WorldWideScience

Sample records for offers specific recommendations

  1. Recommendations from Friends Anytime and Anywhere: Toward a Model of Contextual Offer and Consumption Values

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Xiao-Liang; Wang, Nan

    2013-01-01

    Abstract The ubiquity and portability of mobile devices provide additional opportunities for information retrieval. People can easily access mobile applications anytime and anywhere when they need to acquire specific context-aware recommendations (contextual offer) from their friends. This study, thus, represents an initial attempt to understand users' acceptance of a mobile-based social reviews platform, where recommendations from friends can be obtained with mobile devices. Based on the consumption value theory, a theoretical model is proposed and empirically examined using survey data from 218 mobile users. The findings demonstrate that contextual offers based on users' profiles, access time, and geographic positions significantly predict their value perceptions (utilitarian, hedonic, and social), which, in turn, affect their intention to use a mobile social reviews platform. This study is also believed to provide some useful insights to both research and practice. PMID:23530548

  2. Association of provider recommendation and offer and influenza vaccination among adults aged ≥18 years - United States.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Peng-Jun; Srivastav, Anup; Amaya, Ashley; Dever, Jill A; Roycroft, Jessica; Kurtz, Marshica Stanley; O'Halloran, Alissa; Williams, Walter W

    2018-02-01

    Influenza vaccination has been recommended for all persons aged ≥6 months since 2010. Data from the 2016 National Internet Flu Survey were analyzed to assess provider vaccination recommendations and early influenza vaccination during the 2016-17 season among adults aged ≥18 years. Predictive marginals from a multivariable logistic regression model were used to identify factors independently associated with early vaccine uptake by provider vaccination recommendation status. Overall, 24.0% visited a provider who both recommended and offered influenza vaccination, 9.0% visited a provider who only recommended but did not offer, 25.1% visited a provider who neither recommended nor offered, and 41.9% did not visit a doctor from July 1 through date of interview. Adults who reported that a provider both recommended and offered vaccine had significantly higher vaccination coverage (66.6%) compared with those who reported that a provider only recommended but did not offer (48.4%), those who neither received recommendation nor offer (32.0%), and those who did not visit a doctor during the vaccination period (28.8%). Results of multivariable logistic regression indicated that having received a provider recommendation, with or without an offer for vaccination, was significantly associated with higher vaccination coverage after controlling for demographic and access-to-care factors. Provider recommendation was significantly associated with influenza vaccination. However, overall, 67.0% of adults did not visit a doctor during the vaccination period or did visit a doctor but did not receive a provider recommendation. Evidence-based strategies such as client reminder/recall, standing orders, provider reminders, or health systems interventions in combination should be undertaken to improve provider recommendation and influenza vaccination coverage. Other factors significantly associated with a higher level of influenza vaccination included age ≥50 years, being Hispanic

  3. 77 FR 10535 - Final Guidances for Industry Describing Product-Specific Bioequivalence Recommendations...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-02-22

    ... recommendations provide product-specific guidance on the design of BE studies to support abbreviated new drug... the process that would be used to make product-specific BE recommendations available to the public on... ``Bioequivalence Recommendations for Specific Products,'' which explained the process that would be used to make...

  4. Technology, recommendation and design: on being a 'paternalistic' philosopher.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Pak-Hang

    2013-03-01

    Philosophers have talked to each other about moral issues concerning technology, but few of them have talked about issues of technology and the good life, and even fewer have talked about technology and the good life with the public in the form of recommendation. In effect, recommendations for various technologies are often left to technologists and gurus. Given the potential benefits of informing the public on their impacts on the good life, however, this is a curious state of affairs. In the present paper, I will examine why philosophers are seemingly reluctant to offer recommendations to the public. While there are many reasons for philosophers to refrain from offering recommendations, I shall focus on a specific normative reason. More specifically, it appears that, according to a particular definition, offering recommendations can be viewed as paternalistic, and therefore is prima facie wrong to do so. I will provide an argument to show that the worry about paternalism is unfounded, because a form of paternalism engendered by technology is inevitable. Given the inevitability of paternalism, I note that philosophers should accept the duty to offer recommendations to the public. I will then briefly turn to design ethics, which has reconceptualised the role of philosophers and, in my mind, fitted well with the inevitability of paternalism. Finally, I shall argue that design ethics has to be supplemented by the practice of recommendation if it is to sustain its objective.

  5. 75 FR 33311 - Guidance for Industry on Bioequivalence Recommendations for Specific Products; Availability

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-06-11

    ... available recommendations on how to design product-specific BE studies to support ANDAs. Under this process... thinking on a new process for making available to sponsors FDA guidance on how to design product-specific... ``Bioequivalence Recommendations for Specific Products.'' This guidance describes a new process for making...

  6. Internet Presentation of Departments of Pediatric Surgery in Germany and Their Compliance with Recommended Criteria for Promoting Services and Offering Professional Information for Patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farhat, Naim; Zoeller, Christoph; Petersen, Claus; Ure, Benno

    2016-08-01

    Introduction The presentation of health institutions in the internet is highly variable concerning marketing features and medical information. We aimed to investigate the structure and the kind of information provided on the Web sites of all departments of pediatric surgery in Germany. Furthermore, we aimed to identify the degree to which these Web sites comply with internet marketing recommendations for generating business. Method The Web sites of all pediatric surgery units referred to as departments on the official Web site of the German Society of Pediatric Surgery (GSPS) were assessed. The search engine Google was used by entering the terms "pediatric surgery" and the name of the city. Besides general data eight content characteristics focusing on ranking, accessibility, use of social media, multilingual sites, navigation options, selected images, contact details, and medical information were evaluated according to published recommendations. Results A total of 85 departments of pediatric surgery were included. On Google search results 44 (52%) ranked number one and 34 (40%) of the department's homepages were accessible directly through the homepage link of the GSPS. A link to own digital and/or social media was offered on 11 (13%) homepages. Nine sites were multilingual. The most common navigation bar item was clinical services on 74 (87%) homepages. Overall, 76 (89%) departments presented their doctors and 17 (20%) presented other staff members with images of doctors on 53 (62%) and contact data access from the homepage on 68 (80%) Web sites. On 25 (29%) Web sites information on the medical conditions treated were presented, on 17 (20%) details of treating concepts, and on 4 (5%) numbers of patients with specific conditions treated in the own department per year. Conclusion We conclude that numerous of the investigated online presentations do not comply with recommended criteria for offering professional information for patients and for promoting

  7. Recommendations for the user-specific enhancement of flood maps

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. Meyer

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available The European Union Floods Directive requires the establishment of flood maps for high risk areas in all European member states by 2013. However, the current practice of flood mapping in Europe still shows some deficits. Firstly, flood maps are frequently seen as an information tool rather than a communication tool. This means that, for example, local stocks of knowledge are not incorporated. Secondly, the contents of flood maps often do not match the requirements of the end-users. Finally, flood maps are often designed and visualised in a way that cannot be easily understood by residents at risk and/or that is not suitable for the respective needs of public authorities in risk and event management. The RISK MAP project examined how end-user participation in the mapping process may be used to overcome these barriers and enhance the communicative power of flood maps, fundamentally increasing their effectiveness.

    Based on empirical findings from a participatory approach that incorporated interviews, workshops and eye-tracking tests, conducted in five European case studies, this paper outlines recommendations for user-specific enhancements of flood maps. More specific, recommendations are given with regard to (1 appropriate stakeholder participation processes, which allow incorporating local knowledge and preferences, (2 the improvement of the contents of flood maps by considering user-specific needs and (3 the improvement of the visualisation of risk maps in order to produce user-friendly and understandable risk maps for the user groups concerned. Furthermore, "idealised" maps for different user groups are presented: for strategic planning, emergency management and the public.

  8. CURRICULAR OFFER INFLUENCING STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION: COMPARATIVE STUDY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oana DUMITRASCU

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The main objective of the study is the determination of students’ satisfaction regarding curricular activities. The study has been accomplished using the qualitative and quantitative research, using the bibliographic study, various secondary sources and different primary sources. The study is developed with a marketing research and accomplished using the survey method. 699 students from four universities have been questioned. Due to a comparative study the University of Applied Sciences Worms, University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden Rüsselsheim, University of Applied Sciences Frankfurt am Main and Nürtingen-Geislingen University have been analysed and their similarities and differences have been identified. The collected data, based on the established sample, is evaluated through univariate and bivariate analysis. In accordance with the evaluated sample, specific gaps from each region are identified regarding the curricular offer of the analysed universities. As a result to the conducted study, recommendations for the University of Applied Sciences Worms regarding the student’s satisfaction concerning the curricular offer are presented.

  9. The influence of physician recommendation on prostate-specific antigen screening.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pucheril, Daniel; Dalela, Deepansh; Sammon, Jesse; Sood, Akshay; Sun, Maxine; Trinh, Quoc-Dien; Menon, Mani; Abdollah, Firas

    2015-10-01

    Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening is controversial, and little is known regarding a physician's effect on a patient's decision to undergo screening. This study's objective was to evaluate the effect of a patient's understanding of the risks and benefits of screening compared to the final recommendation of the provider on the patient's decision to undergo PSA screening. Using the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, men older than 55 years who did not have a history of prostate cancer/prostate "problem" and who reported a PSA test within the preceding year were considered to have undergone screening. The percentages of men informed and not informed of the risks and benefits of screening and the percentage men receiving recommendations for PSA screening from their provider were reported. Multivariable complex-sample logistic regression calculated the odds of undergoing screening. In all, 75% of men were informed of screening benefits; however, 32% were informed of screening risks. After being informed of both, 56% of men opted for PSA screening if the provider recommended it, compared with only 21% when not recommended. Men receiving a recommendation to undergo PSA testing had higher odds of undergoing screening (odds ratio [OR] = 4.98, 95% CI: 4.53-5.48) compared with those who were only informed about screening benefits (OR = 2.40, 95% CI: 2.18-2.65) or risks (OR = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.86-0.98). Significant limitations include recall and nonresponse bias. Patients' decision to undergo or forgo PSA screening is heavily influenced by the recommendation of their physician; it is imperative that physicians are cognizant of their biases and facilitate a shared decision-making process. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. 21 CFR 1000.50 - Recommendation for the use of specific area gonad shielding on patients during medical diagnostic...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Recommendation for the use of specific area gonad shielding on patients during medical diagnostic x-ray procedures. 1000.50 Section 1000.50 Food and Drugs... GENERAL Radiation Protection Recommendations § 1000.50 Recommendation for the use of specific area gonad...

  11. 41 CFR 60-30.19 - Objections; exceptions; offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... exceptions to the Administrative Law Judge's recommendations and conclusions. (c) Offer of proof. An offer of...; offer of proof. 60-30.19 Section 60-30.19 Public Contracts and Property Management Other Provisions... EXECUTIVE ORDER 11246 Hearings and Related Matters § 60-30.19 Objections; exceptions; offer of proof. (a...

  12. Reasons Low-Income Parents Offer Snacks to Children: How Feeding Rationale Influences Snack Frequency and Adherence to Dietary Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blaine, Rachel E.; Fisher, Jennifer Orlet; Taveras, Elsie M.; Geller, Alan C.; Rimm, Eric B.; Land, Thomas; Perkins, Meghan; Davison, Kirsten K.

    2015-01-01

    Although American children snack more than ever before, the parental role in promoting snacking is not well understood. In 2012–2013 at baseline in an intervention study to prevent childhood obesity in low-income Massachusetts communities, n = 271 parents of children aged 2–12 years completed surveys regarding nutritive and non-nutritive reasons they offered children snacks, demographics, and dietary factors. An analysis of variance demonstrated that parents reported offering snacks (mean/week; standard deviation (SD)) for nutritive reasons like promoting growth (x̄ = 2.5; SD 2.2) or satisfying hunger (x̄ = 2.4; SD 2.1) almost twice as often as non-nutritive reasons like keeping a child quiet (x̄ = 0.7; SD 1.5) or celebrating events/holidays (x̄ = 0.8; SD 1.1). Parents reported giving young children (2–5 years) more snacks to reward behavior (1.9 vs. 1.1, p parents of older children (6–12 years). Multivariable logistic regression models were used to obtain adjusted odds ratios, which indicated reduced child adherence to dietary recommendations when parents offered snacks to reward behavior (Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.83; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.70–0.99), celebrate events/holidays (OR = 0.72; 95% CI 0.52–0.99), or achievements (OR = 0.82; 95% CI 0.68–0.98). Parental intentions around child snacking are likely important targets for obesity prevention efforts. PMID:26197335

  13. Industry disagrees with water quality recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Begley, R.

    1992-01-01

    Industry groups are distancing themselves from recommendations on cleaning up the nation's waters issued by Water Quality 2000, a coalition of more than 80 organizations representing industry, environmental groups, government, academia, and professional and scientific societies. The report, open-quotes A National Water Agenda for the 21st Centuryclose quotes, is a result of work begun in 1989. It recommends an approach to water quality that emphasizes pollution prevention, increased individual and collective responsibility for protecting water resources, and reorienting water resource programs and institutions along natural, rather than political, watershed boundaries. It includes 85 specific recommendations, many of which are to be implemented locally. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC; Washington) open-quotes wholeheartedly endorses not only the specific solutions offered today but the process by which these proposals were reached,close quotes says Robert W. Adler, NRDC senior attorney and vice chairman of Water Quality 2000. John B. Coleman, corporate environmental affairs manager for Du Pont and a member of the groups's steering committee, says open-quotes Du Pont and the other industry members of Water Quality 2000 are committedclose quotes to working to make continuous improvements

  14. 14 CFR 11.27 - Are there other ways FAA collects specific rulemaking recommendations before we issue an NPRM?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Are there other ways FAA collects specific... Rulemaking Procedures General § 11.27 Are there other ways FAA collects specific rulemaking recommendations before we issue an NPRM? Yes, the FAA obtains advice and recommendations from rulemaking advisory...

  15. Recommendations for equipment requirements and specifications for digital and interventional radiology: Dosimetric aspects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Suliman, I.I.; Zoetelief, J.

    2002-01-01

    The recognition of radiation induced injuries from fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures has resulted in the current demand for development of recommendations and standards to limit dose to both patients and staff. This paper outlines the recommendations drafted within the framework of European Project DIMOND III. The actual work involves survey and review of national and international documents as well as scientific publications in areas relevant to the digital and/or interventional radiology with an aim of developing recommendations for equipment requirements and specifications for digital and interventional radiology. A pilot study of experimental investigations in at least three hospitals will be conducted to test the requirements and the specifications, the result of which will be presented. The recommendations are expected to provide an effective means of dose reduction to both patients and staff while maintaining image quality adequate for the specific diagnosis or interventional procedure. Different components of x-ray systems that have direct impact on patient and staff doses have been considered. Where necessary a compromise between patient dose and image quality has been made. The dosimetric aspects of the recommendations propose detailed descriptions and limits to dosimetric information relevant to patient and staff doses. International recommendations on maximum patient entrance surface dose rate vary in the range from 25 to 65 mGy.min -1 for normal mode fluoroscopy. Maximum image intensifier or image receptor input dose rate around 0.1 Gy min -1 at a distance 30 cm from the image intensifier input surface has been generally recommended. Maximum fluoroscopic dose rate in air must not exceed 50 mGy.min -1 at a location depending on the configuration e.g. for undertable x-ray tube at 10 mm from the patient support on the patient side of the support. The use of pulsed fluoroscopy or low dose fluoroscopy is proposed as good options to minimize

  16. Reasons Low-Income Parents Offer Snacks to Children: How Feeding Rationale Influences Snack Frequency and Adherence to Dietary Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rachel E. Blaine

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Although American children snack more than ever before, the parental role in promoting snacking is not well understood. In 2012–2013 at baseline in an intervention study to prevent childhood obesity in low-income Massachusetts communities, n = 271 parents of children aged 2–12 years completed surveys regarding nutritive and non-nutritive reasons they offered children snacks, demographics, and dietary factors. An analysis of variance demonstrated that parents reported offering snacks (mean/week; standard deviation (SD for nutritive reasons like promoting growth (x̄ = 2.5; SD 2.2 or satisfying hunger (x̄ = 2.4; SD 2.1 almost twice as often as non-nutritive reasons like keeping a child quiet (x̄ = 0.7; SD 1.5 or celebrating events/holidays (x̄ = 0.8; SD 1.1. Parents reported giving young children (2–5 years more snacks to reward behavior (1.9 vs. 1.1, p < 0.001, keep quiet (1.0 vs. 0.5, p < 0.001, and celebrate achievements (1.7 vs. 1.0, p < 0.001 than parents of older children (6–12 years. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to obtain adjusted odds ratios, which indicated reduced child adherence to dietary recommendations when parents offered snacks to reward behavior (Odds Ratio (OR = 0.83; 95% Confidence Interval (CI 0.70–0.99, celebrate events/holidays (OR = 0.72; 95% CI 0.52–0.99, or achievements (OR = 0.82; 95% CI 0.68–0.98. Parental intentions around child snacking are likely important targets for obesity prevention efforts.

  17. Women's experiences of developing musculoskeletal diseases: employment challenges and policy recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crooks, Valorie A

    2007-07-30

    To answer three specific questions: (i) How do women experience the workplace after the onset of a musculoskeletal disease; (ii) What employment policy and programme suggestions can they offer for ways to better support chronically ill women in their abilities to maintain workforce participation; and (iii) How are these women's employment policy and programme recommendations informed by their own lived experiences and desires? In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 women who had developed musculoskeletal diseases while involved in the labour market. Data were coded and analysed thematically. Participants identified three common workplace barriers experienced and three types of workplace accommodations commonly requested. They offered four specific employment policy and programme recommendations for ways to better support women who develop musculoskeletal diseases in maintaining labour market participation. It is found that their employment policy and programme recommendations are informed by their own experiences in the workplace and desires for being supported in maintaining involvement in paid labour. Creating employment programmes and policies that support chronically ill women in their attempts to remain involved in the workforce based on how much paid labour they are able to perform and where they are best able to work is of the utmost importance.

  18. Impact of Gender-Specific Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Recommendations on Uptake of Other Adolescent Vaccines: Analysis of the NIS-Teen (2008-2012).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bednarczyk, Robert A; Orenstein, Walter A; Omer, Saad B

    In the United States, human papillomavirus vaccination was routinely recommended for adolescent females in 2006 and provisionally recommended for adolescent males in 2009. We evaluated the hypothesis that gender-specific human papillomavirus vaccination recommendations would impact gender-specific uptake of other vaccines using National Immunization Survey-Teen public use data sets (2008-2012). Female adolescents had higher coverage than males of at least 1 other adolescent vaccine in 2008 (3.0% higher) and 2009 (4.3% higher). Gender differences abated in 2010, 2011, and 2012 (0.2%, 0.9%, and 0.4%, respectively). To evaluate unintended consequences of gender-based recommendations, countries with female-only human papillomavirus vaccination recommendations should evaluate gender-specific uptake of other adolescent vaccines.

  19. Nursing recruitment: relationship between perceived employer image and nursing employees' recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Hoye, Greet

    2008-08-01

    This paper is a report of a study to examine the relationship between nursing employees' perceptions of instrumental and symbolic dimensions of employer image on the one hand and their intentions to recommend their organization as an employer and their willingness to testify in their organization's recruitment materials on the other. Previous research suggests that word-of-mouth recommendations by current nursing employees can enhance healthcare organizations' attractiveness as an employer for potential applicants. However, it is not known what motivates employees to provide positive word-of-mouth comments and to endorse their employer in recruitment testimonials. The instrumental-symbolic framework was applied to identify relevant dimensions of perceived employer image that might relate to employee recommendations. A questionnaire was administered in 2006 to 106 nurses and nursing aides from four non-profit nursing homes in Belgium. The response rate was 55%. Overall, nursing employees were more willing to recommend their nursing home to others than to testify in recruitment materials. Both instrumental and symbolic employer image dimensions predicted nursing employees' recommendation intentions. Conversely, willingness to testify was only predicted by symbolic image dimensions. Specifically, the more the nursing employees perceived that their nursing home offers task diversity, offers the possibility to help people and is prestigious, the more they intended to recommend their organization to others. The more they perceived their nursing home as competent, the higher were their recommendation intentions and their willingness to testify in recruitment communication. To increase nursing employees' willingness to recommend their employer to potential applicants, organizations should enhance their perceived employer image.

  20. Specific phobia: a review of DSM-IV specific phobia and preliminary recommendations for DSM-V.

    Science.gov (United States)

    LeBeau, Richard T; Glenn, Daniel; Liao, Betty; Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich; Beesdo-Baum, Katja; Ollendick, Thomas; Craske, Michelle G

    2010-02-01

    The present review was conducted in order to evaluate the current diagnostic criteria for specific phobia (SP) in light of the empirical evidence gathered since DSM-IV and to propose changes to DSM-V where change is clearly and reliably indicated by the evidence. In response to questions put forth by the DSM-V Anxiety, OC Spectrum, Posttraumatic, and Dissociative Disorder Work Group, four primary areas were determined for this review: the accuracy and utility of the current SP type classification system, the validity of test anxiety as a type of SP, the boundary between agoraphobia and SP, and the reliability and utility of the diagnostic criteria for SP. Developmental issues are addressed within each area. Literature reviews examining academic findings published between 1994 and 2009 were carried out and the results are included herein. The review presents a number of options and preliminary recommendations to be considered for DSM-V. All of these recommendations should be considered tentative as they await the field trials and expert consensus necessary prior to their inclusion in the DSM-V. The present review also reveals a great need for future research in the area of SP and directions for such research is provided.

  1. Definition and specification for PACS. A checklist based on the standard ''IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications''

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koenig, H.; Klose, K.J.

    1999-01-01

    Problem: The formulation of requirements is necessary to control the goals of a PACS project. Furthermore, in this way, the scope of functionality necessary to support radiological working processes becomes clear. Method: Definitions of requirements and specification are formulated independently of systems according to the IEEE standard 'Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications'. Definitions are given in the Request for Information, specifications in the Request for Proposal. Functional and non-functional requirements are distinguished. The solutions are rated with respect to scope, appropriateness and quality of implementation. Results: A PACS checklist was created according to the methods described above. It is published on the homepage of the 'Arbeitsgemeinschaft Informationstechnologie' (AGIT) within the 'Deutsche Roentgengesellschaft' (DRG) (http://www.uni-marburg.de/mzr.agit). Conclusion: The checklist provides a discussion forum which should contribute to an agreement on accepted basic PACS functionalities. (orig.) [de

  2. Recommendation Sets and Choice Queries

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Viappiani, Paolo Renato; Boutilier, Craig

    2011-01-01

    Utility elicitation is an important component of many applications, such as decision support systems and recommender systems. Such systems query users about their preferences and offer recommendations based on the system's belief about the user's utility function. We analyze the connection between...... the problem of generating optimal recommendation sets and the problem of generating optimal choice queries, considering both Bayesian and regret-based elicitation. Our results show that, somewhat surprisingly, under very general circumstances, the optimal recommendation set coincides with the optimal query....

  3. Region-specific study of the electric utility industry: problem identification, analysis, and recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pochan, M.J.

    1985-07-01

    A number of problems were identified that could stand in the way of maintaining an adequate, reliable and economic supply of electric power for the United States in the future. The problems were analyzed by studying a specific region, VACAR (Virginia-Carolinas), in some detail. It was concluded that the future power supply is in jeopardy, but that drastic changes in the present system of investor-owned utilities, specifically, deregulation or government ownership, were not justified. It was recommended that the present electric system be modified and strengthened to meet future needs. 2 refs., 8 figs., 15 tabs

  4. Region-specific study of the electric utility industry: problem identification, analysis, and recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pochan, M.J.

    1985-07-01

    A number of problems were identified that could stand in the way of maintaining an adequate, reliable and economic supply of electric power for the United States in the future. The problems were analyzed by studying a specific region, VACAR (Virginia-Carolinas), in some detail. It was concluded that the future power supply is in jeopardy, but that drastic changes in the present system of investor-owned utilities, specifically, deregulation or government ownership, were not justified. It was recommended that the present electric system be modified and strengthened to meet future needs. 2 refs., 8 figs., 15 tabs.

  5. Do current national and international guidelines have specific recommendations for older adults with bipolar disorder?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dols, Annemiek; Kessing, Lars Vedel; Strejilevich, Sergio A

    2016-01-01

    a variety of sources have become available in recent years. It is expected that at least some of this emerging information on OABD would be incorporated into treatment guidelines available to clinicians around the world. METHODS: The International Society of Bipolar Disorders OABD task force compiled...... and compared recommendations from current national and international guidelines that specifically address geriatric or older individuals with BD (from year 2005 onwards). RESULTS: There were 34 guidelines, representing six continents and 19 countries. The majority of guidelines had no separate section on OABD....... General principles for treating OABD with medication are recommended to be similar to those for younger adults, with special caution for side effects due to somatic comorbidity and concomitant medications. Therapeutic lithium serum levels are suggested to be lower but recommendations are very general...

  6. Privacy-Preserving Content-Based Recommender System

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Erkin, Zekeriya; Erkin, Z.; Beye, M.; Veugen, T.; Lagendijk, R.L.

    2012-01-01

    By offering personalized content to users, recommender systems have become a vital tool in e-commerce and online media applications. Content-based algorithms recommend items or products to users, that are most similar to those previously purchased or consumed. Unfortunately, collecting and storing

  7. 48 CFR 19.804-2 - Agency offering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Agency offering. 19.804-2....804-2 Agency offering. (a) After completing its evaluation, the agency must notify the SBA of the... statement that prior to the offering no solicitation for the specific acquisition has been issued as a small...

  8. Do current national and international guidelines have specific recommendations for older adults with bipolar disorder? A brief report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dols, Annemiek; Kessing, Lars Vedel; Strejilevich, Sergio A; Rej, Soham; Tsai, Shang-Ying; Gildengers, Ariel G; Almeida, Osvaldo P; Shulman, Kenneth I; Sajatovic, Martha

    2016-12-01

    Older adults with bipolar disorder (OABD) are a growing segment of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) for which specific guidelines are warranted. Although, OABD are frequently excluded from randomized controlled trials due to their age or somatic comorbidity, more treatment data from a variety of sources have become available in recent years. It is expected that at least some of this emerging information on OABD would be incorporated into treatment guidelines available to clinicians around the world. The International Society of Bipolar Disorders OABD task force compiled and compared recommendations from current national and international guidelines that specifically address geriatric or older individuals with BD (from year 2005 onwards). There were 34 guidelines, representing six continents and 19 countries. The majority of guidelines had no separate section on OABD. General principles for treating OABD with medication are recommended to be similar to those for younger adults, with special caution for side effects due to somatic comorbidity and concomitant medications. Therapeutic lithium serum levels are suggested to be lower but recommendations are very general and mostly not informed by specific research evidence. There is a lack of emphasis of OABD-specific issues in existing guidelines. Given the substantial clinical heterogeneity in BD across the life span, along with the rapidly expanding population of older individuals worldwide, and limited mental health workforce with geriatric expertise, it is critical that additional effort and resources be devoted to studying treatment interventions specific to OABD and that treatment guidelines reflect research findings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  9. Enrichment of Multi-criteria Communities for Context-aware Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thuy Ngoc Nguyen

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Recommender systems are designed to help users alleviate the information overload problem by offering personalized recommendations. Most systems apply collaborative filtering to predict individual preferences based on opinions of like-minded people through their ratings on items. Recently, context-aware recommender systems (CARSs are developed to offer users more suitable recommendations by exploiting additional context data such as time, location, etc. However, most CARSs use only ratings as a criterion for building communities, and ignore other available data allowing users to be grouped into communities. This paper presents a novel approach for exploiting multi-criteria communities to provide context-aware recommendations. The main idea of the proposed algorithm is that for a given context, the significance of multi-criteria communities could be different. So communities from the most suitable criteria followed by a learning phase are incorporated into the recommendation process.

  10. Location-Aware POI Recommendation for Indoor Space by Exploiting WiFi Logs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zengwei Zheng

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Indoor shopping trajectories provide us with a new approach to understanding user’s behaviour pattern in urban shopping mall, which can be derived from user-generated WiFi logs using indoor localization technology. In this paper, we propose a location-aware Point-of-Interest (POI recommendation service in urban shopping mall that offers a user a set of indoor POIs by considering both personal interest and location preference. The POI recommendation service cannot only improve user’s shopping experience but also help the store owner better understand user’s shopping preference and intent. Specifically, the proposed method consists of two phases: offline modelling and online recommendation. The offline modelling phase is designed to learn user preference by mining his/her historical shopping trajectories. The online recommendation phase automatically produces top-k recommended POIs based on the learnt preference. To demonstrate the utility of our proposed approach, we have performed a comprehensive experiment evaluation on a real-world dataset collected by 468 users over 33 days. The experimental results show that the proposed recommendation service achieves much better recommendation performance than several existing benchmark methods.

  11. Utility-Based Link Recommendation in Social Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Zhepeng

    2013-01-01

    Link recommendation, which suggests links to connect currently unlinked users, is a key functionality offered by major online social networking platforms. Salient examples of link recommendation include "people you may know"' on Facebook and "who to follow" on Twitter. A social networking platform has two types of stakeholder:…

  12. From recommendation to action: psychosocial factors influencing physician intention to use Health Technology Assessment (HTA recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sánchez Emília

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Evaluating the impact of recommendations based upon health technology assessment (HTA represents a challenge for both HTA agencies and healthcare policy-makers. Using a psychosocial theoretical framework, this study aimed at exploring the factors affecting physician intention to adopt HTA recommendations. The selected recommendations were prioritisation systems for patients on waiting lists for two surgical procedures: hip and knee replacement and cataract surgery. Methods Determinants of physician intention to use HTA recommendations for patient prioritisation were assessed by a questionnaire based upon the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour. A total of 96 physicians from two medical specialties (ophthalmology and orthopaedic surgery responded to the questionnaire (response rate 44.2%. A multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA was performed to assess differences between medical specialties on the set of theoretical variables. Given the main effect difference between specialties, two regression models were tested separately to assess the psychosocial determinants of physician intention to use HTA recommendations for the prioritisation of patients on waiting lists for surgical procedures. Results Factors influencing physician intention to use HTA recommendations differ between groups of specialists. Intention to use the prioritisation system for patients on waiting lists for cataract surgery among ophthalmologists was related to attitude towards the behaviour, social norms, as well as personal normative beliefs. Intention to use HTA recommendations for patient prioritisation for hip and knee replacement among orthopaedic surgeons was explained by: perception of conditions that facilitated the realisation of the behaviour, personal normative beliefs, and habit of using HTA recommendations in clinical work. Conclusion This study offers a model to assess factors influencing the intention to adopt recommendations from health

  13. What Experiences Do Expository Books on Recommended Book Lists Offer to K-2 Students?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kletzien, Sharon B.; Dreher, Mariam Jean

    2017-01-01

    Teachers can use expository texts to teach academic vocabulary, content knowledge, text structure, and text features. National associations' recommended book lists are often used to identify books for classrooms. Previously we identified expository texts on these lists from 2001-2002 and 2011-2012. The current study explored instructional…

  14. Privacy-Preserving Content-Based Recommendations through Homomorphic Encryption

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Erkin, Z.; Erkin, Zekeriya; Beye, M.; Veugen, T.; Lagendijk, R.L.

    2012-01-01

    By offering personalized content to users, recommender systems have become a vital tool in ecommerce and online media applications. Content-based algorithms recommend items or products to users, that are most similar to those previously purchased or consumed. Unfortunately, collecting and storing

  15. Rating Methods for Proactive Recommendation on Smartwatches

    OpenAIRE

    Janosch Maier, Wolfgang Wörndl

    2015-01-01

    This paper analyzes possible interaction methods for using a recommender system on a smartwatch. As prerequisite, we describe interaction patterns currently used by Android Wear applications. Based on a prototype implementation the interaction methods action buttons, two button card and swipes are compared against each other. In a user study, 31 participating students were asked to rate restaurant recommendations offered in the setting of a context-aware, proactive recommender system. For eac...

  16. Privacy in Recommender Systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jeckmans, Arjan; Beye, Michael; Erkin, Zekeriya; Erkin, Zekeriya; Hartel, Pieter H.; Lagendijk, Reginald; Tang, Qiang; Ramzan, Naeem; van Zwol, Roelof; Lee, Jong-Seok; Clüver, Kai; Hua, Xian-Sheng

    In many online applications, the range of content that is offered to users is so wide that a need for automated recommender systems arises. Such systems can provide a personalized selection of relevant items to users. In practice, this can help people find entertaining movies, boost sales through

  17. 17 CFR 240.14e-2 - Position of subject company with respect to a tender offer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... disclosing that the subject company: (1) Recommends acceptance or rejection of the bidder's tender offer; (2... accordance with such laws, regulations and policies. (d) Exemption for cross-border tender offers. The... with respect to a tender offer. 240.14e-2 Section 240.14e-2 Commodity and Securities Exchanges...

  18. 48 CFR 570.303-3 - Late offers, modifications of offers, and withdrawals of offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Late offers, modifications of offers, and withdrawals of offers. 570.303-3 Section 570.303-3 Federal Acquisition Regulations... PROPERTY Contracting Procedures for Leasehold Interests in Real Property 570.303-3 Late offers...

  19. Decision support for organ offers in liver transplantation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Volk, Michael L; Goodrich, Nathan; Lai, Jennifer C; Sonnenday, Christopher; Shedden, Kerby

    2015-06-01

    Organ offers in liver transplantation are high-risk medical decisions with a low certainty of whether a better liver offer will come along before death. We hypothesized that decision support could improve the decision to accept or decline. With data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, survival models were constructed for 42,857 waiting-list patients and 28,653 posttransplant patients from 2002 to 2008. Daily covariate-adjusted survival probabilities from these 2 models were combined into a 5-year area under the curve to create an individualized prediction of whether an organ offer should be accepted for a given patient. Among 650,832 organ offers from 2008 to 2013, patient survival was compared by whether the clinical decision was concordant or discordant with model predictions. The acceptance benefit (AB)--the predicted gain or loss of life by accepting a given organ versus waiting for the next organ--ranged from 3 to -22 years (harm) and varied geographically; for example, the average benefit of accepting a donation after cardiac death organ ranged from 0.47 to -0.71 years by donation service area. Among organ offers, even when AB was >1 year, the offer was only accepted 10% of the time. Patient survival from the time of the organ offer was better if the model recommendations and the clinical decision were concordant: for offers with AB > 0, the 3-year survival was 80% if the offer was accepted and 66% if it was declined (P decision support may improve patient survival in liver transplantation. © 2015 American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

  20. Improving end-of-life care: Recommendations from the IOM.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dobbins, Elizabeth H

    2016-09-22

    A 2014 consensus report by the Institute of Medicine offers recommendations for healthcare providers to decrease unwanted care and improve the quality of life at the end of life. This article discusses the recommendations of interest to advanced practice registered nurses.

  1. Recommendations for the treatment of aging in standard technical specifications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Orton, R.D.; Allen, R.P.

    1995-09-01

    As part of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Nuclear Plant Aging Research Program, Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) evaluated the standard technical specifications for nuclear power plants to determine whether the current surveillance requirements (SRs) were effective in detecting age-related degradation. Nuclear Plant Aging Research findings for selected systems and components were reviewed to identify the stressors and operative aging mechanisms and to evaluate the methods available to detect, differentiate, and trend the resulting aging degradation. Current surveillance and testing requirements for these systems and components were reviewed for their effectiveness in detecting degraded conditions and for potential contributions to premature degradation. When the current surveillance and testing requirements appeared ineffective in detecting aging degradation or potentially could contribute to premature degradation, a possible deficiency in the SRs was identified that could result in undetected degradation. Based on this evaluation, PNL developed recommendations for inspection, surveillance, trending, and condition monitoring methods to be incorporated in the SRs to better detect age- related degradation of these selected systems and components

  2. Nutrient offerings from the meals and snacks served in four daycare centers in Guatemala City.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vossenaar, M.; Panday, B.; Hamelinck, V.; Soto-Méndez, M.J.; Doak, C.M.; Solomons, N.W.

    2011-01-01

    Objective: To assess the nutritional content and contribution to recommended nutrient intakes of the menu offerings in diverse daycare centers serving low-income urban families in Guatemala City. Methods: An observational study design was used to record all food and drink items offered to children

  3. Adolescent bariatric surgery: a systematic review of recommendation documents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Childerhose, Janet E; Alsamawi, Amal; Mehta, Tanvi; Smith, Judith E; Woolford, Susan; Tarini, Beth A

    2017-10-01

    Bariatric surgery has been performed on adolescents since the 1970s, but little is known about the guidance offered to providers in recommendation documents published in the United States. A systematic review was conducted to generate a complete record of all US recommendation documents and describe variability across the documents. This study had 3 aims: to identify the developers, examine selection criteria, and document reasons why developers have recommended this intervention for adolescents. Four databases (MEDLINE, National Guidelines Clearinghouse, Trip, and Embase) ertr searched, followed by a hand search. Documents were eligible for inclusion if they satisfied 5 criteria: written in the English language; developed and published by a US organization; comprised a clinical practice guideline, position statement, or consensus statement; offered a minimum 1-sentence recommendation on bariatric surgery for the treatment of obesity or related co-morbidities; and offered a minimum 1-sentence recommendation on bariatric surgery for children, adolescents, or both. No date limits were applied. Sixteen recommendation documents published between 1991 and 2013 met our inclusion criteria: 10 clinical practice guidelines, 4 position statements, and 2 consensus statements. Nine were produced by medical organizations, 3 by surgical organizations, and 4 by public health/governmental bodies. One document recommended against bariatric surgery for minors, and 15 endorsed the intervention for this population. Body mass index (a measure of obesity calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters) thresholds were the selection criteria most often provided. Minimum age varied widely. Of the 15 endorsing documents, 10 provided a reason for performing bariatric surgery on minors, most often to treat obesity-related co-morbidities that threaten the health of the adolescent. We make 3 suggestions to improve the quality of future recommendation documents

  4. A recommended program of tritium monitoring research and development

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nickerson, S.B.; Gerdingh, R.F.; Penfold, K.

    1982-10-01

    This report presents recommendations for programs of research and development in tritium monitoring instrumentation. These recommendations, if implemented, will offer Canadian industry the opportunity to develop marketable instruments. The major recommendations are to assist in the development and promotion of two Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories' monitors and an Ontario Hydro monitor, and to support research and development of a surface monitor

  5. Recommendations by NACP for accurate treatment geometry specification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aaltonen, P.

    1995-01-01

    An investigation among the Nordic radiotherapy centres in 1991 confirmed that inconsistent use of dose and volume concepts is jeopardizing the high standard of radiation therapy. A Nordic working group was set up by NACP to standardize the concepts and quantities used throughout the whole radiation process. Now the draft report 'Specification of Dose Delivery in Radiation Therapy' is discussed with the radiotherapy community. The recent ICRU 50 report is the first step towards a uniform terminology and procedure at all radiotherapy centres. The new NACP report will be an important and more detailed addition for level 2-3 radiotherapy clinics and it will be specially adopted to the situation at the Nordic centres as well as other well equipped centres. The aim has been to recommend the use of concepts based on recent scientific development in the field of radiation therapy which are needed for the development of daily clinical practice. The terms and concepts for treatment geometry have been chosen by separating the concepts of tissues and volumes inside a patient. The tissues can be fixed in the coordinate system of the patient by adding a margin around them. This margin accounts for the movements of the tissues of interest inside the patient. The outer boundary of this margin is then encompassing the Strict Target Volume or Organ at Risk Volume which are fixed in the patient coordinate system. The set-up uncertainties of the patient in relation to the beams are considered during treatment planning by adding set-up margins to the beams

  6. Recommendation systems in software engineering

    CERN Document Server

    Robillard, Martin P; Walker, Robert J; Zimmermann, Thomas

    2014-01-01

    With the growth of public and private data stores and the emergence of off-the-shelf data-mining technology, recommendation systems have emerged that specifically address the unique challenges of navigating and interpreting software engineering data.This book collects, structures and formalizes knowledge on recommendation systems in software engineering. It adopts a pragmatic approach with an explicit focus on system design, implementation, and evaluation. The book is divided into three parts: "Part I - Techniques" introduces basics for building recommenders in software engineering, including techniques for collecting and processing software engineering data, but also for presenting recommendations to users as part of their workflow.?"Part II - Evaluation" summarizes methods and experimental designs for evaluating recommendations in software engineering.?"Part III - Applications" describes needs, issues and solution concepts involved in entire recommendation systems for specific software engineering tasks, fo...

  7. Global Consensus Recommendations on Prevention and Management of Nutritional Rickets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Munns, Craig F; Shaw, Nick; Kiely, Mairead; Specker, Bonny L; Thacher, Tom D; Ozono, Keiichi; Michigami, Toshimi; Tiosano, Dov; Mughal, M Zulf; Mäkitie, Outi; Ramos-Abad, Lorna; Ward, Leanne; DiMeglio, Linda A; Atapattu, Navoda; Cassinelli, Hamilton; Braegger, Christian; Pettifor, John M; Seth, Anju; Idris, Hafsatu Wasagu; Bhatia, Vijayalakshmi; Fu, Junfen; Goldberg, Gail; Sävendahl, Lars; Khadgawat, Rajesh; Pludowski, Pawel; Maddock, Jane; Hyppönen, Elina; Oduwole, Abiola; Frew, Emma; Aguiar, Magda; Tulchinsky, Ted; Butler, Gary; Högler, Wolfgang

    2016-02-01

    Vitamin D and calcium deficiencies are common worldwide, causing nutritional rickets and osteomalacia, which have a major impact on health, growth, and development of infants, children, and adolescents; the consequences can be lethal or can last into adulthood. The goals of this evidence-based consensus document are to provide health care professionals with guidance for prevention, diagnosis, and management of nutritional rickets and to provide policy makers with a framework to work toward its eradication. A systematic literature search examining the definition, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of nutritional rickets in children was conducted. Evidence-based recommendations were developed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system that describe the strength of the recommendation and the quality of supporting evidence. Thirty-three nominated experts in pediatric endocrinology, pediatrics, nutrition, epidemiology, public health, and health economics evaluated the evidence on specific questions within five working groups. The consensus group, representing 11 international scientific organizations, participated in a multiday conference in May 2014 to reach a global evidence-based consensus. This consensus document defines nutritional rickets and its diagnostic criteria and describes the clinical management of rickets and osteomalacia. Risk factors, particularly in mothers and infants, are ranked, and specific prevention recommendations including food fortification and supplementation are offered for both the clinical and public health contexts. Rickets, osteomalacia, and vitamin D and calcium deficiencies are preventable global public health problems in infants, children, and adolescents. Implementation of international rickets prevention programs, including supplementation and food fortification, is urgently required.

  8. Online product and/or service brand offerings in South Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H Kruger

    2004-04-01

    Full Text Available The Internet has forced most companies to consider online brand building strategies. This strategic consideration depends on the determination of the status quo of the brand at present. The former is crucial as identified success drivers of online brand initiatives are neither uniformly nor generically applicable to all online brand offerings. It is thus suggested that the applicability of success factors to online brand offerings depends on the appropriateness of the brand’s context, which in turn is determined by benchmarking the brand against categorised characteristics of existing online brands. This paper summarises and categorises South African online brand offerings over a three year period and applies the findings for elucidatory purposes to a three dimensional Brandscape Model. After managerial implications have been discussed, the study concludes with recommendations for future research.

  9. EEAS 2.0: draft recommendations for the 2013 EEAS Review

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Blockmans, Steven; Cremona, Marise; Curtin, Deirdre; de Baere, Geert; Duke, Simon; Eckes, Christina; Hillion, Christophe; Van Vooren, Bart; Wessel, Ramses A.; Wouters, Jan

    2013-01-01

    This document offers recommendations for the amendment of Council Decision 2010/427/EU establishing the organisation and functioning of the European External Action Service (hereinafter ‘EEAS Decision’). These recommendations have been distilled from discussions between academics and practitioners

  10. Critical evaluation of the nonradiological environmental technical specifications. Program description, summary, and recommendations. Vol. 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Adams, S.M.; Cunningham, P.A.; Gray, D.D.; Kumar, K.D.; Witten, A.J.

    1976-01-01

    A comprehensive study of the data collected as part of the environmental Technical Specifications program for eight nuclear power plants was conducted for the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission. This report includes a summary of the screening phase in which the adequacy of the hydrothermal and ecological monitoring data for each plant were evaluated, and the summary and recommendations resulting from a detailed examination of the three nuclear power plants selected in the initial screening

  11. Promoting health and safety virtually: key recommendations for occupational health nurses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Debra M; Anton, Bonnie B; Wenskovitch, John

    2014-07-01

    Nurses' use of the Internet and social media has surfaced as a critical concern requiring further exploration and consideration by all health care organizations and nursing associations. In an attempt to support this need, the American Nurses Association (2011) published six principles of social networking that offered guidance and direction for nurses. In addition, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (2011) published a nurse's guide to using social media. Surfing the Internet and using social media for professional and personal needs is extremely common among nurses. What is concerning is when nurses do not separate their professional and personal presence in the virtual world. This article presents an Institutional Review Board-approved pilot survey that explored nurses' use of social media personally and professionally and offers recommendations specifically directed to the occupational health nurse. Copyright 2014, SLACK Incorporated.

  12. OARSI Clinical Trials Recommendations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    McAlindon, T. E.; Driban, J. B.; Henrotin, Y.

    2015-01-01

    The goal of this document is to update the original OARSI recommendations specifically for the design, conduct, and reporting of clinical trials that target symptom or structure modification among individuals with knee osteoarthritis (OA). To develop recommendations for the design, conduct...

  13. A service brokering and recommendation mechanism for better selecting cloud services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gui, Zhipeng; Yang, Chaowei; Xia, Jizhe; Huang, Qunying; Liu, Kai; Li, Zhenlong; Yu, Manzhu; Sun, Min; Zhou, Nanyin; Jin, Baoxuan

    2014-01-01

    Cloud computing is becoming the new generation computing infrastructure, and many cloud vendors provide different types of cloud services. How to choose the best cloud services for specific applications is very challenging. Addressing this challenge requires balancing multiple factors, such as business demands, technologies, policies and preferences in addition to the computing requirements. This paper recommends a mechanism for selecting the best public cloud service at the levels of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). A systematic framework and associated workflow include cloud service filtration, solution generation, evaluation, and selection of public cloud services. Specifically, we propose the following: a hierarchical information model for integrating heterogeneous cloud information from different providers and a corresponding cloud information collecting mechanism; a cloud service classification model for categorizing and filtering cloud services and an application requirement schema for providing rules for creating application-specific configuration solutions; and a preference-aware solution evaluation mode for evaluating and recommending solutions according to the preferences of application providers. To test the proposed framework and methodologies, a cloud service advisory tool prototype was developed after which relevant experiments were conducted. The results show that the proposed system collects/updates/records the cloud information from multiple mainstream public cloud services in real-time, generates feasible cloud configuration solutions according to user specifications and acceptable cost predication, assesses solutions from multiple aspects (e.g., computing capability, potential cost and Service Level Agreement, SLA) and offers rational recommendations based on user preferences and practical cloud provisioning; and visually presents and compares solutions through an interactive web Graphical User Interface (GUI).

  14. A Service Brokering and Recommendation Mechanism for Better Selecting Cloud Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gui, Zhipeng; Yang, Chaowei; Xia, Jizhe; Huang, Qunying; Liu, Kai; Li, Zhenlong; Yu, Manzhu; Sun, Min; Zhou, Nanyin; Jin, Baoxuan

    2014-01-01

    Cloud computing is becoming the new generation computing infrastructure, and many cloud vendors provide different types of cloud services. How to choose the best cloud services for specific applications is very challenging. Addressing this challenge requires balancing multiple factors, such as business demands, technologies, policies and preferences in addition to the computing requirements. This paper recommends a mechanism for selecting the best public cloud service at the levels of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). A systematic framework and associated workflow include cloud service filtration, solution generation, evaluation, and selection of public cloud services. Specifically, we propose the following: a hierarchical information model for integrating heterogeneous cloud information from different providers and a corresponding cloud information collecting mechanism; a cloud service classification model for categorizing and filtering cloud services and an application requirement schema for providing rules for creating application-specific configuration solutions; and a preference-aware solution evaluation mode for evaluating and recommending solutions according to the preferences of application providers. To test the proposed framework and methodologies, a cloud service advisory tool prototype was developed after which relevant experiments were conducted. The results show that the proposed system collects/updates/records the cloud information from multiple mainstream public cloud services in real-time, generates feasible cloud configuration solutions according to user specifications and acceptable cost predication, assesses solutions from multiple aspects (e.g., computing capability, potential cost and Service Level Agreement, SLA) and offers rational recommendations based on user preferences and practical cloud provisioning; and visually presents and compares solutions through an interactive web Graphical User Interface (GUI

  15. Theoretical and Methodological Considerations on the Public Offers

    OpenAIRE

    Claudia Catalina SAVA

    2013-01-01

    This paper describes the most important characteristics of the public offers, both from the theoretical and methodological view. The European Union emphasizes clarity and transparency. The author focuses on specific provisions of European Directive and Romanian law and regulations related to voluntary and mandatory takeover bids, on characteristics such as price, offeror and offeeree right, offer timetable.

  16. Traumatic brain injury pharmacological treatment: recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renato Anghinah

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT This article presents the recommendations on the pharmacological treatment employed in traumatic brain injury (TBI at the outpatient clinic of the Cognitive Rehabilitation after TBI Service of the Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. A systematic assessment of the consensus reached in other countries, and of articles on TBI available in the PUBMED and LILACS medical databases, was carried out. We offer recommendations of pharmacological treatments in patients after TBI with different symptoms.

  17. Where to publish? Development of a recommender system for academic publishing

    OpenAIRE

    Gutknecht, Christian

    2014-01-01

    This thesis using the method of research design is about creating a journal recommendation system for authors. Existing systems like JANE or whichjournal.com offer recommendations based on similarities of the content. This study invests how more sophisticated factors like openness, price (subscription or article processing charge), speed of publication can be included in the ranking of a recommendation system. The recommendation should also consider the expectations from other stakeholders li...

  18. Intelligent Online Store: User Behavior Analysis based Recommender System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohamadreza Karimi Alavije

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Recommender systems provide personalised recommendations to users, helping them find their ideal items, also play a key role in encouraging users to make their purchases through websites thus leading to the success of online stores. The collaborative filtering method is one of the most successful techniques utilized in these systems facilitating the provision of recommendations close to that of the customer's taste and need. However the proliferation of both customers and products on offer, the technique faces some issues such as "cold start" and scalability. As such in this paper a new method has been introduced in which user-based collaborative filtering is used at a base method along with a weighted clustering of users based upon demographics in order to improve the results obtained from the system. The implementation of the results of the algorithms demonstrate that the presented approach has a lower RMSE, which means that the system offers improved performance and accuracy and that the resulting recommendations are closer to the taste and preferences of the users.

  19. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2012-01-01

    L'Occitane en Provence proposes the following offer: 10 % discount on all products in all L'Occitane shops in Metropolitan France upon presentation of your Staff Association membership card and a valid ID. This offer is valid only for one person, is non-transferable and cannot be combined with other promotions.

  20. Unallocated Off-Specification Highly Enriched Uranium: Recommendations for Disposition

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bridges, D. N.; Boeke, S. G.; Tousley, D. R.; Bickford, W.; Goergen, C.; Williams, W.; Hassler, M.; Nelson, T.; Keck, R.; Arbital, J.

    2002-02-27

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has made significant progress with regard to disposition planning for 174 metric tons (MTU) of surplus Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Approximately 55 MTU of this 174 MTU are ''offspec'' HEU. (''Off-spec'' signifies that the isotopic or chemical content of the material does not meet the American Society for Testing and Materials standards for commercial nuclear reactor fuel.) Approximately 33 of the 55 MTU have been allocated to off-spec commercial reactor fuel per an Interagency Agreement between DOE and the Tennessee Valley Authority (1). To determine disposition plans for the remaining {approx}22 MTU, the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Fissile Materials Disposition (OFMD) and the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) co-sponsored this technical study. This paper represents a synopsis of the formal technical report (NNSA/NN-0014). The {approx} 22 MTU of off-spec HEU inventory in this study were divided into two main groupings: one grouping with plutonium (Pu) contamination and one grouping without plutonium. This study identified and evaluated 26 potential paths for the disposition of this HEU using proven decision analysis tools. This selection process resulted in recommended and alternative disposition paths for each group of HEU. The evaluation and selection of these paths considered criteria such as technical maturity, programmatic issues, cost, schedule, and environment, safety and health compliance. The primary recommendations from the analysis are comprised of 7 different disposition paths. The study recommendations will serve as a technical basis for subsequent programmatic decisions as disposition of this HEU moves into the implementation phase.

