenges. These are the same issues that health communicators face when understanding how best to communicate important health information to Latinos. The Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) offers a unique opportunity to understand the health communication landscape and information needs of the U.S. We describe the challenges in recruiting Spanish-speaking HINTS respondents and strategies used to improve rates and quality of responses among Spanish-speaking Latinos. Cognitive interviewing techniques helped to better understand how Spanish-speaking Latinos were interpreting the survey questions, and the extent to which these interpretations matched English-speaking respondents' interpretations. Some Spanish-speaking respondents had difficulty with the questions because of a lack of access to health care. Additionally, Spanish-speaking respondents had a particularly hard time answering questions that were presented in a grid format. We describe the cognitive interview process, and consider the impact of format changes on Spanish-speaking people's responses and response quality. We discuss challenges that remain in understanding health information needs of non-English-speakers.
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Ramírez, A Susana; Willis, Gordon; Rutten, Lila Finney
2017-01-01
Spanish-speaking Latinos account for 13% of the US population yet are chronically under-represented in national surveys; additionally, response quality suffers from low literacy rates and translation challenges. These are the same issues that health communicators face when understanding how best to communicate important health information to Latinos. The Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) offers a unique opportunity to understand the health communication landscape and information needs of the U.S. population. We describe the challenges in recruiting Spanish-speaking HINTS respondents and strategies used to improve rates and quality of responses among Spanish-speaking Latinos. Cognitive interviewing techniques helped to better understand how Spanish-speaking Latinos were interpreting the survey questions, and the extent to which these interpretations matched English-speaking respondents’ interpretations. Some Spanish-speaking respondents had difficulty with the questions because of a lack of access to health care. Additionally, Spanish-speaking respondents had a particularly hard time answering questions that were presented in a grid format. We describe the cognitive interview process, and consider the impact of format changes on Spanish-speaking people’s responses and response quality. We discuss challenges that remain in understanding health information needs of non-English-speakers. PMID:28414618
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1994-01-01
To use the mass media (newspaper, radio, and TV) to reach a large audience with information about AIDS, it is important to choose the media outlets carefully, since they use information that satisfies their audience in content and style. For example, radio, TV, or videos are best to reach illiterate groups. Ways to approach each sector of the written and electronic media include press releases, news conferences, information kits, and personal contacts. Letters to the editor and offers of submitting articles for publication are additional ways to approach newspapers. Audio- or videocassettes with interviews or images conveying HIV/AIDS prevention messages can be submitted to TV and radio stations. It is important to present the information attractively to gain the journalists' attention. News releases should include sources of information and a contact name. It is important to inform the mass media of successes revolving around AIDS prevention, emphasizing local successes. One should identify what media slots have the most influence. For example, a medical officer in Chiang Mai, Thailand, notes that popular disc jockeys have more influence than do government information broadcasts. It is best to promote facts that probably will increase support for AIDS prevention campaigns. If possible, groups should seek free space or air time for AIDS prevention messages. AIDS prevention messages should not use fear because it does not promote safer sexual behavior. Instead, they should link condom use with a sense of independence, responsibility, and being fashionable. Leaflets, posters, videotapes, slides, displays, slogans, audiocassettes, T-shirts, stickers, and other activities or products reinforce the effectiveness of media campaigns. Interviews with or feature articles and programs about people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS chip away at the belief that "AIDS could never happen to me."
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The importance of timely information in national cancer screening programmes.
Droljc, Anze; Grbec, Tomaz; Orel, Andrej
2009-01-01
The Ministry of Health of Slovenia decided to support the introduction of two new organised screening programmes for cancer, one for breast and the other for colon cancer in 2005. This was an addition to the first, already running, programme for cervical cancer. Two of them are entrusted to the Institute of Oncology while the National CINDI programme takes care of the third one. Besides connection to some external public databases, cancer screening programmes require national Cancer Registry data. High quality and user friendly information support for citizens and medical professionals following doctrinal requirements and possible changes is a must.
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King County Nearshore Habitat Mapping Data Report: Picnic Point to Shilshole Bay Marina
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Woodruff, Dana L.; Farley, Paul J.; Borde, Amy B.
2000-12-31
The objective of this study is to provide accurate, georeferenced maps of benthic habitats to assist in the siting of a new wastewater treatment plant outfall and the assessment of habitats of endangered, threatened, and economically important species. The mapping was conducted in the fall of 1999 using two complementary techniques: side-scan sonar and underwater videography. Products derived from these techniques include geographic information system (GIS) compatible polygon data of substrate type and vegetation cover, including eelgrass and kelp. Additional GIS overlays include underwater video track line data of total macroalgae, selected macroalgal species, fish, and macroinvertebrates. The combined toolsmore » of geo-referenced side-scan sonar and underwater video is a powerful technique for assessing and mapping of nearshore habitat in Puget Sound. Side-scan sonar offers the ability to map eelgrass with high spatial accuracy and resolution, and provides information on patch size, shape, and coverage. It also provides information on substrate change and location of specific targets (e.g., piers, docks, pilings, large boulders, debris piles). The addition of underwater video is a complementary tool providing both groundtruthing for the sonar and additional information on macro fauna and flora. As a groundtruthing technique, the video was able to confirm differences between substrate types, as well as detect subtle spatial changes in substrate. It also verified information related to eelgrass, including the density classification categories and the type of substrate associated with eelgrass, which could not be determined easily with side- scan sonar. Video is also a powerful tool for mapping the location of macroalgae, (including kelp and Ulva), fish and macroinvertebrates. The ability to geo-locate these resources in their functional habitat provides an added layer of information and analytical potential.« less
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Controlling neutron orbital angular momentum
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Clark, Charles W.; Barankov, Roman; Huber, Michael G.; Arif, Muhammad; Cory, David G.; Pushin, Dmitry A.
2015-09-01
The quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons offers an additional degree of freedom and topological protection from noise. Photonic OAM states have therefore been exploited in various applications ranging from studies of quantum entanglement and quantum information science to imaging. The OAM states of electron beams have been shown to be similarly useful, for example in rotating nanoparticles and determining the chirality of crystals. However, although neutrons--as massive, penetrating and neutral particles--are important in materials characterization, quantum information and studies of the foundations of quantum mechanics, OAM control of neutrons has yet to be achieved. Here, we demonstrate OAM control of neutrons using macroscopic spiral phase plates that apply a `twist' to an input neutron beam. The twisted neutron beams are analysed with neutron interferometry. Our techniques, applied to spatially incoherent beams, demonstrate both the addition of quantum angular momenta along the direction of propagation, effected by multiple spiral phase plates, and the conservation of topological charge with respect to uniform phase fluctuations. Neutron-based studies of quantum information science, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and scattering and imaging of magnetic, superconducting and chiral materials have until now been limited to three degrees of freedom: spin, path and energy. The optimization of OAM control, leading to well defined values of OAM, would provide an additional quantized degree of freedom for such studies.
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Zalkind, D; Malec, B
1988-01-01
A national survey of alumni of AUPHA programs from the classes of 1983, 1984, and 1985 was undertaken to assess their experiences in management information systems education, both formally and on the job. The survey covered 38 AUPHA graduate member programs and resulted in 1,181 responses. Over 40 percent of the alumni indicated that they had had an introductory management information systems (MIS) course in a health administration program. Since graduation, almost 90 percent have had some significant on-the-job involvement with computers, computer-generated information, or MIS. More than one-third of the respondents felt that their MIS course work did not adequately prepare them for what was expected on the job. Alumni stressed that microcomputer software applications, such as spreadsheets and data bases, are important areas for student hands-on experiences. When asked the importance of certain areas to be included in a required introductory MIS course, the alumni also recommended spreadsheet analysis and design, report writing and data presentation, and other management areas. Additional comments suggested more access to personal computers (PCs), more relevance in the curriculum to the "real world," and the importance of MIS to the career paths of alumni. Faculty suggestions from a 1984-85 survey are compared with alumni responses in order to identify curricular changes needed. Recommendations are outlined for consideration.
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García-Sempere, Aníbal; Artells, Juan José
2005-01-01
To explore patient organizations and their scope in terms of patient and user participation in decisions affecting their health. Semi-structured questionnaire survey of key informants from 21 patient organizations. Most of the patient organizations were regional or national private organizations. Their main objectives include improving quality of life and representing the interests of patients and their families, developing information triage and dissemination activities, and providing additional services not offered by the public health service. The main methods of communicating with members were electronic mail, open meetings and forums. Most patient organizations considered health professionals to be the most important group of stakeholders. The sources of funding most frequently quoted were membership fees, public grants and contributions from the pharmaceutical industry. The most important factor for enhancing patient co-responsibility was considered to be involving patients in health care as a way to improve the quality of the heath services. The proposed future scenario that received the most support was the creation of a legal forum in which the patient's voice could be heard and demonstrably taken into account. Patient organizations can play an important role in providing patients and health professionals with information, promoting self care and improving the effectiveness of health care. These features require visible commitment by the health authorities to facilitate opportunities for patient decisions and choice within the system.
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Tenkès, Lucille-Marie; Hollerbach, Rainer; Kim, Eun-jin
2017-12-01
A probabilistic description is essential for understanding growth processes in non-stationary states. In this paper, we compute time-dependent probability density functions (PDFs) in order to investigate stochastic logistic and Gompertz models, which are two of the most popular growth models. We consider different types of short-correlated multiplicative and additive noise sources and compare the time-dependent PDFs in the two models, elucidating the effects of the additive and multiplicative noises on the form of PDFs. We demonstrate an interesting transition from a unimodal to a bimodal PDF as the multiplicative noise increases for a fixed value of the additive noise. A much weaker (leaky) attractor in the Gompertz model leads to a significant (singular) growth of the population of a very small size. We point out the limitation of using stationary PDFs, mean value and variance in understanding statistical properties of the growth in non-stationary states, highlighting the importance of time-dependent PDFs. We further compare these two models from the perspective of information change that occurs during the growth process. Specifically, we define an infinitesimal distance at any time by comparing two PDFs at times infinitesimally apart and sum these distances in time. The total distance along the trajectory quantifies the total number of different states that the system undergoes in time, and is called the information length. We show that the time-evolution of the two models become more similar when measured in units of the information length and point out the merit of using the information length in unifying and understanding the dynamic evolution of different growth processes.
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Practical Radiobiology for Proton Therapy Planning
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Jones, Bleddyn
2017-12-01
Practical Radiobiology for Proton Therapy Planning covers the principles, advantages and potential pitfalls that occur in proton therapy, especially its radiobiological modelling applications. This book is intended to educate, inform and to stimulate further research questions. Additionally, it will help proton therapy centres when designing new treatments or when unintended errors or delays occur. The clear descriptions of useful equations for high LET particle beam applications, worked examples of many important clinical situations, and discussion of how proton therapy may be optimized are all important features of the text. This important book blends the relevant physics, biology and medical aspects of this multidisciplinary subject. Part of Series in Physics and Engineering in Medicine and Biology.
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DeRanieri, Joseph T; Clements, Paul T; Clark, Kathleen; Kuhn, Douglas Wolcik; Manno, Martin S
2004-04-01
Many caregivers are encountering the issue of communicating with children and adolescents about current world events, specifically war and terrorism. As health care providers, it is important to raise awareness of how children may understand, interpret, and respond to related fears and concerns. Although honesty and reassurance are clearly the best approach, it is important to provide information that is developmentally appropriate. Providing education and guidance can reduce stress and enhance understanding of the chaotic events confronting our nation. It also provides a platform for communication and exploration should additional terrorist attacks or acts of war occur. It is important to examine how to approach children and adolescents to communicate with them about these sensitive issues.
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van Unen, Robert J; Tichelaar, Jelle; Nanayakkara, Prabath W B; van Agtmael, Michiel A; Richir, Milan C; de Vries, Theo P G M
2015-12-01
Several studies have demonstrated that using a template for recording general and diagnostic information in the medical record (MR) improves the completeness of MR documentation, communication between doctors, and performance of doctors. However, little is known about how therapeutic information should be structured in the MR. The aim of this study was to investigate which specific therapeutic information registrars and consultants in internal medicine consider essential to record in the MR. Therefore, we carried out a 2-round Internet Delphi study. Fifty-nine items were assessed on a 5-point scale; an item was considered important if ≥ 80% of the respondents awarded it a score of 4 or 5. In total, 26 registrars and 30 consultants in internal medicine completed both rounds of the study. Overall, they considered it essential to include information about 11 items in the MR. Subgroup analyses revealed that the registrars considered 8 additional items essential, whereas the consultants considered 1 additional item essential to record. Study findings can be used as a starting point to develop a structured section of the MR for therapeutic information for both paper and electronic MRs. This section should contain at least 11 items considered essential by registrars and clinical consultants in internal medicine. © 2015, The American College of Clinical Pharmacology.
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Shameem, K M Muhammed; Choudhari, Khoobaram S; Bankapur, Aseefhali; Kulkarni, Suresh D; Unnikrishnan, V K; George, Sajan D; Kartha, V B; Santhosh, C
2017-05-01
Classification of plastics is of great importance in the recycling industry as the littering of plastic wastes increases day by day as a result of its extensive use. In this paper, we demonstrate the efficacy of a combined laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)-Raman system for the rapid identification and classification of post-consumer plastics. The atomic information and molecular information of polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene were studied using plasma emission spectra and scattered signal obtained in the LIBS and Raman technique, respectively. The collected spectral features of the samples were analyzed using statistical tools (principal component analysis, Mahalanobis distance) to categorize the plastics. The analyses of the data clearly show that elemental information and molecular information obtained from these techniques are efficient for classification of plastics. In addition, the molecular information collected via Raman spectroscopy exhibits clearly distinct features for the transparent plastics (100% discrimination), whereas the LIBS technique shows better spectral feature differences for the colored samples. The study shows that the information obtained from these complementary techniques allows the complete classification of the plastic samples, irrespective of the color or additives. This work further throws some light on the fact that the potential limitations of any of these techniques for sample identification can be overcome by the complementarity of these two techniques. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.
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Assessing non-additive effects in GBLUP model.
Vieira, I C; Dos Santos, J P R; Pires, L P M; Lima, B M; Gonçalves, F M A; Balestre, M
2017-05-10
Understanding non-additive effects in the expression of quantitative traits is very important in genotype selection, especially in species where the commercial products are clones or hybrids. The use of molecular markers has allowed the study of non-additive genetic effects on a genomic level, in addition to a better understanding of its importance in quantitative traits. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the behavior of the GBLUP model in different genetic models and relationship matrices and their influence on the estimates of genetic parameters. We used real data of the circumference at breast height in Eucalyptus spp and simulated data from a population of F 2 . Three commonly reported kinship structures in the literature were adopted. The simulation results showed that the inclusion of epistatic kinship improved prediction estimates of genomic breeding values. However, the non-additive effects were not accurately recovered. The Fisher information matrix for real dataset showed high collinearity in estimates of additive, dominant, and epistatic variance, causing no gain in the prediction of the unobserved data and convergence problems. Estimates presented differences of genetic parameters and correlations considering the different kinship structures. Our results show that the inclusion of non-additive effects can improve the predictive ability or even the prediction of additive effects. However, the high distortions observed in the variance estimates when the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium assumption is violated due to the presence of selection or inbreeding can converge at zero gains in models that consider epistasis in genomic kinship.
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Valued aspects of primary palliative care: content analysis of bereaved carers' descriptions.
Grande, Gunn E; Farquhar, Morag C; Barclay, Stephen Ig; Todd, Chris J
2004-10-01
Informal carers provide the bulk of palliative home care. They largely rely on general practitioners (GPs) and district nurses to support them in this role, yet little is known about what carers themselves consider important in this support. To identify what informal carers valued in the palliative support provided by GPs and district nurses by using carers' own descriptions of such support. Retrospective interviews. Primary care in Cambridgeshire. Semi-structured interviews with bereaved carers of 48 patients with cancer and 12 patients with non-cancer diagnoses. Content analysis of carers' evaluative descriptions of GP and district nurse support. The accessibility of the GP and district nurse emerged as the most important aspect of support. Enlistment of help from other agencies was also extensively mentioned, together with provision of equipment. Attitude or approach during interactions, and relationship with the professional were important, particularly regarding GP support, whereas support for the carer, information, and symptom control were mentioned less often. Data suggested that support was not as good for older patients (> or =75 years), but this finding requires further investigation. Results largely confirmed findings of previous, quantitative research and the importance of a patient-centred approach. What emerged most strongly, however, was the central importance of accessibility of support services for lay carers responsible for end-of-life home care. This mainly concerned GP and district nurse support, but accessibility of additional care and equipment were also important. In short, carers' main focus was the basic support that enabled them to sustain care in the home.
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Analysis of Exhaled Breath for Disease Detection
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Amann, Anton; Miekisch, Wolfram; Schubert, Jochen; Buszewski, Bogusław; Ligor, Tomasz; Jezierski, Tadeusz; Pleil, Joachim; Risby, Terence
2014-06-01
Breath analysis is a young field of research with great clinical potential. As a result of this interest, researchers have developed new analytical techniques that permit real-time analysis of exhaled breath with breath-to-breath resolution in addition to the conventional central laboratory methods using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Breath tests are based on endogenously produced volatiles, metabolites of ingested precursors, metabolites produced by bacteria in the gut or the airways, or volatiles appearing after environmental exposure. The composition of exhaled breath may contain valuable information for patients presenting with asthma, renal and liver diseases, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, inflammatory lung disease, or metabolic disorders. In addition, oxidative stress status may be monitored via volatile products of lipid peroxidation. Measurement of enzyme activity provides phenotypic information important in personalized medicine, whereas breath measurements provide insight into perturbations of the human exposome and can be interpreted as preclinical signals of adverse outcome pathways.
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Comparison of four molecular methods to type Salmonella Enteritidis strains.
Campioni, Fábio; Pitondo-Silva, André; Bergamini, Alzira M M; Falcão, Juliana P
2015-05-01
This study compared the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR (ERIC-PCR), multilocus variable-number of tanden-repeat analysis (MLVA), and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) methods for typing 188 Salmonella Enteritidis strains from different sources isolated over a 24-year period in Brazil. PFGE and ERIC-PCR were more efficient than MLVA for subtyping the strains. However, MLVA provided additional epidemiological information for those strains. In addition, MLST showed the Brazilian strains as belonging to the main clonal complex of S. Enteritidis, CC11, and provided the first report of two new STs in the S. enterica database but could not properly subtype the strains. Our results showed that the use of PFGE or ERIC-PCR together with MLVA is suitable to efficiently subtype S. Enteritidis strains and provide important epidemiological information. © 2015 APMIS. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Attitudes toward sex, arousal, and the retention of contraceptive information.
Goldfarb, L; Gerrard, M; Gibbons, F X; Plante, T
1988-10-01
Previous research has suggested that women with a negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (i.e., erotophobia) have difficulty learning and retaining sexually relevant material such as contraceptive information. It has been hypothesized that these women become aroused by this material and that this arousal interferes with their ability to learn it. The importance of this issue led us to conduct the current study. Erotophobic and erotophilic women viewed presentations about contraception while their physiological responses were being monitored. In addition, they were tested on the information contained in the presentation before, immediately after, and again 4-6 weeks after the presentation. The results indicated that the erotophobic women knew less contraceptive information before the presentation and were more aroused by the presentation. This arousal, however, did not interfere with retention of the material. These results are discussed in terms of individual differences in reactions to sexual material and the ability to learn, retain, and use contraceptive information.
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Information Systems at Enterprise. Design of Secure Network of Enterprise
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Saigushev, N. Y.; Mikhailova, U. V.; Vedeneeva, O. A.; Tsaran, A. A.
2018-05-01
No enterprise and company can do without designing its own corporate network in today's information society. It accelerates and facilitates the work of employees at any level, but contains a big threat to confidential information of the company. In addition to the data theft attackers, there are plenty of information threats posed by modern malware effects. In this regard, the computational security of corporate networks is an important component of modern information technologies of computer security for any enterprise. This article says about the design of the protected corporate network of the enterprise that provides the computers on the network access to the Internet, as well interoperability with the branch. The access speed to the Internet at a high level is provided through the use of high-speed access channels and load balancing between devices. The security of the designed network is performed through the use of VLAN technology as well as access lists and AAA server.
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Disaster Emergency Rapid Assessment Based on Remote Sensing and Background Data
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Han, X.; Wu, J.
2018-04-01
The period from starting to the stable conditions is an important stage of disaster development. In addition to collecting and reporting information on disaster situations, remote sensing images by satellites and drones and monitoring results from disaster-stricken areas should be obtained. Fusion of multi-source background data such as population, geography and topography, and remote sensing monitoring information can be used in geographic information system analysis to quickly and objectively assess the disaster information. According to the characteristics of different hazards, the models and methods driven by the rapid assessment of mission requirements are tested and screened. Based on remote sensing images, the features of exposures quickly determine disaster-affected areas and intensity levels, and extract key disaster information about affected hospitals and schools as well as cultivated land and crops, and make decisions after emergency response with visual assessment results.
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Transfer Entropy and Transient Limits of Computation
Prokopenko, Mikhail; Lizier, Joseph T.
2014-01-01
Transfer entropy is a recently introduced information-theoretic measure quantifying directed statistical coherence between spatiotemporal processes, and is widely used in diverse fields ranging from finance to neuroscience. However, its relationships to fundamental limits of computation, such as Landauer's limit, remain unknown. Here we show that in order to increase transfer entropy (predictability) by one bit, heat flow must match or exceed Landauer's limit. Importantly, we generalise Landauer's limit to bi-directional information dynamics for non-equilibrium processes, revealing that the limit applies to prediction, in addition to retrodiction (information erasure). Furthermore, the results are related to negentropy, and to Bremermann's limit and the Bekenstein bound, producing, perhaps surprisingly, lower bounds on the computational deceleration and information loss incurred during an increase in predictability about the process. The identified relationships set new computational limits in terms of fundamental physical quantities, and establish transfer entropy as a central measure connecting information theory, thermodynamics and theory of computation. PMID:24953547
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Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations
2009-05-12
contributions from Germany , Japan, and Switzerland. For more information on the MFO, see http://www.mfo.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1. Egypt: Background and...2008 Report, Egypt’s pace of business reforms and deregulation between 2006 and 2007 ranked first worldwide. In recent years, the state has...reinvigorated its privatization program by divesting shares in the state-dominated banking and insurance sectors. Additionally, the government removed import
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Human Information Processing Guidelines for Decision-Aiding Displays.
1981-12-01
recall when they are used together. Also, context plays an important part in verifying the truth or falsity of sentences . For example, "A robin... interferes with the processing and storing of * additional items (Loftus, 1979). However, rehearsal, by recycling the number of items in STM, allows...remembered better than the middle letters in the series. It was hypothesized that encoding the name of the
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USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
The lemma, palea, and awn of barley are photosynthetic organs and supply the developing seed with carbohydrates. In addition, the lemma and the palea cover the seed and protect it from pathogens and insects. In spite of the important role they play, there is very little information about gene expr...
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1981-01-01
are applied to determine what system states (usually failed states) are possible; deductive methods are applied to determine how a given system state...Similar considerations apply to the single failures of CVA, BVB and CVB and this important additional information has been displayed in the principal...way. The point "maximum tolerable failure" corresponds to the survival point of the company building the aircraft. Above that point, only intolerable
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Using language models to identify relevant new information in inpatient clinical notes.
Zhang, Rui; Pakhomov, Serguei V; Lee, Janet T; Melton, Genevieve B
2014-01-01
Redundant information in clinical notes within electronic health record (EHR) systems is ubiquitous and may negatively impact the use of these notes by clinicians, and, potentially, the efficiency of patient care delivery. Automated methods to identify redundant versus relevant new information may provide a valuable tool for clinicians to better synthesize patient information and navigate to clinically important details. In this study, we investigated the use of language models for identification of new information in inpatient notes, and evaluated our methods using expert-derived reference standards. The best method achieved precision of 0.743, recall of 0.832 and F1-measure of 0.784. The average proportion of redundant information was similar between inpatient and outpatient progress notes (76.6% (SD=17.3%) and 76.7% (SD=14.0%), respectively). Advanced practice providers tended to have higher rates of redundancy in their notes compared to physicians. Future investigation includes the addition of semantic components and visualization of new information.
