How Long Should Routine EEG Be Recorded to Get Relevant Information?

Science.gov (United States)

Doudoux, Hannah; Skaare, Kristina; Geay, Thomas; Kahane, Philippe; Bosson, Jean L; Sabourdy, Cécile; Vercueil, Laurent

2017-03-01

The optimal duration of routine EEG (rEEG) has not been determined on a clinical basis. This study aims to determine the time required to obtain relevant information during rEEG with respect to the clinical request. All rEEGs performed over 3 months in unselected patients older than 14 years in an academic hospital were analyzed retrospectively. The latency required to obtain relevant information was determined for each rEEG by 2 independent readers blinded to the clinical data. EEG final diagnoses and latencies were analyzed with respect to the main clinical requests: subacute cognitive impairment, spells, transient focal neurologic manifestation or patients referred by epileptologists. From 430 rEEGs performed in the targeted period, 364 were analyzed: 92% of the pathological rEEGs were provided within the first 10 minutes of recording. Slowing background activity was diagnosed from the beginning, whereas interictal epileptiform discharges were recorded over time. Moreover, the time elapsed to demonstrate a pattern differed significantly in the clinical groups: in patients with subacute cognitive impairment, EEG abnormalities appeared within the first 10 minutes, whereas in the other groups, data could be provided over time. Patients with subacute cognitive impairment differed from those in the other groups significantly in the elapsed time required to obtain relevant information during rEEG, suggesting that 10-minute EEG recordings could be sufficient, arguing in favor of individualized rEEG. However, this conclusion does not apply to intensive care unit patients.

Value Relevance of Accounting Information in the United Arab Emirates

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jamal Barzegari Khanagha

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the value relevance of accounting information in per and post-periods of International Financial Reporting Standards implementation using the regression and portfolio approaches for sample of the UAE companies. The results obtained from a combination of regression and portfolio approaches, show accounting information is value relevant in UAE stock market. A comparison of the results for the periods before and after adoption, based on both regression and portfolio approaches, shows a decline in value relevance of accounting information after the reform in accounting standards. It could be interpreted to mean that following to IFRS in UAE didn’t improve value relevancy of accounting information. However, results based on and portfolio approach shows that cash flows’ incremental information content increased for the post-IFRS period.

Multiagency Initiative to Provide Greenhouse Gas Information

Science.gov (United States)

Boland, Stacey W.; Duren, Riley M.

2009-11-01

Global Greenhouse Gas Information System Workshop; Albuquerque, New Mexico, 20-22 May 2009; The second Greenhouse Gas Information System (GHGIS) workshop brought together 74 representatives from 28 organizations including U.S. government agencies, national laboratories, and members of the academic community to address issues related to the understanding, operational monitoring, and tracking of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon offsets. The workshop was held at Sandia National Laboratories and organized by an interagency collaboration among NASA centers, Department of Energy laboratories, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was motivated by the perceived need for an integrated interagency, community-wide initiative to provide information about greenhouse gas sources and sinks at policy-relevant temporal and spatial scales. Such an initiative could significantly enhance the ability of national and regional governments, industry, and private citizens to implement and evaluate effective climate change mitigation policies.

Do Dogs Provide Information Helpfully?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrizia Piotti

Full Text Available Dogs are particularly skilful during communicative interactions with humans. Dogs' abilities to use human communicative cues in cooperative contexts outcompete those of other species, and might be the result of selection pressures during domestication. Dogs also produce signals to direct the attention of humans towards outside entities, a behaviour often referred to as showing behaviour. This showing behaviour in dogs is thought to be something dogs use intentionally and referentially. However, there is currently no evidence that dogs communicate helpfully, i.e. to inform an ignorant human about a target that is of interest to the human but not to the dog. Communicating with a helpful motive is particularly interesting because it might suggest that dogs understand the human's goals and need for information. In study 1, we assessed whether dogs would abandon an object that they find interesting in favour of an object useful for their human partner, a random novel distractor, or an empty container. Results showed that it was mainly self-interest that was driving the dogs' behaviour. The dogs mainly directed their behaviour towards the object they had an interest in, but dogs were more persistent when showing the object relevant to the human, suggesting that to some extent they took the humans interest into account. Another possibility is that dogs' behaviour was driven by an egocentric motivation to interact with novel targets and that the dogs' neophila might have masked their helpful tendencies. Therefore, in study 2 the dogs had initial access to both objects, and were expected to indicate only one (relevant or distractor. The human partner interacted with the dog using vocal communication in half of the trials, and remaining silent in the other half. Dogs from both experimental groups, i.e. indicating the relevant object or indicating the distractor, established joint attention with the human. However, the human's vocal communication and the

Do Dogs Provide Information Helpfully?

Science.gov (United States)

Piotti, Patrizia; Kaminski, Juliane

2016-01-01

Dogs are particularly skilful during communicative interactions with humans. Dogs' abilities to use human communicative cues in cooperative contexts outcompete those of other species, and might be the result of selection pressures during domestication. Dogs also produce signals to direct the attention of humans towards outside entities, a behaviour often referred to as showing behaviour. This showing behaviour in dogs is thought to be something dogs use intentionally and referentially. However, there is currently no evidence that dogs communicate helpfully, i.e. to inform an ignorant human about a target that is of interest to the human but not to the dog. Communicating with a helpful motive is particularly interesting because it might suggest that dogs understand the human's goals and need for information. In study 1, we assessed whether dogs would abandon an object that they find interesting in favour of an object useful for their human partner, a random novel distractor, or an empty container. Results showed that it was mainly self-interest that was driving the dogs' behaviour. The dogs mainly directed their behaviour towards the object they had an interest in, but dogs were more persistent when showing the object relevant to the human, suggesting that to some extent they took the humans interest into account. Another possibility is that dogs' behaviour was driven by an egocentric motivation to interact with novel targets and that the dogs' neophila might have masked their helpful tendencies. Therefore, in study 2 the dogs had initial access to both objects, and were expected to indicate only one (relevant or distractor). The human partner interacted with the dog using vocal communication in half of the trials, and remaining silent in the other half. Dogs from both experimental groups, i.e. indicating the relevant object or indicating the distractor, established joint attention with the human. However, the human's vocal communication and the presence of the

50 CFR 424.13 - Sources of information and relevant data.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 50 Wildlife and Fisheries 7 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Sources of information and relevant data... Sources of information and relevant data. When considering any revision of the lists, the Secretary shall..., administrative reports, maps or other graphic materials, information received from experts on the subject, and...

Alpha power gates relevant information during working memory updating.

Science.gov (United States)

Manza, Peter; Hau, Chui Luen Vera; Leung, Hoi-Chung

2014-04-23

Human working memory (WM) is inherently limited, so we must filter out irrelevant information in our environment or our mind while retaining limited important relevant contents. Previous work suggests that neural oscillations in the alpha band (8-14 Hz) play an important role in inhibiting incoming distracting information during attention and selective encoding tasks. However, whether alpha power is involved in inhibiting no-longer-relevant content or in representing relevant WM content is still debated. To clarify this issue, we manipulated the amount of relevant/irrelevant information using a task requiring spatial WM updating while measuring neural oscillatory activity via EEG and localized current sources across the scalp using a surface Laplacian transform. An initial memory set of two, four, or six spatial locations was to be memorized over a delay until an updating cue was presented indicating that only one or three locations remained relevant for a subsequent recognition test. Alpha amplitude varied with memory maintenance and updating demands among a cluster of left frontocentral electrodes. Greater postcue alpha power was associated with the high relevant load conditions (six and four dots cued to reduce to three relevant) relative to the lower load conditions (four and two dots reduced to one). Across subjects, this difference in alpha power was correlated with condition differences in performance accuracy. In contrast, no significant effects of irrelevant load were observed. These findings demonstrate that, during WM updating, alpha power reflects maintenance of relevant memory contents rather than suppression of no-longer-relevant memory traces.

76 FR 34075 - Request for Information (RFI) To Identify and Obtain Relevant Information From Public or Private...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-10

... Relevant Information From Public or Private Entities With an Interest in Biovigilance; Extension AGENCY... and obtain relevant information regarding the possible development of a public-private partnership... Identify and Obtain Relevant Information from Public or Private Entities with an Interest in Biovigilance...

Proactive Support of Internet Browsing when Searching for Relevant Health Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Rurik, Clas; Zowalla, Richard; Wiesner, Martin; Pfeifer, Daniel

2015-01-01

Many people use the Internet as one of the primary sources of health information. This is due to the high volume and easy access of freely available information regarding diseases, diagnoses and treatments. However, users may find it difficult to retrieve information which is easily understandable and does not require a deep medical background. In this paper, we present a new kind of Web browser add-on, in order to proactively support users when searching for relevant health information. Our add-on not only visualizes the understandability of displayed medical text but also provides further recommendations of Web pages which hold similar content but are potentially easier to comprehend.

Online drug databases: a new method to assess and compare inclusion of clinically relevant information.

Science.gov (United States)

Silva, Cristina; Fresco, Paula; Monteiro, Joaquim; Rama, Ana Cristina Ribeiro

2013-08-01

Evidence-Based Practice requires health care decisions to be based on the best available evidence. The model "Information Mastery" proposes that clinicians should use sources of information that have previously evaluated relevance and validity, provided at the point of care. Drug databases (DB) allow easy and fast access to information and have the benefit of more frequent content updates. Relevant information, in the context of drug therapy, is that which supports safe and effective use of medicines. Accordingly, the European Guideline on the Summary of Product Characteristics (EG-SmPC) was used as a standard to evaluate the inclusion of relevant information contents in DB. To develop and test a method to evaluate relevancy of DB contents, by assessing the inclusion of information items deemed relevant for effective and safe drug use. Hierarchical organisation and selection of the principles defined in the EGSmPC; definition of criteria to assess inclusion of selected information items; creation of a categorisation and quantification system that allows score calculation; calculation of relative differences (RD) of scores for comparison with an "ideal" database, defined as the one that achieves the best quantification possible for each of the information items; pilot test on a sample of 9 drug databases, using 10 drugs frequently associated in literature with morbidity-mortality and also being widely consumed in Portugal. Main outcome measure Calculate individual and global scores for clinically relevant information items of drug monographs in databases, using the categorisation and quantification system created. A--Method development: selection of sections, subsections, relevant information items and corresponding requisites; system to categorise and quantify their inclusion; score and RD calculation procedure. B--Pilot test: calculated scores for the 9 databases; globally, all databases evaluated significantly differed from the "ideal" database; some DB performed

Do Dogs Provide Information Helpfully?

Science.gov (United States)

Piotti, Patrizia; Kaminski, Juliane

2016-01-01

Dogs are particularly skilful during communicative interactions with humans. Dogs’ abilities to use human communicative cues in cooperative contexts outcompete those of other species, and might be the result of selection pressures during domestication. Dogs also produce signals to direct the attention of humans towards outside entities, a behaviour often referred to as showing behaviour. This showing behaviour in dogs is thought to be something dogs use intentionally and referentially. However, there is currently no evidence that dogs communicate helpfully, i.e. to inform an ignorant human about a target that is of interest to the human but not to the dog. Communicating with a helpful motive is particularly interesting because it might suggest that dogs understand the human’s goals and need for information. In study 1, we assessed whether dogs would abandon an object that they find interesting in favour of an object useful for their human partner, a random novel distractor, or an empty container. Results showed that it was mainly self-interest that was driving the dogs’ behaviour. The dogs mainly directed their behaviour towards the object they had an interest in, but dogs were more persistent when showing the object relevant to the human, suggesting that to some extent they took the humans interest into account. Another possibility is that dogs’ behaviour was driven by an egocentric motivation to interact with novel targets and that the dogs’ neophila might have masked their helpful tendencies. Therefore, in study 2 the dogs had initial access to both objects, and were expected to indicate only one (relevant or distractor). The human partner interacted with the dog using vocal communication in half of the trials, and remaining silent in the other half. Dogs from both experimental groups, i.e. indicating the relevant object or indicating the distractor, established joint attention with the human. However, the human’s vocal communication and the presence

Support Vector Machines: Relevance Feedback and Information Retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Drucker, Harris; Shahrary, Behzad; Gibbon, David C.

2002-01-01

Compares support vector machines (SVMs) to Rocchio, Ide regular and Ide dec-hi algorithms in information retrieval (IR) of text documents using relevancy feedback. If the preliminary search is so poor that one has to search through many documents to find at least one relevant document, then SVM is preferred. Includes nine tables. (Contains 24…

Disseminating relevant health information to underserved audiences: implications of the Digital Divide Pilot Projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Kreps, Gary L

2005-10-01

This paper examines the influence of the digital divide on disparities in health outcomes for vulnerable populations, identifying implications for medical and public libraries. The paper describes the results of the Digital Divide Pilot Projects demonstration research programs funded by the National Cancer Institute to test new strategies for disseminating relevant health information to underserved and at-risk audiences. The Digital Divide Pilot Projects field-tested innovative systemic strategies for helping underserved populations access and utilize relevant health information to make informed health-related decisions about seeking appropriate health care and support, resisting avoidable and significant health risks, and promoting their own health. The paper builds on the Digital Divide Pilot Projects by identifying implications for developing health communication strategies that libraries can adopt to provide digital health information to vulnerable populations.

Information needs for problem holders/solution providers: EnviroTRADE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Robson, W.M.; Harrington, M.W.; Harlan, C.P.

1994-01-01

EnviroTRADE (or Environmental Technologies for Remedial Actions Data Exchange) is a domestic and international information system that matches environmental problems with potential technologies solutions by combining state of the art information management techniques, graphical interfaces and a Geographic Information System (GIS). Its search and match algorithms locate technologies relevant to specific environmental problems and identify sites where technology may be applicable. EnviroTRADE also provides many other kinds of database searches and reports. EnviroTRADE is a graphical/textural information management system being developed for the cleanup program of US Department of energy's nuclear weapons complex. Its principal purpose is to provide a single, powerful, interactive data source on the many environmental restoration and waste management (ER/WM) problems and on the technologies currently under development and available to resolve them. Because the volume and complexity of the information is so large, a sophisticated Relational database Management System (RDBMS) is employed for EnviroTRADE which accommodates graphical images, technical data, structured textural descriptions, and a variety of advanced multi-media data types. EnviroTRADE is a multi-purpose, multi-user system capable of addressing a broad range of environmental assessment and cleanup issues

Information needs for problem holders/solution providers: EnviroTRADE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Robson, W.M. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States); Harrington, M.W.; Harlan, C.P. [Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (United States)

1994-12-31

EnviroTRADE (or Environmental Technologies for Remedial Actions Data Exchange) is a domestic and international information system that matches environmental problems with potential technologies solutions by combining state of the art information management techniques, graphical interfaces and a Geographic Information System (GIS). Its search and match algorithms locate technologies relevant to specific environmental problems and identify sites where technology may be applicable. EnviroTRADE also provides many other kinds of database searches and reports. EnviroTRADE is a graphical/textural information management system being developed for the cleanup program of US Department of energy`s nuclear weapons complex. Its principal purpose is to provide a single, powerful, interactive data source on the many environmental restoration and waste management (ER/WM) problems and on the technologies currently under development and available to resolve them. Because the volume and complexity of the information is so large, a sophisticated Relational database Management System (RDBMS) is employed for EnviroTRADE which accommodates graphical images, technical data, structured textural descriptions, and a variety of advanced multi-media data types. EnviroTRADE is a multi-purpose, multi-user system capable of addressing a broad range of environmental assessment and cleanup issues.

Autism Spectrum Disorder Updates - Relevant Information for Early Interventionists to Consider.

Science.gov (United States)

Allen-Meares, Paula; MacDonald, Megan; McGee, Kristin

2016-01-01

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication skills as well as repetitive, restricted or stereotyped behaviors (1). Early interventionists are often found at the forefront of assessment, evaluation, and early intervention services for children with ASD. The role of an early intervention specialist may include assessing developmental history, providing group and individual counseling, working in partnership with families on home, school, and community environments, mobilizing school and community resources, and assisting in the development of positive early intervention strategies (2, 3). The commonality among these roles resides in the importance of providing up-to-date, relevant information to families and children. The purpose of this review is to provide pertinent up-to-date knowledge for early interventionists to help inform practice in working with individuals with ASD, including common behavioral models of intervention.

Using language models to identify relevant new information in inpatient clinical notes.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Rui; Pakhomov, Serguei V; Lee, Janet T; Melton, Genevieve B

2014-01-01

Redundant information in clinical notes within electronic health record (EHR) systems is ubiquitous and may negatively impact the use of these notes by clinicians, and, potentially, the efficiency of patient care delivery. Automated methods to identify redundant versus relevant new information may provide a valuable tool for clinicians to better synthesize patient information and navigate to clinically important details. In this study, we investigated the use of language models for identification of new information in inpatient notes, and evaluated our methods using expert-derived reference standards. The best method achieved precision of 0.743, recall of 0.832 and F1-measure of 0.784. The average proportion of redundant information was similar between inpatient and outpatient progress notes (76.6% (SD=17.3%) and 76.7% (SD=14.0%), respectively). Advanced practice providers tended to have higher rates of redundancy in their notes compared to physicians. Future investigation includes the addition of semantic components and visualization of new information.

System for selecting relevant information for decision support.

Science.gov (United States)

Kalina, Jan; Seidl, Libor; Zvára, Karel; Grünfeldová, Hana; Slovák, Dalibor; Zvárová, Jana

2013-01-01

We implemented a prototype of a decision support system called SIR which has a form of a web-based classification service for diagnostic decision support. The system has the ability to select the most relevant variables and to learn a classification rule, which is guaranteed to be suitable also for high-dimensional measurements. The classification system can be useful for clinicians in primary care to support their decision-making tasks with relevant information extracted from any available clinical study. The implemented prototype was tested on a sample of patients in a cardiological study and performs an information extraction from a high-dimensional set containing both clinical and gene expression data.

Acoustic fine structure may encode biologically relevant information for zebra finches.

Science.gov (United States)

Prior, Nora H; Smith, Edward; Lawson, Shelby; Ball, Gregory F; Dooling, Robert J

2018-04-18

The ability to discriminate changes in the fine structure of complex sounds is well developed in birds. However, the precise limit of this discrimination ability and how it is used in the context of natural communication remains unclear. Here we describe natural variability in acoustic fine structure of male and female zebra finch calls. Results from psychoacoustic experiments demonstrate that zebra finches are able to discriminate extremely small differences in fine structure, which are on the order of the variation in acoustic fine structure that is present in their vocal signals. Results from signal analysis methods also suggest that acoustic fine structure may carry information that distinguishes between biologically relevant categories including sex, call type and individual identity. Combined, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that zebra finches can encode biologically relevant information within the fine structure of their calls. This study provides a foundation for our understanding of how acoustic fine structure may be involved in animal communication.

A User-Centered Approach to Adaptive Hypertext Based on an Information Relevance Model

Science.gov (United States)

Mathe, Nathalie; Chen, James

1994-01-01

Rapid and effective to information in large electronic documentation systems can be facilitated if information relevant in an individual user's content can be automatically supplied to this user. However most of this knowledge on contextual relevance is not found within the contents of documents, it is rather established incrementally by users during information access. We propose a new model for interactively learning contextual relevance during information retrieval, and incrementally adapting retrieved information to individual user profiles. The model, called a relevance network, records the relevance of references based on user feedback for specific queries and user profiles. It also generalizes such knowledge to later derive relevant references for similar queries and profiles. The relevance network lets users filter information by context of relevance. Compared to other approaches, it does not require any prior knowledge nor training. More importantly, our approach to adaptivity is user-centered. It facilitates acceptance and understanding by users by giving them shared control over the adaptation without disturbing their primary task. Users easily control when to adapt and when to use the adapted system. Lastly, the model is independent of the particular application used to access information, and supports sharing of adaptations among users.

Collecting Safeguards Relevant Trade Information: The IAEA Procurement Outreach Programme

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schot, P.; El Gebaly, A.; Tarvainen, M.

2010-01-01

The increasing awareness of activities of transnational procurement networks to covertly acquire sensitive nuclear related dual use equipment prompted an evolution of safeguards methodologies. One of the responses to this challenge by the Department of Safeguards in the IAEA was to establish the Trade and Technology Unit (TTA) in November 2004 to analyse and report on these covert nuclear related trade activities. To obtain information relevant to this analysis, TTA is engaging States that might be willing to provide this information to the Secretariat on a voluntary basis. This paper will give an overview of current activities, sum up the results achieved and discuss suggestions to further improve this programme made by Member States. (author)

Disseminating relevant health information to underserved audiences: implications of the Digital Divide Pilot Projects*

Science.gov (United States)

Kreps, Gary L.