  1. Training Research: Practical Recommendations for Maximum Impact

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beidas, Rinad S.; Koerner, Kelly; Weingardt, Kenneth R.; Kendall, Philip C.

    2011-01-01

    This review offers practical recommendations regarding research on training in evidence-based practices for mental health and substance abuse treatment. When designing training research, we recommend: (a) aligning with the larger dissemination and implementation literature to consider contextual variables and clearly defining terminology, (b) critically examining the implicit assumptions underlying the stage model of psychotherapy development, (c) incorporating research methods from other disciplines that embrace the principles of formative evaluation and iterative review, and (d) thinking about how technology can be used to take training to scale throughout all stages of a training research project. An example demonstrates the implementation of these recommendations. PMID:21380792

  2. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    Special offers for our members       Go Sport in Val Thoiry is offering 15% discount on all purchases made in the shop upon presentation of the Staff Association membership card (excluding promotions, sale items and bargain corner, and excluding purchases using Go Sport  and Kadéos gift cards. Only one discount can be applied to each purchase).  

  3. Research on Long Tail Recommendation Algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Xuezhi; Zhang, Chuang; Wu, Ming; Zeng, Yang

    2017-10-01

    Most recommendation systems in the major electronic commerce platforms are influenced by the long tail effect more or less. There are sufficient researches of how to assess recommendation effect while no criteria to evaluate long tail recommendation rate. In this study, we first discussed the existing problems of recommending long tail products through specific experiments. Then we proposed a long tail evaluation criteria and compared the performance in long tail recommendation between different models.

  4. Non-IID Recommender Systems: A Review and Framework of Recommendation Paradigm Shifting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Longbing Cao

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available While recommendation plays an increasingly critical role in our living, study, work, and entertainment, the recommendations we receive are often for irrelevant, duplicate, or uninteresting products and services. A critical reason for such bad recommendations lies in the intrinsic assumption that recommended users and items are independent and identically distributed (IID in existing theories and systems. Another phenomenon is that, while tremendous efforts have been made to model specific aspects of users or items, the overall user and item characteristics and their non-IIDness have been overlooked. In this paper, the non-IID nature and characteristics of recommendation are discussed, followed by the non-IID theoretical framework in order to build a deep and comprehensive understanding of the intrinsic nature of recommendation problems, from the perspective of both couplings and heterogeneity. This non-IID recommendation research triggers the paradigm shift from IID to non-IID recommendation research and can hopefully deliver informed, relevant, personalized, and actionable recommendations. It creates exciting new directions and fundamental solutions to address various complexities including cold-start, sparse data-based, cross-domain, group-based, and shilling attack-related issues.

  5. Analysis and optimisation of calcium content in menus and dairy offer in Croatian kindergartens

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivana Rumora

    2009-09-01

    Full Text Available The importance of healthy diet from the earliest age as well as its influence on human health is indisputable. Unbalanced diet in childhood can, along with unhealthy lifestyle (stress, smoking, physical inactivity, cause a number of diseases at a later age. Two week menus in 26 kindergartens from continental and coastal Croatia have been analysed, taking into consideration the type of kindergarten (public, private, or religious. The aim of this research is to determine the quality of the offer regarding the intake of milk and dairy products, which, regarding their bioavailability, represent a major source of calcium, an essential nutrient in the intensive growth phase of children and young people. Using basic statistics, significant differences were not determined neither in the regional offer of milk and dairy products in the different types of kindergartens nor in the content of calcium and phosphorus. Milk and dairy products were adequately represented in the weekly offer in both regions under observation, and the average offer contained 9.7±1.5 servings. Average content of calcium in daily menues is 714.5±235.9 mg, which is in agreement with dietary reference intake recommendations (300-800 mg and Croatian recommendations (400-700 mg. Use of fuzzy logic in creating new daily menus, by combining the existing offers enabled significant enlargement of the set of nutritionally acceptable menus as well as a greater diversity of meals.

  6. Study on Personalized Recommendation Model of Internet Advertisement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Ning; Chen, Yongyue; Zhang, Huiping

    With the rapid development of E-Commerce, the audiences put forward higher requirements on personalized Internet advertisement than before. The main function of Personalized Advertising System is to provide the most suitable advertisements for anonymous users on Web sites. The paper offers a personalized Internet advertisement recommendation model. By mining the audiences' historical and current behavior, and the advertisers' and publisher's web site content, etc, the system can recommend appropriate advertisements to corresponding audiences.

  7. Management of relapsed multiple myeloma: recommendations of the International Myeloma Working Group.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laubach, J; Garderet, L; Mahindra, A; Gahrton, G; Caers, J; Sezer, O; Voorhees, P; Leleu, X; Johnsen, H E; Streetly, M; Jurczyszyn, A; Ludwig, H; Mellqvist, U-H; Chng, W-J; Pilarski, L; Einsele, H; Hou, J; Turesson, I; Zamagni, E; Chim, C S; Mazumder, A; Westin, J; Lu, J; Reiman, T; Kristinsson, S; Joshua, D; Roussel, M; O'Gorman, P; Terpos, E; McCarthy, P; Dimopoulos, M; Moreau, P; Orlowski, R Z; Miguel, J S; Anderson, K C; Palumbo, A; Kumar, S; Rajkumar, V; Durie, B; Richardson, P G

    2016-05-01

    The prognosis for patients multiple myeloma (MM) has improved substantially over the past decade with the development of new, more effective chemotherapeutic agents and regimens that possess a high level of anti-tumor activity. In spite of this important progress, however, nearly all MM patients ultimately relapse, even those who experience a complete response to initial therapy. Management of relapsed MM thus represents a vital aspect of the overall care for patients with MM and a critical area of ongoing scientific and clinical research. This comprehensive manuscript from the International Myeloma Working Group provides detailed recommendations on management of relapsed disease, with sections dedicated to diagnostic evaluation, determinants of therapy, and general approach to patients with specific disease characteristics. In addition, the manuscript provides a summary of evidence from clinical trials that have significantly impacted the field, including those evaluating conventional dose therapies, as well as both autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Specific recommendations are offered for management of first and second relapse, relapsed and refractory disease, and both autologous and allogeneic transplant. Finally, perspective is provided regarding new agents and promising directions in management of relapsed MM.

  8. JBK-75 microstructure specification recommendation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brewer, A.W.

    1977-01-01

    Since the ASTM-E-45 standard for microcleanliness is not applicable to superalloys like JBK-75 stainless steel (Modified A-286), Rocky Flats should adopt the Ladish microcleanliness standard (APML Cleanliness Classification of High Temperature Alloys Chart, 1971), as a guide for setting material acceptance specifications for JBK-75. Inclusion ratings of S-2, N-2, C-2, and M-2 should be acceptable. The microstructure should have a grain size of 5 or finer, but not smaller than 9, and microsegregation (banding) should be kept to a minimum

  9. Extracting product offers from e-shop websites

    OpenAIRE

    Horch, Andrea; Kett, Holger; Weisbecker, Anette

    2016-01-01

    On-line retailers as well as e-shoppers are very interested in gathering product records from the Web in order to compare products and prices. The consumers compare products and prices to find the best price for a specific product or they want to identify alternatives for a product whereas the on-line retailers need to compare their offers with those of their competitors for being able to remain competitive. As there is a huge number and vast array of product offers in the Web the product dat...

  10. Therapy students' recommendations of physical activity for managing persistent low back pain in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ryan, Cormac G; Schofield, Patricia; Martin, Denis J

    2013-07-01

    Negative views of older adults can lead to suboptimal care. For older adults with persistent low back pain (LBP), promotion of physical activity by health care professionals is important. Health care professionals' views of older adults are influenced by their training. This study aimed to compare recommendations for physical activity for managing persistent LBP offered by students in physiotherapy and occupational therapy to an older person vs. a younger person. In a cross-sectional online survey, participants (N = 77) randomly received a vignette of either a 40-yr-old or 70-yr-old patient with persistent LBP. Other than age, the vignettes were identical. There was no difference between the younger and older vignettes in the likelihood of participants making overall appropriate physical activity recommendations--63% vs. 59%, OR (95% CI) = 1.19 (0.48-2.99), p = .71--although there was a trend toward age bias on recommendations specific to daily activity. Postqualification education may be where ageist views need to be addressed.

  11. HIV testing experience in New York City: offer of and willingness to test in the context of new legal support of routine testing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edelstein, Zoe R; Myers, Julie E; Cutler, Blayne H; Blum, Micheline; Muzzio, Douglas; Tsoi, Benjamin W

    2015-01-01

    In the United States, routine HIV testing is recommended for persons aged 13-64 years. In 2010, New York State passed a law mandating offer of testing in most health-care settings. We report on the consumer perspective in New York City (NYC) shortly after the law's enactment. We analyzed data from a 2011 telephone survey representative of NYC adults aged 18-64 years (n = 1,846). This analysis focused on respondents' report of HIV test offer at last clinical visit and of willingness to test if recommended by their doctor. Offer and willingness were estimated by age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, income, marital status, sexual identity, partner number, and HIV testing history; associations were examined using multivariable regression. Among NYC adults, 35.7% reported an HIV test in the past year and 31.8% had never tested. Among 86.7% with a clinical visit in the past year, 31.4% reported being offered a test at last visit. Offer was associated with younger age, race/ethnicity other than white, non-Hispanic, lower income, and previous testing. Only 6.7% of never-testers were offered a test at last clinical visit. Willingness to test if recommended was high overall (90.2%) and across factors examined. After a new law was enacted in support of routine HIV testing, approximately 1 in 3 New Yorkers aged 18-64 years were offered a test at last clinical visit; 9 in 10 were willing to test if recommended by their doctor. This suggests that patient attitudes will not be a barrier to complete implementation of the law.

  12. Teacher Leadership: Federal Policy Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gran, Jackie; Young, Margaret; Broin, Alexandra

    2015-01-01

    This policy brief was developed specifically for federal policymakers, and builds upon the policy recommendations included in "Leading from Every Seat: Empowering Principals to Cultivate Teacher Leadership for School Improvement." The recommendations in this report include the following: (1) Uncover New Leadership Ideas and Seed…

  13. Inquiries into Malaysia's socio-technical disasters: recommendations and lessons learnt.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Said, Aini Mat; Ahmadun, Fakhru'l-Razi; Abdul Kadir, Razali; Daud, Mohamed

    2009-04-01

    Most democratic countries hold inquiries into disasters. One of their key functions is to establish the cause of an event and to learn lessons in order to prevent a recurrence. In addition, they offer an opportunity for communal catharsis, permitting the public to vent anger, distress and frustration and to exert pressure for policy changes. Malaysia has experienced six landmark socio-technical disasters since 1968, which resulted in the proposal or amendment of various safety/emergency acts and regulations. The authors used a grounded theory approach utilising a constant comparative method to analyse the recommendations made by the inquiries into these events. Data indicate that social and technical recommendations comprise 85 and 15 per cent, respectively, of the total recommendations made by the inquiry committees. This paper offers suggestions for improving the management of inquiry tribunals, as they will remain a valuable source of information for society and corporations to learn from past incidents.

  14. BMR: Benchmarking Metrics Recommender for Personnel issues in Software Development Projects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angel Garcia-Crespo

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents an architecture which applies document similarity measures to the documentation produced during the phases of software development in order to generate recommendations of process and people metrics for similar projects. The application makes a judgment of similarity of the Service Provision Offer (SPO document of a new proposed project to a collection of Project History Documents (PHD, stored in a repository of unstructured texts. The process is carried out in three stages: firstly, clustering of the Offer document with the set of PHDs which are most similar to it; this provides the initial indication of whether similar previous projects exist, and signifies similarity. Secondly, determination of which PHD in the set is most comparable with the Offer document, based on various parameters: project effort, project duration (time, project resources (members/size of team, costs, and sector(s involved, indicating comparability of projects. The comparable parameters are extracted using the GATE Natural Language Processing architecture. Lastly, a recommendation of metrics for the new project is made, which is based on the transferability of the metrics of the most similar and comparable PHD extracted, here referred to as recommendation.

  15. Investigating country-specific music preferences and music recommendation algorithms with the LFM-1b dataset.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schedl, Markus

    2017-01-01

    Recently, the LFM-1b dataset has been proposed to foster research and evaluation in music retrieval and music recommender systems, Schedl (Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (ICMR). New York, 2016). It contains more than one billion music listening events created by more than 120,000 users of Last.fm. Each listening event is characterized by artist, album, and track name, and further includes a timestamp. Basic demographic information and a selection of more elaborate listener-specific descriptors are included as well, for anonymized users. In this article, we reveal information about LFM-1b's acquisition and content and we compare it to existing datasets. We furthermore provide an extensive statistical analysis of the dataset, including basic properties of the item sets, demographic coverage, distribution of listening events (e.g., over artists and users), and aspects related to music preference and consumption behavior (e.g., temporal features and mainstreaminess of listeners). Exploiting country information of users and genre tags of artists, we also create taste profiles for populations and determine similar and dissimilar countries in terms of their populations' music preferences. Finally, we illustrate the dataset's usage in a simple artist recommendation task, whose results are intended to serve as baseline against which more elaborate techniques can be assessed.

  16. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2014-01-01

    New offers : Discover the theater Galpon in Geneva. The Staff Association is happy to offer to its members a discount of 8.00 CHF on a full-price ticket (tickets of 15.00 CHF instead of 22.00 CHF) so do not hesitate anymore (mandatory reservation by phone + 4122 321  21 76 as tickets are quickly sold out!). For further information, please see our website: http://staff-association.web.cern.ch/fr/content/th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-du-galpon  

  17. Improving the recommender algorithms with the detected communities in bipartite networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Peng; Wang, Duo; Xiao, Jinghua

    2017-04-01

    Recommender system offers a powerful tool to make information overload problem well solved and thus gains wide concerns of scholars and engineers. A key challenge is how to make recommendations more accurate and personalized. We notice that community structures widely exist in many real networks, which could significantly affect the recommendation results. By incorporating the information of detected communities in the recommendation algorithms, an improved recommendation approach for the networks with communities is proposed. The approach is examined in both artificial and real networks, the results show that the improvement on accuracy and diversity can be 20% and 7%, respectively. This reveals that it is beneficial to classify the nodes based on the inherent properties in recommender systems.

  18. Special offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    Are you a member of the Staff Association? Did you know that as a member you can benefit from the following special offers: BCGE (Banque Cantonale de Genève): personalized banking solutions with preferential conditions. TPG: reduced rates on annual transport passes for active and retired staff. Aquaparc: reduced ticket prices for children and adults at this Swiss waterpark in Le Bouveret. FNAC: 5% reduction on FNAC vouchers. For more information about all these offers, please consult our web site: http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/Offers.html

  19. Video Games: Research, Ratings, Recommendations. ERIC Digest.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cesarone, Bernard

    This Digest reviews research on the demographics and effects of video game playing, discusses game rating systems, and offers recommendations for parents. The Digest begins by discussing research on the time children spend playing electronic games, which shows that younger children's game playing at home (90% of fourth-graders played at least one…

  20. REASONS FOR STUDENT DISCONTINUATION IN ENGINEERING DEGREE COURSES OFFERED AT A DISTANCE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Anbahan ARIADURAI

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Faculty of Engineering Technology of the Open University of Sri Lanka has been offering engineering programmes at a distance for the last two decades or so. However, completion rates in Faculty of Engineering Technology are lower compared to the other faculties of the University. This paper investigates the reasons for low completion rates in the faculty and suggests ways and means to overcome this problem. The study concludes that increasing student numbers will not necessarily increase percentage of students completing the programme though the number of students completing is increased. It is found that students offering courses for the first time in the system of distance education in their academic career perform poorer because they are not conversant with distance education techniques. It is recommended that the Faculty must offer an orientation programme on distance education to all the students enrolling for the first time, before they commence their regular programmes. Further, it has been found that considerable percentage of students who obtain eligibility to sit the final examination by completing the continuous assessments do not sit the final examination. This has been found to contribute towards non-completion of programmes as students sitting the final examination in the subsequent years perform poorly in their exams. To overcome this problem, it is recommended that current practise of allowing the student to carry forward their eligibility to unlimited period of time must be disbanded.

  1. Data You May Like: A Recommender System for Research Data Discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devaraju, A.; Davy, R.; Hogan, D.

    2016-12-01

    Various data portals been developed to facilitate access to research datasets from different sources. For example, the Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science (PANGAEA), the Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data.org), and the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC). Due to data quantity and heterogeneity, finding relevant datasets on these portals may be difficult and tedious. Keyword searches based on specific metadata elements or multi-key indexes may return irrelevant results. Faceted searches may be unsatisfactory and time consuming, especially when facet values are exhaustive. We need a much more intelligent way to complement existing searching mechanisms in order to enhance user experiences of the data portals. We developed a recommender system that helps users to find the most relevant research datasets on the CSIRO's Data Access Portal (DAP). The system is based on content-based filtering. We computed the similarity of datasets based on data attributes (e.g., descriptions, fields of research, location, contributors, and provenance) and inference from transaction logs (e.g., the relations among datasets and between queries and datasets). We improved the recommendation quality by assigning weights to data similarities. The weight values are drawn from a survey involving data users. The recommender results for a given dataset are accessible programmatically via a web service. Taking both data attributes and user actions into account, the recommender system will make it easier for researchers to find and reuse data offered through the data portal.

  2. [Definition and specification requirements for PAC-systems (picture archiving and communication system). A performance index with reference to the standard "IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirement Specifications"].

    Science.gov (United States)

    König, H; Klose, K J

    1999-04-01

    The formulation of requirements is necessary to control the goals of a PACS project. Furthermore, in this way, the scope of functionality necessary to support radiological working processes becomes clear. Definitions of requirements and specification are formulated independently of systems according to the IEEE standard "Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications". Definitions are given in the Request for Information, specifications in the Request for Proposal. Functional and non-functional requirements are distinguished. The solutions are rated with respect to scope, appropriateness and quality of implementation. A PACS checklist was created according to the methods described above. It is published on the homepage of the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Informationstechnologie" (AGIT) within the "Deutsche Röntgengesellschaft" (DRG) (http://www.uni-marburg.de/mzr/agit). The checklist provides a discussion forum which should contribute to an agreement on accepted basic PACS functionalities.

  3. A bottom-up approach to MEDLINE indexing recommendations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jimeno-Yepes, Antonio; Wilkowski, Bartlomiej; Mork, James/G

    2011-01-01

    in which the abstract is searched for indicators for a specific MeSH recommendation in a two-step process. Supervised machine learning combined with triage rules improves sensitivity of recommendations while keeping the number of recommended terms relatively small. Improvement in recommendations observed...... in this work warrants further exploration of this approach to MTI recommendations on a larger set of MeSH headings....

  4. IIW recommendations for the HFMI treatment for improving the fatigue strength of welded joints

    CERN Document Server

    Marquis, Gary B

    2016-01-01

    This book of recommendations presents an overview of High Frequency Mechanical Impact (HFMI) techniques existing today in the market and their proper procedures, quality assurance measures and documentation. Due to differences in HFMI tools and the wide variety of potential applications, certain details of proper treatments and quantitative quality control measures are presented generally. An example of procedure specification as a quality assurance measure is given in the Appendix. Moreover, the book presents procedures for the fatigue life assessment of HFMI-improved welded joints based on nominal stress, structural hot spot stress and effective notch stress. It also considers the extra benefit that has been experimentally observed for HFMI-treated high-strength steels. The recommendations offer proposals on the effect of loading conditions like high mean stress fatigue cycles, variable amplitude loading and large amplitude/low cycle fatigue cycles. Special considerations for low stress concentration welded...

  5. Special Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Association du personnel

    2011-01-01

    Walibi Rhône-Alpes is open until 31 October. Reduced prices for children and adults at this French attraction park in Les Avenières. For more information about all these offers, please consult our web site: http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/Offers.html

  6. Special Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Association du personnel

    2011-01-01

    Are you a member of the Staff Association? Did you know that as a member you can benefit from the following special offers: BCGE (Banque Cantonale de Genève): personalized banking solutions with preferential conditions. TPG: reduced rates on annual transport passes for active and retired staff. Aquaparc: reduced ticket prices for children and adults at this Swiss waterpark in Le Bouveret. Walibi: reduced prices for children and adults at this French attraction park in Les Avenières. FNAC: 5% reduction on FNAC vouchers. For more information about all these offers, please consult our web site: http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/Offers.html

  7. A collaborative approach for research paper recommender system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haruna, Khalid; Akmar Ismail, Maizatul; Damiasih, Damiasih; Sutopo, Joko; Herawan, Tutut

    2017-01-01

    Research paper recommenders emerged over the last decade to ease finding publications relating to researchers' area of interest. The challenge was not just to provide researchers with very rich publications at any time, any place and in any form but to also offer the right publication to the right researcher in the right way. Several approaches exist in handling paper recommender systems. However, these approaches assumed the availability of the whole contents of the recommending papers to be freely accessible, which is not always true due to factors such as copyright restrictions. This paper presents a collaborative approach for research paper recommender system. By leveraging the advantages of collaborative filtering approach, we utilize the publicly available contextual metadata to infer the hidden associations that exist between research papers in order to personalize recommendations. The novelty of our proposed approach is that it provides personalized recommendations regardless of the research field and regardless of the user's expertise. Using a publicly available dataset, our proposed approach has recorded a significant improvement over other baseline methods in measuring both the overall performance and the ability to return relevant and useful publications at the top of the recommendation list.

  8. [Psychocardiology: clinically relevant recommendations regarding selected cardiovascular diseases].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albus, C; Ladwig, K-H; Herrmann-Lingen, C

    2014-03-01

    Psychosocial risk factors (work stress, low socioeconomic status, impaired social support, anger, anxiety and depression), certain personality traits (e.g. hostility) and post-traumatic stress disorders may negatively influence the incidence and course of multiple cardiovascular disease conditions. Systematic screening for these factors may help to adequately assess the psychosocial risk pattern of a given patient and may also contribute to the treatment of these patients. Recommendations for treatment are based on current guidelines. The physician-patient interaction should basically follow the principle of a patient centered communication and should gender and age specific aspects into consideration. Integrated biopsychosocial care is an effective, low threshold option to treat psycho-social risk factors and should be offered on a regular basis. Patients with high blood pressure may profit from relaxation programs and biofeedback procedures (however with moderate success). An individually adjusted multimodal treatment strategy should be offered to patients with coronary heart disease, heart failure and after heart surgery. It may incorporate educational tools, exercise therapy, motivational modules, relaxation and stress management programs. In case of affective comorbidity, psychotherapy may be indicated. Anti-depressant pharmacotherapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the first line should only be offered to patients with at least moderate severe depressive episodes. Psychotherapy and SSRIs, particularly sertraline, have been proven to be safe and effective with regard to improvements of the patient's quality of life. A prognostic benefit has not been clearly proven so far. Patients with an implanted cardioverter/defibrillator (ICD) should receive psychosocial support on a regular basis. Concomitant psychotherapy and/or psychopharmacotherapy (SSRIs) should be offered in case of a severe mental comorbidity. Generally, tricyclic

  9. Integrating Information Extraction Agents into a Tourism Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esparcia, Sergio; Sánchez-Anguix, Víctor; Argente, Estefanía; García-Fornes, Ana; Julián, Vicente

    Recommender systems face some problems. On the one hand information needs to be maintained updated, which can result in a costly task if it is not performed automatically. On the other hand, it may be interesting to include third party services in the recommendation since they improve its quality. In this paper, we present an add-on for the Social-Net Tourism Recommender System that uses information extraction and natural language processing techniques in order to automatically extract and classify information from the Web. Its goal is to maintain the system updated and obtain information about third party services that are not offered by service providers inside the system.

  10. Negotiation as a form of persuasion: arguments in first offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maaravi, Yossi; Ganzach, Yoav; Pazy, Asya

    2011-08-01

    In this article we examined aspects of negotiation within a persuasion framework. Specifically, we investigated how the provision of arguments that justified the first offer in a negotiation affected the behavior of the parties, namely, how it influenced counteroffers and settlement prices. In a series of 4 experiments and 2 pilot studies, we demonstrated that when the generation of counterarguments was easy, negotiators who did not add arguments to their first offers achieved superior results compared with negotiators who used arguments to justify their first offer. We hypothesized and provided evidence that adding arguments to a first offer was likely to cause the responding party to search for counterarguments, and this, in turn, led him or her to present counteroffers that were further away from the first offer.

  11. Innovative gas offers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sala, O.; Mela, P.; Chatelain, F.

    2007-01-01

    New energy offers are progressively made available as the opening of gas market to competition becomes broader. How are organized the combined offers: gas, electricity, renewable energies and energy services? What are the marketing strategies implemented? Three participants at this round table present their offer and answer these questions. (J.S.)

  12. Assessing the consequences of unrealistic optimism: Challenges and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shepperd, James A; Pogge, Gabrielle; Howell, Jennifer L

    2017-04-01

    Of the hundreds of studies published on unrealistic optimism (i.e., expecting a better personal future than is reasonably likely), most have focused on demonstrating the phenomenon, examining boundary conditions, or documenting causes. Few studies have examined the consequences of unrealistic optimism. In this article, we provide an overview of the measurement of unrealistic optimism, review possible consequences, and identify numerous challenges confronting investigators attempting to understand the consequences. Assessing the consequences of unrealistic optimism is tricky, and ultimately probably impossible when researchers assess unrealistic optimism at the group level (which reveals if a group of people is displaying unrealistic optimism on average) rather than the individual level (which reveals whether a specific individual displays unrealistic optimism). We offer recommendations to researchers who wish to examine the consequences of unrealistic optimism. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Defining and Supporting Narrative-driven Recommendation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn

    2017-01-01

    Research into recommendation algorithms has made great strides in recent years. However, these algorithms are typically applied in relatively straightforward scenarios: given information about a user's past preferences, what will they like in the future? Recommendation is often more complex......: evaluating recommended items never takes place in a vacuum, and it is often a single step in the user's more complex background task. In this paper, we define a specific type of recommendation scenario called narrative-driven recommendation, where the recommendation process is driven by both a log...... of the user's past transactions as well as a narrative description of their current interest(s). Through an analysis of a set of real-world recommendation narratives from the LibraryThing forums, we demonstrate the uniqueness and richness of this scenario and highlight common patterns and properties...

  14. Offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2016-01-01

    CERN was selected and participated in the ranking "Best Employers" organized by the magazine Bilan. To thank CERN for its collaboration, the magazine offers a reduction to the subscription fee for all employed members of personnel. 25% off the annual subscription: CHF 149.25 instead of CHF 199 .— The subscription includes the magazine delivered to your home for a year, every other Wednesday, as well as special editions and access to the e-paper. To benefit from this offer, simply fill out the form provided for this purpose. To get the form, please contact the secretariat of the Staff Association (Staff.Association@cern.ch).

  15. SYNAISTHISI: an IoT-powered smart visitor management and cognitive recommendations system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thanos, Giorgos Konstandinos; Karafylli, Christina; Karafylli, Maria; Zacharakis, Dimitris; Papadimitriou, Apostolis; Dimitros, Kostantinos; Kanellopoulou, Konstantina; Kyriazanos, Dimitris M.; Thomopoulos, Stelios C. A.

    2016-05-01

    Location-based and navigation services are really needed to help visitors and audience of big events, complex buildings, shopping malls, airports and large companies. However, the lack of GPS and proper mapping indoors usually renders location-based applications and services useless or simply not applicable in such environments. SYNAISTHISI introduces a mobile application for smartphones which offers navigation capabilities outside and inside buildings and through multiple floor levels. The application comes together with a suite of helpful services, including personalized recommendations, visit/event management and a helpful search functionality in order to navigate to a specific location, event or person. As the user finds his way towards his destination, NFC-enabled checkpoints and bluetooth beacons assist him, while offering re-routing, check-in/out capabilities and useful information about ongoing meetings and nearby events. The application is supported by a back-end GIS system which can provide a broad and clear view to event organizers, campus managers and field personnel for purposes of event logistics, safety and security. SYNAISTHISI system comes with plenty competitive advantages including (a) Seamless Navigation as users move between outdoor and indoor areas and different floor levels by using innovative routing algorithms, (b) connection to and powered by IoT platform, for localization and real-time information feedback, (c) dynamic personalized recommendations based on user profile, location and real-time information provided by the IoT platform and (d) Indoor localization without the need for expensive infrastructure and installations.

  16. OARSI Clinical Trials Recommendations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Emery, C. A.; Roos, Ewa M.; Verhagen, E.

    2015-01-01

    The risk of post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) substantially increases following joint injury. Research efforts should focus on investigating the efficacy of preventative strategies in high quality randomized controlled trials (RCT). The objective of these OARSI RCT recommendations is to inform...... the design, conduct and analytical approaches to RCTs evaluating the preventative effect of joint injury prevention strategies. Recommendations regarding the design, conduct, and reporting of RCTs evaluating injury prevention interventions were established based on the consensus of nine researchers...... internationally with expertise in epidemiology, injury prevention and/or osteoarthritis (OA). Input and resultant consensus was established through teleconference, face to face and email correspondence over a 1 year period. Recommendations for injury prevention RCTs include context specific considerations...

  17. Personalized Recommender System for Digital Libraries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Omisore, M. O.; Samuel, O. W.

    2014-01-01

    The huge amount of information available online has given rise to personalization and filtering systems. Recommender systems (RS) constitute a specific type of information filtering technique that present items according to user's interests. In this research, a web-based personalized recommender system capable of providing learners with books that…

  18. Probabilistic approaches to recommendations

    CERN Document Server

    Barbieri, Nicola; Ritacco, Ettore

    2014-01-01

    The importance of accurate recommender systems has been widely recognized by academia and industry, and recommendation is rapidly becoming one of the most successful applications of data mining and machine learning. Understanding and predicting the choices and preferences of users is a challenging task: real-world scenarios involve users behaving in complex situations, where prior beliefs, specific tendencies, and reciprocal influences jointly contribute to determining the preferences of users toward huge amounts of information, services, and products. Probabilistic modeling represents a robus

  19. Special Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Association du personnel

    2011-01-01

    Are you a member of the Staff Association? Did you know that as a member you can benefit from the following special offers: BCGE (Banque Cantonale de Genève): personalized banking solutions with preferential conditions.     TPG: reduced rates on annual transport passes for active and retired staff.     Aquaparc: reduced ticket prices for children and adults at this Swiss waterpark in Le Bouveret.     Walibi: reduced prices for children and adults at this French attraction park in Les Avenières.       FNAC: 5% reduction on FNAC vouchers.       For more information about all these offers, please consult our web site: http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/Offers.html

  20. Special Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    Are you a member of the Staff Association? Did you know that as a member you can benefit from the following special offers: BCGE (Banque Cantonale de Genève): personalized banking solutions with preferential conditions.     TPG: reduced rates on annual transport passes for all active and retired staff.     Aquaparc: reduced ticket prices for children and adults at this Swiss waterpark in Le Bouveret.     Walibi: reduced prices for children and adults at this French attraction park in Les Avenières.       FNAC: 5% reduction on FNAC vouchers.       For more information about all these offers, please consult our web site: http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/Offers.html

  1. Ada training evaluation and recommendations from the Gamma Ray Observatory Ada Development Team

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1985-10-01

    The Ada training experiences of the Gamma Ray Observatory Ada development team are related, and recommendations are made concerning future Ada training for software developers. Training methods are evaluated, deficiencies in the training program are noted, and a recommended approach, including course outline, time allocation, and reference materials, is offered

  2. IMPLEMENTING HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS IN FINLAND

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sihvo, Sinikka; Ikonen, Tuija; Mäkelä, Marjukka

    2017-01-01

    Objectives: The Managed Uptake of Medical Methods Program (MUMM) started 10 years ago as a joint venture of the Finnish Office for Health Technology Assessment (Finohta) and the twenty hospital districts in Finland. The aim is to offer information on the effectiveness, safety, organizational...... in decision making. Conclusions: HTA-based MUMM recommendations were well received by physicians but in practice they are less used than clinical practice guidelines. Short-form electronic surveys were a useful way of gathering information about awareness and implementation. The surveys also functioned...... as another method of informing key physicians about the recommendations....

  3. Recommendations to enhance constructivist-based learning in Interprofessional Education using video-based self-assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dahmen, Uta; Schulze, Christine; Schindler, Claudia; Wick, Katharina; Schwartze, Dominique; Veit, Andrea; Smolenski, Ulrich

    2016-01-01

    Interprofessional collaboration is crucial to the optimization of patient care. This paper aims to provide recommendations for implementing an innovative constructivist educational concept with the core element of video-based self-assessment. A course for students in medicine, physiotherapy, and nursing was developed through interprofessional, cross-institutional collaboration. The course consisted of drawing on prior knowledge about the work done by each professional group in regard to a specific clinical scenario and an interprofessional treatment situation, filming a role play of this treatment situation, and a structured self-assessment of the role play. We evaluated the preparation and implementation of the three courses conducted thus far. Concrete recommendations for implementation were made based on evaluation sheets (students), open discussions (tutors, instructors, institutions) and recorded meeting minutes (project managers, project participants). Basic recommendations for implementation include: selecting appropriate criteria for self-assessment and a simulated situation that offers members of each professional group an equal opportunity to act in the role play. In terms of administrative implementation we recommend early coordination among the professions and educational institutions regarding the target groups, scheduling and attendance policy to ensure participant recruitment across all professions. Procedural planning should include developing teaching materials, such as the case vignette and treatment scenario, and providing technical equipment that can be operated intuitively in order to ensure efficient recording. These recommendations serve as an aid for implementing an innovative constructivist educational concept with video-based self-assessment at its core.

  4. What does rCBF-SPECT offer in schizophrenia?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Syed, G.M.S.; Barrett, J.J.; Toone, B.K.

    1992-01-01

    Schizophrenia is a major psychiatric problem common in the younger population. Structural imaging and findings on autopsy have not yet revealed a specific deficit in these patients. Uncertainty in clinical diagnosis based on a set of signs and symptoms is another drawback in the management of this patient population. Regional cerebral blood flow studies (rCBF) using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) offers the opportunity to study the underlying phenomenon and to detect the specific functional deficits in schizophrenia. (Author)

  5. Occupational Interests and Mentally Retarded People: Review and Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stodden, Robert A.; And Others

    1979-01-01

    The article reviews several studies regarding the choice of occupational interests for the mentally retarded adolescent. Several concerns about current evaluation practices are discussed. Recommendations are offered for a client centered, developmental model, making the evaluation of occupational interests a viable part of the client's…

  6. Design of a Real-Time and Continua-Based Framework for Care Guideline Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu-Feng Lin

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Telehealth is an important issue in the medical and healthcare domains. Although a number of systems have been developed to meet the demands of emerging telehealth services, the following problems still remain to be addressed: (1 most systems do not monitor/predict the vital signs states so that they are able to send alarms to caregivers in real-time; (2 most systems do not focus on reducing the amount of work that caregivers need to do, and provide patients with remote care; and (3 most systems do not recommend guidelines for caregivers. This study thus proposes a framework for a real-time and Continua-based Care Guideline Recommendation System (Cagurs which utilizes mobile device platforms to provide caregivers of chronic patients with real-time care guideline recommendations, and that enables vital signs data to be transmitted between different devices automatically, using the Continua standard. Moreover, the proposed system adopts the episode mining approach to monitor/predict anomalous conditions of patients, and then offers related recommended care guidelines to caregivers so that they can offer preventive care in a timely manner.

  7. PREDICTION OF DEMAND FOR PRIMARY BOND OFFERINGS USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michal Tkac

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: Primary bond markets represent an interesting investment opportunity not only for banks, insurance companies, and other institutional investors, but also for individuals looking for capital gains. Since offered securities vary in terms of their rating, industrial classification, coupon, or maturity, demand of buyers for particular offerings often overcomes issued volume and price of given bond on secondary market consequently rises. Investors might be regarded as consumers purchasing required service according to their specific preferences at desired price. This paper aims at analysis of demand for bonds on primary market using artificial neural networks.Design/methodology: We design a multilayered feedforward neural network trained by Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm in order to estimate demand for individual bonds based on parameters of particular offerings. Outcomes obtained by artificial neural network are compared with conventional econometric methods.Findings: Our results indicate that artificial neural network significantly outperformed standard econometric techniques and on examined sample of primary bond offerings achieved considerably better performance in terms of prediction accuracy and mean squared error.Originality: We show that proposed neural network is able to successfully predict demand for primary obligation offerings based on their specifications. Moreover, we identify relevant parameters of issues which are able to considerably affect total demand for given security.  Our findings might not only help investors to detect marketable securities, but also enable issuing entities to increase demand for their bonds in order to decrease their offering price. 

  8. Hybrid recommendation methods in complex networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fiasconaro, A; Tumminello, M; Nicosia, V; Latora, V; Mantegna, R N

    2015-07-01

    We propose two recommendation methods, based on the appropriate normalization of already existing similarity measures, and on the convex combination of the recommendation scores derived from similarity between users and between objects. We validate the proposed measures on three data sets, and we compare the performance of our methods to other recommendation systems recently proposed in the literature. We show that the proposed similarity measures allow us to attain an improvement of performances of up to 20% with respect to existing nonparametric methods, and that the accuracy of a recommendation can vary widely from one specific bipartite network to another, which suggests that a careful choice of the most suitable method is highly relevant for an effective recommendation on a given system. Finally, we study how an increasing presence of random links in the network affects the recommendation scores, finding that one of the two recommendation algorithms introduced here can systematically outperform the others in noisy data sets.

  9. A trajectory-based recommender system for tourism

    OpenAIRE

    Baraglia, Ranieri; Frattari, Claudio; Muntean, Cristina Ioana; Nardini, Franco Maria; Silvestri, Fabrizio

    2012-01-01

    Recommendation systems provide focused information to users on a set of objects belonging to a specific domain. The proposed recommender system provides personalized suggestions about touristic points of interest. The system generates recommendations, consisting of touristic places, according to the current position of a tourist and previously collected data describing tourist movements in a touristic location/city. The touristic sites correspond to a set of points of interest identified a pr...

  10. [Schools meals in French secondary state schools: compliance to national recommendations and schools catering patterns].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bertin, M; Lafay, L; Calamassi-Tran, G; Volatier, J-L; Dubuisson, C

    2011-02-01

    Recent reports on the lack of nutritional quality of meals served in schools have led public authorities to draft, in 1999, recommendations for restoring a balanced food supply. Following the survey carried out by the French food safety Agency in 2005-2006, which highlighted gaps in the implementation of these recommendations, a law passed in July 2010 plans to make these recommendations mandatory, as their 2007 revised version. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess initial school compliance with regard to this last revised version of the recommendations and to identify school patterns through their catering management and implication in a dietary project. Seven hundred and seven secondary state schools were questioned (570 were administrated by the Ministry of Education and 137 by the Ministry of Agriculture) on their catering practices. Twenty consecutive menus from each school were also analyzed with a specific coding system to establish its nutritional composition for comparison with the 2007 recommendations. On average, schools complied with half of the recommendations. Good compliance was observed with the 2007 recommendations concerning fried products, starchy foods, fruits, and dairy products whereas very few schools were in compliance with recommendations concerning fish, cheeses and sweetened desserts containing less than 15 % fat and more than 20 g of sugar per portion. Furthermore, compliance with recommendations was significantly better for lunch meals, and even better for agricultural establishments. A 5-component meal was also associated with greater compliance with the recommendations. In addition, four school patterns were identified based on catering management practices. The first two categories of establishments had knowledge of the recommendations but exhibited different levels of application. The last two types of establishments had no knowledge of the recommendations and differed in their catering management practices. Compliance

  11. USGEO DMWG Cloud Computing Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    de la Beaujardiere, J.; McInerney, M.; Frame, M. T.; Summers, C.

    2017-12-01

    The US Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) Data Management Working Group (DMWG) has been developing Cloud Computing Recommendations for Earth Observations. This inter-agency report is currently in draft form; DMWG hopes to have released the report as a public Request for Information (RFI) by the time of AGU. The recommendations are geared toward organizations that have already decided to use the Cloud for some of their activities (i.e., the focus is not on "why you should use the Cloud," but rather "If you plan to use the Cloud, consider these suggestions.") The report comprises Introductory Material, including Definitions, Potential Cloud Benefits, and Potential Cloud Disadvantages, followed by Recommendations in several areas: Assessing When to Use the Cloud, Transferring Data to the Cloud, Data and Metadata Contents, Developing Applications in the Cloud, Cost Minimization, Security Considerations, Monitoring and Metrics, Agency Support, and Earth Observations-specific recommendations. This talk will summarize the recommendations and invite comment on the RFI.

  12. Recommended Ventilation Strategies for Energy-Efficient Production Homes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Roberson, J.; Brown, R.; Koomey, J.; Warner, J.; Greenberg, S.

    1998-12-01

    This report evaluates residential ventilation systems for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) ENERGY STAR{reg_sign} Homes program and recommends mechanical ventilation strategies for new, low-infiltration, energy-efficient, single-family, ENERGY STAR production (site-built tract) homes in four climates: cold, mixed (cold and hot), hot humid, and hot arid. Our group in the Energy Analysis Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab compared residential ventilation strategies in four climates according to three criteria: total annualized costs (the sum of annualized capital cost and annual operating cost), predominant indoor pressure induced by the ventilation system, and distribution of ventilation air within the home. The mechanical ventilation systems modeled deliver 0.35 air changes per hour continuously, regardless of actual infiltration or occupant window-opening behavior. Based on the assumptions and analysis described in this report, we recommend independently ducted multi-port supply ventilation in all climates except cold because this strategy provides the safety and health benefits of positive indoor pressure as well as the ability to dehumidify and filter ventilation air. In cold climates, we recommend that multi-port supply ventilation be balanced by a single-port exhaust ventilation fan, and that builders offer balanced heat-recovery ventilation to buyers as an optional upgrade. For builders who continue to install forced-air integrated supply ventilation, we recommend ensuring ducts are airtight or in conditioned space, installing a control that automatically operates the forced-air fan 15-20 minutes during each hour that the fan does not operate for heating or cooling, and offering ICM forced-air fans to home buyers as an upgrade.

  13. Enabling Open Research Data Discovery through a Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devaraju, Anusuriya; Jayasinghe, Gaya; Klump, Jens; Hogan, Dominic

    2017-04-01

    Government agencies, universities, research and nonprofit organizations are increasingly publishing their datasets to promote transparency, induce new research and generate economic value through the development of new products or services. The datasets may be downloaded from various data portals (data repositories) which are general or domain-specific. The Registry of Research Data Repository (re3data.org) lists more than 2500 such data repositories from around the globe. Data portals allow keyword search and faceted navigation to facilitate discovery of research datasets. However, the volume and variety of datasets have made finding relevant datasets more difficult. Common dataset search mechanisms may be time consuming, may produce irrelevant results and are primarily suitable for users who are familiar with the general structure and contents of the respective database. Therefore, we need new approaches to support research data discovery. Recommender systems offer new possibilities for users to find datasets that are relevant to their research interests. This study presents a recommender system developed for the CSIRO Data Access Portal (DAP, http://data.csiro.au). The datasets hosted on the portal are diverse, published by researchers from 13 business units in the organisation. The goal of the study is not to replace the current search mechanisms on the data portal, but rather to extend the data discovery through an exploratory search, in this case by building a recommender system. We adopted a hybrid recommendation approach, comprising content-based filtering and item-item collaborative filtering. The content-based filtering computes similarities between datasets based on metadata such as title, keywords, descriptions, fields of research, location, contributors, etc. The collaborative filtering utilizes user search behaviour and download patterns derived from the server logs to determine similar datasets. Similarities above are then combined with different

  14. An Interactive Personalized Recommendation System Using the Hybrid Algorithm Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan Guo

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available With the rapid development of e-commerce, the contradiction between the disorder of business information and customer demand is increasingly prominent. This study aims to make e-commerce shopping more convenient, and avoid information overload, by an interactive personalized recommendation system using the hybrid algorithm model. The proposed model first uses various recommendation algorithms to get a list of original recommendation results. Combined with the customer’s feedback in an interactive manner, it then establishes the weights of corresponding recommendation algorithms. Finally, the synthetic formula of evidence theory is used to fuse the original results to obtain the final recommendation products. The recommendation performance of the proposed method is compared with that of traditional methods. The results of the experimental study through a Taobao online dress shop clearly show that the proposed method increases the efficiency of data mining in the consumer coverage, the consumer discovery accuracy and the recommendation recall. The hybrid recommendation algorithm complements the advantages of the existing recommendation algorithms in data mining. The interactive assigned-weight method meets consumer demand better and solves the problem of information overload. Meanwhile, our study offers important implications for e-commerce platform providers regarding the design of product recommendation systems.

  15. Improving mental health in families with autistic children: benefits of using video feedback in parent counselling sessions offered alongside music therapy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura K. Blauth

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Background This paper explores benefits of parent counselling offered alongside music therapy with children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD. Research studies have shown that the stress levels of primary caregivers of children with ASD are not only higher than in the general population but also higher than in parents of children with other developmental disabilities. It is therefore recommended that music therapists working with children with ASD also engage and support their parents. Participants and procedure In the international randomised controlled trial TIME-A, which investigates the effects of music therapy on the social communicative skills of autistic children, participating families are offered three parent counselling sessions. For this paper, 68 counselling sessions with 25 families were evaluated; 14 sessions were transcribed and subjected to a content analysis. Case examples illustrate the impact of concomitant parent counselling sessions on the families. Results The analysis generated emerging themes that were grouped into two categories: 1 Non-music therapy specific themes, and 2 Music therapy specific themes. The first category comprised four sub-groups: Exchange of information, Experiences with professionals/friends/society, Worries about the future, Personal/matrimonial problems. Music therapy specific themes were subdivided into the following groups: Working in a partnership, Empowering parents, Celebrating strengths, Rejoicing in child’s enjoyment. Challenges caused by the dual roles of music therapist and parent counsellor were outweighed by the benefits. In addition to the therapeutic effect of counselling, video material from the music therapy sessions helped carers to see their children’s strengths, to gain new ideas, and to develop a more positive outlook. Conclusions The findings support the provision of parent counselling sessions alongside music therapy for children with ASD. This study highlights that

  16. ISFG: Recommendations on biostatistics in paternity testing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gjertson, David W; Brenner, Charles H; Baur, Max P

    2007-01-01

    The Paternity Testing Commission (PTC) of the International Society for Forensic Genetics has taken up the task of establishing the biostatistical recommendations in accordance with the ISO 17025 standards and a previous set of ISFG recommendations specific to the genetic investigations...... in paternity cases. In the initial set, the PTC recommended that biostatistical evaluations of paternity are based on a likelihood ratio principle - yielding the paternity index, PI. Here, we have made five supplementary biostatistical recommendations. The first recommendation clarifies and defines basic...... concepts of genetic hypotheses and calculation concerns needed to produce valid PIs. The second and third recommendations address issues associated with population genetics (allele probabilities, Y-chromosome markers, mtDNA, and population substructuring) and special circumstances (deficiency...

  17. The Physician Recommendation Coding System (PhyReCS): A Reliable and Valid Method to Quantify the Strength of Physician Recommendations During Clinical Encounters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scherr, Karen A; Fagerlin, Angela; Williamson, Lillie D; Davis, J Kelly; Fridman, Ilona; Atyeo, Natalie; Ubel, Peter A

    2017-01-01

    Physicians' recommendations affect patients' treatment choices. However, most research relies on physicians' or patients' retrospective reports of recommendations, which offer a limited perspective and have limitations such as recall bias. To develop a reliable and valid method to measure the strength of physician recommendations using direct observation of clinical encounters. Clinical encounters (n = 257) were recorded as part of a larger study of prostate cancer decision making. We used an iterative process to create the 5-point Physician Recommendation Coding System (PhyReCS). To determine reliability, research assistants double-coded 50 transcripts. To establish content validity, we used 1-way analyses of variance to determine whether relative treatment recommendation scores differed as a function of which treatment patients received. To establish concurrent validity, we examined whether patients' perceived treatment recommendations matched our coded recommendations. The PhyReCS was highly reliable (Krippendorf's alpha = 0.89, 95% CI [0.86, 0.91]). The average relative treatment recommendation score for each treatment was higher for individuals who received that particular treatment. For example, the average relative surgery recommendation score was higher for individuals who received surgery versus radiation (mean difference = 0.98, SE = 0.18, P recommendations matched coded recommendations 81% of the time. The PhyReCS is a reliable and valid way to capture the strength of physician recommendations. We believe that the PhyReCS would be helpful for other researchers who wish to study physician recommendations, an important part of patient decision making. © The Author(s) 2016.

  18. Factors Associated With Forensic Nurses Offering HIV nPEP Status Post Sexual Assault.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Draughon, Jessica E; Hauda, William E; Price, Bonnie; Rotolo, Sue; Austin, Kim Wieczorek; Sheridan, Daniel J

    2015-09-01

    Nonoccupational, postexposure prophylaxis (nPEP) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is offered inconsistently to patients who have been sexually assaulted. This may be due to Forensic Nurse Examiner (FNE) programs utilizing diverse nPEP protocols and HIV risk assessment algorithms. This study examines factors associated with FNEs offering nPEP to patients following sexual assault at two FNE programs in urban settings. Offering nPEP is mostly driven by site-specific protocol. At Site 1, in addition to open anal or open genital wounds, the presence of injury to the head or face was associated with FNEs offering nPEP (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 64.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [2.12, 1942.37]). At Site 2, patients assaulted by someone of Other race/ethnicity (non-White, non-African American) were 86% less likely to be offered nPEP (AOR 0.14, 95% CI = [.03, .72]) than patients assaulted by Whites. In addition to following site-specific protocols, future research should further explore the mechanisms influencing clinician decision making. © The Author(s) 2014.

  19. NCBO Ontology Recommender 2.0: an enhanced approach for biomedical ontology recommendation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez-Romero, Marcos; Jonquet, Clement; O'Connor, Martin J; Graybeal, John; Pazos, Alejandro; Musen, Mark A

    2017-06-07

    Ontologies and controlled terminologies have become increasingly important in biomedical research. Researchers use ontologies to annotate their data with ontology terms, enabling better data integration and interoperability across disparate datasets. However, the number, variety and complexity of current biomedical ontologies make it cumbersome for researchers to determine which ones to reuse for their specific needs. To overcome this problem, in 2010 the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) released the Ontology Recommender, which is a service that receives a biomedical text corpus or a list of keywords and suggests ontologies appropriate for referencing the indicated terms. We developed a new version of the NCBO Ontology Recommender. Called Ontology Recommender 2.0, it uses a novel recommendation approach that evaluates the relevance of an ontology to biomedical text data according to four different criteria: (1) the extent to which the ontology covers the input data; (2) the acceptance of the ontology in the biomedical community; (3) the level of detail of the ontology classes that cover the input data; and (4) the specialization of the ontology to the domain of the input data. Our evaluation shows that the enhanced recommender provides higher quality suggestions than the original approach, providing better coverage of the input data, more detailed information about their concepts, increased specialization for the domain of the input data, and greater acceptance and use in the community. In addition, it provides users with more explanatory information, along with suggestions of not only individual ontologies but also groups of ontologies to use together. It also can be customized to fit the needs of different ontology recommendation scenarios. Ontology Recommender 2.0 suggests relevant ontologies for annotating biomedical text data. It combines the strengths of its predecessor with a range of adjustments and new features that improve its reliability

  20. Solving the apparent diversity-accuracy dilemma of recommender systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Tao; Kuscsik, Zoltán; Liu, Jian-Guo; Medo, Matús; Wakeling, Joseph Rushton; Zhang, Yi-Cheng

    2010-03-09

    Recommender systems use data on past user preferences to predict possible future likes and interests. A key challenge is that while the most useful individual recommendations are to be found among diverse niche objects, the most reliably accurate results are obtained by methods that recommend objects based on user or object similarity. In this paper we introduce a new algorithm specifically to address the challenge of diversity and show how it can be used to resolve this apparent dilemma when combined in an elegant hybrid with an accuracy-focused algorithm. By tuning the hybrid appropriately we are able to obtain, without relying on any semantic or context-specific information, simultaneous gains in both accuracy and diversity of recommendations.