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Using Language Models to Identify Relevant New Information in Inpatient Clinical Notes
Zhang, Rui; Pakhomov, Serguei V.; Lee, Janet T.; Melton, Genevieve B.
2014-01-01
Redundant information in clinical notes within electronic health record (EHR) systems is ubiquitous and may negatively impact the use of these notes by clinicians, and, potentially, the efficiency of patient care delivery. Automated methods to identify redundant versus relevant new information may provide a valuable tool for clinicians to better synthesize patient information and navigate to clinically important details. In this study, we investigated the use of language models for identification of new information in inpatient notes, and evaluated our methods using expert-derived reference standards. The best method achieved precision of 0.743, recall of 0.832 and F1-measure of 0.784. The average proportion of redundant information was similar between inpatient and outpatient progress notes (76.6% (SD=17.3%) and 76.7% (SD=14.0%), respectively). Advanced practice providers tended to have higher rates of redundancy in their notes compared to physicians. Future investigation includes the addition of semantic components and visualization of new information. PMID:25954438
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DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Not Available
The Transportation Legislative Database (TLDB) is an on-line information service containing detailed information on legislation and regulations regarding the transportation of radioactive materials in the United States. The system is dedicated to serving the legislative and regulatory information needs of the US Department of Energy and other federal agencies; state, tribal, and local governments; the hazardous materials transportation industry; and interested members of the general public. In addition to the on-line information service, quarterly and annual Legal Developments Reports are produced using information from the TLDB. These reports summarize important changes in federal and state legislation, regulations, administrative agency rulings,more » and judicial decisions over the reporting period. Information on significant legal developments at the tribal and local levels is also included on an as-available basis. Battelle's Office of Transportation Systems and Planning (OTSP) will also perform customized searches of the TLDB and produce formatted printouts in response to specific information requests.« less
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Informed consent needed for sterilization or research.
Barnett, B
1998-01-01
Informed choice involves enabling family planning clients to base their decisions about contraceptive use upon adequate information. It is a process in which clients give their permission to undergo a procedure, take a medication, or participate in a study after being fully informed. Informed consent protects an individual's freedom of choice, respects his or her autonomy, is important in both family planning programs and reproductive health research, and should always be available to clients seeking health services. Although written informed consent is not needed for most reproductive health services, it should be obtained from men and women who undergo sterilization, since that involves surgery and is considered permanent. In addition, people who volunteer to participate in contraceptive studies need to be fully informed of the risks and benefits of any new drugs or devices they receive. Volunteers should understand the potential effects of methods upon their physical health and other aspects of their lives. Ethical reviews need to be conducted before research begins.
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A privacy-preserved analytical method for ehealth database with minimized information loss.
Chen, Ya-Ling; Cheng, Bo-Chao; Chen, Hsueh-Lin; Lin, Chia-I; Liao, Guo-Tan; Hou, Bo-Yu; Hsu, Shih-Chun
2012-01-01
Digitizing medical information is an emerging trend that employs information and communication technology (ICT) to manage health records, diagnostic reports, and other medical data more effectively, in order to improve the overall quality of medical services. However, medical information is highly confidential and involves private information, even legitimate access to data raises privacy concerns. Medical records provide health information on an as-needed basis for diagnosis and treatment, and the information is also important for medical research and other health management applications. Traditional privacy risk management systems have focused on reducing reidentification risk, and they do not consider information loss. In addition, such systems cannot identify and isolate data that carries high risk of privacy violations. This paper proposes the Hiatus Tailor (HT) system, which ensures low re-identification risk for medical records, while providing more authenticated information to database users and identifying high-risk data in the database for better system management. The experimental results demonstrate that the HT system achieves much lower information loss than traditional risk management methods, with the same risk of re-identification.
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Role of information systems in public health services.
Hartshorne, J E; Carstens, I L
1990-07-01
The purpose of this review is to establish a conceptual framework on the role of information systems in public health care. Information is indispensable for effective management and development of health services and therefore considered as an important operational asset or resource. A Health Information System is mainly required to support management and operations at four levels: namely transactional and functional; operational control; management planning and control; and strategic planning. To provide the necessary information needs of users at these levels of management in the health care system, a structured information system coupled with appropriate information technology is required. Adequate and relevant information is needed regarding population characteristics, resources available and expended, output and outcome of health care activities. Additionally information needs to be reliable, accurate, timely, easily accessible and presented in a compact and meaningful form. With a well-planned health information system health authorities would be in a position to provide a quality, cost-effective and efficient health service for as many people as need it, optimal utilisation of resources and to maintain and improve the community's health status.
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Blåhed, Ida-Maria; Königsson, Helena; Ericsson, Göran; Spong, Göran
2018-01-01
Monitoring of wild animal populations is challenging, yet reliable information about population processes is important for both management and conservation efforts. Access to molecular markers, such as SNPs, enables population monitoring through genotyping of various DNA sources. We have developed 96 high quality SNP markers for individual identification of moose (Alces alces), an economically and ecologically important top-herbivore in boreal regions. Reduced representation libraries constructed from 34 moose were high-throughput de novo sequenced, generating nearly 50 million read pairs. About 50 000 stacks of aligned reads containing one or more SNPs were discovered with the Stacks pipeline. Several quality criteria were applied on the candidate SNPs to find markers informative on the individual level and well representative for the population. An empirical validation by genotyping of sequenced individuals and additional moose, resulted in the selection of a final panel of 86 high quality autosomal SNPs. Additionally, five sex-specific SNPs and five SNPs for sympatric species diagnostics are included in the panel. The genotyping error rate was 0.002 for the total panel and probability of identities were low enough to separate individuals with high confidence. Moreover, the autosomal SNPs were highly informative also for population level analyses. The potential applications of this SNP panel are thus many including investigations of population size, sex ratios, relatedness, reproductive success and population structure. Ideally, SNP-based studies could improve today's population monitoring and increase our knowledge about moose population dynamics.
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How Information Literate Are Junior and Senior Class Biology Students?
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Schiffl, Iris
2018-03-01
Information literacy—i.e. obtaining, evaluating and using information—is a key element of scientific literacy. However, students are frequently equipped with poor information literacy skills—even at university level—as information literacy is often not explicitly taught in schools. Little is known about students' information skills in science at junior and senior class level, and about teachers' competences in dealing with information literacy in science class. This study examines the information literacy of Austrian 8th, 10th and 12th grade students. Information literacy is important for science education in Austria, because it is listed as a basic competence in Austria's science standards. Two different aspects of information literacy are examined: obtaining information and extracting information from texts. An additional research focus of this study is teachers' competences in diagnosing information skills. The results reveal that students mostly rely on online sources for obtaining information. However, they also use books and consult with people they trust. The younger the students, the more they rely on personal sources. Students' abilities to evaluate sources are poor, especially among younger students. Although teachers claim to use information research in class, their ability to assess their students' information competences is limited.
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A look at 15 years of planar thallium-201 imaging
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Kaul, S.
1989-09-01
Extensive experience has been accumulated over the past 15 years regarding planar thallium-201 imaging. Quantitation of technically superior images provides a high sensitivity and specificity for the detection of CAD. In addition, planar thallium-201 images provide very important prognostic information in different clinical situations. Although single photon emission computerized tomography offers potential theoretical advantages over planar imaging, because of the problems involved in reconstruction, specifically the creation of artifacts, it may not be the ideal imaging modality in all situations. Good quality planar thallium-201 imaging still has an important role in clinical cardiology today. 144 references.
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The process of developing audiovisual patient information: challenges and opportunities.
Hutchison, Catherine; McCreaddie, May
2007-11-01
The aim of this project was to produce audiovisual patient information, which was user friendly and fit for purpose. The purpose of the audiovisual patient information is to inform patients about randomized controlled trials, as a supplement to their trial-specific written information sheet. Audiovisual patient information is known to be an effective way of informing patients about treatment. User involvement is also recognized as being important in the development of service provision. The aim of this paper is (i) to describe and discuss the process of developing the audiovisual patient information and (ii) to highlight the challenges and opportunities, thereby identifying implications for practice. A future study will test the effectiveness of the audiovisual patient information in the cancer clinical trial setting. An advisory group was set up to oversee the project and provide guidance in relation to information content, level and delivery. An expert panel of two patients provided additional guidance and a dedicated operational team dealt with the logistics of the project including: ethics; finance; scriptwriting; filming; editing and intellectual property rights. Challenges included the limitations of filming in a busy clinical environment, restricted technical and financial resources, ethical needs and issues around copyright. There were, however, substantial opportunities that included utilizing creative skills, meaningfully involving patients, teamworking and mutual appreciation of clinical, multidisciplinary and technical expertise. Developing audiovisual patient information is an important area for nurses to be involved with. However, this must be performed within the context of the multiprofessional team. Teamworking, including patient involvement, is crucial as a wide variety of expertise is required. Many aspects of the process are transferable and will provide information and guidance for nurses, regardless of specialty, considering developing this format of patient information.
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Pathway Linking Internet Health Information Seeking to Better Health: A Moderated Mediation Study.
Jiang, Shaohai; Street, Richard L
2017-08-01
The Internet increasingly has been recognized as an important medium with respect to population health. However, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie the potential impact of health-related Internet use on health outcomes. Based on the three-stage model of health promotion using interactive media, this study empirically tested a moderated mediation pathway model. Results showed that the effect of Internet health information seeking on three health outcomes (general, emotional, and physical) was completely mediated by respondents' access to social support resources. In addition, users' online health information seeking experience positively moderated this mediation path. The findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for the design of Internet-based health promotion resources to improve health outcomes.
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Seo, Mihye; Matsaganis, Matthew D
2013-08-01
This article examines how everyday media use and interpersonal communication for health information could influence health behaviors beyond intervention or campaign contexts. The authors argue that interpersonal communication works as an independent information channel and mediates the relation between media channels and health behaviors. In addition, the authors investigate whether interpersonal communication differently influences the relation between media connections and health behaviors for more and less educated individuals. Using data from the 2008 Annenberg National Health Communication Survey, the authors show that multiple communication channels for health information encourage health-enhancing behaviors but do not have significant relations with health-threatening behaviors. Interpersonal communication is directly linked to health-enhancing behaviors, but it also mediates the influence of individuals' multichannel media environment on health-enhancing behaviors. The mediating role of interpersonal health communication was only significant for less educated people. In addition, among media channels, television was a more important instigator of health-related conversations with family and friends for the less educated group. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as suggestions for future research directions, are discussed.
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Attribute amnesia reflects a lack of memory consolidation for attended information.
Chen, Hui; Wyble, Brad
2016-02-01
A recently reported phenomenon, termed attribute amnesia, challenged the commonly held belief that attention plays the determining role in controlling how information is remembered, by showing that participants fail to remember a specific attended attribute (e.g., the target-defining color), even when they had just used that attribute to perform a task (Chen & Wyble, 2015a). The main purpose of the present study sought to better understand the mechanism underlying this phenomenon. The results revealed that attribute amnesia was nearly eliminated once participants were forced to store and hold attended information for a brief time, suggesting that this amnesia effect most likely reflects a lack of memory consolidation for an attended attribute that had been processed to some certain level. In addition, we demonstrated that the effect is not particular to the use of location report or the repetition of targets. One additional finding is that amnesia was markedly absent for location memory, indicating an important difference between memories for locations and attributes such as color or identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Haberlandt, Uwe
2007-01-01
SummaryThe methods kriging with external drift (KED) and indicator kriging with external drift (IKED) are used for the spatial interpolation of hourly rainfall from rain gauges using additional information from radar, daily precipitation of a denser network, and elevation. The techniques are illustrated using data from the storm period of the 10th to the 13th of August 2002 that led to the extreme flood event in the Elbe river basin in Germany. Cross-validation is applied to compare the interpolation performance of the KED and IKED methods using different additional information with the univariate reference methods nearest neighbour (NN) or Thiessen polygons, inverse square distance weighting (IDW), ordinary kriging (OK) and ordinary indicator kriging (IK). Special attention is given to the analysis of the impact of the semivariogram estimation on the interpolation performance. Hourly and average semivariograms are inferred from daily, hourly and radar data considering either isotropic or anisotropic behaviour using automatic and manual fitting procedures. The multivariate methods KED and IKED clearly outperform the univariate ones with the most important additional information being radar, followed by precipitation from the daily network and elevation, which plays only a secondary role here. The best performance is achieved when all additional information are used simultaneously with KED. The indicator-based kriging methods provide, in some cases, smaller root mean square errors than the methods, which use the original data, but at the expense of a significant loss of variance. The impact of the semivariogram on interpolation performance is not very high. The best results are obtained using an automatic fitting procedure with isotropic variograms either from hourly or radar data.
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Westerling, Anna M; Haikala, Veikko E; Bell, J Simon; Airaksinen, Marja S
2010-01-01
To determine Finnish community pharmacy owners' requirements for the next generation of software systems. Descriptive, nonexperimental, cross-sectional study. Finland during December 2006. 308 independent pharmacy owners. Survey listing 126 features that could potentially be included in the new information technology (IT) system. The list was grouped into five categories: (1) drug information and patient counseling, (2) medication safety, (3) interprofessional collaboration, (4) pharmacy services, and (5) pharmacy internal processes. Perceived value of potential features for a new IT system. The survey was mailed to all independent pharmacy owners in Finland (n = 580; response rate 53% [n = 308]). Respondents gave priority to logistical functions and functions related to drug information and patient care. The highest rated individual features were tracking product expiry (rated as very or quite important by 100% of respondents), computerized drug-drug interaction screening (99%), an electronic version of the national pharmaceutical reference book (97%), and a checklist-type drug information database to assist patient counseling (95%). In addition to the high ranking for logistical features, Finnish pharmacy owners put a priority on support for cognitive pharmaceutical services in the next IT system. Although the importance of logistical functions is understandable, the owners demonstrated a commitment to strategic health policy goals when planning their business IT system.
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An information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model-based intervention for CABG patients.
Zarani, Fariba; Besharat, Mohammad Ali; Sarami, Gholamreza; Sadeghian, Saeed
2012-12-01
In order to benefit from a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, patients must adhere to medical recommendations and health advices. Despite the importance of adherence in CABG patients, adherence rates are disappointingly low. Despite the low adherence rates, very few articles regarding adherence-enhancing intervention among heart patients have been published. The goal of this study was to assess the effects of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model-based intervention on the IMB model constructs among patients undergoing CABG and to evaluate the relationship of information, motivation, and behavioral skills with adherence. A total of 152 CABG patients were randomly assigned to either an intervention group or to a standard care control group. Participants completed pretest measures and were reassessed 1 month later. Findings showed mixed support for the effectiveness of the intervention. There was a significant effect of IMB intervention on information and motivation of patients, but no significant effect on behavioral skills. Furthermore, the results revealed that intervention constructs (information, motivation, and behavioral skills) were significantly related to patients' adherence. Findings provided initial evidence for the effectiveness of IMB-based interventions on the IMB constructs and supported the importance of these constructs to improve adherence; however, there are additional factors that need to be identified in order to improve behavioral skills more effectively.
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49 CFR Appendix A to Part 24 - Additional Information
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-10-01
... 49 Transportation 1 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Additional Information A Appendix A to Part 24... Information This appendix provides additional information to explain the intent of certain provisions of this... additional information is gathered. If a decision is later made to permanently relocate such persons, those...
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47 CFR 1.10017 - How can I submit additional information?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-10-01
... 47 Telecommunication 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false How can I submit additional information? 1... International Bureau Filing System § 1.10017 How can I submit additional information? In response to an official request for information from the International Bureau, you can submit additional information...
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10 CFR 810.14 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-01-01
... 10 Energy 4 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Additional information. 810.14 Section 810.14 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ASSISTANCE TO FOREIGN ATOMIC ENERGY ACTIVITIES § 810.14 Additional information. The... activity to submit additional information. ...
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New methodologies for multi-scale time-variant reliability analysis of complex lifeline networks
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kurtz, Nolan Scot
The cost of maintaining existing civil infrastructure is enormous. Since the livelihood of the public depends on such infrastructure, its state must be managed appropriately using quantitative approaches. Practitioners must consider not only which components are most fragile to hazard, e.g. seismicity, storm surge, hurricane winds, etc., but also how they participate on a network level using network analysis. Focusing on particularly damaged components does not necessarily increase network functionality, which is most important to the people that depend on such infrastructure. Several network analyses, e.g. S-RDA, LP-bounds, and crude-MCS, and performance metrics, e.g. disconnection bounds and component importance, are available for such purposes. Since these networks are existing, the time state is also important. If networks are close to chloride sources, deterioration may be a major issue. Information from field inspections may also have large impacts on quantitative models. To address such issues, hazard risk analysis methodologies for deteriorating networks subjected to seismicity, i.e. earthquakes, have been created from analytics. A bridge component model has been constructed for these methodologies. The bridge fragilities, which were constructed from data, required a deeper level of analysis as these were relevant for specific structures. Furthermore, chloride-induced deterioration network effects were investigated. Depending on how mathematical models incorporate new information, many approaches are available, such as Bayesian model updating. To make such procedures more flexible, an adaptive importance sampling scheme was created for structural reliability problems. Additionally, such a method handles many kinds of system and component problems with singular or multiple important regions of the limit state function. These and previously developed analysis methodologies were found to be strongly sensitive to the network size. Special network topologies may be more or less computationally difficult, while the resolution of the network also has large affects. To take advantage of some types of topologies, network hierarchical structures with super-link representation have been used in the literature to increase the computational efficiency by analyzing smaller, densely connected networks; however, such structures were based on user input and subjective at times. To address this, algorithms must be automated and reliable. These hierarchical structures may indicate the structure of the network itself. This risk analysis methodology has been expanded to larger networks using such automated hierarchical structures. Component importance is the most important objective from such network analysis; however, this may only provide the information of which bridges to inspect/repair earliest and little else. High correlations influence such component importance measures in a negative manner. Additionally, a regional approach is not appropriately modelled. To investigate a more regional view, group importance measures based on hierarchical structures have been created. Such structures may also be used to create regional inspection/repair approaches. Using these analytical, quantitative risk approaches, the next generation of decision makers may make both component and regional-based optimal decisions using information from both network function and further effects of infrastructure deterioration.
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Gerken, Tobias; Ruddell, Benjamin L.; Fuentes, Jose D.; ...
2017-04-29
This work investigates the diurnal and seasonal behavior of the energy balance residual (E) that results from the observed difference between available energy and the turbulent fluxes of sensible heat (H) and latent heat (LE) at the FLUXNET BR-Ma2 site located in the Brazilian central Amazon rainforest. The behavior of E is analyzed by extending the eddy covariance averaging length from 30 min to 4 h and by applying an Information Flow Dynamical Process Network to diagnose processes and conditions affecting E across different seasons. Results show that the seasonal turbulent flux dynamics and the Bowen ratio are primarily drivenmore » by net radiation (R n), with substantial sub-seasonal variability. The Bowen ratio increased from 0.25 in April to 0.4 at the end of September. Extension of the averaging length from 0.5 (94.6% closure) to 4 h and thus inclusion of longer timescale eddies and mesoscale processes closes the energy balance and lead to an increase in the Bowen ratio, thus highlighting the importance of additional H to E. Information flow analysis reveals that the components of the energy balance explain between 25 and 40% of the total Shannon entropy with higher values during the wet season than the dry season. Dry season information flow from the buoyancy flux to E are 30–50% larger than that from H, indicating the potential importance of buoyancy fluxes to closing E. While the low closure highlights additional sources not captured in the flux data and random measurement errors contributing to E, the findings of the information flow and averaging length analysis are consistent with the impact of mesoscale circulations, which tend to transport more H than LE, on the lack of closure.« less
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DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Gerken, Tobias; Ruddell, Benjamin L.; Fuentes, Jose D.
This work investigates the diurnal and seasonal behavior of the energy balance residual (E) that results from the observed difference between available energy and the turbulent fluxes of sensible heat (H) and latent heat (LE) at the FLUXNET BR-Ma2 site located in the Brazilian central Amazon rainforest. The behavior of E is analyzed by extending the eddy covariance averaging length from 30 min to 4 h and by applying an Information Flow Dynamical Process Network to diagnose processes and conditions affecting E across different seasons. Results show that the seasonal turbulent flux dynamics and the Bowen ratio are primarily drivenmore » by net radiation (R n), with substantial sub-seasonal variability. The Bowen ratio increased from 0.25 in April to 0.4 at the end of September. Extension of the averaging length from 0.5 (94.6% closure) to 4 h and thus inclusion of longer timescale eddies and mesoscale processes closes the energy balance and lead to an increase in the Bowen ratio, thus highlighting the importance of additional H to E. Information flow analysis reveals that the components of the energy balance explain between 25 and 40% of the total Shannon entropy with higher values during the wet season than the dry season. Dry season information flow from the buoyancy flux to E are 30–50% larger than that from H, indicating the potential importance of buoyancy fluxes to closing E. While the low closure highlights additional sources not captured in the flux data and random measurement errors contributing to E, the findings of the information flow and averaging length analysis are consistent with the impact of mesoscale circulations, which tend to transport more H than LE, on the lack of closure.« less
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Testing market informational efficiency of Constanta port operators
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Roşca, E.; Popa, M.; Ruscă, F.; Burciu, Ş.
2015-11-01
The Romanian capital market is still an emergent one. Following the mass- privatization process and the private investments, three of the most important handling and storage companies acting in Constantza Port (OIL Terminal, Comvex and SOCEP) are listed on Romanian Stock Exchange. The paper investigates their evolution on the market, identifying the expected rate of return and the components of the shares risk (specific and systematic). Also, the price evolution could be analyzed through the informational efficiency which instantly reflects the price relevance. The Jarque-Bera normality test regarding the shares return rate distribution and the Fama test for the informational efficiency are completed for each company. The market price model is taken into consideration for price forecasting, computing the return rate auto-correlations. The results are subject of interpretation considering additional managerial and financial information of the companies’ activity.
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A framework of medical equipment management system for in-house clinical engineering department.
Chien, Chia-Hung; Huang, Yi-You; Chong, Fok-Ching
2010-01-01
Medical equipment management is an important issue for safety and cost in modern hospital operation. In addition, the use of an efficient information system effectively promotes the managing performance. In this study, we designed a framework of medical equipment management system used for in-house clinical engineering department. The system was web-based, and it integrated clinical engineering and hospital information system components. Through related information application, it efficiently improved the operation management of medical devices immediately and continuously. This system has run in the National Taiwan University Hospital. The results showed only few examples in the error analysis of medical equipment by the maintenance sub-system. The information can be used to improve work quality, to reduce the maintenance cost, and to promote the safety of medical device used in patients and clinical staffs.
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Representing nested semantic information in a linear string of text using XML.
Krauthammer, Michael; Johnson, Stephen B; Hripcsak, George; Campbell, David A; Friedman, Carol
2002-01-01
XML has been widely adopted as an important data interchange language. The structure of XML enables sharing of data elements with variable degrees of nesting as long as the elements are grouped in a strict tree-like fashion. This requirement potentially restricts the usefulness of XML for marking up written text, which often includes features that do not properly nest within other features. We encountered this problem while marking up medical text with structured semantic information from a Natural Language Processor. Traditional approaches to this problem separate the structured information from the actual text mark up. This paper introduces an alternative solution, which tightly integrates the semantic structure with the text. The resulting XML markup preserves the linearity of the medical texts and can therefore be easily expanded with additional types of information.
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Representing nested semantic information in a linear string of text using XML.