2005-01-01

Objective: This paper examines the influence of the digital divide on disparities in health outcomes for vulnerable populations, identifying implications for medical and public libraries. Method: The paper describes the results of the Digital Divide Pilot Projects demonstration research programs funded by the National Cancer Institute to test new strategies for disseminating relevant health information to underserved and at-risk audiences. Results: The Digital Divide Pilot Projects field-tested innovative systemic strategies for helping underserved populations access and utilize relevant health information to make informed health-related decisions about seeking appropriate health care and support, resisting avoidable and significant health risks, and promoting their own health. Implications: The paper builds on the Digital Divide Pilot Projects by identifying implications for developing health communication strategies that libraries can adopt to provide digital health information to vulnerable populations. PMID:16239960

Feature-selective Attention in Frontoparietal Cortex: Multivoxel Codes Adjust to Prioritize Task-relevant Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Jade; Rich, Anina N; Williams, Mark A; Woolgar, Alexandra

2017-02-01

Human cognition is characterized by astounding flexibility, enabling us to select appropriate information according to the objectives of our current task. A circuit of frontal and parietal brain regions, often referred to as the frontoparietal attention network or multiple-demand (MD) regions, are believed to play a fundamental role in this flexibility. There is evidence that these regions dynamically adjust their responses to selectively process information that is currently relevant for behavior, as proposed by the "adaptive coding hypothesis" [Duncan, J. An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 820-829, 2001]. Could this provide a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention, the process by which we preferentially process one feature of a stimulus over another? We used multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data during a perceptually challenging categorization task to investigate whether the representation of visual object features in the MD regions flexibly adjusts according to task relevance. Participants were trained to categorize visually similar novel objects along two orthogonal stimulus dimensions (length/orientation) and performed short alternating blocks in which only one of these dimensions was relevant. We found that multivoxel patterns of activation in the MD regions encoded the task-relevant distinctions more strongly than the task-irrelevant distinctions: The MD regions discriminated between stimuli of different lengths when length was relevant and between the same objects according to orientation when orientation was relevant. The data suggest a flexible neural system that adjusts its representation of visual objects to preferentially encode stimulus features that are currently relevant for behavior, providing a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention.

Earlier saccades to task-relevant targets irrespective of relative gain between peripheral and foveal information.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolf, Christian; Schütz, Alexander C

2017-06-01

Saccades bring objects of interest onto the fovea for high-acuity processing. Saccades to rewarded targets show shorter latencies that correlate negatively with expected motivational value. Shorter latencies are also observed when the saccade target is relevant for a perceptual discrimination task. Here we tested whether saccade preparation is equally influenced by informational value as it is by motivational value. We defined informational value as the probability that information is task-relevant times the ratio between postsaccadic foveal and presaccadic peripheral discriminability. Using a gaze-contingent display, we independently manipulated peripheral and foveal discriminability of the saccade target. Latencies of saccades with perceptual task were reduced by 36 ms in general, but they were not modulated by the information saccades provide (Experiments 1 and 2). However, latencies showed a clear negative linear correlation with the probability that the target is task-relevant (Experiment 3). We replicated that the facilitation by a perceptual task is spatially specific and not due to generally heightened arousal (Experiment 4). Finally, the facilitation only emerged when the perceptual task is in the visual but not in the auditory modality (Experiment 5). Taken together, these results suggest that saccade latencies are not equally modulated by informational value as by motivational value. The facilitation by a perceptual task only arises when task-relevant visual information is foveated, irrespective of whether the foveation is useful or not.

An analysis of contextual information relevant to medical care unexpectedly volunteered to researchers by asthma patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Black, Heather L; Priolo, Chantel; Gonzalez, Rodalyn; Geer, Sabrina; Adam, Bariituu; Apter, Andrea J

2012-09-01

To describe and categorize contextual information relevant to patients' medical care unexpectedly volunteered to research personnel as part of a patient advocate (PA) intervention to facilitate access health care, communication with medical personnel, and self-management of a chronic disease such as asthma. We adapted a patient navigator intervention, to overcome barriers to access and communication for adults with moderate or severe asthma. Informed by focus groups of patients and providers, our PAs facilitated preparation for a visit with an asthma provider, attended the visit, confirmed understanding, and assisted with post-visit activities. During meetings with researchers, either for PA activities or for data collection, participants frequently volunteered personal and medical information relevant for achieving successful self-management that was not routinely shared with medical personnel. For this project, researchers journaled information not captured by the structured questionnaires and protocol. Using a qualitative analysis, we describe (1) researchers' journals of these unique communications; (2) their relevance for accomplishing self-management; (3) PAs' formal activities including teach-back, advocacy, and facilitating appointment making; and (4) observations of patients' interactions with the clinical practices. In 83 journals, patients' social support (83%), health (68%), and deportment (69%) were described. PA assistance with navigating the medical system (59%), teach-back (46%), and observed interactions with patient and medical staff (76%) were also journaled. Implicit were ways patients and practices could overcome barriers to access and communication. These journals describe the importance of seeking contextual and medically relevant information from all patients and, especially, those with significant morbidities, prompting patients for barriers to access to health care, and confirming understanding of medical information.

Cogito ergo video: Task-relevant information is involuntarily boosted into awareness.

Science.gov (United States)

Gayet, Surya; Brascamp, Jan W; Van der Stigchel, Stefan; Paffen, Chris L E

2015-01-01

Only part of the visual information that impinges on our retinae reaches visual awareness. In a series of three experiments, we investigated how the task relevance of incoming visual information affects its access to visual awareness. On each trial, participants were instructed to memorize one of two presented hues, drawn from different color categories (e.g., red and green), for later recall. During the retention interval, participants were presented with a differently colored grating in each eye such as to elicit binocular rivalry. A grating matched either the task-relevant (memorized) color category or the task-irrelevant (nonmemorized) color category. We found that the rivalrous stimulus that matched the task-relevant color category tended to dominate awareness over the rivalrous stimulus that matched the task-irrelevant color category. This effect of task relevance persisted when participants reported the orientation of the rivalrous stimuli, even though in this case color information was completely irrelevant for the task of reporting perceptual dominance during rivalry. When participants memorized the shape of a colored stimulus, however, its color category did not affect predominance of rivalrous stimuli during retention. Taken together, these results indicate that the selection of task-relevant information is under volitional control but that visual input that matches this information is boosted into awareness irrespective of whether this is useful for the observer.

Bootstrapping agency: How control-relevant information affects motivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Karsh, Noam; Eitam, Baruch; Mark, Ilya; Higgins, E Tory

2016-10-01

How does information about one's control over the environment (e.g., having an own-action effect) influence motivation? The control-based response selection framework was proposed to predict and explain such findings. Its key tenant is that control relevant information modulates both the frequency and speed of responses by determining whether a perceptual event is an outcome of one's actions or not. To test this framework empirically, the current study examines whether and how temporal and spatial contiguity/predictability-previously established as being important for one's sense of agency-modulate motivation from control. In 5 experiments, participants responded to a cue, potentially triggering a perceptual effect. Temporal (Experiments 1a-c) and spatial (Experiments 2a and b) contiguity/predictability between actions and their potential effects were experimentally manipulated. The influence of these control-relevant factors was measured, both indirectly (through their effect on explicit judgments of agency) and directly on response time and response frequency. The pattern of results was highly consistent with the control-based response selection framework in suggesting that control relevant information reliably modulates the impact of "having an effect" on different levels of action selection. We discuss the implications of this study for the notion of motivation from control and for the empirical work on the sense of agency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Autism Spectrum Disorder Updates – Relevant Information for Early Interventionists to Consider

Science.gov (United States)

Allen-Meares, Paula; MacDonald, Megan; McGee, Kristin

2016-01-01

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication skills as well as repetitive, restricted or stereotyped behaviors (1). Early interventionists are often found at the forefront of assessment, evaluation, and early intervention services for children with ASD. The role of an early intervention specialist may include assessing developmental history, providing group and individual counseling, working in partnership with families on home, school, and community environments, mobilizing school and community resources, and assisting in the development of positive early intervention strategies (2, 3). The commonality among these roles resides in the importance of providing up-to-date, relevant information to families and children. The purpose of this review is to provide pertinent up-to-date knowledge for early interventionists to help inform practice in working with individuals with ASD, including common behavioral models of intervention. PMID:27840812

Fuzzy Mutual Information Based min-Redundancy and Max-Relevance Heterogeneous Feature Selection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daren Yu

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Feature selection is an important preprocessing step in pattern classification and machine learning, and mutual information is widely used to measure relevance between features and decision. However, it is difficult to directly calculate relevance between continuous or fuzzy features using mutual information. In this paper we introduce the fuzzy information entropy and fuzzy mutual information for computing relevance between numerical or fuzzy features and decision. The relationship between fuzzy information entropy and differential entropy is also discussed. Moreover, we combine fuzzy mutual information with qmin-Redundancy-Max-Relevanceq, qMax-Dependencyq and min-Redundancy-Max-Dependencyq algorithms. The performance and stability of the proposed algorithms are tested on benchmark data sets. Experimental results show the proposed algorithms are effective and stable.

Fuzzy Information Retrieval Using Genetic Algorithms and Relevance Feedback.

Science.gov (United States)

Petry, Frederick E.; And Others

1993-01-01

Describes an approach that combines concepts from information retrieval, fuzzy set theory, and genetic programing to improve weighted Boolean query formulation via relevance feedback. Highlights include background on information retrieval systems; genetic algorithms; subproblem formulation; and preliminary results based on a testbed. (Contains 12…

Disclosure of Non-Financial Information: Relevant to Financial Analysts?

OpenAIRE

ORENS, Raf; LYBAERT, Nadine

2013-01-01

The decline in the relevance of financial statement information to value firms leads to calls from organizational stakeholders to convey non-financial information in order to be able to judge firms' financial performance and value. This literature review aims to report extant literature findings on the use of corporate non-financial information by sell-side financial analysts, the information intermediaries between corporate management and investors. Prior studies highlight that financial ana...

Autism spectrum disorder updates – relevant information for early interventionists to consider

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paula Allen-Meares

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Autism spectrum disorder (ASD is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication skills as well as repetitive, restricted or stereotyped behaviors (1. Early interventionists are often found at the forefront of assessment, evaluation and early intervention services for children with ASD. The role of an early intervention specialist may include, assessing developmental history, providing group and individual counseling, working in partnership with families on home, school, and community environments, mobilizing school and community resources and assisting in the development of positive early intervention strategies (2, 3. The commonality amongst these roles resides in the importance of providing up-to-date, relevant information to families and children. The purpose of this review is to provide pertinent up-to-date knowledge for early interventionists to help inform practice in working with individuals with ASD, including common behavioral models of intervention.

Therapy Provider Phase Information

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Therapy Provider Phase Information dataset is a tool for providers to search by their National Provider Identifier (NPI) number to determine their phase for...

Nevada Applied Ecology Information Center: a review of technical information support provided to the Nevada Applied Ecology Group

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fore, C.S.; Pfuderer, H.A.

1983-01-01

The Nevada Applied Ecology Information Center (NAEIC) was established in January 1972 to serve the needs of the Nevada Applied Ecology Group (NAEG) by identifying, collecting, analyzing, and disseminating technical information relevant to NAEG programs. Since its inception, the NAEIC has been active in providing specialized information support to NAEG staff in the following research areas: (1) environmental aspects of the transuranics; (2) historic literature (pre-1962) on plutonium and uranium; (3) cleanup and treatment of radioactively contaminated land; (4) bioenvironmental aspects of europium and rhodium; (5) NAEG contractor reports; and (6) uptake of radioactivity by food crops

Information sharing during diagnostic assessments: what is relevant for parents?

Science.gov (United States)

Klein, Sheryl; Wynn, Kerry; Ray, Lynne; Demeriez, Lori; LaBerge, Patricia; Pei, Jacqueline; St Pierre, Cherie

2011-05-01

ABSTRACT This descriptive qualitative study facilitates the application of family-centered care within a tertiary care interdisciplinary neurodevelopmental diagnostic assessment clinic by furthering an understanding of parent perceptions of the relevance of diagnostic information provision. An interdisciplinary assessment team completed an open-ended questionnaire to describe parent information provision. Parents from 9 families completed in-depth parent interviews following clinic attendance to discuss perceptions of information received. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded by related themes. Parents did not perceive the information in the way professionals expected. Parents acknowledged receipt of comprehensive information relevant to the diagnosis but indicated that not all their needs were met. During the interviews, parents described the assessment process, preassessment information, and "steps in their journey." They noted that a strength-based approach and a focus on parental competency would support their coping efforts. Results underscore the need for professionals to be attentive to parents' individualized needs.

Impact of Non Accounting Information on The Value Relevance of Accounting Information: The Case of Jordan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

DHIAA SHAMKI

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The paper presents empirical evidence about the impact of firm’s shareholders number as non accounting information on the value relevance of its earnings and book value of equity as accounting information for Jordanian industrial firms for the period from 1993 to 2002. Employing the return regression analysis and using shareholders number in two proxies namely local and foreign shareholders number, the findings of the study are fourfold. First, Individual earnings are value relevant while book value is irrelevant. Second, combining earnings with book value leads both of them to be irrelevant. Third, extending local shareholders number has significant impact on the value relevance of individual and combined earnings. Forth, extending foreign shareholders number has significant impact on the value relevance of individual book value and combined earnings. Since studies on the value relevance of these variables have neglected Jordan (and the Middle Eastern region, the study is the first especially in Jordan that tries to fill this gap by examiningthe impact of shareholders numbers on the value relevance of earnings and book valueto indicate firm value.

LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE SHAPES PROCESSING OF PITCH RELEVANT INFORMATION IN THE HUMAN BRAINSTEM AND AUDITORY CORTEX: ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE.

Science.gov (United States)

Krishnan, Ananthanarayan; Gandour, Jackson T

2014-12-01

Pitch is a robust perceptual attribute that plays an important role in speech, language, and music. As such, it provides an analytic window to evaluate how neural activity relevant to pitch undergo transformation from early sensory to later cognitive stages of processing in a well coordinated hierarchical network that is subject to experience-dependent plasticity. We review recent evidence of language experience-dependent effects in pitch processing based on comparisons of native vs. nonnative speakers of a tonal language from electrophysiological recordings in the auditory brainstem and auditory cortex. We present evidence that shows enhanced representation of linguistically-relevant pitch dimensions or features at both the brainstem and cortical levels with a stimulus-dependent preferential activation of the right hemisphere in native speakers of a tone language. We argue that neural representation of pitch-relevant information in the brainstem and early sensory level processing in the auditory cortex is shaped by the perceptual salience of domain-specific features. While both stages of processing are shaped by language experience, neural representations are transformed and fundamentally different at each biological level of abstraction. The representation of pitch relevant information in the brainstem is more fine-grained spectrotemporally as it reflects sustained neural phase-locking to pitch relevant periodicities contained in the stimulus. In contrast, the cortical pitch relevant neural activity reflects primarily a series of transient temporal neural events synchronized to certain temporal attributes of the pitch contour. We argue that experience-dependent enhancement of pitch representation for Chinese listeners most likely reflects an interaction between higher-level cognitive processes and early sensory-level processing to improve representations of behaviorally-relevant features that contribute optimally to perception. It is our view that long

The impact of intangibles on the value relevance of accounting information: Evidence from French companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bilal Kimouche

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The paper aims to explore whether intangible items that recognised in financial statements are value-relevant to investors in the French context, and whether these items affect the value relevance of accounting information. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical data were collected from a sample of French listed companies, over the nine-year period of 2005 to 2013. Starting of Ohlson’s (1995 model, the correlation analysis and the linear multiple regressions have been applied. Findings: We find that intangibles and traditional accounting measures as a whole are value relevant. However, the amortization and impairment charges of intangibles and cash flows do not affect the market values of French companies, unlike other variables, which affect positively and substantially the market values. Also goodwill and book values are more associated with market values than intangible assets and earnings respectively. Finally, we find that intangibles have improved the value relevance of accounting information. Practical implications: French legislators must give more interest for intangibles, in order to enrich the financial statements content and increasing the pertinence of accounting information. Auditors must give more attention for intangibles’ examination process, in order to certify the amounts related to intangibles in financial statements, and hence enrich their reliability, what provides adequacy guarantees for investors to use them in decision making. Originality/value: The paper used recently available financial data, and proposed an improvement concerning the measure of incremental value relevance of intangibles items.

The Relevance of Information and Communication Technologies in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Relevance of Information and Communication Technologies in Libraries Services ... Technologies in Libraries Services and Librarianship Profession in the 21th Century ... This paper therefore, examines the importance of ICT in librarianship as a ... for Authors · for Policy Makers · about Open Access · Journal Quality.

5 CFR 890.910 - Provider information.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 5 Administrative Personnel 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Provider information. 890.910 Section 890.910 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS..., and FEHB Benefit Payments § 890.910 Provider information. The hospital provider information used to...

The relevance of accounting information enclosed in performance indicators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihaela-Cristina Onica

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This research study is analyzing the relevance of accounting information reflected through the elaboration of firm performance variables and administration because of the necessity of performance to be administrated. The subject of the theme is enclosed in current development of accounting norms at national , european, (Directives and international levels (IAS/IFRS. The analyised topic is based upon the capabilty of accounting to generate information , throug synthesis calculus being settled the nature , the characteristics and the informational valences of financial performance of an organization. The accounting infromation is base for performing the decison process. The rol of accounting in insurring the relevance and comparability of information increased significantly, being already indispensable. A real solution for communication misunderstanig elimination emerged, as result of diputes in perception and interpretation of economic information, as results for the national speciffic norms.The economic communication is demanding for firm not only in its expression but in thinking and in the process of method conceptualization of organization and administration. A detailed financial situation analysis, which are employing annual financial analysis procedures, underling the performance and risks influencing factors, are considering one starting point for addressing the issue. The introduced variables are insuring a whole vision of firm activity and an appropriate strategy for results significance.

Electronic patient records in action: Transforming information into professionally relevant knowledge.

Science.gov (United States)

Winman, Thomas; Rystedt, Hans

2011-03-01

The implementation of generic models for organizing information in complex institutions like those in healthcare creates a gap between standardization and the need for locally relevant knowledge. The present study addresses how this gap can be bridged by focusing on the practical work of healthcare staff in transforming information in EPRs into knowledge that is useful for everyday work. Video recording of shift handovers on a rehabilitation ward serves as the empirical case. The results show how extensive selections and reorganizations of information in EPRs are carried out in order to transform information into professionally relevant accounts. We argue that knowledge about the institutional obligations and professional ways of construing information are fundamental for these transitions. The findings point to the need to consider the role of professional knowledge inherent in unpacking information in efforts to develop information systems intended to bridge between institutional and professional boundaries in healthcare. © The Author(s) 2011.

Geospatial Information Relevant to the Flood Protection Available on The Mainstream Web

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Kliment Tomáš

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Flood protection is one of several disciplines where geospatial data is very important and is a crucial component. Its management, processing and sharing form the foundation for their efficient use; therefore, special attention is required in the development of effective, precise, standardized, and interoperable models for the discovery and publishing of data on the Web. This paper describes the design of a methodology to discover Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC services on the Web and collect descriptive information, i.e., metadata in a geocatalogue. A pilot implementation of the proposed methodology - Geocatalogue of geospatial information provided by OGC services discovered on Google (hereinafter “Geocatalogue” - was used to search for available resources relevant to the area of flood protection. The result is an analysis of the availability of resources discovered through their metadata collected from the OGC services (WMS, WFS, etc. and the resources they provide (WMS layers, WFS objects, etc. within the domain of flood protection.

Task-relevant information is prioritized in spatiotemporal contextual cueing.

Science.gov (United States)

Higuchi, Yoko; Ueda, Yoshiyuki; Ogawa, Hirokazu; Saiki, Jun

2016-11-01

Implicit learning of visual contexts facilitates search performance-a phenomenon known as contextual cueing; however, little is known about contextual cueing under situations in which multidimensional regularities exist simultaneously. In everyday vision, different information, such as object identity and location, appears simultaneously and interacts with each other. We tested the hypothesis that, in contextual cueing, when multiple regularities are present, the regularities that are most relevant to our behavioral goals would be prioritized. Previous studies of contextual cueing have commonly used the visual search paradigm. However, this paradigm is not suitable for directing participants' attention to a particular regularity. Therefore, we developed a new paradigm, the "spatiotemporal contextual cueing paradigm," and manipulated task-relevant and task-irrelevant regularities. In four experiments, we demonstrated that task-relevant regularities were more responsible for search facilitation than task-irrelevant regularities. This finding suggests our visual behavior is focused on regularities that are relevant to our current goal.

Unfree markets: socially embedded informal health providers in northern Karnataka, India.