  1. Offers

    CERN Document Server

    Staff Association

    2015-01-01

    New offer for our members. The Staff Association CERN staff has recently concluded a framework agreement with AXA Insurance Ltd, General-Guisan-Strasse 40, 8401 Winterthur. This contract allows you to benefit from a preferential tariff and conditions for insurances: Motor vehicles for passenger cars and motorcycles of the product line STRADA: 10% discount Household insurance (personal liability and household contents) the product line BOX: 10% discount Travel insurance: 10% discount Buildings: 10% discount Legal protection: 10% discount AXA is number one on the Swiss insurance market. The product range encompasses all non-life insurance such as insurance of persons, property, civil liability, vehicles, credit and travel as well as innovative and comprehensive solutions in the field of occupational benefits insurance for individuals and businesses. Finally, the affiliate AXA-ARAG (legal expenses insurance) completes the offer. Armed with your staff association CERN card, you can always get the off...

  2. A Stock Trading Recommender System Based on Temporal Association Rule Mining

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Binoy B. Nair

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Recommender systems capable of discovering patterns in stock price movements and generating stock recommendations based on the patterns thus discovered can significantly supplement the decision-making process of a stock trader. Such recommender systems are of great significance to a layperson who wishes to profit by stock trading even while not possessing the skill or expertise of a seasoned trader. A genetic algorithm optimized Symbolic Aggregate approXimation (SAX–Apriori based stock trading recommender system, which can mine temporal association rules from the stock price data set to generate stock trading recommendations, is presented in this article. The proposed system is validated on 12 different data sets. The results indicate that the proposed system significantly outperforms the passive buy-and-hold strategy, offering scope for a layperson to successfully invest in capital markets.

  3. Therapy Decision Support Based on Recommender System Methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gräßer, Felix; Beckert, Stefanie; Küster, Denise; Schmitt, Jochen; Abraham, Susanne; Malberg, Hagen; Zaunseder, Sebastian

    2017-01-01

    We present a system for data-driven therapy decision support based on techniques from the field of recommender systems. Two methods for therapy recommendation, namely, Collaborative Recommender and Demographic-based Recommender , are proposed. Both algorithms aim to predict the individual response to different therapy options using diverse patient data and recommend the therapy which is assumed to provide the best outcome for a specific patient and time, that is, consultation. The proposed methods are evaluated using a clinical database incorporating patients suffering from the autoimmune skin disease psoriasis. The Collaborative Recommender proves to generate both better outcome predictions and recommendation quality. However, due to sparsity in the data, this approach cannot provide recommendations for the entire database. In contrast, the Demographic-based Recommender performs worse on average but covers more consultations. Consequently, both methods profit from a combination into an overall recommender system.

  4. Mental Health Providers: Credentials, Services Offered and What to Expect

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... and specific services they offer Treatment approaches and philosophy Which insurance providers they work with Office hours, ... trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. © 1998-2018 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and ...

  5. Offering choice and its effect on Dutch children’s liking and consumption of vegetables: a randomized controlled trial

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zeinstra, G.G.; Renes, R.J.; Koelen, M.A.; Kok, F.J.; Graaf, de C.

    2010-01-01

    Background: Children's vegetable consumption is below recommended amounts. According to self-determination theory, stimulating children's feelings of autonomy by offering a choice of vegetables may be a valuable strategy to increase their vegetable liking and consumption. The effect of

  6. ICRS Recommendation Document

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Roos, Ewa M.; Engelhart, Luella; Ranstam, Jonas

    2011-01-01

    and function evaluated for validity and psychometric properties in patients with articular cartilage lesions. Results: The knee-specific instruments, titled the International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee Form and the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis and Outcome Score, both fulfill the basic......Abstract Objective: The purpose of this article is to describe and recommend patient-reported outcome instruments for use in patients with articular cartilage lesions undergoing cartilage repair interventions. Methods: Nonsystematic literature search identifying measures addressing pain...... constructs at all levels according to the International Classification of Functioning. Conclusions: Because there is no obvious superiority of either instrument at this time, both outcome measures are recommended for use in cartilage repair. Rescaling of the Lysholm Scoring Scale has been suggested...

  7. Compliance with recommendations for routine HIV screening during pregnancy in Halifax

    Science.gov (United States)

    Côté, Stephanie J; Halperin, Scott A

    2002-01-01

    BACKGROUND: The routine offering of testing for HIV during each pregnancy is recommended by various advisory bodies, including the Canadian Paediatric Society. OBJECTIVES: To determine the proportion of women in Nova Scotia who were counselled about HIV and HIV testing during their pregnancies and to determine the proportion of those who underwent the blood test after counselling. METHODS: A Self-administered survey at the IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia was performed. Questionnaires were distributed to 800 new mothers who delivered a child between March 10 and May 10, 2000. The questionnaire asked women for their ages, levels of education, history of previous deliveries, whether they had received counselling about HIV during their pregnancy, whether they were offered an HIV blood test and whether they underwent an HIV blood test. RESULTS: A total of 155 questionnaires were returned (response rate of 19.4%). The proportion of women who were counselled about HIV during their pregnancy was 65 of 155 (41.9%) (95% CI 34.1 to 49.7) and the proportion of those who were counselled who underwent the test was 47 of 65 (72.3%) (95% CI 65.3 to 79.3). There was a significant difference between the proportion counselled and history of previous deliveries (P=0.050), the proportion offered a test and their ages (P=0.028), and the proportion who had a test done and their ages (P=0.017). CONCLUSIONS: There is inadequate compliance with the recommendation that all women be offered HIV testing during each pregnancy at the IWK Health Centre. Health care professionals involved in obstetrics need to be reminded of the importance of HIV counselling and testing during pregnancy. Further evaluation throughout Canada of the effect of HIV screening recommendations during pregnancy is advisable. PMID:20046277

  8. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2012-01-01

    proposes the following offer: 15% discount for the Staff Association members who enroll their children in summer FUTUREKIDS activities. Extracurricular Activities For Your Children The FUTUREKIDS Geneva Learning Center is open 6 days a week and offers a selection of after-school extracurricular activities for children and teenagers (ages 5 to 16). In addition to teaching in its Learning Centers, Futurekids collaborates with many private schools in Suisse Romande (Florimont, Moser, Champittet, Ecole Nouvelle, etc.) and with the Département de l'Instruction Publique (DIP) Genève. Courses and camps are usually in French but English groups can be set up on demand. FUTUREKIDS Computer Camps (during school holidays) FUTUREKIDS Computer Camps are a way of having a great time during vacations while learning something useful, possibly discovering a new hobby or even, why not, a future profession. Our computer camps are at the forefront of technology. Themes are diverse and suit all ...

  9. Therapy Decision Support Based on Recommender System Methods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felix Gräßer

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available We present a system for data-driven therapy decision support based on techniques from the field of recommender systems. Two methods for therapy recommendation, namely, Collaborative Recommender and Demographic-based Recommender, are proposed. Both algorithms aim to predict the individual response to different therapy options using diverse patient data and recommend the therapy which is assumed to provide the best outcome for a specific patient and time, that is, consultation. The proposed methods are evaluated using a clinical database incorporating patients suffering from the autoimmune skin disease psoriasis. The Collaborative Recommender proves to generate both better outcome predictions and recommendation quality. However, due to sparsity in the data, this approach cannot provide recommendations for the entire database. In contrast, the Demographic-based Recommender performs worse on average but covers more consultations. Consequently, both methods profit from a combination into an overall recommender system.

  10. An effective collaborative movie recommender system with cuckoo search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rahul Katarya

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Recommender systems are information filtering tools that aspire to predict the rating for users and items, predominantly from big data to recommend their likes. Movie recommendation systems provide a mechanism to assist users in classifying users with similar interests. This makes recommender systems essentially a central part of websites and e-commerce applications. This article focuses on the movie recommendation systems whose primary objective is to suggest a recommender system through data clustering and computational intelligence. In this research article, a novel recommender system has been discussed which makes use of k-means clustering by adopting cuckoo search optimization algorithm applied on the Movielens dataset. Our approach has been explained systematically, and the subsequent results have been discussed. It is also compared with existing approaches, and the results have been analyzed and interpreted. Evaluation metrics such as mean absolute error (MAE, standard deviation (SD, root mean square error (RMSE and t-value for the movie recommender system delivers better results as our approach offers lesser value of the mean absolute error, standard deviation, and root mean square error. The experiment results obtained on Movielens dataset stipulate that the proposed approach may provide high performance regarding reliability, efficiency and delivers accurate personalized movie recommendations when compared with existing methods. Our proposed system (K-mean Cuckoo has 0.68 MAE, which is superior to existing work (0.78 MAE [1] and also has improvement of our previous work (0.75 MAE [2].

  11. Radiation alarms and access control systems: Recommendations of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1986-01-01

    In facilities where radioactive materials are handled, or where radiation-producing equipment is used, the building, the equipment, and the associated safety procedures should be designed and developed together to provide a safe work environment. The specific combination of requirements for a given facility is defined by the operational radiation safety program. It should be emphasized that this report describes a range of alarm and access control systems that can provide an acceptable level of safety at many types of facilities. Depending on circumstances, the solutions offered may not be appropriate for certain facilities because they are to restrictive, not restrictive enough, or do not cover all circumstances. The document is offered as a starting point providing ideas that professional health physicists can adapt to meet the needs of a particular situation. Under no circumstances should this report be interpreted in ''cookbook'' fashion, with literal adherence to every recommendation demanded, nor should it be expected to provide adequate protection in every case without consideration of local conditions

  12. Data Recommender: An Alternative Way to Discover Open Scientific Datasets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klump, J. F.; Devaraju, A.; Williams, G.; Hogan, D.; Davy, R.; Page, J.; Singh, D.; Peterson, N.

    2017-12-01

    Over the past few years, institutions and government agencies have adopted policies to openly release their data, which has resulted in huge amounts of open data becoming available on the web. When trying to discover the data, users face two challenges: an overload of choice and the limitations of the existing data search tools. On the one hand, there are too many datasets to choose from, and therefore, users need to spend considerable effort to find the datasets most relevant to their research. On the other hand, data portals commonly offer keyword and faceted search, which depend fully on the user queries to search and rank relevant datasets. Consequently, keyword and faceted search may return loosely related or irrelevant results, although the results may contain the same query. They may also return highly specific results that depend more on how well metadata was authored. They do not account well for variance in metadata due to variance in author styles and preferences. The top-ranked results may also come from the same data collection, and users are unlikely to discover new and interesting datasets. These search modes mainly suits users who can express their information needs in terms of the structure and terminology of the data portals, but may pose a challenge otherwise. The above challenges reflect that we need a solution that delivers the most relevant (i.e., similar and serendipitous) datasets to users, beyond the existing search functionalities on the portals. A recommender system is an information filtering system that presents users with relevant and interesting contents based on users' context and preferences. Delivering data recommendations to users can make data discovery easier, and as a result may enhance user engagement with the portal. We developed a hybrid data recommendation approach for the CSIRO Data Access Portal. The approach leverages existing recommendation techniques (e.g., content-based filtering and item co-occurrence) to produce

  13. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2015-01-01

    New season 2015-2016 The new season was revealed in May, and was warmly welcomed by the press, which is especially enthusiastic about the exceptional arrival of Fanny Ardand in September in the framework of Cassandre show. Discover the programme 2015-2016. The theatre La Comédie proposes different offers to our members Benefit from a reduction of 20 % on a full price ticket during all the season: from 38 CHF to 23 CHF ticket instead of 50 CHF to 30 CHF depending on the show. Buy two seasonal tickets at the price of one (offers valid upon availability, and until 30 september 2015) 2 Cards Libertà for 240 CHF instead of 480 CHF. Cruise freely through the season with 8 perfomances of your choice per season. These cards are transferrable, and can be shared with one or more accompanying persons. 2 Abo Piccolo for 120 CHF instead of 240 CHF. Let yourself be surprised a theatre performance with our discovery seasonal tickets, which includes 4 flagship perfomances for the season. ...

  14. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2013-01-01

    SPECIAL OFFER FOR OUR MEMBERS Prices Spring and Summer 2013 Day ticket: same price weekends, public holidays and weekdays: Children from 5 to 15 years old: 30 CHF instead of 39 CHF Adults from 16 years old: 36 CHF instead of 49 CHF Bonus! Free for children under 5 Tickets available at the Staff Association Secretariat.

  15. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Association du personnel

    2013-01-01

    SPECIAL OFFER FOR OUR MEMBERS Prices Spring and Summer 2013 Day ticket: same price weekends, public holidays and weekdays: – Children from 5 to 15 years old: 30 CHF instead of 39 CHF – Adults from 16 years old: 36 CHF instead of 49 CHF – Bonus! Free for children under 5 Tickets available at the Staff Association Secretariat.

  16. Semantic content-based recommendations using semantic graphs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Weisen; Kraines, Steven B

    2010-01-01

    Recommender systems (RSs) can be useful for suggesting items that might be of interest to specific users. Most existing content-based recommendation (CBR) systems are designed to recommend items based on text content, and the items in these systems are usually described with keywords. However, similarity evaluations based on keywords suffer from the ambiguity of natural languages. We present a semantic CBR method that uses Semantic Web technologies to recommend items that are more similar semantically with the items that the user prefers. We use semantic graphs to represent the items and we calculate the similarity scores for each pair of semantic graphs using an inverse graph frequency algorithm. The items having higher similarity scores to the items that are known to be preferred by the user are recommended.

  17. International short-term medical missions: a systematic review of recommended practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roche, Stephanie D; Ketheeswaran, Pavinarmatha; Wirtz, Veronika J

    2017-01-01

    To identify practices for conducting international short-term medical missions (STMMs) recommended in the literature and examine how these link STMMs to recipient countries' existing health systems. Systematic review of PubMed-indexed articles on STMMs and their bibliographies using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines. Recommendations were organized using the World Health Organization Health Systems Framework. In 92 publications, 67 % offered at least one recommendation that would link STMMs to the recipient country's health system. Among these recommendations, most focused on service delivery and few on health financing and governance. There is a lack of consensus around a proper standard of care, patient selection, and trip duration. Comprehensive global standards are needed for STMM work to ensure that services are beneficial both to patients and to the broader healthcare systems of recipient countries. By providing an overview of the current recommendations and important gaps where practice recommendations are needed, this study can provide relevant input into the development of global standards for STMMs.

  18. Association of American Universities Policy Recommendations for President-Elect Obama

    Science.gov (United States)

    Association of American Universities, 2008

    2008-01-01

    In this document, the Association of American Universities offers a series of research and technology policy recommendations that would help our nation to continue its global pre-eminence in science and high technology, improve the quality of life and national security of our citizens, and speed our nation's economic recovery. After policy…

  19. Evaluating Recommender Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning: A Quantitative Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erdt, Mojisola; Fernandez, Alejandro; Rensing, Christoph

    2015-01-01

    The increasing number of publications on recommender systems for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) evidence a growing interest in their development and deployment. In order to support learning, recommender systems for TEL need to consider specific requirements, which differ from the requirements for recommender systems in other domains like…

  20. Commentary: Recommendations and remaining questions for health care leadership training programs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stoller, James K

    2013-01-01

    Effective leadership is critical for optimizing cost, access, and quality in health care. Creating a pipeline of effective health care leaders requires developing leadership competencies that differ from the usual criteria of clinical and scientific excellence by which physicians have traditionally been promoted to leadership positions. Specific competencies that differentiate effective leaders from average leaders, especially emotional intelligence and its component abilities, are essential for effective leadership.Adopting a long-standing practice from successful corporations, some health care institutions, medical societies, and business schools now offer leadership programs that address these differentiating leadership competencies. The author draws on experience with such programs through the Cleveland Clinic Academy to provide recommendations for health care leadership training and to identify unanswered questions about such programs.The author recommends that such training should be broadly available to all health care leadership communities (i.e., nurses, administrators, and physicians). A progressive curriculum, starting with foundational concepts and extending to coaching and feedback opportunities through experiential learning, recognizes the challenge of becoming an effective leader and the long time line needed to do so. Linking leadership courses to continuing medical education and to graduate credit opportunities is appealing to participants. Other recommendations focus on the importance of current leaders' involvement in nominating emerging leaders for participation, embedding leadership development discussions in faculty's professional reviews, and blending discussion of frameworks and theory with practical, experiential lessons. The author identifies questions about the benefits of formal health care leadership training that remain to be answered.

  1. Consensus of recommendations guiding comparative effectiveness research methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morton, Jacob B; McConeghy, Robert; Heinrich, Kirstin; Gatto, Nicolle M; Caffrey, Aisling R

    2016-12-01

    Because of an increasing demand for quality comparative effectiveness research (CER), methods guidance documents have been published, such as those from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Our objective was to identify CER methods guidance documents and compare them to produce a summary of important recommendations which could serve as a consensus of CER method recommendations. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify CER methods guidance documents published through 2014. Identified documents were analyzed for methods guidance recommendations. Individual recommendations were categorized to determine the degree of overlap. We identified nine methods guidance documents, which contained a total of 312 recommendations, 97% of which were present in two or more documents. All nine documents recommended transparency and adaptation for relevant stakeholders in the interpretation and dissemination of results. Other frequently shared CER methods recommendations included: study design and operational definitions should be developed a priori and allow for replication (n = 8 documents); focus on areas with gaps in current clinical knowledge that are relevant to decision-makers (n = 7); validity of measures, instruments, and data should be assessed and discussed (n = 7); outcomes, including benefits and harms, should be clinically meaningful, and objectively measured (n = 7). Assessment for and strategies to minimize bias (n = 6 documents), confounding (n = 6), and heterogeneity (n = 4) were also commonly shared recommendations between documents. We offer a field-consensus guide based on nine CER methods guidance documents that will aid researchers in designing CER studies and applying CER methods. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  2. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2012-01-01

    SPECIAL OFFER FOR OUR MEMBERS Single tariff Adulte/Enfant Tickets “Zone terrestre” 20 euros instead of 25 euros. Access to Aqualibi: 5 euros instead of 8 euros on presentation of your ticket SA member. Free for children under 3, with limited access to the attractions. More information on our website : http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/Walibi.html

  3. Offering memorable patient experience through creative, dynamic marketing strategy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raţiu, M; Purcărea, T

    2008-01-01

    Creative, dynamic strategies are the ones that identify new and better ways of uniquely offering the target customers what they want or need. A business can achieve competitive advantage if it chooses a marketing strategy that sets the business apart from anyone else. Healthcare services companies have to understand that the customer should be placed in the centre of all specific marketing operations. The brand message should reflect the focus on the patient. Healthcare products and services offered must represent exactly the solutions that customers expect. The touchpoints with the patients must be well mastered in order to convince them to accept the proposed solutions. Healthcare service providers must be capable to look beyond customer's behaviour or product and healthcare service aquisition. This will demand proactive and far–reaching changes, including focusing specifically on customer preference, quality, and technological interfaces; rewiring strategy to find new value from existing and unfamiliar sources; disintegrating and radically reassembling operational processes; and restructuring the organization to accommodate new typess of work and skill. PMID:20108466

  4. Offering memorable patient experience through creative, dynamic marketing strategy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Purcărea, Victor Lorín; Raţíu, Monica; Purcărea, Theodor; Davila, Carol

    2008-01-01

    Creative, dynamic strategies are the ones that identify new and better ways of uniquely offering the target customers what they want or need. A business can achieve competitive advantage if it chooses a marketing strategy that sets the business apart from anyone else. Healthcare services companies have to understand that the customer should be placed in the centre of all specific marketing operations. The brand message should reflect the focus on the patient. Healthcare products and services offered must represent exactly the solutions that customers expect. The touchpoints with the patients must be well mastered in order to convince them to accept the proposed solutions. Healthcare service providers must be capable to look beyond customer's behaviour or product and healthcare service aquisition. This will demand proactive and far-reaching changes, including focusing specifically on customer preference, quality, and technological interfaces; rewiring strategy to find new value from existing and unfamiliar sources: disintegrating and radically reassembling operational processes: and restructuring the organization to accommodate new types of work and skill.

  5. Active offer of vaccinations during hospitalization improves coverage among splenectomized patients: An Italian experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallone, Maria Serena; Martino, Carmen; Quarto, Michele; Tafuri, Silvio

    2017-08-01

    In 2014, an Italian hospital implemented a protocol for pneumococcal, meningococcal, and Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccines offer to splenectomized patients during their hospitalization. After 1 year, coverage for recommended vaccinations increased from 5.7%-66.7% and the average time between splenectomy and vaccines administration decreased from 84.7-7.5 days. Copyright © 2017 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. 12 CFR 563g.21 - Filing of copies of offering circulars in certain exempt offerings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Filing of copies of offering circulars in certain exempt offerings. 563g.21 Section 563g.21 Banks and Banking OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY SECURITIES OFFERINGS § 563g.21 Filing of copies of offering circulars in certain...

  7. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2012-01-01

    SPECIAL OFFER FOR OUR MEMBERS Prices Spring and Summer 2012 Half-day ticket: 5 hours, same price weekends, public holidays and weekdays. Children from 5 to 15 years old: 26 CHF instead of 35 CHF Adults from 16 years old: 32 CHF instead of 43 CHF Bonus! Free for children under 5. Aquaparc Les Caraïbes sur Léman 1807 Le Bouveret (VS)

  8. AREVA announces US$ 7.75 Per share friendly cash offer for UraMin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2007-01-01

    AREVA and UraMin Inc. ('UraMin') entered on June 15, 2007 into an agreement in respect of AREVA's friendly cash offer for 100% of the share capital of UraMin. UraMin is listed in London (AIM) and Toronto (TSX). AREVA (Euronext Paris) already owns 5.5% of UraMin's share capital. This cash offer of AREVA will be made through its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary CFMM Development ('AREVA') based on a price of US$ 7.75 per UraMin share. The total offer consideration amounts to more than USD 2.5 billion for 100% of the fully diluted share capital of UraMin. This represents a premium of 21% over UraMin 20-day weighted average trading price ending on June 8, 2007. The UraMin Board of Directors, after consulting with its financial advisors, has determined that the offer is fair and in the best interest of the UraMin shareholders and it has resolved to recommend acceptance of the Offer. BMO Capital Markets has provided an opinion that the offer is fair, from a financial point of view, to the UraMin shareholders. In connection with the offer, all directors and certain other shareholders representing approximately 25% of the outstanding UraMin shares (calculated on a fully diluted basis) have entered into lock-up agreements with AREVA pursuant to which they have agreed to tender all their UraMin shares to AREVA's offer. The support agreement entered into between AREVA and UraMin provides for, among other things, in case a superior proposal is accepted by UraMin, a right to match in favour of AREVA. The support agreement also includes a break up fee in favour of AREVA of US$ 75 million under certain circumstances. Concurrently with the closing of the proposed offer, UraMin will declare a dividend payable in shares of the capital of Niger Uranium Limited held by UraMin (where permitted by law) or a cash equivalent of the value of such shares

  9. Creating adaptive web recommendation system based on user behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walek, Bogdan

    2018-01-01

    The paper proposes adaptive web recommendation system based on user behavior. The proposed system uses expert system to evaluating and recommending suitable items of content. Relevant items are subsequently evaluated and filtered based on history of visited items and user´s preferred categories of items. Main parts of the proposed system are presented and described. The proposed recommendation system is verified on specific example.

  10. Application of Recommended Design Practices for Conceptual Nuclear Fusion Space Propulsion Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Craig H.

    2004-01-01

    An AIAA Special Project Report was recently produced by AIAA's Nuclear and Future Flight Propulsion Technical Committee and is currently in peer review. The Report provides recommended design practices for conceptual engineering studies of nuclear fusion space propulsion systems. Discussion and recommendations are made on key topics including design reference missions, degree of technological extrapolation and concomitant risk, thoroughness in calculating mass properties (nominal mass properties, weight-growth contingency and propellant margins, and specific impulse), and thoroughness in calculating power generation and usage (power-flow, power contingencies, specific power). The report represents a general consensus of the nuclear fusion space propulsion system conceptual design community and proposes 15 recommendations. This paper expands on the Report by providing specific examples illustrating how to apply each of the recommendations.

  11. Presymptomatic ALS genetic counseling and testing: Experience and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benatar, Michael; Stanislaw, Christine; Reyes, Eliana; Hussain, Sumaira; Cooley, Anne; Fernandez, Maria Catalina; Dauphin, Danielle D; Michon, Sara-Claude; Andersen, Peter M; Wuu, Joanne

    2016-06-14

    Remarkable advances in our understanding of the genetic contributions to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have sparked discussion and debate about whether clinical genetic testing should routinely be offered to patients with ALS. A related, but distinct, question is whether presymptomatic genetic testing should be offered to family members who may be at risk for developing ALS. Existing guidelines for presymptomatic counseling and testing are mostly based on small number of individuals, clinical judgment, and experience from other neurodegenerative disorders. Over the course of the last 8 years, we have provided testing and 317 genetic counseling sessions (including predecision, pretest, posttest, and ad hoc counseling) to 161 first-degree family members participating in the Pre-Symptomatic Familial ALS Study (Pre-fALS), as well as testing and 75 posttest counseling sessions to 63 individuals with familial ALS. Based on this experience, and the real-world challenges we have had to overcome in the process, we recommend an updated set of guidelines for providing presymptomatic genetic counseling and testing to people at high genetic risk for developing ALS. These recommendations are especially timely and relevant given the growing interest in studying presymptomatic ALS. © 2016 American Academy of Neurology.

  12. Context-Aware Recommender Systems for Learning: A Survey and Future Challenges

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verbert, K.; Manouselis, N.; Ochoa, X.; Wolpers, M.; Drachsler, H.; Bosnic, I.; Duval, E.

    2012-01-01

    Recommender systems have been researched extensively by the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) community during the last decade. By identifying suitable resources from a potentially overwhelming variety of choices, such systems offer a promising approach to facilitate both learning and teaching tasks. As learning is taking place in extremely…

  13. Variation in Recommendation for Surgical Treatment for Compressive Neuropathy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hageman, Michiel G. H.; Becker, Stephanie J. E.; Bot, Arjan G. J.; Guitton, Thierry; Ring, David; Wahegaonkar, Abhijeet L.; Garcia, Aida E.; Schefer, Alan; Castillo, Alberto Perez; Terrono, Andrew L.; Gurman, Andrew W.; Apard, T.; Watkins, Barry; Ilyas, Asif; Hearon, Bernard F.; Wills, Brian P. D.; Wintman, Bruce I.; Swigart, Carrie; Spath, Catherine; Dario, Cesar; Miranda, Oliveira; Goldfarb, Charles A.; Cassidy, Charles; Metzger, Charles; Eaton, Charles; Wilson, Chris; Walsh, Christopher J.; Wilson, Christopher J.; Jones, Christopher M.; Young, Colby; Bottke, Craig A.; Osei, Daniel A.; Kirkpatrick, D. Kay; Tate, David; Polatsch, Daniel; Nelson, David L.; Kalainov, David M.; Lamey, David M.; Hanel, Doug; Ostrowski, David M.; Miller, David R.; McKee, Desirae M.; Shin, Eon K.; Ruchelsman, David; Bonatz, Ekkehard; Hofmeister, Eric P.; Fischer, Evan S.; Kaplan, F. Thomas D.; Fernandes, C. H.; Forigua, Jamie E.; Cayon Cayon, Fidel Ernesto; Raia, Frank J.; Walter, Frank L.; Frykman, Gary K.; Pess, Gary M.; Kuzma, Gary R.; Huemer, Georg M.; Byrd, Gregory Dee; Balfour, George W.; Caro, Gladys Cecilia Zambrano; Hernandez, German Ricardo; DeSilva, Gregory; Bamberger, H. Brent; Grunwald, H. W.; MccUtchan, Hal; Solomon, Harrison; Kimball, Hervey L.; Stuart, J. E. B.; Lin, Ines C.; Choueka, Jack; Reid, James G.; Boler, James M.; Pomerance, Jay; Johnson, Jeff W.; Yao, Jeffrey; Calandruccio, Jim; Green, Jennifer B.; Wolf, Jennifer Moriatis; Frankenhoff, Jessica A.; Oakey, Jerome W.; Fischer, Jochen; Howlett, John; Jiuliano, John; Erickson, John M.; McAuliffe, John; Evans, John P.; Taras, John; Boretto, Jorge G.; Isaacs, Jonathan; Di Giovanni, Jose Fernando; Nolla, Jose; Abzug, Joshua M.; Adams, Julie; Chivers, Karel; Prommersberger, Karl-Josef; Malone, Kevin J.; Lee, Kendrick; Halperin, Lawrence S.; Weiss, Lawrence; Benson, Leon; Lane, Lewis B.; Paz, Lior; Lattanza, Lisa; Palmer, M. Jason; Catalano, Louis; Richard, Marc J.; Rizzo, Marco; Boyer, Martin; Calcagni, Maurizio; Wood, Megan M.; Baskies, Michael; Grafe, Michael W.; Behrman, Michael; Jones, Michael; Quinn, Michael; Nancollas, Michael; Kessler, Michael W.; Pirela-Cruz, Miguel A.; Patel, Milan M.; Felipe, Naquira Escobar Luis; Harness, Neil G.; Akabudike, Ngozi M.; Horangic, Nicholas J.; Semenkin, Oleg M.; Leung, Nicky L.; McCulloch, Patrick T.; Owens, Patrick W.; Martineau, Paul A.; Bettinger, Paul; Guidera, Paul; Hoepfner, Peter E.; Sitaram, Prasad; DeNoble, Peter H.; Jebson, Peter; Coogan, Philip; Dantuluri, Phani; Gaston, R. Glenn; Nyszkiewicz, Ralf; Costanzo, Ralph M.; de Bedout, Ramon; Hauck, Randy; Fricker, Renato M.; GIlbert, Richard S.; Hutchison, Richard L.; Barth, Richard W.; Papandrea, Rick; Szabo, Robert M.; Gray, Robert R. L.; Nathan, Ross; Spruijt, Sander; Shatford, Russell; Klinefelter, Ryan; Sodha, Samir; Calfee, Ryan P.; Kakar, Sanjeev; Kaplan, Saul; Duncan, Scott F.; Mitchell, Scott; Dodds, Seth; Jacoby, Sidney M.; Kennedy, Stephen A.; Marczyk, Stanley Casimir; Dailey, Stephen W.; Kronlage, Steve; Alter, Steven; Beldner, Steven; McCabe, Steven J.; Hilliard, Stuart M.; Fischer, Thomas J.; Baxamusa, Taizoon; Taleb, C.; Varecka, Thomas F.; Wyrick, Theresa; Havenhill, Timothy G.; Siff, Todd; Knoll, Victoria D.; Patel, Vipul P.; Batson, W. Arnnold; Hammert, Warren C.; van Wyk, William J.

    2013-01-01

    Purpose It is our impression that there is substantial, unexplained variation in hand surgeon recommendations for treatment of peripheral mononeuropathy. We tested the null hypothesis that specific patient and provider factors do not influence recommendations for surgery. Methods Using a web-based

  14. Peptides of presenilin-1 bind the amyloid precursor protein ectodomain and offer a novel and specific therapeutic approach to reduce ß-amyloid in Alzheimer's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dewji, Nazneen N; Singer, S Jonathan; Masliah, Eliezer; Rockenstein, Edward; Kim, Mihyun; Harber, Martha; Horwood, Taylor

    2015-01-01

    β-Amyloid (Aβ) accumulation in the brain is widely accepted to be critical to the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Current efforts at reducing toxic Aβ40 or 42 have largely focused on modulating γ-secretase activity to produce shorter, less toxic Aβ, while attempting to spare other secretase functions. In this paper we provide data that offer the potential for a new approach for the treatment of AD. The method is based on our previous findings that the production of Aβ from the interaction between the β-amyloid precursor protein (APP) and Presenilin (PS), as part of the γ-secretase complex, in cell culture is largely inhibited if the entire water-soluble NH2-terminal domain of PS is first added to the culture. Here we demonstrate that two small, non-overlapping water-soluble peptides from the PS-1 NH2-terminal domain can substantially and specifically inhibit the production of total Aβ as well as Aβ40 and 42 in vitro and in vivo in the brains of APP transgenic mice. These results suggest that the inhibitory activity of the entire amino terminal domain of PS-1 on Aβ production is largely focused in a few smaller sequences within that domain. Using biolayer interferometry and confocal microscopy we provide evidence that peptides effective in reducing Aβ give a strong, specific and biologically relevant binding with the purified ectodomain of APP 695. Finally, we demonstrate that the reduction of Aβ by the peptides does not affect the catalytic activities of β- or γ-secretase, or the level of APP. P4 and P8 are the first reported protein site-specific small peptides to reduce Aβ production in model systems of AD. These peptides and their derivatives offer new potential drug candidates for the treatment of AD.

  15. Peptides of presenilin-1 bind the amyloid precursor protein ectodomain and offer a novel and specific therapeutic approach to reduce ß-amyloid in Alzheimer's disease.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nazneen N Dewji

    Full Text Available β-Amyloid (Aβ accumulation in the brain is widely accepted to be critical to the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD. Current efforts at reducing toxic Aβ40 or 42 have largely focused on modulating γ-secretase activity to produce shorter, less toxic Aβ, while attempting to spare other secretase functions. In this paper we provide data that offer the potential for a new approach for the treatment of AD. The method is based on our previous findings that the production of Aβ from the interaction between the β-amyloid precursor protein (APP and Presenilin (PS, as part of the γ-secretase complex, in cell culture is largely inhibited if the entire water-soluble NH2-terminal domain of PS is first added to the culture. Here we demonstrate that two small, non-overlapping water-soluble peptides from the PS-1 NH2-terminal domain can substantially and specifically inhibit the production of total Aβ as well as Aβ40 and 42 in vitro and in vivo in the brains of APP transgenic mice. These results suggest that the inhibitory activity of the entire amino terminal domain of PS-1 on Aβ production is largely focused in a few smaller sequences within that domain. Using biolayer interferometry and confocal microscopy we provide evidence that peptides effective in reducing Aβ give a strong, specific and biologically relevant binding with the purified ectodomain of APP 695. Finally, we demonstrate that the reduction of Aβ by the peptides does not affect the catalytic activities of β- or γ-secretase, or the level of APP. P4 and P8 are the first reported protein site-specific small peptides to reduce Aβ production in model systems of AD. These peptides and their derivatives offer new potential drug candidates for the treatment of AD.

  16. Evidence-informed recommendations for rehabilitation with older adults living with HIV: a knowledge synthesis

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Brien, Kelly K; Solomon, Patricia; Trentham, Barry; MacLachlan, Duncan; MacDermid, Joy; Tynan, Anne-Marie; Baxter, Larry; Casey, Alan; Chegwidden, William; Robinson, Greg; Tran, Todd; Wu, Janet; Zack, Elisse

    2014-01-01

    Objective Our aim was to develop evidence-informed recommendations for rehabilitation with older adults living with HIV. Design We conducted a knowledge synthesis, combining research evidence specific to HIV, rehabilitation and ageing, with evidence on rehabilitation interventions for common comorbidities experienced by older adults with HIV. Methods We included highly relevant HIV-specific research addressing rehabilitation and ageing (stream A) and high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions for common comorbidities experienced by older adults ageing with HIV (stream B). We extracted and synthesised relevant data from the evidence to draft evidence-informed recommendations for rehabilitation. Draft recommendations were refined based on people living with HIV (PLHIV) and clinician experience, values and preferences, reviewed by an interprofessional team for Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) (quality) rating and revision and then circulated to PLHIV and clinicians for external endorsement and final refinement. We then devised overarching recommendations to broadly guide rehabilitation with older adults living with HIV. Results This synthesis yielded 8 overarching and 52 specific recommendations. Thirty-six specific recommendations were derived from 108 moderate-level or high-level research articles (meta-analyses and systematic reviews) that described the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions for comorbidities that may be experienced by older adults with HIV. Recommendations addressed rehabilitation interventions across eight health conditions: bone and joint disorders, cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, mental health challenges, cognitive impairments, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. Sixteen specific recommendations were derived from 42 research articles specific to rehabilitation with older adults with HIV. The quality of evidence from which these

  17. Offers INTERSOCCER

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2014-01-01

      Summer Football camps   New offer to the members of the Staff Association – INTERSOCCER: 12% discount on summer football camps and courses for children (bilingual) so do not hesitate anymore!    

  18. A Cold Start Context-Aware Recommender System for Tour Planning Using Artificial Neural Network and Case Based Reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zahra Bahramian

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, large amounts of tourism information and services are available over the Web. This makes it difficult for the user to search for some specific information such as selecting a tour in a given city as an ordered set of points of interest. Moreover, the user rarely knows all his needs upfront and his preferences may change during a recommendation process. The user may also have a limited number of initial ratings and most often the recommender system is likely to face the well-known cold start problem. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to introduce a hybrid interactive context-aware tourism recommender system that takes into account user’s feedbacks and additional contextual information. It offers personalized tours to the user based on his preferences thanks to the combination of a case based reasoning framework and an artificial neural network. The proposed method has been tried in the city of Tehran in Iran. The results show that the proposed method outperforms current artificial neural network methods and combinations of case based reasoning with k-nearest neighbor methods in terms of user effort, accuracy, and user satisfaction.

  19. Offer

    CERN Multimedia

    CARLSON WAGONLIT TRAVEL

    2011-01-01

    Special offer   From 14th to 28th February 2011: no CWT service fee! For any new reservation of a holiday package (flight + hotel/apartment) from a catalog “summer 2011” For any additional information our staff is at your disposal from Monday – Friday, from 8h30 to 16h30. Phone number 72763 or 72797 Carlson Wagonlit Tavel, Agence du CERN  

  20. Group interventions for patients with cancer and HIV disease: part IV. Clinical and policy recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leszcz, Molyn; Sherman, Allen; Mosier, Julie; Burlingame, Gary M; Cleary, Trish; Ulman, Kathleen Hubbs; Simonton, Stephanie; Latif, Umaira; Strauss, Bernhard; Hazelton, Lara

    2004-10-01

    Group interventions have assumed a growing role in primary prevention and supportive care for cancer and HIV disease. Earlier sections of this Special Report examined empirical findings for these interventions and provided recommendations for future research. The current section offers brief recommendations for service providers, policymakers, and stakeholders. Group services now occupy an increasingly prominent place in primary prevention programs and medical settings. In previous sections of this Special Report (Sherman, Leszcz et al., 2004; Sherman, Mosier et al., 2004a, 2004b) we examined the efficacy of different group interventions at different phases of cancer or HIV disease, considered characteristics of the intervention and the participants that might influence outcomes, and discussed mechanisms of action. Methodological challenges and priorities for future research were highlighted. In this, the final section, we offer brief recommendations for service providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. We consider some of the barriers that constrain use of empirically-based group interventions and note how these programs might be implemented more widely and effectively.

  1. A Policy Language for Modelling Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abou El Kalam, Anas; Balbiani, Philippe

    While current and emergent applications become more and more complex, most of existing security policies and models only consider a yes/no response to the access requests. Consequently, modelling, formalizing and implementing permissions, obligations and prohibitions do not cover the richness of all the possible scenarios. In fact, several applications have access rules with the recommendation access modality. In this paper we focus on the problem of formalizing security policies with recommendation needs. The aim is to provide a generic domain-independent formal system for modelling not only permissions, prohibitions and obligations, but also recommendations. In this respect, we present our logic-based language, the semantics, the truth conditions, our axiomatic as well as inference rules. We also give a representative use case with our specification of recommendation requirements. Finally, we explain how our logical framework could be used to query the security policy and to check its consistency.

  2. Recommender System for E-Learning Based on Semantic Relatedness of Concepts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mao Ye

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Digital publishing resources contain a lot of useful and authoritative knowledge. It may be necessary to reorganize the resources by concepts and recommend the related concepts for e-learning. A recommender system is presented in this paper based on the semantic relatedness of concepts computed by texts from digital publishing resources. Firstly, concepts are extracted from encyclopedias. Information in digital publishing resources is then reorganized by concepts. Secondly, concept vectors are generated by skip-gram model and semantic relatedness between concepts is measured according to the concept vectors. As a result, the related concepts and associated information can be recommended to users by the semantic relatedness for learning or reading. History data or users’ preferences data are not needed for recommendation in a specific domain. The technique may not be language-specific. The method shows potential usability for e-learning in a specific domain.

  3. The Policy Recommendations of the Association of American Geographers as Reflected In the Ventura County Community College.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McDannold, Thomas A.

    A survey was conducted to identify the degree to which the Association of American Geographers (AAG) 1970 recommendations on geography programs in two-year colleges were reflected in geography programs offered in the Ventura County Community College District (California). Results indicated that the recommendations were followed to a great extent,…

  4. A Knowledge Based Recommender System with Multigranular Linguistic Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luis Martinez

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available Recommender systems are applications that have emerged in the e-commerce area in order to assist users in their searches in electronic shops. These shops usually offer a wide range of items that cover the necessities of a great variety of users. Nevertheless, searching in such a wide range of items could be a very difficult and time-consuming task. Recommender systems assist users to find out suitable items by means of recommendations based on information provided by different sources such as: other users, experts, item features, etc. Most of the recommender systems force users to provide their preferences or necessities using an unique numerical scale of information fixed in advance. In spite of this information is usually related to opinions, tastes and perceptions, therefore, it seems that is usually better expressed in a qualitative way, with linguistic terms, than in a quantitative way, with precise numbers. We propose a Knowledge Based Recommender System that uses the fuzzy linguistic approach to define a flexible framework to capture the uncertainty of the user's preferences. Thus, this framework will allow users to express their necessities in scales closer to their own knowledge, and different from the scale utilized to describe the items.

  5. A Literature Review on Recommender Systems Algorithms, Techniques and Evaluations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kasra Madadipouya

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available One of the most crucial issues, nowadays, is to provide personalized services to each individual based on their preferences. To achieve this goal, recommender system could be utilized as a tool to help the users in decision-making process offering different items and options. They are utilized to predict and recommend relevant items to end users. In this case an item could be anything such as a document, a location, a movie, an article or even a user (friend suggestion. The main objective of the recommender systems is to suggest items which have great potential to be liked by users. In modern recommender systems, various methods are combined together with the aim of extracting patterns in available datasets. Combination of different algorithms make prediction more convoluted since various parameters should be taken into account in providing recommendations. Recommendations could be personalized or non-personalized. In non-personalized type, selection of the items for a user is based on the number of the times that an item has been visited in the past by other users. However, in the personalized type, the main objective is to provide the best items to the user based on her taste and preferences. Although, in many domains recommender systems gained significant improvements and provide better services for users, it still requires further research to improve accuracy of recommendations in many aspects. In fact, the current available recommender systems are far from the ideal model of the recommender system. This paper reviews state of art in recommender systems algorithms and techniques which is necessary to identify the gaps and improvement areas. In addition to that, we provide possible solutions to overcome shortages and known issues of recommender systems as well as discussing about recommender systems evaluation methods and metrics in details.

  6. Preliminary recommendations of the Noise Working Group

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Legerton, M.L.

    1995-01-01

    In 1993 the DTI set up a Working Group largely consisting of independent experts on wind turbine noise. The main objectives of the Working Group were to define a framework which can be used to measure and rate the noise from wind turbines and to provide indicative noise levels thought to offer a reasonable degree of protection to wind farm neighbours and encourage best practice in turbine design and wind farm siting and layout. This paper presents the preliminary recommendations of the Working Group. (Author)

  7. LANet: An Enriched Knowledgebase for Location-aware Activity Recommendation System

    OpenAIRE

    Mazumder, Sahisnu

    2016-01-01

    Accumulation of large amount of location-specific reviews on web due to escalating popularity of Location-based Social Networking platforms like Yelp, Foursquare, Brightkite etc. in recent years, has created the opportunity to discover location-specific activities and develop myriads of location-aware activity recommendation applications. The performance and popularity of such recommendation applications greatly depend on the richness and accuracy of the back-end knowledgebase, which intern i...

  8. Offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2010-01-01

      Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10% reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Plus 20% reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * Next “vente privée” from 22th to 29th November 2010

  9. Offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

      Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10% reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Plus 20% reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * Next “vente privée” from 25th to 27th March 2011  

  10. Physical Activity Recommendations in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hartman, Jorine E.; Boezen, H. Marike; Zuidema, Menno J.; de Greef, Mathieu H. G.; ten Hacken, Nick H. T.; Boezen, Hendrika

    2014-01-01

    Background: Physical activity recommendations are hardly studied in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and specifically recommendations that are individualized to a patient's aerobic fitness level are not studied. Objectives: To compare individualized (relative) and

  11. 48 CFR 12.205 - Offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offers. 12.205 Section 12... ACQUISITION OF COMMERCIAL ITEMS Special Requirements for the Acquisition of Commercial Items 12.205 Offers. (a) Where technical information is necessary for evaluation of offers, agencies should, as part of market...

  12. Offer as a creative foundation of direct marketing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kocić Milan

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Investments into communications mix are specific because besides significant financial resources it also involves creative marketing ideas that are a result of imagination and experience. However, the application of direct marketing communication mix is like 'a cave on iceberg'. The visible aspect presented through promotional content is only a small part of the whole process including experts from different fields. The process of creation a new communication mix of direct marketing must fully use all the challenges posed by sophisticated technology. Direct marketing depicted by new technology (cable television, telemarketing and the Internet can substantially increase the competitive advantage of enterprises in attracting their customer's attention and creating their loyalty as well. The companies use the mentioned media more frequently in order to create such offers that will lead towards strengthening loyalty of the existing customers, while simultaneously attracting those customers who were previously making purchases with our direct competitors. Hence, an offer as a creatively designed marketing vehicle proposes a number of potential benefits to a client. However, the client will be able to claim those benefits only in the case when a customer takes action as suggested by a communicated message. Basically, those are 'the rules of the game' that regulate relationship between company and client in direct marketing. Creating offers which guide the process of direct marketing is in the domain of customer relations management. Without an attractive offer, consumers will not create any type of measurable response to a company and therefore relations with clients would never emerge. On the other hand, if a company fails to continuously follow client's needs and wants, those engaged in direct sales will not be able to create adequate offers that would satisfy clients and motivate them to repeat purchases. .

  13. Assessment and specific nutritional recommendations for women during and after pregnancy of twins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natalia Mira de Assumpção Werutsky

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To update and adjust nutritional recommendations for twin pregnancy during prenatal and postpartum periods in order to improve care provided to these women and ensure their quality of life, as well as to assess the practices adopted by the Institution and referral hospitals, in view of what was learned in specialized literature. Methods: This literature review was conducted by searching scientific papers in  databases (SciELO, Pubmed, Sibi, Medline, Lilacs, published from 1964 through 2006, as well as by surveying some authors directly by e-mail. Results: In studies selected, the age of pregnant women with twins was > 27, and the subjects were divided into three gestational periods ( 28 weeks gestational age. The nutritional program recommends: the intake of 3.000 to 4.000 kcal/day according to the pregnant body mass index (BMI, distributed as: proteins (20%, carbohydrates (40%, and fat (40%; in addition to the supplemental intake of 3 g of calcium, 1.2 g of magnesium, and 45 mg of zinc, with the prescription of two tablets of multivitamin per day after week 20. The daily diet must be divided into three meals and three snacks. The few studies found about these puerperal women recommended the addition of 500 to 600 calories/day per  child to ensure the production of the appropriate volume of milk to meet the necessary demand. Discussion: Research demonstrates that this program increases the gestational period and  newborns weight, and reduces the risk of prenatal and postpartum complications for mothers and children. The appropriate weight gain during pregnancy benefits the mother and their newborns, facilitating breast-feeding and milk volume production according to the demand. Comparing twin and single pregnant women there are differences related to weekly and total weight gain, recommendations for macro and micronutrients intake, number of portions, and nutritional status classification according to BMI. Conclusions: Nutritional

  14. Workers and the ICRP recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zerbib, J.C.

    1979-01-01

    In both the preparation and the application of the recommendations presented by the ICRP one important voice has been absent: that of the workers in the nuclear industry. A large number of specialists are studying their situation from all points of view, in their different capacities as workers, consumers and male or female members of the public, but this extensive study is being done without consulting them, without their opinion even being asked for. The paper discusses such deficiencies, in particular all those aspects which distinguish these recommendations from a legal text. The lack of conciseness in the definition of the limit which the average annual dose to a large group of workers must not exceed (500 mrad) is considered. The possibility of a large number of workers being exposed for a long period is not acceptable if the decision is left to the manager of a nuclear facility alone. Cost-benefit analysis, as it is described in the ICRP text, cannot be considered to provide credible protection from the point of view of workers. Moreover, the various ICRP recommendations fail to mention such important matters as allowance for low-dose effects, disparities in the social security coverage offered to various categories of workers in the event of occupational illness, and the increasing use of migrant workers for difficult decontamination and maitenance tasks. At a time when it is thought that nuclear technology can be standardized, the French Democratic Labour Confederation (CFDT) expresses its fears concerning the practical application of the ICRP recommendations; for example, the text of ICRP Publication 26 has not yet been translated into French, but Euratom has already proposed directives for its application in Member States

  15. Offers

    CERN Document Server

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    Banque cantonale de Genève (BCGE) The BCGE Business partner programme devised for members of the CERN Staff Association offers personalized banking solutions with preferential conditions. The advantages are linked to salary accounts (free account keeping, internet banking, free Maestro and credit cards, etc.), mortgage lending, retirement planning, investment, credit, etc. The details of the programme and the preferential conditions are available on our website: http://association.web.cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/BCGE.html.  

  16. The omni-relevance of surgery: how medical specialization shapes orthopedic surgeons' treatment recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudak, Pamela L; Clark, Shannon J; Raymond, Geoffrey

    2013-01-01

    This article examines treatment recommendations in orthopedic surgery consultations and shows how surgery is treated as "omni-relevant" within this activity, providing a context within which the broad range of treatment recommendations proposed by surgeons is offered. Using conversation analysis to analyse audiotaped encounters between orthopedic surgeons and patients, we highlight how surgeons treat surgery as having a special, privileged status relative to other treatment options by (1) invoking surgery (whether or not it is actually being recommended) and (2) presenting surgery as the "last best resort" (in relation to which other treatment options are calibrated, described and considered). This privileged status surfaces in the design and delivery of recommendations as a clear asymmetry: Recommendations for surgery are proposed early, in relatively simple and unmitigated form. In contrast, recommendations not for surgery tend to be delayed and involve significantly more interactional work in their delivery. Possible implications of these findings, including how surgeons' structuring of recommendations may shape patient expectations (whether for surgery or some alternative), and potentially influence the distribution of orthopedic surgery procedures arising from these consultations, are considered.

  17. A lexicographic approach to language policy and recommendations for future dictionaries

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tarp, Sven; Gouws, Rufus H.

    2008-01-01

    Language policy prevails at different levels and its formulation typically results in a prescriptive presentation of data. In their dictionaries, lexicographers have to respond to the deci­sions of language policy makers. In this regard dictionaries can adhere to a strict prescriptive policy...... by including only the prescribed forms. Dictionaries can also give a descriptive account of lan­guage use without making any recommendations or claims of correctness. Thirdly, dictionaries can be proscriptive by recommending certain forms, even if such a recommendation goes against the prescribed forms....... This article offers an overview of different levels of language policy and the prin­ciples of prescription, description and proscription. Examples are given to illustrate certain lexico­graphic applications of prescription. It is emphasised that access to relevant data is important to dictionary users...

  18. Recommendations for epidemiological studies on COPD

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bakke, P S; Rönmark, E; Eagan, T

    2011-01-01

    of the disease and definitions of the risk factors. Few community studies have examined phenotypes of COPD and included other ways of characterising the disease beyond that of spirometry. The objective of the present Task Force report is to present recommendations for the performance of general population...... for planning and performing an epidemiological study on COPD. The main message of the paper is that thorough planning is worth half the study. It is crucial to stick to standardised methods and good quality control during sampling. We recommend collecting biological markers, depending on the specific...