Krauthammer, Michael; Johnson, Stephen B.; Hripcsak, George; Campbell, David A.; Friedman, Carol
2002-01-01
XML has been widely adopted as an important data interchange language. The structure of XML enables sharing of data elements with variable degrees of nesting as long as the elements are grouped in a strict tree-like fashion. This requirement potentially restricts the usefulness of XML for marking up written text, which often includes features that do not properly nest within other features. We encountered this problem while marking up medical text with structured semantic information from a Natural Language Processor. Traditional approaches to this problem separate the structured information from the actual text mark up. This paper introduces an alternative solution, which tightly integrates the semantic structure with the text. The resulting XML markup preserves the linearity of the medical texts and can therefore be easily expanded with additional types of information. PMID:12463856
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Learning using privileged information: SVM+ and weighted SVM.
Lapin, Maksim; Hein, Matthias; Schiele, Bernt
2014-05-01
Prior knowledge can be used to improve predictive performance of learning algorithms or reduce the amount of data required for training. The same goal is pursued within the learning using privileged information paradigm which was recently introduced by Vapnik et al. and is aimed at utilizing additional information available only at training time-a framework implemented by SVM+. We relate the privileged information to importance weighting and show that the prior knowledge expressible with privileged features can also be encoded by weights associated with every training example. We show that a weighted SVM can always replicate an SVM+ solution, while the converse is not true and we construct a counterexample highlighting the limitations of SVM+. Finally, we touch on the problem of choosing weights for weighted SVMs when privileged features are not available. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Hori, Kenta; Kuroda, Tomohiro; Oyama, Hiroshi; Ozaki, Yasuhiko; Nakamura, Takehiko; Takahashi, Takashi
2005-12-01
For faultless collaboration among the surgeon, surgical staffs, and surgical robots in telesurgery, communication must include environmental information of the remote operating room, such as behavior of robots and staffs, vital information of a patient, named supporting information, in addition to view of surgical field. "Surgical Cockpit System, " which is a telesurgery support system that has been developed by the authors, is mainly focused on supporting information exchange between remote sites. Live video presentation is important technology for Surgical Cockpit System. Visualization method to give precise location/posture of surgical instruments is indispensable for accurate control and faultless operation. In this paper, the authors propose three-side-view presentation method for precise location/posture control of surgical instruments in telesurgery. The experimental results show that the proposed method improved accurate positioning of a telemanipulator.
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What is Your Cosmic Connection to the Elements?
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Lochner, J.
2003-01-01
This booklet provides information and classroom activities covering topics in astronomy, physics, and chemistry. Chemistry teachers will find information about the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. The astronomy topics include the big bang, life cycles of small and large stars, supernovae, and cosmic rays. Physics teachers will find information on fusion processes, and physical principles important in stellar evolution. While not meant to replace a textbook, the information provided here is meant to give the necessary background for the theme of :our cosmic connection to the elements." The activities can be used to re-enforce the material across a number of disciplines, using a variety of techniques, and to engage and excite students about the topic. Additional activities, and on-line versions of the activities published here, are available at http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/elements/.
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Insight of Genus Corynebacterium: Ascertaining the Role of Pathogenic and Non-pathogenic Species
Oliveira, Alberto; Oliveira, Leticia C.; Aburjaile, Flavia; Benevides, Leandro; Tiwari, Sandeep; Jamal, Syed B.; Silva, Arthur; Figueiredo, Henrique C. P.; Ghosh, Preetam; Portela, Ricardo W.; De Carvalho Azevedo, Vasco A.; Wattam, Alice R.
2017-01-01
This review gathers recent information about genomic and transcriptomic studies in the Corynebacterium genus, exploring, for example, prediction of pathogenicity islands and stress response in different pathogenic and non-pathogenic species. In addition, is described several phylogeny studies to Corynebacterium, exploring since the identification of species until biological speciation in one species belonging to the genus Corynebacterium. Important concepts associated with virulence highlighting the role of Pld protein and Tox gene. The adhesion, characteristic of virulence factor, was described using the sortase mechanism that is associated to anchorage to the cell wall. In addition, survival inside the host cell and some diseases, were too addressed for pathogenic corynebacteria, while important biochemical pathways and biotechnological applications retain the focus of this review for non-pathogenic corynebacteria. Concluding, this review broadly explores characteristics in genus Corynebacterium showing to have strong relevance inside the medical, veterinary, and biotechnology field. PMID:29075239
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Allele quantification using molecular inversion probes (MIP)
Wang, Yuker; Moorhead, Martin; Karlin-Neumann, George; Falkowski, Matthew; Chen, Chunnuan; Siddiqui, Farooq; Davis, Ronald W.; Willis, Thomas D.; Faham, Malek
2005-01-01
Detection of genomic copy number changes has been an important research area, especially in cancer. Several high-throughput technologies have been developed to detect these changes. Features that are important for the utility of technologies assessing copy number changes include the ability to interrogate regions of interest at the desired density as well as the ability to differentiate the two homologs. In addition, assessing formaldehyde fixed and paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples allows the utilization of the vast majority of cancer samples. To address these points we demonstrate the use of molecular inversion probe (MIP) technology to the study of copy number. MIP is a high-throughput genotyping technology capable of interrogating >20 000 single nucleotide polymorphisms in the same tube. We have shown the ability of MIP at this multiplex level to provide copy number measurements while obtaining the allele information. In addition we have demonstrated a proof of principle for copy number analysis in FFPE samples. PMID:16314297
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Biodiesel: Characterization by DSC and P-DSC
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Chiriac, Rodica; Toche, François; Brylinski, Christian
Thermal analytical methods such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) have been successfully applied to neat petrodiesel and engine oils in the last 25 years. This chapter shows how DSC and P-DSC (pressurized DSC) techniques can be used to compare, characterize, and predict some properties of alternative non-petroleum fuels, such as cold flow behavior and oxidative stability. These two properties are extremely important with respect to the operability, transport, and long-term storage of biodiesel fuel. It is shown that the quantity of unsaturated fatty acids in the fuel composition has an important impact on both properties. In addition, it is shown that the impact of fuel additives on the oxidative stability or the cold flow behavior of biodiesel can be studied by means of DSC and P-DSC techniques. Thermomicroscopy can also be used to study the cold flow behavior of biodiesel, giving information on the size and the morphology of crystals formed at low temperature.
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Physical Examination Findings Among Children and Adolescents With Obesity: An Evidence-Based Review.
Armstrong, Sarah; Lazorick, Suzanne; Hampl, Sarah; Skelton, Joseph A; Wood, Charles; Collier, David; Perrin, Eliana M
2016-02-01
Overweight and obesity affects 1 in 3 US children and adolescents. Clinical recommendations have largely focused on screening guidelines and counseling strategies. However, the physical examination of the child or adolescent with obesity can provide the clinician with additional information to guide management decisions. This expert-based review focuses on physical examination findings specific to children and adolescents with obesity. For each physical examination element, the authors define the finding and its prevalence among pediatric patients with obesity, discuss the importance and relevance of the finding, describe known techniques to assess severity, and review evidence regarding the need for additional evaluation. The recommendations presented represent a comprehensive review of current evidence as well as expert opinion. The goal of this review is to highlight the importance of conducting a targeted physical examination during pediatric weight management visits. Copyright © 2016 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
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Insight of Genus Corynebacterium: Ascertaining the Role of Pathogenic and Non-pathogenic Species.
Oliveira, Alberto; Oliveira, Leticia C; Aburjaile, Flavia; Benevides, Leandro; Tiwari, Sandeep; Jamal, Syed B; Silva, Arthur; Figueiredo, Henrique C P; Ghosh, Preetam; Portela, Ricardo W; De Carvalho Azevedo, Vasco A; Wattam, Alice R
2017-01-01
This review gathers recent information about genomic and transcriptomic studies in the Corynebacterium genus, exploring, for example, prediction of pathogenicity islands and stress response in different pathogenic and non-pathogenic species. In addition, is described several phylogeny studies to Corynebacterium , exploring since the identification of species until biological speciation in one species belonging to the genus Corynebacterium . Important concepts associated with virulence highlighting the role of Pld protein and Tox gene. The adhesion, characteristic of virulence factor, was described using the sortase mechanism that is associated to anchorage to the cell wall. In addition, survival inside the host cell and some diseases, were too addressed for pathogenic corynebacteria, while important biochemical pathways and biotechnological applications retain the focus of this review for non-pathogenic corynebacteria. Concluding, this review broadly explores characteristics in genus Corynebacterium showing to have strong relevance inside the medical, veterinary, and biotechnology field.
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Quality of online information on type 2 diabetes: a cross-sectional study.
Weymann, Nina; Härter, Martin; Dirmaier, Jörg
2015-12-01
Evidence-based health information is a prerequisite for patients with type 2 diabetes to engage in self-management and to make informed medical decisions. The Internet is an important source of health information. In the present study, we systematically assessed formal quality, quality of decision support and usability of German and English language websites on type 2 diabetes. The search term 'type 2 diabetes' was entered in the two most popular search engines. Descriptive data on website quality are presented. Additionally, associations between website quality and affiliation (commercial vs. non-commercial), presence of the HON code quality seal and website traffic were explored. Forty-six websites were included. Most websites provided basic information necessary for decision-making, while only one website also provided decision support. Websites with a HON code had significantly better formal quality than websites without HON code. We found a highly significant correlation between usability and website traffic and a significant correlation between formal quality and website traffic. Most websites do not provide sufficient information to support patients in medical decision-making. Our finding that usability and website traffic are tightly associated is consistent with previous research indicating that design is the most important cue for users assessing website credibility. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
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The cognitive consequences of envy: attention, memory, and self-regulatory depletion.
Hill, Sarah E; DelPriore, Danielle J; Vaughan, Phillip W
2011-10-01
In a series of 4 experiments, we provide evidence that--in addition to having an affective component--envy may also have important consequences for cognitive processing. Our first experiment (N = 69) demonstrated that individuals primed with envy better attended to and more accurately recalled information about fictitious peers than did a control group. Studies 2 (N = 187) and 3 (N = 65) conceptually replicated these results, demonstrating that envy elicited by targets predicts attention and later memory for information about them. We demonstrate that these effects cannot be accounted for by admiration or changes in negative affect or arousal elicited by the targets. Study 4 (N = 152) provides evidence that greater memory for envied--but not neutral--targets leads to diminished perseverance on a difficult anagram task. Findings demonstrate that envy may play an important role in attention and memory systems and deplete limited self-regulatory resources available for acts of volition. 2011 APA, all rights reserved
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78 FR 53375 - Partner Vetting in USAID Assistance
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2013-08-29
... information used for screening. The calculation takes into the account the additional pieces of information... majority of information used for screening. The calculations take into account the additional information...'s additional information merits a revised decision. (3) The Agency's determination of whether...
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Wackowski, Olivia A; Hammond, David; O'Connor, Richard J; Strasser, Andrew A; Delnevo, Cristine D
2017-07-14
Tobacco warning labels are important sources of risk information but research historically has been cigarette-centric. This qualitative study aimed to inform future direction and research on warnings for e-cigarettes. Between June and August 2016, we conducted interviews with 10 researchers with expertise in tobacco warning label research. Interviewees were registrants of a 2016 National Cancer Institute grantee meeting on tobacco warnings. Several participants agreed that the Food and Drug Administration's new nicotine addiction warning for e-cigarettes could be informative but that it might not resonate with young people. Many agreed that more than one warning would be important as e-cigarette science evolves and that research on additional warning themes (e.g., nicotine exposure, harmful constituents) and execution styles (including use of pictorials) was important. Participants were somewhat mixed about the use of reduced-risk messages within e-cigarette warnings, but agreed that research on how to communicate about cigarette/e-cigarette relative risks was needed. Overall, more research is needed on tobacco warnings for non-cigarette products, including on the message content, placement, execution and potential impact on audiences' product knowledge, risk perceptions and use intentions. This is particularly needed for products such as e-cigarettes which may have harm-reduction potential relative to cigarettes and require unique considerations.
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Wackowski, Olivia A.; Hammond, David; O’Connor, Richard J.; Strasser, Andrew A.; Delnevo, Cristine D.
2017-01-01
Tobacco warning labels are important sources of risk information but research historically has been cigarette-centric. This qualitative study aimed to inform future direction and research on warnings for e-cigarettes. Between June and August 2016, we conducted interviews with 10 researchers with expertise in tobacco warning label research. Interviewees were registrants of a 2016 National Cancer Institute grantee meeting on tobacco warnings. Several participants agreed that the Food and Drug Administration’s new nicotine addiction warning for e-cigarettes could be informative but that it might not resonate with young people. Many agreed that more than one warning would be important as e-cigarette science evolves and that research on additional warning themes (e.g., nicotine exposure, harmful constituents) and execution styles (including use of pictorials) was important. Participants were somewhat mixed about the use of reduced-risk messages within e-cigarette warnings, but agreed that research on how to communicate about cigarette/e-cigarette relative risks was needed. Overall, more research is needed on tobacco warnings for non-cigarette products, including on the message content, placement, execution and potential impact on audiences’ product knowledge, risk perceptions and use intentions. This is particularly needed for products such as e-cigarettes which may have harm-reduction potential relative to cigarettes and require unique considerations. PMID:28708124
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Interpretation bias for uncertain threat: A replication and extension.
Oglesby, Mary E; Raines, Amanda M; Short, Nicole A; Capron, Daniel W; Schmidt, Norman B
2016-06-01
Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) has been proposed as an important transdiagnostic variable within various anxiety-related disorders. Research has suggested that individuals high in IU may interpret ambiguous information in a more threatening manner, suggesting a negative interpretation bias for uncertain information. However, interpretation biases within IU have not been adequately tested in the literature. The current study evaluated negative interpretation biases for uncertain information by directly measuring an individual's interpretations of ambiguous information across two samples. Participants consisted of 76 (Study 1; 72.4% female) and 31 (Study 2; 81% female) undergraduate students. Results indicated that individuals high in IU interpret ambiguous scenarios as more threatening compared to negative and/or positive scenarios (β = .45, p = .02). In addition, individuals high in IU showed a negative interpretation bias for ambiguous information, but not benign information (Study 1: β = -.40, p < .001; Study 2: β = -.57, p = .002). Future research should attempt to replicate these findings within clinical populations. In addition, future work would benefit from the inclusion of behavioral assessments of IU. These findings are the first to detect the presence of a negative interpretation bias for uncertain information among individuals high in IU utilizing a task designed to directly measure an individual's interpretation of information. Given the efficacy and low economic burden associated with interpretation bias modification protocols, and the transdiagnostic nature of IU, targeting IU within these protocols could have a tremendous public health impact. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Lieberman, Lynne; Liu, Huiting; Huggins, Ashley A; Katz, Andrea C; Zvolensky, Michael J; Shankman, Stewart A
2016-09-01
Personality traits relate to risk for psychopathology and can inform predictions about treatment outcome. In an effort to obtain a comprehensive index of personality, informant reports of personality are sometimes obtained in addition to self-reports of personality. However, there is limited research comparing the validity of self- and informant reports of personality, particularly among those with internalizing psychopathology. This is important given that informants may provide an additional (and perhaps different) perspective on individuals' personality. The present study therefore compared how both reports of positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA) relate to psychophysiological and subjective measures of emotional responding to positive and negative stimuli. Given that our sample (n = 117) included individuals with no history of psychopathology, as well as individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and/or panic disorder (PD), we were also able to explore whether these internalizing diagnoses moderated the association between personality reports and measures of emotional responding. Informant-reported PA predicted physiological responses to positive stimuli (but not negative). Informant-reported NA predicted physiological responses to negative stimuli (but not positive). Self-reported personality did not predict physiological responding, but did predict subjectively measured emotional responding (NA for negative responding, PA for positive responding). Diagnoses of internalizing psychopathology (PD or MDD) did not moderate these associations. Results suggest self- and informant reports of personality may each provide valid indices of an individual's emotional response tendencies, but predict different aspects of those tendencies. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
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Walsh, Anne M; Hamilton, Kyra; White, Katherine M; Hyde, Melissa K
2015-04-02
The use of the internet to access information is rapidly increasing; however, the quality of health information provided on various online sites is questionable. We aimed to examine the underlying factors that guide parents' decisions to use online information to manage their child's health care, a behaviour which has not yet been explored systematically. Parents (N = 391) completed a questionnaire assessing the standard theory of planned behaviour (TPB) measures of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control (PBC), and intention as well as the underlying TPB belief-based items (i.e., behavioural, normative, and control beliefs) in addition to a measure of perceived risk and demographic variables. Two months later, consenting parents completed a follow-up telephone questionnaire which assessed the decisions they had made regarding their use of online information to manage their child's health care during the previous 2 months. We found support for the TPB constructs of attitude, subjective norm, and PBC as well as the additional construct of perceived risk in predicting parents' intentions to use online information to manage their child's health care, with further support found for intentions, but not PBC, in predicting parents' behaviour. The results of the TPB belief-based analyses also revealed important information about the critical beliefs that guide parents' decisions to engage in this child health management behaviour. This theory-based investigation to understand parents' motivations and online information-seeking behaviour is key to developing recommendations and policies to guide more appropriate help-seeking actions among parents.
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Communicating Genetic and Genomic Information: Health Literacy and Numeracy Considerations
Lea, D.H.; Kaphingst, K.A.; Bowen, D.; Lipkus, I.; Hadley, D.W.
2011-01-01
Genomic research is transforming our understanding of the role of genes in health and disease. These advances, and their application to common diseases that affect large segments of the general population, suggest that researchers and practitioners in public health genomics will increasingly be called upon to translate genomic information to individuals with varying levels of health literacy and numeracy. This paper discusses the current state of research regarding public understanding of genetics and genomics, the influence of health literacy and numeracy on genetic communication, and behavioral responses to genetic and genomic information. The existing research suggests that members of the general public have some familiarity with genetic and genomic terms but have gaps in understanding of underlying concepts. Findings from the limited research base to date indicate that health literacy affects understanding of print and oral communications about genetic and genomic information. Numeracy is also likely to be an important predictor of being able to understand and apply this information, although little research has been conducted in this area to date. In addition, although some research has examined behavior change in response to the receipt of information about genetic risk for familial disorders and genomic susceptibility to common, complex diseases, the effects of health literacy and numeracy on these responses have not been examined. Potential areas in which additional research is needed are identified and practical suggestions for presenting numeric risk information are outlined. Public health genomics researchers and practitioners are uniquely positioned to engage in research that explores how different audiences react to and use genomic risk information. PMID:20407217
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Milestones on the way to a reconfigurable automotive instrument cluster
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Knoll, Peter M.; Kosmowski, Bogdan B.
2002-06-01
Nowadays, the car driver are faced with a rapidly increasing flood of information. In addition to established information systems (car radio, vehicle monitoring, mobile phones), high class vehicles feature navigation systems almost as standard. In the current decade, driver assistance and collision avoidance systems will appear in vehicles. Hence, there is an increasing demand for supplying the driver with more information that help him to drive safer and more economical. The price decline in the computer market and the availability of powerful graphic hard- and software concepts make it possible to enhance the classical functions of the instrument board to an interactive multifunctional information panel - an interface between information systems of the car and the driver. Therefore, the question of additional visual and cognitive stress, and a possible distraction of the driver by the large amount of information, and its complexity becomes predominant. Reconfigurable instruments, based on a microprocessor controlled active matrix color display, provide a powerful alternative to the usual mechanical/electromechanical instrument clusters in vehicles. They will help to strengthen passive safety, they adapt to user and situation requirements, and they are easy to install, to configure, and to maintain. Reconfigurable instruments in future cars will have a high impact on traffic since they can provide the driver with much more information, presenting it in a way that is flexibly matched to the importance of particular data and to the ergonomic properties of the driver. The functions are manifold and span from classical driver information like speed to navigation prompts and ultimately to video and multimedia access.
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Kottwitz, Maria U.; Hünefeld, Lena; Frank, Benjamin P.; Otto, Kathleen
2017-01-01
In recent decades, the working world has changed dramatically and rising demands on flexibility make the coordination of personal and professional life more difficult. Therefore, it is important that the incumbents are in possession of all necessary information concerning their job. This might be a key issue to remain satisfied. Simultaneously, atypical forms of employment have substantially increased in the labor market; one such form is holding more than one job. While the motives might differ from needing an additional income to broadening job opportunities, practicing several jobs requires coordination and thus, being informed. Building on research regarding organizational constraints and role ambiguity, we hypothesize that the paucity of information is negatively related to (dimensions of) job satisfaction. This effect should be stronger for multiple as compared to single jobbers; specifically when considering the job satisfaction with the social climate, given that being informed by others is an important factor in the coordination of several jobs. Data taken from the BiBB/BAuA-Employment-Survey provide a sample of 17,782 German employees (54% women), including 1,084 multiple jobbers (59% women). Job satisfaction was measured as employees global satisfaction and their satisfaction with facets dimensions: the social climate, structural working conditions, personal growth opportunities, and material incentives they receive for their work. Paucity of information was measured by the frequency of lacked information. Our study indicated that paucity of information was negatively related to both, global and all facets dimensions of job satisfaction. Multiple regression analyses further revealed interaction effects of paucity of information and form of employment. Specifically, the negative correlation of paucity of information with global as well as satisfaction with the social climate was stronger for employees’ holding more than one job. These results were independent of age, gender, organizational tenure, working hours, socioeconomic occupational status, as well as important working conditions (workload and autonomy). Incumbents with less paucity of necessary job-related information are more satisfied, especially when they hold multiple jobs. Supervisors and colleagues are advised to provide all necessary information and to ensure that employees retain it. PMID:28798709
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Kottwitz, Maria U; Hünefeld, Lena; Frank, Benjamin P; Otto, Kathleen
2017-01-01
In recent decades, the working world has changed dramatically and rising demands on flexibility make the coordination of personal and professional life more difficult. Therefore, it is important that the incumbents are in possession of all necessary information concerning their job. This might be a key issue to remain satisfied. Simultaneously, atypical forms of employment have substantially increased in the labor market; one such form is holding more than one job. While the motives might differ from needing an additional income to broadening job opportunities, practicing several jobs requires coordination and thus, being informed. Building on research regarding organizational constraints and role ambiguity, we hypothesize that the paucity of information is negatively related to (dimensions of) job satisfaction. This effect should be stronger for multiple as compared to single jobbers; specifically when considering the job satisfaction with the social climate, given that being informed by others is an important factor in the coordination of several jobs. Data taken from the BiBB/BAuA-Employment-Survey provide a sample of 17,782 German employees (54% women), including 1,084 multiple jobbers (59% women). Job satisfaction was measured as employees global satisfaction and their satisfaction with facets dimensions: the social climate, structural working conditions, personal growth opportunities, and material incentives they receive for their work. Paucity of information was measured by the frequency of lacked information. Our study indicated that paucity of information was negatively related to both, global and all facets dimensions of job satisfaction. Multiple regression analyses further revealed interaction effects of paucity of information and form of employment. Specifically, the negative correlation of paucity of information with global as well as satisfaction with the social climate was stronger for employees' holding more than one job. These results were independent of age, gender, organizational tenure, working hours, socioeconomic occupational status, as well as important working conditions (workload and autonomy). Incumbents with less paucity of necessary job-related information are more satisfied, especially when they hold multiple jobs. Supervisors and colleagues are advised to provide all necessary information and to ensure that employees retain it.
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Social media: the key to health information access for 18- to 30-year-old college students.
Prybutok, Gayle; Ryan, Sherry
2015-04-01
This work examines where 18- to 30-year-old college students seek health information on the Internet and how they determine site and message credibility. Using a qualitative methodology, five focus groups were conducted with 18- to 30-year-old college students, and transcripts were analyzed with MaxQDA text analysis software. The study revealed that 18- to 30-year-old college students have Internet health information source preferences, reasons for seeking health information on the Internet, and message design factors that improve their perception of site and message credibility. We conclude that the Internet and social media show great promise as effective health communication channels for 18- to 30-year-old college students and confirm that preferred Internet/social media sites can be utilized by health educators to present important risk management/disease prevention information to 18- to 30-year-old college students. In addition, message design factors can lend credibility to both sites and the health information delivered there.