Science.gov (United States)

George, Asha; Iyer, Aditi

2013-11-01

The dynamics of informal health markets in marginalised regions are relevant to policy discourse in India, but are poorly understood. We examine how informal health markets operate from the viewpoint of informal providers (those without any government-recognised medical degrees, otherwise known as RMPs) by drawing upon data from a household survey in 2002, a provider census in 2004 and ongoing field observations from a research site in Koppal district, Karnataka, India. We find that despite their illegality, RMPs depend on government and private providers for their training and referral networks. Buffeted by unregulated market pressures, RMPs are driven to provide allopathic commodities regardless of need, but can also be circumspect in their practice. Though motivated by profit, their socially embedded practice at community level at times undermines their ability to ensure payment of fees for their services. In addition, RMPs feel that communities can threaten them via violence or malicious rumours, leading them to seek political favour and social protection from village elites and elected representatives. RMPs operate within negotiated quid pro quo bargains that lead to tenuous reciprocity or fragile trust between them and the communities in which they practise. In the context of this 'unfree' market, some RMPs reported being more embedded in health systems, more responsive to communities and more vulnerable to unregulated market pressures than others. Understanding the heterogeneity, nuanced motivations and the embedded social relations that mark informal providers in the health systems, markets and communities they work in, is critical for health system reforms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Iterative Filtering of Retrieved Information to Increase Relevance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert Zeidman

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Efforts have been underway for years to find more effective ways to retrieve information from large knowledge domains. This effort is now being driven particularly by the Internet and the vast amount of information that is available to unsophisticated users. In the early days of the Internet, some effort involved allowing users to enter Boolean equations of search terms into search engines, for example, rather than just a list of keywords. More recently, effort has focused on understanding a user's desires from past search histories in order to narrow searches. Also there has been much effort to improve the ranking of results based on some measure of relevancy. This paper discusses using iterative filtering of retrieved information to focus in on useful information. This work was done for finding source code correlation and the author extends his findings to Internet searching and e-commerce. The paper presents specific information about a particular filtering application and then generalizes it to other forms of information retrieval.

Communicating stereotype-relevant information: is factual information subject to the same communication biases as fictional information?

Science.gov (United States)

Goodman, Ruth L; Webb, Thomas L; Stewart, Andrew J

2009-07-01

Factual information is more frequently read and discussed than fictional information. However, research on the role of communication in shaping stereotypes has focused almost exclusively on fictional narratives. In Experiments 1 and 2 a newspaper article containing information about heroin users was communicated along chains of 4 people. No stereotype-consistency bias was observed. Instead, a greater proportion of stereotype-inconsistent information was communicated than was stereotype-consistent or -neutral information. Three further experiments investigated explanations for the difference between the communication of fictional and factual information. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that participants' beliefs about the validity of the information could influence the way that it is communicated. Experiments 4 and 5 divided information into concrete (a specific event or fact) or abstract (opinion). A stereotype-consistency bias emerged only for abstract information. In summary, linguistic abstraction moderates whether stereotype-consistency biases emerge in the communication of stereotype-relevant factual information.

Informed consent - Providing information about prenatal examinations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dahl, Katja; Kesmodel, Ulrik; Hvidman, Lone

as well.The review is based on systematic search strategy in the electronic databases Medline and Science Citation. Additional studies were identified through reference lists of individual papers obtained. Improving knowledge scores and reducing decisional conflict can be obtained by group counselling...... pregnant women about prenatal examinations. Women's knowledge, decisional conflict, satisfaction and anxiety will be explored as compared with different ways and different groups of health professionals providing information. To what extent information empowers informed decision making will be explored...

What's New in the Medicine Cabinet?: A Panoramic Review of Clinically Relevant Information for the Busy Dermatologist.

Science.gov (United States)

Del Rosso, James Q; Zeichner, Joshua

2014-01-01

This article is the first in a periodic series of therapeutic topics with short reviews gleaned from major dermatology meetings, especially Scientific Poster Sessions, and is designed to provide information that may assist the readers in adapting information from the literature to their clinical practice. The topics covered in this issue are discussions of the clinical relevance of newer information about acne pathophysiology, acne in adult women, and topical corticosteroid spray formulations for chronic plaque psoriasis.

Age differences in attention toward decision-relevant information: education matters.

Science.gov (United States)

Xing, Cai; Isaacowitz, Derek

2011-01-01

Previous studies suggested that older adults are more likely to engage in heuristic decision-making than young adults. This study used eye tracking technique to examine young adults' and highly educated older adults' attention toward two types of decision-relevant information: heuristic cue vs. factual cues. Surprisingly, highly educated older adults showed the reversed age pattern-they looked more toward factual cues than did young adults. This age difference disappeared after controlling for educational level. Additionally, education correlated with attentional pattern to decision-relevant information. We interpret this finding as an indication of the power of education: education may modify what are thought to be "typical" age differences in decision-making, and education may influence young and older people's decision-making via different paths.

Health behaviour information provided to clients during midwife-led prenatal booking visits: Findings from video analyses.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Baron, R.; Martin, L.; Gitsels-van der Wal, J.T.; Noordman, J.; Heymans, M.W.; Spelten, E.R.; Brug, J.; Hutton, E.K.

2017-01-01

OBJECTIVE: to quantify to what extent evidence-based health behaviour topics relevant for pregnancy are discussed with clients during midwife-led prenatal booking visits and to assess the association of client characteristics with the extent of information provided. DESIGN: quantitative video

Health behaviour information provided to clients during midwife-led prenatal booking visits : Findings from video analyses

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Baron, R.; Martin, L.; Gitsels-van der Wal, J.T.; Noordman, J.; Heymans, M.W.; Spelten, E.R.; Brug, J.; Hutton, E.K.

2017-01-01

Objective to quantify to what extent evidence-based health behaviour topics relevant for pregnancy are discussed with clients during midwife-led prenatal booking visits and to assess the association of client characteristics with the extent of information provided. Design quantitative video

Health behaviour information provided to clients during midwife-led prenatal booking visits: findings from video analyses.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Baron, R.; Martin, L.; Gitsels-van der Wal, J.T.; Noordman, J.; Heymans, M.W.; Spelten, E.; Brug, J.; Hutton, E.K.

2017-01-01

Objective: to quantify to what extent evidence-based health behaviour topics relevant for pregnancy are discussed with clients during midwife-led prenatal booking visits and to assess the association of client characteristics with the extent of information provided. Design: quantitative video

Capturing information needs of care providers to support knowledge sharing and distributed decision making.

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, M; Zach, L; An, Y; Dalrymple, P

2012-01-01

This paper reports on work carried out to elicit information needs at a trans-disciplinary, nurse-managed health care clinic that serves a medically disadvantaged urban population. The trans-disciplinary model provides a "one-stop shop" for patients who can receive a wide range of services beyond traditional primary care. However, this model of health care presents knowledge sharing challenges because little is known about how data collected from the non-traditional services can be integrated into the traditional electronic medical record (EMR) and shared with other care providers. There is also little known about how health information technology (HIT) can be used to support the workflow in such a practice. The objective of this case study was to identify the information needs of care providers in order to inform the design of HIT to support knowledge sharing and distributed decision making. A participatory design approach is presented as a successful technique to specify requirements for HIT applications that can support a trans-disciplinary model of care. Using this design approach, the researchers identified the information needs of care providers working at the clinic and suggested HIT improvements to integrate non-traditional information into the EMR. These modifications allow knowledge sharing among care providers and support better health decisions. We have identified information needs of care providers as they are relevant to the design of health information systems. As new technology is designed and integrated into various workflows it is clear that understanding information needs is crucial to acceptance of that technology.

Phase synchronization of delta and theta oscillations increase during the detection of relevant lexical information

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Enzo eBrunetti

2013-06-01

Full Text Available During monitoring of the discourse, the detection of the relevance of incoming lexical information could be critical for its incorporation to update mental representations in memory. Because, in these situations, the relevance for lexical information is defined by abstract rules that are maintained in memory, results critical to understand how an abstract level of knowledge maintained in mind mediates the detection of the lower-level semantic information. In the present study, we propose that neuronal oscillations participate in the detection of relevant lexical information, based on ‘kept in mind’ rules deriving from more abstract semantic information. We tested our hypothesis using an experimental paradigm that restricted the detection of relevance to inferences based on explicit information, thus controlling for ambiguities derived from implicit aspects. We used a categorization task, in which the semantic relevance was previously defined based on the congruency between a kept in mind category (abstract knowledge, and the lexical-semantic information presented. Our results show that during the detection of the relevant lexical information, phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations selectively increases in delta and theta frequency bands during the interval of semantic analysis. These increments were independent of the semantic category maintained in memory, had a temporal profile specific for each subject, and were mainly induced, as they had no effect on the evoked mean global field power. Also, recruitment of an increased number of pairs of electrodes was a robust observation during the detection of semantic contingent words. These results are consistent with the notion that the detection of relevant lexical information based on a particular semantic rule, could be mediated by increasing the global phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations, which may contribute to the recruitment of an extended number of cortical regions.

Phase synchronization of delta and theta oscillations increase during the detection of relevant lexical information.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunetti, Enzo; Maldonado, Pedro E; Aboitiz, Francisco

2013-01-01

During monitoring of the discourse, the detection of the relevance of incoming lexical information could be critical for its incorporation to update mental representations in memory. Because, in these situations, the relevance for lexical information is defined by abstract rules that are maintained in memory, a central aspect to elucidate is how an abstract level of knowledge maintained in mind mediates the detection of the lower-level semantic information. In the present study, we propose that neuronal oscillations participate in the detection of relevant lexical information, based on "kept in mind" rules deriving from more abstract semantic information. We tested our hypothesis using an experimental paradigm that restricted the detection of relevance to inferences based on explicit information, thus controlling for ambiguities derived from implicit aspects. We used a categorization task, in which the semantic relevance was previously defined based on the congruency between a kept in mind category (abstract knowledge), and the lexical semantic information presented. Our results show that during the detection of the relevant lexical information, phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations selectively increases in delta and theta frequency bands during the interval of semantic analysis. These increments occurred irrespective of the semantic category maintained in memory, had a temporal profile specific for each subject, and were mainly induced, as they had no effect on the evoked mean global field power. Also, recruitment of an increased number of pairs of electrodes was a robust observation during the detection of semantic contingent words. These results are consistent with the notion that the detection of relevant lexical information based on a particular semantic rule, could be mediated by increasing the global phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations, which may contribute to the recruitment of an extended number of cortical regions.

Linking attentional processes and conceptual problem solving: visual cues facilitate the automaticity of extracting relevant information from diagrams.

Science.gov (United States)

Rouinfar, Amy; Agra, Elise; Larson, Adam M; Rebello, N Sanjay; Loschky, Lester C

2014-01-01

This study investigated links between visual attention processes and conceptual problem solving. This was done by overlaying visual cues on conceptual physics problem diagrams to direct participants' attention to relevant areas to facilitate problem solving. Participants (N = 80) individually worked through four problem sets, each containing a diagram, while their eye movements were recorded. Each diagram contained regions that were relevant to solving the problem correctly and separate regions related to common incorrect responses. Problem sets contained an initial problem, six isomorphic training problems, and a transfer problem. The cued condition saw visual cues overlaid on the training problems. Participants' verbal responses were used to determine their accuracy. This study produced two major findings. First, short duration visual cues which draw attention to solution-relevant information and aid in the organizing and integrating of it, facilitate both immediate problem solving and generalization of that ability to new problems. Thus, visual cues can facilitate re-representing a problem and overcoming impasse, enabling a correct solution. Importantly, these cueing effects on problem solving did not involve the solvers' attention necessarily embodying the solution to the problem, but were instead caused by solvers attending to and integrating relevant information in the problems into a solution path. Second, this study demonstrates that when such cues are used across multiple problems, solvers can automatize the extraction of problem-relevant information extraction. These results suggest that low-level attentional selection processes provide a necessary gateway for relevant information to be used in problem solving, but are generally not sufficient for correct problem solving. Instead, factors that lead a solver to an impasse and to organize and integrate problem information also greatly facilitate arriving at correct solutions.

Detecting clinically relevant new information in clinical notes across specialties and settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Rui; Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Arsoniadis, Elliot G; Lee, Janet T; Wang, Yan; Melton, Genevieve B

2017-07-05

Automated methods for identifying clinically relevant new versus redundant information in electronic health record (EHR) clinical notes is useful for clinicians and researchers involved in patient care and clinical research, respectively. We evaluated methods to automatically identify clinically relevant new information in clinical notes, and compared the quantity of redundant information across specialties and clinical settings. Statistical language models augmented with semantic similarity measures were evaluated as a means to detect and quantify clinically relevant new and redundant information over longitudinal clinical notes for a given patient. A corpus of 591 progress notes over 40 inpatient admissions was annotated for new information longitudinally by physicians to generate a reference standard. Note redundancy between various specialties was evaluated on 71,021 outpatient notes and 64,695 inpatient notes from 500 solid organ transplant patients (April 2015 through August 2015). Our best method achieved at best performance of 0.87 recall, 0.62 precision, and 0.72 F-measure. Addition of semantic similarity metrics compared to baseline improved recall but otherwise resulted in similar performance. While outpatient and inpatient notes had relatively similar levels of high redundancy (61% and 68%, respectively), redundancy differed by author specialty with mean redundancy of 75%, 66%, 57%, and 55% observed in pediatric, internal medicine, psychiatry and surgical notes, respectively. Automated techniques with statistical language models for detecting redundant versus clinically relevant new information in clinical notes do not improve with the addition of semantic similarity measures. While levels of redundancy seem relatively similar in the inpatient and ambulatory settings in the Fairview Health Services, clinical note redundancy appears to vary significantly with different medical specialties.

The relevance of music information representation metadata from the perspective of expert users

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Camila Monteiro de Barros

Full Text Available The general goal of this research was to verify which metadata elements of music information representation are relevant for its retrieval from the perspective of expert music users. Based on a bibliographical research, a comprehensive metadata set of music information representation was developed and transformed into a questionnaire for data collection, which was applied to students and professors of the Graduate Program in Music at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The results show that the most relevant information for expert music users is related to identification and authorship responsibilities. The respondents from Composition and Interpretative Practice areas agree with these results, while the respondents from Musicology/Ethnomusicology and Music Education areas also consider the metadata related to the historical context of composition relevant.

the effect of current and relevant information sources on the use

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Admin

reported similar findings at Yaba College of. Technology, Lagos. However, in a ... values. In other words, current information sources resulted in the use of the library. Jam (1992) identified lack of relevant information sources to be one of the problems facing library users and has ... Bachelor's degree holders. That those with.

Task-Relevant Information Modulates Primary Motor Cortex Activity Before Movement Onset.

Science.gov (United States)

Calderon, Cristian B; Van Opstal, Filip; Peigneux, Philippe; Verguts, Tom; Gevers, Wim

2018-01-01

Monkey neurophysiology research supports the affordance competition hypothesis (ACH) proposing that cognitive information useful for action selection is integrated in sensorimotor areas. In this view, action selection would emerge from the simultaneous representation of competing action plans, in parallel biased by relevant task factors. This biased competition would take place up to primary motor cortex (M1). Although ACH is plausible in environments affording choices between actions, its relevance for human decision making is less clear. To address this issue, we designed an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment modeled after monkey neurophysiology studies in which human participants processed cues conveying predictive information about upcoming button presses. Our results demonstrate that, as predicted by the ACH, predictive information (i.e., the relevant task factor) biases activity of primary motor regions. Specifically, first, activity before movement onset in contralateral M1 increases as the competition is biased in favor of a specific button press relative to activity in ipsilateral M1. Second, motor regions were more tightly coupled with fronto-parietal regions when competition between potential actions was high, again suggesting that motor regions are also part of the biased competition network. Our findings support the idea that action planning dynamics as proposed in the ACH are valid both in human and non-human primates.

Relevant Information and Informed Consent in Research: In Defense of the Subjective Standard of Disclosure.

Science.gov (United States)

Dranseika, Vilius; Piasecki, Jan; Waligora, Marcin

2017-02-01

In this article, we seek to contribute to the debate on the requirement of disclosure in the context of informed consent for research. We defend the subjective standard of disclosure and describe ways to implement this standard in research practice. We claim that the researcher should make an effort to find out what kinds of information are likely to be relevant for those consenting to research. This invites researchers to take empirical survey information seriously, attempt to understand the cultural context, talk to patients to be better able to understand what can be potentially different concerns and interests prevalent in the target population. The subjective standard of disclosure should be seen as a moral ideal that perhaps can never be perfectly implemented but still can and should be used as a normative ideal guiding research practice. In the light of these discussions, we call for more empirical research on what considerations are likely to be perceived as relevant by potential research participants recruited from different socio-economic and cultural groups.

77 FR 42339 - Improving Contracting Officers' Access to Relevant Integrity Information

Science.gov (United States)

2012-07-18

... contracting officers' access to relevant information about contractor business ethics in the Federal Awardee... ability to evaluate the business ethics of prospective contractors and protect the Government from...

The Common Body of Knowledge: A Framework to Promote Relevant Information Security Research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kenneth J. Knapp

2007-03-01

Full Text Available This study proposes using an established common body of knowledge (CBK as one means of organizing information security literature.  Consistent with calls for more relevant information systems (IS research, this industry-developed framework can motivate future research towards topics that are important to the security practitioner.  In this review, forty-eight articles from ten IS journals from 1995 to 2004 are selected and cross-referenced to the ten domains of the information security CBK.  Further, we distinguish articles as empirical research, frameworks, or tutorials.  Generally, this study identified a need for additional empirical research in every CBK domain including topics related to legal aspects of information security.  Specifically, this study identified a need for additional IS security research relating to applications development, physical security, operations security, and business continuity.  The CBK framework is inherently practitioner oriented and using it will promote relevancy by steering IS research towards topics important to practitioners.  This is important considering the frequent calls by prominent information systems scholars for more relevant research.  Few research frameworks have emerged from the literature that specifically classify the diversity of security threats and range of problems that businesses today face.  With the recent surge of interest in security, the need for a comprehensive framework that also promotes relevant research can be of great value.

Internet health information in the patient-provider dialogue.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Traci

2008-10-01

A patient discussing Internet health information with a health care provider (referred to as "patient-provider communication about Internet health information") can contribute positively to health outcomes. Although research has found that once Internet access is achieved, there are no ethnic differences in Internet health information seeking, it is unclear if there are ethnic differences in patient-provider communication about Internet health information. To help fill this gap in the literature, the National Cancer Institute's Health Information National Trends Survey 2005 was analyzed with Stata 9. Two sets of logistic regression analyses were conducted, one for a subsample of Internet users (n = 3,244) and one for a subsample of Internet users who are first-generation immigrants (n = 563). The dependent variable was patient-provider communication about Internet health information, which assessed whether survey participants had discussed online health information with a health care provider. The predictor variables included trust of health care provider, trust of online health information, Internet use, health care coverage, frequency of visits to health care provider, health status, and demographics. Among all Internet users, Whites had higher levels of patient-provider communication about Internet health information than Blacks and Asians. Similarly, among Internet users who are immigrants, Whites had higher levels of patient-provider communication about Internet health information than Blacks and Asians. While the digital divide is narrowing in terms of Internet access, racial differences in patient-provider communication about Internet health information may undermine the potential benefits of the information age.

CellBase, a comprehensive collection of RESTful web services for retrieving relevant biological information from heterogeneous sources.

Science.gov (United States)

Bleda, Marta; Tarraga, Joaquin; de Maria, Alejandro; Salavert, Francisco; Garcia-Alonso, Luz; Celma, Matilde; Martin, Ainoha; Dopazo, Joaquin; Medina, Ignacio

2012-07-01

During the past years, the advances in high-throughput technologies have produced an unprecedented growth in the number and size of repositories and databases storing relevant biological data. Today, there is more biological information than ever but, unfortunately, the current status of many of these repositories is far from being optimal. Some of the most common problems are that the information is spread out in many small databases; frequently there are different standards among repositories and some databases are no longer supported or they contain too specific and unconnected information. In addition, data size is increasingly becoming an obstacle when accessing or storing biological data. All these issues make very difficult to extract and integrate information from different sources, to analyze experiments or to access and query this information in a programmatic way. CellBase provides a solution to the growing necessity of integration by easing the access to biological data. CellBase implements a set of RESTful web services that query a centralized database containing the most relevant biological data sources. The database is hosted in our servers and is regularly updated. CellBase documentation can be found at http://docs.bioinfo.cipf.es/projects/cellbase.

Improving information access by relevance and topical feedback

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kaptein, R.; Kamps, J.; Hopfgartner, F.