  19. Receipt of a pediatric liver offer as the first offer reduces waitlist mortality for adult women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ge, Jin; Gilroy, Richard; Lai, Jennifer C

    2018-03-31

    In liver transplantation, adults with small stature have a greater susceptibility to waitlist mortality. This may explain the persistent waitlist mortality disparity that exists for women. We hypothesized that women who receive early offers of pediatric donor livers have improved waitlist survival, and that preferentially offering these organs to women mitigates this sex-based disparity. We analyzed donor liver offers from 2010 to 2014. Adult candidates who received a first offer that ranked within the first three match run positions from the donors' perspective were classified based on gender and whether they received a pediatric versus adult offer. We used competing risks regression to associate first offer type and waitlist mortality. 8,101 waitlist candidates received a first offer that was ranked within the first three match run positions: 5.6% (293/5,202) men and 6.2% (179/2,899) women received a pediatric donor liver as their first offer. In multivariable analyses, compared to adult-first men, adult-first women (sHR1.33, 95%CI 1.17-1.51, p offer had a lower risk of waitlist mortality compared to those who receive adult offers. Our data provides a simple approach to mitigating the increased waitlist mortality experienced by women by incorporating donor and recipient size, as variables, into organ allocation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. © 2018 by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

  20. Variation in examination and treatment offers to patients with allergic diseases in general practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Dorte Gilså; Jarbøl, Dorte Ejg; Munck, Anders Peter

    2010-01-01

    in general practice to patients with allergic diseases, and to evaluate guideline compliance with respect to anaphylaxis emergency treatment kits. DESIGN: A questionnaire-based survey among general practitioners (GPs) about examination and treatment procedures offered in the surgery to patients with allergic...... recommendations for preparedness for anaphylactic shock in connection with allergy vaccine therapy were not fully implemented. CONCLUSION: General practice is substantially involved in the examination and treatment of patients with allergic diseases. There is room for further involvement of staff members...

  1. Whole dietary patterns to optimize cognitive function for military mission-readiness: a systematic review and recommendations for the field.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teo, Lynn; Crawford, Cindy; Yehuda, Rachel; Jaghab, Danny; Bingham, John J; Gallon, Matthew D; O'Connell, Meghan L; Chittum, Holly K; Arzola, Sonya M; Berry, Kevin

    2017-06-01

    Optimizing cognitive performance, particularly during times of high stress, is a prerequisite to mission-readiness among military personnel. It has been of interest to determine whether such performance could be enhanced through diet. This systematic review assesses the quality of the evidence for whole dietary patterns across various outcomes related to cognitive function in healthy adult populations to develop research recommendations for the military. PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, PsycInfo, and the Cochrane Library were searched. Peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials published in the English language were eligible. Fifteen included trials were assessed for methodological quality, and descriptive data were extracted. Of the 6 acceptable-quality studies, 1 demonstrated statistically nonsignificant results, whereas the other 5 showed conflicting results across the cognitive outcomes assessed. Due to the heterogeneity across the included studies, no recommendations could be reached concerning whether certain whole dietary patterns have an effect on cognitive outcomes in healthy populations. Specific recommendations for future research are offered. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Life Sciences Institute. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  2. Who are the adolescents saying "No" to cannabis offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burdzovic Andreas, Jasmina; Pape, Hilde; Bretteville-Jensen, Anne Line

    2016-06-01

    Adolescents who refuse direct cannabis offers and remain non-users represent a potentially very informative, yet surprisingly understudied group. We examined a range of risk and protective factors putatively associated with this poorly understood "cannabis-resilient" profile. Paper-and-pencil questionnaires assessing substance use, peer and family relations, and behavioral and personality characteristics were completed by 19,303 middle- and high-school students from 82 schools in Norway (response rate 84%) The lifetime prevalence of cannabis use was 7.6%. Another 10.4% reported no use of the drug despite having received recent cannabis offers. Results from the multinomial logistic regression revealed a set of characteristics differentiating adolescents who resisted such offers from those who: (a) neither received the offers nor used, and, more importantly, (b) used the drug. Specifically, parent-child relationship quality, negative drug-related beliefs, absence of close relationships with cannabis-users, low delinquency, no regular tobacco use, and infrequent alcohol intoxication were all associated with increased odds of being in the cannabis-resilient vs. cannabis-user group. This pattern of results was comparable across middle- and high-school cohorts, but the parent-child relationship quality and delinquency were significantly associated with cannabis-resilient vs. cannabis-use outcome only among younger and older adolescents, respectively. Among other low-risk characteristics, better relationships with parents and beliefs that drug use is problematic were associated with adolescents' refusals to accept cannabis offers. These results may have implications for novel preventive strategies targeting cannabis-exposed adolescents. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

  3. Reasons Low-Income Parents Offer Snacks to Children: How Feeding Rationale Influences Snack Frequency and Adherence to Dietary Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blaine, Rachel E; Fisher, Jennifer Orlet; Taveras, Elsie M; Geller, Alan C; Rimm, Eric B; Land, Thomas; Perkins, Meghan; Davison, Kirsten K

    2015-07-21

    Although American children snack more than ever before, the parental role in promoting snacking is not well understood. In 2012-2013 at baseline in an intervention study to prevent childhood obesity in low-income Massachusetts communities, n = 271 parents of children aged 2-12 years completed surveys regarding nutritive and non-nutritive reasons they offered children snacks, demographics, and dietary factors. An analysis of variance demonstrated that parents reported offering snacks (mean/week; standard deviation (SD)) for nutritive reasons like promoting growth (x̄ = 2.5; SD 2.2) or satisfying hunger (x̄ = 2.4; SD 2.1) almost twice as often as non-nutritive reasons like keeping a child quiet (x̄ = 0.7; SD 1.5) or celebrating events/holidays (x̄ = 0.8; SD 1.1). Parents reported giving young children (2-5 years) more snacks to reward behavior (1.9 vs. 1.1, p snacks to reward behavior (Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.83; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.70-0.99), celebrate events/holidays (OR = 0.72; 95% CI 0.52-0.99), or achievements (OR = 0.82; 95% CI 0.68-0.98). Parental intentions around child snacking are likely important targets for obesity prevention efforts.

  4. May I Suggest? Comparing Three PLE Recommender Strategies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felix Mödritscher

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Personal learning environment (PLE solutions aim at empowering learners to design (ICT and web-based environments for their learning activities, mashingup content and people and apps for different learning contexts. Widely used in other application areas, recommender systems can be very useful for supporting learners in their PLE-based activities, to help discover relevant content, peers sharing similar learning interests or experts on a specific topic. In this paper we examine the utilization of recommender technology for PLEs. However, being confronted by a variety of educational contexts we present three strategies for providing PLE recommendations to learners. Consequently, we compare these recommender strategies by discussing their strengths and weaknesses in general.

  5. Generic knowledge-based analysis of social media for recommendations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Graaff, V.; van de Venis, Anne; van Keulen, Maurice; de By, R.A.; Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn

    2015-01-01

    Recommender systems have been around for decades to help people find the best matching item in a pre-defined item set. Knowledge-based recommender systems are used to match users based on information that links the two, but they often focus on a single, specific application, such as movies to watch

  6. A Hybrid Recommender System Based on User-Recommender Interaction

    OpenAIRE

    Zhang, Heng-Ru; Min, Fan; He, Xu; Xu, Yuan-Yuan

    2015-01-01

    Recommender systems are used to make recommendations about products, information, or services for users. Most existing recommender systems implicitly assume one particular type of user behavior. However, they seldom consider user-recommender interactive scenarios in real-world environments. In this paper, we propose a hybrid recommender system based on user-recommender interaction and evaluate its performance with recall and diversity metrics. First, we define the user-recommender interaction...

  7. 48 CFR 225.503 - Group offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Group offers. 225.503... OF DEFENSE SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS FOREIGN ACQUISITION Evaluating Foreign Offers-Supply Contracts 225.503 Group offers. Evaluate group offers in accordance with FAR 25.503, but apply the evaluation...

  8. The influence of evaluation recommendations on instrumental and conceptual uses: A preliminary analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bourgeois, Isabelle; Whynot, Jane

    2018-06-01

    Evaluation recommendations are sometimes included in evaluation reports to highlight specific actions to be taken to improve a program or to make other changes to its operational context. This preliminary study sought to examine evaluation recommendations drawn from 25 evaluation reports published by Canadian federal government departments and agencies, in order to examine the evaluation issues covered and the focus of the recommendations. Our results show that in keeping with policy requirements, the evaluation recommendations focused on program relevance, effectiveness and efficiency and economy. Furthermore, a significant number of recommendations also focused on the implementation of more rigorous performance measurement strategies. The focus of the recommendations did not vary by publication date, recommendation type, and organizational sector. The findings also show that for the most part, the management responses produced as part of the broader evaluation process support the recommendations included in the report and identify specific timelines for implementation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. EANM-EORTC general recommendations for sentinel node diagnostics in melanoma

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Chakera, Annette H; Hesse, Birger; Burak, Zeynep

    2009-01-01

    -draining sentinel lymph nodes. If specific recommendations given cannot be based on evidence from original, scientific studies, referral is given to "general consensus" and similar expressions. The recommendations are designed to assist in the practice of referral to, performance, interpretation and reporting...

  10. Finding and Recommending Scholarly Articles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurtz, Michael J.; Henneken, Edwin A.

    2014-05-01

    The rate at which scholarly literature is being produced has been increasing at approximately 3.5 percent per year for decades. This means that during a typical 40 year career the amount of new literature produced each year increases by a factor of four. The methods scholars use to discover relevant literature must change. Just like everybody else involved in information discovery, scholars are confronted with information overload. Two decades ago, this discovery process essentially consisted of paging through abstract books, talking to colleagues and librarians, and browsing journals. A time-consuming process, which could even be longer if material had to be shipped from elsewhere. Now much of this discovery process is mediated by online scholarly information systems. All these systems are relatively new, and all are still changing. They all share a common goal: to provide their users with access to the literature relevant to their specific needs. To achieve this each system responds to actions by the user by displaying articles which the system judges relevant to the user's current needs. Recently search systems which use particularly sophisticated methodologies to recommend a few specific papers to the user have been called "recommender systems". These methods are in line with the current use of the term "recommender system" in computer science. We do not adopt this definition, rather we view systems like these as components in a larger whole, which is presented by the scholarly information systems themselves. In what follows we view the recommender system as an aspect of the entire information system; one which combines the massive memory capacities of the machine with the cognitive abilities of the human user to achieve a human-machine synergy.

  11. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2013-01-01

    Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10 % reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Plus 20 % reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * Next “vente privée” from 11th to 23rd November 2013 Please contact the Staff Association Secretariat to get the discount voucher.  

  12. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2014-01-01

    Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10 % reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. Plus 20 % reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. * Next “vente privée” from 24th September to 6th November 2014 Please contact the Staff Association Secretariat to get the discount voucher.  

  13. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2012-01-01

    Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10 % reduction on all products in the Sephora shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry all year round. Plus 20 % reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * next “vente privée” from 21st November to 1st December 2012 Please contact the Staff Association Secretariat to get the discount voucher.

  14. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2012-01-01

    Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10% reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Plus 20% reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * Next “vente privée” from 21st to 26th May 2012 Please contact the Staff Association Secretariat to get the discount voucher  

  15. 48 CFR 570.306 - Evaluating offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Evaluating offers. 570.306... Real Property 570.306 Evaluating offers. (a) You must evaluate offers solely in accordance with the... solicitation. The file must include the basis for evaluation, an analysis of each offer, and a summary of...

  16. Energy Content of U.S. Fast-Food Restaurant Offerings 14-Year Trends

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauer, Katherine W.; Hearst, Mary O.; Earnest, Alicia A.; French, Simone A.; Oakes, J. Michael; Harnack, Lisa J.

    2012-01-01

    Background Within the past decade there has been increasing attention to the role of fast food in the American diet, including a rise in legislative and media-based efforts that address the healthfulness of fast food. However, no studies have been undertaken to evaluate changes in the energy content of fast-food chain restaurant menu items during this period. Purpose To examine changes in the energy content of lunch/dinner menu offerings at eight of the leading fast-food chain restaurants in the U.S. between 1997/1998 and 2009/2010. Methods Menu offerings and nutrient composition information were obtained from archival versions of the University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center Food and Nutrient Database. Nutrient composition information for items was updated biannually. Changes in median energy content of all lunch/dinner menu offerings and specific categories of menu items among all restaurants and for individual restaurants were examined. Data were collected between 1997 and 2010 and analysis was conducted in 2011. Results Spanning 1997/1998 and 2009/2010, the number of lunch/dinner menu items offered by the restaurants in the study increased by 53%. Across all menu items, the median energy content remained relatively stable over the study period. Examining specific food categories, the median energy content of desserts and condiments increased, the energy content of side items decreased, and energy content of entrees and drinks remained level. Conclusions While large increases in the number of menu items were observed, there have been few changes in the energy content of menu offerings at the leading fast-food chain restaurants examined in this study. PMID:23079171

  17. Energy content of U.S. fast-food restaurant offerings: 14-year trends.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauer, Katherine W; Hearst, Mary O; Earnest, Alicia A; French, Simone A; Oakes, J Michael; Harnack, Lisa J

    2012-11-01

    Within the past decade, there has been increasing attention to the role of fast food in the American diet, including a rise in legislative and media-based efforts that address the healthfulness of fast food. However, no studies have been undertaken to evaluate changes in the energy content of fast-food chain restaurant menu items during this period. To examine changes in the energy content of lunch/dinner menu offerings at eight of the leading fast-food chain restaurants in the U.S. between 1997-1998 and 2009-2010. Menu offerings and nutrient composition information were obtained from archival versions of the University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center Food and Nutrient Database. Nutrient composition information for items was updated biannually. Changes in median energy content of all lunch/dinner menu offerings and specific categories of menu items among all restaurants and for individual restaurants were examined. Data were collected between 1997 and 2010 and analysis was conducted in 2011. Spanning 1997-1998 and 2009-2010, the number of lunch/dinner menu items offered by the restaurants in the study increased by 53%. Across all menu items, the median energy content remained relatively stable over the study period. Examining specific food categories, the median energy content of desserts and condiments increased, the energy content of side items decreased, and energy content of entrées and drinks remained level. Although large increases in the number of menu items were observed, there have been few changes in the energy content of menu offerings at the leading fast-food chain restaurants examined in this study. Copyright © 2012 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. 48 CFR 25.503 - Group offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Group offers. 25.503... PROGRAMS FOREIGN ACQUISITION Evaluating Foreign Offers-Supply Contracts 25.503 Group offers. (a) If the solicitation or an offer specifies that award can be made only on a group of line items or on all line items...

  19. 17 CFR 230.802 - Exemption for offerings in connection with an exchange offer or business combination for the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... connection with an exchange offer or business combination for the securities of foreign private issuers. 230... Offers and Business Combinations § 230.802 Exemption for offerings in connection with an exchange offer or business combination for the securities of foreign private issuers. Offers and sales in any...

  20. IRCAD recommendation on safe laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conrad, Claudius; Wakabayashi, Go; Asbun, Horacio J; Dallemagne, Bernard; Demartines, Nicolas; Diana, Michele; Fuks, David; Giménez, Mariano Eduardo; Goumard, Claire; Kaneko, Hironori; Memeo, Riccardo; Resende, Alexandre; Scatton, Olivier; Schneck, Anne-Sophie; Soubrane, Olivier; Tanabe, Minoru; van den Bos, Jacqueline; Weiss, Helmut; Yamamoto, Masakazu; Marescaux, Jacques; Pessaux, Patrick

    2017-11-01

    An expert recommendation conference was conducted to identify factors associated with adverse events during laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) with the goal of deriving expert recommendations for the reduction of biliary and vascular injury. Nineteen hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) surgeons from high-volume surgery centers in six countries comprised the Research Institute Against Cancer of the Digestive System (IRCAD) Recommendations Group. Systematic search of PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase was conducted. Using nominal group technique, structured group meetings were held to identify key items for safer LC. Consensus was achieved when 80% of respondents ranked an item as 1 or 2 (Likert scale 1-4). Seventy-one IRCAD HPB course participants assessed the expert recommendations which were compared to responses of 37 general surgery course participants. The IRCAD recommendations were structured in seven statements. The key topics included exposure of the operative field, appropriate use of energy device and establishment of the critical view of safety (CVS), systematic preoperative imaging, cholangiogram and alternative techniques, role of partial and dome-down (fundus-first) cholecystectomy. Highest consensus was achieved on the importance of the CVS as well as dome-down technique and partial cholecystectomy as alternative techniques. The put forward IRCAD recommendations may help to promote safe surgical practice of LC and initiate specific training to avoid adverse events. © 2017 Japanese Society of Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery.

  1. Recommendations on AECB draft licensing guides nos. 40,41,42

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1981-06-01

    This report contains the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Safety (ACNS) to the Atomic Energy Control Board concerning the draft AECB Licensing Guides 40, 41 and 42 which were issued subsequently as Consultative Documents Nos. 7, 8 and 9. Since the report focusses on points of principle or generic concern, most of its recommendations apply generally to all three documents, although some specific recommendations are included [fr

  2. Personalized links recommendation based on data mining in adaptive educational hypermedia systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Romero, C.; Ventura, S.; Delgado, J.A.; De Bra, P.M.E.; Duval, E.; Klamma, R.; Wolpers, M.

    2007-01-01

    In this paper, we describe a personalized recommender system that uses web mining techniques for recommending a student which (next) links to visit within an adaptable educational hypermedia system. We present a specific mining tool and a recommender engine that we have integrated in the AHA! system

  3. Areal thermal loading recommendations for nuclear waste repositories in salt

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Russell, J.E.

    1979-06-01

    This document gives a wider understanding of the history of the recommended thermal loadings in salt for both high-level waste (HLW) from fresh UO 2 -fueled, light-water reactors (LWR) with no recycle and spent unreprocessed fuel (SURF) from LWRs. Aspects of the current recommendations that need further study are identified. Finally, an interim set of design thermal-loading recommendations are given that have a common rationale of satisfying performance limits within our current state of knowledge. These recommendations are made on a generic rather than a site-specific basis. 11 figures, 5 tables

  4. The joint industry development of a recommended practice for the site specific assessment of mobile jackup units

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jones, D.E.; Bennett, W.T.; Hoyle, M.J.R.

    1993-01-01

    The mobile self-elevating (drilling) unit, or jack-up, has been central to the exploration and development of offshore oil and gas reserves. In recent years there has been an increased desire to benefit from the potential economics of using these units in longer term production roles either in association with a fixed platform or as a stand-alone facility. However, until recently there had been no concerted effort to develop a consistent and commonly accepted standard for general industry use in site specific assessment of jack-ups. This paper describes the background and work carried out to develop such a standard. The project is nearing completion and has resulted in the publication of a Guideline document. A Recommended Practice and associated Commentary are (at the time of writing) in the final stage of drafting for release to the project sponsors for trial and comment prior to issuing the first Edition early in 1994

  5. Finding Your Literature Match - A Physics Literature Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henneken, Edwin; Kurtz, Michael

    2010-03-01

    A recommender system is a filtering algorithm that helps you find the right match by offering suggestions based on your choices and information you have provided. A latent factor model is a successful approach. Here an item is characterized by a vector describing to what extent a product is described by each of N categories, and a person is characterized by an ``interest'' vector, based on explicit or implicit feedback by this user. The recommender system assigns ratings to new items and suggests items this user might be interested in. Here we present results of a recommender system designed to find recent literature of interest to people working in the field of solid state physics. Since we do not have explicit feedback, our user vector consists of (implicit) ``usage.'' Using a system of N keywords we construct normalized keyword vectors for articles based on the keywords of that article and its bibliography. The normalized ``interest'' vector is created by calculating the normalized frequency of keyword occurrence in the papers cited by the papers read.

  6. [Organizational recommendations for day surgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bontemps, Gilles

    2014-03-01

    In France, the delayed development of day surgery compared to other countries led the ANAP and the HAS in 2011 to enter into a joint work program to provide some reference guide for hospitals to change their practices to outpatient. In this context, organizational guidelines and operational tools were published in May 2013. The method of construction of the recommendations resulting from an original work that combined a three-fold approach: field vision by identifying the highlights of 15 hospitals selected for their representative performance and analyzing the risks of five voluntary hospitals, mobilization organizational theories from the social sciences, using 53 professional experts. The work concluded on 16 organizational recommendations under four forms (basic principles, strategic elements, operational elements and perspectives). These recommendations are accompanied by tools and guides diagnosis and implementation, as well as productions for further reflection. These organizational recommendations confirmed the specificity of day surgery, which is not related to the act, but to the organization, management and optimization of different flows of a hospital (patient flow, professional flows, logistical, informational…). The performance of a day surgery organization is linked to its ability to control its flow and anticipation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  7. Altered Mental Status: Current Evidence-based Recommendations for Prehospital Care

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ashley Sanello

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: In the United States emergency medical services (EMS protocols vary widely across jurisdictions. We sought to develop evidence-based recommendations for the prehospital evaluation and treatment of a patient with an acute change in mental status and to compare these recommendations against the current protocols used by the 33 EMS agencies in the State of California. Methods: We performed a literature review of the current evidence in the prehospital treatment of a patient with altered mental status (AMS and augmented this review with guidelines from various national and international societies to create our evidence-based recommendations. We then compared the AMS protocols of each of the 33 EMS agencies for consistency with these recommendations. The specific protocol components that we analyzed were patient assessment, point-of-care tests, supplemental oxygen, use of standardized scoring, evaluating for causes of AMS, blood glucose evaluation, toxicological treatment, and pediatric evaluation and management. Results: Protocols across 33 EMS agencies in California varied widely. All protocols call for a blood glucose check, 21 (64% suggest treating adults at <60mg/dL, and half allow for the use of dextrose 10%. All the protocols recommend naloxone for signs of opioid overdose, but only 13 (39% give specific parameters. Half the agencies (52% recommend considering other toxicological causes of AMS, often by using the mnemonic AEIOU TIPS. Eight (24% recommend a 12-lead electrocardiogram; others simply suggest cardiac monitoring. Fourteen (42% advise supplemental oxygen as needed; only seven (21% give specific parameters. In terms of considering various etiologies of AMS, 25 (76% give instructions to consider trauma, 20 (61% to consider stroke, and 18 (55% to consider seizure. Twenty-three (70% of the agencies have separate pediatric AMS protocols; others include pediatric considerations within the adult protocol. Conclusion: Protocols

  8. A Multi-context BDI Recommender System: from Theory to Simulation

    OpenAIRE

    Ben Othmane , Amel; Tettamanzi , Andrea G. B.; Villata , Serena; Le Thanh , Nhan

    2016-01-01

    International audience; In this paper, a simulation of a multi-agent recommender system is presented and developed in the NetLogo platform. The specification of this recommender system is based on the well known Belief-Desire-Intention agent architecture applied to multi-context systems, extended with contexts foradditional reasoning abilities, especially social ones. The main goal of this simulation study is, besides illustrating the usefulness and feasibility of our agent-based recommender ...

  9. Recommendations for the Return of Research Results to Study Participants and Guardians: A Report From the Children's Oncology Group

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandez, Conrad V.; Ruccione, Kathleen; Wells, Robert J.; Long, Jay B.; Pelletier, Wendy; Hooke, Mary C.; Pentz, Rebecca D.; Noll, Robert B.; Baker, Justin N.; O'Leary, Maura; Reaman, Gregory; Adamson, Peter C.; Joffe, Steven

    2012-01-01

    Purpose The Children's Oncology Group (COG) strongly supports the widely recognized principle that research participants should be offered a summary of study results. The mechanism by which to do so in a cooperative research group setting has not been previously described. Methods On the basis of a review of the available empirical and theoretic literature and on iterative, multidisciplinary discussion, a COG Return of Results Task Force (RRTF) offered detailed recommendations for the return of results to research study participants. Results The RRTF established guidelines for the notification of research participants and/or their parents/guardians about the availability of research results, a mechanism for and timing of sharing results via registration on the COG public Web site, the scope of the research to be shared, the target audience, and a process for creating and vetting lay summaries of study results. The RRTF recognized the challenges in adequately conveying complex scientific results to audiences with varying levels of health literacy and recommended that particularly sensitive or complex results be returned using direct personal contact. The RRTF also recommended evaluation of the cost, effectiveness, and impact of sharing results. Conclusion These recommendations provide a framework for the offering and returning of results to participants. They can be used by individual investigators, multi-investigator research collaboratives, and large cooperative groups. PMID:23109703

  10. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2014-01-01

    Passeport Gourmand   Are you dying for a nice meal? The “Passeport Gourmand” offers discounted prices to the members of the Staff Association (available until April 2015 and on sale in the Staff Association Secretariat): Passeport gourmand Ain / Savoie/ Haute Savoie: 56 CHF instead of 79 CHF. Passeport gourmand Geneva / neighbouring France:72 CHF instead of 95 CHF. To the members of the Staff Association: Benefit of reduced tickets: CHF 10 (instead of  18 CHF at the desk) on sale to the secretariat of the Staff Association, Building 510-R010 (in front of the Printshop).

  11. American Brachytherapy Society recommendations for reporting morbidity after prostate brachytherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nag, Subir; Ellis, Rodney J.; Merrick, Gregory S.; Bahnson, Robert; Wallner, Kent; Stock, Richard

    2002-01-01

    Purpose: To standardize the reporting of brachytherapy-related prostate morbidity to guide ongoing clinical practice and future investigations. Methods: Members of the American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) with expertise in prostate brachytherapy performed a literature review and, guided by their clinical experience, formulated specific recommendations for reporting on morbidity related to prostate brachytherapy. Results: The ABS recommends using validated, patient-administered health-related quality-of-life instruments for the determination of baseline and follow-up data regarding bowel, urinary, and sexual function. Both actuarial and crude incidences should be reported, along with the temporal resolution of specific complications, and correlated with the doses to the normal tissues. The International Prostate Symptom Score is recommended to assess urinary morbidity, and any dysuria, gross hematuria, urinary retention, incontinence, or medication use should be quantified. Likewise, the ''Sexual Health Inventory for Men,'' which includes the specific erectile questions of the International Index of Erectile Function, is the preferred instrument for reporting sexual function, and the loss of sexual desire, incidence of hematospermia, painful orgasm (orgasmalgia), altered orgasm intensity, decreased ejaculatory volume, use of erectile aids, and use of hormones for androgen deprivation should be quantified. The ABS recommends adoption of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group/European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer acute and late radiation morbidity scoring scheme for reporting rectal morbidity and noting the incidence of rectal steroid, laser, or antidiarrheal use. Conclusion: It is important to focus on health-related quality-of-life issues in the treatment of prostate cancer, because the control rates are very similar between appropriate treatment modalities. The ABS recommends using the International Prostate Symptom Score, International Index of

  12. Machine learning paradigms applications in recommender systems

    CERN Document Server

    Lampropoulos, Aristomenis S

    2015-01-01

    This timely book presents Applications in Recommender Systems which are making recommendations using machine learning algorithms trained via examples of content the user likes or dislikes. Recommender systems built on the assumption of availability of both positive and negative examples do not perform well when negative examples are rare. It is exactly this problem that the authors address in the monograph at hand. Specifically, the books approach is based on one-class classification methodologies that have been appearing in recent machine learning research. The blending of recommender systems and one-class classification provides a new very fertile field for research, innovation and development with potential applications in “big data” as well as “sparse data” problems. The book will be useful to researchers, practitioners and graduate students dealing with problems of extensive and complex data. It is intended for both the expert/researcher in the fields of Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning and ...

  13. Pharmacogenetics-based personalized therapy: Levels of evidence and recommendations from the French Network of Pharmacogenetics (RNPGx).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Picard, Nicolas; Boyer, Jean-Christophe; Etienne-Grimaldi, Marie-Christine; Barin-Le Guellec, Chantal; Thomas, Fabienne; Loriot, Marie-Anne

    2017-04-01

    More than 50 laboratories offer pharmacogenetic testing in France. These tests are restricted to a limited number of indications: prevention of serious adverse drug reactions; choice of most appropriate therapeutic option; dose adjustment for a specific drug. A very small proportion of these tests are mentioned in drug information labeling and the data provided (if any) are generally insufficient to ascertain whether a test is required and if it is useful. This article discusses the rationale for evaluating the performance and clinical usefulness of pharmacogenetics and provides, on behalf of the French national network of pharmacogenetics (RNPGx), three levels of recommendation for testing: essential, advisable, and possibly helpful. Copyright © 2017 Société française de pharmacologie et de thérapeutique. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  14. Physical activity recommendations: an alternative approach using energy expenditure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mudd, Lanay M; Rafferty, Ann P; Reeves, Mathew J; Pivarnik, James M

    2008-10-01

    Most adults do not meet the American College of Sports Medicine and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACSM/CDC) physical activity recommendations. Even fewer meet the more extreme Institute of Medicine (IOM) physical activity recommendations. Compliance with either recommendation has been conventionally assessed by combining frequencies and durations of self-reported activities. Leisure-time energy expenditure is a cumulative measure of activity that offers an alternative method of defining compliance. To calculate the leisure-time energy expenditure of adults complying with the ACSM/CDC or the IOM physical activity recommendations determined by conventional measures and to reexamine compliance with the IOM recommendation using energy expenditure criteria. National, cross-sectional data from the 2000 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System determined the mode, frequency, and duration of up to two leisure-time activities performed by adults. Four mutually exclusive activity groups (Non-, Low-, ACSM/CDC-, and IOM-Active) were defined on the basis of frequencies and durations of reported activities. Leisure-time energy expenditure (kcal x kg(-1) x wk(-1)) was calculated per respondent. The energy expenditure threshold for meeting the IOM recommendation was calculated as 21 kcal x kg(-1) x wk(-1). Of the 162,669 respondents included in the analyses, 29.9% were Nonactive, whereas 42.3%, 23.3%, and 4.5% were Low-, ACSM/CDC-, and IOM-Active, respectively. Median leisure-time energy expenditure values were 9.0, 27.4, and 63.0 kcal x kg(-1) x wk(-1) for Low-, ACSM/CDC-, and IOM-Active groups, respectively. When using energy expenditure criteria, compliance with the IOM recommendation rose to 27.7% of respondents. Compliance with the IOM physical activity recommendation dramatically increased when assessed by energy expenditure compared with conventional criteria, thereby highlighting the potential bias of conventional methods. A significant proportion of adults

  15. 48 CFR 225.7703-3 - Evaluating offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Evaluating offers. 225... Iraq or Afghanistan 225.7703-3 Evaluating offers. (a) Evaluate offers submitted in response to... Afghanistan, as follows: (1) If the low offer is an offer of a product or service from Iraq or Afghanistan...

  16. Improvements to Technical Specifications surveillance requirements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lobel, R.; Tjader, T.R.

    1992-12-01

    In August 1983 an NRC task group was formed to investigate problems with surveillance testing required by Technical Specifications, and to recommend approaches to effect improvements. NUREG-1024 (''Technical Specifications-Enhancing Safety Impact'') resulted, and it contained recommendations to review the basis for test frequencies; to ensure that the tests promote safety and do not degrade equipment; and to review surveillance tests so that they do not unnecessarily burden personnel. The Technical Specifications Improvement Program (TSIP) was established in December 1984 to provide the framework for rewriting and improving the Technical Specifications. As an element of the TSIP, all Technical Specifications surveillance requirements were comprehensively examined as recommended in NUREG-1024. The results of that effort are presented in this report. The study found that while some testing at power is essential to verify equipment and system operability, safety can be improved, equipment degradation decreased, and unnecessary personnel burden relaxed by reducing the amount of testing at power

  17. Youth injury prevention in Canada: use of the Delphi method to develop recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pike, Ian; Piedt, Shannon; Davison, Colleen M; Russell, Kelly; Macpherson, Alison K; Pickett, William

    2015-12-22

    The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey is one of very few cross-national health surveys that includes information on injury occurrence and prevention within adolescent populations. A collaboration to develop a Canadian youth injury report using these data resulted in, Injury among Young Canadians: A national study of contextual determinants. The objective of this study was to develop specific evidence-based, policy-oriented recommendations arising from the national report, using a modified-Delphi process with a panel of expert stakeholders. Eight injury prevention experts and a 3-person youth advisory team associated with a Canadian injury prevention organization (Parachute Canada) reviewed, edited and commented on report recommendations through a three-stage iterative modified-Delphi process. From an initial list of 27 draft recommendations, the modified-Delphi process resulted in a final list of 19 specific recommendations, worded to resonate with the group(s) responsible to lead or take the recommended action. Two recommendations were rated as "extremely important" or "very important" by 100 % of the expert panel, two were deleted, a further two recommendations were deleted but the content included as text in the report, and four were merged with other existing recommendations. The modified-Delphi process was an appropriate method to achieve agreement on 19 specific evidence-based, policy-oriented recommendations to complement the national youth injury report. In providing their input, it is noted that the injury stakeholders each acted as individual experts, unattached to any organizational position or policy. These recommendations will require multidisciplinary collaborations in order to support the proposed policy development, additional research, programming and clear decision-making for youth injury prevention.

  18. Tailoring pharmacotherapy to specific eating behaviours in obesity: Can recommendations for personalised therapy be made from the current data?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Carl A; Christiansen, Paul; Halford, Jason C G

    2017-08-01

    Pharmacotherapy provides an adjunct to behaviour modification in the management of obesity. There are a number of new drug therapies purportedly targeting appetite; liraglutide, and bupropion/naltrexone, which are European Medicines Agency and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, and lorcaserin and phentermine/topiramate, which have FDA approval only. Each of the six drugs, used singly or in combination, has distinct pharmacological, and presumably distinct behavioural, mechanisms of action, thus the potential to provide defined therapeutic options to personalise the management of obesity. Yet, with regard to pharmacotherapy for obesity, we are far from true personalised medicine. We review the limited mechanistic data with four mono and combination pharmacotherapies, to assess the potential for tailoring their use to target specific obesogenic behaviours. Potential treatment options are considered, but in the absence of adequate research in respect to effects of these drugs on eating behaviour, neural activity and psychological substrates that underlie poorly controlled eating, we are far from definitive therapeutic recommendations. Specific mechanistic studies and broader behavioural phenotyping, possibly in conjunction with pharmacogenetic research, are required to characterise responders for distinct pharmacotherapeutic options.

  19. Indonesian News Harvester and Recommender System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adi Wibowo

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available To provide convenience for the user that frequently read the news, a system to gather, classify, and provide news from several news websites in one place was needed. This system utilized a recommender system to provide only relevant news to the user. This research proposed a system architecture that used vector space model, and Rocchio relevance feedback to provide specific news recommendation to user’s feedback. The results are that the proposed system architecture can achieve the goal by using five levels of feedback from the user. However, the time needed to gather news is increasing exponentially in line with the number of terms gathered from articles.

  20. The Gender Equity Movement in Women's Sports: A Literature Review and Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karr-Kidwell, PJ; Sorenson, Karen

    This paper provides a review of the literature published between 1973 and 1993 related to the gender equity movement on varsity and collegiate levels of women's sports, and offers recommendations for women's sports into the 21st century. The paper focuses on the equity movement in the 20th century, including a historical perspective of women in…

  1. CEO performance appraisal: review and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newman, J F; Tyler, L; Dunbar, D M

    2001-01-01

    CEO performance appraisal (PA) is very valuable to an organization, but the chances of obtaining a PA of high quality decrease as executive responsibility increases. The realities of CEO PA are that it: (1) is inevitable; (2) is creative and complex; (3) involves politics; and (4) has a significant effect on the organization and the executive. PA is conducted for legal and social requirements, to enhance communication, to provide opportunities for improvement, and to relate performance to compensation. This article discusses several problems with chief executive officer (CEO) PA and the contemporary approaches that seek to improve it. Three fundamental areas for evaluation are identified: (1) organizational success; (2) areawide health status; and (3) professional role fulfillment. These provide an outline for successful healthcare PA. In addition to a discussion of the strategic considerations behind a successful CEO PA system, several recommendations are offered for the implementation of the annual evaluation process. The final goal of CEO PA is to link its results to CEO incentive compensation. It is strongly recommended that some portion of the CEO's salary directly hinge on his performance in two critical areas: organizational effectiveness and community health status.

  2. Mining and representing recommendations in actively evolving recommender systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Assent, Ira

    2010-01-01

    Recommender systems provide an automatic means of filtering out interesting items, usually based on past similarity of user ratings. In previous work, we have suggested a model that allows users to actively build a recommender network. Users express trust, obtain transparency, and grow (anonymous......) recommender connections. In this work, we propose mining such active systems to generate easily understandable representations of the recommender network. Users may review these representations to provide active feedback. This approach further enhances the quality of recommendations, especially as topics...... of interest change over time. Most notably, it extends the amount of control users have over the model that the recommender network builds of their interests....

  3. Cystic Fibrosis Colorectal Cancer Screening Consensus Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hadjiliadis, Denis; Khoruts, Alexander; Zauber, Ann G; Hempstead, Sarah E; Maisonneuve, Patrick; Lowenfels, Albert B

    2018-02-01

    Improved therapy has substantially increased survival of persons with cystic fibrosis (CF). But the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) in adults with CF is 5-10 times greater compared to the general population, and 25-30 times greater in CF patients after an organ transplantation. To address this risk, the CF Foundation convened a multi-stakeholder task force to develop CRC screening recommendations. The 18-member task force consisted of experts including pulmonologists, gastroenterologists, a social worker, nurse coordinator, surgeon, epidemiologist, statistician, CF adult, and a parent. The committee comprised 3 workgroups: Cancer Risk, Transplant, and Procedure and Preparation. A guidelines specialist at the CF Foundation conducted an evidence synthesis February-March 2016 based on PubMed literature searches. Task force members conducted additional independent searches. A total of 1159 articles were retrieved. After initial screening, the committee read 198 articles in full and analyzed 123 articles to develop recommendation statements. An independent decision analysis evaluating the benefits of screening relative to harms and resources required was conducted by the Department of Public Health at Erasmus Medical Center, Netherlands using the Microsimulation Screening Analysis model from the Cancer Innervation and Surveillance Modeling Network. The task force included recommendation statements in the final guideline only if they reached an 80% acceptance threshold. The task force makes 10 CRC screening recommendations that emphasize shared, individualized decision-making and familiarity with CF-specific gastrointestinal challenges. We recommend colonoscopy as the preferred screening method, initiation of screening at age 40 years, 5-year re-screening and 3-year surveillance intervals (unless shorter interval is indicated by individual findings), and a CF-specific intensive bowel preparation. Organ transplant recipients with CF should initiate CRC screening

  4. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2013-01-01

    The « Théâtre de Carouge » offers a 5.- CHF discount for all shows (30.- CHF instead of 35.- CHF) and for the season tickets "Premières représentations" (132.- CHF instead of 162.- CHF) and "Classique" (150.- CHF instead of 180.- CHF). Please send your reservation by email to smills@tcag.ch via your professional email address. Please indicate the date of your reservation, your name and firstname and your telephone number A confirmation will be sent by email. Your membership card will be asked when you collect the tickets. More information on www.tcag.ch and www.tcag.ch/blog/

  5. Intergenerational communication in the classroom: recommendations for successful teacher-student relationships.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibson, Sandra E

    2009-01-01

    Intergenerational communication between teacher and student is especially important today, because of the gaps of time and understanding that exist among four active generations--Traditionalist, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. Faculty have opportunities to be successful by learning the values, learning styles, past generational experiences, and current expectations of today's highly technologically competent students. Recommendations are offered for communication strategies in schools of nursing.

  6. A students' Needs-analysis Study of Translation Studies Curriculum offered at Master’s level in Iranian Universities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Navid Nasrollahi Shahri

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate the program of Translation Studies, offered in Iranian universities at the level of Master, in terms of its curriculum through a needs analysis model offered by Altschuld and Witkin (1995. To do so, after a review of the related literature and conducting a documentary analysis, the researchers chose to look at the issue from different perspectives. Current instructors, professionals who are involved in the business of translation and a number of graduated students were interviewed so as to gather enough data to design a questionnaire, which constitutes the backbone of the study. Since the study aimed at students’ perception, the survey was conducted on students of Translation Studies program, which was based on the interviews with instructors, graduates of the program and the professionals working in the market. Afterward, the questionnaire data were gathered and, subsequently, went under statistical procedures. Based on the results, the researchers came up with practical recommendations for curriculum renewal, based on the needs-analysis model adopted. As this study  has adopted a triangulation approach to investigate the curriculum, the results and recommendations, although limited, can be of great use to educators, curriculum developers and translator trainers in particular.

  7. Useful and usable alarm systems : recommended properties

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Veland, Oeystein; Kaarstad, Magnhild; Seim, Lars Aage; Foerdestroemmen, Nils T.

    2001-01-01

    This document describes the result of a study on alarm systems conducted by IFE in Halden. The study was initiated by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. The objective was to identify and formulate a set of important properties for useful and usable alarm systems. The study is mainly based on review of the latest international recognised guidelines and standards on alarm systems available at the time of writing, with focus on realistic solutions from research and best practice from different industries. In addition, IFE experiences gathered through specification and design of alarm systems and experimental activities in HAMMLAB and bilateral projects, have been utilized where relevant. The document presents a total of 43 recommendations divided into a number of general recommendations and more detailed recommendations on alarm generation, structuring, prioritisation, presentation and handling. (Author)

  8. 7 CFR 3560.656 - Incentives offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 15 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Incentives offers. 3560.656 Section 3560.656... AGRICULTURE DIRECT MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING LOANS AND GRANTS Housing Preservation § 3560.656 Incentives offers. (a) The Agency will offer a borrower, who submits a prepayment request meeting the conditions of § 3560...

  9. A Proposed Business Intelligent Framework for Recommender Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sitalakshmi Venkatraman

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available In this Internet age, recommender systems (RS have become popular, offering new opportunities and challenges to the business world. With a continuous increase in global competition, e-businesses, information portals, social networks and more, websites are required to become more user-centric and rely on the presence and role of RS in assisting users in better decision making. However, with continuous changes in user interests and consumer behavior patterns that are influenced by easy access to vast information and social factors, raising the quality of recommendations has become a challenge for recommender systems. There is a pressing need for exploring hybrid models of the five main types of RS, namely collaborative, demographic, utility, content and knowledge based approaches along with advancements in Big Data (BD to become more context-aware of the technology and social changes and to behave intelligently. There is a gap in literature with a research focus in this direction. This paper takes a step to address this by exploring a new paradigm of applying business intelligence (BI concepts to RS for intelligently responding to user changes and business complexities. A BI based framework adopting a hybrid methodology for RS is proposed with a focus on enhancing the RS performance. Such a business intelligent recommender system (BIRS can adopt On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP tools and performance monitoring metrics using data mining techniques of BI to enhance its own learning, user profiling and predictive models for making a more useful set of personalised recommendations to its users. The application of the proposed framework to a B2C e-commerce case example is presented.

  10. Ethics of reproductive technology: AFS recommendations, dissent.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCormick, R A

    1987-03-01

    The Ethics Committee of the American Fertility Society recently released its report, "Ethical Considerations of the New Reproductive Technologies." The report examines general ethical, legal, and biological aspects of and makes ethical recommendations on procreative technologies, from standard in vitro fertilization, through all its possible variations and accompaniments, including donor gametes and preembryos, surrogate mothers, and cryopreservation. The judgment of ethical acceptability of third-party involvement in reproductive technology is the report's weakest aspect. The potential impact of such participation was not sufficiently weighed because of primacy given to a single value: the provision of a baby to an individual couple, or even an individual, who could not otherwise have one. A dissent to the report is based on two analyses: Third-party involvement itself violates the marriage covenant, independent of any potential damaging effects or benefits, and relaxation of marital exclusivity could harm the marriage (and marriage in general) and the prospective child. The committee also failed to resolve the problem of preembryo status. Instead, it recommended that local programs offering reproductive assistance draw up their own policies.

  11. Clinical Recommendation: Vulvovaginitis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuckerman, Andrea; Romano, Mary

    2016-12-01

    Vulvovaginitis is a commonly encountered condition among prepubertal and adolescent females. The objective of this report is to provide the latest evidence regarding the diagnosis and management of vulvovaginitis in prepubertal and adolescent females. In this systematic review we used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation evidence system. Vulvovaginal complaints are common in the pediatric and adolescent age group. The patient's age in conjunction with history and associated complaints will guide evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment. Treatment should include counseling on hygiene and voiding techniques as well as therapy for any specific pathogens identified. Copyright © 2016.

  12. Offering Incentives from the Outside

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Emmanuel, Nikolas G.

    2017-01-01

    Incentives offer a good deal of underexplored opportunities to help manage conflict by encouraging political bargaining. This study has two primary objectives. First, it furthers the discussion of how external third parties can help manage conflicts. Second, it offers a typology of the available ...

  13. 48 CFR 570.203-3 - Soliciting offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Soliciting offers. 570.203... 570.203-3 Soliciting offers. (a) Solicit offers by providing each prospective offeror a proposed short..., evaluation procedures and submissions of offers. ...

  14. Roussely report: recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    2010-01-01

    A summary of the Roussely report on how to reinforce and support French nuclear industry, has been made public. This report recommends a series of measures. The main measures are: 1) the quick achievement in the best conditions possible of the Olkiluoto plant, 2) to assure the construction of Flamanville-3 under the best conditions of cost and delay, 3) to benefit totally from the feedback experiences of the construction of Olkiluoto and Flamanville-3 for the construction of Penly-3 and of the English program of EPR, 4) to confirm EDF as a leader for French industrial bids proposing nuclear power plants, 5) to diversify the offer of reactors for international bids, 6) to set a common body of rules for all the employees working in the nuclear sector in France, 7) to support the extension of service life of power reactors up to 60 years if safety is not at stake, 8) to promote French safety regulations at an international scale, and 9) to create a university of nuclear engineering. (A.C.)

  15. 43 CFR 12.715 - Evaluating offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Evaluating offers. 12.715 Section 12.715... Act-Supplies § 12.715 Evaluating offers. (a) Unless the head of the grantee organization or a designee at a level no lower than the grantee's designated awarding official determines otherwise, the offered...

  16. 32 CFR 536.64 - Final offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 32 National Defense 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Final offers. 536.64 Section 536.64 National... UNITED STATES Investigation and Processing of Claims § 536.64 Final offers. (a) When claims personnel... less than the amount claimed, a settlement authority will make a written final offer within his or her...

  17. [Menus offered in long-term care homes: quality of meal service and nutritional analysis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodríguez Rejón, Ana Isabel; Ruiz López, María Dolores; Malafarina, Vincenzo; Puerta, Antonio; Zuñiga, Antonia; Artacho, Reyes

    2017-06-05

    Institutionalization is a risk factor for malnutrition. Low energy intake and/or nutrient deficiencies are considered to be the main causes. To evaluate the quality of meals and meal service as well as the nutritional value of the main menus (regular menu, menu for diabetics, and pureed menu) offered in three long-term care (LTC) homes located in the metropolitan area of Granada (Spain). Cross-sectional study. A validated "quality of meals and meal service" set of indicators was applied. The menus were assessed by weighed food records on 14 consecutive days. The results were compared with the dietary reference intakes (DRIs) and the recommended number of servings. Important deficiencies in the quality of meals and meal service have been reported. Average energy varies from 1,788 to 2,124 kcal/day in the regular menus, from 1,687 to 1,924 kcal/day in the menus for diabetics, and from 1,518 to 1,639 kcal/day in the pureed menus. Average protein varied from 71.4 to 75.4 g/day, from 72.6 to 76.1 g/day, and from 50.5 to 54.7 g/day, respectively. None of the menus complied with the recommendations for fiber, potassium, magnesium, iodine, vitamin D, vitamin E, folate, nor for vegetables, fruit, milk products, olive oil, legumes, or nuts. It is necessary to ensure the implementation of regular routines for controlling the quality of meals and meal service as well as the nutritional value of the menus offered in LTC homes.

  18. Recommending Ads from Trustworthy Relationships in Pervasive Environments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francisco Martinez-Pabon

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The use of pervasive computing technologies for advertising purposes is an interesting emergent field for large, medium, and small companies. Although recommender systems have been a traditional solution to decrease users’ cognitive effort to find good and personalized items, the classic collaborative filtering needs to include contextual information to be more effective. The inclusion of users’ social context information in the recommendation algorithm, specifically trust in other users, may be a mechanism for obtaining ads’ influence from other users in their closest social circle. However, there is no consensus about the variables to use during the trust inference process, and its integration into a classic collaborative filtering recommender system deserves a deeper research. On the other hand, the pervasive advertising domain demands a recommender system evaluation from a novelty/precision perspective. The improvement of the precision/novelty balance is not only a matter related to the recommendation algorithm itself but also a better recommendations’ display strategy. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for a collaborative filtering recommender system based on trust, which was tested throughout a digital signage prototype using a multiscreen scheme for recommendations delivery to evaluate our proposal using a novelty/precision approach.

  19. 5 CFR 536.104 - Reasonable offer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 5 Administrative Personnel 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Reasonable offer. 536.104 Section 536.104... Provisions § 536.104 Reasonable offer. (a) For the purpose of determining whether grade retention eligibility or entitlement must be terminated under § 536.207 or 536.208, the offer of a position is a reasonable...

  20. The Chinese initial public offering market : underpricing, duration to listing and hot issue cycles

    OpenAIRE

    Guo, Haifeng

    2017-01-01

    This thesis conducts three empirical studies on the Chinese A-share initial public offering (IPO) market, specifically, underpricing and short-run underperformance, duration from offering to listing and hot and cold issuing cycles. Before the empirical analysis, the literature is reviewed associated with these three topics. In addition, this thesis presents an overview of the Chinese IPO market which is found to undergo an experiment period from 1984 to 1990, a transition period from 1991 to ...

  1. 46 CFR 201.144 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 8 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offer of proof. 201.144 Section 201.144 Shipping... PROCEDURE Evidence (Rule 14) § 201.144 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with an... accompany the record as the offer of proof. ...

  2. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Association du personnel

    2010-01-01

    THEATRE FORUM DE MEYRIN 1, place des Cinq-Continents 1217 Meyrin    Special offer for members of the Staff Association: Reduced ticket prices for the play Love is my sin (in English) from 15 to 17 March at 8.30pm http://www.forum-meyrin.ch/main.php?page=119&s=12   First category: 37 CHF instead of 46 CHF Second category (seats towards the sides): 30 CHF instead of 38 CHF Please present your CERN card and your Staff Association membership card at the ticket office. Ticket reservation: tel. 022 989 34 34 (from Monday to Friday 2pm to 6pm) or e-mail : billetterie@forum-meyrin.ch  

  3. Offer

    CERN Document Server

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    DETAILS OF THE AGREEMENT WITH BCGE The BCGE Business partner programme devised for members of the CERN Staff Association offers personalized banking solutions with preferential conditions. The advantages are linked to salary accounts (free account keeping, internet banking, free Maestro and credit cards, etc.), mortgage lending, retirement planning, investment, credit, etc. The details of the programme and the preferential conditions are available on the Staff Association web site and from the secretariat (http://cern.ch/association/en/OtherActivities/BCGE.html). To benefit from these advantages, you will need to fill in the form available on our site, which must then be stamped by the Staff Association as proof that you are a paid-up member.  

  4. New offer for our members

    CERN Document Server

    Staff Association

    2018-01-01

    Evolution 2, your specialist for Outdoor Adventures Be it for a ski lesson, a parachute jump or for a mountain bike descent, come live an unforgettable experience with our outdoor specialists. Benefit from a 10 % discount on all activities: Offer is open to SA members and their family members living in the same household, upon presentation of the membership card. Offer available for all bookings made between 1 June 2018 and 30 May 2019. Offer available on all the Evoltion2 sites. A wide range of summer and winter activities. More information on http://evolution2.com/ Contact and reservation : +33 (0)4.50.02.63.35 management@evolution2.com

  5. Solving the stability-accuracy-diversity dilemma of recommender systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hou, Lei; Liu, Kecheng; Liu, Jianguo; Zhang, Runtong

    2017-02-01

    Recommender systems are of great significance in predicting the potential interesting items based on the target user's historical selections. However, the recommendation list for a specific user has been found changing vastly when the system changes, due to the unstable quantification of item similarities, which is defined as the recommendation stability problem. To improve the similarity stability and recommendation stability is crucial for the user experience enhancement and the better understanding of user interests. While the stability as well as accuracy of recommendation could be guaranteed by recommending only popular items, studies have been addressing the necessity of diversity which requires the system to recommend unpopular items. By ranking the similarities in terms of stability and considering only the most stable ones, we present a top- n-stability method based on the Heat Conduction algorithm (denoted as TNS-HC henceforth) for solving the stability-accuracy-diversity dilemma. Experiments on four benchmark data sets indicate that the TNS-HC algorithm could significantly improve the recommendation stability and accuracy simultaneously and still retain the high-diversity nature of the Heat Conduction algorithm. Furthermore, we compare the performance of the TNS-HC algorithm with a number of benchmark recommendation algorithms. The result suggests that the TNS-HC algorithm is more efficient in solving the stability-accuracy-diversity triple dilemma of recommender systems.