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Providing Global Change Information for Decision-Making: Capturing and Presenting Provenance
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Ma, Xiaogang; Fox, Peter; Tilmes, Curt; Jacobs, Katherine; Waple, Anne
2014-01-01
Global change information demands access to data sources and well-documented provenance to provide evidence needed to build confidence in scientific conclusions and, in specific applications, to ensure the information's suitability for use in decision-making. A new generation of Web technology, the Semantic Web, provides tools for that purpose. The topic of global change covers changes in the global environment (including alterations in climate, land productivity, oceans or other water resources, atmospheric composition and or chemistry, and ecological systems) that may alter the capacity of the Earth to sustain life and support human systems. Data and findings associated with global change research are of great public, government, and academic concern and are used in policy and decision-making, which makes the provenance of global change information especially important. In addition, since different types of decisions benefit from different types of information, understanding how to capture and present the provenance of global change information is becoming more of an imperative in adaptive planning.
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Lorenzetti, Diane L; Rutherford, Gayle
2012-12-01
This pilot study explores the conditions that support or hinder information professionals' participation in interdisciplinary research teams. We undertook a preliminary grounded theory study investigating factors that impact on information professionals' participation in interdisciplinary research. Four biomedical information professionals working in academic universities and teaching hospitals in Canada participated in semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory methods guided the data collection and analysis. Participants identified the conditions that support or hinder research participation as belonging to four distinct overlapping domains: client-level factors including preconceptions and researcher resistance; individual-level factors such as research readiness; opportunities that are most often made not found; and organisational supports. Creating willingness, building preparedness and capitalising on opportunity appear crucial to successful participation in interdisciplinary research. Further exploration of the importance of educational, collegial and organisational supports may reveal additional data to support the development of a grounded theory regarding the facilitation of information professionals' engagement in interdisciplinary research. © 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group.
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Drug knowledge expressed as computable semantic triples.
Elkin, Peter L; Carter, John S; Nabar, Manasi; Tuttle, Mark; Lincoln, Michael; Brown, Steven H
2011-01-01
The majority of questions that arise in the practice of medicine relate to drug information. Additionally, adverse reactions account for as many as 98,000 deaths per year in the United States. Adverse drug reactions account for a significant portion of those errors. Many authors believe that clinical decision support associated with computerized physician order entry has the potential to decrease this adverse drug event rate. This decision support requires knowledge to drive the process. One important and rich source of drug knowledge is the DailyMed product labels. In this project we used computationally extracted SNOMED CT™ codified data associated with each section of each product label as input to a rules engine that created computable assertional knowledge in the form of semantic triples. These are expressed in the form of "Drug" HasIndication "SNOMED CT™". The information density of drug labels is deep, broad and quite substantial. By providing a computable form of this information content from drug labels we make these important axioms (facts) more accessible to computer programs designed to support improved care.
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Hybrid Automatic Building Interpretation System
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Pakzad, K.; Klink, A.; Müterthies, A.; Gröger, G.; Stroh, V.; Plümer, L.
2011-09-01
HABIS (Hybrid Automatic Building Interpretation System) is a system for an automatic reconstruction of building roofs used in virtual 3D building models. Unlike most of the commercially available systems, HABIS is able to work to a high degree automatically. The hybrid method uses different sources intending to exploit the advantages of the particular sources. 3D point clouds usually provide good height and surface data, whereas spatial high resolution aerial images provide important information for edges and detail information for roof objects like dormers or chimneys. The cadastral data provide important basis information about the building ground plans. The approach used in HABIS works with a multi-stage-process, which starts with a coarse roof classification based on 3D point clouds. After that it continues with an image based verification of these predicted roofs. In a further step a final classification and adjustment of the roofs is done. In addition some roof objects like dormers and chimneys are also extracted based on aerial images and added to the models. In this paper the used methods are described and some results are presented.
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Sarasa, Mathieu; Soriguer, Ramón C; Serrano, Emmanuel; Granados, José-Enrique; Pérez, Jesús M
2014-01-01
Most studies of lateralized behaviour have to date focused on active behaviour such as sensorial perception and locomotion and little is known about lateralized postures, such as lying, that can potentially magnify the effectiveness of lateralized perception and reaction. Moreover, the relative importance of factors such as sex, age and the stress associated with social status in laterality is now a subject of increasing interest. In this study, we assess the importance of sex, age and reproductive investment in females in lying laterality in the Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica). Using generalized additive models under an information-theoretic approach based on the Akaike information criterion, we analyzed lying laterality of 78 individually marked ibexes. Sex, age and nursing appeared as key factors associated, in interaction and non-linearly, with lying laterality. Beyond the benefits of studying laterality with non-linear models, our results highlight the fact that a combination of static factors such as sex, and dynamic factors such as age and stress associated with parental care, are associated with postural laterality.
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Salvo, Grazia; Doyle-Baker, Patricia K.; McCormack, Gavin R.
2018-01-01
Qualitative studies can provide important information about how and why the built environment impacts physical activity decision-making—information that is important for informing local urban policies. We undertook a systematized literature review to synthesize findings from qualitative studies exploring how the built environment influences physical activity in adults. Our review included 36 peer-reviewed qualitative studies published from 1998 onwards. Our findings complemented existing quantitative evidence and provided additional insight into how functional, aesthetic, destination, and safety built characteristics influence physical activity decision-making. Sociodemographic characteristics (age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) also impacted the BE’s influence on physical activity. Our review findings reinforce the need for synergy between transportation planning, urban design, landscape architecture, road engineering, parks and recreation, bylaw enforcement, and public health to be involved in creating neighbourhood environments that support physical activity. Our findings support a need for local neighbourhood citizens and associations with representation from individuals and groups with different sociodemographic backgrounds to have input into neighbourhood environment planning process. PMID:29724048
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Multimodal digital color imaging system for facial skin lesion analysis
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Bae, Youngwoo; Lee, Youn-Heum; Jung, Byungjo
2008-02-01
In dermatology, various digital imaging modalities have been used as an important tool to quantitatively evaluate the treatment effect of skin lesions. Cross-polarization color image was used to evaluate skin chromophores (melanin and hemoglobin) information and parallel-polarization image to evaluate skin texture information. In addition, UV-A induced fluorescent image has been widely used to evaluate various skin conditions such as sebum, keratosis, sun damages, and vitiligo. In order to maximize the evaluation efficacy of various skin lesions, it is necessary to integrate various imaging modalities into an imaging system. In this study, we propose a multimodal digital color imaging system, which provides four different digital color images of standard color image, parallel and cross-polarization color image, and UV-A induced fluorescent color image. Herein, we describe the imaging system and present the examples of image analysis. By analyzing the color information and morphological features of facial skin lesions, we are able to comparably and simultaneously evaluate various skin lesions. In conclusion, we are sure that the multimodal color imaging system can be utilized as an important assistant tool in dermatology.
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The Characterization of the Phlebotomus papatasi Transcriptome
2013-04-01
Computational identification of novel chitinase-like proteins in the Drosophila melanogaster genome . Bioinformatics. 2004; 20, no. 2:161–169. [PubMed: 14734306...discovery in organisms where sequencing the whole genome is not possible (Lindlof 2003), or in addition to genome information for more accurate gene...biology of these important vectors, and generate essential data for annotation of the newly sequenced phlebotomine sand fly genomes (McDowell et al
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Earth-Moon Impacts at 300 Ma and 500 Ma Ago
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Zellner, N. E. B.; Delano, J. W.; Swindle, T. D.; Barra, F.; Whittet, D. C. B.; Spudis, P. D.
2005-01-01
Impact events have played an important role in the evolution of planets and small bodies in the Solar System. Meteorites, lunar melt rocks, and lunar impact glasses provide important information about the geology of the parent body and the age of the impacting episodes. Over 2400 impact glasses from 4 Apollo regolith samples have been geochemically analyzed and a subset has been dated by the (40)Ar/(39)Ar method. New results, consistent with 2 break-ups in the Asteroid Belt, are presented here. Our previous study reported that (40)Ar/(39)Ar ages from 9 impact glasses showed that the Moon experienced significant impacts at approx. 800 Ma and at approx. 3800 Ma ago, somewhere in the vicinity of the Apollo 16 landing site. Additionally, reported on Apollo 12 samples with ages around 800 Ma, together implying global bombardment events. New data on 7 glasses from regolith sample 66041,127 show that the Moon also experienced impact events at approx. 300 Ma and > 500 Ma ago, which may coincide with the break-ups in the Asteroid Belt of the L- and H-chrondrite parent bodies. Since meteoritic evidence for these breakups has been found on Earth, it follows that evidence should be found in lunar samples as well. Additional information is included in the original extended abstract.
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A Web-Based System for Bayesian Benchmark Dose Estimation.
Shao, Kan; Shapiro, Andrew J
2018-01-11
Benchmark dose (BMD) modeling is an important step in human health risk assessment and is used as the default approach to identify the point of departure for risk assessment. A probabilistic framework for dose-response assessment has been proposed and advocated by various institutions and organizations; therefore, a reliable tool is needed to provide distributional estimates for BMD and other important quantities in dose-response assessment. We developed an online system for Bayesian BMD (BBMD) estimation and compared results from this software with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Benchmark Dose Software (BMDS). The system is built on a Bayesian framework featuring the application of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling for model parameter estimation and BMD calculation, which makes the BBMD system fundamentally different from the currently prevailing BMD software packages. In addition to estimating the traditional BMDs for dichotomous and continuous data, the developed system is also capable of computing model-averaged BMD estimates. A total of 518 dichotomous and 108 continuous data sets extracted from the U.S. EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database (and similar databases) were used as testing data to compare the estimates from the BBMD and BMDS programs. The results suggest that the BBMD system may outperform the BMDS program in a number of aspects, including fewer failed BMD and BMDL calculations and estimates. The BBMD system is a useful alternative tool for estimating BMD with additional functionalities for BMD analysis based on most recent research. Most importantly, the BBMD has the potential to incorporate prior information to make dose-response modeling more reliable and can provide distributional estimates for important quantities in dose-response assessment, which greatly facilitates the current trend for probabilistic risk assessment. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1289.
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47 CFR 25.111 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-10-01
... 47 Telecommunication 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Additional information. 25.111 Section 25.111... Applications and Licenses General Application Filing Requirements § 25.111 Additional information. (a) The Commission may request from any party at any time additional information concerning any application, or any...
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47 CFR 25.111 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR
2012-10-01
... 47 Telecommunication 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Additional information. 25.111 Section 25.111... Applications and Licenses General Application Filing Requirements § 25.111 Additional information. (a) The Commission may request from any party at any time additional information concerning any application, or any...
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47 CFR 25.111 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-10-01
... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Additional information. 25.111 Section 25.111... Applications and Licenses General Application Filing Requirements § 25.111 Additional information. (a) The Commission may request from any party at any time additional information concerning any application, or any...
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17 CFR 230.408 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-04-01
... 17 Commodity and Securities Exchanges 2 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Additional information. 230... RULES AND REGULATIONS, SECURITIES ACT OF 1933 General Requirements § 230.408 Additional information. (a) In addition to the information expressly required to be included in a registration statement, there...
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New Influenza A/H1N1 (“Swine Flu”): information needs of airport passengers and staff
Dickmann, P.; Rubin, G. J.; Gaber, W.; Wessely, S.; Wicker, S.; Serve, H.; Gottschalk, R.
2010-01-01
Please cite this paper as: Dickmann et al. (2010) New Influenza A/H1N1 (“Swine Flu”): information needs of airport passengers and staff. . Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 5(1), 39–46. Background Airports are the entrances of infectious diseases. Particularly at the beginning of an outbreak, information and communication play an important role to enable the early detection of signs or symptoms and to encourage passengers to adopt appropriate preventive behaviour to limit the spread of the disease. Objectives To determine the adequacy of the information provided to airport passengers and staff in meeting their information needs in relation to their concerns. Methods At the start of the influenza A/H1N1 epidemic (29–30 April 2009), qualitative semi‐structured interviews (N = 101) were conducted at Frankfurt International Airport with passengers who were either returning from or going to Mexico and with airport staff who had close contact with these passengers. Interviews focused on knowledge about swine flu, information needs and fear or concern about the outbreak. Results The results showed that a desire for more information was associated with higher concern – the least concerned participants did not want any additional information, while the most concerned participants reported a range of information needs. Airport staff in contact with passengers travelling from the epicentre of the outbreak showed the highest levels of fear or concern, coupled with a desire to be adequately briefed by their employer. Conclusions Our results suggest that information strategies should address not only the exposed or potentially exposed but also groups that feel at risk. Identifying what information these different passenger and staff groups wish to receive will be an important task in any future infectious disease outbreak. PMID:21138539
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Imaging pigment chemistry in melanocytic conjunctival lesions with pump-probe microscopy
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Wilson, Jesse W.; Vajzovic, Lejla; Robles, Francisco E.; Cummings, Thomas J.; Mruthyunjaya, Prithvi; Warren, Warren S.
2013-03-01
We extend nonlinear pump-probe microscopy, recently demonstrated to image the microscopic distribution of eumelanin and pheomelanin in unstained skin biopsy sections, to the case of melanocytic conjunctival lesions. The microscopic distribution of pigmentation chemistry serves as a functional indicator of melanocyte activity. In these conjunctival specimens (benign nevi, primary acquired melanoses, and conjunctival melanoma), we have observed pump-probe spectroscopic signatures of eumelanin, pheomelanin, hemoglobin, and surgical ink, in addition to important structural features that differentiate benign from malignant lesions. We will also discuss prospects for an in vivo `optical biopsy' to provide additional information before having to perform invasive procedures.
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Socioeconomic trends in radiology.
Barneveld Binkhuysen, F H
1998-01-01
For radiology the socioeconomic environment is a topic of increasing importance. In addition to the well-known important scientific developments in radiology such as interventional MRI, several other major trends can be recognized: (1) changes in the delivery of health care, in which all kinds of managed care are developing and will influence the practice of radiology, and (2) the process of computerization and digitization. The socioeconomic environment of radiology will be transformed by the developments in managed care, teleradiology and the integration of information systems. If radiologists want to manage future radiology departments they must have an understanding of the changes in the fields of economics and politics that are taking place and that will increasingly influence radiology. Some important and recognizable aspects of these changes will be described here.
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Chen, Jinying; Yu, Hong
2017-04-01
Allowing patients to access their own electronic health record (EHR) notes through online patient portals has the potential to improve patient-centered care. However, EHR notes contain abundant medical jargon that can be difficult for patients to comprehend. One way to help patients is to reduce information overload and help them focus on medical terms that matter most to them. Targeted education can then be developed to improve patient EHR comprehension and the quality of care. The aim of this work was to develop FIT (Finding Important Terms for patients), an unsupervised natural language processing (NLP) system that ranks medical terms in EHR notes based on their importance to patients. We built FIT on a new unsupervised ensemble ranking model derived from the biased random walk algorithm to combine heterogeneous information resources for ranking candidate terms from each EHR note. Specifically, FIT integrates four single views (rankers) for term importance: patient use of medical concepts, document-level term salience, word co-occurrence based term relatedness, and topic coherence. It also incorporates partial information of term importance as conveyed by terms' unfamiliarity levels and semantic types. We evaluated FIT on 90 expert-annotated EHR notes and used the four single-view rankers as baselines. In addition, we implemented three benchmark unsupervised ensemble ranking methods as strong baselines. FIT achieved 0.885 AUC-ROC for ranking candidate terms from EHR notes to identify important terms. When including term identification, the performance of FIT for identifying important terms from EHR notes was 0.813 AUC-ROC. Both performance scores significantly exceeded the corresponding scores from the four single rankers (P<0.001). FIT also outperformed the three ensemble rankers for most metrics. Its performance is relatively insensitive to its parameter. FIT can automatically identify EHR terms important to patients. It may help develop future interventions to improve quality of care. By using unsupervised learning as well as a robust and flexible framework for information fusion, FIT can be readily applied to other domains and applications. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
1992-01-01
Mestech's X-15 "Eye in the Sky," a traffic monitoring system, incorporates NASA imaging and robotic vision technology. A camera or "sensor box" is mounted in a housing. The sensor detects vehicles approaching an intersection and sends the information to a computer, which controls the traffic light according to the traffic rate. Jet Propulsion Laboratory technical support packages aided in the company's development of the system. The X-15's "smart highway" can also be used to count vehicles on a highway and compute the number in each lane and their speeds, important information for freeway control engineers. Additional applications are in airport and railroad operations. The system is intended to replace loop-type traffic detectors.
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Proposed hydrologic analyses of streamflow for Brazil
Riggs, Henry Chiles
1974-01-01
Streamflow records are evaluated for the Rio Jacui basin in the state of Rio Grande Sul, Brazil, in reference to data reliability, length of record, and density of areal coverage. Availability of water is a factor in the development of a country, and surface water is of especial importance in Brazil. This report is intended as a reference for further investigation of the flow characteristic of the basin to provide (1) information for utilization of streamflow and (2) information to improve the data collection and analytic procedures. In addition the evaluation study can serve as a pilot for other developing river basins in Brazil. (Woodard-USGS)
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Hedgehogs and sugar gliders: respiratory anatomy, physiology, and disease.
Johnson, Dan H
2011-05-01
This article discusses the respiratory anatomy, physiology, and disease of African pygmy hedgehogs (Atelerix albiventris) and sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps), two species commonly seen in exotic animal practice. Where appropriate, information from closely related species is mentioned because cross-susceptibility is likely and because these additional species may also be encountered in practice. Other body systems and processes are discussed insofar as they relate to or affect respiratory function. Although some topics, such as special senses, hibernation, or vocalization, may seem out of place, in each case the information relates back to respiration in some important way. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Dual-energy contrast-enhanced mammography.
Travieso Aja, M M; Rodríguez Rodríguez, M; Alayón Hernández, S; Vega Benítez, V; Luzardo, O P
2014-01-01
The degree of vascularization in breast lesions is related to their malignancy. For this reason, functional diagnostic imaging techniques have become important in recent years. Dual-energy contrast-enhanced mammography is a new, apparently promising technique in breast cancer that provides information about the degree of vascularization of the lesion in addition to the morphological information provided by conventional mammography. This article describes the state of the art for dual-energy contrast-enhanced mammography. Based on 15 months' clinical experience, we illustrate this review with clinical cases that allow us to discuss the advantages and limitations of this technique. Copyright © 2014 SERAM. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.
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2012 drug packaging review: many dangerous, reportable flaws.
2013-05-01
Drug packaging plays an important role in protecting and providing information to patients. The packaging examined by Prescrire in 2012, on the whole, still fails to perform all of these functions effectively. Two issues are especially worrisome. First, packaging too often poses a danger to children. In addition, too many patient leaflets provide incomplete information about adverse effects, thus failing to properly protect the most vulnerable patients. Yet, the method Prescrire used to analyse drug packaging shows that it is not difficult to detect and anticipate risks. It is up to healthcare professionals to take advantage of the method, to protect patients from, and report, dangerous packaging.
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Information processing, computation, and cognition.
Piccinini, Gualtiero; Scarantino, Andrea
2011-01-01
Computation and information processing are among the most fundamental notions in cognitive science. They are also among the most imprecisely discussed. Many cognitive scientists take it for granted that cognition involves computation, information processing, or both - although others disagree vehemently. Yet different cognitive scientists use 'computation' and 'information processing' to mean different things, sometimes without realizing that they do. In addition, computation and information processing are surrounded by several myths; first and foremost, that they are the same thing. In this paper, we address this unsatisfactory state of affairs by presenting a general and theory-neutral account of computation and information processing. We also apply our framework by analyzing the relations between computation and information processing on one hand and classicism, connectionism, and computational neuroscience on the other. We defend the relevance to cognitive science of both computation, at least in a generic sense, and information processing, in three important senses of the term. Our account advances several foundational debates in cognitive science by untangling some of their conceptual knots in a theory-neutral way. By leveling the playing field, we pave the way for the future resolution of the debates' empirical aspects.
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Is the biggest security threat to medical information simply a lack of understanding?
Williams, Patricia A H
2011-01-01
Connecting Australian health services and the e-health initiative is a major focus in the current health environment. Many issues are presented as key to its success including solving issues with confidentiality and privacy. However, the main problem may not be these issues in sharing information but the fact that the point of origin of such records is still relatively insecure. This paper highlights why this may be the case. Research into the security of medical information has shown that many primary healthcare providers are unable to create an environment with effective information security. Numerous factors contribute to this complex situation including a trustful environment, the resultant security culture and the capability of individual healthcare organisations. Further, the growing importance of new directions in the use of patient information is considered. This paper discusses these issues and positions them within the complex environment that is healthcare. In our current health system infrastructure, the points of origin of patient information are our most vulnerable. This entwined with progressively new uses of this information expose additional security concerns, such as re-identification of information, that require attention.
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Public health financial management needs: report of a national survey.
Costich, Julia F; Honoré, Peggy A; Scutchfield, F Douglas
2009-01-01
The work reported here builds on the identification of public health financial management practice competencies by a national expert panel. The next logical step was to provide a validity check for the competencies and identify priority areas for educational programming. We developed a survey for local public health finance officers based on the public health finance competencies and field tested it with a convenience sample of officials. We asked respondents to indicate the importance of each competency area and the need for training to improve performance; we also requested information regarding respondent education, jurisdiction size, and additional comments. Our local agency survey sample drew on the respondent list from the National Association of County and City Health Officials 2005 local health department survey, stratified by agency size and limited to jurisdiction populations of 25,000 to 1,000,000. Identifying appropriate respondents was a major challenge. The survey was fielded electronically, yielding 112 responses from 30 states. The areas identified as most important and needing most additional training were knowledge of budget activities, financial data interpretation and communication, and ability to assess and correct the organization's financial status. The majority of respondents had some postbaccalaureate education. Many provided additional comments and recommendations. Health department finance officers demonstrated a high level of general agreement regarding the importance of finance competencies in public health and the need for training. The findings point to a critical need for additional training opportunities that are accessible, cost-effective, and targeted to individual needs.
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Analysis of methods. [information systems evolution environment
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Mayer, Richard J. (Editor); Ackley, Keith A.; Wells, M. Sue; Mayer, Paula S. D.; Blinn, Thomas M.; Decker, Louis P.; Toland, Joel A.; Crump, J. Wesley; Menzel, Christopher P.; Bodenmiller, Charles A.
1991-01-01
Information is one of an organization's most important assets. For this reason the development and maintenance of an integrated information system environment is one of the most important functions within a large organization. The Integrated Information Systems Evolution Environment (IISEE) project has as one of its primary goals a computerized solution to the difficulties involved in the development of integrated information systems. To develop such an environment a thorough understanding of the enterprise's information needs and requirements is of paramount importance. This document is the current release of the research performed by the Integrated Development Support Environment (IDSE) Research Team in support of the IISEE project. Research indicates that an integral part of any information system environment would be multiple modeling methods to support the management of the organization's information. Automated tool support for these methods is necessary to facilitate their use in an integrated environment. An integrated environment makes it necessary to maintain an integrated database which contains the different kinds of models developed under the various methodologies. In addition, to speed the process of development of models, a procedure or technique is needed to allow automatic translation from one methodology's representation to another while maintaining the integrity of both. The purpose for the analysis of the modeling methods included in this document is to examine these methods with the goal being to include them in an integrated development support environment. To accomplish this and to develop a method for allowing intra-methodology and inter-methodology model element reuse, a thorough understanding of multiple modeling methodologies is necessary. Currently the IDSE Research Team is investigating the family of Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing (ICAM) DEFinition (IDEF) languages IDEF(0), IDEF(1), and IDEF(1x), as well as ENALIM, Entity Relationship, Data Flow Diagrams, and Structure Charts, for inclusion in an integrated development support environment.