2008-01-01

One of the main bottle-necks in providing more effective information access is the poverty of the query end. With an average query length of about two terms, users provide only a highly ambiguous statement of the, often complex, underlying information need. Implicit and explicit feedback can provide

Pengaruh Participation Budgeting, Information Asimetry dan Job Relevant Information terhadap Budget Slack pada Institusi Pendidikan (Studi pada Institusi Pendidikan Universitas Kristen Maranatha)

OpenAIRE

K. S., Christine Dwi; Agustina, Lidya

2010-01-01

The purpose of this research is to analyze and examine the hyphothesis effect of participation budgeting on job relevant information and  information asimetry as a moderating variable , and effect of participation budgeting and information asimetry on budget slack and job relevant information as mediating varible. The respondent of this research are 30 structural staf of program and ministry in Maranatha Christian University who have participated to make  budgeting. This method that...

Evaluation of poison information services provided by a new poison information center.

Science.gov (United States)

Churi, Shobha; Abraham, Lovin; Ramesh, M; Narahari, M G

2013-01-01

The aim of this study is to assess the nature and quality of services provided by poison information center established at a tertiary-care teaching hospital, Mysore. This was a prospective observational study. The poison information center was officially established in September 2010 and began its functioning thereafter. The center is equipped with required resources and facility (e.g., text books, Poisindex, Drugdex, toll free telephone service, internet and online services) to provide poison information services. The poison information services provided by the center were recorded in documentation forms. The documentation form consists of numerous sections to collect information on: (a) Type of population (children, adult, elderly or pregnant) (b) poisoning agents (c) route of exposure (d) type of poisoning (intentional, accidental or environmental) (e) demographic details of patient (age, gender and bodyweight) (f) enquirer details (background, place of call and mode of request) (g) category and purpose of query and (h) details of provided service (information provided, mode of provision, time taken to provide information and references consulted). The nature and quality of poison information services provided was assessed using a quality assessment checklist developed in accordance with DSE/World Health Organization guidelines. Chi-Square test (χ(2)). A total of 419 queries were received by the center. A majority (n = 333; 79.5%) of the queries were asked by the doctors to provide optimal care (n = 400; 95.5%). Most of the queries were received during ward rounds (n = 201; 48.0%), followed by direct access (n = 147; 35.1%). The poison information services were predominantly provided through verbal communication (n = 352; 84.0%). Upon receipt of queries, the required service was provided immediately (n = 103; 24.6%) or within 10-20 min (n = 296; 70.6%). The queries were mainly related to intentional poisoning (n = 258; 64.5%), followed by accidental poisoning

Age Differences in Attention toward Decision-Relevant Information: Education Matters

Science.gov (United States)

Xing, Cai; Isaacowitz, Derek

2011-01-01

Previous studies suggested that older adults are more likely to engage in heuristic decision-making than young adults. This study used eye tracking technique to examine young adults' and highly educated older adults' attention toward two types of decision-relevant information: heuristic cue vs. factual cues. Surprisingly, highly educated older…

The pricing relevance of insider information; Die Preiserheblichkeit von Insiderinformationen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kruse, Dominik

2011-07-01

The publication attempts to describe the so far discussion concerning the feature of pricing relevance and to develop it further with the aid of new research approaches. First, a theoretical outline is presented of the elementary regulation problem of insider trading, its historical development, and the regulation goals of the WpHG. This is followed by an analysis of the concrete specifications of the law. In view of the exemplarity of US law, a country with long experience in regulation of the capital market, the materiality doctrine of US insider law is gone into in some detail. The goals and development of the doctrine are reviewed in the light of court rulings. The third part outlines the requirements of German law in order to forecast the pricing relevance of insider information, while the final part presents a critical review of the current regulations on pricing relevance. (orig./RHM)

Spatially Compact Neural Clusters in the Dorsal Striatum Encode Locomotion Relevant Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Barbera, Giovanni; Liang, Bo; Zhang, Lifeng; Gerfen, Charles R; Culurciello, Eugenio; Chen, Rong; Li, Yun; Lin, Da-Ting

2016-10-05

An influential striatal model postulates that neural activities in the striatal direct and indirect pathways promote and inhibit movement, respectively. Normal behavior requires coordinated activity in the direct pathway to facilitate intended locomotion and indirect pathway to inhibit unwanted locomotion. In this striatal model, neuronal population activity is assumed to encode locomotion relevant information. Here, we propose a novel encoding mechanism for the dorsal striatum. We identified spatially compact neural clusters in both the direct and indirect pathways. Detailed characterization revealed similar cluster organization between the direct and indirect pathways, and cluster activities from both pathways were correlated with mouse locomotion velocities. Using machine-learning algorithms, cluster activities could be used to decode locomotion relevant behavioral states and locomotion velocity. We propose that neural clusters in the dorsal striatum encode locomotion relevant information and that coordinated activities of direct and indirect pathway neural clusters are required for normal striatal controlled behavior. VIDEO ABSTRACT. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Changing Zaire to Congo: the fate of no-longer relevant mnemonic information.

Science.gov (United States)

Eriksson, Johan; Stiernstedt, Mikael; Öhlund, Maria; Nyberg, Lars

2014-11-01

In an ever-changing world there is constant pressure on revising long-term memory, such when people or countries change name. What happens to the old, pre-existing information? One possibility is that old associations gradually are weakened and eventually lost. Alternatively, old and no longer relevant information may still be an integral part of memory traces. To test the hypothesis that old mnemonic information still becomes activated when people correctly retrieve new, currently relevant information, brain activity was measured with fMRI while participants performed a cued-retrieval task. Paired associates (symbol-sound and symbol-face pairs) were first learned during two days. Half of the associations were then updated during the next two days, followed by fMRI scanning on day 5 and also 18 months later. As expected, retrieval reactivated sensory cortex related to the most recently learned association (visual cortex for symbol-face pairs, auditory cortex for symbol-sound pairs). Critically, retrieval also reactivated sensory cortex related to the no-longer relevant associate. Eighteen months later, only non-updated symbol-face associations were intact. Intriguingly, a subset of the updated associations was now treated as though the original association had taken over, in that memory performance was significantly worse than chance and that activity in sensory cortex for the original but not the updated associate correlated (negatively) with performance. Moreover, the degree of "residual" reactivation during day 5 inversely predicted memory performance 18 months later. Thus, updating of long-term memory involves adding new information to already existing networks, in which old information can stay resilient for a long time. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Associations between presence of relevant information in referrals to radiology and prevalence rates in patients with suspected pulmonary embolism.

Science.gov (United States)

Hedner, Charlotta; Sundgren, Pia C; Kelly, Aine Marie

2013-09-01

The purpose of this study was to assess if the presence of information including the pretest probability (Wells score), other known risk factors, and symptoms given on referrals for computed tomography (CT) pulmonary angiography correlated with prevalence rates for pulmonary embolism (PE). Also, to evaluate for differences between a university and a regional hospital setting regarding patient characteristics, amount of relevant information provided on referrals, and prevalence rates for pulmonary embolism. Retrospective review of all consecutive referrals (emergency room, inpatient, and outpatient) for CT performed on children and adults for suspected PE from two sites: a tertiary (university) hospital (site 1) and a secondary (regional) hospital (site 2) over a 5-year period. The overall prevalence rate was 510/3641 or 14% of all referrals. Significantly higher number of males had a positive CT compared to women (18% versus 12%, P relevant information on the referral and the probability for positive finding existed, a slight trend was noted (P = .09). In two categories, "hypoxia" and "signs of deep vein thrombosis," the presence of this information conferred a higher probability for pulmonary embolism, P information conferred a higher probability for pulmonary embolism. The amount of relevant clinical information on the request did not correlate with prevalence rates, which may reflect a lack of documentation on the part of emergency physicians who may use a "gestalt" approach. Request forms likely did not capture all relevant patient risks and many factors may interact with each other, both positively and negatively. Pretest probability estimations were rarely performed, despite their inclusion in major society guidelines. Copyright © 2013 AUR. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of relevant information for optimal reflector modeling through data assimilation procedures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Argaud, J.P.; Bouriquet, B.; Clerc, T.; Lucet-Sanchez, F.; Poncot, A.

2015-01-01

The goal of this study is to look after the amount of information that is mandatory to get a relevant parameters optimisation by data assimilation for physical models in neutronic diffusion calculations, and to determine what is the best information to reach the optimum of accuracy at the cheapest cost. To evaluate the quality of the optimisation, we study the covariance matrix that represents the accuracy of the optimised parameter. This matrix is a classical output of the data assimilation procedure, and it is the main information about accuracy and sensitivity of the parameter optimal determination. We present some results collected in the field of neutronic simulation for PWR type reactor. We seek to optimise the reflector parameters that characterise the neutronic reflector surrounding the whole reactive core. On the basis of the configuration studies, it has been shown that with data assimilation we can determine a global strategy to optimise the quality of the result with respect to the amount of information provided. The consequence of this is a cost reduction in terms of measurement and/or computing time with respect to the basic approach. Another result is that using multi-campaign data rather data from a unique campaign significantly improves the efficiency of parameters optimisation

The Utility of Social Media in Providing Information on Zika Virus.

Science.gov (United States)

Chandrasekaran, Neeraja; Gressick, Kimberly; Singh, Vivek; Kwal, Jaclyn; Cap, Natalia; Koru-Sengul, Tulay; Curry, Christine L

2017-10-23

Introduction In 2015, there was an outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil that spread throughout the Americas. The association of Zika virus with birth defects in infants born to infected pregnant women created concern for women of childbearing age. Social media is an important platform for health promotion, communication, and education on preventative methods during Zika virus outbreaks. Methods We evaluated the utility of social media on providing information regarding Zika virus. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube were utilized for our study. A search of the term "#Zikavirus" on Twitter and Instagram, and "Zika virus" on Facebook and YouTube was performed. The first 50 search results were analyzed from each source. Only English, Spanish, or Portuguese results were included. Results were categorized into three groups: "Useful", "Not Useful", or "Misleading". Results Search was conducted on December 17th, 2016, with 185 results. Forty (21.6%) were from Facebook, 50 (27%) from Twitter, 48 (25.9%) from YouTube, and 47 (25.4%) from Instagram. A total of 104 (56.22%) results were "Useful", 67 (36.2%) "Not Useful", and 14 (7.5%) were "Misleading". There were significantly more "Useful" results compared to "Not Useful" and "Misleading" results (Fisher's exact: p < 0.0001). Conclusion Social media is a useful resource for providing relevant information on Zika virus. Young women can utilize social media for Zika virus information. The role of social media in public health should be further investigated and established. Patient education interventions should focus on social media impact on behavior modification and education of public to recognize useful information.

Providing policy-relevant information for greenhouse gas management: Perspectives from science and technology policy research

Science.gov (United States)

Dilling, L.

2009-12-01

In the 12 years since the Kyoto Protocol was signed setting forth targets for greenhouse gas emissions from several nations, the number of policies, voluntary programs and commercial enterprises that have developed to manage carbon has grown exponentially. Many of these programs have occurred in a voluntary context, such as carbon trading, carbon offset programs, and climate registries . To date, no single, common system for accrediting, verifying and recording carbon credits has developed. Moreover, as the international community continues to negotiate the dimensions of an international agreement for the post-Kyoto time period, discussions still center on targets for fossil fuel emissions, biospheric carbon protection, and appropriate distribution of the burden of compliance globally. If carbon still remains the currency for discussion in a climate agreement, some type of effective measurement and verification system will be needed to ensure that commitments are being met. While entire volumes over the past decade have been written on what it is possible to observe about the carbon cycle and how to do so-- these tend to describe observations from the perspective of studying the carbon cycle to discover fundamental new knowledge. I will argue, however, that for the application under consideration in this session, i.e. a global greenhouse gas information system, it is essential to bring in the perspective of the policy and regulatory community. The needs of the scientific community for measuring the uncertainties in the global carbon cycle are not necessarily the same as those for the policy community. To ensure that such a system can serve a policy-relevant function, the scientific community must engage with policy makers, entrepreneurs, those who must comply, and others involved in constructing the policy framework. This paper will examine some of the key fundamentals that the policy community may be considering in designing a greenhouse gas monitoring system. I

Prioritising the relevant information for learning and decision making within orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Walton, Mark E; Chau, Bolton K H; Kennerley, Steven W

2015-02-01

Our environment and internal states are frequently complex, ambiguous and dynamic, meaning we need to have selection mechanisms to ensure we are basing our decisions on currently relevant information. Here, we review evidence that orbitofrontal (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) play conserved, critical but distinct roles in this process. While OFC may use specific sensory associations to enhance task-relevant information, particularly in the context of learning, VMPFC plays a role in ensuring irrelevant information does not impinge on the decision in hand.

A Parallel Relational Database Management System Approach to Relevance Feedback in Information Retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Lundquist, Carol; Frieder, Ophir; Holmes, David O.; Grossman, David

1999-01-01

Describes a scalable, parallel, relational database-drive information retrieval engine. To support portability across a wide range of execution environments, all algorithms adhere to the SQL-92 standard. By incorporating relevance feedback algorithms, accuracy is enhanced over prior database-driven information retrieval efforts. Presents…

The doctrine of providence in the Institutes of Calvin – still relevant?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C.F.C. Coetzee

2010-07-01

Full Text Available In the reformed tradition and theology, the doctrine of provi- dence has always been important and relevant, so much so that it forms an integral part of the reformed confessions. At the same time some of the most difficult theological questions are raised regarding this doctrine, questions like the following: Is God in control of everything? What is the relationship between the providence of God and sin, suffering, man’s responsibility, et cetera? In our times the doctrine as such is questioned or even rejected. What makes this topic even more important is the commemoration of the publication of Darwin’s book, “The origin of species”, coupled with the renewed emphasis on Darwinism, evolutionism and atheism.1 From the perspective of the Calvinistic-reformed theology and in the light of the com- memoration of Calvin’s birth 500 years ago, it is important to determine the relevance of Calvin’s thoughts on a number of important issues in the current debate, e.g. the doctrine on God, providence and creation, sin, suffering, et cetera. It is also determined that Calvin’s thoughts are reflected in the reformed confessions, which is still the living faith of reformed churches all over the world.

Video coding and decoding devices and methods preserving ppg relevant information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

2013-01-01

The present invention relates to a video encoding device (10) for encoding video data and a corresponding video decoding device, wherein during decoding PPG relevant information shall be preserved. For this purpose the video coding device (10) comprises a first encoder (20) for encoding input video

Satisfaction with information provided to Danish cancer patients

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ross, Lone; Petersen, Morten Aagaard; Johnsen, Anna Thit

2013-01-01

To validate five items (CPWQ-inf) regarding satisfaction with information provided to cancer patients from health care staff, assess the prevalence of dissatisfaction with this information, and identify factors predicting dissatisfaction.......To validate five items (CPWQ-inf) regarding satisfaction with information provided to cancer patients from health care staff, assess the prevalence of dissatisfaction with this information, and identify factors predicting dissatisfaction....

A Planetary Defense Gateway for Smart Discovery of relevant Information for Decision Support

Science.gov (United States)

Bambacus, Myra; Yang, Chaowei Phil; Leung, Ronald Y.; Barbee, Brent; Nuth, Joseph A.; Seery, Bernard; Jiang, Yongyao; Qin, Han; Li, Yun; Yu, Manzhu;

Video coding and decoding devices and methods preserving PPG relevant information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

2015-01-01

The present invention relates to a video encoding device (10, 10', 10") and method for encoding video data and to a corresponding video decoding device (60, 60') and method. To preserve PPG relevant information after encoding without requiring a large amount of additional data for the video encoder

Video coding and decoding devices and methods preserving ppg relevant information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

2013-01-01

The present invention relates to a video encoding device (10, 10', 10'') and method for encoding video data and to a corresponding video decoding device (60, 60') and method. To preserve PPG relevant information after encoding without requiring a large amount of additional data for the video encoder

Providing Data Quality Information for Remote Sensing Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Albrecht, F.; Blaschke, T.; Lang, S.; Abdulmutalib, H. M.; Szabó, G.; Barsi, Á.; Batini, C.; Bartsch, A.; Kugler, Zs.; Tiede, D.; Huang, G.

2018-04-01

The availability and accessibility of remote sensing (RS) data, cloud processing platforms and provided information products and services has increased the size and diversity of the RS user community. This development also generates a need for validation approaches to assess data quality. Validation approaches employ quality criteria in their assessment. Data Quality (DQ) dimensions as the basis for quality criteria have been deeply investigated in the database area and in the remote sensing domain. Several standards exist within the RS domain but a general classification - established for databases - has been adapted only recently. For an easier identification of research opportunities, a better understanding is required how quality criteria are employed in the RS lifecycle. Therefore, this research investigates how quality criteria support decisions that guide the RS lifecycle and how they relate to the measured DQ dimensions. Subsequently follows an overview of the relevant standards in the RS domain that is matched to the RS lifecycle. Conclusively, the required research needs are identified that would enable a complete understanding of the interrelationships between the RS lifecycle, the data sources and the DQ dimensions, an understanding that would be very valuable for designing validation approaches in RS.

Perceived relevance and information needs regarding food topics and preferred information sources among Dutch adults: results of a quantitative consumer study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dillen, van S.M.E.; Hiddink, G.J.; Koelen, M.A.; Graaf, de C.; Woerkum, van C.M.J.

2004-01-01

Objective: For more effective nutrition communication, it is crucial to identify sources from which consumers seek information. Our purpose was to assess perceived relevance and information needs regarding food topics, and preferred information sources by means of quantitative consumer research.

Japanese Quality Assurance System Regarding the Provision of Material Accounting Reports and the Safeguards Relevant Information to the IAEA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goto, Y.; Namekawa, M.; Kumekawa, H.; Usui, A.; Sano, K.

2015-01-01

The provision of the safeguards relevant reports and information in accordance with the comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) and the additional protocol (AP) is the basis for the IAEA safeguards. The government of Japan (Japan Safeguards Office, JSGO) has believed that the correct reports contribute to effective and efficient safeguards therefore the domestic quality assurance system for the reporting to the IAEA was already established at the time of the accession of the CSA in 1977. It consists of Code 10 interpretation (including the seminars for operators in Japan), SSAC's checks for syntax error, code and internal consistency (computer based consistency check between facilities) and the discussion with the IAEA on the facilities' measurement system for bulk-handling facilities, which contributes to the more accurate reports from operators. This spirit has been maintained for the entry into force of the AP. For example, questions and amplification from the IAEA will be taken into account the review of the AP declaration before sending to the IAEA and the open source information such as news article and scientific literature in Japanese is collected and translated into English, and the translated information is provided to the IAEA as the supplementary information, which may contribute to broadening the IAEA information source and to their comprehensive evaluation. The other safeguards relevant information, such as the mail-box information for SNRI at LEU fuel fabrication plants, is also checked by the JSGO's QC software before posting. The software was developed by JSGO and it checks data format, batch IDs, birth/death date, shipper/receiver information and material description code. This paper explains the history of the development of the Japanese quality assurance system regarding the reports and the safeguards relevant information to the IAEA. (author)

Information relevant to ensuring that occupational radiation exposures at nuclear power stations will be as low as in reasonably achievable

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1979-01-01

Regulations require that all reasonable efforts must be made to maintain exposure to radiation as far below the limits specified in 10 CFR Part 20 as is reasonably achievable. Information is provided relevant to attaining goals and objectives for planning, designing, constructing, operating and decommissioning a light-water-cooled nuclear power station to meet that criterion. Much of the information presented is also applicable to other than light-water-cooled nuclear power stations

Book value, earnings, dividends, and audit quality on the value relevance of accounting information among Nigerian listed firms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Yusuf Alkali

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to determine the effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS as a new accounting reporting among Nigerian listed firms. This study uses book value, earnings and dividends to fill in the gap using a sample of 126 Nigerian listed firms in the stock market from 2009 to 2013 (pre and Post-IFRS adoption. Data was collected from Thompson Reuters, Bank scope DataStreams and annual reports. The study adopted Ohlson (1995 [Ohlson, J. (1995. Earnings, book-value, and dividends in equity valuation. Contemporary Accounting Research, 11(2, 661–687.] price model that has been frequently used in determining the quality of accounting information studies. The study finds that combined book value, earnings and dividends do not provide statistical significance effects on IFRS after adoption on the quality of accounting information. This could be possible, as dividends do not provide a significant effect in the presence of earnings. Furthermore, the audit big 4 quality provided an effect on the quality of accounting information because of IFRS adoption. Therefore, findings of this study provide additional literature on the decreasing quality of accounting information in an emerging market setting like Nigeria. The study implication is to the policy makers, regulators, and government that accounting information do not provide value relevance among Nigerian listed firms after IFRS adoption.