  6. Cardiovascular Update: Risk, Guidelines, and Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pearson, Tamera

    2015-09-01

    This article provides an update of the current status of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the United States, including a brief review of the underlying pathophysiology and epidemiology. This article presents a discussion of the latest American Heart Association guidelines that introduce the concept of promoting ideal cardiovascular health, defined by seven identified metrics. Specific CVD risk factors and utilization of the 10-year CVD event prediction calculator are discussed. In addition, current management recommendations of health-related conditions that increase risk for CVD, such as hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, are provided. Finally, a discussion of detailed evidence-based lifestyle recommendations to promote cardiovascular health and reduce CVD risks concludes the update. © 2015 The Author(s).

  7. A kidney offer acceptance decision tool to inform the decision to accept an offer or wait for a better kidney.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wey, Andrew; Salkowski, Nicholas; Kremers, Walter K; Schaffhausen, Cory R; Kasiske, Bertram L; Israni, Ajay K; Snyder, Jon J

    2018-04-01

    We developed a kidney offer acceptance decision tool to predict the probability of graft survival and patient survival for first-time kidney-alone candidates after an offer is accepted or declined, and we characterized the effect of restricting the donor pool with a maximum acceptable kidney donor profile index (KDPI). For accepted offers, Cox proportional hazards models estimated these probabilities using transplanted kidneys. For declined offers, these probabilities were estimated by considering the experience of similar candidates who declined offers and the probability that declining would lead to these outcomes. We randomly selected 5000 declined offers and estimated these probabilities 3 years post-offer had the offers been accepted or declined. Predicted outcomes for declined offers were well calibrated (offers been accepted, the probabilities of graft survival and patient survival were typically higher. However, these advantages attenuated or disappeared with higher KDPI, candidate priority, and local donor supply. Donor pool restrictions were associated with worse 3-year outcomes, especially for candidates with high allocation priority. The kidney offer acceptance decision tool could inform offer acceptance by characterizing the potential risk-benefit trade-off associated with accepting or declining an offer. © 2017 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

  8. Venture capital and risk management: evidence from initial public offerings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Charles E. Bamford

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available In this study we analyze a sample of initial public offerings (IPOs to infer the sources of firm-specific risk associated with investment by venture capitalists. The results indicate that IPO backing by venture capitalists is associated with risk factors related to operating profit margins and ongoing sales generation, but not operational financing. The results also indicate that venture-backed IPOs are associated with greater reductions in firm-specific risk over the course of a year that includes the date of the IPO. In sum, the findings suggest venture capitalists are willing to accept higher levels of uncertainty in those instances where they have an advantage in terms of managerial skill, and are able to reduce firm-specific risk subsequent to investment in order to maximize returns when they cash out. Our study also makes use of proxies that are representative of the ex-ante nature of firm-specific risk at the time of a new issue

  9. Research, Perspectives, and Recommendations on Implementing the Flipped Classroom.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rotellar, Cristina; Cain, Jeff

    2016-03-25

    Flipped or inverted classrooms have become increasingly popular, and sometimes controversial, within higher education. Many educators have touted the potential benefits of this model and initial research regarding implementation has been primarily positive. The rationale behind the flipped classroom methodology is to increase student engagement with content, increase and improve faculty contact time with students, and enhance learning. This paper presents a summary of primary literature regarding flipped classrooms, discusses concerns and unanswered questions from both a student and faculty member perspective, and offers recommendations regarding implementation.

  10. Adherence to nutritional recommendations in vending machines at secondary schools in Madrid (Spain), 2014-2015.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monroy-Parada, Doris Xiomara; Jácome-González, María Luisa; Moya-Geromini, María Ángeles; Rodríguez-Artalejo, Fernando; Royo-Bordonada, Miguel Ángel

    2017-07-13

    To describe the nutritional content of products offered in food and drink vending machines at secondary schools in the Madrid Autonomous Community (Spain), and to evaluate these items' adherence to the nutritional recommendations of the National Health System Consensus Document on School Food. Cross-sectional study of a sample of 330 secondary schools in Madrid across the period 2014-2015. Secondary school vending machines were identified by telephone interview. The products offered in a representative sample of six machines were identified by inspection in situ, and their nutritional composition was obtained from the labelling. A total of 94.5% of the 55 products on offer failed to comply with at least one nutritional criterion of the Consensus Document on School Food. The recommendation relating to sugar content registered the highest level of non-compliance, with 52.7% of products, followed by the recommendations relating to energy (47.3%) and fats (45.5%). The mean number of unmet criteria was 2.2, with this figure being higher in foods than in drinks (2.8 versus 1; p <0.01). Almost all the products on display in secondary school vending machines in Madrid were in breach of the Consensus Document on School Food, mainly due to an excess of calories, sugars and fats. Compulsory nutritional criteria and a procedure for monitoring adherence should be established, specifying those responsible for performing this task and the corrective measures to be applied in the event of non-compliance. Copyright © 2017 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  11. Factors associated with a clinician's offer of screening HIV-positive patients for sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heller, R; Fernando, I; MacDougall, M

    2011-06-01

    This retrospective study assessed whether Quality Improvement Scotland national standards for the sexual health care offered to HIV-positive individuals are being met by the Edinburgh genitourinary (GU) medicine clinic; specifically whether HIV-positive patients are offered: (a) sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening annually and (b) syphilis testing six-monthly. The study also reviewed what factors were associated with a clinician's offer of STI screening and syphilis testing. Of the 509 patients seen within the study period, case notes documented that 64% were offered STI screens, and 69% were offered syphilis testing, results consistent with audits of services elsewhere. Sexual orientation (P offer of STI screening, while gender (P offer of syphilis testing. Our results suggest that one explanation for clinicians failing to offer STI screens and syphilis serology testing is their (implicit) risk assessment that STI testing is not required in individual patients.

  12. A Recommendation System to Facilitate Business Process Modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deng, Shuiguang; Wang, Dongjing; Li, Ying; Cao, Bin; Yin, Jianwei; Wu, Zhaohui; Zhou, Mengchu

    2017-06-01

    This paper presents a system that utilizes process recommendation technology to help design new business processes from scratch in an efficient and accurate way. The proposed system consists of two phases: 1) offline mining and 2) online recommendation. At the first phase, it mines relations among activity nodes from existing processes in repository, and then stores the extracted relations as patterns in a database. At the second phase, it compares the new process under construction with the premined patterns, and recommends proper activity nodes of the most matching patterns to help build a new process. Specifically, there are three different online recommendation strategies in this system. Experiments on both real and synthetic datasets are conducted to compare the proposed approaches with the other state-of-the-art ones, and the results show that the proposed approaches outperform them in terms of accuracy and efficiency.

  13. Footwear recommendations and patterns among orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeons: a survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farber, Daniel C; Knutsen, Elisa J

    2013-12-01

    Foot and ankle surgeons are in a unique position to educate patients about the importance of proper footwear. Neither their recommendations regarding shoe selection nor their own footwear patterns have previously been reported. A total of 866 members of the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) were asked to complete a survey via the Internet. Topics included specific shoe brands recommended to patients, how attributes of footwear are communicated, and respondents' footwear habits. In all, 276 (32%) surgeons responded, and 64% recommended New Balance athletic shoes to patients; 26% did not recommend specific brands. It was found that 50% wear New Balance athletic shoes; 25% wear Nike. Rockport (27%) and SAS (27%) were the most recommended dress shoes. In all, 76% are familiar with AOFAS guidelines for proper shoe fit, but only 56% educated their patients about the guidelines; 43% do not consider what patients might think of their shoes when selecting what to wear in the clinical setting. Despite the multitude of different brands, several were commonly recommended. Respondents seem to be aware of the impact of their own shoe selection on patients' perspectives of footwear, but many do not consider themselves role models for proper footwear.

  14. Offering Strategy of a Flexibility Aggregator in a Balancing Market Using Asymmetric Block Offers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bobo, Lucien Ali; Delikaraoglou, Stefanos; Vespermann, Niklas

    2018-01-01

    scenarios are used to find optimal load-shifting offers under uncertainty. The problem is formulated as a stochastic mixed-integer linear program and can be solved with reasonable computational time. This work is taking place in the framework of the real-life demonstration project EcoGrid 2.0, which......In order to enable large-scale penetration of renewables with variable generation, new sources of flexibility have to be exploited in the power systems. Allowing asymmetric block offers (including response and rebound blocks) in balancing markets can facilitate the participation of flexibility...... aggregators and unlock load-shifting flexibility from, e.g., thermostatic loads. In this paper, we formulate an optimal offering strategy for a risk-averse flexibility aggregator participating in such a market. Using a price-taker approach, load flexibility characteristics and balancing market price forecast...

  15. 33 CFR 5.37 - Offer of facilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Offer of facilities. 5.37 Section... GUARD AUXILIARY § 5.37 Offer of facilities. Any member of the Auxiliary desiring to place a vessel... in such communication which facility is offered. Except in emergencies, an offer to the Coast Guard...

  16. 45 CFR 81.85 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offer of proof. 81.85 Section 81.85 Public Welfare... 80 OF THIS TITLE Hearing Procedures § 81.85 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with... identification and shall accompany the record as the offer of proof. ...

  17. 49 CFR 604.43 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 7 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offer of proof. 604.43 Section 604.43..., DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION CHARTER SERVICE Hearings. § 604.43 Offer of proof. A party whose evidence has... respond to the offer of proof, may offer the evidence on the record when filing an appeal. ...

  18. Special offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2010-01-01

    Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10% reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Plus 20% reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * next “vente privée” from 24th to 29th May 2010  

  19. Dataset on brand culture and perceived value of offerings to customers in the hospitality industry in Nigeria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dirisu, Joy; Worlu, Rowland; Osibanjo, Adewale; Borisade, Taiye; Olokundun, Maxwell; Atolagbe, Tolu; Obi, James

    2018-08-01

    This study critically examines the role of brand culture in influencing the perceived value of offerings to customers within the hospitality industry in Nigeria. In today's competitive market, the extent at which organizations disregard the importance of developing a strong brand culture before communicating their value to the outside world has become worrisome. Hence, this study filled in the gaps and a total of 434 customers drawn from six different hotels in Lagos state, Nigeria, were sampled. The data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Management of these hotels were able to define their expectations in order to deliver a consistent brand experience to their customers. The result showed that brand culture has positive significant influence on the perceived value of offerings to customers. Important recommendations have also been made.

  20. Multi-agent system for Knowledge-based recommendation of Learning Objects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paula Andrea RODRÍGUEZ MARÍN

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Learning Object (LO is a content unit being used within virtual learning environments, which -once found and retrieved- may assist students in the teaching - learning process. Such LO search and retrieval are recently supported and enhanced by data mining techniques. In this sense, clustering can be used to find groups holding similar LOs so that from obtained groups, knowledge-based recommender systems (KRS can recommend more adapted and relevant LOs. In particular, prior knowledge come from LOs previously selected, liked and ranked by the student to whom the recommendation will be performed. In this paper, we present a KRS for LOs, which uses a conventional clustering technique, namely K-means, aimed at finding similar LOs and delivering resources adapted to a specific student. Obtained promising results show that proposed KRS is able to both retrieve relevant LO and improve the recommendation precision.Learning Object (LO is a content unit being used within virtual learning environments, which -once found and retrieved- may assist students in the teaching - learning process. Such LO search and retrieval are recently supported and enhanced by data mining techniques. In this sense, clustering can be used to find groups holding similar LOs so that from obtained groups, knowledge-based recommender systems (KRS can recommend more adapted and relevant LOs. In particular, prior knowledge come from LOs previously selected, liked and ranked by the student to whom the recommendation will be performed. In this paper, we present a KRS for LOs, which uses a conventional clustering technique, namely K-means, aimed at finding similar LOs and delivering resources adapted to a specific student. Obtained promising results show that proposed KRS is able to both retrieve relevant LO and improve the recommendation precision.

  1. Main findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Ignalina Safety Panel

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Birkhofer, A.

    1999-01-01

    Ignalina Safety Panel was created to define, monitor and supervise the scope and production of the Ignalina Safety Analysis Report (SAR) and its Review (RSR); to review results of in-depth safety assessment addressing important contradictory statements; to give Lithuanian Government recommendations in view of further licensing process. In this paper General and Specific Recommendations provided by the Panel are presented

  2. Firm-specific information, analysts’ superiority and investment value

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Lu; Li; Erjia; Yang; Tusheng; Xiao

    2014-01-01

    Using a sample of Chinese security analysts’recommendations from 2005 to2010,we examine the source of analysts’superiority and the investment value of their recommendations.Using a calendar-time portfolio approach,we find that,on average,analysts’recommendations are valuable and that analysts are better at analyzing and transferring firm-specific information than market-wide or industry-level information.In addition,we show that the investment value of recommendations increases as firm-specific information becomes more important in stock pricing.Our empirical results are useful in guiding investors and helping brokerage houses to evaluate the output of research departments.

  3. Cervical cancer: intracavitary dose specification and prescription

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Potish, R.A.; Gerbi, B.J.

    1987-01-01

    Dose and volume specifications for reporting intracavitary therapy were analyzed according to criteria recommended by the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU). Ninety Fletcher-Suit radium applications were studied to examine the validity of the assumptions of the ICRU and the merit of their routine reporting. It was demonstrated that the reporting recommendations were inconsistent with clinical prescription systems and added little to dose specification. The distinction between dose specification and dose prescription was stressed

  4. Influence of kidney offer acceptance behavior on metrics of allocation efficiency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wey, Andrew; Salkowski, Nicholas; Kasiske, Bertram L; Israni, Ajay K; Snyder, Jon J

    2017-09-01

    We investigated associations of deceased donor kidney offer acceptance with likelihood of the kidney being discarded, cold ischemia time at transplant (CIT), and likelihood of the kidney being exported outside the donation service area (DSA). We used kidney offers from donors in the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients July 1, 2015-June 30, 2016, and a stratified logistic regression to estimate odds ratios of acceptance for candidates wait-listed in a DSA. We estimated associations between these ratios and likelihood of discard or export and CIT at transplant. Approximately 0.50 kidneys were discarded per donor; lower DSA-specific offer acceptance ratios were associated with more discards (R=-0.20; P=0.006). For a median donor, the DSA with the highest acceptance ratio would place 0.12 more kidneys per donor than the DSA with the lowest ratio. Low acceptance ratios were associated with higher CIT (R=-0.23; Poffer acceptance would likely reduce discards, CIT, and exports. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

  5. AASC Recommendations for the Education of an Applied Climatologist

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nielsen-Gammon, J. W.; Stooksbury, D.; Akyuz, A.; Dupigny-Giroux, L.; Hubbard, K. G.; Timofeyeva, M. M.

    2011-12-01

    The American Association of State Climatologists (AASC) has developed curricular recommendations for the education of future applied and service climatologists. The AASC was founded in 1976. Membership of the AASC includes state climatologists and others who work in state climate offices; climate researchers in academia and educators; applied climatologists in NOAA and other federal agencies; and the private sector. The AASC is the only professional organization dedicated solely to the growth and development of applied and service climatology. The purpose of the recommendations is to offer a framework for existing and developing academic climatology programs. These recommendations are intended to serve as a road map and to help distinguish the educational needs for future applied climatologists from those of operational meteorologists or other scientists and practitioners. While the home department of climatology students may differ from one program to the next, the most essential factor is that students can demonstrate a breadth and depth of understanding in the knowledge and tools needed to be an applied climatologist. Because the training of an applied climatologist requires significant depth and breadth, the Masters degree is recommended as the minimum level of education needed. This presentation will highlight the AASC recommendations. These include a strong foundation in: - climatology (instrumentation and data collection, climate dynamics, physical climatology, synoptic and regional climatology, applied climatology, climate models, etc.) - basic natural sciences and mathematics including calculus, physics, chemistry, and biology/ecology - fundamental atmospheric sciences (atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric thermodynamics, atmospheric radiation, and weather analysis/synoptic meteorology) and - data analysis and spatial analysis (descriptive statistics, statistical methods, multivariate statistics, geostatistics, GIS, etc.). The recommendations also include a

  6. Special offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    SPECIAL OFFER FOR OUR MEMBERS Tarif unique Adulte/Enfant Entrée Zone terrestre 19 euros instead of 23 euros Entrée “Zone terrestre + aquatique” 24 euros instead of 31 euros Free for children under 3, with limited access to the attractions. Walibi Rhône-Alpes is open daily from 22 June to 31 August, and every week end from 3 September until 31 October. Closing of the “zone aquatique” 11 September.

  7. Natalizumab treatment for multiple sclerosis: updated recommendations for patient selection and monitoring

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kappos, Ludwig; Bates, David; Edan, Gilles

    2011-01-01

    Natalizumab, a highly specific α4-integrin antagonist, is approved for treatment of patients with active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). It is generally recommended for individuals who have not responded to a currently available first-line disease-modifying therapy or who have very......, based on additional long-term follow-up of clinical studies and post-marketing observations, including appropriate patient selection and management recommendations.......Natalizumab, a highly specific α4-integrin antagonist, is approved for treatment of patients with active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). It is generally recommended for individuals who have not responded to a currently available first-line disease-modifying therapy or who have very...... active disease. The expected benefits of natalizumab treatment have to be weighed against risks, especially the rare but serious adverse event of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. In this Review, we revisit and update previous recommendations on natalizumab for treatment of patients with RRMS...

  8. Marketing strategy to differentiate the offer

    OpenAIRE

    Miceski, Trajko; Pasovska, Silvana

    2013-01-01

    The marketing strategy for differentiation of the offers is important and accepted strategy especially by the bigger legal entities. The differentiation of the offers leads to bigger profit and bigger profitability in operation, through targeting of the demand towards the product of the enterprise. The vertical differentiation of the offers is directed towards the quality of the product itself which is observed as a something superior despite the competitive product which is observed as somet...

  9. [Patient safety in home care - A review of international recommendations].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Czakert, Judith; Lehmann, Yvonne; Ewers, Michael

    2018-06-08

    In recent years there has been a growing trend towards nursing care at home in general as well as towards intensive home care being provided by specialized home care services in Germany. However, resulting challenges for patient safety have rarely been considered. Against this background we aimed to explore whether international recommendations for patient safety in home care in general and in intensive home care in particular already exist and how they can stimulate further practice development in Germany. A review of online English documents containing recommendations for patient safety in intensive home care was conducted. Available documents were analyzed and compared in terms of their form and content. Overall, a small number of relevant documents could be identified. None of these documents exclusively refer to the intensive home care sector. Despite their differences, however, the analysis of four selected documents showed similarities, e. g., regarding specific topics of patient safety (communication, involvement of patients and their relatives, risk assessment, medication management, qualification). Furthermore, strengths and weaknesses of the documents became apparent: e. g., an explicit understanding of patient safety, a literature-based introduction to safety topics or an adaptation of the recommendations to the specific features of home care were occasionally lacking. This document analysis provides interesting input to the formal and content-related development of specific recommendations and to practice development in Germany to improve patient safety in home care. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier GmbH.

  10. Practical consensus recommendations on management of HR + ve early breast cancer with specific reference to genomic profiling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S Aggarwal

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease and patients are managed clinically based on ER, PR, HER2 expression, and key risk factors. The use of gene expression assays for early stage disease is already common practice. These tests have found a place in risk stratifying the heterogeneous group of stage I–II breast cancers for recurrence, for predicting chemotherapy response, and for predicting breast cancer-related mortality. Most guidelines for hormone receptor (HR–positive early breast cancer recommend addition of adjuvant chemotherapy for most women, leading to overtreatment, which causes considerable morbidity and cost. Expert oncologist discussed about strategies of gene expression assays and aid in chemotherapy recommendations for treatment of HR + ve EBC and the expert group used data from published literature, practical experience and opinion of a large group of academic oncologists to arrive at this practical consensus recommendations for the benefit of community oncologists.

  11. A procedure-specific systematic review and consensus recommendations for postoperative analgesia following total knee arthroplasty

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fischer, H.B.; Simanski, C.J.; Sharp, C.

    2008-01-01

    The PROSPECT Working Group, a collaboration of anaesthetists and surgeons, conducts systematic reviews of postoperative pain management for different surgical procedures (http://www.postoppain.org). Evidence-based consensus recommendations for the effective management of postoperative pain are th...

  12. 21 CFR 14.174 - Advice and recommendations in writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... specific drug or a class of drugs are ordinarily in the form of a written report. The report may consist of the approved minutes of the meeting or a separate written report. The report responds to the specific... 21 Food and Drugs 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Advice and recommendations in writing. 14.174...

  13. Managerial Methods Based on Analysis, Recommended to a Boarding House

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Solomia Andreş

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents a few theoretical and practical contributions regarding the implementing of analysis based methods, respectively a SWOT and an economic analysis, from the perspective and the demands of a firm management which functions with profits due to the activity of a boarding house. The two types of managerial methods recommended to the firm offer real and complex information necessary for the knowledge of the firm status and the elaboration of prediction for the maintaining of business viability.

  14. DEVELOPING SAFETY INDICATORS ON THE BASIS OF THE ICAO RECOMMENDATIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. D. Sharov

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The article offers direct use of the recommendations of SMM ICAO Doc.9859, 3rd ed. 2013, for calculation the target and alert levels of safety indicators. Examples of calculation based on data of 2011 and monitoring of the current indicators during 2012 are presented. Safety indicators for airlines in terms of “numbers of incidents per 1000 flight hours” could be calculated on the basis of the state values through the «coefficient of conformity».

  15. 17 CFR 230.253 - Offering circular.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    .... Repetition of information should be avoided; cross-referencing of information within the document is... COMPLETENESS OF ANY OFFERING CIRCULAR OR OTHER SELLING LITERATURE. THESE SECURITIES ARE OFFERED PURSUANT TO AN...

  16. Physical activity recommendations for health: what should Europe do?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fogelholm Mikael

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Accumulating scientific evidence shows physical activity to have profound health benefits amenable to substantial public health gains. Accordingly, recommendations on how much and what kind of physical activity enhances health have been issued. The 1995 recommendation from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine has been adapted worldwide, including Europe. Recently an extensive review of new evidence was undertaken and refined recommendations were issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We summarise the development of physical activity recommendations and consider the need and possible ways to update the current European situation. Discussion The new recommendations include several new elements when compared to the 1995 recommendation, the most notable being the greater emphasis on the contribution of vigorous-intensity activities, and the inclusion of activities for muscle strength and bone health. They also include specific recommendations for young people, middle-aged adults, older adults and some special groups. The existing Pan-European and national physical activity recommendations in Europe are mostly based on the 1995 recommendation and primarily target adults and young people. Thus the degree to which they are compatible with the new recommendations varies. In view of the growing public health importance of physical activity, we discuss the need to review the existing physical activity recommendations at the European level and assess their consistency with the new evidence and the new recommendations. Summary We argue that a review of the current physical activity recommendations in Europe should be undertaken in view of the most recent research evidence. We recommend that such a task should be taken on by WHO Europe in parallel with the ongoing work by WHO global Headquarters. Following this, each country should develop communication

  17. Are Comic Books Appropriate Health Education Formats to Offer Adult Patients?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ashwal, Gary; Thomas, Alex

    2018-02-01

    Physicians who recommend patient education comics should consider that some patients might question the appropriateness of this format, especially in the US, where a dominant cultural view of comics is that they are juvenile and intended to be funny. In this case, Dr. S might have approached communication with Mrs. T differently, even without knowing her attitude toward comics as a format for delivering health information. Dr. S could acknowledge that though some people might not expect useful medical information in a comic format, it has unique aspects and new research on patient education comics shows that even adults are finding this medium to be effective, educational, and engaging. Offering comics to patients, however, does potentially require patient educators to invest additional time to review and assess their accuracy and relevance. © 2018 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.

  18. Research on prisoners - a comparison between the IOM Committee recommendations (2006) and European regulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elger, Bernice S; Spaulding, Anne

    2010-01-01

    The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Ethical Considerations for Revisions to DHHS Regulations for Protection of Prisoners Involved in Research published its report in 2006. It was charged with developing an ethical framework for the conduct of research with prisoners and identifying the safeguards and conditions necessary to ensure that research with prisoners is conducted ethically. The recommendations contained in the IOM report differ from current European regulations in several ways, some being more restrictive and some less so. For example, the IOM report suggests limiting the percentage of prisoners that should be involved in a biomedical study to 50%, a limit that does not exist in Europe. However, the report does not specifically advise against research without a direct benefit to an individual prisoner: the European regulations are more restrictive than the IOM committee recommendations in this respect. The definition of minimal risk varies, as well as the proposed role of the minimal risk requirement and of the principle of subsidiarity (research that can only be done effectively in prisons). The IOM report proposes a number of thoughtful suggestions, which it would be beneficial to implement everywhere, such as registers of research on prisoners. The European regulations offer pragmatic solutions to several thorny issues. In summary, the IOM committee report represents an admirable effort to tackle the present inconsistencies and deficiencies of federal regulations in the US on research on prisoners (45 CFR 46 Subpart C). Nonetheless, before acting on the recommendations, US regulators might consider revisiting international guidelines such as those published by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Science (CIOMS) and the Declaration of Helsinki.

  19. Remarks of the SFRP working group about ICRP recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schieber, C.; Cordoliani, Y.S.

    2005-01-01

    Remarks of the SFRP working group about ICRP recommendations. The International Commission on Radiological Protection has proposed last summer on its Web site the draft text of the 2005 ICRP recommendations for consultation. As it was done for the previous drafts, the French Society for Radiation Protection, has sent his comments to the ICRP, through a specific working group. The text sent to the ICRP is presented here to the readers of the SFRP's Journal. (author)

  20. A Recommender System for Programming Online Judges Using Fuzzy Information Modeling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raciel Yera Toledo

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Programming online judges (POJs are an emerging application scenario in e-learning recommendation areas. Specifically, they are e-learning tools usually used in programming practices for the automatic evaluation of source code developed by students when they are solving programming problems. Usually, they contain a large collection of such problems, to be solved by students at their own personalized pace. The more problems in the POJ the harder the selection of the right problem to solve according to previous users performance, causing information overload and a widespread discouragement. This paper presents a recommendation framework to mitigate this issue by suggesting problems to solve in programming online judges, through the use of fuzzy tools which manage the uncertainty related to this scenario. The evaluation of the proposal uses real data obtained from a programming online judge, and shows that the new approach improves previous recommendation strategies which do not consider uncertainty management in the programming online judge scenarios. Specifically, the best results were obtained for short recommendation lists.

  1. A Study on Multiattribute Aggregation Approaches to Product Recommendation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing-Zhong Jin

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available In today’s increasingly competitive market, consumers usually have to face a huge number of products with different designs but having the same use. Therefore, an important problem for manufacturers is to attract consumers by special designs of the products. This paper aims at the improvement of a consumer-oriented approach in recommending products, and proposing a recommendation system for Japanese traditional crafts based on target-oriented fuzzy method and ontological engineering. Specifically, a target-oriented fuzzy method is used for measuring the fitness of a selected attribute to a certain object. Two aggregation models for dealing with a multiattribute evaluation and ranking are introduced; four ranking methods are also examined for getting a recommendation list. To test the aggregation models and the ranking methods, a recommendation system was developed and a comparison test was conducted.

  2. "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy?": American embryo transfer guideline recommendations, practices, and outcomes for gestational surrogate patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Pamela M

    2017-04-01

    In January 2016, Melissa Cook, a California gestational surrogate experiencing a multiple-birth pregnancy following the in vitro fertilization (IVF) transfer of three embryos comprised of donor eggs and sperm provided by the intended father, went to the media when the intended father requested that she undergo a fetal reduction because twins were less expensive to raise than triplets. Much of the legal interest in this case to date has centered on the enforceability of surrogacy contracts. However, the Cook case also raises troubling issues about fertility treatment practices involving gestational surrogates, twin preference, and third-party reproduction medical decision-making. This paper focuses on multiple-embryo transfers in the context of US surrogacy arrangements. Offering an original analysis of data obtained from the US national-assisted reproduction registry, it examines single- and multiple-embryo transfer trends over a 12-year period (2003 to 2014). Findings reveal that recommended guidelines were followed in fewer than 42% of the cases in 2014. The paper argues that ensuring equitable medical treatment for all recipients of IVF requires the adoption of treatment guidelines tailored to, and offering protections for, specific patient groups, and that, once in place, guidelines must be robustly implemented.

  3. An Offer You Cannot Refuse: Obtaining Efficiency and Fairness in Preplay Negotiation Games with Conditional Offers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Goranko, Valentin; Turrini, Paolo

    2013-01-01

    . Such offers transform the payoff matrix of the original game and allow for some degree of cooperation between rational players while preserving the non-cooperative nature of the game. We focus on 2-player negotiations games arising in the preplay phase when offers for payments are made conditional...... on a suggested matching offer of the same kind being made in return by the receiver. We study and analyze such bargaining games, obtain results describing their possible solutions and discuss the degrees of efficiency and fairness that can be achieved in such negotiation process depending on whether time...

  4. Classification of Recommender Expertise in the Wikipedia Recommender System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Christian D.; Pilkauskas, Povilas; Lefévre, Thomas

    2011-01-01

    to the quality of articles. The Wikipedia Recommender System (WRS) was developed to help users determine the credibility of articles based on feedback from other Wikipedia users. The WRS implements a collaborative filtering system with trust metrics, i.e., it provides a rating of articles which emphasizes...... an evaluation of four existing knowledge classification schemes with respect to these requirements. This evaluation helped us identify a classification scheme, which we have implemented in the current version of the Wikipedia Recommender System....... feedback from recommenders that the user has agreed with in the past. This exposes the problem that most recommenders are not equally competent in all subject areas. The first WRS prototype did not include an evaluation of the areas of expertise of recommenders, so the trust metric used in the article...

  5. Classification of Recommender Expertise in the Wikipedia Recommender System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Christian D.; Pilkauskas, Povilas; Lefevre, Thomas

    2011-01-01

    to the quality of articles. The Wikipedia Recommender System (WRS) was developed to help users determine the credibility of articles based on feedback from other Wikipedia users. The WRS implements a collaborative filtering system with trust metrics, i.e., it provides a rating of articles "which emphasizes...... an evaluation of four existing knowledge classification schemes with respect to these requirements. This evaluation helped us identify a classification scheme, which we have implemented in the current version of the Wikipedia Recommender System....... feedback from recommenders that the user has agreed with in the past. This exposes the problem that most recommenders are not equally competent in all subject areas. The first WRS prototype did not include an evaluation of the areas of expertise of recommenders, so the trust metric used in the article...

  6. Sustainable Offering Practices Through Stakeholders Engagement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bijay Prasad Kushwaha

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Sustainable development is achieved by satisfying the current ends without shrinking the existing means which can serve as needs for the society in the future. It has become global motive and responsibility of present community to utilize resources in an optimum way with minimum environmental damage. The objective of this paper is to study theoretical framework and practical approaches on sustainable offering practices through customer engagement. The study has also examined the opportunities and challenges of sustainable offering practices in India. The study is based on a previous study and secondary data has been used for analysis. The outcome revealed the process for successful sustainable offering practices in context of Indian consumers. The analysis has helped to understand different practices of sustainable offering through engaging stakeholders.

  7. Dietary Quality and Adherence to Dietary Recommendations in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luis, Desiree; Zlatkis, Karyn; Comenge, Beatriz; García, Zoraida; Navarro, Juan F; Lorenzo, Victor; Carrero, Juan Jesús

    2016-05-01

    The multiple dietary restrictions recommended to hemodialysis patients may be difficult to achieve and, at the same time, may result in nutritional deficiencies rendering a poor dietary quality. We here assess the dietary quality and adherence to renal-specific guideline recommendations among hemodialysis patients from a single center in Canary Islands, Spain. Cross-sectional study, including 91 patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis. Clinical data and 3-day dietary records were collected. We compared patient's reported nutrients intake with guideline recommendations. We also evaluated their alignment with current American Heart Association dietary guidelines for cardiovascular prevention. Seventy-seven percent and 50% of patients consumed less than the recommended daily energy and protein, respectively. Although half of the patients met the recommendations for dietary fat intake, this was accounted by an excess of saturated fat in 92% of them. Only 22% consumed sufficient fiber. A very small proportion of patients (less than 50%) met the requirements for vitamins and other micronutrients. Insufficient dietary intake was observed in most patients for all vitamins except for cobalamin. Similarly, inadequate dietary intake was observed for many minerals, by both excess (phosphorus, calcium, sodium, and potassium) and defect (magnesium). Most patients met the recommendations for iron and zinc in their diets. A large proportion of hemodialysis patients at our center did not meet current renal-specific dietary recommendations. The quality of the diet was considered poor and proatherogenic according to American Heart Association guidelines. Copyright © 2016 National Kidney Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Initiating undergraduate medical students into communities of research practise: what do supervisors recommend?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Riley Simon C

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Much has been written in the educational literature on the value of communities of practise in enhancing student learning. Here, we take the experience of senior undergraduate medical students involved in short-term research as a member of a team as a paradigm for learning in a community of practise. Based on feedback from experienced supervisors, we offer recommendations for initiating students into the research culture of their team. In so doing, we endeavour to create a bridge between theory and practise through disseminating advice on good supervisory practise, where the supervisor is perceived as an educator responsible for designing the research process to optimize student learning. Methods Using the questionnaire design tool SurveyMonkey and comprehensive lists of contact details of staff who had supervised research projects at the University of Edinburgh during 1995 - 2008, current and previous supervisors were invited to recommend procedures which they had found successful in initiating students into the research culture of a team. Text responses were then coded in the form of derivative recommendations and categorized under general themes and sub-themes. Results Using the chi-square tests of linear trend and association, evidence was found for a positive trend towards more experienced supervisors offering responses (χ2 = 16.833, p 2 = 0.482, p = 0.487, n = 203, respectively. A total of 126 codes were extracted from the text responses of 65 respondents. These codes were simplified to form a complete list of 52 recommendations, which were in turn categorized under seven derivative overarching themes, the most highly represented themes being Connecting the student with others and Cultivating self-efficacy in research competence. Conclusions Through the design of a coding frame for supervisor responses, a wealth of ideas has been captured to make communities of research practise effective mediums for undergraduate

  9. Empirical Comparison of Graph-based Recommendation Engines for an Apps Ecosystem

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luis F. Chiroque

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Recommendation engines (RE are becoming highly popular, e.g., in the area of e-commerce. A RE offers new items (products or content to users based on their profile and historical data. The most popular algorithms used in RE are based on collaborative filtering. This technique makes recommendations based on the past behavior of other users and the similarity between users and items. In this paper we have evaluated the performance of several RE based on the properties of the networks formed by users and items. The RE use in a novel way graph theoretic concepts like edges weights or network flow. The evaluation has been conducted in a real environment (ecosystem for recommending apps to smartphone users. The analysis of the results allows concluding that the effectiveness of a RE can be improved if the age of the data, and if a global view of the data is considered. It also shows that graph-based RE are effective, but more experiments are required for a more accurate characterization of their properties.

  10. Recommendations for fertility preservation in patients with lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kim, S Samuel; Donnez, Jacques; Barri, Pedro

    2012-01-01

    Fertility issues should be addressed to all patients in reproductive age before cancer treatment. In men, cryopreservation of sperm should be offered to all cancer patients in reproductive age regardless of the risk of gonadal failure. In women, the recommendation of fertility preservation should...... be individualized based on multiple factors such as the urgency of treatment, the age of the patient, the marital status, the regimen and dosage of cancer treatment....

  11. Postgraduates courses offered to nursing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pedro Jorge Araujo

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available Aim: To know the official masters that the Spanish Universities have offered during the academic course 2010/2011.Material and methods: Descriptive observational and transversal court study, in which it has analysed 170 university official masters and in which it has used a questionnaire with a total of 15 questions elaborated for this work.Results: 52 Spanish Universities of the 75 that there is have offered during the academic course 2010/2011 official masters that can realise for graduated in infirmary. By areas, the official masters more offered have been the ones of nutrition and alimentary security. 76,33% of the official masters have a length of 1 academic year. Almost the half of the official masters have an orientation researcher-professional and almost 40% researcher. 62,65% of the masters give of face-to-face way. In 52,1% of the official masters do not realise external practices and 86,2% has continuity with the doctorate.Conclusions: It has seen that it is necessary that expand the number of masters including other fields of study that contribute to a main specialisation of the professionals of the infirmary. An important percentage of official masters give in face-to-face modality, and there is very few offered on-line or to distance.

  12. Juegos de videos: Investigacion, puntajes y recomendaciones (Video Games: Research, Ratings and Recommendations). ERIC Digest.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cesarone, Bernard

    This Spanish-language digest reviews research on the demographics and effects of video game playing, discusses game rating systems, and offers recommendations for parents. The digest begins by discussing research on the time children spend playing electronic games, which shows that younger children's game playing at home (90% of fourth-graders…

  13. Recommendations for the specification of thermocouples for nuclear applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1977-05-01

    This Code of Practice is a guide for use in the preparation of individual specifications to cover, as fully as possible the conditions governing the supply of raw materials and the ordering, manufacture, testing, inspection, handling and installation of thermocouples for use in nuclear environments in order that reliable, consistent and generally acceptable results can be obtained. The insulation resistance values quoted in this document apply to magnesium oxide. If other insulants are called for, appropriate values must be specified. (author)

  14. 47 CFR 76.1621 - Equipment compatibility offer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 47 Telecommunication 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Equipment compatibility offer. 76.1621 Section... MULTICHANNEL VIDEO AND CABLE TELEVISION SERVICE Notices § 76.1621 Equipment compatibility offer. Cable system... offer to supply each subscriber with special equipment that will enable the simultaneous reception of...

  15. The primary relevance of subconsciously offered attitudes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kristiansen, Tore

    2015-01-01

    ) and subconsciously (covertly) offered attitudes – because subconsciously offered attitudes appear to be a driving force in linguistic variation and change in a way that consciously offered attitudes are not. The argument is based on evidence from empirical investigations of attitudes and use in the ‘...

  16. The Effect of Incorporating Good Learners' Ratings in e-Learning Content-Based Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghauth, Khairil Imran; Abdullah, Nor Aniza

    2011-01-01

    One of the anticipated challenges of today's e-learning is to solve the problem of recommending from a large number of learning materials. In this study, we introduce a novel architecture for an e-learning recommender system. More specifically, this paper comprises the following phases i) to propose an e-learning recommender system based on…

  17. 48 CFR 619.804-2 - Agency offering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Agency offering. 619.804-2 Section 619.804-2 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL... offering. (a) When applicable, this notification shall identify that the offering is in accordance with the...

  18. Recommendations for epidemiological studies on COPD

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bakke, P S; Rönmark, E; Eagan, T

    2011-01-01

    of the disease and definitions of the risk factors. Few community studies have examined phenotypes of COPD and included other ways of characterising the disease beyond that of spirometry. The objective of the present Task Force report is to present recommendations for the performance of general population...... for planning and performing an epidemiological study on COPD. The main message of the paper is that thorough planning is worth half the study. It is crucial to stick to standardised methods and good quality control during sampling. We recommend collecting biological markers, depending on the specific......The prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been extensively studied, especially in Western Europe and North America. Few of these data are directly comparable because of differences between the surveys regarding composition of study populations, diagnostic criteria...

  19. Recommended revisions to Nuclear Regulatory Commission seismic design criteria. Technical report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Coats, D.W.

    1980-05-01

    This report recommends changes in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) criteria now used in the seismic design of nuclear power plants. Areas covered include ground motion, soil-structure interaction, structures, and equipment and components. Members of the Engineering Mechanics Section of the Nuclear Test Engineering Division at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL) generally agreed upon the recommendations, which are based on (1) reports developed under the NRC's Task Action Plan A-40, (2) other available engineering literature, and (3) recommendations of nationally recognized experts retained by LLL specifically for this task

  20. 48 CFR 852.273-70 - Late offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Late offers. 852.273-70... SOLICITATION PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT CLAUSES Texts of Provisions and Clauses 852.273-70 Late offers. As prescribed in 873.110(a), insert the following provision: Late Offers (JAN 2003) This provision replaces...

  1. Innovative gas offers; Les offres gazieres innovantes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sala, O.; Mela, P. [Gaz de France (GDF), 75 - Paris (France); Chatelain, F. [Primagaz, 75 - Paris (France)

    2007-07-01

    New energy offers are progressively made available as the opening of gas market to competition becomes broader. How are organized the combined offers: gas, electricity, renewable energies and energy services? What are the marketing strategies implemented? Three participants at this round table present their offer and answer these questions. (J.S.)

  2. Dietary Recommendations for Cyclists during Altitude Training

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michalczyk, Małgorzata; Czuba, Miłosz; Zydek, Grzegorz; Zając, Adam; Langfort, Józef

    2016-01-01

    The concept of altitude or hypoxic training is a common practice in cycling. However, several strategies for training regimens have been proposed, like “live high, train high” (LH-TH), “live high, train low” (LH-TL) or “intermittent hypoxic training” (IHT). Each of them combines the effect of acclimatization and different training protocols that require specific nutrition. An appropriate nutrition strategy and adequate hydration can help athletes achieve their fitness and performance goals in this unfriendly environment. In this review, the physiological stress of altitude exposure and training will be discussed, with specific nutrition recommendations for athletes training under such conditions. However, there is little research about the nutrition demands of athletes who train at moderate altitude. Our review considers energetic demands and body mass or body composition changes due to altitude training, including respiratory and urinary water loss under these conditions. Carbohydrate intake recommendations and hydration status are discussed in detail, while iron storage and metabolism is also considered. Last, but not least the risk of increased oxidative stress under hypoxic conditions and antioxidant supplementation suggestions are presented. PMID:27322318

  3. Dietary Recommendations for Cyclists during Altitude Training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michalczyk, Małgorzata; Czuba, Miłosz; Zydek, Grzegorz; Zając, Adam; Langfort, Józef

    2016-06-18

    The concept of altitude or hypoxic training is a common practice in cycling. However, several strategies for training regimens have been proposed, like "live high, train high" (LH-TH), "live high, train low" (LH-TL) or "intermittent hypoxic training" (IHT). Each of them combines the effect of acclimatization and different training protocols that require specific nutrition. An appropriate nutrition strategy and adequate hydration can help athletes achieve their fitness and performance goals in this unfriendly environment. In this review, the physiological stress of altitude exposure and training will be discussed, with specific nutrition recommendations for athletes training under such conditions. However, there is little research about the nutrition demands of athletes who train at moderate altitude. Our review considers energetic demands and body mass or body composition changes due to altitude training, including respiratory and urinary water loss under these conditions. Carbohydrate intake recommendations and hydration status are discussed in detail, while iron storage and metabolism is also considered. Last, but not least the risk of increased oxidative stress under hypoxic conditions and antioxidant supplementation suggestions are presented.

  4. ReMashed - An Usability Study of a Recommender System for Mash-Ups for Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rob Koper

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available The following article presents an usability study of a Mash-up Personal Learning Environment called ReMashed that recommends items from the emerging information of a Learning Network. In ReMashed users can specify certain Web 2.0 services and combine them in a Mash-Up Personal Learning Environment. The users can rate information from an emerging amount of Web 2.0 information of a Learning Network and train a recommender system for their particular needs. In total 49 participants from 8 different countries registered to evaluate the ReMashed system. The participants contributed Web 2.0 contents and used the recommender system for one month. The evaluation was concluded with an online questionnaire where most of the participants were positive about the ReMashed system and offered helpful ideas for future developments.

  5. 48 CFR 2825.203 - Evaluating offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 6 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 true Evaluating offers. 2825.203 Section 2825.203 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Socioeconomic Programs FOREIGN ACQUISITION Buy American Act-Construction Materials 2825.203 Evaluating offers. The HCA, or...

  6. Developing a semantic web model for medical differential diagnosis recommendation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohammed, Osama; Benlamri, Rachid

    2014-10-01

    In this paper we describe a novel model for differential diagnosis designed to make recommendations by utilizing semantic web technologies. The model is a response to a number of requirements, ranging from incorporating essential clinical diagnostic semantics to the integration of data mining for the process of identifying candidate diseases that best explain a set of clinical features. We introduce two major components, which we find essential to the construction of an integral differential diagnosis recommendation model: the evidence-based recommender component and the proximity-based recommender component. Both approaches are driven by disease diagnosis ontologies designed specifically to enable the process of generating diagnostic recommendations. These ontologies are the disease symptom ontology and the patient ontology. The evidence-based diagnosis process develops dynamic rules based on standardized clinical pathways. The proximity-based component employs data mining to provide clinicians with diagnosis predictions, as well as generates new diagnosis rules from provided training datasets. This article describes the integration between these two components along with the developed diagnosis ontologies to form a novel medical differential diagnosis recommendation model. This article also provides test cases from the implementation of the overall model, which shows quite promising diagnostic recommendation results.

  7. 14 CFR 406.155 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Offer of proof. 406.155 Section 406.155... Transportation Adjudications § 406.155 Offer of proof. A party whose evidence has been excluded by a ruling of the administrative law judge may offer the evidence for the record on appeal. ...

  8. 36 CFR 1150.79 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Offer of proof. 1150.79... BOARD PRACTICE AND PROCEDURES FOR COMPLIANCE HEARINGS Hearing Procedures § 1150.79 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with an objection taken to a ruling of the judge rejecting or...

  9. Using recommender systems to support idea generation stage | El ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences ... Then, we analyze and discuss based on a set of defined characteristics the use of recommendation ... which seems the most suitable to meet our qualitative approach in this specific context.

  10. Partition-based Collaborative Tensor Factorization for POI Recommendation

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Wenjing Luan; Guanjun Liu; Changjun Jiang; Liang Qi

    2017-01-01

    The rapid development of location-based social networks (LBSNs) provides people with an opportunity of better understanding their mobility behavior which enables them to decide their next location.For example,it can help travelers to choose where to go next,or recommend salesmen the most potential places to deliver advertisements or sell products.In this paper,a method for recommending points of interest (POIs) is proposed based on a collaborative tensor factorization (CTF) technique.Firstly,a generalized objective function is constructed for collaboratively factorizing a tensor with several feature matrices.Secondly,a 3-mode tensor is used to model all users' check-in behaviors,and three feature matrices are extracted to characterize the time distribution,category distribution and POI correlation,respectively.Thirdly,each user's preference to a POI at a specific time can be estimated by using CTF.In order to further improve the recommendation accuracy,PCTF (Partitionbased CTF) is proposed to fill the missing entries of a tensor after clustering its every mode.Experiments on a real checkin database show that the proposed method can provide more accurate location recommendation.

  11. Followee recommendation in microblog using matrix factorization model with structural regularization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Yan; Qiu, Robin G

    2014-01-01

    Microblog that provides us a new communication and information sharing platform has been growing exponentially since it emerged just a few years ago. To microblog users, recommending followees who can serve as high quality information sources is a competitive service. To address this problem, in this paper we propose a matrix factorization model with structural regularization to improve the accuracy of followee recommendation in microblog. More specifically, we adapt the matrix factorization model in traditional item recommender systems to followee recommendation in microblog and use structural regularization to exploit structure information of social network to constrain matrix factorization model. The experimental analysis on a real-world dataset shows that our proposed model is promising.

  12. AUTHENTIC MATERIALS VS TEXTBOOKS IN ESP (ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena Spirovska Tevdovska

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the value of authentic materials and textbooks in ESP English for Specific Purposes learning and teaching context. The study compares the characteristics of the authentic materials and the characteristics of textbooks designed and selected for the purpose of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in ESP setting. The study defines the role of materials in ESP setting and compares the benefits and possible drawbacks of both types of materials and resources: the authentic materials in English for Specific Purposes context compared to traditional textbooks designed for the purpose of teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes. The study identifies the benefits of authentic materials, which include the richness as an input source and the authenticity of the tasks offered to learners, as well as the negative sides of authentic materials, which include the level of difficulty that these materials might present to the learner . Furthermore, the study identifies the benefits of textbooks, which include available sources for the learners and less time consuming class preparation for the teachers, as well as the drawbacks which include the impossibility of finding a textbook which corresponds entirely to learners’ needs. In addition, the article focuses on teachers’ attitudes and opinions regarding the appropriateness and exploitability of each source and their preferences and reasons for material selection. The target population consists of eleven lecturers who teach English for Specific Purposes in tertiary education. The lecturers teach various branches of ESP, including ESP for Computer Sciences, Business, Communication and Legal Studies. Data collection is conducted through a specifically designed questionnaire, addressing the questions of materials selection, teachers’ preferences regarding textbooks or authentic materials and the selection criteria applied by the

  13. 14 CFR 16.231 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Offer of proof. 16.231 Section 16.231... PRACTICE FOR FEDERALLY-ASSISTED AIRPORT ENFORCEMENT PROCEEDINGS Hearings § 16.231 Offer of proof. A party whose evidence has been excluded by a ruling of the hearing officer may offer the evidence on the record...

  14. 49 CFR 1503.641 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 9 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offer of proof. 1503.641 Section 1503.641... Rules of Practice in TSA Civil Penalty Actions § 1503.641 Offer of proof. A party whose evidence has been excluded by a ruling of the ALJ may offer the evidence for the record on appeal. ...

  15. Specific recommendations for accurate and direct use of PET-CT in PET guided radiotherapy for head and neck sites

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thomas, C. M., E-mail: christopher.thomas@gstt.nhs.uk; Convery, D. J.; Greener, A. G. [Guy' s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Medical Physics Department, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH (United Kingdom); Pike, L. C.; Baker, S.; Woods, E. [Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King' s College London, King' s Health Partners, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH (United Kingdom); Hartill, C. E. [Guy' s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Radiotherapy, Clinical Outpatients Clinic, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH (United Kingdom)

    2014-04-15

    Purpose: To provide specific experience-based guidance and recommendations for centers wishing to develop, validate, and implement an accurate and efficient process for directly using positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) for the radiotherapy planning of head and neck cancer patients. Methods: A PET-CT system was modified with hard-top couch, external lasers and radiotherapy immobilization and indexing devices and was subject to a commissioning and quality assurance program. PET-CT imaging protocols were developed specifically for radiotherapy planning and the image quality and pathway tested using phantoms and five patients recruited into an in-house study. Security and accuracy of data transfer was tested throughout the whole data pathway. The patient pathway was fully established and tested ready for implementation in a PET-guided dose-escalation trial for head and neck cancer patients. Results: Couch deflection was greater than for departmental CT simulator machines. An area of high attenuation in the couch generated image artifacts and adjustments were made accordingly. Using newly developed protocols CT image quality was suitable to maintain delineation and treatment accuracy. Upon transfer of data to the treatment planning system a half pixel offset between PET and CT was observed and corrected. By taking this into account, PET to CT alignment accuracy was maintained below 1 mm in all systems in the data pathway. Transfer of structures delineated in the PET fusion software to the radiotherapy treatment planning system was validated. Conclusions: A method to perform direct PET-guided radiotherapy planning was successfully validated and specific recommendations were developed to assist other centers. Of major concern is ensuring that the quality of PET and CT data is appropriate for radiotherapy treatment planning and on-treatment verification. Couch movements can be compromised, bore-size can be a limitation for certain immobilization

  16. Specific recommendations for accurate and direct use of PET-CT in PET guided radiotherapy for head and neck sites

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thomas, C. M.; Convery, D. J.; Greener, A. G.; Pike, L. C.; Baker, S.; Woods, E.; Hartill, C. E.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: To provide specific experience-based guidance and recommendations for centers wishing to develop, validate, and implement an accurate and efficient process for directly using positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) for the radiotherapy planning of head and neck cancer patients. Methods: A PET-CT system was modified with hard-top couch, external lasers and radiotherapy immobilization and indexing devices and was subject to a commissioning and quality assurance program. PET-CT imaging protocols were developed specifically for radiotherapy planning and the image quality and pathway tested using phantoms and five patients recruited into an in-house study. Security and accuracy of data transfer was tested throughout the whole data pathway. The patient pathway was fully established and tested ready for implementation in a PET-guided dose-escalation trial for head and neck cancer patients. Results: Couch deflection was greater than for departmental CT simulator machines. An area of high attenuation in the couch generated image artifacts and adjustments were made accordingly. Using newly developed protocols CT image quality was suitable to maintain delineation and treatment accuracy. Upon transfer of data to the treatment planning system a half pixel offset between PET and CT was observed and corrected. By taking this into account, PET to CT alignment accuracy was maintained below 1 mm in all systems in the data pathway. Transfer of structures delineated in the PET fusion software to the radiotherapy treatment planning system was validated. Conclusions: A method to perform direct PET-guided radiotherapy planning was successfully validated and specific recommendations were developed to assist other centers. Of major concern is ensuring that the quality of PET and CT data is appropriate for radiotherapy treatment planning and on-treatment verification. Couch movements can be compromised, bore-size can be a limitation for certain immobilization

  17. Danish recommendations on treatment of ankylosing spondylitis and spondyloarthritis based on multinational project initiative

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Susanne Juhl; Madsen, Ole Rintek; Erlendsson, J.