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Climate in Context - How partnerships evolve in regions
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Parris, A. S.
2014-12-01
In 2015, NOAA's RISA program will celebrate its 20th year of exploration in the development of usable climate information. In the mid-1990s, a vision emerged to develop interdisciplinary research efforts at the regional scale for several important reasons. Recognizable climate patterns, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), emerge at the regional level where our understanding of observations and models coalesce. Critical resources for society are managed in a context of regional systems, such as water supply and human populations. Multiple scales of governance (local, state, and federal) with complex institutional relationships can be examined across a region. Climate information (i.e. data, science, research etc) developed within these contexts has greater potential for use. All of this work rests on a foundation of iterative engagement between scientists and decision makers. Throughout these interactions, RISAs have navigated diverse politics, extreme events and disasters, socio-economic and ecological disruptions, and advances in both science and technology. Our understanding of information needs is evolving into a richer understanding of complex institutional, legal, political, and cultural contexts within which people can use science to make informed decisions. The outcome of RISA work includes both cases where climate information was used in decisions and cases where capacity for using climate information and making climate resilient decisions has increased over time. In addition to balancing supply and demand of scientific information, RISAs are engaged in a social process of reconciling climate information use with important drivers of society. Because partnerships are critical for sustained engagement, and because engagement is critically important to the use of science, the rapid development of new capacity in regionally-based science programs focused on providing climate decision support is both needed and challenging. New actors can bolster existing partnerships, but also impact trust developed through engagement. Examining other partnership-driven science initiatives, such as Digital Coast or NIDIS, can help identify critical elements of governance and network management that could be applied to the regional climate programs.
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Advanced applications of scatterometry based optical metrology
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Dixit, Dhairya; Keller, Nick; Kagalwala, Taher; Recchia, Fiona; Lifshitz, Yevgeny; Elia, Alexander; Todi, Vinit; Fronheiser, Jody; Vaid, Alok
2017-03-01
The semiconductor industry continues to drive patterning solutions that enable devices with higher memory storage capacity, faster computing performance, and lower cost per transistor. These developments in the field of semiconductor manufacturing along with the overall minimization of the size of transistors require continuous development of metrology tools used for characterization of these complex 3D device architectures. Optical scatterometry or optical critical dimension (OCD) is one of the most prevalent inline metrology techniques in semiconductor manufacturing because it is a quick, precise and non-destructive metrology technique. However, at present OCD is predominantly used to measure the feature dimensions such as line-width, height, side-wall angle, etc. of the patterned nano structures. Use of optical scatterometry for characterizing defects such as pitch-walking, overlay, line edge roughness, etc. is fairly limited. Inspection of process induced abnormalities is a fundamental part of process yield improvement. It provides process engineers with important information about process errors, and consequently helps optimize materials and process parameters. Scatterometry is an averaging technique and extending it to measure the position of local process induced defectivity and feature-to-feature variation is extremely challenging. This report is an overview of applications and benefits of using optical scatterometry for characterizing defects such as pitch-walking, overlay and fin bending for advanced technology nodes beyond 7nm. Currently, the optical scatterometry is based on conventional spectroscopic ellipsometry and spectroscopic reflectometry measurements, but generalized ellipsometry or Mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry data provides important, additional information about complex structures that exhibit anisotropy and depolarization effects. In addition the symmetry-antisymmetry properties associated with Mueller matrix (MM) elements provide an excellent means of measuring asymmetry present in the structure. The useful additional information as well as symmetry-antisymmetry properties of MM elements is used to characterize fin bending, overlay defects and design improvements in the OCD test structures are used to boost OCDs' sensitivity to pitch-walking. In addition, the validity of the OCD based results is established by comparing the results to the top down critical dimensionscanning electron microscope (CD-SEM) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscope (TEM) images.
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Discriminative analysis of lip motion features for speaker identification and speech-reading.
Cetingül, H Ertan; Yemez, Yücel; Erzin, Engin; Tekalp, A Murat
2006-10-01
There have been several studies that jointly use audio, lip intensity, and lip geometry information for speaker identification and speech-reading applications. This paper proposes using explicit lip motion information, instead of or in addition to lip intensity and/or geometry information, for speaker identification and speech-reading within a unified feature selection and discrimination analysis framework, and addresses two important issues: 1) Is using explicit lip motion information useful, and, 2) if so, what are the best lip motion features for these two applications? The best lip motion features for speaker identification are considered to be those that result in the highest discrimination of individual speakers in a population, whereas for speech-reading, the best features are those providing the highest phoneme/word/phrase recognition rate. Several lip motion feature candidates have been considered including dense motion features within a bounding box about the lip, lip contour motion features, and combination of these with lip shape features. Furthermore, a novel two-stage, spatial, and temporal discrimination analysis is introduced to select the best lip motion features for speaker identification and speech-reading applications. Experimental results using an hidden-Markov-model-based recognition system indicate that using explicit lip motion information provides additional performance gains in both applications, and lip motion features prove more valuable in the case of speech-reading application.
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The effect of prenatal care on birthweight: a full-information maximum likelihood approach.
Rous, Jeffrey J; Jewell, R Todd; Brown, Robert W
2004-03-01
This paper uses a full-information maximum likelihood estimation procedure, the Discrete Factor Method, to estimate the relationship between birthweight and prenatal care. This technique controls for the potential biases surrounding both the sample selection of the pregnancy-resolution decision and the endogeneity of prenatal care. In addition, we use the actual number of prenatal care visits; other studies have normally measured prenatal care as the month care is initiated. We estimate a birthweight production function using 1993 data from the US state of Texas. The results underscore the importance of correcting for estimation problems. Specifically, a model that does not control for sample selection and endogeneity overestimates the benefit of an additional visit for women who have relatively few visits. This overestimation may indicate 'positive fetal selection,' i.e., women who did not abort may have healthier babies. Also, a model that does not control for self-selection and endogenity predicts that past 17 visits, an additional visit leads to lower birthweight, while a model that corrects for these estimation problems predicts a positive effect for additional visits. This result shows the effect of mothers with less healthy fetuses making more prenatal care visits, known as 'adverse selection' in prenatal care. Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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10 CFR 725.13 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-01-01
... 10 Energy 4 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Additional information. 725.13 Section 725.13 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY PERMITS FOR ACCESS TO RESTRICTED DATA Applications § 725.13 Additional information. The... and before the termination of the permit, require additional information in order to enable the Chief...
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28 CFR 80.7 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-07-01
... 28 Judicial Administration 2 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Additional information. 80.7 Section 80.7... § 80.7 Additional information. If an issuer's or domestic concern's submission does not contain all of the information required by § 80.6, the Department of Justice may request whatever additional...
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47 CFR 25.111 - Additional information and ITU cost recovery.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR
2014-10-01
... 47 Telecommunication 2 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Additional information and ITU cost recovery....111 Additional information and ITU cost recovery. (a) The Commission may request from any party at any time additional information concerning any application, or any other submission or pleading regarding...
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18 CFR 33.10 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-04-01
... § 33.10 Additional information. The Director of the Office of Energy Market Regulation, or his designee, may, by letter, require the applicant to submit additional information as is needed for analysis of an... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Additional information...
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18 CFR 33.10 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-04-01
... § 33.10 Additional information. The Director of the Office of Energy Market Regulation, or his designee, may, by letter, require the applicant to submit additional information as is needed for analysis of an... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Additional information...
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18 CFR 33.10 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR
2014-04-01
... § 33.10 Additional information. The Director of the Office of Energy Market Regulation, or his designee, may, by letter, require the applicant to submit additional information as is needed for analysis of an... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Additional information...
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34 CFR 75.231 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR
2014-07-01
... 34 Education 1 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Additional information. 75.231 Section 75.231 Education... Make A Grant § 75.231 Additional information. After selecting an application for funding, the Secretary may require the applicant to submit additional information. (Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1221e-3 and 3474) ...
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eHealth Trends in Europe 2005-2007: A Population-Based Survey
Chronaki, Catherine E; Lausen, Berthold; Prokosch, Hans-Ulrich; Rasmussen, Janne; Santana, Silvina; Staniszewski, Andrzej; Wangberg, Silje Camilla
2008-01-01
Background In the last decade, the number of Internet users worldwide has dramatically increased. People are using the Internet for various health-related purposes. It is important to monitor such use as it may have an impact on the individual’s health and behavior, patient-practitioner roles, and on general health care provision. Objectives This study investigates trends and patterns of European health-related Internet use over a period of 18 months. The main study objective was to estimate the change in the proportion of the population using the Internet for health purposes, and the importance of the Internet as a source of health information compared to more traditional sources. Methods The survey data were collected through computer-assisted telephone interviews. A representative sample (N = 14,956) from seven European countries has been used: Denmark, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Norway, Poland, and Portugal. The European eHealth Consumer Trends Survey was first conducted in October-November 2005 and repeated in April-May 2007. In addition to providing background information, respondents were asked to rate the importance of various sources of health information. They were also queried as to the frequency of different online activities related to health and illness and the effects of such use on their disposition. Results The percentage of the population that has used the Internet for health purposes increased from an estimated 42.3% (95% CI [Confidence Interval] 41.3 - 43.3) in 2005 to an estimated 52.2% (95% CI 51.3 - 53.2) in 2007. Significant growth in the use of the Internet for health purposes was found in all the seven countries. Young women are the most active Internet health users. The importance of the Internet as a source of health information has increased. In 2007, the Internet was perceived as an important source of health information by an estimated 46.8% (95% CI 45.7 - 47.9) of the population, a significant increase of 6.5 % (95% CI 4.9 - 8.1) from 2005. The importance of all the traditional health information channels has either decreased or remained the same. An estimated 22.7% (95% CI 21.7 - 23.6) are using it for more interactive services than just reading health information. Conclusion The Internet is increasingly being used as a source of health information by the European population, and its perceived importance is rising. Use of the Internet for health purposes is growing in all age groups and for both men and women, with especially strong growth among young women. We see that experienced Internet health users are also using the Internet as an active communication channel, both for reaching health professionals and for communicating with peers. PMID:19017584
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Roberts, Kirk; Shooshan, Sonya E; Rodriguez, Laritza; Abhyankar, Swapna; Kilicoglu, Halil; Demner-Fushman, Dina
2015-12-01
This paper describes a supervised machine learning approach for identifying heart disease risk factors in clinical text, and assessing the impact of annotation granularity and quality on the system's ability to recognize these risk factors. We utilize a series of support vector machine models in conjunction with manually built lexicons to classify triggers specific to each risk factor. The features used for classification were quite simple, utilizing only lexical information and ignoring higher-level linguistic information such as syntax and semantics. Instead, we incorporated high-quality data to train the models by annotating additional information on top of a standard corpus. Despite the relative simplicity of the system, it achieves the highest scores (micro- and macro-F1, and micro- and macro-recall) out of the 20 participants in the 2014 i2b2/UTHealth Shared Task. This system obtains a micro- (macro-) precision of 0.8951 (0.8965), recall of 0.9625 (0.9611), and F1-measure of 0.9276 (0.9277). Additionally, we perform a series of experiments to assess the value of the annotated data we created. These experiments show how manually-labeled negative annotations can improve information extraction performance, demonstrating the importance of high-quality, fine-grained natural language annotations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Backtracking behaviour in lost ants: an additional strategy in their navigational toolkit
Wystrach, Antoine; Schwarz, Sebastian; Baniel, Alice; Cheng, Ken
2013-01-01
Ants use multiple sources of information to navigate, but do not integrate all this information into a unified representation of the world. Rather, the available information appears to serve three distinct main navigational systems: path integration, systematic search and the use of learnt information—mainly via vision. Here, we report on an additional behaviour that suggests a supplemental system in the ant's navigational toolkit: ‘backtracking’. Homing ants, having almost reached their nest but, suddenly displaced to unfamiliar areas, did not show the characteristic undirected headings of systematic searches. Instead, these ants backtracked in the compass direction opposite to the path that they had just travelled. The ecological function of this behaviour is clear as we show it increases the chances of returning to familiar terrain. Importantly, the mechanistic implications of this behaviour stress an extra level of cognitive complexity in ant navigation. Our results imply: (i) the presence of a type of ‘memory of the current trip’ allowing lost ants to take into account the familiar view recently experienced, and (ii) direct sharing of information across different navigational systems. We propose a revised architecture of the ant's navigational toolkit illustrating how the different systems may interact to produce adaptive behaviours. PMID:23966644
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Web-based learning in professional development: experiences of Finnish nurse managers.
Korhonen, Teija; Lammintakanen, Johanna
2005-11-01
The aim of this article is to describe the nurse managers' expectations, attitudes and experiences on web-based learning before and after participation in a web-based course. Information technology has rapidly become more common in health care settings. However, little is known about nurse managers' experiences on web-based learning, although they have a crucial role in promoting the professional development of their staff. Diagnostic assignments (n = 18) written before and interviews (n = 8) taken after the web-based education. The data were analysed by inductive content analysis. Nurse managers found web-based education to be a suitable and modern method of learning. On the basis of their experience they found multiple ways to utilize web-based learning environments in health care. Information technology skills, equipment, support and time were considered essential in web-based learning. Additionally, they found that their own experience might lead to more widespread implementation of web-based learning in health care settings. Information technology skills of nurse managers and staff need to be developed in order to use information technology effectively. In order to learn in a web-based environment, everyone needs the opportunity and access to required resources. Additionally, nurse managers' own experiences are important to promote wider utilization of web-based learning.
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Urban, Martin; Cuzick, Alayne; Rutherford, Kim; Irvine, Alistair; Pedro, Helder; Pant, Rashmi; Sadanadan, Vidyendra; Khamari, Lokanath; Billal, Santoshkumar; Mohanty, Sagar; Hammond-Kosack, Kim E.
2017-01-01
The pathogen–host interactions database (PHI-base) is available at www.phi-base.org. PHI-base contains expertly curated molecular and biological information on genes proven to affect the outcome of pathogen–host interactions reported in peer reviewed research articles. In addition, literature that indicates specific gene alterations that did not affect the disease interaction phenotype are curated to provide complete datasets for comparative purposes. Viruses are not included. Here we describe a revised PHI-base Version 4 data platform with improved search, filtering and extended data display functions. A PHIB-BLAST search function is provided and a link to PHI-Canto, a tool for authors to directly curate their own published data into PHI-base. The new release of PHI-base Version 4.2 (October 2016) has an increased data content containing information from 2219 manually curated references. The data provide information on 4460 genes from 264 pathogens tested on 176 hosts in 8046 interactions. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathogens are represented in almost equal numbers. Host species belong ∼70% to plants and 30% to other species of medical and/or environmental importance. Additional data types included into PHI-base 4 are the direct targets of pathogen effector proteins in experimental and natural host organisms. The curation problems encountered and the future directions of the PHI-base project are briefly discussed. PMID:27915230
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WE-E-18C-01: Multi-Energy CT: Current Status and Recent Innovations
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Pelc, N; McCollough, C; Yu, L
2014-06-15
Conventional computed tomography (CT) uses a single polychromatic x-ray spectrum and energy integrating detectors, and produces images whose contrast depends on the effective attenuation coefficient of the broad spectrum beam. This can introduce errors from beam hardening and does not produce the optimal contrast-to-noise ratio. In addition, multiple materials can have the same effective attenuation coefficient, causing different materials to be indistinguishable in conventional CT images. If transmission measurements at two or more energies are obtained, even with polychromatic beams, more specific information about the object can be obtained. If the object does not contain materials with k-edges in themore » spectrum, the x-ray attenuation can be well-approximated by a linear combination of two processes (photoelectric absorption and Compton scattering) or, equivalently, two basis materials. For such cases, two spectral measurements suffice, although additional measurements can provide higher precision. If K-edge materials are present, additional spectral measurements can allow these materials to be isolated. Current commercial implementations use varied approaches, including two sources operating a different kVp, one source whose kVp is rapidly switched in a single scan, and a dual layer detector that can provide spectral information in every reading. Processing of the spectral information can be performed in the raw data domain or in the image domain. The process of calculating the amount of the two basis functions implicitly corrects for beam hardening and therefore can lead to improvements in quantitative accuracy. Information can be extracted to provide material specific information beyond that of conventional CT. This additional information has been shown to be important in several clinical applications, and can also lead to more efficient clinical protocols. Recent innovations in x-ray sources, detectors, and systems have made multi-energy CT much more practical and improved its performance. In addition, this is a very active area of research and further improvements are expected through further technological improvements. Learning Objectives: Basic principles of multi-energy CT Current implementations of mutli-energy CT Data and image analysis methods in multi-energy CT Current clinical applications of dual energy CT5. recent innovations and anticipated advances in multi-energy CT.« less
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Länsimies-Antikainen, Helena; Pietilä, Anna-Maija; Kiviniemi, Vesa; Rauramaa, Rainer; Laitinen, Tomi
2010-01-01
The informed consent process is the legal and ethical cornerstone of health research and is essential to ensure that participants in health research really understand the information they receive. Clinical studies often fail to provide data that clarify how much participants have understood. To evaluate the comprehension of older volunteer participants in health research. The subjects are a random population sample of 1,410 men and women aged 57-78 years, who are participating in a 4-year randomized controlled intervention trial on the effects of physical exercise and diet on atherosclerosis, endothelial function and cognition. A questionnaire about informed consent was given to all willing participants (n = 1,324) 3 months after the randomization. In addition, participants' long-term continuation in the intervention trial with relation to understanding was evaluated 2 years after the randomization. The response rate was 91%. The majority of respondents (89%) were satisfied with the intelligibility of received information. In addition, the participants' comprehension of the information received seemed to be adequate in 82% of the whole study population. Compared to background variables, higher education (p < 0.001) and satisfaction with one's own health (p = 0.01) were associated with adequate comprehension of the provided information. Furthermore, participants who felt themselves to be healthy were more likely to continue participating in the intervention after 2 years. The findings of this study indicated sufficient understanding of received information in older research participants. However, our results indicate that special efforts should be made with participants with lower educational levels or subjective feelings of impaired health. This study highlights the need for researchers to critically analyze the quality of information and how it is provided. This is especially important in long-term follow-up studies. 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Loschetter, Annick; Rohmer, Jérémy
2016-04-01
Standard and new generation of monitoring observations provide in almost real-time important information about the evolution of the volcanic system. These observations are used to update the model and contribute to a better hazard assessment and to support decision making concerning potential evacuation. The framework BET_EF (based on Bayesian Event Tree) developed by INGV enables dealing with the integration of information from monitoring with the prospect of decision making. Using this framework, the objectives of the present work are i. to propose a method to assess the added value of information (within the Value Of Information (VOI) theory) from monitoring; ii. to perform sensitivity analysis on the different parameters that influence the VOI from monitoring. VOI consists in assessing the possible increase in expected value provided by gathering information, for instance through monitoring. Basically, the VOI is the difference between the value with information and the value without additional information in a Cost-Benefit approach. This theory is well suited to deal with situations that can be represented in the form of a decision tree such as the BET_EF tool. Reference values and ranges of variation (for sensitivity analysis) were defined for input parameters, based on data from the MESIMEX exercise (performed at Vesuvio volcano in 2006). Complementary methods for sensitivity analyses were implemented: local, global using Sobol' indices and regional using Contribution to Sample Mean and Variance plots. The results (specific to the case considered) obtained with the different techniques are in good agreement and enable answering the following questions: i. Which characteristics of monitoring are important for early warning (reliability)? ii. How do experts' opinions influence the hazard assessment and thus the decision? Concerning the characteristics of monitoring, the more influent parameters are the means rather than the variances for the case considered. For the parameters that concern expert setting, the weight attributed to monitoring measurement ω, the mean of thresholds, the economic context and the setting of the decision threshold are very influential. The interest of applying the VOI theory (more precisely the value of imperfect information) in the BET framework was demonstrated as support for helping experts in the setting of the monitoring system or for helping managers to decide the installation of additional monitoring systems. Acknowledgments: This work was carried out in the framework of the project MEDSUV. This project is funded under the call FP7 ENV.2012.6.4-2: Long-term monitoring experiment in geologically active regions of Europe prone to natural hazards: the Supersite concept. Grant agreement n°308665.
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Collegial Activity Learning between Heterogeneous Sensors.
Feuz, Kyle D; Cook, Diane J
2017-11-01
Activity recognition algorithms have matured and become more ubiquitous in recent years. However, these algorithms are typically customized for a particular sensor platform. In this paper we introduce PECO, a Personalized activity ECOsystem, that transfers learned activity information seamlessly between sensor platforms in real time so that any available sensor can continue to track activities without requiring its own extensive labeled training data. We introduce a multi-view transfer learning algorithm that facilitates this information handoff between sensor platforms and provide theoretical performance bounds for the algorithm. In addition, we empirically evaluate PECO using datasets that utilize heterogeneous sensor platforms to perform activity recognition. These results indicate that not only can activity recognition algorithms transfer important information to new sensor platforms, but any number of platforms can work together as colleagues to boost performance.
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Criticality Safety Basics for INL FMHs and CSOs
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
V. L. Putman
2012-04-01
Nuclear power is a valuable and efficient energy alternative in our energy-intensive society. However, material that can generate nuclear power has properties that require this material be handled with caution. If improperly handled, a criticality accident could result, which could severely harm workers. This document is a modular self-study guide about Criticality Safety Principles. This guide's purpose it to help you work safely in areas where fissionable nuclear materials may be present, avoiding the severe radiological and programmatic impacts of a criticality accident. It is designed to stress the fundamental physical concepts behind criticality controls and the importance of criticalitymore » safety when handling fissionable materials outside nuclear reactors. This study guide was developed for fissionable-material-handler and criticality-safety-officer candidates to use with related web-based course 00INL189, BEA Criticality Safety Principles, and to help prepare for the course exams. These individuals must understand basic information presented here. This guide may also be useful to other Idaho National Laboratory personnel who must know criticality safety basics to perform their assignments safely or to design critically safe equipment or operations. This guide also includes additional information that will not be included in 00INL189 tests. The additional information is in appendices and paragraphs with headings that begin with 'Did you know,' or with, 'Been there Done that'. Fissionable-material-handler and criticality-safety-officer candidates may review additional information at their own discretion. This guide is revised as needed to reflect program changes, user requests, and better information. Issued in 2006, Revision 0 established the basic text and integrated various programs from former contractors. Revision 1 incorporates operation and program changes implemented since 2006. It also incorporates suggestions, clarifications, and additional information from readers and from personnel who took course 00INL189. Revision 1 also completely reorganized the training to better emphasize physical concepts behind the criticality controls that fissionable material handlers and criticality safety officers must understand. The reorganization is based on and consistent with changes made to course 00INL189 due to a review of course exam results and to discussions with personnel who conduct area-specific training.« less
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Combining configurational energies and forces for molecular force field optimization
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Vlcek, Lukas; Sun, Weiwei; Kent, Paul R. C.
While quantum chemical simulations have been increasingly used as an invaluable source of information for atomistic model development, the high computational expenses typically associated with these techniques often limit thorough sampling of the systems of interest. It is therefore of great practical importance to use all available information as efficiently as possible, and in a way that allows for consistent addition of constraints that may be provided by macroscopic experiments. We propose a simple approach that combines information from configurational energies and forces generated in a molecular dynamics simulation to increase the effective number of samples. Subsequently, this information ismore » used to optimize a molecular force field by minimizing the statistical distance similarity metric. We also illustrate the methodology on an example of a trajectory of configurations generated in equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of argon and water and compare the results with those based on the force matching method.« less
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Combining configurational energies and forces for molecular force field optimization
Vlcek, Lukas; Sun, Weiwei; Kent, Paul R. C.