Effect of the Adoption of IFRS on the Information Relevance of Accounting Profits in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mateus Alexandre Costa dos Santos

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to assess the effect of adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS in Brazil on the information relevance of accounting profits of publicly traded companies. International studies have shown that the adoption of IFRS improves the quality of accounting information compared with domestic accounting standards. Concurrent evidence is sparse in Brazil. Information relevance is understood herein as a multidimensional attribute that is closely related to the quality and usefulness of the information conveyed by accounting profits. The associative capacity and information timeliness of accounting profits in relation to share prices were examined. Furthermore, the level of conditional conservatism present in accounting profits was also analyzed because according to Basu (1997, this aspect is related to timeliness. The study used pooled regressions and panel data models to analyze the quarterly accounting profits of 246 companies between the first quarter of 1999 and the first quarter of 2013, resulting in 9,558 quarter-company observations. The results indicated that the adoption of IFRS in Brazil (1 increased the associative capacity of accounting profits; (2 reduced information timeliness to non-significant levels; and (3 had no effect on conditional conservatism. The joint analysis of the empirical evidence from the present study conclusively precludes stating that the adoption of IFRS in Brazil contributed to an increase the information relevance of accounting profits of publicly traded companies.

Perceived Relevance of an Introductory Information Systems Course to Prospective Business Students

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irene Govender

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The study is designed to examine students’ perceptions of the introductory Information Systems (IS course. It was an exploratory study in which 67 students participated. A quantitative approach was followed making use of questionnaires for the collection of data. Using the theory of reasoned action as a framework, the study explores the factors that influence non-IS major students’ perceived relevance of the IS introductory course. The analysis of collected data included descriptive and inferential statistics. Using multiple regression analysis, the results suggest that overall, the independent variables, relevance of the content, previous IT knowledge, relevance for professional practice, IT preference in courses and peers’ influence may account for 72% of the explanatory power for the dependent variable, perceived relevance of the IS course. In addition, the results have shown some strong predictors (IT preference and peers’ influence that influence students’ perceived relevance of the IS course. Practical work was found to be a strong mediating variable toward positive perceptions of IS. The results of this study suggest that students do indeed perceive the introductory IS course to be relevant and match their professional needs, but more practical work would enhance their learning. Implications for theory and practice are discussed as a result of the behavioural intention to perceive the IS course to be relevant and eventually to recruit more IS students.

Behavioral and Event-Related-Potential Correlates of Processing Congruent and Incongruent Self-Relevant Information

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Sheri L.

2013-01-01

People want to be viewed by others as they view themselves. Being confronted with self-relevant information that is either congruent or incongruent with one's self-view has been shown to differentially affect subsequent behavior, memory for the information, and evaluation of the source of the information. However, no research has examined…

Suppression of no-longer relevant information in Working Memory: An alpha-power related mechanism?

Science.gov (United States)

Poch, Claudia; Valdivia, María; Capilla, Almudena; Hinojosa, José Antonio; Campo, Pablo

2018-03-27

Selective attention can enhance Working Memory (WM) performance by selecting relevant information, while preventing distracting items from encoding or from further maintenance. Alpha oscillatory modulations are a correlate of visuospatial attention. Specifically, an enhancement of alpha power is observed in the ipsilateral posterior cortex to the locus of attention, along with a suppression in the contralateral hemisphere. An influential model proposes that the alpha enhancement is functionally related to the suppression of information. However, whether ipsilateral alpha power represents a mechanism through which no longer relevant WM representations are inhibited has yet not been explored. Here we examined whether the amount of distractors to be suppressed during WM maintenance is functionally related to alpha power lateralized activity. We measure EEG activity while participants (N = 36) performed a retro-cue task in which the WM load was varied across the relevant/irrelevant post-cue hemifield. We found that alpha activity was lateralized respect to the locus of attention, but did not track post-cue irrelevant load. Additionally, non-lateralized alpha activity increased with post-cue relevant load. We propose that alpha lateralization associated to retro-cuing might be related to a general orienting mechanism toward relevant representation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Task relevance of emotional information affects anxiety-linked attention bias in visual search.

Science.gov (United States)

Dodd, Helen F; Vogt, Julia; Turkileri, Nilgun; Notebaert, Lies

2017-01-01

Task relevance affects emotional attention in healthy individuals. Here, we investigate whether the association between anxiety and attention bias is affected by the task relevance of emotion during an attention task. Participants completed two visual search tasks. In the emotion-irrelevant task, participants were asked to indicate whether a discrepant face in a crowd of neutral, middle-aged faces was old or young. Irrelevant to the task, target faces displayed angry, happy, or neutral expressions. In the emotion-relevant task, participants were asked to indicate whether a discrepant face in a crowd of middle-aged neutral faces was happy or angry (target faces also varied in age). Trait anxiety was not associated with attention in the emotion-relevant task. However, in the emotion-irrelevant task, trait anxiety was associated with a bias for angry over happy faces. These findings demonstrate that the task relevance of emotional information affects conclusions about the presence of an anxiety-linked attention bias. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Providing Technology Information, Products, and Services (TIPS) Through the World Wide Web

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

East, E

1999-01-01

.... In TIPS these assets include people, capabilities, products, and publications. Relevant information is captured as part of the daily business practices of ERDC researchers, supervisors, managers, and staff...

Comparing the Influence of Title and URL in Information Retrieval Relevance in Search Engines Results between Human Science and Agriculture Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parisa Allami

2012-12-01

Full Text Available When the World Wide Web provides suitable methods for producing and publishing information to scientists, the Web has become a mediator to publishing information. This environment has been formed billions of web pages that each of them has a special title, special content, special address and special purpose. Search engines provide a variety of facilities limit search results to raise the possibility of relevance in the retrieval results. One of these facilities is the limitation of the keywords and search terms to the title or URL. It can increase the possibility of results relevance significantly. Search engines claim what are limited to title and URL is most relevant. This research tried to compare the results relevant between results limited in title and URL in agricultural and Humanities areas from their users sights also it notice to Comparison of the presence of keywords in the title and URL between two areas and the relationship between search query numbers and matching keywords in title and their URLs. For this purpose, the number of 30 students in each area whom were in MA process and in doing their thesis was chosen. There was a significant relevant of the results that they limited their information needs to title and URL. There was significantly relevance in URL results in agricultural area, but there was not any significant difference between title and URL results in the humanities. For comparing the number of keywords in title and URL in two areas, 30 keywords in each area were chosen. There was not any significantly difference between the number of keywords in the title and URL of websites in two areas. To show relationship between number of search keyword and the matching of title and URL 45 keywords in each area were chosen. They were divided to three parts (one keyword, two keywords and three keywords. It was determined that if search keyword was less, the amount of matching between title and URL was more and if the matching

In the Dark: Young Men's Stories of Sexual Initiation in the Absence of Relevant Sexual Health Information

Science.gov (United States)

Kubicek, Katrina; Beyer, William J.; Weiss, George; Iverson, Ellen; Kipke, Michele D.

2010-01-01

A growing body of research has investigated the effectiveness of abstinence-only sexual education. There remains a dearth of research on the relevant sexual health information available to young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Drawing on a mixed-methods study with 526 YMSM, this study explores how and where YMSM receive relevant information on…

Analysis of the Relevance of Information Content of the Value Added Statement in the Brazilian Capital Markets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Márcio André Veras Machado

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The usefulness of financial statements depends, fundamentally, on the degree of relevance of the information they disclose to users. Thus, studies that measure the relevance of accounting information to the users of financial statements are of some importance. One line of research within this subject is in ascertaining the relevance and importance of accounting information for the capital markets: if a particular item of accounting information is minimally reflected in the price of a share, it is because this information has relevance, at least at a certain level of significance, for investors and analysts of the capital markets. This present study aims to analyze the relevance, in the Brazilian capital markets, of the information content of the Value Added Statement (or VAS - referred to in Brazil as the Demonstração do Valor Adicionado, or DVA. It analyzed the ratio between stock price and Wealth created per share (WCPS, using linear regressions, for the period 2005-2011, for non-financial listed companies included in Melhores & Maiores ('Biggest & Best', an annual listing published by Exame Magazine in Brazil. As a secondary objective, this article seeks to establish whether WCPS represents a better indication of a company's result than Net profit per share (in this study, referred to as NPPS. The empirical evidence that was found supports the concept that the VAS has relevant information content, because it shows a capacity to explain a variation in the share price of the companies studied. Additionally, the relationship between WCPS and the stock price was shown to be significant, even after the inclusion of the control variables Stockholders' equity per share (which we abbreviate in this study to SEPS and NPPS. Finally, the evidence found indicates that the market reacts more to WCPS (Wealth created per share than to NPPS. Thus, the results obtained give some indication that, for the Brazilian capital markets, WCPS may be a better proxy

40 CFR 86.1862-04 - Maintenance of records and submittal of information relevant to compliance with fleet average NOX...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... of information relevant to compliance with fleet average NOX standards. 86.1862-04 Section 86.1862-04...-Cycle Heavy-Duty Vehicles § 86.1862-04 Maintenance of records and submittal of information relevant to..., maintain, and retain the following information in adequately organized and indexed records for each model...

Strategic relevance and accountability expectations: new perspectives for health care information technology design.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, J K; Modrow, R E

1999-05-01

In this article, we discuss the traditional systems analysis perspective on end-user information requirements analysis and extend it to merge with the new accountability expectations perspective to guide the future planning and design of health organization information systems. Underlying the strategic relevance of health care information technology (HCIT) are three critical questions: (1) What is the ideal HCIT model for the health organization in terms of achieving strategic expertise and competitive advantage? Specifically, how does this model link industry performance standards with organizational performance and accountability expectations? (2) How should the limitations of past HCIT models be reconciled to the benefits presented by the superior arrangement of the ideal model in the context of changing accountability expectations? (3) How should alternative HCIT solutions be evaluated in light of evidence-based accountability and organizational performance benchmarking? Insights into these questions will ensure that health care managers, HCIT practitioners and researchers can continue to focus on the most critical issues in harnessing today's fast-paced changing technologies for evolving strategically relevant, performance-based health organization systems.

Relevant cost information for order acceptance decisions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wouters, M.J.F.

1997-01-01

Some economic considerations for order acceptance decisions are discussed. The relevant economic considerations for order acceptance are widely discussed in the literature: only those costs are relevant which would be avoidable by not accepting the order incremental costs plus opportunity costs .

Divided attention selectively impairs memory for self-relevant information.

Science.gov (United States)

Turk, David J; Brady-van den Bos, Mirjam; Collard, Philip; Gillespie-Smith, Karri; Conway, Martin A; Cunningham, Sheila J

2013-05-01

Information that is relevant to oneself tends to be remembered more than information that relates to other people, but the role of attention in eliciting this "self-reference effect" is unclear. In the present study, we assessed the importance of attention in self-referential encoding using an ownership paradigm, which required participants to encode items under conditions of imagined ownership by themselves or by another person. Previous work has established that this paradigm elicits a robust self-reference effect, with more "self-owned" items being remembered than "other-owned" items. Access to attentional resources was manipulated using divided-attention tasks at encoding. A significant self-reference effect emerged under full-attention conditions and was related to an increase in episodic recollection for self-owned items, but dividing attention eliminated this memory advantage. These findings are discussed in relation to the nature of self-referential cognition and the importance of attentional resources at encoding in the manifestation of the self-reference effect in memory.

[Evidence-based medicine. 2. Research of clinically relevant biomedical information. Gruppo Italiano per la Medicina Basata sulle Evidenze--GIMBE].

Science.gov (United States)

Cartabellotta, A

1998-05-01

Evidence-based Medicine is a product of the electronic information age and there are several databases useful for practice it--MEDLINE, EMBASE, specialized compendiums of evidence (Cochrane Library, Best Evidence), practice guidelines--most of them free available through Internet, that offers a growing number of health resources. Because searching best evidence is a basic step to practice Evidence-based Medicine, this second review (the first one has been published in the issue of March 1998) has the aim to provide physicians tools and skills for retrieving relevant biomedical information. Therefore, we discuss about strategies for managing information overload, analyze characteristics, usefulness and limits of medical databases and explain how to use MEDLINE in day-to-day clinical practice.

INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE PROVIDING BEHAVIORAL FEATURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimir N. Shvedenko

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The paper deals with creation of integrated information system architecture capable of supporting management decisions using behavioral features. The paper considers the architecture of information decision support system for production system management. The behavioral feature is given to an information system, and it ensures extraction, processing of information, management decision-making with both automated and automatic modes of decision-making subsystem being permitted. Practical implementation of information system with behavior is based on service-oriented architecture: there is a set of independent services in the information system that provides data of its subsystems or data processing by separate application under the chosen variant of the problematic situation settlement. For creation of integrated information system with behavior we propose architecture including the following subsystems: data bus, subsystem for interaction with the integrated applications based on metadata, business process management subsystem, subsystem for the current state analysis of the enterprise and management decision-making, behavior training subsystem. For each problematic situation a separate logical layer service is created in Unified Service Bus handling problematic situations. This architecture reduces system information complexity due to the fact that with a constant amount of system elements the number of links decreases, since each layer provides communication center of responsibility for the resource with the services of corresponding applications. If a similar problematic situation occurs, its resolution is automatically removed from problem situation metamodel repository and business process metamodel of its settlement. In the business process performance commands are generated to the corresponding centers of responsibility to settle a problematic situation.

Towards brain-activity-controlled information retrieval: Decoding image relevance from MEG signals.

Science.gov (United States)

Kauppi, Jukka-Pekka; Kandemir, Melih; Saarinen, Veli-Matti; Hirvenkari, Lotta; Parkkonen, Lauri; Klami, Arto; Hari, Riitta; Kaski, Samuel

2015-05-15

We hypothesize that brain activity can be used to control future information retrieval systems. To this end, we conducted a feasibility study on predicting the relevance of visual objects from brain activity. We analyze both magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and gaze signals from nine subjects who were viewing image collages, a subset of which was relevant to a predetermined task. We report three findings: i) the relevance of an image a subject looks at can be decoded from MEG signals with performance significantly better than chance, ii) fusion of gaze-based and MEG-based classifiers significantly improves the prediction performance compared to using either signal alone, and iii) non-linear classification of the MEG signals using Gaussian process classifiers outperforms linear classification. These findings break new ground for building brain-activity-based interactive image retrieval systems, as well as for systems utilizing feedback both from brain activity and eye movements. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Consumer Behavior Under Conflicting Information Provided by Interested Parties: Implications for Equilibrium in the Market for Credence Goods.

Science.gov (United States)

Russo, Carlo; Tufi, Eleonora

2016-01-01

Incomplete information in food consumption is a relevant topic in agricultural economics. This paper proposes a theoretical model describing consumer behavior, market equilibrium and public intervention in an industry where consumers must rely on the information of interested parties such as producers or associations. We provide simple game theory model showing the link between price competition and the strategic use of information. If information are unverifiable (as in the case of credence attributes) firms may have no incentive to advertise true claims and consumer decisions may be biased. Our model incorporates the opportunistic behavior of self-interested information providers. The result is a model of competition in prices and information finding a potential for market failure and public intervention. In the paper we discuss the efficiency of three possible regulations: banning false claims, subsidizing advertising campaigns, and public statement if favor of true claims. In that context, some recent patents related to both the regulatory compliance in communication and to the reduction of asymmetric information between producers and consumers have been considered. Finally, we found that the efficiency of these policy tools is affected by the reputation of trustworthiness of the firms.

Developing decision-relevant data and information systems for California water through listening and collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Bales, R. C.; Bernacchi, L.; Conklin, M. H.; Viers, J. H.; Fogg, G. E.; Fisher, A. T.; Kiparsky, M.

2017-12-01

California's historic drought of 2011-2015 provided excellent conditions for researchers to listen to water-management challenges from decision makers, particularly with regard to data and information needs for improved decision making. Through the UC Water Security and Sustainability Research Initiative (http://ucwater.org/) we began a multi-year dialog with water-resources decision makers and state agencies that provide data and technical support for water management. Near-term products of that collaboration will be both a vision for a 21st-century water data and information system, and near-term steps to meet immediate legislative deadlines in a way that is consistent with the longer-term vision. While many university-based water researchers engage with state and local agencies on both science and policy challenges, UC Water's focus was on: i) integrated system management, from headwaters through groundwater and agriculture, and on ii) improved decision making through better water information systems. This focus aligned with the recognition by water leaders that fundamental changes in the way the state manages water were overdue. UC Water is focused on three "I"s: improved water information, empowering Institutions to use and to create new information, and enabling decision makers to make smart investments in both green and grey Infrastructure. Effective communication with water decision makers has led to engagement on high-priority programs where large knowledge gaps remain, including more-widespread groundwater recharge of storm flows, restoration of mountain forests in important source-water areas, governance structures for groundwater sustainability, and filling information gaps by bringing new technology to bear on measurement and data programs. Continuing engagement of UC Water researchers in public dialog around water resources, through opinion pieces, feature articles, blogs, white papers, social media, video clips and a feature documentary film have

Does the new conceptual framework provide adequate concepts for reporting relevant information about performance?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brouwer, A.; Faramarzi, A; Hoogendoorn, M.

2014-01-01

The basic question we raise in this paper is whether the 2013 Discussion Paper (DP 2013) on the Conceptual Framework provides adequate principles for reporting an entity’s performance and what improvements could be made in light of both user needs and evidence from academic literature. DP 2013

The value relevance of environmental emissions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Melinda Lydia Nelwan

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This study examines whether environmental performance has value relevance by investigating the relations between environmental emissions and stock prices for the U.S. public companies. The previous studies argued that the conjectured relations between accounting performance measures and environmental performance do not have a strong theoretical basis, and the modeling of relations between market per-formance measures and environmental performance do not adequately consider the relevance of accounting performance to market value. Therefore, this study examines whether publicly reported environmental emissions provide incremental information to accounting earnings in pricing companies stocks. It is done among the complete set of industries covered by Toxics Release Inventory (TRI reporting for the period 2007 to 2010. Using Ohlson model but modified to include different types of emis-sions, it is found that ground emissions (underground injection and land emissions are value relevant but other emission types (air and water and transferred-out emis-sions appear to not provide incremental information in the valuation model. The result in this study raise concerns that different types of emissions are assessed differently by the market, confirming that studies should not aggregate such measures.

76 FR 44337 - Comments and Information Relevant to Mid Decade Review of NORA

Science.gov (United States)

2011-07-25

... NIOSH-244] Comments and Information Relevant to Mid Decade Review of NORA AGENCY: Department of Health...) is conducting a review of the processes of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). In 2006, NORA entered its second decade with an industry sector-based structure. In 2011, as NORA reaches the...

Strategic information systems planning for health service providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Moriarty, D D

1992-01-01

There is significant opportunity for health service providers to gain competitive advantage through the innovative use of strategic information systems. This analysis presents some key strategic information systems issues that will enable managers to identify opportunities within their organizations.

Perceived Relevance of Educative Information on Public (Skin Health: Results of a Representative, Population-Based Telephone Survey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniela Haluza

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Individual skin health attitudes are influenced by various factors, including public education campaigns, mass media, family, and friends. Evidence-based, educative information materials assist communication and decision-making in doctor-patient interactions. The present study aims at assessing the prevailing use of skin health information material and sources and their impact on skin health knowledge, motives to tan, and sun protection. We conducted a questionnaire survey among a representative sample of Austrian residents. Print media and television were perceived as the two most relevant sources for skin health information, whereas the source physician was ranked third. Picking the information source physician increased participants’ skin health knowledge (p = 0.025 and sun-protective behavior (p < 0.001. The study results highlight the demand for targeted health messages to attain lifestyle changes towards photo-protective habits. Providing resources that encourage pro-active counseling in every-day doctor-patient communication could increase skin health knowledge and sun-protective behavior, and thus, curb the rise in skin cancer incidence rates.

Motivated memory: memory for attitude-relevant information as a function of self-esteem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wiersema, D.V.; van der Pligt, J.; van Harreveld, F.

2010-01-01

In this article we offer a new perspective on the contradictory findings in the literature on memory for attitude-relevant information. We propose that biases in memory are most likely to occur when the attitude involved is connected to personally important values and the self; i.e., if the attitude

Relevance between the degree of industrial competition and fair value information: Study on the listed companies in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuemin Zhuang

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this article is to study whether there exists natural relationship between fair value and corporate external market. A series of special phenomenon in the application of fair value arouses our research interests, which present evidences on how competition affects the correlation of fair value information. Design/methodology/approach: this thesis chooses fair value changes gains and losses and calculate the ratio of DFVPSit as the alternative variable of the fair value. In order to effectively inspect the mutual influence between the degree of industry competition and the value relevance of fair value, and reduce the impact of multi-collinearity, we built a regression model on the hypothesis, which supposes that if other conditions are the same, the fair value information has greater value relevance if the degree of the industry competition is greater. To test the hypothesis, we use the comparison of the DFVPSit coefficient absolute value to judge the value relevance of fair value information, and the greater the absolute value is, the higher relevance between the changes in fair value per share profits and losses with the stock prices. Findings: The higher the degree of competition in the industry is, the more fair value information relevance is. Also, there are evidences representing that fair value information often presents negative correlation with the stock price. Originality/value: The main contribution of the article is to show that not only need we make the formulation and implementation of the high quality of fair value accounting standards to suit for both the national conditions and international practice, but also need we further to improve the company's external governance mechanism to promote fair value’s information correlation.