    2008-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: The multinational initiative "3e Initiative in Rheumatology - Multi-national Recommendations for the Management of Ankylosing Spondylitis 2006-7" served the primary purpose of providing specific recommendations for the management of ankylosing spondylitis and spondyloarthritis...

  18. 38 CFR 18b.64 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Offer of proof. 18b.64... Procedures § 18b.64 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with an objection taken to any... record as the offer of proof. ...

  19. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2013-01-01

    Do not hesitate to benefit of our offers in our partners: Théâtre de Carouge Discount of 5 CHF for all shows (30 CHF instead of 35 CHF) and on season tickets « first performance » ( 132 CHF instead 162 CHF) and also on « classical » ( 150 CHF instead of 180 CHF) upon presentation of your Staff Association membership card before payment. Théâtre La Comédie de Genève  20% off on tickets (full price – also available for partner): from 24 to 32 CHF a ticket instead of 30 to 40 CHF depending on the shows. 40% off on annual subscriptions (access to the best seats, pick up tickets at the last minute): 200 CHF for 9 shows (about 22 CHF a ticket instead of 30 to 40 CHF. Discounted card: 60 CHF and single price ticket of 16 CHF.

  20. Personalized News Recommendation: A Review and an Experimental Investigation

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Lei Li; Ding-Ding Wang; Shun-Zhi Zhu; Tao Li

    2011-01-01

    Online news articles,as a new format of press releases,have sprung up on the Internet.With its convenience and recency,more and more people prefer to read news online instead of reading the paper-format press releases.However,a gigantic amount of news events might be released at a rate of hundreds,even thousands per hour.A challenging problem is how to efficiently select specific news articles from a large corpus of newly-published press releases to recommend to individual readers,where the selected news items should match the reader's reading preference as much as possible.This issue refers to personalized news recommendation.Recently,personalized news recommendation has become a promising research direction as the Internet provides fast access to real-time information from multiple sources around the world.Existing personalized news recommendation systems strive to adapt their services to individual users by virtue of both user and news content information.A variety of techniques have been proposed to tackle personalized news recommendation,including content-based,collaborative filtering systems and hybrid versions of these two.In this paper,we provide a comprehensive investigation of existing personalized news recommenders.We discuss several essential issues underlying the problem of personalized news recommendation,and explore possible solutions for performance improvement.Further,we provide an empirical study on a collection of news articles obtained from various news websites,and evaluate the effect of different factors for personalized news recommendation.We hope our discussion and exploration would provide insights for researchers who are interested in personalized news recommendation.

  1. 14 CFR 13.225 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Offer of proof. 13.225 Section 13.225... INVESTIGATIVE AND ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURES Rules of Practice in FAA Civil Penalty Actions § 13.225 Offer of proof. A party whose evidence has been excluded by a ruling of the administrative law judge may offer the...

  2. 34 CFR 101.85 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 34 Education 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Offer of proof. 101.85 Section 101.85 Education... PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR HEARINGS UNDER PART 100 OF THIS TITLE Hearing Procedures § 101.85 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with an objection taken to any ruling of the presiding officer...

  3. 7 CFR 15.122 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Offer of proof. 15.122 Section 15.122 Agriculture..., Decisions and Administrative Review Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Hearing Procedures § 15.122 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with an objection taken to any ruling of the hearing officer...

  4. 43 CFR 4.840 - Offer of proof.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... the Interior-Effectuation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Hearing § 4.840 Offer of proof. An offer of proof made in connection with an objection taken to any ruling of the administrative law... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offer of proof. 4.840 Section 4.840 Public...

  5. Work-life integration in neuropsychology: a review of the existing literature and preliminary recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feigon, Maia; Block, Cady; Guidotti Breting, Leslie; Boxley, Laura; Dawson, Erica; Cobia, Derin

    2018-02-01

    The purpose of the current review paper is to identify and describe challenges to work-life integration in neuropsychology, and from this review extrapolate an initial set of recommendations and present a set of scenarios in which the recommendations might apply in the hopes of improving quality of life for current and prospective neuropsychologists. Specific areas of focus include diversity, early and mid-career transitions, and potential barriers to advancement in specific practice settings. A broad review was conducted of extant literature on work-life integration. There is scant scientific literature in this area that is specific to neuropsychologists, or even psychology as a whole. Subsequently, the majority of this review was collected from more developed literatures in business and medical fields. The authors then provided recommendations based on experiences in their respective careers. Attempts were made to promote generalizability of recommendations for neuropsychologists in different settings. Evidence supports a potentially adverse impact on quality of life and overall life satisfaction when work and personal lives conflict. This manuscript identifies some of the potential risks when work and life responsibilities are not well integrated. It is anticipated this will serve as a catalyst for future studies on work-life integration in the field of neuropsychology, specifically.

  6. Knowledge translation: an overview and recommendations in relation to the Fourth Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    The growing population of persons with dementia in Canada and the provision of quality care for this population is an issue that no healthcare authority will escape. Physicians often view dementia as a difficult and time-consuming condition to diagnose and manage. Current evidence must be effectively transformed into usable recommendations for physicians; however, we know that use of evidence-based practice recommendations is a challenge in all realms of medical care, and failure to utilize these leads to less than optimal care for patients. Despite this expanding need for readily available resources, knowledge translation (KT) is often seen as a daunting, if not confusing, undertaking for researchers. Here we offer a brief introduction to the processes around KT, including terms and definitions, and outline some common KT frameworks including the knowledge to action cycle, the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework and the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. We also outline practical steps for planning and executing a KT strategy particularly around the implementation of recommendations for practice, and offer recommendations for KT planning in relation to the Fourth Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia. PMID:24565407

  7. Employer health insurance offerings and employee enrollment decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polsky, Daniel; Stein, Rebecca; Nicholson, Sean; Bundorf, M Kate

    2005-10-01

    To determine how the characteristics of the health benefits offered by employers affect worker insurance coverage decisions. The 1996-1997 and the 1998-1999 rounds of the nationally representative Community Tracking Study Household Survey. We use multinomial logistic regression to analyze the choice between own-employer coverage, alternative source coverage, and no coverage among employees offered health insurance by their employer. The key explanatory variables are the types of health plans offered and the net premium offered. The models include controls for personal, health plan, and job characteristics. When an employer offers only a health maintenance organization married employees are more likely to decline coverage from their employer and take-up another offer (odds ratio (OR)=1.27, phealth plan coverage an employer offers affects whether its employees take-up insurance, but has a smaller effect on overall coverage rates for workers and their families because of the availability of alternative sources of coverage. Relative to offering only a non-HMO plan, employers offering only an HMO may reduce take-up among those with alternative sources of coverage, but increase take-up among those who would otherwise go uninsured. By modeling the possibility of take-up through the health insurance offers from the employer of the spouse, the decline in coverage rates from higher net premiums is less than previous estimates.

  8. 12 CFR 335.501 - Tender offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Tender offers. 335.501 Section 335.501 Banks and Banking FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION REGULATIONS AND STATEMENTS OF GENERAL POLICY SECURITIES OF NONMEMBER INSURED BANKS § 335.501 Tender offers. The provisions of the applicable and currently...

  9. 12 CFR 563g.2 - Offering circular requirement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Offering circular requirement. 563g.2 Section 563g.2 Banks and Banking OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY SECURITIES OFFERINGS § 563g.2 Offering circular requirement. (a) General. No savings association shall offer or sell, directly...

  10. Success Strategies for Linguistically Competent Healthcare: The Magic Bullets and Cautionary Tales of the Active Offer of French-Language Health Services in Ontario.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farmanova, Elina; Bouchard, Louise; Bonneville, Luc

    2018-01-01

    An active offer of French-language health services (FLHS) was introduced in several Canadian provinces to help create an environment that will anticipate the needs of Francophones in their community and will stimulate the demand for services in French. For the active offer to be implemented, changes in how health services are organized and managed at both organizational and system levels must be introduced. In this perspective paper, we identify several success strategies and potential pitfalls with regards to the implementation of the active offer of FLHS primarily at the level of healthcare organization. Our recommendations are based on a recent health services research study exploring reorganization and management strategies for the delivery of the active offer of FLHS in Ontario and insights from a focus group with healthcare administrators conducted as part of this research. We propose a ";wrap-around strategy" called organizational health literacy to help reorient organizational culture and improve management and sustainability of the active offer of FLHS. These strategies have relevance for advocates and professionals working to promote an active offer of FLHS, including healthcare administrators, human resource professionals, quality-improvement specialists and others. © 2018 Longwoods Publishing.

  11. Bowel Ultrasonography in the Management of Crohn's Disease. A Review with Recommendations of an International Panel of Experts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calabrese, Emma; Maaser, Christian; Zorzi, Francesca; Kannengiesser, Klaus; Hanauer, Stephen B; Bruining, David H; Iacucci, Marietta; Maconi, Giovanni; Novak, Kerri L; Panaccione, Remo; Strobel, Deike; Wilson, Stephanie R; Watanabe, Mamoru; Pallone, Francesco; Ghosh, Subrata

    2016-05-01

    Bowel ultrasonography (US) is considered a useful technique for assessing mural inflammation and complications in Crohn's disease (CD). The aim of this review is to appraise the evidence on the accuracy of bowel US for CD. In addition, we aim to provide recommendations for its optimal use. Publications were identified by literature search from 1992 to 2014 and selected based on predefined criteria: 15 or more patients; bowel US for diagnosing CD, complications, postoperative recurrence, activity; adequate reference standards; prospective study design; data reported to allow calculation of sensitivity, specificity, agreement, or correlation values; articles published in English. The search yielded 655 articles, of which 63 were found to be eligible and retrieved as full-text articles for analysis. Bowel US showed 79.7% sensitivity and 96.7% specificity for the diagnosis of suspected CD, and 89% sensitivity and 94.3% specificity for initial assessment in established patients with CD. Bowel US identified ileal CD with 92.7% sensitivity, 88.2% specificity, and colon CD with 81.8% sensitivity, 95.3% specificity, with lower accuracy for detecting proximal lesions. The oral contrast agent improves the sensitivity and specificity in determining CD lesions and in assessing sites and extent. Bowel US is a tool for evaluation of CD lesions in terms of complications, postoperative recurrence, and monitoring response to medical therapy; it reliably detects postoperative recurrence and complications, as well as offers the possibility of monitoring disease progression.

  12. 12 CFR 563g.4 - Non-public offering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Non-public offering. 563g.4 Section 563g.4 Banks and Banking OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY SECURITIES OFFERINGS § 563g.4 Non-public offering. Offers and sales of securities by an issuer that satisfy the conditions of...

  13. 43 CFR 12.815 - Evaluating offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Evaluating offers. 12.815 Section 12.815 Public Lands: Interior Office of the Secretary of the Interior ADMINISTRATIVE AND AUDIT REQUIREMENTS AND... Act-Construction Materials § 12.815 Evaluating offers. (a) The restrictions of the Buy American Act do...

  14. Offers for our members

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2013-01-01

    The Courir shops propose the following offer: 15% discount on all articles (not on sales) in the Courir shops (Val Thoiry, Annemasse and Neydens) and 5% discount on sales upon presentation of your Staff Association membership card and an identity card before payment. Summer is here, enjoy our offers for the aquatic parcs! Walibi : Tickets "Zone terrestre": 21 € instead of 26 €. Access to Aqualibi: 5 € instead of 8 € on presentation of your SA member ticket. Free for children (3-11 years old) before 12 h 00. Free for children under 3, with limited access to the attractions. Car park free. * * * * * Aquaparc : Day ticket: – Children: 30 CHF instead of 39 CHF – Adults : 36 CHF instead of 49 CHF Bonus! Free for children under 5.

  15. Advance Care Planning Documentation in Electronic Health Records: Current Challenges and Recommendations for Change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lamas, Daniela; Panariello, Natalie; Henrich, Natalie; Hammes, Bernard; Hanson, Laura C; Meier, Diane E; Guinn, Nancy; Corrigan, Janet; Hubber, Sean; Luetke-Stahlman, Hannah; Block, Susan

    2018-04-01

    To develop a set of clinically relevant recommendations to improve the state of advance care planning (ACP) documentation in the electronic health record (EHR). Advance care planning (ACP) is a key process that supports goal-concordant care. For preferences to be honored, clinicians must be able to reliably record, find, and use ACP documentation. However, there are no standards to guide ACP documentation in the electronic health record (EHR). We interviewed 21 key informants to understand the strengths and weaknesses of EHR documentation systems for ACP and identify best practices. We analyzed these interviews using a qualitative content analysis approach and subsequently developed a preliminary set of recommendations. These recommendations were vetted and refined in a second round of input from a national panel of content experts. Informants identified six themes regarding current inadequacies in documentation and accessibility of ACP information and opportunities for improvement. We offer a set of concise, clinically relevant recommendations, informed by expert opinion, to improve the state of ACP documentation in the EHR.

  16. Distributed Online Learning in Social Recommender Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tekin, Cem; Zhang, Simpson; van der Schaar, Mihaela

    2014-08-01

    In this paper, we consider decentralized sequential decision making in distributed online recommender systems, where items are recommended to users based on their search query as well as their specific background including history of bought items, gender and age, all of which comprise the context information of the user. In contrast to centralized recommender systems, in which there is a single centralized seller who has access to the complete inventory of items as well as the complete record of sales and user information, in decentralized recommender systems each seller/learner only has access to the inventory of items and user information for its own products and not the products and user information of other sellers, but can get commission if it sells an item of another seller. Therefore the sellers must distributedly find out for an incoming user which items to recommend (from the set of own items or items of another seller), in order to maximize the revenue from own sales and commissions. We formulate this problem as a cooperative contextual bandit problem, analytically bound the performance of the sellers compared to the best recommendation strategy given the complete realization of user arrivals and the inventory of items, as well as the context-dependent purchase probabilities of each item, and verify our results via numerical examples on a distributed data set adapted based on Amazon data. We evaluate the dependence of the performance of a seller on the inventory of items the seller has, the number of connections it has with the other sellers, and the commissions which the seller gets by selling items of other sellers to its users.

  17. Mental Health Smartphone Apps: Review and Evidence-Based Recommendations for Future Developments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bakker, David; Kazantzis, Nikolaos; Rickwood, Debra; Rickard, Nikki

    2016-03-01

    The number of mental health apps (MHapps) developed and now available to smartphone users has increased in recent years. MHapps and other technology-based solutions have the potential to play an important part in the future of mental health care; however, there is no single guide for the development of evidence-based MHapps. Many currently available MHapps lack features that would greatly improve their functionality, or include features that are not optimized. Furthermore, MHapp developers rarely conduct or publish trial-based experimental validation of their apps. Indeed, a previous systematic review revealed a complete lack of trial-based evidence for many of the hundreds of MHapps available. To guide future MHapp development, a set of clear, practical, evidence-based recommendations is presented for MHapp developers to create better, more rigorous apps. A literature review was conducted, scrutinizing research across diverse fields, including mental health interventions, preventative health, mobile health, and mobile app design. Sixteen recommendations were formulated. Evidence for each recommendation is discussed, and guidance on how these recommendations might be integrated into the overall design of an MHapp is offered. Each recommendation is rated on the basis of the strength of associated evidence. It is important to design an MHapp using a behavioral plan and interactive framework that encourages the user to engage with the app; thus, it may not be possible to incorporate all 16 recommendations into a single MHapp. Randomized controlled trials are required to validate future MHapps and the principles upon which they are designed, and to further investigate the recommendations presented in this review. Effective MHapps are required to help prevent mental health problems and to ease the burden on health systems.

  18. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    At the UN Cultural kiosk (door C6) This offer is meant for international civil servants, members of diplomatic missions as well as official delegates under presentation of their accreditation card. Matthew Lee & 5 musiciens Du Blues, du Boogie, du Rock’n’Roll 28 octobre 2011 à 20h30 Théâtre du Léman Quai du Mont-Blanc 19 Hôtel Kempinski Genève Matthew Lee is an exciting pianist singer combining classic Rock’n’Roll with timeless ballads. He revisits the standards, being alternately Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Little Richards and many others... He is a showman with a soulful voice and displays virtuosity during his piano solos. Simply amazing! 20 % reduction Tickets from 32 to 68 CHF Kiosque Culturel ONU Palais des Nations Porte 6 Avenue de la Paix 8-14 1211 Genève 10 Tél. 022 917 11 11 info@kiosqueonu.ch

  19. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2013-01-01

    FUTUREKIDS proposes 15% discount for the Staff Association members who enroll their children in FUTUREKIDS activities. New workshop for 12-15 year olds, on how to develop applications for Android phones. Easter activities calendar Extracurricular Activities For Your Children The FUTUREKIDS Geneva Learning Center is open 6 days a week and offers a selection of after-school extracurricular activities for children and teenagers (ages 5 to 16). In addition to teaching in its Learning Centers, Futurekids collaborates with many private schools in Suisse Romande (Florimont, Moser, Champittet, Ecole Nouvelle, etc.) and with the Département de l'Instruction Publique (DIP) Genève. Courses and camps are usually in French but English groups can be set up on demand. FUTUREKIDS Computer Camps (during school holidays) FUTUREKIDS Computer Camps are a way of having a great time during vacations while learning something useful, possibly discovering a new hobby or even, why not, a fut...

  20. Offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2015-01-01

    RRP Communication organizes cultural events such as concerts, shows, sporting events. The members of the Staff Association profits from a reduction of 10 CHF per ticket. How to proceed: The ticket reservation is made by mail info@rrp.ch. You need to give the following information: Name of the show, and which date chosen Number of tickets, and category Name and surname Address Telephone number Mention “offer CERN”, and attach a photocopy of your Staff Association member card. After your reservation, you will be sent a copy with a payslip to the address mentioned above. Once paid, the members have the possibility to: pick up their ticket(s) from the cash register the evening of the show (opens 1 hour before the show) by showing their member card; receive the ticket(s) to the address indicated above, by registered mail, subject to an extra cost of 10CHF. Next show : More information at http://www.rrp.ch/

  1. Offers

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    Special offer for members of the Staff Association and their families 10% reduction on all products in the SEPHORA shop (sells perfume, beauty products etc.) in Val Thoiry ALL YEAR ROUND. Plus 20% reduction during their “vente privée”* three or four times a year. Simply present your Staff Association membership card when you make your purchase. * Next “vente privée” from 21st to 26th November 2011 New BCGE Business partner benefits As you may remember thanks to our BCGE business partner agreement you benefit from various advantages such as free annual subscription on your Silver or Gold credit card both for yourself and your partner (joint account). Please be informed that as of October 1st  2011 the below mentioned features will be added to your annual credit card subscription : MasterCard/Visa Silver and Gold: travel cancellation as well as related services such as holiday interruption best guaranteed price Only for Ma...

  2. Naturally occuring radiation in the Nordic countries - recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1986-01-01

    In the publication ''Report on the Applicability of International Radiation Protection Recommendations in the Nordic Countries'', published in 1976, the radiation protection authorities in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden expessed their agreement on the main principles of radiation protection. The general aspects of radiation protection were covered in the recommendations with the exception of exposure of the public from natural sources of radiation. In 1983 a working group published the report ''Naturally Occurring radiation in the Nordic Countries, - Levels'' in the Radiation Protection Information-Series from the Nordic countries. In that report the present knowledge of the population exposure from natural sources of external gamma-radiation and from radon and thoron daughters in air was reviewed as a basis for the development of the radiation protection recommendations for natural radiation. During preparation of these recommendations due account has also been taken of ICRP publication no. 39: ''Principles for Limiting Exposure of the Public to Natural Sources of Radiation'', which was published in 1984 and in which ICRP for the first time has issued more specific recommendations for natural sources. The recommendations may serve as a basis for more formal rules and regulations within each country, if this is seemed necessary. However, no attempt has been made to formulate identical rules for all the five countries since the exposure levels from natural sources, methods of application and the legal frameworks differ between the countries. (EG)

  3. Criteria for use of composite end points for competing risks-a systematic survey of the literature with recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manja, Veena; AlBashir, Siwar; Guyatt, Gordon

    2017-02-01

    Composite end points are frequently used in reports of clinical trials. One rationale for the use of composite end points is to account for competing risks. In the presence of competing risks, the event rate of a specific event depends on the rates of other competing events. One proposed solution is to include all important competing events in one composite end point. Clinical trialists require guidance regarding when this approach is appropriate. To identify publications describing criteria for use of composite end points for competing risk and to offer guidance regarding when a composite end point is appropriate on the basis of competing risks. We searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, The Cochrane's Central & Systematic Review databases including the Health Technology Assessment database, and the Cochrane's Methodology register from inception to April 2015, and candidate textbooks, to identify all articles providing guidance on this issue. Eligible publications explicitly addressed the issue of a composite outcome to address competing risks. Two reviewers independently screened the titles and abstracts for full-text review; independently reviewed full-text publications; and abstracted specific criteria authors offered for use of composite end points to address competing risks. Of 63,645 titles and abstracts, 166 proved potentially relevant of which 43 publications were included in the final review. Most publications note competing risks as a reason for using composite end points without further elaboration. None of the articles or textbook chapters provide specific criteria for use of composite end points for competing risk. Some advocate using composite end points to avoid bias due to competing risks and others suggest that composite end points seldom or never be used for this purpose. We recommend using composite end points for competing risks only if the competing risk is plausible and if it occurs with sufficiently high frequency to influence the interpretation

  4. Fourteen-year trends in sodium content of menu offerings at eight leading fast-food restaurants in the USA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudelt, Amanda; French, Simone; Harnack, Lisa

    2014-08-01

    To examine changes in the Na content of lunch/dinner menu offerings at eight of the leading fast-food restaurants in the USA between 1997/1998 and 2009/2010. Menu offerings and nutrient composition information for the menu items were obtained from archival versions of the University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center (NCC) Food and Nutrient Database. Nutrient composition information for lunch/dinner menu items sold by the fast-food restaurants included in the present study was updated in the database biannually. Menus were analysed for changes in mean Na content of all menu offerings (except beverages) and specific categories of menu items among all restaurants and for each individual restaurant. Lunch/dinner food menu of eight leading US fast-food restaurants. Between 1997/1998 and 2009/2010 the mean Na content of menu offerings across the eight restaurants increased by 23·4 %. Examining specific food categories, mean Na content of entrées by increased 17·2 % and that of condiments increased by 26·1 %. Only side dishes showed a decrease of 6·6 %. None of the restaurants examined had a decrease in Na across the lunch/dinner menu offerings over the 14 years examined. Results suggest that over the time period studied there has been no meaningful reduction in the Na content of lunch/dinner menu offerings at the leading fast-food restaurants examined in the present study.

  5. Do Preschools Offer Healthy Beverages to Children? A Nationwide Study in Poland

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joanna Myszkowska-Ryciak

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Background: Children’s beverage consumption patterns have received increased attention in light of the obesity epidemic in this group. In day care centers (DCCs, children spend up to 10 h a day, and typically consume half to three quarters of their daily food intake. The purpose of the study was to investigate what beverages are typically served to children in preschools in Poland, and to evaluate the practices associated with adding sugar and other sweetening agents to beverages. Methods: Direct interviews with preschools staff were conducted with a questionnaire regarding offered beverages and adding sugar and other sweetening agents. The menu of 10 consecutive days and inventory reports were analyzed to verify information. Results: A total of 720 preschools were included in the study. Cocoa and milk coffee substitute were served in 95% of preschools, followed by compote (92%, tea (84%, fruit/herbal tea (73% and water (69%. Water was the only beverage available between meals (93% DCCs. 86% of preschools added sugar to tea/cocoa/coffee substitute drinks, and 74% to compote. Conclusions: In the majority of preschools, beverages which are not recommended were offered. Such an assortment of beverages and common practice of sweetening can increase the amount of added sugar in a children diet. Nutrition education and legal regulations concerning the assortment of beverages served in preschools are urgently needed.

  6. Brownfields Recommendations for Sustainable Site Design — Green Landscape Plan

    Science.gov (United States)

    The assessment of conditions contained in this report focuses on site-specific environmental and soil conditions that might affect recommendations related to sustainable landscaping and site design, stormwater management, and stormwater reuse.

  7. Should physical activity recommendations be ethnicity-specific? Evidence from a cross-sectional study of South Asian and European men.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos A Celis-Morales

    Full Text Available Expert bodies and health organisations recommend that adults undertake at least 150 min.week(-1 of moderate-intensity physical activity (MPA. However, the underpinning data largely emanate from studies of populations of European descent. It is unclear whether this level of activity is appropriate for other ethnic groups, particularly South Asians, who have increased cardio-metabolic disease risk compared to Europeans. The aim of this study was to explore the level of MPA required in South Asians to confer a similar cardio-metabolic risk profile to that observed in Europeans undertaking the currently recommended MPA level of 150 min.week(-1.Seventy-five South Asian and 83 European men, aged 40-70, without cardiovascular disease or diabetes had fasted blood taken, blood pressure measured, physical activity assessed objectively (using accelerometry, and anthropometric measures made. Factor analysis was used to summarise measured risk biomarkers into underlying latent 'factors' for glycaemia, insulin resistance, lipid metabolism, blood pressure, and overall cardio-metabolic risk. Age-adjusted regression models were used to determine the equivalent level of MPA (in bouts of ≥ 10 minutes in South Asians needed to elicit the same value in each factor as Europeans undertaking 150 min.week(-1 MPA.For all factors, except blood pressure, equivalent MPA values in South Asians were significantly higher than 150 min.week(-1; the equivalent MPA value for the overall cardio-metabolic risk factor was 266 (95% CI 185-347 min.week(-1.South Asian men may need to undertake greater levels of MPA than Europeans to exhibit a similar cardio-metabolic risk profile, suggesting that a conceptual case can be made for ethnicity-specific physical activity guidance. Further study is needed to extend these findings to women and to replicate them prospectively in a larger cohort.

  8. Differences between U.S. substance abuse treatment facilities that do and do not offer domestic violence services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohn, Amy; Najavits, Lisa M

    2014-04-01

    Victimization by and perpetration of domestic violence are associated with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. This study used data from the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services to examine differences in organizational factors, treatment approaches offered, and client-level factors among 13,342 substance abuse treatment facilities by whether or not they offered domestic violence services. Only 36% of the facilities offered domestic violence services. Those that offered such services were more likely than those that did not to treat clients with co-occurring disorders. Principal-components analysis reduced eight treatment approaches to two factors: psychosocial services and traditional substance abuse services. Regression models indicated that the frequency with which psychosocial services were offered depended on the percentage of clients with co-occurring disorders who were being treated in the facility and whether or not that facility offered domestic violence services. Specifically, facilities that did not offer domestic violence services and that had a high percentage of clients with co-occurring disorders were more likely to offer psychosocial services than facilities that offered domestic violence services. A larger proportion of facilities offering domestic violence services offered traditional substance abuse treatment services, compared with facilities not offering domestic violence services, but this relationship was not contingent on the percentage of clients with co-occurring disorders at each facility. Improved efforts should be made to tailor treatments to accommodate the links between domestic violence, mental disorders, and substance abuse.

  9. Factors affecting Polish nurses' willingness to recommend the hospital as a place of care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kózka, Maria; Brzostek, Tomasz; Cisek, Maria; Brzyski, Piotr; Przewoźniak, Lucyna; Gabryś, Teresa; Ogarek, Maria; Gajda, Krzysztof; Ksykiewicz-Dorota, Anna

    Nurses constitute the major professional group offering constant hospital patients' care. Willingness to recommend their hospital reflects confidence in the offered care, satisfaction and identification with the work place. The aim of the present study has been to investigate which elements of hospital environment and nurse personal related factors predict recommendation of the hospital as a place of care by employed nurses. Cross-sectional, correlation study was, based on 1723 self-reported, anonymous questionnaires of nurses working in 30 acute hospitals. Data was analyzed using the logistic regression model, with general estimation equations. About 25% of nurses were unwilling to recommend their hospital as the place of care. The odds ratio (OR) of the lack of willingness to recommend the hospital was related to assessment of patients' safety (OR = 0.28, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.18-0.46, p = 0.00), decrease in the quality of patient care during the preceding year (OR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.41-0.93, p = 0.02), overall work conditions (OR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.22-0.57, p = 0.00), weak cooperation between nurses and physicians (OR = 0.37, 95% CI: 0.25-0.54, p = 0.00), poor work schedule flexibility (OR = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.55- 0.99, p = 0.04) and educational opportunities (OR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.54-0.95, p = 0.02) and the level of nurses depersonalization (OR = 1.78, 95% CI: 1.18-1.68, p = 0.00). The hospital manager should consider strategies which improve patients' safety and the staff working conditions. Thanks to that they will also achieve better and more competitive image of the hospital in the local community. Med Pr 2016;67(4):447-454. This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.

  10. Negotiating for more: the multiple equivalent simultaneous offer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heller, Richard E

    2014-02-01

    Whether a doctor, professional baseball manager, or a politician, having successful negotiation skills is a critical part of being a leader. Building upon prior journal articles on negotiation strategy, the author presents the concept of the multiple equivalent simultaneous offer (MESO). The concept of a MESO is straightforward: as opposed to making a single offer, make multiple offers with several variables. Each offer alters the different variables, such that the end result of each offer is equivalent from the perspective of the party making the offer. Research has found several advantages to the use of MESOs. For example, using MESOs, an offer was more likely to be accepted, and the counterparty was more likely to be satisfied with the negotiated deal. Additional benefits have been documented as well, underscoring why a prepared radiology business leader should understand the theory and practice of MESO. Copyright © 2014 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. International service learning programs: ethical issues and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reisch, Rebecca A

    2011-08-01

    Inequities in global health are increasingly of interest to health care providers in developed countries. In response, many academic healthcare programs have begun to offer international service learning programs. Participants in these programs are motivated by ethical principles, but this type of work presents significant ethical challenges, and no formalized ethical guidelines for these activities exist. In this paper the ethical issues presented by international service learning programs are described and recommendations are made for how academic healthcare programs can carry out international service learning programs in a way that minimizes ethical conflicts and maximizes benefits for all stakeholders. Issues related to project sustainability and community involvement are emphasized. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

  12. Recommendations for Improving the Career Opportunities of Teachers in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools: A Constructive Alternative to Merit Pay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlechty, Phillip; And Others

    1984-01-01

    Offers recommendations for developing a system of teacher staffing and evaluation that would improve teacher performance and the state of education in general. Discusses incentive and reward systems, performance evaluation, career advancement and enrichment, and other issues. (KH)

  13. X radiation qualities characterization following the standard IEC 61267 recommendations at the calibration laboratory of IPEN

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Franciscatto, Priscila Cerutti

    2009-01-01

    This work presents a methodology for the X radiation qualities characterization following the new recommendations of the standard 61267 of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to establish a new procedure for calibration of dosimetric systems used in the field of diagnostic radiology. The reference qualities radiation of IEC 61267: RQR 2 to RQR 10, RQA 2 to RQA 10, RQB 2 to RQB 10 and RQN 2 to RQN 10 were implanted at the calibration laboratory of IPEN (LCI). Their characteristics were analyzed through measurements of beam parameters such as: Practical peak voltage (PPV), specific additional filtrations for each qualities (high purity aluminum of about 99.9%), 1st and 2nd Half Value Layers, homogeneity coefficient. The inherent filtration of the X ray tube was also determined. With the establishment of these radiation qualities, the LCI will be ready to calibrate the measuring instruments of radiation in the new qualities, allowing an improvement in radiological services offered by IPEN. (author)

  14. LIFEREC: A Framework for Recommending Users from Past Life Experiences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MOHSIN ALI MEMON

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Life logging has been an eminent topic of concern in recent years with many researchers focusing on capturing daily life activities of human. With the proliferation of IoT (Internet of Things domain, the devices are now able to record human interaction for longer periods as well as transfer this data easily to other computing devices or cloud storage. This article proposes a novel framework named as LIFEREC which acquires information from IoT aware devices and sensors. It maintains activity profiles of various activities performed by the users in their daily lives. Furthermore, the framework provides recommendations when requested by an individual while taking into account the past life history and current context. Recent research on digitizing human life is quite efficient in amassing enormous data but futile in offering assistance for prospect decisions in life. The data gathered by the lifelog devices may be of a great help in taking decisions. The proposed system gives a new direction to existing mechanisms of providing recommendations by exploiting the current context and the past experiences of human life. The recommendations provided by our proposed system may be very helpful while performing those activities which have already been experienced in the past

  15. Dietary Recommendations for Cyclists during Altitude Training

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Małgorzata Michalczyk

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The concept of altitude or hypoxic training is a common practice in cycling. However, several strategies for training regimens have been proposed, like “live high, train high” (LH-TH, “live high, train low” (LH-TL or “intermittent hypoxic training” (IHT. Each of them combines the effect of acclimatization and different training protocols that require specific nutrition. An appropriate nutrition strategy and adequate hydration can help athletes achieve their fitness and performance goals in this unfriendly environment. In this review, the physiological stress of altitude exposure and training will be discussed, with specific nutrition recommendations for athletes training under such conditions. However, there is little research about the nutrition demands of athletes who train at moderate altitude. Our review considers energetic demands and body mass or body composition changes due to altitude training, including respiratory and urinary water loss under these conditions. Carbohydrate intake recommendations and hydration status are discussed in detail, while iron storage and metabolism is also considered. Last, but not least the risk of increased oxidative stress under hypoxic conditions and antioxidant supplementation suggestions are presented.

  16. Stakeholders' Recommendations to Improve Patient-centered "LGBTQ" Primary Care in Rural and Multicultural Practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kano, Miria; Silva-Bañuelos, Alma Rosa; Sturm, Robert; Willging, Cathleen E

    2016-01-01

    Individuals among gender/sexual minorities share experiences of stigma and discrimination, yet have distinctive health care needs influenced by ethnic/racial minority and rural realities. We collected qualitative data from lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) and queer persons across the largely rural, multicultural state of New Mexico, particularly those from understudied ethnic groups, regarding factors facilitating or impeding patient-centered primary care. The themes identified formed the basis for a statewide summit on LGBT health care guidelines and strategies for decreasing treatment gaps. Three to 15 individuals, ages 18 to 75 years, volunteered for 1 of 4 town hall dialogues (n = 32), and 175 people took part in the summit. Participants acknowledged health care gaps pertinent to LGBT youth, elders, American Indians, and Latinos/Latinas, expressing specific concern for rural residents. This preliminary research emphasizes the need to improve primary care practices that treat rural and ethnic-minority LGBT people and offers patient-driven recommendations to enhance care delivery while clinic-level transformations are implemented. © Copyright 2016 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

  17. Importance of characteristics and modalities of physical activity and exercise in defining the benefits to cardiovascular health within the general population: recommendations from the EACPR (Part I).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanhees, L; De Sutter, J; GeladaS, N; Doyle, F; Prescott, E; Cornelissen, V; Kouidi, E; Dugmore, D; Vanuzzo, D; Börjesson, M; Doherty, P

    2012-08-01

    Over the last decades, more and more evidence is accumulated that physical activity (PA) and exercise interventions are essential components in primary and secondary prevention for cardiovascular disease. However, it is less clear whether and which type of PA and exercise intervention (aerobic exercise, dynamic resistive exercise, or both) or characteristic of exercise (frequency, intensity, time or duration, and volume) would yield more benefit in achieving cardiovascular health. The present paper, as the first of a series of three, will make specific recommendations on the importance of these characteristics for cardiovascular health in the population at large. The guidance offered in this series of papers is aimed at medical doctors, health practitioners, kinesiologists, physiotherapists and exercise physiologists, politicians, public health policy makers, and the individual member of the public. Based on previous and the current literature, recommendations from the European Association on Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation are formulated regarding type, volume, and intensity of PA and exercise.

  18. Participation in recreation and sports for persons with spinal cord injury: review and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slater, Daniel; Meade, Michelle A

    2004-01-01

    Recreation and sports following Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) are beneficial, but under-studied, aspects of community integration. Previous studies have shown that sports and recreation can offer numerous physiological and psychological benefits to those who participate. This manuscript critically reviews available literature focused upon participation in recreation and sports among persons with SCI. Issues of participation, technology and safety are discussed and recommendations are provided.

  19. Tendering specification and contracting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koch, E. von

    1975-01-01

    The lecture tendering, specification and contracting is prepared in two parts: This first part deals with technical aspects while part two features the commercial and legal situation in the partnership of two: the supplier of the fuel bundles and the utility. In this lecture a look is given on the way how a supplier can offer its fuel and some certain points are mentioned which are important to compare the bid of one competitor to the other. The major points are summarized which are or at least should be in an offer so as to find out which offer is the best. (orig./FW) [de

  20. Benefits and challenges perceived by patients with cancer when offered a nurse navigator

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marianne Kirstine Thygesen

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Lack of communication, care and respect from healthcare professionals can be challenges for patients in trajectories of cancer, possibly accompanied by experienced fragmentation of the care, anxiety and worries. One way to try to improve delivery of care is additional help from Nurse Navigators (NN offered in a predefined shorter or longer period, but patients´ experiences with this have seldom been investigated. Aims: To explore patients´ experiences of an NN offered in a short period of a longer trajectory of cancer. Methods: NN worked from the hospital side in the transition between primary care and a university hospital before admission. A phenomenological-hermeneutical longitudinal study was performed from referral and until two months after discharge from the hospital. Semi-structured interviews provided data for the analysis, which started open-minded. Results:  Affectional bonds were made to NN and patients felt that they benefited from her presence and her help, which they requested until one month after discharge. They were deeply disappointed and felt rejected when the contact to the NN stopped. Conclusion: In efforts to increase quality of care for patients with cancer we recommend paying special attention to critical periods in their trajectories, as well as to the theory of attachment to supplement thoughts of continuity of care and coordination in the care for women. In short, it is fine to offer additional help to those who can use it, but in practice as well as in research we call attention to awareness on how and when to stop the help, to prevent patients from feeling hurt.

  1. Recommendations to enhance constructivist-based learning in Interprofessional Education using video-based self-assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dahmen, Uta

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Interprofessional collaboration is crucial to the optimization of patient care.Aim: This paper aims to provide recommendations for implementing an innovative constructivist educational concept with the core element of video-based self-assessment.Methodology: A course for students in medicine, physiotherapy, and nursing was developed through interprofessional, cross-institutional collaboration. The course consisted of We evaluated the preparation and implementation of the three courses conducted thus far. Concrete recommendations for implementation were made based on evaluation sheets (students, open discussions (tutors, instructors, institutions and recorded meeting minutes (project managers, project participants.Results: Basic recommendations for implementation include: selecting appropriate criteria for self-assessment and a simulated situation that offers members of each professional group an equal opportunity to act in the role play. In terms of administrative implementation we recommend early coordination among the professions and educational institutions regarding the target groups, scheduling and attendance policy to ensure participant recruitment across all professions. Procedural planning should include developing teaching materials, such as the case vignette and treatment scenario, and providing technical equipment that can be operated intuitively in order to ensure efficient recording.Conclusion: These recommendations serve as an aid for implementing an innovative constructivist educational concept with video-based self-assessment at its core.

  2. PROSPECT: a practical method for formulating evidence-based expert recommendations for the management of postoperative pain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neugebauer, E A M; Wilkinson, R C; Kehlet, H; Schug, S A

    2007-07-01

    Many patients still suffer severe acute pain in the postoperative period. Although guidelines for treating acute pain are widely published and promoted, most do not consider procedure-specific differences in pain experienced or in techniques that may be most effective and appropriate for different surgical settings. The procedure-specific postoperative pain management (PROSPECT) Working Group provides procedure-specific recommendations for postoperative pain management together with supporting evidence from systematic literature reviews and related procedures at http://www.postoppain.org The methodology for PROSPECT reviews was developed and refined by discussion of the Working Group, and it adapts existing methods for formulation of consensus recommendations to the specific requirements of PROSPECT. To formulate PROSPECT recommendations, we use a methodology that takes into account study quality and source and level of evidence, and we use recognized methods for achieving group consensus, thus reducing potential bias. The new methodology is first applied in full for the 2006 update of the PROSPECT review of postoperative pain management for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Transparency in PROSPECT processes allows the users to be fully aware of any limitations of the evidence and recommendations, thereby allowing for appropriate decisions in their own practice setting.

  3. Offer

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2016-01-01

    The “La Comédie” theatre unveiled its programme for the season 2016–2017 in late May, and it was met with great enthusiasm by the press. Leading names of the European and Swiss theatre scenes, such as director Joël Pommerat who recently won four Molière awards, will make an appearance! We are delighted to share this brand new, rich and varied programme with you. The “La Comédie” theatre has various discounts for our members Buy 2 subscriptions for the price of 1 : 2 cards “Libertà” for CHF 240.- instead of CHF 480.- Cruise freely through the season with an 8-entry card valid for the shows of your choice. These cards are transferable and can be shared with one or more accompanying persons. 2 cards “Piccolo” for CHF 120 instead of CHF 240.- This card lets you discover 4 shows which are suitable for all audiences (offers valid while stock lasts and until October 31, 20...

  4. 48 CFR 12.602 - Streamlined evaluation of offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... offers. 12.602 Section 12.602 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION... for Commercial Items 12.602 Streamlined evaluation of offers. (a) When evaluation factors are used... evaluation factors. (b) Offers shall be evaluated in accordance with the criteria contained in the...

  5. Context-aware recommender system based on ontology for recommending tourist destinations at Bandung

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rizaldy Hafid Arigi, L.; Abdurahman Baizal, Z. K.; Herdiani, Anisa

    2018-03-01

    Recommender System is software that is able to provide personalized recommendation suits users’ needs. Recommender System has been widely implemented in various domains, including tourism. One approach that can be done for more personalized recommendations is the use of contextual information. This paper proposes a context aware recommender based ontology system in the tourism domain. The system is capable of recommending tourist destinations by using user preferences of the categories of tourism and contextual information such as user locations, weather around tourist destinations and close time of destination. Based on the evaluation, the system has accuracy of of 0.94 (item recommendation precision evaluated by expert) and 0.58 (implicitly from system-end user interaction). Based on the evaluation of user satisfaction, the system provides a satisfaction level of more than 0.7 (scale 0 to 1) for speed factors for providing liked recommendations (PE), informative description of recommendations (INF) and user trust (TR).

  6. Recommendations for Longitudinal Post-Tensioning in Full-Depth Precast Concrete Bridge Deck Panels

    OpenAIRE

    Bowers, Susan Elizabeth

    2007-01-01

    Full-depth precast concrete panels offer an efficient alternative to traditional cast-in-place concrete for replacement or new construction of bridge decks. Research has shown that longitudinal post-tensioning helps keep the precast bridge deck in compression and avoid problems such as leaking, cracking, spalling, and subsequent rusting on the beams at the transverse panel joints. Current design recommendations suggest levels of initial compression for precast concrete decks in a very limit...

  7. Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical ConductRecommendations for Good Scientific Practice and the Consumers of VR-Technology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael eMadary

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The goal of this article is to present a first list of ethical concerns that may arise from research and personal use of virtual reality (VR and related technology, and to offer concrete recommendations for minimizing those risks. Many of the recommendations call for focused research initiatives. In the first part of the article, we discuss the relevant evidence from psychology that motivates our concerns. In section 1.1, we cover some of the main results suggesting that one’s environment can influence one’s psychological states, as well as recent work on inducing illusions of embodiment. Then, in section 1.2, we go on to discuss recent evidence indicating that immersion in VR can have psychological effects that last after leaving the virtual environment. In the second part of the article we turn to the risks and recommendations. We begin, in section 2.1, with the research ethics of VR, covering six main topics: the limits of experimental environments, informed consent, clinical risks, dual-use, online research, and a general point about the limitations of a code of conduct for research. Then, in section 2.2, we turn to the risks of VR for the general public, covering four main topics: long-term immersion, neglect of the social and physical environment, risky content, and privacy. We offer concrete recommendations for each of these ten topics, summarized in Table 1.

  8. A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Trust-Oriented Point-of-Interest Recommendation

    KAUST Repository

    Liu, An; Wang, Weiqi; Li, Zhixu; Liu, Guanfeng; Li, Qing; Zhou, Xiaofang; Zhang, Xiangliang

    2017-01-01

    Point-of-Interest (POI) recommendation has attracted many interests recently because of its significant potential for helping users to explore new places and helping LBS providers to carry out precision marketing. Compared with the user-item rating matrix in conventional recommender systems, the user-location check-in matrix in POI recommendation is usually much more sparse, which makes the notorious cold start problem more prominent in POI recommendation. Trust-oriented recommendation is an effective way to deal with this problem but it requires that the recommender has access to user check-in and trust data. In practice, however, these data are usually owned by different businesses who are not willing to share their data with the recommender mainly due to privacy and legal concerns. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving framework to boost data owners willingness to share their data with untrustworthy businesses. More specifically, we utilize partially homomorphic encryption to design two protocols for privacy-preserving trustoriented POI recommendation. By offline encryption and parallel computing, these protocols can efficiently protect the private data of every party involved in the recommendation. We prove that the proposed protocols are secure against semi-honest adversaries. Experiments on both synthetic data and real data show that our protocols can achieve privacy-preserving with acceptable computation and communication cost.

  9. A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Trust-Oriented Point-of-Interest Recommendation

    KAUST Repository

    Liu, An

    2017-10-23

    Point-of-Interest (POI) recommendation has attracted many interests recently because of its significant potential for helping users to explore new places and helping LBS providers to carry out precision marketing. Compared with the user-item rating matrix in conventional recommender systems, the user-location check-in matrix in POI recommendation is usually much more sparse, which makes the notorious cold start problem more prominent in POI recommendation. Trust-oriented recommendation is an effective way to deal with this problem but it requires that the recommender has access to user check-in and trust data. In practice, however, these data are usually owned by different businesses who are not willing to share their data with the recommender mainly due to privacy and legal concerns. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving framework to boost data owners willingness to share their data with untrustworthy businesses. More specifically, we utilize partially homomorphic encryption to design two protocols for privacy-preserving trustoriented POI recommendation. By offline encryption and parallel computing, these protocols can efficiently protect the private data of every party involved in the recommendation. We prove that the proposed protocols are secure against semi-honest adversaries. Experiments on both synthetic data and real data show that our protocols can achieve privacy-preserving with acceptable computation and communication cost.

  10. Learning material recommendation based on case-based reasoning similarity scores

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masood, Mona; Mokmin, Nur Azlina Mohamed

    2017-10-01

    A personalized learning material recommendation is important in any Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Case-based Reasoning (CBR) is an Artificial Intelligent Algorithm that has been widely used in the development of ITS applications. This study has developed an ITS application that applied the CBR algorithm in the development process. The application has the ability to recommend the most suitable learning material to the specific student based on information in the student profile. In order to test the ability of the application in recommending learning material, two versions of the application were created. The first version displayed the most suitable learning material and the second version displayed the least preferable learning material. The results show the application has successfully assigned the students to the most suitable learning material.

  11. Domain-specific languages in perspective

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    J. Heering (Jan); M. Mernik (Marjan)

    2007-01-01

    textabstractDomain-specific languages (DSLs) are languages tailored to a specific application domain. They offer substantial gains in expressiveness and ease of use compared with general-purpose languages in their domain of application. Although the use of DSLs is by no means new, it is receiving

  12. Monitoring program design recommendations for uranium mining communities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1978-10-01

    Environmental radiological monitoring requirements and their rationale have been developed for operating uranium mine/mill sites including the pre-operational phase, and for non-operating tailings areas, in order to assess the radiological impact on the environment and follow long-term trends. These recommendations have been based on a review of regulatory standards, sources and nature of releases from mines, mills and tailings, and environmental pathway analysis. Media and measurements considered in the routine on-going programs include airborne radon, airborne particulates, external radiation, terrestrial biota, surface water, drinking water, ground water, fish and sediment. Program implementation guides are provided. An overview of sampling and field technique and specific recommendations have been made. (auth)

  13. Information Uncertainty in Electricity Markets: Introducing Probabilistic Offers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Papakonstantinou, Athanasios; Pinson, Pierre

    2016-01-01

    We propose a shift from the current paradigm of electricity markets treating stochastic producers similarly to conventional ones in terms of their offers. We argue that the producers’ offers should be probabilistic to reflect the limited predictability of renewable energy generation, while we...... should design market mechanisms to accommodate such offers. We argue that the transition from deterministic offers is a natural next step in electricity markets, by analytically proving our proposal’s equivalence with a two-price conventional market....

  14. Determination of Tropical Forage Preferences Using Two Offering Methods in Rabbits

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. M. Safwat

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Two methods of feed preference trials were compared to evaluate the acceptability of 5 fresh foliages: Leucaena leucocephala, Moringa oleifera, Portulaca oleracea, Guazuma ulmifolia, and Brosimum alicastrum that was included as control. The evaluation included chemical analyses and forage intake by rabbits. The first method was a cafeteria trial; 12 California growing rabbits aged 8 wk, allocated in individual cages, were offered the five forage plants at the same time inside the cage, while in the second trial 60 California growing rabbits aged 8 wk, allocated individually, were randomly distributed into 5 experimental groups (n = 12/group; for each group just one forage species was offered at a time. The testing period for each method lasted for 7 d, preceded by one week of adaptation. The results showed that B. alicastrum and L. lecocephala were the most preferred forages while on the contrary G. ulmifolia was the least preferred one by rabbits. The results also revealed that the CV% value for the 2nd method (16.32%, which the tested forages were presented separately to rabbits, was lower and methodologically more acceptable than such value for the 1st method (34.28%, which all forages were presented together at the same time. It can be concluded that a range of tropical forages were consumed in acceptable quantities by rabbits, suggesting that diets based on such forages with a concentrate supplement could be used successfully for rabbit production. However, growth performance studies are still needed before recommendations could be made on appropriate ration formulations for commercial use.

  15. 5 CFR 339.302 - Authority to offer examinations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 5 Administrative Personnel 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Authority to offer examinations. 339.302... QUALIFICATION DETERMINATIONS Medical Examinations § 339.302 Authority to offer examinations. An agency may, at its option, offer a medical examination (including a psychiatric evaluation) in any situation where...

  16. Recommendations and comments on the report of the Ontario Nuclear Safety Review

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1988-12-01

    The report of the Ontario Nuclear Safety Review (ONSR) prepared by Dr. F. Kenneth Hare in March 1988, is reviewed by the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Safety (ACNS) to assess for the Atomic Energy Control Board the relevance and importance of the ONSR recommendations and comments. The ACNS conclusions from this study are embodied in nineteen recommendations, as well as several suggestions and some specific comments

  17. Offer And Acceptance In Cross-Border Electronic Contracts: A Brief Comparative Perspective

    OpenAIRE

    Cupido, Robin

    2015-01-01

    Electronic communications have become a widely accepted method of contract conclusion, in part due to the relative ease of contracting afforded to parties who contract inter absentes. The traditional rules of contract law are specifically designed for paper-based contracts, and it is necessary to consider whether these rules would find the same application in contracts concluded electronically. Of particular interest to me is the approach taken to offer and acceptance. This paper will investi...

  18. Site Specific Vendor's License

    Data.gov (United States)

    Montgomery County of Maryland — This dataset contains information of a site-specific vendor's license which is required if an individual sells or offers to sell goods or services from a stationary...