2017-07-21
While quantum chemical simulations have been increasingly used as an invaluable source of information for atomistic model development, the high computational expenses typically associated with these techniques often limit thorough sampling of the systems of interest. It is therefore of great practical importance to use all available information as efficiently as possible, and in a way that allows for consistent addition of constraints that may be provided by macroscopic experiments. We propose a simple approach that combines information from configurational energies and forces generated in a molecular dynamics simulation to increase the effective number of samples. Subsequently, this information ismore » used to optimize a molecular force field by minimizing the statistical distance similarity metric. We also illustrate the methodology on an example of a trajectory of configurations generated in equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of argon and water and compare the results with those based on the force matching method.« less
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Senior Seminar Focusing on Societal Issues Related to Chemistry and Biochemistry
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
White, Harold B., III; Johnston, Murray V.; Panar, Manuel
2000-12-01
The lack of a clearly defined content or structure provided the opportunity to transform a one-credit, pass-fail senior seminar course into a meaningful capstone experience for chemistry and biochemistry majors. In addition to individual and class exercises associated with employment, graduate school, communication skills, and professional ethics, small groups of students worked together to create informative Web sites that took positions on important societal issues related to chemistry. Each group presented a seminar and responded to questions from their peers and two or more unannounced visitors, "wild cards" who often had expertise in the seminar topic. Throughout the course, the instructors placed particular emphasis on developing students' ability to work cooperatively, locate and evaluate information, make informed judgments based on available information, and logically develop and defend their positions. Input from a retired industrial chemist helped define these skill elements.
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Ethical principles of informed consent: exploring nurses' dual role of care provider and researcher.
Judkins-Cohn, Tanya M; Kielwasser-Withrow, Kiersten; Owen, Melissa; Ward, Jessica
2014-01-01
This article describes the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, and justice within the nurse researcher-participant relationship as these principles relate to the informed consent process for research. Within this process, the nurse is confronted with a dual role. This article describes how nurses, who are in the dual role of care provider and researcher, can apply these ethical principles to their practice in conjunction with the American Nurses Association's code of ethics for nurses. This article also describes, as an element of ethical practice, the importance of using participant-centered quality measures to aid informed decision making of participants in research. In addition, the article provides strategies for improving the informed consent process in nursing research. Finally, case scenarios are discussed, along with the application of ethical principles within the awareness of the dual role of the nurse as care provider and researcher. Copyright 2014, SLACK Incorporated.
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Lobach, David F.; Willis, Janese M.; Macri, Jennifer M.; Simo, Jessica; Anstrom, Kevin J.
2006-01-01
Increasing emphasis is being placed on the importance of information technology to improve the safety and quality of healthcare. However, concern is growing that these potential benefits will not be equally distributed across the population because of a widening digital divide along racial and socioeconomic lines. In this pilot study, we surveyed 31 Medicaid beneficiaries to ascertain their interest in and projected use of a healthcare patient Internet portal. We found that most Medicaid beneficiaries (or their parents/guardians) were very interested in accessing personal health information about themselves (or their dependents) online. Additionally, they were interested in accessing healthcare services online. We also found that many Medicaid beneficiaries have Internet access, including a slight majority with access to high-speed Internet connections. Our study revealed significant concern about the privacy of online health information. PMID:17238393
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Risk Informed Margins Management as part of Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Curtis Smith
2014-06-01
The ability to better characterize and quantify safety margin is important to improved decision making about Light Water Reactor (LWR) design, operation, and plant life extension. A systematic approach to characterization of safety margins and the subsequent margin management options represents a vital input to the licensee and regulatory analysis and decision making that will be involved. In addition, as research and development in the LWR Sustainability (LWRS) Program and other collaborative efforts yield new data, sensors, and improved scientific understanding of physical processes that govern the aging and degradation of plant SSCs needs and opportunities to better optimize plantmore » safety and performance will become known. To support decision making related to economics, readability, and safety, the Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Pathway provides methods and tools that enable mitigation options known as risk informed margins management (RIMM) strategies.« less
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[Medical image compression: a review].
Noreña, Tatiana; Romero, Eduardo
2013-01-01
Modern medicine is an increasingly complex activity , based on the evidence ; it consists of information from multiple sources : medical record text , sound recordings , images and videos generated by a large number of devices . Medical imaging is one of the most important sources of information since they offer comprehensive support of medical procedures for diagnosis and follow-up . However , the amount of information generated by image capturing gadgets quickly exceeds storage availability in radiology services , generating additional costs in devices with greater storage capacity . Besides , the current trend of developing applications in cloud computing has limitations, even though virtual storage is available from anywhere, connections are made through internet . In these scenarios the optimal use of information necessarily requires powerful compression algorithms adapted to medical activity needs . In this paper we present a review of compression techniques used for image storage , and a critical analysis of them from the point of view of their use in clinical settings.
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Zaninović, Ksenija; Matzarakis, Andreas
2009-07-01
Climate is an important resource for tourism and must be taken into account in tourism promotions. Here, a climate leaflet containing climatological and bioclimatological information for tourists is presented. The bioclimatological conditions are portrayed using mean values and frequency of thermal sensation based on physiologically equivalent temperature for 10-day intervals covering the whole year, along with air and sea temperature, sunshine duration, amount and number of days with precipitation and wind roses. In addition, the Climate Tourism Information Scheme is included. When combined with climatological and bioclimatological conditions, this scheme is valuable for tourists as it enables them to choose the most suitable time period for holidays, with the choice depending on personal preferences and requirements. The information provided here assists the tourism industry and stakeholders in decision-making. As an example, the bioclimatological leaflet for Hvar, an island off the Croatian Adriatic coast, is presented.
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Medication errors in home care: a qualitative focus group study.
Berland, Astrid; Bentsen, Signe Berit
2017-11-01
To explore registered nurses' experiences of medication errors and patient safety in home care. The focus of care for older patients has shifted from institutional care towards a model of home care. Medication errors are common in this situation and can result in patient morbidity and mortality. An exploratory qualitative design with focus group interviews was used. Four focus group interviews were conducted with 20 registered nurses in home care. The data were analysed using content analysis. Five categories were identified as follows: lack of information, lack of competence, reporting medication errors, trade name products vs. generic name products, and improving routines. Medication errors occur frequently in home care and can threaten the safety of patients. Insufficient exchange of information and poor communication between the specialist and home-care health services, and between general practitioners and healthcare workers can lead to medication errors. A lack of competence in healthcare workers can also lead to medication errors. To prevent these, it is important that there should be up-to-date information and communication between healthcare workers during the transfer of patients from specialist to home care. Ensuring competence among healthcare workers with regard to medication is also important. In addition, there should be openness and accurate reporting of medication errors, as well as in setting routines for the preparation, alteration and administration of medicines. To prevent medication errors in home care, up-to-date information and communication between healthcare workers is important when patients are transferred from specialist to home care. It is also important to ensure adequate competence with regard to medication, and that there should be openness when medication errors occur, as well as in setting routines for the preparation, alteration and administration of medications. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Importance of Grid Center Arrangement
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Pasaogullari, O.; Usul, N.
2012-12-01
In Digital Elevation Modeling, grid size is accepted to be the most important parameter. Despite the point density and/or scale of the source data, it is freely decided by the user. Most of the time, arrangement of the grid centers are ignored, even most GIS packages omit the choice of grid center coordinate selection. In our study; importance of the arrangement of grid centers is investigated. Using the analogy between "Raster Grid DEM" and "Bitmap Image", importance of placement of grid centers in DEMs are measured. The study has been conducted on four different grid DEMs obtained from a half ellipsoid. These grid DEMs are obtained in such a way that they are half grid size apart from each other. Resulting grid DEMs are investigated through similarity measures. Image processing scientists use different measures to investigate the dis/similarity between the images and the amount of different information they carry. Grid DEMs are projected to a finer grid in order to co-center. Similarity measures are then applied to each grid DEM pairs. These similarity measures are adapted to DEM with band reduction and real number operation. One of the measures gives function graph and the others give measure matrices. Application of similarity measures to six grid DEM pairs shows interesting results. These four different grid DEMs are created with the same method for the same area, surprisingly; thirteen out of 14 measures state that, the half grid size apart grid DEMs are different from each other. The results indicated that although grid DEMs carry mutual information, they have also additional individual information. In other words, half grid size apart constructed grid DEMs have non-redundant information.; Joint Probability Distributions Function Graphs
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Olefins and chemical regulation in Europe: REACH.
Penman, Mike; Banton, Marcy; Erler, Steffen; Moore, Nigel; Semmler, Klaus
2015-11-05
REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) is the European Union's chemical regulation for the management of risk to human health and the environment (European Chemicals Agency, 2006). This regulation entered into force in June 2007 and required manufacturers and importers to register substances produced in annual quantities of 1000 tonnes or more by December 2010, with further deadlines for lower tonnages in 2013 and 2018. Depending on the type of registration, required information included the substance's identification, the hazards of the substance, the potential exposure arising from the manufacture or import, the identified uses of the substance, and the operational conditions and risk management measures applied or recommended to downstream users. Among the content developed to support this information were Derived No-Effect Levels or Derived Minimal Effect Levels (DNELs/DMELs) for human health hazard assessment, Predicted No Effect Concentrations (PNECs) for environmental hazard assessment, and exposure scenarios for exposure and risk assessment. Once registered, substances may undergo evaluation by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) or Member State authorities and be subject to requests for additional information or testing as well as additional risk reduction measures. To manage the REACH registration and related activities for the European olefins and aromatics industry, the Lower Olefins and Aromatics REACH Consortium was formed in 2008 with administrative and technical support provided by Penman Consulting. A total of 135 substances are managed by this group including 26 individual chemical registrations (e.g. benzene, 1,3-butadiene) and 13 categories consisting of 5-26 substances. This presentation will describe the content of selected registrations prepared for 2010 in addition to the significant post-2010 activities. Beyond REACH, content of the registrations may also be relevant to other European activities, for example consideration of worker DNELs/DMELs for occupational exposure level setting, discussion of this aspect will be presented for 1,3-butadiene. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Everyday conversation in dementia: a review of the literature to inform research and practice.
Kindell, Jacqueline; Keady, John; Sage, Karen; Wilkinson, Ray
2017-07-01
There has been increasing interest in dementia care in recent years, including how practitioners, service providers and society in general can help individuals to live well with the condition. An important aspect to this is provision of advice to ensure conversation partners effectively support the person with dementia in conversation. To provide a descriptive review of the literature examining everyday conversation in dementia in order to inform practice and research. This review used a method specifically developed for reviewing conversation analytic and related literature. A range of databases were searched using key words and explicitly described inclusion criteria leading to a final corpus of 50 titles. Using this qualitative methodology, each paper was examined and data extracted. The contribution of each of these is described and the implications for practice and research are outlined. This review examined studies into conversation in Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and Lewy body dementia, grouping these into: early influential studies; work drawing on positioning theory; studies using social and linguistic approaches; collaborative storytelling; formulaic language; studies specifically using conversation analysis; and conversation as a target for individualized therapy. In addition, more recent work examining primary progressive aphasia and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia was explored. Overall, this review indicates that research examining conversation in natural settings provides a rich source of data to explore not just the challenges within conversation for those taking part, but also the skills retained by the person with dementia. An important aspect of this understanding is the notion that these skills relate not only to information exchange but also aspects of social interaction. The role of others in scaffolding the conversation abilities of the person with dementia and the potential of this for developing interventions are discussed. The review indicates that interventions targeting conversation in dementia are often advocated in the literature but currently such approaches remain to be systematically evaluated. In addition, many of the important insights arising from these studies have yet to inform multidisciplinary dementia care practice. © 2016 The Authors International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
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Everyday conversation in dementia: a review of the literature to inform research and practice
Keady, John; Sage, Karen; Wilkinson, Ray
2016-01-01
Abstract Background There has been increasing interest in dementia care in recent years, including how practitioners, service providers and society in general can help individuals to live well with the condition. An important aspect to this is provision of advice to ensure conversation partners effectively support the person with dementia in conversation. Aims To provide a descriptive review of the literature examining everyday conversation in dementia in order to inform practice and research. Methods & Procedures This review used a method specifically developed for reviewing conversation analytic and related literature. A range of databases were searched using key words and explicitly described inclusion criteria leading to a final corpus of 50 titles. Using this qualitative methodology, each paper was examined and data extracted. The contribution of each of these is described and the implications for practice and research are outlined. Main Contribution This review examined studies into conversation in Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and Lewy body dementia, grouping these into: early influential studies; work drawing on positioning theory; studies using social and linguistic approaches; collaborative storytelling; formulaic language; studies specifically using conversation analysis; and conversation as a target for individualized therapy. In addition, more recent work examining primary progressive aphasia and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia was explored. Overall, this review indicates that research examining conversation in natural settings provides a rich source of data to explore not just the challenges within conversation for those taking part, but also the skills retained by the person with dementia. An important aspect of this understanding is the notion that these skills relate not only to information exchange but also aspects of social interaction. The role of others in scaffolding the conversation abilities of the person with dementia and the potential of this for developing interventions are discussed. Conclusions & Implications The review indicates that interventions targeting conversation in dementia are often advocated in the literature but currently such approaches remain to be systematically evaluated. In addition, many of the important insights arising from these studies have yet to inform multidisciplinary dementia care practice. PMID:27891726
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Red-light running violation prediction using observational and simulator data.
Jahangiri, Arash; Rakha, Hesham; Dingus, Thomas A
2016-11-01
In the United States, 683 people were killed and an estimated 133,000 were injured in crashes due to running red lights in 2012. To help prevent/mitigate crashes caused by running red lights, these violations need to be identified before they occur, so both the road users (i.e., drivers, pedestrians, etc.) in potential danger and the infrastructure can be notified and actions can be taken accordingly. Two different data sets were used to assess the feasibility of developing red-light running (RLR) violation prediction models: (1) observational data and (2) driver simulator data. Both data sets included common factors, such as time to intersection (TTI), distance to intersection (DTI), and velocity at the onset of the yellow indication. However, the observational data set provided additional factors that the simulator data set did not, and vice versa. The observational data included vehicle information (e.g., speed, acceleration, etc.) for several different time frames. For each vehicle approaching an intersection in the observational data set, required data were extracted from several time frames as the vehicle drew closer to the intersection. However, since the observational data were inherently anonymous, driver factors such as age and gender were unavailable in the observational data set. Conversely, the simulator data set contained age and gender. In addition, the simulator data included a secondary (non-driving) task factor and a treatment factor (i.e., incoming/outgoing calls while driving). The simulator data only included vehicle information for certain time frames (e.g., yellow onset); the data did not provide vehicle information for several different time frames while vehicles were approaching an intersection. In this study, the random forest (RF) machine-learning technique was adopted to develop RLR violation prediction models. Factor importance was obtained for different models and different data sets to show how differently the factors influence the performance of each model. A sensitivity analysis showed that the factor importance to identify RLR violations changed when data from different time frames were used to develop the prediction models. TTI, DTI, the required deceleration parameter (RDP), and velocity at the onset of a yellow indication were among the most important factors identified by both models constructed using observational data and simulator data. Furthermore, in addition to the factors obtained from a point in time (i.e., yellow onset), valuable information suitable for RLR violation prediction was obtained from defined monitoring periods. It was found that period lengths of 2-6m contributed to the best model performance. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Mörstedt, Beatrice; Corbisiero, Salvatore; Bitto, Hannes; Stieglitz, Rolf-Dieter
2015-01-01
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a severe mental illness, associated with major impairment and a high comorbidity rate. Particularly undiagnosed ADHD in adulthood has serious consequences. Thus, a valid diagnosis is important. In adulthood, the diagnostic process for ADHD is complicated: symptoms may overlap with comorbid disorders, and the onset and progression of the disorder must be reconstructed retrospectively. Guidelines for the diagnostic process recommend the inclusion of additional informant ratings. Research into the relation between self- and informant ratings shows extremely heterogeneous results. The levels of agreement range from low to high. The focus of this study is the concordance and differences between self- and informant ratings on ADHD symptoms and impairments. In this regard, two possible influencing factors (gender and relationship type) are also examined. 114 people participated in this study, 77 with an ADHD diagnosis and 37 without a diagnosis. For all participants, either parents or partners also rated ADHD symptoms and impairments. Small to moderate concordance was found between self- and informant ratings, with females being slightly more concordant than males, particularly for ratings of problems with self-concept. Examination of the consistency within a particular perspective showed that people with ADHD seemed to be unaware of the causal relation between ADHD symptoms and their impairments. A close investigation found almost no influence of gender and relationship type on differences within perspectives. Based on these results, the implications for the diagnostic process are that additional informant information is clearly necessary and helpful.
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SimCoach: An Intelligent Virtual Human System for Proving Healthcare Information and Support
2010-08-01
classrooms , offices, markets, etc.), the next important challenge will involve populating these environments with Virtual Human (VH) representations...in a virtual classroom (Parsons et al., 2007; Rizzo et al., 2006). Additionally, VHs have been used effectively for the conduct of social psychology...T Bowerly, J G Buckwalter and A A Rizzo (2007), A controlled clinical comparison of attention performance in children with ADHD in a virtual reality
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Results of the Navy Telework and Technology Survey
2012-05-01
failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE...Background • In 2000, Public Law 106-346, §359, indicated that all executive agencies needed to introduce policies for telecommuting • Telework can be...indicated that all executive agencies had to introduce policies for telecommuting ; these policies have taken on additional importance in light of recent
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Domain Name Server Security (DNSSEC) Protocol Deployment
2014-10-01
all the time. For mobile devices, end-system validation is much more difficult due to the state of their networks, many of which do not allow...way to distribute keying information than the current public-key infrastructure (PKI) allows. In addition, it will take work to convince CDNs and...Control Protocol (TCP) or even DNS over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). One of the important outcomes of our work is the realization that that a " mobile
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1984-03-01
coast), indicate this trend will continue. In addition, further loss of foreign bases is possible, as well as an increase in political restrictions on...endeavors to extend wave forces prediction technology. Numerous other government agencies (both U.S. and foreign ) and private industry investigations...then be included easily in existing NAVFAC documents. The sequence of the task scheduling is important to optimize the exchange of information among
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Helium 3/Helium 4 dilution cryocooler for space
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Hendricks, John B.; Dingus, Michael L.
1991-01-01
Prototype dilution cryocoolers based on dilution refrigeration and adiabatic demagnetization refrigeration (ADR) cycles were designed, constructed, and tested. Although devices the devices did not operate as fully functional dilution cryocoolers, important information was gathered. The porous metal phase separator was demonstrated to operate in the -1-g configuration; this phase separation is the critical element in the He-3 circulation dilution cryocooler. Improvements in instrumentation needed for additional tests and development were identified.
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[The Hekimbaşi and Hekimbaşilik in the Ottoman Empire].
Bayat, A H
1999-01-01
The hekimbaşilik is an important society in the Empire of Ottoman. The Hekimbaşi protected the health of the monarch and his family and applied health system, borders of the empire during 350 years. In the past, 42 Hekimbaşi worked in this society. They received education and their medical information in classic ottoman Medrese. In addition to this, they worked as Muslim judge and Medrese hodja.
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Information Technology Revolution in the Republic of Korea: Rise of the Knowledge-Based Society
2005-08-01
additional stock sales to the domestic investors, the sale of KT ADRs on Wall Street in 1999 and 2001, placements of Eurodollar bonds with warrants...to come. Trends in Production, Domestic Sales , and Imports/Exports in IT Industry Traditionally, the IT industry in Korea has been...distance, and 340,800 international telephone service subscribers.9 Their sales and profits continue to decline at 7.7 percent annually, despite
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Architectural Survey of Ohio Army National Guard Properties: Volume 1
2015-12-01
occurrence, property, or site is understood and its meaning (and ultimately its significance) within prehistory or history is made clear (NPS 1991a, 7...where the property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. 6.3 Aspects of historic integrity In addition...of a particular culture or people during any given period in history or prehistory . Feeling Feeling is a property’s expression of the aesthetic or
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Manta, Christine J.; Ortiz, Jacqueline; Moulton, Benjamin W.; Sonnad, Seema S.
2016-01-01
Objective This study aimed to gather qualitative feedback on patient perceptions of informed consent forms and elicit recommendations to improve readability and utility for enhanced patient safety and engagement in shared decision making. Methods Sixty in person interviews were conducted consisting of a literacy and numeracy assessment, a comprehension quiz to assess retention of key information and open ended questions to determine reactions, clarity of information and suggestions for improvement. Results While 68% of the participants had education beyond high school, many still missed comprehension questions and found the forms difficult to read. Recurrent suggestions included: specific formatting changes to enhance readability, a need for additional sources of information, mixed attitudes towards inclusion of risk information and the recognized importance of physician-patient conversations. Conclusion This study provides evidence from the patient perspective that consent forms are too complex and fail to achieve comprehension. Future studies should be conducted using patients’ suggestions for form redesign and inclusion of supplemental educational tools in order to optimize communication and safety to achieve more informed health care decision making. PMID:27490160
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Myneni, Sahiti; Patel, Vimla L.; Bova, G. Steven; Wang, Jian; Ackerman, Christopher F.; Berlinicke, Cynthia A.; Chen, Steve H.; Lindvall, Mikael; Zack, Donald J.
2016-01-01
This paper describes a distributed collaborative effort between industry and academia to systematize data management in an academic biomedical laboratory. Heterogeneous and voluminous nature of research data created in biomedical laboratories make information management difficult and research unproductive. One such collaborative effort was evaluated over a period of four years using data collection methods including ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews, web-based surveys, progress reports, conference call summaries, and face-to-face group discussions. Data were analyzed using qualitative methods of data analysis to 1) characterize specific problems faced by biomedical researchers with traditional information management practices, 2) identify intervention areas to introduce a new research information management system called Labmatrix, and finally to 3) evaluate and delineate important general collaboration (intervention) characteristics that can optimize outcomes of an implementation process in biomedical laboratories. Results emphasize the importance of end user perseverance, human-centric interoperability evaluation, and demonstration of return on investment of effort and time of laboratory members and industry personnel for success of implementation process. In addition, there is an intrinsic learning component associated with the implementation process of an information management system. Technology transfer experience in a complex environment such as the biomedical laboratory can be eased with use of information systems that support human and cognitive interoperability. Such informatics features can also contribute to successful collaboration and hopefully to scientific productivity. PMID:26652980
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Reavis, Rachael D; Ebbs, Jacob B; Onunkwo, Adaobi K; Sage, L Mariah
2017-01-01
Two studies investigated the effectiveness of a self-affirmation exercise on vaccine safety beliefs and intent to vaccinate future children. In Study 1, a sample of 585 parents with at least one child under the age of 18 in the home participated through Amazon's MTurk. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 x 2 design. Participants read either correcting information refuting a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism or a control passage about bird feeding. Additionally, participants either completed a self-affirmation exercise where they reflected on their personal values or in a control condition in which they reflected on least-personally-important values that might be important to others. Participants exposed to the correcting information were less likely to believe that vaccines cause serious side effects, but no less likely to believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism. For parents with initially positive vaccine attitudes, there was no effect of condition on intent to vaccinate a future child. For parents with initially negative vaccine attitudes, self-affirmation was ineffective in the presence of correcting information and resulted in less intention to vaccinate in the absence of correcting information. This effect was partially replicated in Study 2 (N = 576), which provided no correcting information but otherwise followed the same procedure as Study 1.