Campus Health Centers' Lack of Information Regarding Providers: A Content Analysis of Division-I Campus Health Centers' Provider Websites.

Science.gov (United States)

Perrault, Evan K

2018-07-01

Campus health centers are a convenient, and usually affordable, location for college students to obtain health care. Staffed by licensed and trained professionals, these providers can generally offer similar levels of care that providers at off-campus clinics can deliver. Yet, previous research finds students may forgo this convenient, on-campus option partially because of a lack of knowledge regarding the quality of providers at these campus clinics. This study sought to examine where this information deficit may come from by analyzing campus health centers' online provider information. All Division-I colleges or universities with an on-campus health center, which had information on their websites about their providers (n = 294), had their providers' online information analyzed (n = 2,127 providers). Results revealed that schools commonly offer professional information (e.g., provider specialties, education), but very little about their providers outside of the medical context (e.g., hobbies) that would allow a prospective student patient to more easily relate. While 181 different kinds of credentials were provided next to providers' names (e.g., MD, PA-C, FNP-BC), only nine schools offered information to help students understand what these different credentials meant. Most schools had information about their providers within one-click of the homepage. Recommendations for improving online information about campus health center providers are offered.

Computations Underlying Social Hierarchy Learning: Distinct Neural Mechanisms for Updating and Representing Self-Relevant Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Kumaran, Dharshan; Banino, Andrea; Blundell, Charles; Hassabis, Demis; Dayan, Peter

2016-12-07

Knowledge about social hierarchies organizes human behavior, yet we understand little about the underlying computations. Here we show that a Bayesian inference scheme, which tracks the power of individuals, better captures behavioral and neural data compared with a reinforcement learning model inspired by rating systems used in games such as chess. We provide evidence that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) selectively mediates the updating of knowledge about one's own hierarchy, as opposed to that of another individual, a process that underpinned successful performance and involved functional interactions with the amygdala and hippocampus. In contrast, we observed domain-general coding of rank in the amygdala and hippocampus, even when the task did not require it. Our findings reveal the computations underlying a core aspect of social cognition and provide new evidence that self-relevant information may indeed be afforded a unique representational status in the brain. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Hybrid Approach to Finding Relevant Social Media Content for Complex Domain Specific Information Needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Cameron, Delroy; Sheth, Amit P; Jaykumar, Nishita; Thirunarayan, Krishnaprasad; Anand, Gaurish; Smith, Gary A

2014-12-01

While contemporary semantic search systems offer to improve classical keyword-based search, they are not always adequate for complex domain specific information needs. The domain of prescription drug abuse, for example, requires knowledge of both ontological concepts and "intelligible constructs" not typically modeled in ontologies. These intelligible constructs convey essential information that include notions of intensity, frequency, interval, dosage and sentiments, which could be important to the holistic needs of the information seeker. In this paper, we present a hybrid approach to domain specific information retrieval that integrates ontology-driven query interpretation with synonym-based query expansion and domain specific rules, to facilitate search in social media on prescription drug abuse. Our framework is based on a context-free grammar (CFG) that defines the query language of constructs interpretable by the search system. The grammar provides two levels of semantic interpretation: 1) a top-level CFG that facilitates retrieval of diverse textual patterns, which belong to broad templates and 2) a low-level CFG that enables interpretation of specific expressions belonging to such textual patterns. These low-level expressions occur as concepts from four different categories of data: 1) ontological concepts, 2) concepts in lexicons (such as emotions and sentiments), 3) concepts in lexicons with only partial ontology representation, called lexico-ontology concepts (such as side effects and routes of administration (ROA)), and 4) domain specific expressions (such as date, time, interval, frequency and dosage) derived solely through rules. Our approach is embodied in a novel Semantic Web platform called PREDOSE, which provides search support for complex domain specific information needs in prescription drug abuse epidemiology. When applied to a corpus of over 1 million drug abuse-related web forum posts, our search framework proved effective in retrieving

IMPACT OF THE CONVERGENCE PROCESS TO INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARDS ON THE VALUE RELEVANCE OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcelo Alvaro da Silva Macedo

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Law 11.638/07 marked the start of a series of changes in the laws that regulate Brazilian accounting practices. The main reason for these changes is the convergence process of local with international accounting standards. As a result of Law 11.638/07, the legal precedent was established to achieve convergence. In that context, the aim of this study is to analyze the impact of the convergence process with international accounting standards on the relevance of financial information, based on data for 2007, without and with the alterations Law 11.638/07 introduced and according to the CPC Pronouncements, applicable as from 2008 onwards. Therefore, a value relevance study is used, applying regression analysis to annual stock price information (dependent variable and net profit per share (NPPS and net equity per share (NEPS as independent variables. The main results show that financial information on NPPS and NEPS for 2007, with and without the legal alterations, are relevant for the capital market. A comparison between both regressions used in the analysis, however, shows an information gain for financial information that includes the changes introduced in the first phase of the accounting convergence process with the international standards.

Obtaining and providing health information in the community pharmacy setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Iwanowicz, Susan L; Marciniak, Macary Weck; Zeolla, Mario M

2006-06-15

Community pharmacists are a valuable information resource for patients and other healthcare providers. The advent of new information technology, most notably the Internet, coupled with the rapid availability of new healthcare information, has fueled this demand. Pharmacy students must receive training that enables them to meet this need. Community advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) provide an excellent opportunity for students to develop and master drug information skills in a real-world setting. Preceptors must ensure that students are familiar with drug information resources and can efficiently identify the most useful resource for a given topic. Students must also be trained to assess the quality of resources and use this information to effectively respond to drug or health information inquiries. This article will discuss key aspects of providing drug information in the community pharmacy setting and can serve as a guide and resource for APPE preceptors.

Metagenomes provide valuable comparative information on soil microeukaryotes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacquiod, Samuel Jehan Auguste; Stenbæk, Jonas; Santos, Susana

2016-01-01

has been identified. Our analyses suggest that publicly available metagenome data can provide valuable information on soil microeukaryotes for comparative purposes when handled appropriately, complementing the current view provided by ribosomal amplicon sequencing methods......., providing microbiologists with substantial amounts of accessible information. We took advantage of public metagenomes in order to investigate microeukaryote communities in a well characterized grassland soil. The data gathered allowed the evaluation of several factors impacting the community structure......, including the DNA extraction method, the database choice and also the annotation procedure. While most studies on soil microeukaryotes are based on sequencing of PCR-amplified taxonomic markers (18S rRNA genes, ITS regions), this work represents, to our knowledge, the first report based solely...

Human and Citizen Rights Guarantees While Providing Information Security

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Serhii Yesimov

2018-05-01

Full Text Available With the development of information and communication technologies, issues of providing information security are becoming more and more aggravated. These are crimes related to the use of electronic computers, systems and computer networks and telecommunication networks, the propaganda of separatism and extremism, etc. While providing information security in the digital environment, the role of technical and legal human rights guarantees, due to technical means of protection, is increasing. Relying on the developers of technical means of protection determines the difference between the aforesaid concepts and the traditional approach to ensuring the protection of human and citizen rights, in which responsibilities are put on information intermediaries, owners of confidential information. Technical guarantees of human rights are a necessary component of ensuring information security, but the effectiveness of the application is provided in conjunction with the legal guarantees of human rights, as evidenced by the tendency to recognize the principles of inviolability of privacy on the basis of design decisions in the law of the European Union as legal acts. Providing information security is a legitimate goal of establishing constraints of human rights, since it can be correlated with the norms of international law. The establishment of constraints of human rights is permissible in order to attain other objectives–ensuring state security, public order, health, rights and freedoms of the person in the information sphere. The legitimacy of this goal is determined by its compliance with the objectives envisaged by international agreements ratified in an established order. The article examines the impact of the use of technical means in the field of providing information security in the aspect of following the fundamental human and civil rights in Ukraine, taking into account the legislation of the European Union and the decision of the European Court

30 CFR 206.108 - Does MMS protect information I provide?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Does MMS protect information I provide? 206.108... MANAGEMENT PRODUCT VALUATION Federal Oil § 206.108 Does MMS protect information I provide? Certain information you submit to MMS regarding valuation of oil, including transportation allowances, may be exempt...

30 CFR 206.365 - Does MMS protect information I provide?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Does MMS protect information I provide? 206.365... MANAGEMENT PRODUCT VALUATION Geothermal Resources § 206.365 Does MMS protect information I provide? Certain information you submit to MMS regarding royalties or fees on geothermal resources or byproducts, including...

Understanding Midwives’ Preferences for Providing Information About Newborn Bloodspot Screening

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stuart James Wright

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Understanding preferences for information provision in the context of health care service provision is challenging because of the number of potential attributes that may influence preferences. This study aimed to identify midwives’ preferences for the process and outcomes of information provision in an expanded national newborn bloodspot screening program. Design: A sample of practicing midwives completed a hybrid-stated preference survey including a conjoint analysis (CA and discrete choice experiment to quantify preferences for the types of, and way in which, information should be provided in a newborn bloodspot screening program. Six conjoint analysis questions captured the impact of different types of information on parents’ ability to make a decision, and 10 discrete choice experiment questions identified preferences for four process attributes (including parents’ ability to make a decision. Results: Midwives employed by the UK National Health Service (n = 134 completed the survey. All types of information content were perceived to improve parents’ ability to make a decision except for the possibility of false-positive results. Late pregnancy was seen to be the best time to provide information, followed by day 3 postbirth. Information before 20 weeks of pregnancy was viewed as reducing parents’ ability to make a decision. Midwives preferred information to be provided by an individual discussion and did not think parents should receive information on the Internet. Conclusion: A hybrid stated preference survey design identified that a wide variety of information should be provided to maximize parents’ ability to make a decision ideally provided late in pregnancy or on day 3 postbirth.

Creation of reliable relevance judgments in information retrieval systems evaluation experimentation through crowdsourcing: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Samimi, Parnia; Ravana, Sri Devi

2014-01-01

Test collection is used to evaluate the information retrieval systems in laboratory-based evaluation experimentation. In a classic setting, generating relevance judgments involves human assessors and is a costly and time consuming task. Researchers and practitioners are still being challenged in performing reliable and low-cost evaluation of retrieval systems. Crowdsourcing as a novel method of data acquisition is broadly used in many research fields. It has been proven that crowdsourcing is an inexpensive and quick solution as well as a reliable alternative for creating relevance judgments. One of the crowdsourcing applications in IR is to judge relevancy of query document pair. In order to have a successful crowdsourcing experiment, the relevance judgment tasks should be designed precisely to emphasize quality control. This paper is intended to explore different factors that have an influence on the accuracy of relevance judgments accomplished by workers and how to intensify the reliability of judgments in crowdsourcing experiment.

A Similarity-Ranking Method on Semantic Computing for Providing Information-Services in Station-Concierge System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Motoki Yokoyama

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The prevalence of smartphones and wireless broadband networks have been progressing as a new Railway infomration environment.　According to the spread of such devices and information technology, various types of information can be obtained from databases connected to the Internet. One scenario of obtaining such a wide variety of information resources is in the phase of user’s transportation. This paper proposes an information provision system, named the Station Concierge System that matches the situation and intention of passengers. The purpose of this system is to estimate the needs of passengers like station staff or hotel concierge and to provide information resources that satisfy user’s expectations dynamically. The most important module of the system is constructed based on a new information ranking method for passenger intention prediction and service recommendation. This method has three main features, which are (1 projecting a user to semantic vector space by using her current context, (2 predicting the intention of a user based on selecting a semantic vector subspace, and (3 ranking the services by a descending order of relevant scores to the user’ intention. By comparing the predicted results of our method with those of two straightforward computation methods, the experimental studies show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method. Using this system, users can obtain transit information and service map that dynamically matches their context.

THE USE OF INFORMATION RESOURCES OF THE KNUKIM SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY FOR INFORMATION SERVICES PROVIDING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

В. В. Степко

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The article highlights information resources of the scientific library of the Kiev National University of Culture and Arts and characterizes its use in the system of providing librarian and informational services for users. It is proved that the important information resource of the library is website, which provides additional opportunities for users, forming a positive image of the library in the virtual space. The site contains information on various directions of the library’s activities, librarian services, projects and media products. One of the main tasks of the library is formation and presentation on the website of the electronic catalog as a multifunctional bibliographic resource, which is the basis for informational services and the basic information product of the library. The creation of an electronic library continues as the essential element of providing qualitative and effective services to users. The article discusses the functioning of the “Virtual Help” service as an effective form of working with remote users. The authors also consider such an actual direction of the library’s activity as the presentation of the scientific and creative heritage of the university with help of “12 + books of the year” project. The aim of the project is to inform about new editions of university’s teachers published this year and presented in the library fund. The implementation of the patriotic innovation and educational project “Treasures of the Nation”, whose purpose is to study and popularize the elements of the intangible cultural heritage ofUkraine, is analyzed. The booktrails and flash presentations are considered as a means of presenting books prepared by the library staff. The preparation of longreed, a new format for submitting information on the Internet, is also considered. Thanks to the use of Tilda Publishing and ThingLink services, innovative products were created: a complex multimedia story that combined photos

Deep learning relevance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lioma, Christina; Larsen, Birger; Petersen, Casper

2016-01-01

train a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) on existing relevant information to that query. We then use the RNN to "deep learn" a single, synthetic, and we assume, relevant document for that query. We design a crowdsourcing experiment to assess how relevant the "deep learned" document is, compared...... to existing relevant documents. Users are shown a query and four wordclouds (of three existing relevant documents and our deep learned synthetic document). The synthetic document is ranked on average most relevant of all....

Expert vs. novice differences in the detection of relevant information during a chess game: evidence from eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheridan, Heather; Reingold, Eyal M

2014-01-01

The present study explored the ability of expert and novice chess players to rapidly distinguish between regions of a chessboard that were relevant to the best move on the board, and regions of the board that were irrelevant. Accordingly, we monitored the eye movements of expert and novice chess players, while they selected white's best move for a variety of chess problems. To manipulate relevancy, we constructed two different versions of each chess problem in the experiment, and we counterbalanced these versions across participants. These two versions of each problem were identical except that a single piece was changed from a bishop to a knight. This subtle change reversed the relevancy map of the board, such that regions that were relevant in one version of the board were now irrelevant (and vice versa). Using this paradigm, we demonstrated that both the experts and novices spent more time fixating the relevant relative to the irrelevant regions of the board. However, the experts were faster at detecting relevant information than the novices, as shown by the finding that experts (but not novices) were able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information during the early part of the trial. These findings further demonstrate the domain-related perceptual processing advantage of chess experts, using an experimental paradigm that allowed us to manipulate relevancy under tightly controlled conditions.

Expert versus novice differences in the detection of relevant information during a chess game: Evidence from eye movements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heather eSheridan

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The present study explored the ability of expert and novice chess players to rapidly distinguish between regions of a chessboard that were relevant to the best move on the board, and regions of the board that were irrelevant. Accordingly, we monitored the eye movements of expert and novice chess players, while they selected white’s best move for a variety of chess problems. To manipulate relevancy, we constructed two different versions of each chess problem in the experiment, and we counterbalanced these versions across participants. These two versions of each problem were identical except that a single piece was changed from a bishop to a knight. This subtle change reversed the relevancy map of the board, such that regions that were relevant in one version of the board were now irrelevant (and vice versa. Using this paradigm, we demonstrated that both the experts and novices spent more time fixating the relevant relative to the irrelevant regions of the board. However, the experts were faster at detecting relevant information than the novices, as shown by the finding that experts (but not novices were able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information during the early part of the trial. These findings further demonstrate the domain-related perceptual processing advantage of chess experts, using an experimental paradigm that allowed us to manipulate relevancy under tightly controlled conditions.

Informative providing of processes of development on industrial enterprises

OpenAIRE

Kalinichenko, L.

2010-01-01

Information is definite by the basic resource of activity of enterprises. Suggestion in relation to the selection of informative subsystems of strategic, tactical, operative management is borne. The list of indexes in relation to estimation of the informative providing of functional processes of enterprise is offered.

Identifying relevant group of miRNAs in cancer using fuzzy mutual information.

Science.gov (United States)

Pal, Jayanta Kumar; Ray, Shubhra Sankar; Pal, Sankar K

2016-04-01

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) act as a major biomarker of cancer. All miRNAs in human body are not equally important for cancer identification. We propose a methodology, called FMIMS, which automatically selects the most relevant miRNAs for a particular type of cancer. In FMIMS, miRNAs are initially grouped by using a SVM-based algorithm; then the group with highest relevance is determined and the miRNAs in that group are finally ranked for selection according to their redundancy. Fuzzy mutual information is used in computing the relevance of a group and the redundancy of miRNAs within it. Superiority of the most relevant group to all others, in deciding normal or cancer, is demonstrated on breast, renal, colorectal, lung, melanoma and prostate data. The merit of FMIMS as compared to several existing methods is established. While 12 out of 15 selected miRNAs by FMIMS corroborate with those of biological investigations, three of them viz., "hsa-miR-519," "hsa-miR-431" and "hsa-miR-320c" are possible novel predictions for renal cancer, lung cancer and melanoma, respectively. The selected miRNAs are found to be involved in disease-specific pathways by targeting various genes. The method is also able to detect the responsible miRNAs even at the primary stage of cancer. The related code is available at http://www.jayanta.droppages.com/FMIMS.html .

The Relevant Physical Trace in Criminal Investigation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Durdica Hazard

2016-01-01

Full Text Available A criminal investigation requires the forensic scientist to search and to interpret vestiges of a criminal act that happened in the past. The forensic scientist is one of the many stakeholders who take part in the information quest within the criminal justice system. She reads the investigation scene in search of physical traces that should enable her to tell the story of the offense/crime that allegedly occurred. The challenge for any investigator is to detect and recognize relevant physical traces in order to provide clues for investigation and intelligence purposes, and that will constitute sound and relevant evidence for the court. This article shows how important it is to consider the relevancy of physical traces from the beginning of the investigation and what might influence the evaluation process. The exchange and management of information between the investigation stakeholders are important. Relevancy is a dimension that needs to be understood from the standpoints of law enforcement personnel and forensic scientists with the aim of strengthening investigation and ultimately the overall judicial process.

Human capital information in management reports: An analysis of compliance with the characteristic of the relevance of disclosure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ainhoa Saitua

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The aim of this paper is to assess the compliance with the characteristic of the relevance of disclosure in Management Reports, particularly dealing with Human Capital (HC information.Design/methodology/approach: We codify all instances where narratives of IBEX-35 stock index companies over a five year period in Spain comply with the recommendations for a “high quality” Management Commentary (MC in terms of the relevance characteristic of the information disclosed (IASB, 2005.Findings: The analysis results show that a greater quantity of information about HC in terms of the number of pages devoted is not always indicative of higher quality in terms of relevance if we look for the application of IASB recommendations.Research limitations/implications: Further research could assess compliance with other qualitative characteristics required by other standards or guidances that were internationaly generaly accepted.Practical implications: Among the areas that require improvement in HC disclosures we highlight forward-looking information.Social implications: We propose that an internationally accepted agreement must be struck to unite all the efforts that are being made to improve narrative information in the MC section, and specifically with reference to HC.Originality/value: This work compiles the HC disclosures identified as best practices that may serve as a reference to other companies.

Assessment of efficiency of functioning the infocommunication systems a special purpose in the conditions of violation quality of relevance information

Science.gov (United States)

Parinov, A. V.; Korotkikh, L. P.; Desyatov, D. B.; Stepanov, L. V.

2018-03-01

The uniqueness of information processing mechanisms in special-purpose infocommunication systems and the increased interest of intruders lead to an increase in the relevance of the problems associated with their protection. The paper considers the issues of building risk-models for the violation of the relevance and value of information in infocommunication systems for special purposes. Also, special attention is paid to the connection between the qualities of relevance and the value of information obtained as a result of the operation of infocommunication systems for special purposes. Analytical expressions for the risk and damage function in the time range in special-purpose infocommunication systems are obtained, which can serve as a mathematical basis for risk assessment. Further, an analytical expression is obtained to assess the chance of obtaining up-to-date information in the operation of infocommunication systems up to the time the information quality is violated. An analytical expression for estimating the chance can be used to calculate the effectiveness of a special-purpose infocommunication system.