  19. Recommendations on nuclear and multimodality imaging in IE and CIED infections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erba, Paola Anna; Lancellotti, Patrizio; Vilacosta, Isidre; Gaemperli, Oliver; Rouzet, Francois; Hacker, Marcus; Signore, Alberto; Slart, Riemer H J A; Habib, Gilbert

    2018-05-24

    In the latest update of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines for the management of infective endocarditis (IE), imaging is positioned at the centre of the diagnostic work-up so that an early and accurate diagnosis can be reached. Besides echocardiography, contrast-enhanced CT (ce-CT), radiolabelled leucocyte (white blood cell, WBC) SPECT/CT and [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT are included as diagnostic tools in the diagnostic flow chart for IE. Following the clinical guidelines that provided a straightforward message on the role of multimodality imaging, we believe that it is highly relevant to produce specific recommendations on nuclear multimodality imaging in IE and cardiac implantable electronic device infections. In these procedural recommendations we therefore describe in detail the technical and practical aspects of WBC SPECT/CT and [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT, including ce-CT acquisition protocols. We also discuss the advantages and limitations of each procedure, specific pitfalls when interpreting images, and the most important results from the literature, and also provide recommendations on the appropriate use of multimodality imaging.

  20. 17 CFR 230.155 - Integration of abandoned offerings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... offering disclose information about the abandoned private offering, including: (i) The size and nature of... were (or who the issuer reasonably believes were): (i) Accredited investors (as that term is defined in... document used in the private offering discloses any changes in the issuer's business or financial condition...

  1. 7 CFR 29.57 - Where inspection is offered.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Where inspection is offered. 29.57 Section 29.57... REGULATIONS TOBACCO INSPECTION Regulations Permissive Inspection § 29.57 Where inspection is offered. Tobacco..., samplers, or weighers are available and the tobacco is offered under conditions that permit of its proper...

  2. 7 CFR 3431.17 - VMLRP service agreement offer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 15 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false VMLRP service agreement offer. 3431.17 Section 3431... Administration of the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program § 3431.17 VMLRP service agreement offer. The Secretary will make an offer to successful applicants to enter into an agreement with the Secretary to...

  3. 31 CFR 309.6 - Public notice of offering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public notice of offering. 309.6 Section 309.6 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating to Money and Finance (Continued) FISCAL... Public notice of offering. When Treasury bills are to be offered, tenders therefor will be invited...

  4. 19 CFR 172.32 - Authority to accept offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 19 Customs Duties 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Authority to accept offers. 172.32 Section 172.32 Customs Duties U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; DEPARTMENT OF THE....32 Authority to accept offers. The authority to accept offers in compromise, subject to the...

  5. Recommendations for skin decontamination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1989-01-01

    Further to the reecommendations for determining the surface contamination of the skin and estimating the radiation exposure of the skin after contamination (SAAS-Mitt--89-16), measures for skin decontamination are recommended. They are necessary if (1) after simple decontamination by means of water, soap and brush without damaging the skin the surface contamination limits are exceeded and the radiation exposure to be expected for the undamaged healthy skin is estimated as to high, and if (2) a wound is contaminated. To remove skin contaminations, in general universally applicable, non-aggressive decontamination means and methods are sufficient. In special cases, nuclide-specific decontamination is required taking into account the properties of the radioactive substance

  6. Physical and Psychological Health Following Military Sexual Assault: Recommendations for Care, Research, and Policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    costs and benefits of disclosure and made an informed deci- sion that it was not in their personal best interest. The emotional trauma of forensic...forensic services, (3) advocacy and emotional support, and (4) mental health and psy- chiatric care. In each subsection, the review focuses primarily...al., 1996). The WHO guidelines recommend that victims who present for services within five days of the assault be offered emergency contraception

  7. Adherence to the cancer prevention recommendations of the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research and mortality: a census-linked cohort.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lohse, Tina; Faeh, David; Bopp, Matthias; Rohrmann, Sabine

    2016-09-01

    Modifiable lifestyle factors linked to cancer offer great potential for prevention. Previous studies suggest an association between adherence to recommendations on healthy lifestyle and cancer mortality. The aim of this study was to examine whether adherence to the cancer prevention recommendations of the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) is associated with reduced all-cause, total cancer, and specific cancer type mortality. We built a lifestyle score that included 3 categories, based on the recommendations of the WCRF/AICR. Applying Cox regression models, we investigated the association with all-cause, total cancer, and specific cancer type mortality; in addition, we included cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. We used census- and death registry-linked survey data allowing a mortality follow-up for ≤32 y. Our analysis included 16,722 participants. Information on lifestyle score components and confounders was collected at baseline. Over a mean follow-up of 21.7 y, 3730 deaths were observed (1332 cancer deaths). Comparing best with poorest category of the lifestyle score showed an inverse association with all-cause (HR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.75, 0.89) and total cancer (men only, HR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.57, 0.84) mortality. We estimated that ∼13% of premature cancer deaths in men would have been preventable if lifestyle score levels had been high. Inverse associations were observed for lung, upper aerodigestive tract, stomach, and prostate cancer mortality [men and women combined, HR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.51, 0.99; HR: 0.49; 95% CI: 0.26, 0.92; HR: 0.34; 95% CI: 0.14, 0.83; HR: 0.48; 95% CI: 0.28, 0.82 (men only), respectively]. CVD mortality was not associated with the lifestyle score (men and women combined, HR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.82, 1.13). Our results support the importance of adhering to recommendations for a healthy lifestyle with regard to all-cause and cancer mortality. To reduce the burden of cancer in the

  8. Specific features of domestic banks activity in the factoring services market

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Trygub Olena V.

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses specific features of formation and development of the domestic factoring market. In the result of the study the article establishes that development of factoring in Ukraine took place due to active participation of banking institutions in this process and nowadays they are leaders in the domestic factoring services market due to possessing significant competitive advantages if compared with non-banking companies that specialise in factoring. The article detects that nowadays the banks are not only offerers of factoring services and finance factoring operations of other market participants, but also take an active part in establishment of factoring branches and are consumers of factoring services. In order to accelerate development of international factoring in Ukraine, the article offers such forms of state support of banks, which render factoring services to domestic exporters. The article recommends to focus banks’ attention, under modern conditions that are characterised with volatility of financial markets, on factoring servicing of those clients, whom they have long business relations with, without jeopardising themselves through provision of factoring services to a big number of small debtors. The article provides schemes of banks’ co-operation in the sphere of “non-classic” factoring with accredited factoring companies.

  9. Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the arctic (VACCA): Implementing recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2011-07-01

    This report provides recommendations for how Norway's government could move forward with the results from the Arctic Council supported VACCA project, suggesting how concrete activities may be implemented and applied to policy and practice. Based on the results of interviews with Arctic peoples and people involved in Arctic work, combined with desk studies of relevant literature, four Arctic contexts are defined within the dividing lines coastal/non-coastal and urban/non-urban. This report provides up to five concrete recommendations within each context, recommendations for cross-contextual action, and specific projects for further research and action.(auth)

  10. Improving mental health in families with autistic children: benefits of using video feedback in parent counselling sessions offered alongside music therapy

    OpenAIRE

    Laura K. Blauth

    2016-01-01

    Background This paper explores benefits of parent counselling offered alongside music therapy with children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Research studies have shown that the stress levels of primary caregivers of children with ASD are not only higher than in the general population but also higher than in parents of children with other developmental disabilities. It is therefore recommended that music therapists working with children with ASD also engage and support their parents...

  11. Market Timing, lifecycle stage and Seasoned Equity offerings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vilma Sousa Ismael da Costa

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available The tradeoff theory suggests that companies must issue shares to investments, when its leverage index is greater than your target rate, while the pecking order theory predicts that when capital offerings occur, the capital will be used to finance investments as the last source of funding, after their debt capacity have been exhausted. In contrast, the market timing theory predicts arguments that companies will adopt opportunistic behavior by issuing shares to take advantage of the high prices of the shares. Although the market timing theory has a significant influence on the decision to make a SEO, Brazilian literature contains little evidence about their economic importance and their effects. Thus, the present research aims to fill this gap in the Brazilian scenario. Specifically, we sought to assess the explanatory power of the relationship of market timing and the lifecycle theory in the issuance of SEO, which predicts that young companies with high market-to-book (MB and low operating cash flow sell shares to finance the investment, while mature companies, with low MB, pay dividends and fund investment internally. The sample was composed by non-financial companies with shares traded on BM&FBovespa. As main results, we can conclude that there is relationship between SEO and MB and size. On the other hand, were not observed evidence confirming the relationship between lifecycle stage and stock return, both in the previous year, and the year following the completion of the offer.

  12. Commercial laying hen diets formulated according to different recommendations of total and digestible amino acids

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    EM Casartelli

    2005-09-01

    Full Text Available An experiment was conducted to evaluate different commercial laying hen diets formulated based on recommendations for total and digestible amino acids. One hundred and twenty Lohmann LSL commercial laying hens aged 25 weeks were distributed in a completely randomized experimental design involving five replications of six birds in four treatments. Diet formulation on a total amino acid basis followed the recommendations of NRC (1994 and Rostagno et al. (2000, whereas formulation on digestible amino acids basis was according to Rostagno et al. (2000 and Degussa (1997 recommendations. The experimental period was divided into five periods of fourteen days. Performance parameters (egg production, feed intake, feed conversion, egg mass were evaluated for each period, and on the last two days of each period, three eggs per replication were collected to evaluate egg quality parameters (Haugh unit, egg specific gravity, egg weight, eggshell thickness and percentage. Means were compared by orthogonal contrasts. Results on feed intake, egg production, egg mass, feed conversion and egg specific gravity showed that total amino acid recommendations promoted better bird responses than digestible amino acid recommendations.

  13. [ANDALIES project: consumption, offer and promotion of healthy eating habits within secondary schools in Andalusia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    González Rodríguez, Angustias; García Padilla, Francisca M; Martos Cerezuela, Ildefonso; Silvano Arranz, Agustina; Fernández Lao, Isabel

    2015-04-01

    The school context stands out as one of the factors influencing the food practices of adolescents. Food consumption during the school day, the cafeterias' supply and the promotional activities proposed by the centers are objects of increasing attention to community health services. To describe students' eating habits during the school day; to analyze the food on offer by the cafeterias and surrounding establishments; and to assess whether secondary schools are suitable environments for the promotion of healthy eating habits. Cross-sectional study during 2010-2012 courses. Sampling units: public secondary schools (95) and students (8.068). Multistage cluster sampling: random and stratified selection by province and habitat size. Selection of students: systematic sampling of classrooms. 77.5% of students have breakfast at home: cereals and a dairy product (40.9%) or a liquid (29.2%); 70.3% eat something at school and most of them choose a cold meat sandwich. Fruit consumption is infrequent (2.5%) while packed juices are very common (63.3%). 75% eat sweets, the figure increasing significantly in schools with cafeterias. Cafeterias offer a large number of non-recommended products: soft drinks (97,3%), cold meats (91,8%), sweets and chips (89%). Lack of control of the products on offer is common (68.42%); only 28.4% of the managers know the law. 72.5% of the centers undertake isolated activities for the promotion of healthy eating habits. 71.5% of the centers are surrounded by shops that supply the students. Low protection of students' food health is evident, resulting from: students' nutritional deficits, the low quality of the food offered by the cafeterias and the lack of activities to encourage healthy habits. For which reason, educational, health and local administrations must accept shared responsibility on this subject. Copyright AULA MEDICA EDICIONES 2014. Published by AULA MEDICA. All rights reserved.

  14. High-testosterone men reject low ultimatum game offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burnham, Terence C

    2007-09-22

    The ultimatum game is a simple negotiation with the interesting property that people frequently reject offers of 'free' money. These rejections contradict the standard view of economic rationality. This divergence between economic theory and human behaviour is important and has no broadly accepted cause. This study examines the relationship between ultimatum game rejections and testosterone. In a variety of species, testosterone is associated with male seeking dominance. If low ultimatum game offers are interpreted as challenges, then high-testosterone men may be more likely to reject such offers. In this experiment, men who reject low offers ($5 out of $40) have significantly higher testosterone levels than those who accept. In addition, high testosterone levels are associated with higher ultimatum game offers, but this second finding is not statistically significant.

  15. Building a biomedical ontology recommender web service

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jonquet Clement

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Researchers in biomedical informatics use ontologies and terminologies to annotate their data in order to facilitate data integration and translational discoveries. As the use of ontologies for annotation of biomedical datasets has risen, a common challenge is to identify ontologies that are best suited to annotating specific datasets. The number and variety of biomedical ontologies is large, and it is cumbersome for a researcher to figure out which ontology to use. Methods We present the Biomedical Ontology Recommender web service. The system uses textual metadata or a set of keywords describing a domain of interest and suggests appropriate ontologies for annotating or representing the data. The service makes a decision based on three criteria. The first one is coverage, or the ontologies that provide most terms covering the input text. The second is connectivity, or the ontologies that are most often mapped to by other ontologies. The final criterion is size, or the number of concepts in the ontologies. The service scores the ontologies as a function of scores of the annotations created using the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO Annotator web service. We used all the ontologies from the UMLS Metathesaurus and the NCBO BioPortal. Results We compare and contrast our Recommender by an exhaustive functional comparison to previously published efforts. We evaluate and discuss the results of several recommendation heuristics in the context of three real world use cases. The best recommendations heuristics, rated ‘very relevant’ by expert evaluators, are the ones based on coverage and connectivity criteria. The Recommender service (alpha version is available to the community and is embedded into BioPortal.

  16. Recommendation in evolving online networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Xiao; Zeng, An; Shang, Ming-Sheng

    2016-02-01

    Recommender system is an effective tool to find the most relevant information for online users. By analyzing the historical selection records of users, recommender system predicts the most likely future links in the user-item network and accordingly constructs a personalized recommendation list for each user. So far, the recommendation process is mostly investigated in static user-item networks. In this paper, we propose a model which allows us to examine the performance of the state-of-the-art recommendation algorithms in evolving networks. We find that the recommendation accuracy in general decreases with time if the evolution of the online network fully depends on the recommendation. Interestingly, some randomness in users' choice can significantly improve the long-term accuracy of the recommendation algorithm. When a hybrid recommendation algorithm is applied, we find that the optimal parameter gradually shifts towards the diversity-favoring recommendation algorithm, indicating that recommendation diversity is essential to keep a high long-term recommendation accuracy. Finally, we confirm our conclusions by studying the recommendation on networks with the real evolution data.

  17. How to Choose Appropriate Experts for Peer Review: An Intelligent Recommendation Method in a Big Data Context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Duanduan Liu

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The rapid development of the internet has led to the accumulation of massive amounts of data, and thus we find ourselves entering the age of big data. Obtaining useful information from these big data is a crucial issue. The aim of this article is to solve the problem of recommending experts to provide peer reviews for universities and other scientific research institutions. Our proposed recommendation method has two stages. An information filtering method is first offered to identify proper experts as a candidate set. Then, an aggregation model with various constraints is suggested to recommend appropriate experts for each applicant. The proposed method has been implemented in an online research community, and the results exhibit that the proposed method is more effective than existing ones.

  18. 12 CFR 810.2 - Public notice of offering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Public notice of offering. 810.2 Section 810.2 Banks and Banking FEDERAL FINANCING BANK FEDERAL FINANCING BANK BILLS § 810.2 Public notice of offering. On the occasion of an offering of FFB bills, tenders therefor will be invited through public notices...

  19. Evidence and recommendation. Intermitent neuromonitoring in thyroid surgery is usefulness for reduction of recurrent nerve palsy?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Luis PARDAL-REFOYO

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction and objective: Clinical Question. In a patient with thyroid disease [patient], submitted to thyroidectomy [intervention], the use of neuromonitoring against the single visual identification of recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN [comparison], offers advantages? [result]. Material and Methods: Literature review in PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane Library data descriptors and search strategy: (((((((laryngeal OR larynx AND nerve AND monitoring AND thyroidectomy AND meta-analysis. 10 items in English or Spanish of which 7 were selected for the qualitative study were obtained. Results: Level of evidence. Evidence for the lower incidence of transient unilateral paralysis in patients with neuromonitoring is moderate-high. Evidence on the lower incidence of permanent unilateral paralysis of RLN with NM is low. Evidence on the lower incidence of bilateral paralysis of RLN with neuromonitoring is low. Conclusions: Recommendation. Concerning the reduction of transient paralysis of the RLN the recommendation of the use of neuromonitoring in thyroid surgery is strongly in favor. Regarding permanent paralysis recommendation is weak in favor (no recommendation against. Regarding prevention of bilateral laryngeal paralysis recommendation for weak. The decision to use NM cannot be based on the incidence of RLN paralysis.

  20. Are nutrition messages lost in transmission? Assessing the quality and consistency of diabetes guideline recommendations on the delivery of nutrition therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hale, Kelli; Capra, Sandra; Bauer, Judy

    2016-12-01

    To provide an overview of (1) the consistency of Type 2 Diabetes Clinical Practice Guidelines recommendations on the delivery of nutrition therapy and (2) Clinical Practice Guideline quality. Large international clinical practice guideline repositories, diabetes organisation websites, and electronic databases (Pubmed, Scopus), were searched to identify Clinical Practice Guidelines for adults with type 2 diabetes published 2005 to August 2014. Recommendations on the delivery of nutrition therapy were extracted and inductive content analysis was used to analyse consistency. Two researchers independently assessed guideline quality using the AGREE II tool. Nine topics were identified from the recommendations. Overall the consistency of the recommendations was related to guideline type. Compared with nutrition-specific guidelines, the broad ones had a broader focus and included more patient-focused recommendations. The ten Clinical Practice Guidelines assessed included six broad guidelines and four nutrition specific guidelines. Based on AGREE II analysis, the broad guidelines were higher quality than nutrition-specific ones. Broad Clinical Practice Guidelines were higher quality and included more patient-focused recommendations than nutrition-specific ones. Our findings suggest a need for nutrition-specific guidelines to be modified to include greater patient-focus, or for practitioners delivering nutrition therapy to adopt broad Clinical Practice Guidelines. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. A Recommender System for an IPTV Service Provider: a Real Large-Scale Production Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bambini, Riccardo; Cremonesi, Paolo; Turrin, Roberto

    In this chapter we describe the integration of a recommender system into the production environment of Fastweb, one of the largest European IP Television (IPTV) providers. The recommender system implements both collaborative and content-based techniques, suitable tailored to the specific requirements of an IPTV architecture, such as the limited screen definition, the reduced navigation capabilities, and the strict time constraints. The algorithms are extensively analyzed by means of off-line and on-line tests, showing the effectiveness of the recommender systems: up to 30% of the recommendations are followed by a purchase, with an estimated lift factor (increase in sales) of 15%.

  2. Could we do better? Behavioural tracking on recommended consumer health websites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burkell, Jacquelyn; Fortier, Alexandre

    2015-09-01

    This study examines behavioural tracking practices on consumer health websites, contrasting tracking on sites recommended by information professionals with tracking on sites returned by Google. Two lists of consumer health websites were constructed: sites recommended by information professionals and sites returned by Google searches. Sites were divided into three groups according to source (Recommended-Only, Google-Only or both) and type (Government, Not-for-Profit or Commercial). Behavioural tracking practices on each website were documented using a protocol that detected cookies, Web beacons and Flash cookies. The presence and the number of trackers that collect personal information were contrasted across source and type of site; a second set of analyses specifically examined Advertising trackers. Recommended-Only sites show lower levels of tracking - especially tracking by advertisers - than do Google-Only sites or sites found through both sources. Government and Not-for-Profit sites have fewer trackers, particularly from advertisers, than do Commercial sites. Recommended sites, especially those from Government or Not-for-Profit organisations, present a lower privacy threat than sites returned by Google searches. Nonetheless, most recommended websites include some trackers, and half include at least one Advertising tracker. To protect patron privacy, information professionals should examine the tracking practices of the websites they recommend. © 2015 Health Libraries Group.

  3. A collaborative recommendation framework for ontology evaluation and reuse

    OpenAIRE

    Cantador, Iván; Fernández Sánchez, Miriam; Castells, Pablo

    2006-01-01

    This is an electronic version of the paper presented at the International Workshop on Recommender Systems, held in Riva del Garda on 2006 Ontology evaluation can be defined as assessing the quality and the adequacy of an ontology for being used in a spe-cific context, for a specific goal. Although ontology reuse is being extensively addressed by the Semantic Web community, the lack of appropriate support tools and automatic techniques for the evaluation of certain ontology features are oft...

  4. Stimulating high impact HIV-related cardiovascular research: recommendations from a multidisciplinary NHLBI Working Group on HIV-related heart, lung, and blood disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shah, Monica R; Cook, Nakela; Wong, Renee; Hsue, Priscilla; Ridker, Paul; Currier, Judith; Shurin, Susan

    2015-02-24

    The clinical challenges confronting patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have shifted from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related illnesses to chronic diseases, such as coronary artery disease, chronic lung disease, and chronic anemia. With the growing burden of HIV-related heart, lung, and blood (HLB) disease, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recognizes it must stimulate and support HIV-related HLB research. Because HIV offers a natural, accelerated model of common pathological processes, such as inflammation, HIV-related HLB research may yield important breakthroughs for all patients with HLB disease. This paper summarizes the cardiovascular recommendations of an NHLBI Working Group, Advancing HIV/AIDS Research in Heart, Lung, and Blood Diseases, charged with identifying scientific priorities in HIV-related HLB disease and developing recommendations to promote multidisciplinary collaboration among HIV and HLB investigators. The working group included multidisciplinary sessions, as well as HLB breakout sessions for discussion of disease-specific issues, with common themes about scientific priorities and strategies to stimulate HLB research emerging in all 3 groups. Copyright © 2015 American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. 42 CFR 417.153 - Offer of HMO alternative.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 42 Public Health 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Offer of HMO alternative. 417.153 Section 417.153... § 417.153 Offer of HMO alternative. (a) Basic rule. An employing entity that is subject to this subpart and that elects to include one or more qualified HMOs must offer the HMO alternative in accordance...

  6. When Factorization Meets Heterogeneous Latent Topics:An Interpretable Cross-Site Recommendation Framework

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    辛欣; 林钦佑; 魏骁驰; 黄河燕

    2015-01-01

    Data sparsity is a well-known challenge in recommender systems. Previous studies alleviate this problem by incorporating the information within the corresponding social media site. In this paper, we solve this challenge by exploring cross-site information. Specifically, we examine: 1) how to effectively and efficiently utilize cross-site ratings and content features to improve recommendation performance and 2) how to make the recommendation interpretable by utilizing content features. We propose a joint model of matrix factorization and latent topic analysis. Heterogeneous content features are modeled by multiple kinds of latent topics. In addition, the combination of matrix factorization and latent topics makes the recommendation result interpretable. Therefore, the above two issues are simultaneously solved. Through a real-world dataset, where user behaviors in three social media sites are collected, we demonstrate that the proposed model is effective in improving recommendation performance and interpreting the rationale of ratings.

  7. Service Offering at Electrical Equipment Manufacturers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lucie Kaňovská

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Purpose of the article: The aim of the paper is to uncover ways of managing service offering provided by electrical equipment manufactures in the Czech Republic. The segment is extremely important for Czech industry nowadays, especially because of many companies being subcontractors for the car industry and mechanical engineering. The producers of electric equipment comply with the Czech industry classification CZ-NACE 27. Methodology/methods: The questionnaire in the form of the Likert scale was prepared to gather information about customer services. The respondents were usually directors or managers, e.g. employees with high competencies of knowing customer services in this particular market. The total of 22 companies were included in the survey. Research was focused on the following industries classifications belonging to CZ-NACE 27: CZ-NACE 27, CZ-NACE 271 and CZ-NACE 273. According to Czech Statistical Office the total number of companies belonging to these 3 segments is 136. It means 16,2% companies belonging to CZ-NACE 27 participated in our research. Basic statistical methods were used to analyse the complete database. Scientific aim: The paper deals with the problem of service offering provided by today’s manufacturers. Global understanding of services that manufacturers really develop, sell, deliver and manage is still limited. Findings: Managing service offering provided by today‘s manufacturers shows that 1 Manufacturers not offer only tangible products, but also wide range of services and even information and support. 2 New products are not designed only according to company technicians, but also according to their customers. Their products and services are developed, tested and improved according to their needs. 3 Services provide complex customer care from time product selection to its end. Conclusions: Manufacturers of tangible products need to enlarge their product offering to be able to satisfy customers. Therefore

  8. Hospitalized Patients' Responses to Offers of Prayer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McMillan, Kathy; Taylor, Elizabeth Johnston

    2018-02-01

    Most Americans pray; many pray about their health. When they are hospitalized, however, do patients want an offer of prayer from a healthcare provider? This project allowed for the measurement of hospitalized patient's responses to massage therapists' offers of a colloquial prayer after a massage. After the intervention, 78 patients completed questionnaires that elicited quantitative data that were analyzed using uni- and bivariate statistical analyses. In this sample, 88% accepted the offer of prayer, 85% found it helpful, and 51% wanted prayer daily. Patients may welcome prayer, as long as the clinician shows "genuine kindness and respect."

  9. Guideline recommendations and antimicrobial resistance: the need for a change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elias, Christelle; Moja, Lorenzo; Mertz, Dominik; Loeb, Mark; Forte, Gilles; Magrini, Nicola

    2017-07-26

    Antimicrobial resistance has become a global burden for which inappropriate antimicrobial use is an important contributing factor. Any decisions on the selection of antibiotics use should consider their effects on antimicrobial resistance. The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which antibiotic prescribing guidelines have considered resistance patterns when making recommendations for five highly prevalent infectious syndromes. We used Medline searches complemented with extensive use of Web engine to identify guidelines on empirical treatment of community-acquired pneumonia, urinary tract infections, acute otitis media, rhinosinusitis and pharyngitis. We collected data on microbiology and resistance patterns and identified discrete pattern categories. We assessed the extent to which recommendations considered resistance, in addition to efficacy and safety, when recommending antibiotics. We identified 135 guidelines, which reported a total of 251 recommendations. Most (103/135, 79%) were from developed countries. Community-acquired pneumonia was the syndrome mostly represented (51, 39%). In only 16 (6.4%) recommendations, selection of empirical antibiotic was discussed in relation to resistance and specific microbiological data. In a further 69 (27.5%) recommendations, references were made in relation to resistance, but the attempt was inconsistent. Across syndromes, 12 patterns of resistance with implications on recommendations were observed. 50% to 75% of recommendations did not attempt to set recommendation in the context of these patterns. There is consistent evidence that guidelines on empirical antibiotic use did not routinely consider resistance in their recommendations. Decision-makers should analyse and report the extent of local resistance patterns to allow better decision-making. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless

  10. Understanding the effect of adaptive preference elicitation methods on user satisfaction of a recommender system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Knijnenburg, B.P.; Willemsen, M.C.

    2009-01-01

    In a recommender system that suggests options based on user attribute weights, the method of preference elicitation (PE) employed by a recommender system can influence users' satisfaction with the system, as well as the perceived usefulness and the understandability of the system. Specifically, we

  11. The offerings from the Hyperboreans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruck, C A

    1983-08-01

    The ancient Greeks believed that the fruits of agriculture could be harvested only if one first appeased the spirit of the primitive avatars from which the edible crop had been evolved over the centuries through hybridization and cultivation. On occasion, this appeasement was secured through the sacrifice of a human victim, a person who for various reasons could be considered to represent a similar primitivism. By the classical age, this extreme form of sacrificial appeasement appears to have been reserved for times of unusual crisis, such as pestilence or natural disaster, for at such times, the resurgent forces of primitivism seemed to threaten the entire civilization with regression back to its wilder origins. Other forms of appeasement were ordinarily substituted for the actual offering of a human victim. Amongst these was the enactment of puberty rites, for the natural growth and maturation of an individual could be thought to symbolize this same evolutionary process. Each infant is born as a wild creature who must develop into a socialized adult through the metaphoric death of its former self as it assumes the responsibilities of civilized life in crossing the threshold to sexual maturity. A similar symbolic victim was customarily represented by the offering of first fruits. A portion of the cultivated crop was prematurely cut and consecrated to redeem and release the ripening harvest from the dangerous contamination with the spirits of its pre-agricultural precedents. On the island of Delos, a special version of this consecration was performed. Each year, the various Greek cities would send a sheaf of unripened grain to the sanctuary of the god Apollo and his twin sister Artemis. Amongst these annual offerings, there was one that was supposed to have originated from the Hyperboreans, a mythical people who were thought to live in the original homeland of the two gods. This special Hyperborean offering differed from the others, for it was said to contain a

  12. Children's sleep needs: is there sufficient evidence to recommend optimal sleep for children?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matricciani, Lisa; Blunden, Sarah; Rigney, Gabrielle; Williams, Marie T; Olds, Tim S

    2013-04-01

    It is widely recognized that sleep is important for children's health and well-being and that short sleep duration is associated with a wide range of negative health outcomes. Recently, there has been much interest in whether or not there are sufficient data to support the specific recommendations made for how much sleep children need. In this article we explore concepts related to children's sleep need, discuss the theory, rationale, and empirical evidence for contemporary sleep recommendations, and outline future research directions for sleep recommendations. If sleep is to be treated as a therapeutic intervention, then consensus guidelines, statements, and evidence-based best-practice documents are needed to underpin sleep recommendations for children.

  13. Recommender systems

    OpenAIRE

    Lu L.; Medo M.; Yeung C.H.; Zhang Y.-C.; Zhang Z.-K.; Zhou T.

    2012-01-01

    The ongoing rapid expansion of the Internet greatly increases the necessity of effective recommender systems for filtering the abundant information. Extensive research for recommender systems is conducted by a broad range of communities including social and computer scientists, physicists, and interdisciplinary researchers. Despite substantial theoretical and practical achievements, unification and comparison of different approaches are lacking, which impedes further advances. In this article...

  14. Distribution of the educational offer (EOT and formal tourism research structures (FSRT in Ecuador

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thiago Duarte Pimentel

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study was to identify the Ecuadorian educational system, in particular its educational offer in tourism (EOT and to analyze how it is formed and distributed according to different types (universities and non-universities and levels (undergraduate and postgraduate. Specifically, it analyzes its relation with the production of scientific knowledge in tourism, in Ecuador, through the existence of formal research structures (FRST linked to the EOT. The theoretical basis presents the discussion on the sociology of vocational education and training in tourism, as well as on institutionalized structures of knowledge production. Empirically, all the institutions of higher education of the country (IHE were identified according to the data of the Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT, and through the information available on their websites, the ihe in which there was education offer in tourism and linked to this offer the existence of first. The method was previously developed by Pimentel and De Paula (2014. As a result, and conclusion, it has been evidenced that the offer of EOT and FRST is highly asymmetric in the country. Internal discrepancies were also identified for EOT, as the offer of the degree courses predominates, whose thematic area focuses on the subject of economy and management. Therefore, there is a need to seek more balance between EOT, its types, levels and thematic areas.

  15. Operational intervention levels for reactor emergencies IAEA recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aguiar, Laís A. de; Reis, Arlene A. dos; Santos, Raul dos, E-mail: laguiar@ird.gov.br, E-mail: arlene@ird.gov.br, E-mail: raul@ird.gov.br [Instituto de Radioproteção e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

    2017-07-01

    The IAEA publication EPR-NPP-OILs-2017, Operational Intervention Levels for Reactor Emergences and Methodology for their Derivation, provides selected default OIL values, describing a methodology for their derivation, as well as practical tools and recommendations for their use. IAEA recommends that tools and default OIL values be directly integrated into national emergency arrangements or reviewed and modified as necessary to meet the specific emergency preparedness and response arrangements. The Institute of Radiation Protection and Dosimetry (IRD) has a Radiological Assessment TEAM (EAR) as pare of its Radiation Emergency Response System. Brazilian regulatory standards address actions for radiation emergencies encompassing necessary measures to assess public exposures, intervention levels to protect the public and recommendations for protective actions as, evacuation, relocation, sheltering and food restrictions. The objective of this paper is to present a discussion the use these OILs, to compare those ones established by the Brazilian standards and to propose a methodology on how OILs can be used by EAR/IRD in case of an emergency at the Brazilian NPP. (author)

  16. Operational intervention levels for reactor emergencies IAEA recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aguiar, Laís A. de; Reis, Arlene A. dos; Santos, Raul dos

    2017-01-01

    The IAEA publication EPR-NPP-OILs-2017, Operational Intervention Levels for Reactor Emergences and Methodology for their Derivation, provides selected default OIL values, describing a methodology for their derivation, as well as practical tools and recommendations for their use. IAEA recommends that tools and default OIL values be directly integrated into national emergency arrangements or reviewed and modified as necessary to meet the specific emergency preparedness and response arrangements. The Institute of Radiation Protection and Dosimetry (IRD) has a Radiological Assessment TEAM (EAR) as pare of its Radiation Emergency Response System. Brazilian regulatory standards address actions for radiation emergencies encompassing necessary measures to assess public exposures, intervention levels to protect the public and recommendations for protective actions as, evacuation, relocation, sheltering and food restrictions. The objective of this paper is to present a discussion the use these OILs, to compare those ones established by the Brazilian standards and to propose a methodology on how OILs can be used by EAR/IRD in case of an emergency at the Brazilian NPP. (author)

  17. Initial Public Offering – Finance Source of Stock

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sorin Claudiu Radu

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Capital market offers a wide range of options for financing companies, which can be tailored to meet their exact needs. Thus, they have the opportunity of primary security sale (shares and bonds on the stock exchange, which may take place through a tender, in which case the financial instruments issued by a company are underwritten at the date of issue, or through a secondary offer, in which case they are issued and offered for sale by the issuer. If the public sale offer focuses on shares and aims at transforming the issuing company into a public one, then it bears the name of IPO (Initial Public Offering. The present work aims for the evolution of IPO trends on the European market in the aftermath of the global crisis outbreak. The market of IPO carried out by BSE is also analyzed herewith.

  18. TU-E-BRB-03: Overview of Proposed TG-132 Recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brock, K. [University of Michigan (United States)

    2015-06-15

    Deformable image registration (DIR) is developing rapidly and is poised to substantially improve dose fusion accuracy for adaptive and retreatment planning and motion management and PET fusion to enhance contour delineation for treatment planning. However, DIR dose warping accuracy is difficult to quantify, in general, and particularly difficult to do so on a patient-specific basis. As clinical DIR options become more widely available, there is an increased need to understand the implications of incorporating DIR into clinical workflow. Several groups have assessed DIR accuracy in clinically relevant scenarios, but no comprehensive review material is yet available. This session will also discuss aspects of the AAPM Task Group 132 on the Use of Image Registration and Data Fusion Algorithms and Techniques in Radiotherapy Treatment Planning official report, which provides recommendations for DIR clinical use. We will summarize and compare various commercial DIR software options, outline successful clinical techniques, show specific examples with discussion of appropriate and inappropriate applications of DIR, discuss the clinical implications of DIR, provide an overview of current DIR error analysis research, review QA options and research phantom development and present TG-132 recommendations. Learning Objectives: Compare/contrast commercial DIR software and QA options Overview clinical DIR workflow for retreatment To understand uncertainties introduced by DIR Review TG-132 proposed recommendations.

  19. Trust for intelligent recommendation

    CERN Document Server

    Bhuiyan, Touhid

    2013-01-01

    Recommender systems are one of the recent inventions to deal with the ever-growing information overload in relation to the selection of goods and services in a global economy. Collaborative Filtering (CF) is one of the most popular techniques in recommender systems. The CF recommends items to a target user based on the preferences of a set of similar users known as the neighbors, generated from a database made up of the preferences of past users. In the absence of these ratings, trust between the users could be used to choose the neighbor for recommendation making. Better recommendations can b

  20. A Sentiment-Enhanced Hybrid Recommender System for Movie Recommendation: A Big Data Analytics Framework

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yibo Wang

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Movie recommendation in mobile environment is critically important for mobile users. It carries out comprehensive aggregation of user’s preferences, reviews, and emotions to help them find suitable movies conveniently. However, it requires both accuracy and timeliness. In this paper, a movie recommendation framework based on a hybrid recommendation model and sentiment analysis on Spark platform is proposed to improve the accuracy and timeliness of mobile movie recommender system. In the proposed approach, we first use a hybrid recommendation method to generate a preliminary recommendation list. Then sentiment analysis is employed to optimize the list. Finally, the hybrid recommender system with sentiment analysis is implemented on Spark platform. The hybrid recommendation model with sentiment analysis outperforms the traditional models in terms of various evaluation criteria. Our proposed method makes it convenient and fast for users to obtain useful movie suggestions.

  1. 31 CFR 342.0 - Offering of notes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Offering of notes. 342.0 Section 342.0 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating to Money and Finance (Continued) FISCAL SERVICE... or greater denomination. This offering was effective from May 1, 1967 until the close of business...

  2. When Are Caregivers More Likely to Offer Sugary Drinks and Snacks to Infants? A Qualitative Thematic Synthesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Deborah Anne; Goodwin, Tom Lloyd; Brocklehurst, Paul R; Armitage, Christopher J; Glenny, Anne-Marie

    2017-01-01

    Many children consume more sugar than is recommended, and caregivers often find it difficult to change this habit once established. This thematic synthesis aims to identify the "critical situations" where caregivers may be more likely to offer infants sugary drinks and snacks. This thematic synthesis is reported in accordance with the statement for enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research (ENTREQ). Our confidence in the findings of our synthesis was assessed using the CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence From Reviews of Qualitative Research Approach). We included 16 studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Denmark. We identified eight "critical situations" when caregivers may be more likely to offer sugary drinks and snacks to infants. Interventions that seek to reduce sugar intake for caries prevention in infants and young children may be more successful if they provide caregivers with practical parenting strategies to replace the nonnutritive functions of sugary foods and drinks, as opposed to taking an information-giving approach. © The Author(s) 2016.

  3. Improving the dependability of research in personality and social psychology: recommendations for research and educational practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Funder, David C; Levine, John M; Mackie, Diane M; Morf, Carolyn C; Sansone, Carol; Vazire, Simine; West, Stephen G

    2014-02-01

    In this article, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Task Force on Publication and Research Practices offers a brief statistical primer and recommendations for improving the dependability of research. Recommendations for research practice include (a) describing and addressing the choice of N (sample size) and consequent issues of statistical power, (b) reporting effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), (c) avoiding "questionable research practices" that can inflate the probability of Type I error, (d) making available research materials necessary to replicate reported results, (e) adhering to SPSP's data sharing policy, (f) encouraging publication of high-quality replication studies, and (g) maintaining flexibility and openness to alternative standards and methods. Recommendations for educational practice include (a) encouraging a culture of "getting it right," (b) teaching and encouraging transparency of data reporting, (c) improving methodological instruction, and (d) modeling sound science and supporting junior researchers who seek to "get it right."

  4. Permian Basin location recommendation report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1983-09-01

    Candidate study areas are screened from the Palo Duro and Dalhart Basin areas using data obtained from studies to date and criteria and specifications that consider: rock geometry; rock characteristics; human intrusion potential; surface characteristics; and environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Two preferred locations are recommended from among these areas for additional characterization to identify potential National Waste Terminal Storage (NWTS) salt repository sites. One location, in northeastern Deaf Smith County and southeastern Oldham County, is underlain by two salt units that meet the adopted screening specifications. The other location, in northcentral Swisher County, is underlain by one salt unit that meets the adopted screening specifications. Both locations have several favorable features, relative to surrounding areas, and no obviously undesirable characteristics. Both lie wholly on the Southern High Plains surface, are in relatively sparsely populated areas, contain no unique land use conflicts, and comprise large enough geographic areas to provide flexibility in site selection. Data gathered to date indicate that these locations contain salt units sufficient in thickness and in depth for the safe construction and operation of the underground facilities under consideration. 93 references, 34 figures, 6 tables

  5. 15 CFR 90.13 - Offer of hearing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Offer of hearing. 90.13 Section 90.13 Commerce and Foreign Trade Regulations Relating to Commerce and Foreign Trade BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE PROCEDURE FOR CHALLENGING CERTAIN POPULATION AND INCOME ESTIMATES § 90.13 Offer of...

  6. Information Retrieval and Graph Analysis Approaches for Book Recommendation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chahinez Benkoussas

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A combination of multiple information retrieval approaches is proposed for the purpose of book recommendation. In this paper, book recommendation is based on complex user's query. We used different theoretical retrieval models: probabilistic as InL2 (Divergence from Randomness model and language model and tested their interpolated combination. Graph analysis algorithms such as PageRank have been successful in Web environments. We consider the application of this algorithm in a new retrieval approach to related document network comprised of social links. We called Directed Graph of Documents (DGD a network constructed with documents and social information provided from each one of them. Specifically, this work tackles the problem of book recommendation in the context of INEX (Initiative for the Evaluation of XML retrieval Social Book Search track. A series of reranking experiments demonstrate that combining retrieval models yields significant improvements in terms of standard ranked retrieval metrics. These results extend the applicability of link analysis algorithms to different environments.

  7. Information Retrieval and Graph Analysis Approaches for Book Recommendation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benkoussas, Chahinez; Bellot, Patrice

    2015-01-01

    A combination of multiple information retrieval approaches is proposed for the purpose of book recommendation. In this paper, book recommendation is based on complex user's query. We used different theoretical retrieval models: probabilistic as InL2 (Divergence from Randomness model) and language model and tested their interpolated combination. Graph analysis algorithms such as PageRank have been successful in Web environments. We consider the application of this algorithm in a new retrieval approach to related document network comprised of social links. We called Directed Graph of Documents (DGD) a network constructed with documents and social information provided from each one of them. Specifically, this work tackles the problem of book recommendation in the context of INEX (Initiative for the Evaluation of XML retrieval) Social Book Search track. A series of reranking experiments demonstrate that combining retrieval models yields significant improvements in terms of standard ranked retrieval metrics. These results extend the applicability of link analysis algorithms to different environments.

  8. Patient-specific hip prostheses designed by surgeons

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Coigny Florian

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Patient-specific bone and joint replacement implants lead to better functional and aesthetic results than conventional methods [1], [2], [3]. But extracting 3D shape information from CT Data and designing individual implants is demanding and requires multiple surgeon-to-engineer interactions. For manufacturing purposes, Additive Manufacturing offers various advantages, especially for low volume manufacturing parts, such as patient specific implants. To ease these new approaches and to avoid surgeon-to-engineer interactions a new design software approach is needed which offers highly automated and user friendly planning steps.

  9. Implementation of a Recommender System using Collaborative Filtering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrei-Cristian Prodan

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, consumers have a lot of choices. Electronic retailers offer a great variety of products. Because of this, there is a need for Recommender Systems. These systems aim to solve the problem of matching consumers with the most appealing products for them. They do this by analyzing either the products information details (Content Based methods or users social behavior (Collaborative Filtering. This paper describes the Collaborative Filtering technique in more detail. It then presents one of the best methods for CF: the Matrix Factorization technique. Next, it presents two algorithms used for matrix factorization. Then, the paper describes the implementation details of a framework created by us, called Rho, that uses Collaborative Filtering. In the end, we present some results obtained after experimenting with this framework.

  10. NSPWG-recommended safety requirements and guidelines for SEI nuclear propulsion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marshall, A.C.; Lee, J.H.; McCulloch, W.H.; Sawyer, J.C. Jr.; Bari, R.A.; Brown, N.W.; Cullingford, H.S.; Hardy, A.C.; Remp, K.; Sholtis, J.A.

    1992-01-01

    An Interagency Nuclear Safety Policy Working Group (NSPWG) was chartered to recommend nuclear safety policy, requirements, and guidelines for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) nuclear propulsion program to facilitate the implementation of mission planning and conceptual design studies. The NSPWG developed a top- level policy to provide the guiding principles for the development and implementation of the nuclear propulsion safety program and the development of Safety Functional Requirements. In addition the NSPWG reviewed safety issues for nuclear propulsion and recommended top-level safety requirements and guidelines to address these issues. Safety requirements were developed for reactor start-up, inadvertent criticality, radiological release and exposure, disposal, entry, and safeguards. Guidelines were recommended for risk/reliability, operational safety, flight trajectory and mission abort, space debris and meteoroids, and ground test safety. In this paper the specific requirements and guidelines will be discussed

  11. Italian Society for Rheumatology recommendations for the management of hand osteoarthritis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Manara

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Hand osteoarthritis (OA is a common and potentially disabling disease, with different features from hip and knee OA so that a specific therapeutic approach is required. Evidence based recommendations for the management of hand OA were developed by the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR in 2006. The Italian Society for Rheumatology (SIR aimed to update, adapt to national contest and disseminate the EULAR recommendations for the management of hand OA. The multidisciplinary group of experts included specialists involved in the management of patients with hand OA. In order to maintain consistency with EULAR recommendations, a similar methodology was utilized by the Italian group. The original propositions were reformulated in terms of a search query and for every recommendation a systematic search was conducted updating EULAR recommendations’ review. The propositions were translated in Italian and reformulated basing on collected evidences and expert opinion. The strength of recommendation was measured for each proposition with the EULAR ordinal and visual analogue scales. The original 11 propositions of EULAR recommendations were translated and adapted to Italian context. Further evidences were collected about non-pharmacological therapies, local treatments, intra-articular injection with SYSADOA and corticosteroids, and surgery. The SIR has developed updated recommendations for the management of hand OA adapted to the Italian healthcare system. Their implementation in clinical practice is expected to improve the management of patients with hand OA.

  12. Characterization of the household electricity consumption in the EU, potential energy savings and specific policy recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fonseca, Paula; Almeida, Anibal de (ISR-Univ. of Coimbra, Dep. Electrical Engineering (Portugal)). e-mail: pfonseca@isr.uc.pt; Feilberg, Nicolai (SINTEF Energiforskning AS (Norway)); Markogiannakis, George (Centre for Renewable Energy Sources - CRES (Greece)); Kofod, Casper (Energy piano (Denmark))

    2009-07-01

    Although significant improvements in energy efficiency have been achieved in home appliances and lighting, the electricity consumption in the average EU-27 household has been increasing by about 2% per year during the past 10 years. Some reasons for such increase are associated with an increased degree of basic comfort and level of amenities (particularly in the new EU member countries) and also with the widespread utilization of relatively new types of loads whose penetration and use has experienced a very significant growth in recent years. With the objective of contributing to an increased understanding of the energy consumption in the EU-27 households for the different types of equipment including the consumers' behaviour and comfort levels, and to identify demand trends, a large energy monitoring campaign, co-funded by the IEE programme, was carried out in 12 countries, accompanied by a lifestyle consumer survey. From the measurements carried out it can be concluded that IT and entertainment loads, including standby, are a key contributor to the power demand. In basically all types of loads there is wide range of performance levels, including new emerging technologies, in the models available in the market. Available technology, associated with responsible consumer behaviour, can reduce wasteful consumption. The potential electricity savings that exist in the residential sector in Europe, and that can already be implemented by existing means, like the use of BAT (best available technology) efficient appliances or the elimination/mitigation of standby consumption, can reach up to 48% savings. Specific policy recommendations to promote market transformation and behavioural changes in the equipment selection and operation have been identified.

  13. Integration of health technology assessment recommendations into organizational and clinical practice: A case study in Catalonia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gagnon, Marie-Pierre; Sánchez, Emília; Pons, Joan M V

    2006-01-01

    Evaluating the impact of recommendations based upon health technology assessment (HTA) represents a challenge for both HTA agencies and healthcare policy makers. This research sought to understand factors affecting the uptake of HTA recommendations to support decision making with respect to the introduction of three health technologies. Using a multidimensional framework, based upon a combination of theoretical models, a case study was conducted. A total of twenty-eight semistructured interviews were done with physicians from fifteen hospitals and other stakeholders in Catalonia. Interview content was analyzed iteratively and classified according to theoretical dimensions and contextual factors. At the sociopolitical level, factors related to the organization and financing of the health system were found to affect the utilization of HTA recommendations. At the healthcare organization level, existing collaborations between the hospital and the HTA agency favored the integration of recommendations into practices. Formalism in the organization also influenced the utilization of HTA recommendations. At the professional level, the high degree of autonomy of specialists, the importance of peers and collegial control, and the definition of professional roles and responsibilities influenced physicians' willingness to integrate HTA recommendations into their practice. This study offers a comprehensive framework to understand the complex dynamics that affect adoption of health technologies in organizational and professional practices. The findings suggest some avenues to promote the integration of HTA recommendations into practices and, thus, increase the utilization of scientific evidence to support decision making in health care.

  14. Existing ingestion guidance: Problems and recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mooney, Robert R; Ziegler, Gordon L; Peterson, Donald S [Environmental Radiation Section, Division of Radiation Protection, WA (United States)

    1989-09-01

    Washington State has been developing plans and procedures for responding to nuclear accidents since the early 1970s. A key part of this process has been formulating a method for calculating ingestion pathway concentration guides (CGs). Such a method must be both technically sound and easy to use. This process has been slow and frustrating. However, much technical headway has been made in recent years, and hopefully the experience of the State of Washington will provide useful insight to problems with the existing guidance. Several recommendations are offered on ways to deal with these problems. In January 1986, the state held an ingestion pathway exercise which required the determination of allowed concentrations of isotopes for various foods, based upon reactor source term and field data. Objectives of the exercise were not met because of the complexity of the necessary calculations. A major problem was that the allowed concentrations had to be computed for each isotope and each food group, given assumptions on the average diet. To solve problems identified during that exercise, Washington developed, by March 1986, partitioned CGs. These CGs apportioned doses from each food group for an assumed mix of radionuclides expected to result from a reactor accident. This effort was therefore in place just in time for actual use during the Chernobyl fallout episode in May 1986. This technique was refined and described in a later report and presented at the 1987 annual meeting of the Health Physics Society. Realizing the technical weaknesses which still existed and a need to simplify the numbers for decision makers, Washington State has been developing computer methods to quickly calculate, from an accident specific relative mix of isotopes, CGs which allow a single radionuclide concentration for all food groups. This latest approach allows constant CGs for different periods of time following the accident, instead of peak CGs, which are good only for a short time after the

  15. Existing ingestion guidance: Problems and recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mooney, Robert R.; Ziegler, Gordon L.; Peterson, Donald S.

    1989-01-01

    Washington State has been developing plans and procedures for responding to nuclear accidents since the early 1970s. A key part of this process has been formulating a method for calculating ingestion pathway concentration guides (CGs). Such a method must be both technically sound and easy to use. This process has been slow and frustrating. However, much technical headway has been made in recent years, and hopefully the experience of the State of Washington will provide useful insight to problems with the existing guidance. Several recommendations are offered on ways to deal with these problems. In January 1986, the state held an ingestion pathway exercise which required the determination of allowed concentrations of isotopes for various foods, based upon reactor source term and field data. Objectives of the exercise were not met because of the complexity of the necessary calculations. A major problem was that the allowed concentrations had to be computed for each isotope and each food group, given assumptions on the average diet. To solve problems identified during that exercise, Washington developed, by March 1986, partitioned CGs. These CGs apportioned doses from each food group for an assumed mix of radionuclides expected to result from a reactor accident. This effort was therefore in place just in time for actual use during the Chernobyl fallout episode in May 1986. This technique was refined and described in a later report and presented at the 1987 annual meeting of the Health Physics Society. Realizing the technical weaknesses which still existed and a need to simplify the numbers for decision makers, Washington State has been developing computer methods to quickly calculate, from an accident specific relative mix of isotopes, CGs which allow a single radionuclide concentration for all food groups. This latest approach allows constant CGs for different periods of time following the accident, instead of peak CGs, which are good only for a short time after the

  16. The role of community centres in offering protection: UNHCR and Al Ghaith Association in Yemen

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicolas Martin-Achard

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Community centres play an important role in offering protection for displaced communities, particularly for members of those communities who have specific needs. Somali refugees in Yemen formed the Al Ghaith Association and are now running their own community centres to support fellow refugees. Below, UNHCR and Al Ghaith discuss their approaches.

  17. 20 CFR 655.120 - Offered wage rate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Offered wage rate. 655.120 Section 655.120... the United States (H-2A Workers) Prefiling Procedures § 655.120 Offered wage rate. (a) To comply with... wage that is the highest of the AEWR, the prevailing hourly wage or piece rate, the agreed-upon...

  18. Hanford waste-form release and sediment interaction: A status report with rationale and recommendations for additional studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Serne, R.J.; Wood, M.I.