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Naito, Wataru; Uesaka, Motoki; Yamada, Chie; Kurosawa, Tadahiro; Yasutaka, Tetsuo; Ishii, Hideki
2016-01-01
The accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011, released radioactive material into the atmosphere and contaminated the land in Fukushima and several neighboring prefectures. Five years after the nuclear disaster, the radiation levels have greatly decreased due to physical decay, weathering, and decontamination operations in Fukushima. The populations of 12 communities were forced to evacuate after the accident; as of March 2016, the evacuation order has been lifted in only a limited area, and permanent habitation is still prohibited in most of the areas. In order for the government to lift the evacuation order and for individuals to return to their original residential areas, it is important to assess current and future realistic individual external doses. Here, we used personal dosimeters along with the Global Positioning System and Geographic Information System to understand realistic individual external doses and to relate individual external doses, ambient doses, and activity-patterns of individuals in the affected areas in Fukushima. The results showed that the additional individual external doses were well correlated to the additional ambient doses based on the airborne monitoring survey. The results of linear regression analysis suggested that the additional individual external doses were on average about one-fifth that of the additional ambient doses. The reduction factors, which are defined as the ratios of the additional individual external doses to the additional ambient doses, were calculated to be on average 0.14 and 0.32 for time spent at home and outdoors, respectively. Analysis of the contribution of various activity patterns to the total individual external dose demonstrated good agreement with the average fraction of time spent daily in each activity, but the contribution due to being outdoors varied widely. These results are a valuable contribution to understanding realistic individual external doses and the corresponding airborne monitoring-based ambient doses and time-activity patterns of individuals. Moreover, the results provide important information for predicting future cumulative doses after the return of residents to evacuation order areas in Fukushima.
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Kurosawa, Tadahiro; Yasutaka, Tetsuo; Ishii, Hideki
2016-01-01
The accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011, released radioactive material into the atmosphere and contaminated the land in Fukushima and several neighboring prefectures. Five years after the nuclear disaster, the radiation levels have greatly decreased due to physical decay, weathering, and decontamination operations in Fukushima. The populations of 12 communities were forced to evacuate after the accident; as of March 2016, the evacuation order has been lifted in only a limited area, and permanent habitation is still prohibited in most of the areas. In order for the government to lift the evacuation order and for individuals to return to their original residential areas, it is important to assess current and future realistic individual external doses. Here, we used personal dosimeters along with the Global Positioning System and Geographic Information System to understand realistic individual external doses and to relate individual external doses, ambient doses, and activity-patterns of individuals in the affected areas in Fukushima. The results showed that the additional individual external doses were well correlated to the additional ambient doses based on the airborne monitoring survey. The results of linear regression analysis suggested that the additional individual external doses were on average about one-fifth that of the additional ambient doses. The reduction factors, which are defined as the ratios of the additional individual external doses to the additional ambient doses, were calculated to be on average 0.14 and 0.32 for time spent at home and outdoors, respectively. Analysis of the contribution of various activity patterns to the total individual external dose demonstrated good agreement with the average fraction of time spent daily in each activity, but the contribution due to being outdoors varied widely. These results are a valuable contribution to understanding realistic individual external doses and the corresponding airborne monitoring-based ambient doses and time-activity patterns of individuals. Moreover, the results provide important information for predicting future cumulative doses after the return of residents to evacuation order areas in Fukushima. PMID:27494021
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34 CFR 222.185 - What additional information must be included in an emergency grant application?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
2011-07-01
... 34 Education 1 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false What additional information must be included in an... for A Grant § 222.185 What additional information must be included in an emergency grant application? In addition to the information specified in § 222.184, an application for an emergency grant must...
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Human impacts of the motorways of the sea
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
March, David; Gómara, Sonia; Tintoré, Joaquin
2014-05-01
Maritime transport plays an important role in the world trade and economics development. In Europe the "motorways on the sea" concept has been an important issue since the launch of the EU Transport white paper (EC 2001). An enclosed sea such as the Mediterranean is particularly vulnerable to ship-associated pressures due to a high-volume of shipping routes, long history of use, and sensitive shallow and deep-sea habitats. Negative impacts associated to maritime traffic include biodiversity loss, introduction of alien species, pollution, marine litter and underwater noise among others. The monitoring and characterization of the spatio-temporal patterns of marine traffic constitutes an important element for the effective management and assessment of environmental impacts of this activity. Monitoring of real-time ship locations can be achieved through the Automated Identification System (AIS). The AIS is a VHF transmitter that broadcast the ship position, as well as additional information (eg. timestamp, speed, heading, boat type). All ocean-going commercial traffic >300 gross tons, or carrying more than 165 passengers, as well as tug/tows, are required to carry AIS transmitters (IALA 2004). In addition, the rest of the ships are able to carry on these transmitters on a voluntary basis. In this work we present the development of an information system designed to store, manage, analyze and visualize historical AIS data based on open-source components. We analyse such data to assess and map multiple anthropogenic pressures. For example, segmented regression on speed distribution is carried out to identify and map fishing activity, whereas neighbourhood statistics and GIS methods are used to generate underwater noise maps. We will illustrate these products within the context of risk assessment on marine ecosystems at the Western Mediterranean Sea. The information provided in this study can be incorporated into Decision Support Systems (DSS) for supporting the implementation of European and national policies for the assessment of environmental impacts and the interactions among human activities as well.
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Online writer identification using alphabetic information clustering
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Tan, Guo Xian; Viard-Gaudin, Christian; Kot, Alex C.
2009-01-01
Writer identification is a topic of much renewed interest today because of its importance in applications such as writer adaptation, routing of documents and forensic document analysis. Various algorithms have been proposed to handle such tasks. Of particular interests are the approaches that use allographic features [1-3] to perform a comparison of the documents in question. The allographic features are used to define prototypes that model the unique handwriting styles of the individual writers. This paper investigates a novel perspective that takes alphabetic information into consideration when the allographic features are clustered into prototypes at the character level. We hypothesize that alphabetic information provides additional clues which help in the clustering of allographic prototypes. An alphabet information coefficient (AIC) has been introduced in our study and the effect of this coefficient is presented. Our experiments showed an increase of writer identification accuracy from 66.0% to 87.0% when alphabetic information was used in conjunction with allographic features on a database of 200 reference writers.
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Familiarity with interest breeds gossip: contributions of emotion, expectation, and reputation.
Yao, Bo; Scott, Graham G; McAleer, Phil; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C
2014-01-01
Although gossip serves several important social functions, it has relatively infrequently been the topic of systematic investigation. In two experiments, we advance a cognitive-informational approach to gossip. Specifically, we sought to determine which informational components engender gossip. In Experiment 1, participants read brief passages about other people and indicated their likelihood to share this information. We manipulated target familiarity (celebrity, non-celebrity) and story interest (interesting, boring). While participants were more likely to gossip about celebrity than non-celebrity targets and interesting than boring stories, they were even more likely to gossip about celebrity targets embedded within interesting stories. In Experiment 2, we additionally probed participants' reactions to the stories concerning emotion, expectation, and reputation information conveyed. Analyses showed that while such information partially mediated target familiarity and story interest effects, only expectation and reputation accounted for the interactive pattern of gossip behavior. Our findings provide novel insights into the essential components and processing mechanisms of gossip.
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MedBlock: Efficient and Secure Medical Data Sharing Via Blockchain.
Fan, Kai; Wang, Shangyang; Ren, Yanhui; Li, Hui; Yang, Yintang
2018-06-21
With the development of electronic information technology, electronic medical records (EMRs) have been a common way to store the patients' data in hospitals. They are stored in different hospitals' databases, even for the same patient. Therefore, it is difficult to construct a summarized EMR for one patient from multiple hospital databases due to the security and privacy concerns. Meanwhile, current EMRs systems lack a standard data management and sharing policy, making it difficult for pharmaceutical scientists to develop precise medicines based on data obtained under different policies. To solve the above problems, we proposed a blockchain-based information management system, MedBlock, to handle patients' information. In this scheme, the distributed ledger of MedBlock allows the efficient EMRs access and EMRs retrieval. The improved consensus mechanism achieves consensus of EMRs without large energy consumption and network congestion. In addition, MedBlock also exhibits high information security combining the customized access control protocols and symmetric cryptography. MedBlock can play an important role in the sensitive medical information sharing.
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Predicting cancer risk knowledge and information seeking: the role of social and cognitive factors.
Hovick, Shelly R; Liang, Ming-Ching; Kahlor, Leeann
2014-01-01
This study tests an expanded Structural Influence Model (SIM) to gain a greater understanding of the social and cognitive factors that contribute to disparities in cancer risk knowledge and information seeking. At the core of this expansion is the planned risk information seeking model (PRISM). This study employed an online sample (N = 1,007) of African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White adults. The addition of four cognitive predictors to the SIM substantially increased variance explained in cancer risk knowledge (R(2) = .29) and information seeking (R(2) = .56). Health literacy mediated the effects of social determinants (socioeconomic status [SES] and race/ethnicity) on cancer risk knowledge, while subjective norms mediated their effects on cancer risk information seeking. Social capital and perceived seeking control were also shown to be important mediators of the relationships between SES and cancer communication outcomes. Our results illustrate the social and cognitive mechanisms by which social determinants impact cancer communication outcomes, as well as several points of intervention to reduce communication disparities.
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Faulon, Jean-Loup; Misra, Milind; Martin, Shawn; ...
2007-11-23
Motivation: Identifying protein enzymatic or pharmacological activities are important areas of research in biology and chemistry. Biological and chemical databases are increasingly being populated with linkages between protein sequences and chemical structures. Additionally, there is now sufficient information to apply machine-learning techniques to predict interactions between chemicals and proteins at a genome scale. Current machine-learning techniques use as input either protein sequences and structures or chemical information. We propose here a method to infer protein–chemical interactions using heterogeneous input consisting of both protein sequence and chemical information. Results: Our method relies on expressing proteins and chemicals with a common cheminformaticsmore » representation. We demonstrate our approach by predicting whether proteins can catalyze reactions not present in training sets. We also predict whether a given drug can bind a target, in the absence of prior binding information for that drug and target. Lastly, such predictions cannot be made with current machine-learning techniques requiring binding information for individual reactions or individual targets.« less
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Familiarity with Interest Breeds Gossip: Contributions of Emotion, Expectation, and Reputation
Yao, Bo; Scott, Graham G.; McAleer, Phil; O'Donnell, Patrick J.; Sereno, Sara C.
2014-01-01
Although gossip serves several important social functions, it has relatively infrequently been the topic of systematic investigation. In two experiments, we advance a cognitive-informational approach to gossip. Specifically, we sought to determine which informational components engender gossip. In Experiment 1, participants read brief passages about other people and indicated their likelihood to share this information. We manipulated target familiarity (celebrity, non-celebrity) and story interest (interesting, boring). While participants were more likely to gossip about celebrity than non-celebrity targets and interesting than boring stories, they were even more likely to gossip about celebrity targets embedded within interesting stories. In Experiment 2, we additionally probed participants' reactions to the stories concerning emotion, expectation, and reputation information conveyed. Analyses showed that while such information partially mediated target familiarity and story interest effects, only expectation and reputation accounted for the interactive pattern of gossip behavior. Our findings provide novel insights into the essential components and processing mechanisms of gossip. PMID:25119267
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Facilitators on networks reveal optimal interplay between information exchange and reciprocity.
Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž; Mobilia, Mauro
2014-04-01
Reciprocity is firmly established as an important mechanism that promotes cooperation. An efficient information exchange is likewise important, especially on structured populations, where interactions between players are limited. Motivated by these two facts, we explore the role of facilitators in social dilemmas on networks. Facilitators are here mirrors to their neighbors-they cooperate with cooperators and defect with defectors-but they do not participate in the exchange of strategies. As such, in addition to introducing direct reciprocity, they also obstruct information exchange. In well-mixed populations, facilitators favor the replacement and invasion of defection by cooperation as long as their number exceeds a critical value. In structured populations, on the other hand, there exists a delicate balance between the benefits of reciprocity and the deterioration of information exchange. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations of social dilemmas on various interaction networks reveal that there exists an optimal interplay between reciprocity and information exchange, which sets in only when a small number of facilitators occupy the main hubs of the scale-free network. The drawbacks of missing cooperative hubs are more than compensated for by reciprocity and, at the same time, the compromised information exchange is routed via the auxiliary hubs with only marginal losses in effectivity. These results indicate that it is not always optimal for the main hubs to become leaders of the masses, but rather to exploit their highly connected state to promote tit-for-tat-like behavior.
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Ishibashi, Masaaki; Ishii, Masakazu; Nagano, Miku; Kiuchi, Yuji; Iwamoto, Sanju
2018-01-01
Previous reports suggested that sharing outpatient information during chemotherapy is very important for managing pharmaceutical usage between community pharmacies and hospitals. We herein examined using a questionnaire survey whether pharmaceutical management for outpatient chemotherapy is desired by community and hospital pharmacists. The response rates were 44.3% (133/300) for pharmacists in community pharmacies and 53.7% (161/300) for pharmacists in hospitals. Prescriptions for outpatients during chemotherapy were issued at 88.2% of the hospitals. Currently, 28.9% of hospital pharmacists rarely provide pharmaceutical care, such as patient guidance and adverse effect monitoring, for outpatients receiving oral chemotherapy. Furthermore, whereas 93.7% of hospital pharmacists conducted prescription audits based on the chemotherapy regimen, audits were only performed by 14.8% of community pharmacists. Thus, outpatients, particularly those on oral regimens, were unable to receive safe pharmaceutical care during chemotherapy. Community pharmacists suggested that hospital pharmacists should use "medication notebooks" and disclose prescription information when providing clinical information to community pharmacists. They also suggested sending clinical information to hospital pharmacists by fax. On the other hand, hospital pharmacists suggested the use of "medication notebooks" and electronic medical records when providing clinical information to community pharmacists. In addition, they suggested for community pharmacists to use electronic medical records when providing clinical information to hospital pharmacists. As there may be differences in opinion between community and hospital pharmacists, mutual preliminary communication is important for successful outpatient chemotherapy.
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Polarization Remote Sensing Physical Mechanism, Key Methods and Application
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Yang, B.; Wu, T.; Chen, W.; Li, Y.; Knjazihhin, J.; Asundi, A.; Yan, L.
2017-09-01
China's long-term planning major projects "high-resolution earth observation system" has been invested nearly 100 billion and the satellites will reach 100 to 2020. As to 2/3 of China's area covered by mountains it has a higher demand for remote sensing. In addition to light intensity, frequency, phase, polarization is also the main physical characteristics of remote sensing electromagnetic waves. Polarization is an important component of the reflected information from the surface and the atmospheric information, and the polarization effect of the ground object reflection is the basis of the observation of polarization remote sensing. Therefore, the effect of eliminating the polarization effect is very important for remote sensing applications. The main innovations of this paper is as follows: (1) Remote sensing observation method. It is theoretically deduced and verified that the polarization can weaken the light in the strong light region, and then provide the polarization effective information. In turn, the polarization in the low light region can strengthen the weak light, the same can be obtained polarization effective information. (2) Polarization effect of vegetation. By analyzing the structure characteristics of vegetation, polarization information is obtained, then the vegetation structure information directly affects the absorption of biochemical components of leaves. (3) Atmospheric polarization neutral point observation method. It is proved to be effective to achieve the ground-gas separation, which can achieve the effect of eliminating the atmospheric polarization effect and enhancing the polarization effect of the object.
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Facilitators on networks reveal optimal interplay between information exchange and reciprocity
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž; Mobilia, Mauro
2014-04-01
Reciprocity is firmly established as an important mechanism that promotes cooperation. An efficient information exchange is likewise important, especially on structured populations, where interactions between players are limited. Motivated by these two facts, we explore the role of facilitators in social dilemmas on networks. Facilitators are here mirrors to their neighbors—they cooperate with cooperators and defect with defectors—but they do not participate in the exchange of strategies. As such, in addition to introducing direct reciprocity, they also obstruct information exchange. In well-mixed populations, facilitators favor the replacement and invasion of defection by cooperation as long as their number exceeds a critical value. In structured populations, on the other hand, there exists a delicate balance between the benefits of reciprocity and the deterioration of information exchange. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations of social dilemmas on various interaction networks reveal that there exists an optimal interplay between reciprocity and information exchange, which sets in only when a small number of facilitators occupy the main hubs of the scale-free network. The drawbacks of missing cooperative hubs are more than compensated for by reciprocity and, at the same time, the compromised information exchange is routed via the auxiliary hubs with only marginal losses in effectivity. These results indicate that it is not always optimal for the main hubs to become leaders of the masses, but rather to exploit their highly connected state to promote tit-for-tat-like behavior.
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A health plan report card for dentistry.
Bader, J D; Shugars, D A; Hayden, W J; White, B A
1996-01-01
Employers are demanding information about the performance of the health care plans they purchase for their employees. As a result, "report cards" are now beginning to appear that provide standardized, population-based comparison data for managed medical care plans' quality of care, access and member satisfaction, utilization, and financial status. Although report cards for dental care plans have not yet been developed, it is likely that purchasers will soon expect such performance information. A prototype report card for dental managed care plans is proposed in an effort to facilitate the development of a consensus standard for dentistry. The thirty-eight measures proposed for the report card are designed to be obtainable with a realistic level of additional effort in most dental practices. They were selected to provide data on questions of importance to purchasers and to assess processes and outcomes important because there is strong evidence for their effectiveness. The rationale for the measures is discussed, as are the steps required to develop more sophisticated measures. While the responsibility for the procurement of the information needed for dental report cards will die initially with administrators of dental care plans, it is likely in the near future that individual practitioners will be expected to supply this information to both individual patients and potential contractors.
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Privacy-preserving search for chemical compound databases.
Shimizu, Kana; Nuida, Koji; Arai, Hiromi; Mitsunari, Shigeo; Attrapadung, Nuttapong; Hamada, Michiaki; Tsuda, Koji; Hirokawa, Takatsugu; Sakuma, Jun; Hanaoka, Goichiro; Asai, Kiyoshi
2015-01-01
Searching for similar compounds in a database is the most important process for in-silico drug screening. Since a query compound is an important starting point for the new drug, a query holder, who is afraid of the query being monitored by the database server, usually downloads all the records in the database and uses them in a closed network. However, a serious dilemma arises when the database holder also wants to output no information except for the search results, and such a dilemma prevents the use of many important data resources. In order to overcome this dilemma, we developed a novel cryptographic protocol that enables database searching while keeping both the query holder's privacy and database holder's privacy. Generally, the application of cryptographic techniques to practical problems is difficult because versatile techniques are computationally expensive while computationally inexpensive techniques can perform only trivial computation tasks. In this study, our protocol is successfully built only from an additive-homomorphic cryptosystem, which allows only addition performed on encrypted values but is computationally efficient compared with versatile techniques such as general purpose multi-party computation. In an experiment searching ChEMBL, which consists of more than 1,200,000 compounds, the proposed method was 36,900 times faster in CPU time and 12,000 times as efficient in communication size compared with general purpose multi-party computation. We proposed a novel privacy-preserving protocol for searching chemical compound databases. The proposed method, easily scaling for large-scale databases, may help to accelerate drug discovery research by making full use of unused but valuable data that includes sensitive information.
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Drivers and hotspots of extinction risk in marine mammals.
Davidson, Ana D; Boyer, Alison G; Kim, Hwahwan; Pompa-Mansilla, Sandra; Hamilton, Marcus J; Costa, Daniel P; Ceballos, Gerardo; Brown, James H
2012-02-28
The world's oceans are undergoing profound changes as a result of human activities. However, the consequences of escalating human impacts on marine mammal biodiversity remain poorly understood. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) identifies 25% of marine mammals as at risk of extinction, but the conservation status of nearly 40% of marine mammals remains unknown due to insufficient data. Predictive models of extinction risk are crucial to informing present and future conservation needs, yet such models have not been developed for marine mammals. In this paper, we: (i) used powerful machine-learning and spatial-modeling approaches to understand the intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of marine mammal extinction risk; (ii) used this information to predict risk across all marine mammals, including IUCN "Data Deficient" species; and (iii) conducted a spatially explicit assessment of these results to understand how risk is distributed across the world's oceans. Rate of offspring production was the most important predictor of risk. Additional predictors included taxonomic group, small geographic range area, and small social group size. Although the interaction of both intrinsic and extrinsic variables was important in predicting risk, overall, intrinsic traits were more important than extrinsic variables. In addition to the 32 species already on the IUCN Red List, our model identified 15 more species, suggesting that 37% of all marine mammals are at risk of extinction. Most at-risk species occur in coastal areas and in productive regions of the high seas. We identify 13 global hotspots of risk and show how they overlap with human impacts and Marine Protected Areas.
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Privacy-preserving search for chemical compound databases
2015-01-01
Background Searching for similar compounds in a database is the most important process for in-silico drug screening. Since a query compound is an important starting point for the new drug, a query holder, who is afraid of the query being monitored by the database server, usually downloads all the records in the database and uses them in a closed network. However, a serious dilemma arises when the database holder also wants to output no information except for the search results, and such a dilemma prevents the use of many important data resources. Results In order to overcome this dilemma, we developed a novel cryptographic protocol that enables database searching while keeping both the query holder's privacy and database holder's privacy. Generally, the application of cryptographic techniques to practical problems is difficult because versatile techniques are computationally expensive while computationally inexpensive techniques can perform only trivial computation tasks. In this study, our protocol is successfully built only from an additive-homomorphic cryptosystem, which allows only addition performed on encrypted values but is computationally efficient compared with versatile techniques such as general purpose multi-party computation. In an experiment searching ChEMBL, which consists of more than 1,200,000 compounds, the proposed method was 36,900 times faster in CPU time and 12,000 times as efficient in communication size compared with general purpose multi-party computation. Conclusion We proposed a novel privacy-preserving protocol for searching chemical compound databases. The proposed method, easily scaling for large-scale databases, may help to accelerate drug discovery research by making full use of unused but valuable data that includes sensitive information. PMID:26678650
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RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION OF FOOD
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Setter, L.R.
The environment and, consequently, food contains measurable amounts of radionuclides arising primarily from the distribution of nuclear bomb debris over the entire earth's surface. This radioactivity is in addition to natural radioactivity which exists in thc environment. A wealth of information has been gathered on the artificial radioactivity in air, water, vegetation, and soil; on physical and chemical mechanisms of radioaetive movement in the biosphere; and on the biologic behavior of radionuclide uptake by animals and human beings and their distribution in excretions and secretions. Collection of additional information under more carefully designed and executed studies is under way. Theremore » remains the task of marshalling and reviewing the data obtained during active fall-out up to the summer of 1959. With later information collected during a period of substantially no fall-out, the interpretation of these data hopefully will indicate the relative magnitude of physical, chemical, and biologic factors influencing levels in plants and animals, provide a means of predicting future levels, and, most important, permit some evaluation of the effects of nuclear radiation from ingestion of contaminated food as a part of the total effects from fall-out and from natural radioactivity. (auth)« less
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NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Ortiz-Arias, Deedee; Zwicker, Andrew; Dominguez, Arturo; Greco, Shannon
2017-10-01
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) uses a host of outreach initiatives to inform the general population: the Young Women's Conference, Science Bowl, Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship, My Brother's Keeper, a variety of workshops for university faculty and undergraduate students, public and scheduled lab tours, school and community interactive plasma science demonstrations. In addition to informing and educating the public about the laboratory's important work in the areas of Plasma and Fusion, these outreach initiatives, are also used as an opportunity to identify/educate/recruit the next generation of the STEM workforce. These programs provide the laboratory with the ability to: engage the next generation at different paths along their development (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, professional), at different levels of scientific content (science demonstrations, remote experiments, lectures, tours), in some instances, targeting underrepresented groups in STEM (women and minorities), and train additional STEM educators to take learned content into their own classrooms.
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The value of trauma registries.
Moore, Lynne; Clark, David E
2008-06-01
Trauma registries are databases that document acute care delivered to patients hospitalised with injuries. They are designed to provide information that can be used to improve the efficiency and quality of trauma care. Indeed, the combination of trauma registry data at regional or national levels can produce very large databases that allow unprecedented opportunities for the evaluation of patient outcomes and inter-hospital comparisons. However, the creation and upkeep of trauma registries requires a substantial investment of money, time and effort, data quality is an important challenge and aggregated trauma data sets rarely represent a population-based sample of trauma. In addition, trauma hospitalisations are already routinely documented in administrative hospital discharge databases. The present review aims to provide evidence that trauma registry data can be used to improve the care dispensed to victims of injury in ways that could not be achieved with information from administrative databases alone. In addition, we will define the structure and purpose of contemporary trauma registries, acknowledge their limitations, and discuss possible ways to make them more useful.