Informing parents about expanded newborn screening: influences on provider involvement.

Science.gov (United States)

Hayeems, Robin Z; Miller, Fiona A; Little, Julian; Carroll, June C; Allanson, Judith; Chakraborty, Pranesh; Wilson, Brenda J; Bytautas, Jessica P; Christensen, Robert J

2009-09-01

Expanded newborn screening (NBS) identifies some disorders for which clinical benefit is uncertain, as well as "incidental" findings (eg, carrier status), thus enhancing the need to inform parents about NBS before sample collection. A self-complete survey was sent to a cross-sectional, stratified, random sample of 5 provider groups in Ontario (obstetricians, midwives, family physicians, pediatricians, and nurses). Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to investigate the effects of core beliefs, perceived barriers, and demographic characteristics on the reported frequency of informing parents about NBS before sample collection. Virtually all of the midwives and almost half of the nurses reported discussing NBS with parents, whereas less than one sixth of the physicians did so. Providers who perceived a responsibility to inform parents were 3 times more likely to report doing so than those who did not perceive this responsibility (odds ratio: 2.9 [95% confidence interval: 2.1-4.1]). Those who lacked confidence to inform parents were 70% less likely to discuss NBS with parents compared with those who did not experience this cognitive barrier (odds ratio: 0.3 [95% confidence interval: 0.2-0.4]). Controlling for these covariates, family physicians and obstetricians were more likely than pediatricians to inform parents. These results provide guidance for capacity building among providers who are positioned to inform parents about NBS before sample collection. Our findings call for targeted educational interventions that consider patterns of provider practice related to prenatal and NBS care, seek to redress confidence limitations, and engage key provider groups in the importance of this professional responsibility.

What Is the Role of Informal Healthcare Providers in Developing Countries? A Systematic Review

Science.gov (United States)

Sudhinaraset, May; Ingram, Matthew; Lofthouse, Heather Kinlaw; Montagu, Dominic

2013-01-01

Informal health care providers (IPs) comprise a significant component of health systems in developing nations. Yet little is known about the most basic characteristics of performance, cost, quality, utilization, and size of this sector. To address this gap we conducted a comprehensive literature review on the informal health care sector in developing countries. We searched for studies published since 2000 through electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar, and relevant grey literature from The New York Academy of Medicine, The World Bank, The Center for Global Development, USAID, SHOPS (formerly PSP-One), The World Health Organization, DFID, Human Resources for Health Global Resource Center. In total, 334 articles were retrieved, and 122 met inclusion criteria and chosen for data abstraction. Results indicate that IPs make up a significant portion of the healthcare sector globally, with almost half of studies (48%) from Sub-Saharan Africa. Utilization estimates from 24 studies in the literature of IP for healthcare services ranged from 9% to 90% of all healthcare interactions, depending on the country, the disease in question, and methods of measurement. IPs operate in a variety of health areas, although baseline information on quality is notably incomplete and poor quality of care is generally assumed. There was a wide variation in how quality of care is measured. The review found that IPs reported inadequate drug provision, poor adherence to clinical national guidelines, and that there were gaps in knowledge and provider practice; however, studies also found that the formal sector also reported poor provider practices. Reasons for using IPs included convenience, affordability, and social and cultural effects. Recommendations from the literature amount to a call for more engagement with the IP sector. IPs are a large component of nearly all developing country health systems. Research and policies of engagement are needed. PMID:23405101

Stimulus-response correspondence effect as a function of temporal overlap between relevant and irrelevant information processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Dong-Yuan Debbie; Richard, F Dan; Ray, Brittany

2016-01-01

The stimulus-response correspondence (SRC) effect refers to advantages in performance when stimulus and response correspond in dimensions or features, even if the common features are irrelevant to the task. Previous research indicated that the SRC effect depends on the temporal course of stimulus information processing. The current study investigated how the temporal overlap between relevant and irrelevant stimulus processing influences the SRC effect. In this experiment, the irrelevant stimulus (a previously associated tone) preceded the relevant stimulus (a coloured rectangle). The irrelevant and relevant stimuli onset asynchrony was varied to manipulate the temporal overlap between the irrelevant and relevant stimuli processing. Results indicated that the SRC effect size varied as a quadratic function of the temporal overlap between the relevant stimulus and irrelevant stimulus. This finding extends previous experimental observations that the SRC effect size varies in an increasing or decreasing function with reaction time. The current study demonstrated a quadratic function between effect size and the temporal overlap.

YouTube provides irrelevant information for the diagnosis and treatment of hip arthritis.

Science.gov (United States)

Koller, Ulrich; Waldstein, Wenzel; Schatz, Klaus-Dieter; Windhager, Reinhard

2016-10-01

YouTube is increasingly becoming a key source for people to satisfy the need for additional information concerning their medical condition. This study analyses the completeness of accurate information found on YouTube pertaining to hip arthritis. The present study analyzed 133 YouTube videos using the search terms: hip arthritis, hip arthritis symptoms, hip arthritis diagnosis, hip arthritis treatment and hip replacement. Two quality assessment checklists with a scale of 0 to 12 points were developed to evaluate available video content for the diagnosis and the treatment of hip arthritis. Videos were grouped into poor quality (grade 0-3), moderate quality (grade 4-7) and excellent quality (grade 8-12), respectively. Three independent observers assessed all videos using the new grading system and independently scored all videos. Discrepancies regarding the categories were clarified by consensus discussion. For intra-observer reliabilities, grading was performed at two occasions separated by four weeks. Eighty-four percent (n = 112) had a poor diagnostic information quality, 14% (n = 19) a moderate quality and only 2% (n = 2) an excellent quality, respectively. In 86% (n = 114), videos provided poor treatment information quality. Eleven percent (n = 15) of videos had a moderate quality and only 3% (n = 4) an excellent quality, respectively. The present study demonstrates that YouTube is a poor source for accurate information pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of hip arthritis. These finding are of high relevance for clinicians as videos are going to become the primary source of information for patients. Therefore, high quality educational videos are needed to further guide patients on the way from the diagnosis of hip arthritis to its proper treatment.

A comparison of the value relevance of interim and annual financial statements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mbalenhle Zulu

2017-03-01

Aim: It explores whether the value relevance of interim financial statements is higher than the value relevance of annual financial statements. Finally, it investigates whether accounting information published in interim and annual financial statements has incremental value relevance. Setting: Data for the period from 1999 to 2012 were collected from a sample of non-financial companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Method: The Ohlson model to investigate the value relevance of accounting information was used for the study. Results: The results show that interim book value of equity is value relevant while interim earnings are not. Interim financial statements appear to have higher value relevance than annual financial statements. The value relevance of interim and annual accounting information has remained fairly constant over the sample period. Incremental comparisons provide evidence that additional book value of equity and earnings that accrue to a company between interim and annual reporting dates are value relevant. Conclusion: The study was conducted over a long sample period (1999–2012, in an era when a technology-driven economy and more timely reporting media could have had an effect on the value relevance of published accounting information. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate and compare the value relevance of published interim and annual financial statements.

The effects of lossy compression on diagnostically relevant seizure information in EEG signals.

Science.gov (United States)

Higgins, G; McGinley, B; Faul, S; McEvoy, R P; Glavin, M; Marnane, W P; Jones, E

2013-01-01

This paper examines the effects of compression on EEG signals, in the context of automated detection of epileptic seizures. Specifically, it examines the use of lossy compression on EEG signals in order to reduce the amount of data which has to be transmitted or stored, while having as little impact as possible on the information in the signal relevant to diagnosing epileptic seizures. Two popular compression methods, JPEG2000 and SPIHT, were used. A range of compression levels was selected for both algorithms in order to compress the signals with varying degrees of loss. This compression was applied to the database of epileptiform data provided by the University of Freiburg, Germany. The real-time EEG analysis for event detection automated seizure detection system was used in place of a trained clinician for scoring the reconstructed data. Results demonstrate that compression by a factor of up to 120:1 can be achieved, with minimal loss in seizure detection performance as measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the seizure detection system.

Workplace Learning - How We Keep Track of Relevant Information

OpenAIRE

Bischoff, Kerstin; Herder, Eelco; Nejdl, Wolfgang

2007-01-01

At the workplace, learning is often a by-product of working on complex projects, requiring self-steered, need-driven and goal-oriented retrieval of information just in time from documents or peers. The personal desktop provides one rich source for learning material and for adaptation of learning resources. Data within that personal information space enables learning from previous experience, sharing tacit and explicit knowledge, and allows for establishing context and context-aware delivery o...

Assessing Hospital Physicians' Acceptance of Clinical Information Systems: A Review of the Relevant Literature

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bram Pynoo

2013-06-01

Full Text Available In view of the tremendous potential benefits of clinical information systems (CIS for the quality of patient care; it is hard to understand why not every CIS is embraced by its targeted users, the physicians. The aim of this study is to propose a framework for assessing hospital physicians' CIS-acceptance that can serve as a guidance for future research into this area. Hereto, a review of the relevant literature was performed in the ISI Web-of-Science database. Eleven studies were withheld from an initial dataset of 797 articles. Results show that just as in business settings, there are four core groups of variables that influence physicians' acceptance of a CIS: its usefulness and ease of use, social norms, and factors in the working environment that facilitate use of the CIS (such as providing computers/workstations, compatibility between the new and existing system.... We also identified some additional variables as predictors of CIS-acceptance.

30 CFR 206.62 - Does MMS protect information I provide?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Does MMS protect information I provide? 206.62 Section 206.62 Mineral Resources MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR MINERALS REVENUE MANAGEMENT PRODUCT VALUATION Indian Oil § 206.62 Does MMS protect information I provide? The MMS will keep...

The Problems in Chinese Government Financial Information Disclosure and Relevant Proposals

OpenAIRE

Zhe Wang

2016-01-01

Government financial information is an important part of government information, fully reporting the operational efficiency and the place where government puts tax onto. This paper analyses the problems in Chinese government financial information disclosure and the necessity of reform in detail. It also provides several proposals for the improvement of Chinese governmental financial report and financial information disclosure system.

Age and self-relevance effects on information search during decision making.

Science.gov (United States)

Hess, Thomas M; Queen, Tara L; Ennis, Gilda E

2013-09-01

We investigated how information search strategies used to support decision making were influenced by self-related implications of the task to the individual. Consistent with the notion of selective engagement, we hypothesized that increased self-relevance would result in more adaptive search behaviors and that this effect would be stronger in older adults than in younger adults. We examined search behaviors in 79 younger and 81 older adults using a process-tracing procedure with 2 different decision tasks. The impact of motivation (i.e., self-related task implications) was examined by manipulating social accountability and the age-related relevance of the task. Although age differences in search strategies were not great, older adults were more likely than younger adults to use simpler strategies in contexts with minimal self-implications. Contrary to expectations, young and old alike were more likely to use noncompensatory than compensatory strategies, even when engaged in systematic search, with education being the most important determinant of search behavior. The results support the notion that older adults are adaptive decision makers and that factors other than age may be more important determinants of performance in situations where knowledge can be used to support performance.

Communication latencies of Apple push notification messages relevant for delivery of time-critical information to anesthesia providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Rothman, Brian S; Dexter, Franklin; Epstein, Richard H

2013-08-01

Tablet computers and smart phones have gained popularity in anesthesia departments for educational and patient care purposes. VigiVU(™) is an iOS application developed at Vanderbilt University for remote viewing of perioperative information, including text message notifications delivered via the Apple Push Notification (APN) service. In this study, we assessed the reliability of the APN service. Custom software was written to send a message every minute to iOS devices (iPad(®), iPod Touch(®), and iPhone(®)) via wireless local area network (WLAN) and cellular pathways 24 hours a day over a 4-month period. Transmission and receipt times were recorded and batched by days, with latencies calculated as their differences. The mean, SEM, and the exact 95% upper confidence limits for the percent of days with ≥1 prolonged (>100 seconds) latency were calculated. Acceptable performance was defined as mean latency 100 seconds. Testing conditions included fixed locations of devices in high signal strength locations. Mean latencies were 173,000 iPad and iPod latencies, none were >100 seconds. For iPhone latencies, 0.03% ± 0.01% were >100 seconds. The 95% upper confidence limits of days with ≥1 prolonged latency were 42% (iPhone) and 5% to 8% (iPad, iPod). The APN service was reliable for all studied devices over WLAN and cellular pathways, and performance was better than third party paging systems using Internet connections previously investigated using the same criteria. However, since our study was a best-case assessment, testing is required at individual sites considering use of this technology for critical messaging. Furthermore, since the APN service may fail due to Internet or service provider disruptions, a backup paging system is recommended if the APN service were to be used for critical messaging.

Extraction of Pluvial Flood Relevant Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI by Deep Learning from User Generated Texts and Photos

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu Feng

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years, pluvial floods caused by extreme rainfall events have occurred frequently. Especially in urban areas, they lead to serious damages and endanger the citizens’ safety. Therefore, real-time information about such events is desirable. With the increasing popularity of social media platforms, such as Twitter or Instagram, information provided by voluntary users becomes a valuable source for emergency response. Many applications have been built for disaster detection and flood mapping using crowdsourcing. Most of the applications so far have merely used keyword filtering or classical language processing methods to identify disaster relevant documents based on user generated texts. As the reliability of social media information is often under criticism, the precision of information retrieval plays a significant role for further analyses. Thus, in this paper, high quality eyewitnesses of rainfall and flooding events are retrieved from social media by applying deep learning approaches on user generated texts and photos. Subsequently, events are detected through spatiotemporal clustering and visualized together with these high quality eyewitnesses in a web map application. Analyses and case studies are conducted during flooding events in Paris, London and Berlin.

The Problems in Chinese Government Financial Information Disclosure and Relevant Proposals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhe Wang

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Government financial information is an important part of government information, fully reporting the operational efficiency and the place where government puts tax onto. This paper analyses the problems in Chinese government financial information disclosure and the necessity of reform in detail. It also provides several proposals for the improvement of Chinese governmental financial report and financial information disclosure system.

POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVING EXISTING STANDARDS AND METHODOLOGIES FOR AUDITING INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO PROVIDE E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Евгений Геннадьевич Панкратов

2014-03-01

Full Text Available This article analyzes the existing methods of e-government systems audit, their shortcomings are examined.  The approaches to improve existing techniques and adapt them to the specific characteristics of e-government systems are suggested. The paper describes the methodology, providing possibilities of integrated assessment of information systems. This methodology uses systems maturity models and can be used in the construction of e-government rankings, as well as in the audit of their implementation process. Maturity models are based on COBIT, COSO methodologies and models of e-government, developed by the relevant committee of the UN. The methodology was tested during the audit of information systems involved in the payment of temporary disability benefits. The audit was carried out during analysis of the outcome of the pilot project for the abolition of the principle of crediting payments for disability benefits.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2014-2-5

47 CFR 79.2 - Accessibility of programming providing emergency information.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

..., widespread fires, discharge of toxic gases, widespread power failures, industrial explosions, civil disorders... of programming providing emergency information. (a) Definitions. (1) For purposes of this section, the definitions in §§ 79.1 and 79.3 apply. (2) Emergency information. Information, about a current...

Effects of self-schema elaboration on affective and cognitive reactions to self-relevant information.

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, L E; Stahlberg, D; Dauenheimer, D

2000-02-01

The basic assumption of the integrative self-schema model (ISSM; L.-E. Petersen, 1994; L.-E. Petersen, D. Stahlberg, & D. Dauenheimer, 1996; D. Stahlberg, L.-E. Petersen, & D. Dauenheimer, 1994, 1999) is that self-schema elaboration (schematic vs. aschematic) affects reactions to self-relevant information. This assumption is based on the idea that schematic dimensions occupy a more central position in the cognitive system than aschematic dimensions. In the first study, this basic prediction could be clearly confirmed: The results showed that schematic dimensions possessed stronger cognitive associations with other self-relevant cognitions as well as a higher resistance to change than aschematic dimensions did. In the second study, the main assumptions of the ISSM concerning the affective and cognitive reactions to self-relevant feedback were tested: The ISSM proposes that, on schematic dimensions, reactions to self-relevant feedback will most likely follow principles of self-consistency theory, whereas on aschematic dimensions positive feedback should elicit the most positive reactions that self-enhancement theory would predict. The experimental results clearly confirmed the hypotheses derived from the ISSM for affective reactions. Cognitive reactions, however, were in line with self-consistency principles and were not modified by the elaboration of the self-schema dimension involved.

INFO ANAV, a channel that is consolidated in the communication of information relevant to plant safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lopera Broto, A. J.; Balbas Gomez, S.

2012-01-01

This weekly publication intended to make it to all the people who work at the sites of Asco and Vandellos relevant information for security since we are all responsible for the safe and reliable operation of our plants.

Enhancing Public Access to Relevant and Valued Medical Information: Fresh Directions for RadiologyInfo.org.

Science.gov (United States)

Rubin, Geoffrey D; Krishnaraj, Arun; Mahesh, Mahadevappa; Rajendran, Ramji R; Fishman, Elliot K

2017-05-01

RadiologyInfo.org is a public information portal designed to support patient care and broaden public awareness of the essential role radiology plays in overall patient health care. Over the past 14 years, RadiologyInfo.org has evolved considerably to provide access to more than 220 mixed-media descriptions of tests, treatments, and diseases through a spectrum of mobile and desktop platforms, social media, and downloadable documents in both English and Spanish. In 2014, the RSNA-ACR Public Information Website Committee, which stewards RadiologyInfo.org, developed 3- to 5-year strategic and implementation plans for the website. The process was informed by RadiologyInfo.org user surveys, formal stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and usability testing. Metrics were established as key performance indicators to assess progress toward the stated goals of (1) optimizing content to enhance patient-centeredness, (2) enhancing reach and engagement, and (3) maintaining sustainability. Major changes resulting from this process include a complete redesign of the website, the replacement of text-rich PowerPoint presentations with conversational videos, and the development of an affiliate network. Over the past year, visits to RadiologyInfo.org have increased by 60.27% to 1,424,523 in August 2016 from 235 countries and territories. Twenty-two organizations have affiliated with RadiologyInfo.org with new organizations being added on a monthly basis. RadiologyInfo provides a tangible demonstration of how radiologists can engage directly with the global public to educate them on the value of radiology in their health care and to allay concerns and dispel misconceptions. Regular self-assessment and responsive planning will ensure its continued growth and relevance. Copyright © 2016 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Information Interaction: Providing a Framework for Information Architecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Toms, Elaine G.

2002-01-01

Discussion of information architecture focuses on a model of information interaction that bridges the gap between human and computer and between information behavior and information retrieval. Illustrates how the process of information interaction is affected by the user, the system, and the content. (Contains 93 references.) (LRW)

Relevance of travel agencies in the digital age

OpenAIRE

Mari Jansen van Rensburg

2014-01-01

In the digital age travellers have more choices and are better informed. This conceptual paper considers the evolution of business models in the travel industry and evaluates the value propositions offered by traditional retail travel agencies. Conclusions suggest that services provided by travel agents are still relevant and valuable. It was also found that the digital age offers various opportunities to agencies to harness the benefits of information communication techno...

Historical maintenance relevant information road-map for a self-learning maintenance prediction procedural approach

Science.gov (United States)

Morales, Francisco J.; Reyes, Antonio; Cáceres, Noelia; Romero, Luis M.; Benitez, Francisco G.; Morgado, Joao; Duarte, Emanuel; Martins, Teresa

2017-09-01

A large percentage of transport infrastructures are composed of linear assets, such as roads and rail tracks. The large social and economic relevance of these constructions force the stakeholders to ensure a prolonged health/durability. Even though, inevitable malfunctioning, breaking down, and out-of-service periods arise randomly during the life cycle of the infrastructure. Predictive maintenance techniques tend to diminish the appearance of unpredicted failures and the execution of needed corrective interventions, envisaging the adequate interventions to be conducted before failures show up. This communication presents: i) A procedural approach, to be conducted, in order to collect the relevant information regarding the evolving state condition of the assets involved in all maintenance interventions; this reported and stored information constitutes a rich historical data base to train Machine Learning algorithms in order to generate reliable predictions of the interventions to be carried out in further time scenarios. ii) A schematic flow chart of the automatic learning procedure. iii) Self-learning rules from automatic learning from false positive/negatives. The description, testing, automatic learning approach and the outcomes of a pilot case are presented; finally some conclusions are outlined regarding the methodology proposed for improving the self-learning predictive capability.

The Content-Provider Paradox: Universities in the Information Ecosystem.