    1990-05-01

    This report documents the currently available geochemical data base for release and retardation for actual Hanford Site materials (wastes and/or sediments). The report also recommends specific laboratory tests and presents the rationale for the recommendations. The purpose of this document is threefold: to summarize currently available information, to provide a strategy for generating additional data, and to provide recommendations on specific data collection methods and tests matrices. This report outlines a data collection approach that relies on feedback from performance analyses to ascertain when adequate data have been collected. The data collection scheme emphasizes laboratory testing based on empiricism. 196 refs., 4 figs., 36 tabs

  19. Recommender systems and the social web leveraging tagging data for recommender systems

    CERN Document Server

    Gedikli, Fatih

    2013-01-01

    There is an increasing demand for recommender systems due to the information overload users are facing on the Web. The goal of a recommender system is to provide personalized recommendations of products or services to users. With the advent of the Social Web, user-generated content has enriched the social dimension of the Web. As user-provided content data also tells us something about the user, one can learn the user's individual preferences from the Social Web. This opens up completely new opportunities and challenges for recommender systems research. Fatih Gedikli deals with the question of

  20. Verbal and numerical consumer recommendations: switching between recommendation formats leads to preference inconsistencies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maciejovsky, Boris; Budescu, David V

    2013-06-01

    Many Web sites provide consumers with product recommendations, which are typically presented by a sequence of verbal reviews and numerical ratings. In three experiments, we demonstrate that when participants switch between formats (e.g., from verbal to numerical), they are more prone to preference inconsistencies than when they aggregate the recommendations within the same format (e.g., verbal). When evaluating recommendations, participants rely primarily on central-location measures (e.g., mean) and less on other distribution characteristics (e.g., variance). We explain our findings within the theoretical framework of stimulus-response compatibility and we make practical recommendations for the design of recommendation systems and Web portals.

  1. Breastfeeding education and support services offered to pediatric residents in the US.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osband, Yardaena B; Altman, Robin L; Patrick, Patricia A; Edwards, Karen S

    2011-01-01

    The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages pediatricians to support the practice of breastfeeding and residency educators to develop formal curricula in breastfeeding education. Few studies, however, describe breastfeeding education or support services currently provided to pediatric residents in the United States. The goals of this study were to investigate breastfeeding training offered during 3-year pediatric residency programs and to describe residency programs' policies and services for residents who breastfeed. We conducted a cross-sectional study using a Web-based survey of pediatric program directors regarding breastfeeding education and support services for residents. Seventy percent of program directors (132 of 189) completed the survey, with 77.3% of respondents (n = 102) estimating the amount of breastfeeding education offered to their pediatric residents. Residents are provided with a median total of 9.0 hours of breastfeeding training over 3 years, primarily in continuity clinic and in lectures and rounds with attendings. At the programs' primary teaching hospitals, breastfeeding residents are provided breastfeeding rooms (67.0%), breast pumps (75.3%), and breast milk storage facilities (87.6%). Only 10 programs reported having an official policy to accommodate breastfeeding residents. Pediatric residents receive approximately 3 hours of breastfeeding training per year. In addition, there is less than universal implementation by residency programs of AAP recommendations for supporting breastfeeding in the workplace. Pediatric residency programs should find ways to improve and assess the quality of breastfeeding education and workplace support to better role model this advocacy standard. Copyright © 2011 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Recommendations regarding splenectomy in hereditary hemolytic anemias

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iolascon, Achille; Andolfo, Immacolata; Barcellini, Wilma; Corcione, Francesco; Garçon, Loïc; De Franceschi, Lucia; Pignata, Claudio; Graziadei, Giovanna; Pospisilova, Dagmar; Rees, David C.; de Montalembert, Mariane; Rivella, Stefano; Gambale, Antonella; Russo, Roberta; Ribeiro, Leticia; Vives-Corrons, Jules; Martinez, Patricia Aguilar; Kattamis, Antonis; Gulbis, Beatrice; Cappellini, Maria Domenica; Roberts, Irene; Tamary, Hannah

    2017-01-01

    Hereditary hemolytic anemias are a group of disorders with a variety of causes, including red cell membrane defects, red blood cell enzyme disorders, congenital dyserythropoietic anemias, thalassemia syndromes and hemoglobinopathies. As damaged red blood cells passing through the red pulp of the spleen are removed by splenic macrophages, splenectomy is one possible therapeutic approach to the management of severely affected patients. However, except for hereditary spherocytosis for which the effectiveness of splenectomy has been well documented, the efficacy of splenectomy in other anemias within this group has yet to be determined and there are concerns regarding short- and long-term infectious and thrombotic complications. In light of the priorities identified by the European Hematology Association Roadmap we generated specific recommendations for each disorder, except thalassemia syndromes for which there are other, recent guidelines. Our recommendations are intended to enable clinicians to achieve better informed decisions on disease management by splenectomy, on the type of splenectomy and the possible consequences. As no randomized clinical trials, case control or cohort studies regarding splenectomy in these disorders were found in the literature, recommendations for each disease were based on expert opinion and were subsequently critically revised and modified by the Splenectomy in Rare Anemias Study Group, which includes hematologists caring for both adults and children. PMID:28550188

  3. Recommended well drilling and testing program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Long, J.; Wilson, C.

    1978-07-01

    A well drilling and testing program is recommended by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to identify the hydrology of deep basalts in the Pasco Basin. The ultimate objective of this program is to assist in determining the feasibility of locating a nuclear waste repository on the Hanford Reservation. The recommended program has been staged for maximum effectiveness. In the first stage, six wells have been identified for drilling and testing which, when coupled with existing wells, will provide sufficient data for a preliminary overview of basin hydrology and a preliminary determination of the hydrologic suitability of the deep basalt for a repository site. The rate at which the first stage wells are drilled and tested will depend upon the date at which a preliminary determination of site suitability is required. It was assumed that a preliminary determination of suitability would be required in 1980, in which case all six first stage wells would be drilled in FY 1979. If the results of the first stage analysis are favorable for repository siting, tentative repository sites can be identified and a second stage hydrology program can be implemented to provide the necessary details of the flow system. To accomplish this stage, a number of deep wells would be required at locations both inside and outside the basin, with specific sites to be identified as the work progresses to obtain maximum utility of existing data. A program is recommended for testing in each new well and for completion of testing in each existing well. Recommended tests include borehole geophysics, pressure and permeability testing, geochemical sampling, tracer testing, hydrofracturing and borehole fracture logging. The entire data collection program is oriented toward providing the information required to establish and verify an accurate numerical model of the Pasco Basin

  4. Do Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs Offer Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training in Australia and New Zealand?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cartledge, Susie H; Bray, Janet E; Stub, Dion; Krum, Henry; Finn, Judith

    2016-06-01

    Cardiac rehabilitation may provide an ideal environment to train high-risk cardiac patients and their families in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). However, whether this training is currently offered is unknown. The aims of this study were to: 1) describe the prevalence of CPR training in cardiac rehabilitation programs in Australia and New Zealand (NZ); and 2) examine perceived barriers and attitudes of cardiac rehabilitation coordinators towards providing CPR training. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of Australian and NZ cardiac rehabilitation coordinators. We received 253 completed surveys (46.7% response rate) (Australia n=208, NZ n=45). Cardiopulmonary resuscitation training was included in 23.9% of Australian programs and 56.6% in NZ. Common barriers to CPR training included lack of resources (49.7%) and a lack of awareness to provide CPR training for this high-risk group (33.7%). The majority of coordinators believed that lay people should be trained in CPR (96.3%) and were comfortable with recommending CPR training to this high-risk group (89.4%). While cardiac rehabilitation coordinators have positive attitudes towards CPR training, it is not currently part of most programs - particularly in Australia. Organisations formulating cardiac rehabilitation recommendations and guidelines should give consideration to include the provision of CPR training. Copyright © 2016 Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons (ANZSCTS) and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Recommender systems in knowledge-mining

    Science.gov (United States)

    Volna, Eva

    2017-07-01

    The subject of the paper is to analyse the possibilities of application of recommender systems in the field of data mining. The work focuses on three basic types of recommender systems (collaborative, content-based and hybrid). The goal of the article is to evaluate which of these three concepts of recommender systems provides forecast with the lowest error rate in the domain of recommending movies. This target is fulfilled by the practical part of the work - at first, the own recommender system was designed and created, capable of obtaining movies recommendation from the database based on the user's preferences. Next, we verified experimentally which recommender system produces more accurate results.

  6. The benefits associated with volunteering among seniors: a critical review and recommendations for future research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Nicole D; Damianakis, Thecla; Kröger, Edeltraut; Wagner, Laura M; Dawson, Deirdre R; Binns, Malcolm A; Bernstein, Syrelle; Caspi, Eilon; Cook, Suzanne L

    2014-11-01

    There is an urgent need to identify lifestyle activities that reduce functional decline and dementia associated with population aging. The goals of this article are to review critically the evidence on the benefits associated with formal volunteering among older adults, propose a theoretical model of how volunteering may reduce functional limitations and dementia risk, and offer recommendations for future research. Database searches identified 113 papers on volunteering benefits in older adults, of which 73 were included. Data from descriptive, cross-sectional, and prospective cohort studies, along with 1 randomized controlled trial, most consistently reveal that volunteering is associated with reduced symptoms of depression, better self-reported health, fewer functional limitations, and lower mortality. The extant evidence provides the basis for a model proposing that volunteering increases social, physical, and cognitive activity (to varying degrees depending on characteristics of the volunteer placement) which, through biological and psychological mechanisms, leads to improved functioning; we further propose that these volunteering-related functional improvements should be associated with reduced dementia risk. Recommendations for future research are that studies (a) include more objective measures of psychosocial, physical, and cognitive functioning; (b) integrate qualitative and quantitative methods in prospective study designs; (c) explore further individual differences in the benefits associated with volunteering; (d) include occupational analyses of volunteers' specific jobs in order to identify their social, physical, and cognitive complexity; (e) investigate the independent versus interactive health benefits associated with volunteering relative to engagement in other forms of activity; and (f) examine the relationship between volunteering and dementia risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

  7. Semantically Enhanced Recommender Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruiz-Montiel, Manuela; Aldana-Montes, José F.

    Recommender Systems have become a significant area in the context of web personalization, given the large amount of available data. Ontologies can be widely taken advantage of in recommender systems, since they provide a means of classifying and discovering of new information about the items to recommend, about user profiles and even about their context. We have developed a semantically enhanced recommender system based on this kind of ontologies. In this paper we present a description of the proposed system.

  8. Practical recommendations for the evaluation of improvement initiatives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parry, Gareth; Coly, Astou; Goldmann, Don; Rowe, Alexander K; Chattu, Vijay; Logiudice, Deneil; Rabrenovic, Mihajlo; Nambiar, Bejoy

    2018-01-01

    Abstract A lack of clear guidance for funders, evaluators and improvers on what to include in evaluation proposals can lead to evaluation designs that do not answer the questions stakeholders want to know. These evaluation designs may not match the iterative nature of improvement and may be imposed onto an initiative in a way that is impractical from the perspective of improvers and the communities with whom they work. Consequently, the results of evaluations are often controversial, and attribution remains poorly understood. Improvement initiatives are iterative, adaptive and context-specific. Evaluation approaches and designs must align with these features, specifically in their ability to consider complexity, to evolve as the initiative adapts over time and to understand the interaction with local context. Improvement initiatives often identify broadly defined change concepts and provide tools for care teams to tailor these in more detail to local conditions. Correspondingly, recommendations for evaluation are best provided as broad guidance, to be tailored to the specifics of the initiative. In this paper, we provide practical guidance and recommendations that funders and evaluators can use when developing an evaluation plan for improvement initiatives that seeks to: identify the questions stakeholders want to address; develop the initial program theory of the initiative; identify high-priority areas to measure progress over time; describe the context the initiative will be applied within; and identify experimental or observational designs that will address attribution. PMID:29447410

  9. Towards Information Enrichment through Recommendation Sharing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weng, Li-Tung; Xu, Yue; Li, Yuefeng; Nayak, Richi

    Nowadays most existing recommender systems operate in a single organisational basis, i.e. a recommender system recommends items to customers of one organisation based on the organisation's datasets only. Very often the datasets of a single organisation do not have sufficient resources to be used to generate quality recommendations. Therefore, it would be beneficial if recommender systems of different organisations with similar nature can cooperate together to share their resources and recommendations. In this chapter, we present an Ecommerce-oriented Distributed Recommender System (EDRS) that consists of multiple recommender systems from different organisations. By sharing resources and recommendations with each other, these recommenders in the distributed recommendation system can provide better recommendation service to their users. As for most of the distributed systems, peer selection is often an important aspect. This chapter also presents a recommender selection technique for the proposed EDRS, and it selects and profiles recommenders based on their stability, average performance and selection frequency. Based on our experiments, it is shown that recommenders' recommendation quality can be effectively improved by adopting the proposed EDRS and the associated peer selection technique.

  10. Recommended environmental dose calculation methods and Hanford-specific parameters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schreckhise, R.G.; Rhoads, K.; Napier, B.A.; Ramsdell, J.V.; Davis, J.S.

    1993-03-01

    This document was developed to support the Hanford Environmental Dose overview Panel (HEDOP). The Panel is responsible for reviewing all assessments of potential doses received by humans and other biota resulting from the actual or possible environmental releases of radioactive and other hazardous materials from facilities and/or operations belonging to the US Department of Energy on the Hanford Site in south-central Washington. This document serves as a guide to be used for developing estimates of potential radiation doses, or other measures of risk or health impacts, to people and other biota in the environs on and around the Hanford Site. It provides information to develop technically sound estimates of exposure (i.e., potential or actual) to humans or other biotic receptors that could result from the environmental transport of potentially harmful materials that have been, or could be, released from Hanford operations or facilities. Parameter values and information that are specific to the Hanford environs as well as other supporting material are included in this document

  11. Recommended environmental dose calculation methods and Hanford-specific parameters

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schreckhise, R.G.; Rhoads, K.; Napier, B.A.; Ramsdell, J.V. (Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)); Davis, J.S. (Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States))

    1993-03-01

    This document was developed to support the Hanford Environmental Dose overview Panel (HEDOP). The Panel is responsible for reviewing all assessments of potential doses received by humans and other biota resulting from the actual or possible environmental releases of radioactive and other hazardous materials from facilities and/or operations belonging to the US Department of Energy on the Hanford Site in south-central Washington. This document serves as a guide to be used for developing estimates of potential radiation doses, or other measures of risk or health impacts, to people and other biota in the environs on and around the Hanford Site. It provides information to develop technically sound estimates of exposure (i.e., potential or actual) to humans or other biotic receptors that could result from the environmental transport of potentially harmful materials that have been, or could be, released from Hanford operations or facilities. Parameter values and information that are specific to the Hanford environs as well as other supporting material are included in this document.

  12. Compliance with Recommendations on Outpatient Antibiotic Prescribing for Respiratory Tract Infections

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Malo, Sara; Bjerrum, Lars; Feja, Cristina

    2015-01-01

    Inappropriate antibiotic use in primary care, such as in Respiratory Tract Infections (RTIs), is an important cause of bacterial resistance. This study aimed at describing the current pattern of outpatient antibiotic use in acute RTIs in Spain and evaluating adherence to national recommendations......%), whereas low rates were found in acute bronchitis (50%) and non-specific upper RTIs (24%) episodes. A high prescription of broad-spectrum agents and antibiotics not recommended as first choice was observed. In accordance with Spanish guidelines, there exists a potential over-prescribing of antibiotics...

  13. Grade 6 Science Curriculum Specifications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alberta Dept. of Education, Edmonton. Curriculum Branch.

    This material describes curriculum specifications for grade 6 science in Alberta. Emphases recommended are: (1) process skills (50%); (2) psychomotor skills (10%); (3) attitudes (10%); and (4) subject matter (30%). Priorities within each category are identified. (YP)

  14. Notification: Follow-Up on Significant Information Technology Security Findings and Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Project #OA-FY14-0056, January 17, 2014. The EPA OIG plans to begin preliminary research to follow up on recommendations issued in its final reports between specific fiscal years, and reports associated with the FY 2013 OIG Management Challenges memo.

  15. Recommender systems

    CERN Document Server

    Kembellec, Gérald; Saleh, Imad

    2014-01-01

    Acclaimed by various content platforms (books, music, movies) and auction sites online, recommendation systems are key elements of digital strategies. If development was originally intended for the performance of information systems, the issues are now massively moved on logical optimization of the customer relationship, with the main objective to maximize potential sales. On the transdisciplinary approach, engines and recommender systems brings together contributions linking information science and communications, marketing, sociology, mathematics and computing. It deals with the understan

  16. A Space-Time Periodic Task Model for Recommendation of Remote Sensing Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiuhong Zhang

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available With the rapid development of remote sensing technology, the quantity and variety of remote sensing images are growing so quickly that proactive and personalized access to data has become an inevitable trend. One of the active approaches is remote sensing image recommendation, which can offer related image products to users according to their preference. Although multiple studies on remote sensing retrieval and recommendation have been performed, most of these studies model the user profiles only from the perspective of spatial area or image features. In this paper, we propose a spatiotemporal recommendation method for remote sensing data based on the probabilistic latent topic model, which is named the Space-Time Periodic Task model (STPT. User retrieval behaviors of remote sensing images are represented as mixtures of latent tasks, which act as links between users and images. Each task is associated with the joint probability distribution of space, time and image characteristics. Meanwhile, the von Mises distribution is introduced to fit the distribution of tasks over time. Then, we adopt Gibbs sampling to learn the random variables and parameters and present the inference algorithm for our model. Experiments show that the proposed STPT model can improve the capability and efficiency of remote sensing image data services.

  17. PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE PURPOSE OF IMPROVING THE OFFER OF TRAVEL AGENCIES IN PRIMORJEGORSKI KOTAR COUNTY–CROATIA

    OpenAIRE

    Jasna Lasinger Siladjev

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this paper is to stress the importance of promotional activities in advancing offers of travel agencies and their overall business profitability. More specifically, the paper examines elements of the promotional mix used by travel agencies when communicating with their customers; it is divided into six parts which delineate the characteristics of travel agencies on the tourism market, the specifics of marketing communication on the tourism market, promotional activities of trav...

  18. Recommender Systems in Commercial Use

    OpenAIRE

    Aldrich, Susan E.

    2011-01-01

    Commercial recommender systems are deployed by marketing teams to increase revenue and/or personalize user experience. Marketers evaluate recommender systems not on its algorithms but on how well the vendor‘s expertise and interfaces will support achieving business goals. Driven by a business model that pays based on recommendation success, vendors guide clients through continuous optimization of recommendations. While recommender technology is mature, the solutions and market are still young...

  19. Factors influencing intentions to use social recommender systems: a social exchange perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Tsung-Sheng; Hsiao, Wei-Hung

    2013-05-01

    This study employs the perspective of social exchange theory and seeks to understand users' intentions to use social recommender systems (SRS) through three psychological factors: trust, shared values, and reputation. We use structural equation modeling to analyze 221 valid questionnaires. The results show that trust has a direct positive influence on the intention to use SRS, followed by shared values, whereas reputation has an indirect influence on SRS use. We further discuss specific recommendations concerning these factors for developing SRS.

  20. Recommended Determination of Region IV Concerning the Yazoo Backwater Area Pumps Project

    Science.gov (United States)

    This document explains the basis for EPA Region IV’s recommendation to prohibit the specification of certain waters of the United States as a discharge site for dredge site for dredged or fill material.

  1. Exercise recommendations in patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Brad; Spencer, Horace; Kortebein, Patrick

    2012-04-01

    To evaluate exercise recommendations in patients newly diagnosed with fibromyalgia. A retrospective chart review. A public university rheumatology clinic. Patients newly diagnosed with fibromyalgia (N = 122). Frequency and type of exercise recommendations. The mean (standard deviation) age of these patients with fibromyalgia was 45 ± 12 years; 91% were women. Exercise was recommended as part of the documented treatment plan in 47% of these patients (57/122); only 3 patients had a documented contraindication for exercise. Aquatic exercise was most frequently recommended (56% [32/57]), followed by combined aquatic-aerobic exercise (26% [15/57]), and, infrequently, aerobic exercise only (5% [3/57]); only 7% of these patients (4/57) were referred for physical therapy. The primary method of communication was verbal discussion (94% [54/57]). Although there is well-documented evidence that exercise is beneficial for patients with fibromyalgia, we found that less than half of patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia in our study were provided recommendations to initiate an exercise program as part of their treatment plan. Further investigation of these findings are warranted, including evaluation of other university and community rheumatology practices as well as that of other physicians caring for patients with fibromyalgia. However, our findings indicate that there appears to be an opportunity to provide more specific and practical education regarding the implementation of an exercise regimen for patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia. Physiatrists may be particularly well suited to manage the exercise component of patients with fibromyalgia because of their specialized training in exercise prescription. Copyright © 2012 American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Choosing Wisely Imaging Recommendations: Initial Implementation in New England Emergency Departments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ali S. Raja

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: In June 2016, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP Emergency Quality Network began its Reduce Avoidable Imaging Initiative, designed to “reduce testing and imaging with low risk patients through the implementation of Choosing Wisely recommendations.” However, it is unknown whether New England emergency departments (ED have already implemented evidence-based interventions to improve adherence to ACEP Choosing Wisely recommendations related to imaging after their initial release in 2013. Our objective was to determine this, as well as whether provider-specific audit and feedback for imaging had been implemented in these EDs. Methods: This survey study was exempt from institutional review board review. In 2015, we mailed surveys to 195 hospital-affiliated EDs in all six New England states to determine whether they had implemented Choosing Wisely-focused interventions in 2014. Initial mailings included cover letters denoting the endorsement of each state’s ACEP chapter, and we followed up twice with repeat mailings to nonresponders. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and a comparison of state differences using Fisher’s exact test. Results: A total of 169/195 (87% of New England EDs responded, with all individual state response rates >80%. Overall, 101 (60% of responding EDs had implemented an intervention for at least one Choosing Wisely imaging scenario; 57% reported implementing a specific guideline/policy/clinical pathway and 28% reported implementing a computerized decision support system. The most common interventions were for chest computed tomography (CT in patients at low risk of pulmonary embolism (47% of EDs and head CT in patients with minor trauma (45% of EDs. In addition, 40% of EDs had implemented provider-specific audit and feedback, without significant interstate variation (range: 29-55%. Conclusion: One year after release of the ACEP Choosing Wisely recommendations, most New England EDs

  3. 14 CFR 151.29 - Procedures: Offer, amendment, and acceptance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... resolution or ordinance must, as appropriate under the local law— (1) Set forth the terms of the offer at... 14 Aeronautics and Space 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Procedures: Offer, amendment, and... § 151.29 Procedures: Offer, amendment, and acceptance. (a) Upon approving a project, the Administrator...

  4. Perceived value creation process: focus on the company offer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irena Pandža Bajs

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available In the competitive business environment, as the number of rational consumers faced with many choices increases, companies can achieve their dominance best by applying the business concepts oriented to consumers in order to deliver a value which is different and better than that of their competitors. Among the various products on the market, an educated consumer chooses the offer that provides the greatest value for him/her. Therefore, it is essential for each company to determine how consumers perceive the value of its offer, and which factors determine the high level of perceived value for current and potential consumers. An analysis of these factors provides guidance on how to improve the existing offer and what the offer to be delivered in the future should be like. That could increase the perceived value of the company offer and result in a positive impact on consumer satisfaction and on establishing a stronger, longterm relationship with consumers. The process of defining the perceived value of a particular market offer is affected by the factors of the respective company’s offer as well as by competition factors, consumer factors and buying process factors. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relevant knowledge about the process of creating the perceived value of the company’s market offer and the factors that influence this process. The paper presents a conceptual model of the perceived value creation process in consumers’ mind.

  5. International Consortium of Vascular Registries Consensus Recommendations for Peripheral Revascularisation Registry Data Collection

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Behrendt, Christian-Alexander; Bertges, Daniel; Eldrup, Nikolaj

    2018-01-01

    intervention; (ix) complications; and (x) follow up. CONCLUSION: A modified Delphi study allowed 25 international vascular registry experts to achieve a consensus recommendation for a minimum core data set and an optimum data set for peripheral arterial revascularisation registries. Continued global...... via internet exchange and face to face discussions. In total, 187 different items from the various registry data forms were identified for potential inclusion in the recommended data set. Ultimately, 79 items were recommended for inclusion in minimum core data sets, including 65 items in the level 1...... data set, and an additional 14 items in the more specific level 2 and 3 recommended data sets. Data elements were broadly divided into (i) patient characteristics; (ii) comorbidities; (iii) current medications; (iv) lesion treated; (v) procedure; (vi) bypass; (vii) endarterectomy (viii) catheter based...

  6. The ultimatum game: Discrete vs. continuous offers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dishon-Berkovits, Miriam; Berkovits, Richard

    2014-09-01

    In many experimental setups in social-sciences, psychology and economy the subjects are requested to accept or dispense monetary compensation which is usually given in discrete units. Using computer and mathematical modeling we show that in the framework of studying the dynamics of acceptance of proposals in the ultimatum game, the long time dynamics of acceptance of offers in the game are completely different for discrete vs. continuous offers. For discrete values the dynamics follow an exponential behavior. However, for continuous offers the dynamics are described by a power-law. This is shown using an agent based computer simulation as well as by utilizing an analytical solution of a mean-field equation describing the model. These findings have implications to the design and interpretation of socio-economical experiments beyond the ultimatum game.

  7. Hanford Spent Nuclear Fuel Project recommended path forward

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fulton, J.C.

    1994-10-01

    The Spent Nuclear Fuel Project (the Project), in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy-commissioned Independent Technical Assessment (ITA) team, has developed engineered alternatives for expedited removal of spent nuclear fuel, including sludge, from the K Basins at Hanford. These alternatives, along with a foreign processing alternative offered by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), were extensively reviewed and evaluated. Based on these evaluations, a Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) Recommended Path Forward for K Basins spent nuclear fuel has been developed and is presented in Volume I of this document. The recommendation constitutes an aggressive series of projects to construct and operate systems and facilities to safely retrieve, package, transport, process, and store K Basins fuel and sludge. The overall processing and storage scheme is based on the ITA team's proposed passivation and vault storage process. A dual purpose staging and vault storage facility provides an innovative feature which allows accelerated removal of fuel and sludge from the basins and minimizes programmatic risks beyond any of the originally proposed alternatives. The projects fit within a regulatory and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) overlay which mandates a two-phased approach to construction and operation of the needed facilities. The two-phase strategy packages and moves K Basins fuel and sludge to a newly constructed Staging and Storage Facility by the year 2000 where it is staged for processing. When an adjoining facility is constructed, the fuel is cycled through a stabilization process and returned to the Staging and Storage Facility for dry interim (40-year) storage. The estimated total expenditure for this Recommended Path Forward, including necessary new construction, operations, and deactivation of Project facilities through 2012, is approximately $1,150 million (unescalated)

  8. Perspective: Conflict of interest and professional organizations: considerations and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Camilleri, Michael; Parke, David W

    2010-01-01

    There are differences in conflicts of interest (COIs) in professional organizations compared with academic medical centers. The authors discuss nine major questions pertaining to industry relationships of professional organizations: (1) What makes COI management different in professional membership organizations? (2) What COI challenges are specific to professional organizations? (3) What are potential impacts of perceived or real COIs involving professional organizations and the management of COIs? (4) Is regulation necessary, or should professional organizations proactively resolve COI issues independently? (5) Are guidelines portable from academic medical centers to professional organizations? (6) What approaches may be considered for managing COIs of the organization's leaders? (7) What approaches are reasonable for managing COI issues at professional meetings? (8) What approaches are important for integrity of educational programs, publications, and products? and (9) What approaches are reasonable for managing and enforcing COI guidelines on an ongoing basis? Responses to these questions focus on four principles: First, a code of ethics governing general behavior of members and safeguarding the interest of patients must be in place; second, the monitoring and management of COI for leadership, including, in some cases, recusal from certain activities; third, the pooling and consistent, transparent management of unrestricted grants from corporate sponsors; and, fourth, the management of industry marketing efforts at membership meetings to ensure their appropriateness. The perspectives offered are intended to encourage individuals and learned bodies to further study and provide commentary and recommendations on managing COIs of a professional organization.

  9. Strategic Genco offers in electric energy markets cleared by merit order

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hasan, Ebrahim A. Rahman

    In an electricity market cleared by merit-order economic dispatch we identify necessary and sufficient conditions under which the market outcomes supported by pure strategy Nash equilibria (NE) exist when generating companies (Gencos) game through continuously variable incremental cost (IC) block offers. A Genco may own any number of units, each unit having multiple blocks with each block being offered at a constant IC. Next, a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) scheme devoid of approximations or iterations is developed to identify all possible NE. The MILP scheme is systematic and general but computationally demanding for large systems. Thus, an alternative significantly faster lambda-iterative approach that does not require the use of MILP was also developed. Once all NE are found, one critical question is to identify the one whose corresponding gaming strategy may be considered by all Gencos as being the most rational. To answer this, this thesis proposes the use of a measure based on the potential profit gain and loss by each Genco for each NE. The most rational offer strategy for each Genco in terms of gaming or not gaming that best meets their risk/benefit expectations is the one corresponding to the NE with the largest gain to loss ratio. The computation of all NE is tested on several systems of up to ninety generating units, each with four incremental cost blocks. These NE are then used to examine how market power is influenced by market parameters, specifically, the number of competing Gencos, their size and true ICs, as well as the level of demand and price cap.

  10. Consistency of nutrition recommendations for foods marketed to children in the United States, 2009-2010.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weatherspoon, Lorraine J; Quilliam, Elizabeth Taylor; Paek, Hye-Jin; Kim, Sookyong; Venkatesh, Sumathi; Plasencia, Julie; Lee, Mira; Rifon, Nora J

    2013-09-26

    Food marketing has emerged as an environmental factor that shapes children's dietary behaviors. "Advergames," or free online games designed to promote branded products, are an example of evolving food marketing tactics aimed at children. Our primary objective was to classify foods marketed to children (aged 2-11 y) in advergames as those meeting or not meeting nutrition recommendations of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), and the Institute of Medicine (IOM). We document the consistency of classification of those foods across agency guidelines and offer policy recommendations. We used comScore Media Builder Metrix to identify 143 websites that marketed foods (n = 439) to children aged 2 to 11 years through advergames. Foods were classified on the basis of each of the 4 agency criteria. Food nutrient labels provided information on serving size, calories, micronutrients, and macronutrients. The websites advertised 254 meals, 101 snacks, and 84 beverages. Proportions of meals and snacks meeting USDA and FDA recommendations were similarly low, with the exception of saturated fat in meals and sodium content in snacks. Inconsistency in recommendations was evidenced by only a small proportion of meals and fewer snacks meeting the recommendations of all the agencies per their guidelines. Beverage recommendations were also inconsistent across the 3 agencies that provide recommendations (USDA, IOM, and CSPI). Most (65%-95%) beverages advertised in advergames did not meet some of these recommendations. Our findings indicate that a large number of foods with low nutritional value are being marketed to children via advergames. A standardized system of food marketing guidance is needed to better inform the public about healthfulness of foods advertised to children.

  11. EPICON consensus: recommendations for proper management of switching to eslicarbazepine acetate in epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Villanueva, V; Ojeda, J; Rocamora, R A; Serrano-Castro, P J; Parra, J; Rodríguez-Uranga, J J; Bathal, H; Viteri, C

    2018-06-01

    The objective of the EPICON Project is to develop a set of recommendations on how to adequately switch from carbamazepine (CBZ) and oxcarbazepine (OXC) to eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) in some patients with epilepsy. A steering committee drafted a questionnaire of 56 questions regarding the transition from CBZ or OXC to ESL in clinical practice (methodology and change situation). The questionnaire was then distributed to 54 epilepsy experts in 2 rounds using the Delphi method. An agreement/disagreement consensus was defined when a median ≥ 7 points or ≤ 3 was achieved, respectively, and a relative interquartile range ≤ 0.40. We analysed the results obtained to reach our conclusions. Our main recommendations were the following: switching from CBZ to ESL must be carried out over a period of 1 to 3 weeks with a CBZ:ESL dose ratio of 1:1.3 and is recommended for patients who frequently forget to take their medication, those who work rotating shifts, polymedicated patients, subjects with cognitive problems, severe osteoporosis-osteopaenia, dyslipidaemia, or liver disease other than acute liver failure, as well as for men with erectile dysfunction caused by CBZ. The transition from OXC to ESL can take place overnight with an OXC:ESL dose ratio of 1:1 and it is recommended for patients who frequently forget to take their medication, those who work rotating shifts, polymedicated patients, or those with cognitive problems. The transition was not recommended for patients with prior rash due to CBZ or OXC use. The EPICON Project offers a set of recommendations about the clinical management of switching from CBZ or OXC to ESL, using the Delphi method. Copyright © 2016 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  12. The Quality Assessment of the Services Offered to the Students of the College of Education at King Saud University Using (SERVQUAL) Method

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alhabeeb, Abdurrahman Mohammad

    2015-01-01

    The goal of this study is measuring the level of quality service offered to students at the college of education at King Saud University, specifically the gap between students' perceptions and expectations of the quality of the offered service. The descriptive analytical approach has been applied in the study using SERVQUAL method to collect data…

  13. The future of nursing: monitoring the progress of recommended change in hospitals, nurse-led clinics, and home health and hospice agencies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pittman, Patricia; Bass, Emily; Hargraves, John; Herrera, Carolina; Thompson, Pamela

    2015-02-01

    The objective of this study was to assess the implementation of recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. In 2010, the IOM made a series of recommendations aimed at transforming the role of nurses in healthcare delivery. We conducted a multiyear survey, in 2011 and 2013, with nurse leaders who were members of the American Organization of Nurse Executives, the National Nursing Centers Consortium, or the Visiting Nurses Association of America. When comparing 2013 to 2011, we find progress in instituting the IOM's recommendations in 3 areas: (1) raising the proportion of employed RNs with at least a bachelor's degree; (2) expanding the proportion of healthcare institutions with nurse residency programs; and (3) offering opportunities for continuing nurse education Our findings suggest that healthcare organizations are transforming to support the recommendations of the IOM.

  14. A Flexible Electronic Commerce Recommendation System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Songjie

    Recommendation systems have become very popular in E-commerce websites. Many of the largest commerce websites are already using recommender technologies to help their customers find products to purchase. An electronic commerce recommendation system learns from a customer and recommends products that the customer will find most valuable from among the available products. But most recommendation methods are hard-wired into the system and they support only fixed recommendations. This paper presented a framework of flexible electronic commerce recommendation system. The framework is composed by user model interface, recommendation engine, recommendation strategy model, recommendation technology group, user interest model and database interface. In the recommender strategy model, the method can be collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, mining associate rules method, knowledge-based filtering method or the mixed method. The system mapped the implementation and demand through strategy model, and the whole system would be design as standard parts to adapt to the change of the recommendation strategy.

  15. Deploying Electric Vehicles and Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment: Tiger Teams Offer Project Assistance for Federal Fleets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None

    2017-01-02

    To assist federal agencies with the transition to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), FEMP offers technical guidance on electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) installations and site-specific planning through partnerships with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s EVSE Tiger Teams.

  16. [Secondary school menu in Madrid (Spain): knowledge and adherence to the Spanish National Health System recommendations].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berradre-Sáenz, Belén; Royo-Bordonada, Miguel Ángel; Bosqued, María José; Moya, María Ángeles; López, Lázaro

    2015-01-01

    To establish the degree of knowledge and adherence to the Spanish National Health System recommendations on nutrition in schools in the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Cross-sectional study of a random sample of 182 secondary schools from Madrid, during 2013-2014 school year. Information on the characteristics of the schools and the knowledge of the recommendations was collected by internet and telephone interviews, as well as a copy of the school menu. The average number of rations per week offered for each food item and the percentage of schools within the recommended range were calculated. The overall adherence was obtained as the mean of food items (0-12) within the range. 65.5% of the schools were unaware of the national recommendations. The supply of rice, pasta, fish, eggs, salad and fruit was lower than recommended, whereas for meat, accompaniment and other desserts was higher. The percentage of schools within the range for each food item varied between 13% and 95%. The mean of overall adherence was 6.3, with no differences depending on whether the menu was prepared or not at schools or there was or not a person in charge of nutrition standards. The degree of adherence to the recommendations was variable, being advised to increase the supply of cereals, eggs, fish, salad and fruit. Programs for dissemination and implementation of the recommendations, leaded by trained professionals, are required to improve the nutritional value of school menu. Copyright © 2015 SESPAS. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  17. Aetiological diagnosis of child deafness: CODEPEH recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Núñez-Batalla, Faustino; Jáudenes-Casaubón, Carmen; Sequí-Canet, Jose Miguel; Vivanco-Allende, Ana; Zubicaray-Ugarteche, Jose; Cabanillas-Farpón, Rubén

    Important progress in the fields of molecular genetics (principally) and diagnostic imaging, together with the lack of a consensus protocol for guiding the diagnostic process after confirming deafness by neonatal screening, have led to this new work document drafted by the Spanish Commission for the Early Detection of Child Deafness (Spanish acronym: CODEPEH). This 2015 Recommendations Document, which is based on the most recent scientific evidence, provides guidance to professionals to support them in making decisions regarding aetiological diagnosis. Such diagnosis should be performed without delay and without impeding early intervention. Early identification of the causes of deafness offers many advantages: it prevents unnecessary trouble for the families, reduces health system expenses caused by performing different tests, and provides prognostic information that may guide therapeutic actions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier España, S.L.U. and Sociedad Española de Otorrinolaringología y Cirugía de Cabeza y Cuello. All rights reserved.

  18. Recommendations in the use of portal images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Garcia, R.; Bodez, V.; Vial, L.; Le Thanh, H.; Reboul, F.

    2004-01-01

    Technical radiotherapy progress drive the practices towards increasingly more precise irradiations. The recent developments of the various imaging methods and specialized software made more controls possible. The fields of investigations relate to the quality assurance of the irradiation, the reproducibility of positioning, the movements evaluations and real time dosimetry. Radiotherapy finds, in the images exploitation, a strong potential in improving quality treatments, however it is conditioned by the implementation of ambitious programs, time consuming, but essential to grant the precision of virtual simulations and the daily practice. If all the existing technical devices and software offer higher tools than the current practices, the recommendations can be limited to the insurance of a sufficient precision and reproducibility of the whole treatments. It is thus fundamental to be able to filter the errors, the systematic deviations and to control the statistics of positioning and movements. Each radiotherapy department must apply an adapted program to each site and exploit the imaging chain to maintain its results. (authors)

  19. Exploration of offering photoelectric experimental general elective courses for college students of science and technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tao, Shen; Sun, Binchao

    2017-08-01

    The necessity of offering photoelectric experiment general elective courses, such as the experiments of modern optical and innovational photoelectric design for non optic-electric's science and engineering students were discussed based on the analysis of the status quo and problems in experimental general elective course in science and engineering colleges of our country. And the characters of photoelectric disciplines, the goal of science and engineering quality-oriented education and the reform of science education at home and abroad were also considered. The instructional objectives, contents and characteristics of the courses were investigated. The specific methods, the CDIO (conceive, design, implement and operate) mode in the general courses has been proposed; the experiences and practical effects of offering these courses were concluded.

  20. Density and Specific Gravity Metrics in Biomass Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Micheal C. Wiemann; G. Bruce Williamson

    2012-01-01

    Following the 2010 publication of Measuring Wood Specific Gravity… Correctly in the American Journal of Botany, readers contacted us to inquire about application of wood density and specific gravity to biomass research. Here we recommend methods for sample collection, volume measurement, and determination of wood density and specific gravity for...

  1. Difficult issues in mentoring: recommendations on making the "undiscussable" discussable.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bickel, Janet; Rosenthal, Susan L

    2011-10-01

    Many mentoring relationships do not reach fruition because the individuals fail to bridge a critical difference. When a difference prevents a learning partnership from achieving its potential, the loss is multidimensional for the individuals and the institution--wasting opportunities for the fostering of current and future talent. Insights into when such impasses are likely to arise may help both mentors and mentees address what feels "undiscussable." The authors offer numerous examples of how differences related to ethnicity, language, gender, and generation may interfere with the development of mentoring relationships. Next, the authors offer recommendations on preparing for and handling difficult conversations, including creating safety, noticing assumptions and emotions, and raising sensitive issues. Virtually all faculty can become more effective at communicating across differences and addressing difficulties that prevent mentoring relationships from achieving their potential. The pay-offs for these efforts are indisputable: increased effect in the limited time available for mentoring, an expanded legacy of positive influence, and enhanced communication and leadership skills. The honing of these relational skills enhances the colleagueship and teamwork on which virtually all research, clinical, and educational enterprises depend. Academic health centers that systematically support mentoring enhance institutional stability, talent development, and leadership capacity.

  2. Evaluation and recommendations on U.C. Lawrence Livermore Labortory Quality Assurance Program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Carpenter, F.D.; Horner, M.H.

    1978-01-01

    A study was conducted of the University of California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Quality Assurance Program, which focused on training needs and recommendations tailored to the various on-going programs. Specific attention was directed to an assessment of the quality status for the MFTF facility and the capabilities of assigned quality project engineers. Conclusions and recommendations are presented which not only address the purpose of this study, but extend into other areas to provide insight and needs for a total cost effective application of a quality assurance program

  3. Offers for our members

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2017-01-01

    Summer is here, enjoy our offers for the aquatic parcs! Walibi : Tickets "Zone terrestre": 24 € instead of 30 €. Access to Aqualibi: 5 € instead of 6 € on presentation of your SA member ticket. Free for children under 100 cm. Car park free. * * * * * Aquaparc : Day ticket: – Children: 33 CHF instead of 39 CHF – Adults : 33 CHF instead of 49 CHF Bonus! Free for children under 5.

  4. Offers for our members

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2017-01-01

    Summer is coming, enjoy our offers for the aquatic parcs! Walibi : Tickets "Zone terrestre": 24 € instead of 30 €. Access to Aqualibi: 5 € instead of 6 € on presentation of your SA member ticket. Free for children under 100 cm. Car park free. * * * * * Aquaparc : Day ticket: – Children: 33 CHF instead of 39 CHF – Adults : 33 CHF instead of 49 CHF Bonus! Free for children under 5.

  5. Recommended Practices for the Safe Design and Operation of Flywheels

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bender, Donald Arthur [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

    2015-12-01

    Flywheel energy storage systems are in use globally in increasing numbers . No codes pertaining specifically to flywheel energy storage exist. A number of industrial incidents have occurred. This protocol recommends a technical basis for safe flywheel de sign and operation for consideration by flywheel developers, users of flywheel systems and standards setting organizations.

  6. Comparison of nutrition standards and other recommended procurement practices for improving institutional food offerings in Los Angeles County, 2010-2012.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robles, Brenda; Wood, Michelle; Kimmons, Joel; Kuo, Tony

    2013-03-01

    National, state, and local institutions that procure, distribute, sell, and/or serve food to employees, students, and the public are increasingly capitalizing on existing operational infrastructures to create healthier food environments. Integration of healthy nutrition standards and other recommended practices [e.g., energy (kilocalories) postings at point-of-purchase, portion size restrictions, product placement guidelines, and signage] into new or renewing food service and vending contracts codifies an institution's commitment to increasing the availability of healthful food options in their food service venues and vending machines. These procurement requirements, in turn, have the potential to positively influence consumers' food-purchasing behaviors. Although these strategies are becoming increasingly popular, much remains unknown about their context, the processes required to implement them effectively, and the factors that facilitate their sustainability, especially in such broad and diverse settings as schools, county government facilities, and cities. To contribute to this gap in information, we reviewed and compared nutrition standards and other best practices implemented recently in a large school district, in a large county government, and across 10 municipalities in Los Angeles County. We report lessons learned from these efforts.

  7. Information Technology Skills Recommended for Business Students by Fortune 500 Executives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Jensen J.; Alexander, Melody W.

    2002-01-01

    Responses from 51 Fortune 500 training and development executives identified 28 information technology skills strongly recommended for business graduates. A similar 1995 survey identified only 11 skills. The largest increase occurred in Internet/Web telecommunications and discipline-specific information systems. (Contains 31 references.) (SK)

  8. 17 CFR 240.14e-1 - Unlawful tender offer practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 17 Commodity and Securities Exchanges 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Unlawful tender offer... Securities Exchange Act of 1934 Regulation 14e § 240.14e-1 Unlawful tender offer practices. As a means... section 14(e) of the Act, no person who makes a tender offer shall: (a) Hold such tender offer open for...

  9. 12 CFR 563g.8 - Use of the offering circular.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Use of the offering circular. 563g.8 Section 563g.8 Banks and Banking OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY SECURITIES OFFERINGS § 563g.8 Use of the offering circular. (a) An offering circular or amendment declared effective by the...

  10. May I Suggest? Comparing Three PLE Recommender Strategies

    OpenAIRE

    Mödritscher, Felix; Krumay, Barbara; El Helou, Sandy; Gillet, Denis; Nussbaumer, Alexander; Albert, Dietrich; Dahn, Ingo; Ullrich, Carsten

    2011-01-01

    Personal learning environment (PLE) solutions aim at empowering learners to design (ICT and web-based) environments for their learning activities, mashingup content and people and apps for different learning contexts. Widely used in other application areas, recommender systems can be very useful for supporting learners in their PLE-based activities, to help discover relevant content, peers sharing similar learning interests or experts on a specific topic. In this paper we examine the utilizat...

  11. Large Scale Visual Recommendations From Street Fashion Images

    OpenAIRE

    Jagadeesh, Vignesh; Piramuthu, Robinson; Bhardwaj, Anurag; Di, Wei; Sundaresan, Neel

    2014-01-01

    We describe a completely automated large scale visual recommendation system for fashion. Our focus is to efficiently harness the availability of large quantities of online fashion images and their rich meta-data. Specifically, we propose four data driven models in the form of Complementary Nearest Neighbor Consensus, Gaussian Mixture Models, Texture Agnostic Retrieval and Markov Chain LDA for solving this problem. We analyze relative merits and pitfalls of these algorithms through extensive e...

  12. The voluntary safeguards offer of the United States

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Houck, F.S.

    1985-01-01

    During negotiations of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) concerns were expressed by non-nuclear-weapon States that their acceptance of Agency safeguards would put them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the nuclear-weapon States. To allay these concerns, the United States and the United Kingdom in December 1967 made voluntary offers to accept Agency safeguards on their peaceful nuclear activities. Subsequently, France made a voluntary offer, the safeguards agreement for which was approved by the IAEA Board of Governors in February 1978, with a view to encouraging acceptance of Agency safeguards by additional States. More recently, in February 1985 the Board approved the safeguards agreement for the voluntary offer of the USSR, made inter alia to encourage further acceptance of Agency safeguards. These safeguards agreements with nuclear-weapon-States have two important features in common: Namely, they result from voluntary offers to accept safeguards rather than from multilateral or bilateral undertakings, and they give the Agency the right but generally not an obligation to apply its safeguards. The agreements differ in certain respects, the most noteworthy of which is the scope of the nuclear activities covered by each offer. The agreements of the United States and United Kingdom are the broadest, covering all peaceful nuclear activities in each country. The safeguards agreement for the US voluntary offer has been in force since December 1980. Now is an appropriate time to review the experience with the agreement's implementation during its first four years, as well as its history and salient features

  13. Implications of the Recommendations of the Expert Panel on Federal Support to Research and Development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Preston Manning

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Canada lags behind many of its First World counterparts when it comes to business innovation, and urgently needs to improve its performance if it is to remain competitive and attractive to investment. The Expert Panel Report on Federal Support to Research and Development has recommended several policy initiatives that governments need to enact to close the gap. This paper reviews all six major recommendations made by the Expert Panel and provides thorough assessments of each, with ample consideration given to their implications for the private sector. The two most promising are: (1 the consolidation of research and development spending programs at the federal level and (2 the adoption of smart procurement as a means of spurring innovation in the non-government sector. While some of the other recommendations need refinement and raise concerns about their impact on the economy, the message for government and business is clear: the former can and should facilitate Canadian business innovation by removing tax and regulatory burdens and facilitating better public-private cooperation, while the latter must make innovation a major part of corporate culture. This paper explains the consequences of the Panel’s recommendations for both sectors, identifies the deficiencies, and offers clear-eyed guidance for ameliorating them.

  14. A Sentiment-Enhanced Hybrid Recommender System for Movie Recommendation: A Big Data Analytics Framework

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Yibo; Wang, Mingming; Xu, Wei

    2018-01-01

    Movie recommendation in mobile environment is critically important for mobile users. It carries out comprehensive aggregation of user’s preferences, reviews, and emotions to help them find suitable movies conveniently. However, it requires both accuracy and timeliness. In this paper, a movie recommendation framework based on a hybrid recommendation model and sentiment analysis on Spark platform is proposed to improve the accuracy and timeliness of mobile movie recommender system. In the propo...

  15. Reshaping Time: Recommendations for Suicide Prevention in LBGT Populations. Reflections on "Suicide and Suicide Risk in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations: Review and Recommendations" from Journal of Homosexuality 58(1).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mullaney, Clare

    2016-01-01

    This article serves as one of the supplementary pieces of this special issue on "Mapping Queer Bioethics," in which we take a solipsistic turn to "map" the Journal of Homosexuality itself. Here, the author examines the journal's 2011 consensus recommendations for the prevention of LGBT suicide. Invoking the axiom approach of Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick's seminal Epistemology of the Closet, the author argues that merely offering practical guidelines at the level of the demonstrative and the instructive may not be sufficient models to address the urgency of suicide rates in LGBTQ youth populations.

  16. 14 CFR 151.121 - Procedures: Offer; sponsor assurances.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Procedures: Offer; sponsor assurances. 151.121 Section 151.121 Aeronautics and Space FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF... Engineering Proposals § 151.121 Procedures: Offer; sponsor assurances. Each sponsor must adopt the following...

  17. 7 CFR 1494.601 - Acceptance of offers by CCC.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... exporting countries; and the cost effectiveness of the payment of a CCC bonus amount in view of CCC's... exporter's offer by CCC but not later than 10 a.m. of the next business day after the date the offer was... accepted by CCC by 10 a.m. of the next business day after the date for which the offer was submitted for...

  18. Exercise for prevention of cardiovascular disease: Evidence-based recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geevar Zachariah

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Sedentary lifestyle is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD. In India, a large percentage of the people are physically inactive with fewer than 10% engaging in recreational physical activity. Physical activity has many beneficial effects on the risk factors for CVD. Apart from improving fitness level, it decreases myocardial oxygen demand and improves myocardial perfusion. There is an inverse association between physical activity and all-cause mortality. In primary prevention, physical inactivity is associated with a two-fold increase in the risk for coronary events. In secondary prevention, data confirm the existence of an inverse dose–response relationship between cardiovascular fitness and the all-cause mortality in large populations of cardiovascular patients. Guidelines from the American authorities as well as the European Society of Cardiology provide specific recommendations for exercise depending on the clinical setting (primary or secondary prevention of CVD and the patient-specific factors (the patient's physical activity level and the perceived CVD risk. The present review summarizes the clinical evidence regarding the role of exercise in CVD prevention and the exercise recommendations from the leading Cardiac societies.

  19. Evaluating alternative offering strategies for wind producers in a pool

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rahimiyan, Morteza; Morales, Juan M.; Conejo, Antonio J.

    2011-01-01

    Highlights: → Out-of-sample analysis allows comparing diverse offers using real-world data. → Offering the best production forecast is not optimal for a wind producer. → Stochastic programming offers lead to maximum expected profit. → Offering the best production forecast is not generally optimal for risk control. → Stochastic programming offers lead to the best tradeoff profit versus risk. -- Abstract: As wind power technology matures and reaches break-even cost, wind producers find it increasingly attractive to participate in pool markets instead of being paid feed-in tariffs. The key issue is then how a wind producer should offer in the pool markets to achieve maximum profit while controlling the variability of such profit. This paper compares two families of offering strategies based, respectively, on a naive use of wind production forecasts and on stochastic programming models. These strategies are compared through a comprehensive out-of-sample chronological analysis based on real-world data. A number of relevant conclusions are then duly drawn.

  20. Do Technological and Course-Related Variables Impact Undergraduates' Perceived Favorability and Willingness to Recommend Online/Hybrid Business Courses?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blau, Gary; Drennan, Rob B., Jr.; Karnik, Satyajit; Kapanjie, Darin

    2017-01-01

    Lower teaching evaluations can affect students' willingness to recommend an online course. To maintain online course quality, it is important to keep the "integrity" of a course, that is, offer to the extent possible, the same content and learning outcomes in an online course as the face-to-face (F2F) equivalent. This study explored the…