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DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
NONE
1995-01-01
Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), commonly referred to as di-octyl phthalate, is an important production chemical in the US. In addition to its major use as an additive in plastics, DEHP is widely used to evaluate the effectiveness of high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters. Historically, DEHP was also used in quantitative fit testing for respirators. Evaluations of this compound a decade ago showed that it can induce hepatocellular carcinomas in laboratory animals. Although most Department of Energy (DOE) facilities have since discontinued using DEHP in respirator fit testing, DEHP continues to be used for evaluating HEPA filters. This report summarizes availablemore » information on the toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and other hazards and problems posed by DEHP, specifically with reference to HEPA filter testing. Information on work practice improvements as well as the availability and suitability of DEHP substitutes are also presented. This material should assist the DOE in the safe use of this material.« less
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16 CFR 1102.16 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR
2012-01-01
... PUBLICLY AVAILABLE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY INFORMATION DATABASE Content Requirements § 1102.16 Additional... in the Database any additional information it determines to be in the public interest, consistent...
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16 CFR 1102.16 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR
2014-01-01
... PUBLICLY AVAILABLE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY INFORMATION DATABASE Content Requirements § 1102.16 Additional... in the Database any additional information it determines to be in the public interest, consistent...
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Moles of a Substance per Cell Is a Highly Informative Dosing Metric in Cell Culture
Wagner, Brett A.; Buettner, Garry R.
2015-01-01
Background The biological consequences upon exposure of cells in culture to a dose of xenobiotic are not only dependent on biological variables, but also the physical aspects of experiments e.g. cell number and media volume. Dependence on physical aspects is often overlooked due to the unrecognized ambiguity in the dominant metric used to express exposure, i.e. initial concentration of xenobiotic delivered to the culture medium over the cells. We hypothesize that for many xenobiotics, specifying dose as moles per cell will reduce this ambiguity. Dose as moles per cell can also provide additional information not easily obtainable with traditional dosing metrics. Methods Here, 1,4-benzoquinone and oligomycin A are used as model compounds to investigate moles per cell as an informative dosing metric. Mechanistic insight into reactions with intracellular molecules, differences between sequential and bolus addition of xenobiotic and the influence of cell volume and protein content on toxicity are also investigated. Results When the dose of 1,4-benzoquinone or oligomycin A was specified as moles per cell, toxicity was independent of the physical conditions used (number of cells, volume of medium). When using moles per cell as a dose-metric, direct quantitative comparisons can be made between biochemical or biological endpoints and the dose of xenobiotic applied. For example, the toxicity of 1,4-benzoquinone correlated inversely with intracellular volume for all five cell lines exposed (C6, MDA-MB231, A549, MIA PaCa-2, and HepG2). Conclusions Moles per cell is a useful and informative dosing metric in cell culture. This dosing metric is a scalable parameter that: can reduce ambiguity between experiments having different physical conditions; provides additional mechanistic information; allows direct comparison between different cells; affords a more uniform platform for experimental design; addresses the important issue of repeatability of experimental results, and could increase the translatability of information gained from in vitro experiments. PMID:26172833
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Expressive intent, ambiguity, and aesthetic experiences of music and poetry
Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth; Levine, William H.; Simchy-Gross, Rhimmon; Kroger, Carolyn
2017-01-01
A growing number of studies are investigating the way that aesthetic experiences are generated across different media. Empathy with a perceived human artist has been suggested as a common mechanism [1]. In this study, people heard 30 s excerpts of ambiguous music and poetry preceded by neutral, positively valenced, or negatively valenced information about the composer's or author’s intent. The information influenced their perception of the excerpts—excerpts paired with positive intent information were perceived as happier and excerpts paired with negative intent information were perceived as sadder (although across intent conditions, musical excerpts were perceived as happier than poetry excerpts). Moreover, the information modulated the aesthetic experience of the excerpts in different ways for the different excerpt types: positive intent information increased enjoyment and the degree to which people found the musical excerpts to be moving, but negative intent information increased these qualities for poetry. Additionally, positive intent information was judged to better match musical excerpts and negative intent information to better match poetic excerpts. These results suggest that empathy with a perceived human artist is indeed an important shared factor across experiences of music and poetry, but that other mechanisms distinguish the generation of aesthetic appreciation between these two media. PMID:28746376
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Expressive intent, ambiguity, and aesthetic experiences of music and poetry.
Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth; Levine, William H; Simchy-Gross, Rhimmon; Kroger, Carolyn
2017-01-01
A growing number of studies are investigating the way that aesthetic experiences are generated across different media. Empathy with a perceived human artist has been suggested as a common mechanism [1]. In this study, people heard 30 s excerpts of ambiguous music and poetry preceded by neutral, positively valenced, or negatively valenced information about the composer's or author's intent. The information influenced their perception of the excerpts-excerpts paired with positive intent information were perceived as happier and excerpts paired with negative intent information were perceived as sadder (although across intent conditions, musical excerpts were perceived as happier than poetry excerpts). Moreover, the information modulated the aesthetic experience of the excerpts in different ways for the different excerpt types: positive intent information increased enjoyment and the degree to which people found the musical excerpts to be moving, but negative intent information increased these qualities for poetry. Additionally, positive intent information was judged to better match musical excerpts and negative intent information to better match poetic excerpts. These results suggest that empathy with a perceived human artist is indeed an important shared factor across experiences of music and poetry, but that other mechanisms distinguish the generation of aesthetic appreciation between these two media.
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Parental Acceptance of HPV Vaccine in Peru: A Decision Framework
Bartolini, Rosario M.; Winkler, Jennifer L.; Penny, Mary E.; LaMontagne, D. Scott
2012-01-01
Objective and Method Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer affecting women worldwide and it is an important cause of death, especially in developing countries. Cervical cancer is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) and can be prevented by HPV vaccine. The challenge is to expand vaccine availability to countries where it is most needed. In 2008 Peru’s Ministry of Health implemented a demonstration project involving 5th grade girls in primary schools in the Piura region. We designed and conducted a qualitative study of the decision-making process among parents of girls, and developed a conceptual model describing the process of HPV vaccine acceptance. Results We found a nonlinear HPV decision-making process that evolved over time. Initially, the vaccine’s newness, the requirement of written consent, and provision of information were important. If information was sufficient and provided by credible sources, many parents accepted the vaccine. Later, after obtaining additional information from teachers, health personnel, and other trusted sources, more parents accepted vaccination. An understanding of the issues surrounding the vaccine developed, parents overcome fears and rumors, and engaged in family negotiations–including hearing the girl’s voice in the decision-making process. The concept of prevention (cancer as danger, future health, and trust in vaccines) combined with pragmatic factors (no cost, available at school) and the credibility of the offer (information in the media, recommendation of respected authority figure) were central to motivations that led parents to decide to vaccinate their daughters. A lack of confidence in the health system was the primary inhibitor of vaccine acceptance. Conclusions Health personnel and teachers are credible sources of information and can provide important support to HPV vaccination campaigns. PMID:23144719
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Health literacy and the readability of written information for hormone therapies.
Charbonneau, Deborah H
2013-01-01
Health education and counseling are important elements of the care provided by clinicians. Counseling efforts may involve helping women to understand their options for symptom management related to various reproductive life transitions. In light of this, the need for information during the menopausal transition is critical for assisting women with their health care decisions. Yet the Institute of Medicine estimates that approximately half the adult population in the United States has difficulty understanding and using health information. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandates the distribution of written information for estrogen-containing products; however, the readability of information for these pharmaceutical products has not been widely studied. To address this gap, this study examined the readability of written information for FDA-approved prescription menopausal hormone therapies (N = 31). Readability of the written information about hormone therapies from 31 hormone therapy products was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formulas. The reading level ranged from 6.70 to 12.30, with an average grade level of 9.33 (ninth-grade reading level). All but one of the hormone therapy products evaluated in this study exceeded the recommended sixth-grade reading level for written health information. In addition, only 48% of the written information instructions in the study sample (n = 15) included illustrations. Assessment of written information about menopausal hormone therapies showed that the majority of the materials are written at a high reading level. These findings have implications for health literacy and counseling efforts when helping women to understand their options for menopausal symptom management. Midwives, nurses, and other health care providers may need to supplement written information with additional consumer-friendly written information, utilize illustrations, and use verbal instructions more frequently to help support women in evaluating their treatment options. © 2013 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives.
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Regional Seminars to Address Current Nuclear Export Control Issues
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Killinger, Mark H.
2002-07-01
The control of nuclear-related exports, a critical component of the nonproliferation regime, is facing several opportunities and challenges. As countries sign and ratify the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards Additional Protocol (AP), they will begin to report far more export information, including exports of a list of items similar to the Nuclear Supplier Group's Trigger List that existed when the AP was developed in the mid-1990s. This positive development contrasts with challenges such as globalization, transshipments, and tracking of end-uses. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is proposing that the US Department of Energy (DOE) develop regional seminars that address thesemore » types of issues related to export/import controls. The DOE seminars would be designed to supplement regional seminars sponsored by the IAEA and member states on topics related to the Additional Protocol (referred to as "IAEA seminars"). The topic of nuclear export/import controls is not thoroughly addressed in the IAEA seminars. The proposed DOE seminars would therefore have two objectives: familiarizing countries with the export/import provisions of the Additional Protocol, and addressing challenges such as those noted above. The seminars would be directed particularly at countries that have not ratified the AP, and at regions where export-related problems are particularly prevalent. The intent is to encourage governments to implement more effective nuclear export control systems that meet the challenges of the 21st century.« less
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Radiographic methods of wear analysis in total hip arthroplasty.
Rahman, Luthfur; Cobb, Justin; Muirhead-Allwood, Sarah
2012-12-01
Polyethylene wear is an important factor in failure of total hip arthroplasty (THA). With increasing numbers of THAs being performed worldwide, particularly in younger patients, the burden of failure and revision arthroplasty is increasing, as well, along with associated costs and workload. Various radiographic methods of measuring polyethylene wear have been developed to assist in deciding when to monitor patients more closely and when to consider revision surgery. Radiographic methods that have been developed to measure polyethylene wear include manual and computer-assisted plain radiography, two- and three-dimensional techniques, and radiostereometric analysis. Some of these methods are important in both clinical and research settings. CT has the potential to provide additional information on component orientation and enables assessment of periprosthetic osteolysis, which is an important consequence of polyethylene wear.
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16 CFR § 1102.16 - Additional information.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
2013-01-01
... PUBLICLY AVAILABLE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY INFORMATION DATABASE Content Requirements § 1102.16 Additional... in the Database any additional information it determines to be in the public interest, consistent...
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Systems biology: the case for a systems science approach to diabetes.
Petrasek, Danny
2008-01-01
The unprecedented accumulation of biological data in recent decades has underscored the need to organize and integrate the massive collection of information. In addition, there is rising agreement among biologists that a complete understanding of a single cell will not lead directly to a complete understanding of a system of cells. The success of a systems science approach in engineering and physics may be of great value in the evolution of biological science. This article reviews some examples that suggest the importance of a systems biology approach and, in addition, advance one specific systems science principle, the conservation of uncertainty, which may give insight into the emergent behavior of numerous biological and physiological phenomena.
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Grange, Rebecca L.; Clizbe, Elizabeth A.; Counsell, Emma J.
2015-01-01
We have devised a highly regio- and enantioselective iridium-catalyzed allylic amination reaction with the sulfur-stabilized aza-ylide, S,S-diphenylsulfilimine. This process provides a robust and scalable method for the construction of aryl-, alkyl- and alkenyl-substituted C-chiral allylic sulfilimines, which are important functional groups for organic synthesis. Additionally, the combination of the allylic amination with an in situ deprotection of the sulfilimine constitutes a convenient one-pot protocol for the construction of chiral nonracemic primary allylic amines. PMID:28936319
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Brain awareness week and beyond: encouraging the next generation.
McNerney, Colleen D; Chang, Eun-Joo; Spitzer, Nicholas C
2009-01-01
The field of neuroscience is generating increased public appetite for information about exciting brain research and discoveries. As stewards of the discipline, together with FUN and others, the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) embraces public outreach and education as essential to its mission of promoting understanding of the brain and nervous system. The Society looks to its members, particularly the younger generation of neuroscientists, to inspire, inform and engage citizens of all ages, and most importantly our youth, in this important endeavor. Here we review SfN programs and resources that support public outreach efforts to inform, educate and tell the story of neuroscience. We describe the important role the Brain Awareness campaign has played in achieving this goal and highlight opportunities for FUN members and students to contribute to this growing effort. We discuss specific programs that provide additional opportunities for neuroscientists to get involved with K-12 teachers and students in ways that inspire youth to pursue further studies and possible careers in science. We draw attention to SfN resources that support outreach to broader audiences. Through ongoing partnerships such as that between SfN and FUN, the neuroscience community is well positioned to pursue novel approaches and resources, including harnessing the power of the Internet. These efforts will increase science literacy among our citizens and garner more robust support for scientific research.
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Does age really matter? Recall of information presented to newly referred patients with cancer.
Jansen, Jesse; Butow, Phyllis N; van Weert, Julia C M; van Dulmen, Sandra; Devine, Rhonda J; Heeren, Thea J; Bensing, Jozien M; Tattersall, Martin H N
2008-11-20
To examine age- and age-related differences in recall of information provided during oncology consultations. Two hundred sixty patients with cancer diagnosed with heterogeneous cancers, seeing a medical or radiation oncologist for the first time, participated in the study. Patients completed questionnaires assessing information needs and anxiety. Recall of information provided was measured using a structured telephone interview in which patients were prompted to remember details physicians gave about diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. Recall was checked against the actual communication in audio-recordings of the consultations. Recall decreased significantly with age, but only when total amount of information presented was taken into account. This indicates that if more information is discussed, older patients have more trouble remembering the information than younger ones. In addition, recall was selectively influenced by prognosis. First, patients with a poorer prognosis recalled less. Next, the more information was provided about prognosis, the less information patients recalled, regardless of their actual prognosis. Recall is not simply a function of patient age. Age only predicts recall when controlling for amount of information presented. Both prognosis and information about prognosis are better predictors of recall than age. These results provide important insights into intervention strategies to improve information recall in patients with cancer.
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Salgado, Teresa M; Fedrigon, Alexa; Riccio Omichinski, Donna; Meade, Michelle A
2018-01-01
Background Smartphone apps can be a tool to facilitate independent medication management among persons with developmental disabilities. At present, multiple medication management apps exist in the market, but only 1 has been specifically designed for persons with developmental disabilities. Before initiating further app development targeting this population, input from stakeholders including persons with developmental disabilities, caregivers, and professionals regarding the most preferred features should be obtained. Objective The aim of this study was to identify medication management app features that are suitable to promote independence in the medication management process by young adults with developmental disabilities using a Delphi consensus method. Methods A compilation of medication management app features was performed by searching the iTunes App Store, United States, in February 2016, using the following terms: adherence, medication, medication management, medication list, and medication reminder. After identifying features within the retrieved apps, a final list of 42 features grouped into 4 modules (medication list, medication reminder, medication administration record, and additional features) was included in a questionnaire for expert consensus rating. A total of 52 experts in developmental disabilities, including persons with developmental disabilities, caregivers, and professionals, were invited to participate in a 3-round Delphi technique. The purpose was to obtain consensus on features that are preferred and suitable to promote independence in the medication management process among persons with developmental disabilities. Consensus for the first, second, and third rounds was defined as ≥90%, ≥80%, and ≥75% agreement, respectively. Results A total of 75 responses were received over the 3 Delphi rounds—30 in the first round, 24 in the second round, and 21 in the third round. At the end of the third round, cumulative consensus was achieved for 60% (12/20) items in the medication list module, 100% (3/3) in the medication reminder module, 67% (2/3) in the medication administration record module, and 63% (10/16) in the additional features module. In addition to the medication list, medication reminder, and medication administration record features, experts selected the following top 3 most important additional features: automatic refills through pharmacies; ability to share medication information from the app with providers; and ability to share medication information from the app with family, friends, and caregivers. The top 3 least important features included a link to an official drug information source, privacy settings and password protection, and prescription refill reminders. Conclusions Although several mobile apps for medication management exist, few are specifically designed to support persons with developmental disabilities in the complex medication management process. Of the 42 different features assessed, 64% (27/42) achieved consensus for inclusion in a future medication management app. This study provides information on the features of a medication management app that are most important to persons with developmental disabilities, caregivers, and professionals. PMID:29792292
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Prefrontal contributions to visual selective attention.
Squire, Ryan F; Noudoost, Behrad; Schafer, Robert J; Moore, Tirin
2013-07-08
The faculty of attention endows us with the capacity to process important sensory information selectively while disregarding information that is potentially distracting. Much of our understanding of the neural circuitry underlying this fundamental cognitive function comes from neurophysiological studies within the visual modality. Past evidence suggests that a principal function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is selective attention and that this function involves the modulation of sensory signals within posterior cortices. In this review, we discuss recent progress in identifying the specific prefrontal circuits controlling visual attention and its neural correlates within the primate visual system. In addition, we examine the persisting challenge of precisely defining how behavior should be affected when attentional function is lost.
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Genetics and deafness: implications for education and life care of deaf students.
Schein, Jerome D; Miller, Maurice H
2008-01-01
The severity of deafness can obscure the presence of other disabilities that may accompany genetic anomalies, such as occur in Alport and Usher syndromes. Recent advances in genetics have heightened attention to various disabilities and dysfunctions that may coexist with deafness. Failure to recognize these additional disabilities when they occur can misguide educational planning; may open the afflicted deaf person to failure to identify, diagnose, and manage potentially serious health conditions; and in some instances may even lead to loss of life. Of the many genetic conditions that have been identified, a few examples are cited to illustrate the need to inform parents, educators, and other caregivers about the importance of obtaining genetic information.
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Western Blotting of the Endocannabinoid System.
Wager-Miller, Jim; Mackie, Ken
2016-01-01
Measuring expression levels of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is an important step for understanding the distribution, function, and regulation of these receptors. A common approach for detecting proteins from complex biological systems is Western blotting. In this chapter, we describe a general approach to Western blotting protein components of the endocannabinoid system using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and nitrocellulose membranes, with a focus on detecting type 1 cannabinoid (CB1) receptors. When this technique is carefully used, specifically with validation of the primary antibodies, it can provide quantitative information on protein expression levels. Additional information can also be inferred from Western blotting such as potential posttranslational modifications that can be further evaluated by specific analytical techniques.
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Vehicle/Atmosphere Interaction Glows: Far Ultraviolet, Visible, and Infrared
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Swenson, G.
1999-01-01
Spacecraft glow information has been gathered from a number of spacecraft including Atmospheric and Dynamic satellites, and Space Shuttles (numerous flights) with dedicated pallet flow observations on STS-39 (DOD) and STS-62 (NASA). In addition, a larger number of laboratory experiments with low energy oxygen beam studies have made important contributions to glow understanding. The following report provides information on three engineering models developed for spacecraft glow including the far ultraviolet to ultraviolet (1400-4000 A), and infrared (0.9-40 microns) spectral regions. The models include effects resulting from atmospheric density/altitude, spacecraft temperature, spacecraft material, and ram angle. Glow brightness would be predicted as a function of distance from surfaces for all wavelengths.
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Web-based education in anesthesiology: a critical overview.
Doyle, D John
2008-12-01
The purpose of this review is to discuss the rise of web-based educational resources available to the anesthesiology community. Recent developments of particular importance include the growth of 'Web 2.0' resources, the development of the concepts of 'open access' and 'information philanthropy', and the expansion of web-based medical simulation software products.In addition, peer review of online educational resources has now come of age. The worldwide web has made available a large variety of valuable medical information and education resources only dreamed of two decades ago. To a large extent,these developments represent a shift in the focus of medical education resources to emphasize free access to materials and to encourage collaborative development efforts.
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Computer-supported weight-based drug infusion concentrations in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Giannone, Gay
2005-01-01
This article addresses the development of a computerized provider order entry (CPOE)-embedded solution for weight-based neonatal drug infusion developed during the transition from a legacy CPOE system to a customized application of a neonatal CPOE product during a hospital-wide information system transition. The importance of accurate fluid management in the neonate is reviewed. The process of tailoring the system that eventually resulted in the successful development of a computer application enabling weight-based medication infusion calculation for neonates within the CPOE information system is explored. In addition, the article provides guidelines on how to customize a vendor solution for hospitals with neonatal intensive care unit.
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Auction fever: exploring informational social influences on bidder choices.
Chen, Yi-Fen
2011-01-01
Previous investigations of herd behavior have identified the importance of informational social influences in consumer decision making. This research presents three studies examining herd behavior in online auctions. The three studies addressed the influence on bidder online choices of herd cues frequently found in online auctions, including bid number, feedback ratings, and number of questions and answers. This research also investigated the effect of different levels of herd cues on bidder online choices under high and low brand awareness in online auctions. The experimental results demonstrated that bidders use online herd cues when making decisions in online auctions. Additionally, different levels of herd cues influence bidder online choices in both high and low brand awareness product situations.
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Qudit-teleportation for photons with linear optics.
Goyal, Sandeep K; Boukama-Dzoussi, Patricia E; Ghosh, Sibasish; Roux, Filippus S; Konrad, Thomas
2014-04-01
Quantum Teleportation, the transfer of the state of one quantum system to another without direct interaction between both systems, is an important way to transmit information encoded in quantum states and to generate quantum correlations (entanglement) between remote quantum systems. So far, for photons, only superpositions of two distinguishable states (one "qubit") could be teleported. Here we show how to teleport a "qudit", i.e. a superposition of an arbitrary number d of distinguishable states present in the orbital angular momentum of a single photon using d beam splitters and d additional entangled photons. The same entanglement resource might also be employed to collectively teleport the state of d/2 photons at the cost of one additional entangled photon per qubit. This is superior to existing schemes for photonic qubits, which require an additional pair of entangled photons per qubit.
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Qudit-Teleportation for photons with linear optics
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Goyal, Sandeep K.; Boukama-Dzoussi, Patricia E.; Ghosh, Sibasish; Roux, Filippus S.; Konrad, Thomas
2014-04-01
Quantum Teleportation, the transfer of the state of one quantum system to another without direct interaction between both systems, is an important way to transmit information encoded in quantum states and to generate quantum correlations (entanglement) between remote quantum systems. So far, for photons, only superpositions of two distinguishable states (one ``qubit'') could be teleported. Here we show how to teleport a ``qudit'', i.e. a superposition of an arbitrary number d of distinguishable states present in the orbital angular momentum of a single photon using d beam splitters and d additional entangled photons. The same entanglement resource might also be employed to collectively teleport the state of d/2 photons at the cost of one additional entangled photon per qubit. This is superior to existing schemes for photonic qubits, which require an additional pair of entangled photons per qubit.
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Qudit-Teleportation for photons with linear optics
Goyal, Sandeep K.; Boukama-Dzoussi, Patricia E.; Ghosh, Sibasish; Roux, Filippus S.; Konrad, Thomas
2014-01-01
Quantum Teleportation, the transfer of the state of one quantum system to another without direct interaction between both systems, is an important way to transmit information encoded in quantum states and to generate quantum correlations (entanglement) between remote quantum systems. So far, for photons, only superpositions of two distinguishable states (one “qubit”) could be teleported. Here we show how to teleport a “qudit”, i.e. a superposition of an arbitrary number d of distinguishable states present in the orbital angular momentum of a single photon using d beam splitters and d additional entangled photons. The same entanglement resource might also be employed to collectively teleport the state of d/2 photons at the cost of one additional entangled photon per qubit. This is superior to existing schemes for photonic qubits, which require an additional pair of entangled photons per qubit. PMID:24686274