Science.gov (United States)

Vaidhyanathan, Siva

2002-01-01

Asserts that universities' rush to abandon their role as "national parks" in the information ecosystem in favor of becoming profitable "content providers" has led to a paradox: to generate new knowledge, researchers and teachers need broad content freedom, but the role of content provider requires highly restrictive policies to…

Workplace Learning - How We Keep Track of Relevant Information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bischoff, Kerstin; Herder, Eelco; Nejdl, Wolfgang

2007-01-01

At the workplace, learning is often a by-product of working on complex projects, requiring self-steered, need-driven and goal-oriented retrieval of information just in time from documents or peers. The personal desktop provides one rich source for learning material and for adaptation of learning

A neural mechanism of dynamic gating of task-relevant information by top-down influence in primary visual cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamiyama, Akikazu; Fujita, Kazuhisa; Kashimori, Yoshiki

2016-12-01

Visual recognition involves bidirectional information flow, which consists of bottom-up information coding from retina and top-down information coding from higher visual areas. Recent studies have demonstrated the involvement of early visual areas such as primary visual area (V1) in recognition and memory formation. V1 neurons are not passive transformers of sensory inputs but work as adaptive processor, changing their function according to behavioral context. Top-down signals affect tuning property of V1 neurons and contribute to the gating of sensory information relevant to behavior. However, little is known about the neuronal mechanism underlying the gating of task-relevant information in V1. To address this issue, we focus on task-dependent tuning modulations of V1 neurons in two tasks of perceptual learning. We develop a model of the V1, which receives feedforward input from lateral geniculate nucleus and top-down input from a higher visual area. We show here that the change in a balance between excitation and inhibition in V1 connectivity is necessary for gating task-relevant information in V1. The balance change well accounts for the modulations of tuning characteristic and temporal properties of V1 neuronal responses. We also show that the balance change of V1 connectivity is shaped by top-down signals with temporal correlations reflecting the perceptual strategies of the two tasks. We propose a learning mechanism by which synaptic balance is modulated. To conclude, top-down signal changes the synaptic balance between excitation and inhibition in V1 connectivity, enabling early visual area such as V1 to gate context-dependent information under multiple task performances. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Age differences in default and reward networks during processing of personally relevant information.

Science.gov (United States)

Grady, Cheryl L; Grigg, Omer; Ng, Charisa

2012-06-01

We recently found activity in default mode and reward-related regions during self-relevant tasks in young adults. Here we examine the effect of aging on engagement of the default network (DN) and reward network (RN) during these tasks. Previous studies have shown reduced engagement of the DN and reward areas in older adults, but the influence of age on these circuits during self-relevant tasks has not been examined. The tasks involved judging personality traits about one's self or a well known other person. There were no age differences in reaction time on the tasks but older adults had more positive Self and Other judgments, whereas younger adults had more negative judgments. Both groups had increased DN and RN activity during the self-relevant tasks, relative to non-self tasks, but this increase was reduced in older compared to young adults. Functional connectivity of both networks during the tasks was weaker in the older relative to younger adults. Intrinsic functional connectivity, measured at rest, also was weaker in the older adults in the DN, but not in the RN. These results suggest that, in younger adults, the processing of personally relevant information involves robust activation of and functional connectivity within these two networks, in line with current models that emphasize strong links between the self and reward. The finding that older adults had more positive judgments, but weaker engagement and less consistent functional connectivity in these networks, suggests potential brain mechanisms for the "positivity bias" with aging. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

NetNorM: Capturing cancer-relevant information in somatic exome mutation data with gene networks for cancer stratification and prognosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Le Morvan, Marine; Zinovyev, Andrei; Vert, Jean-Philippe

2017-06-01

Genome-wide somatic mutation profiles of tumours can now be assessed efficiently and promise to move precision medicine forward. Statistical analysis of mutation profiles is however challenging due to the low frequency of most mutations, the varying mutation rates across tumours, and the presence of a majority of passenger events that hide the contribution of driver events. Here we propose a method, NetNorM, to represent whole-exome somatic mutation data in a form that enhances cancer-relevant information using a gene network as background knowledge. We evaluate its relevance for two tasks: survival prediction and unsupervised patient stratification. Using data from 8 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we show that it improves over the raw binary mutation data and network diffusion for these two tasks. In doing so, we also provide a thorough assessment of somatic mutations prognostic power which has been overlooked by previous studies because of the sparse and binary nature of mutations.

Mobile Student Information System

Science.gov (United States)

Asif, Muhammad; Krogstie, John

2011-01-01

Purpose: A mobile student information system (MSIS) based on mobile computing and context-aware application concepts can provide more user-centric information services to students. The purpose of this paper is to describe a system for providing relevant information to students on a mobile platform. Design/methodology/approach: The research…

ERP investigation of attentional disengagement from suicide-relevant information in patients with major depressive disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Baik, Seung Yeon; Jeong, Minkyung; Kim, Hyang Sook; Lee, Seung-Hwan

2018-01-01

Previous studies suggest the presence of attentional bias towards suicide-relevant information in suicidal individuals. However, the findings are limited by their reliance on behavioral measures. This study investigates the role of difficulty in disengaging attention from suicide-relevant stimuli using the P300 component of event-related potentials (ERPs). Forty-four adults with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) were administered the spatial cueing task using suicide-relevant and negatively-valenced words as cue stimuli. Disengagement difficulty was measured using reaction time and P300 during invalid trials. P300 amplitudes at Pz were higher in suicide-relevant compared to negatively-valenced word condition on invalid trials for participants with low rates of suicidal behavior. However, no such difference was found among participants with high rates of suicidal behavior. P300 amplitudes for suicide-relevant word condition were negatively correlated with "lifetime suicide ideation and attempt" at Pz. No significant results were found for the reaction time data, indicating that the ERP may be more sensitive in capturing the attentional disengagement effect. The groups were divided according to Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) total score. Neutral stimulus was not included as cue stimuli. Most participants were under medication during the experiment. Our results indicate that patients with MDD and low rates of suicidal behavior show difficulty in disengaging attention from suicide-relevant stimuli. We suggest that suicide-specific disengagement difficulties may be related to recentness of suicide attempt and that acquired capability for suicide may contribute to reduced disengagement difficulties. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of an online information and support resource for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients considering surgery: perspectives of health care providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Macculloch, Radha; Nyhof-Young, Joyce; Nicholas, David; Donaldson, Sandra; Wright, James G

2010-06-29

Adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis who are considering spinal surgery face a major decision that requires access to in-depth information and support. Unfortunately, most online resources provide incomplete and inconsistent information and minimal social support. The aim of this study was to develop an online information and support resource for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients considering spinal surgery. Prior to website development, a user-based needs assessment was conducted. The needs assessment involved a total of six focus groups with three stakeholder groups: (1) post-operative AIS patients or surgical candidates (10-18 years) (n = 11), (2) their parents (n = 6) and (3) health care providers (n = 11). This paper reports on the findings from focus groups with health care providers. Focus group methodology was used to invite a range of perspectives and stimulate discussion. During audio-recorded focus groups, an emergent table of website content was presented to participants for assessment of relevance, viability and comprehensiveness in targeting global domains of need. Specifically, effective presentation of content, desired aspects of information and support, and discussions about the value of peer support and the role of health professionals were addressed. Focus group transcripts were then subject to content analysis through a constant comparative review and analysis. Two focus groups were held with health care providers, consisting of 5 and 6 members respectively. Clinicians provided their perceptions of the information and support needs of surgical patients and their families and how this information and support should be delivered using internet technology. Health care providers proposed four key suggestions to consider in the development of this online resource: (1) create the website with the target audience in mind; (2) clearly state the purpose of the website and organize website content to support the user; (3) offer a

Analyzing traffic source impact on returning visitors ratio in information provider website

Science.gov (United States)

Prasetio, A.; Sari, P. K.; Sharif, O. O.; Sofyan, E.

2016-04-01

Web site performance, especially returning visitor is an important metric for an information provider web site. Since high returning visitor is a good indication of a web site’s visitor loyalty, it is important to find a way to improve this metric. This research investigated if there is any difference on returning visitor metric among three web traffic sources namely direct, referral and search. Monthly returning visitor and total visitor from each source is retrieved from Google Analytics tools and then calculated to measure returning visitor ratio. The period of data observation is from July 2012 to June 2015 resulting in a total of 108 samples. These data then analysed using One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to address our research question. The results showed that different traffic source has significantly different returning visitor ratio especially between referral traffic source and the other two traffic sources. On the other hand, this research did not find any significant difference between returning visitor ratio from direct and search traffic sources. The owner of the web site can focus to multiply referral links from other relevant sites.

The Innovative Activity of Enterprises in the Context of Providing Information Security

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sazonets Olga M.

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of the article is to study the peculiarities of the innovative activity in the context of providing the enterprise information security. By analyzing, systematizing and summarizing the scientific works of many scientists the essence of the concept of «information security» has been considered and components of the innovation development process from the standpoint of providing information security have been identified. The article discusses issues of providing information security on the basis of introducing innovations, which will allow achieving a state in which there would be realized a sustainable, protected from threats, development of the enterprise. It has been proved that the formation of the innovative enterprise policy should include measures to ensure information security. As a result of the study the types of threats to the enterprise information security have been identified. It has been determined that the innovation process in the field of information security is provided by means of research, administrative, industrial, technological and commercial activities leading to the emergence and commercialization of innovations. The prospect for further research in this area is determining a system of indicators for forecasting the integral innovation indicator of economic information security. The system of indicators for diagnostics of the enterprise information security level enables monitoring the indicators of the state of the enterprise innovation and information activity in order to prevent the emergence of threats.

30 CFR 210.40 - Will MMS keep the information I provide confidential?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Will MMS keep the information I provide... MINERALS REVENUE MANAGEMENT FORMS AND REPORTS General Provisions § 210.40 Will MMS keep the information I provide confidential? The MMS will treat information obtained under this part as confidential to the...

Differential impact of relevant and irrelevant dimension primes on rule-based and information-integration category learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Grimm, Lisa R; Maddox, W Todd

2013-11-01

Research has identified multiple category-learning systems with each being "tuned" for learning categories with different task demands and each governed by different neurobiological systems. Rule-based (RB) classification involves testing verbalizable rules for category membership while information-integration (II) classification requires the implicit learning of stimulus-response mappings. In the first study to directly test rule priming with RB and II category learning, we investigated the influence of the availability of information presented at the beginning of the task. Participants viewed lines that varied in length, orientation, and position on the screen, and were primed to focus on stimulus dimensions that were relevant or irrelevant to the correct classification rule. In Experiment 1, we used an RB category structure, and in Experiment 2, we used an II category structure. Accuracy and model-based analyses suggested that a focus on relevant dimensions improves RB task performance later in learning while a focus on an irrelevant dimension improves II task performance early in learning. © 2013.

Providers' Attitudes Toward Evidence-Based Practices: Is it Just About Providers, or do Practices Matter, Too?

Science.gov (United States)

Reding, Michael E. J.; Chorpita, Bruce F.; Lau, Anna S.; Innes-Gomberg, Debbie

2014-01-01

Evidence-based practice (EBP) attitudes were measured in a sample of Los Angeles County mental health service providers. Three types of data were collected: provider demographic characteristics, attitudes toward EBP in general, and attitudes toward specific EBPs being implemented in the county. Providers could reliably rate characteristics of specific EBPs, and these ratings differed across interventions. Preliminary implementation data indicate that appealing features of an EBP relate to the degree to which providers use it. These findings suggest that assessing EBP-specific attitudes is feasible and may offer implementation-relevant information beyond that gained solely from providers' general attitudes toward EBP. PMID:24166077

Post-encoding control of working memory enhances processing of relevant information in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

Science.gov (United States)

Brady, Ryan J; Hampton, Robert R

2018-06-01

Working memory is a system by which a limited amount of information can be kept available for processing after the cessation of sensory input. Because working memory resources are limited, it is adaptive to focus processing on the most relevant information. We used a retro-cue paradigm to determine the extent to which monkey working memory possesses control mechanisms that focus processing on the most relevant representations. Monkeys saw a sample array of images, and shortly after the array disappeared, they were visually cued to a location that had been occupied by one of the sample images. The cue indicated which image should be remembered for the upcoming recognition test. By determining whether the monkeys were more accurate and quicker to respond to cued images compared to un-cued images, we tested the hypothesis that monkey working memory focuses processing on relevant information. We found a memory benefit for the cued image in terms of accuracy and retrieval speed with a memory load of two images. With a memory load of three images, we found a benefit in retrieval speed but only after shortening the onset latency of the retro-cue. Our results demonstrate previously unknown flexibility in the cognitive control of memory in monkeys, suggesting that control mechanisms in working memory likely evolved in a common ancestor of humans and monkeys more than 32 million years ago. Future work should be aimed at understanding the interaction between memory load and the ability to control memory resources, and the role of working memory control in generating differences in cognitive capacity among primates. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Critical care providers refer to information tools less during communication tasks after a critical care clinical information system introduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Ballermann, Mark; Shaw, Nicola T; Mayes, Damon C; Gibney, R T Noel

2011-01-01

Electronic documentation methods may assist critical care providers with information management tasks in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). We conducted a quasi-experimental observational study to investigate patterns of information tool use by ICU physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists during verbal communication tasks. Critical care providers used tools less at 3 months after the CCIS introduction. At 12 months, care providers referred to paper and permanent records, especially during shift changes. The results suggest potential areas of improvement for clinical information systems in assisting critical care providers in ensuring informational continuity around their patients.

Exploring the information and communication technology competence and confidence of nursing students and their perception of its relevance to clinical practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Levett-Jones, Tracy; Kenny, Raelene; Van der Riet, Pamela; Hazelton, Michael; Kable, Ashley; Bourgeois, Sharon; Luxford, Yoni

2009-08-01

This paper profiles a study that explored nursing students' information and communication technology competence and confidence. It presents selected findings that focus on students' attitudes towards information and communication technology as an educational methodology and their perceptions of its relevance to clinical practice. Information and communication technology is integral to contemporary nursing practice. Development of these skills is important to ensure that graduates are 'work ready' and adequately prepared to practice in increasingly technological healthcare environments. This was a mixed methods study. Students (n=971) from three Australian universities were surveyed using an instrument designed specifically for the study, and 24 students participated in focus groups. The focus group data revealed that a number of students were resistant to the use of information and communication technology as an educational methodology and lacked the requisite skills and confidence to engage successfully with this educational approach. Survey results indicated that 26 per cent of students were unsure about the relevance of information and communication technology to clinical practice and only 50 per cent felt 'very confident' using a computer. While the importance of information and communication technology to student's learning and to their preparedness for practice has been established, it is evident that students' motivation is influenced by their level of confidence and competence, and their understanding of the relevance of information and communication technology to their future careers.

Providing information regarding exposures in pregnancy: a survey of North American Teratology Information Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Hancock, Rebecca L; Ungar, Wendy J; Einarson, Adrienne; Goodstadt, Michael; Koren, Gideon

2008-04-01

Teratology Information Services (TIS) provide information on exposures during pregnancy and breast-feeding. Maintaining ongoing funding is a challenge. The purpose was to gather descriptive information on current TIS operations. All North American TIS (16 American, 2 Canadian) completed a detailed survey. Service goal ranked as most important was correction of risk misperceptions. Inquiries were primarily for medications (mean 43.5%, S.D. 14.1), lactation exposures, and workplace exposures. Median employees per TIS: three (range 1-12.5). Two TIS only counsel health care professionals (HCPs). Main callers to remaining TIS were pregnant women (mean 46.8%, S.D. 22.8), physicians, and nurses. Calls per week varied (median 20, range 4-600). Median annual budget: US dollars 69,000 (range dollars 3000-335,000). Seventeen TIS collect patient data for research. This survey was the first to document TIS operations in North America and demonstrates a spectrum of clinical and research activities, and provides data for a future cost-benefit analysis of TIS.

Relevant thermal hydraulic aspects of advanced reactors design: status report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-11-01

This status report provides an overview on the relevant thermalhydraulic aspects of advanced reactor designs (e.g. ABWR, AP600, SBWR, EPR, ABB 80+, PIUS, etc.). Since all of the advanced reactor concepts are at the design stage, the information and data available in the open literature are still very limited. Some characteristics of advanced reactor designs are provided together with selected phenomena identification and ranking tables. Specific needs for thermalhydraulic codes together with the list of relevant and important thermalhydraulic phenomena for advanced reactor designs are summarized with the purpose of providing some guidance in development of research plans for considering further code development and assessment needs and for the planning of experimental programs

Some Clinically Useful Information that Neuropsychology Provides Patients, Carepartners, Neurologists, and Neurosurgeons About Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease

Science.gov (United States)

Tröster, Alexander I

2017-01-01

Abstract Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective (but non-curative) treatment for some of the motor symptoms and treatment complications associated with dopaminergic agents in Parkinson's disease (PD). DBS can be done relatively safely and is associated with quality of life gains. In most DBS centers, neuropsychological evaluations are performed routinely before surgery, and sometimes after surgery. The purpose of such evaluation is not to decide solely on its results whether or not to offer DBS to a given candidate, but to provide the patient and treatment team with the best available information to make reasonable risk-benefit assessments. This review provides information relevant to the questions often asked by patients and their carepartners, neurologists, and neurosurgeons about neuropsychological outcomes of DBS, including neuropsychological adverse event rates, magnitude of cognitive changes, outcomes after unilateral versus bilateral surgery directed at various targets, impact of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) on outcome, factors implicated in neurobehavioral outcomes, and safety of newer interventions or techniques such as asleep surgery and current steering. PMID:29077802

Selecting healthcare information systems provided by third-party vendors: a mind map beyond the manuals.

Science.gov (United States)

Gortzis, Lefteris G

2010-01-01

The selection of a new healthcare information system (HIS) has always been a daunting process for clinicians, health care providers and policy makers. The objective of this study is to present the lessons learned and the main findings from several relevant case studies to support this process. Data were collected by retrospectively reviewing the summative results of three well-established systems, acquiring feedback from two E.U. projects, and conducting semi-structured interviews with a number of collaborators involved in electronic healthcare interventions. Selection issues were identified and classified into the following five categories: (i) data creation, (ii) data management, (iii) data sharing, (iv) data presentation and (v) modules management. A mind map was also structured to provide a more manageable list of issues concerning the most common electronic clinical technologies (e-CT). The vendor manual is intended as an overview of the merchandise e-CT and therefore has limited potential in supporting effectively the selection process of a new HIS. The present classification and the mind map - based on lessons learned - provide a ready-to-use toolkit for supporting the HIS selection process when healthcare organisations are unable to employ research development groups to lay the groundwork for building a new HIS from scratch.

The foundation of the concept of relevance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hjørland, Birger

2010-01-01

that what was regarded as the most fundamental view by Saracevic in 1975 has not since been considered (with very few exceptions). Other views, which are based on less fruitful assumptions, have dominated the discourse on relevance in information retrieval and information science. Many authors have...... reexamined the concept of relevance in information science, but have neglected the subject knowledge view, hence basic theoretical assumptions seem not to have been properly addressed. It is as urgent now as it was in 1975 seriously to consider “the subject knowledge view” of relevance (which may also...... be termed “the epistemological view”). The concept of relevance, like other basic concepts, is influenced by overall approaches to information science, such as the cognitive view and the domain-analytic view. There is today a trend toward a social paradigm for information science. This paper offers...

Relevant Factors in The Post-Merger Systems Integration and Information Technology in Brazilian Banks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcel Ginotti Pires

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This article discusses the factors present in post-merger integration of Systems and Information Technology (SIT that lead to positive and negative results in mergers and acquisitions (M & A. The research comprised three of the largest acquiring banks in Brazil. We adopted two methods of research, qualitative, to operationalize the theoretical concepts and quantitative, to test the hypotheses. We interviewed six executives of banks that held relevant experience in M & A processes. Subsequently, we applied questionnaires to IT professionals who were involved in the SIT integration processes. The results showed that the quality and expertise of the integration teams and managing the integration were the most relevant factors in the processes, with positive results for increased efficiency and the increased capacity of SIT. Negative results were due to failures in exploiting learning opportunities, the loss of employees and the inexpressive record of integration procedures.

Elaboration of a guide including relevant project and logistic information: a case study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Costa, Tchaikowisky M. [Faculdade de Tecnologia e Ciencias (FTC), Itabuna, BA (Brazil); Bresci, Claudio T.; Franca, Carlos M.M. [PETROBRAS, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

2009-07-01

For every mobilization of a new enterprise it is necessary to quickly obtain the greatest amount of relative information in regards to location and availability of infra-structure, logistics, and work site amenities. Among this information are reports elaborated for management of the enterprise, (organizational chart, work schedule, objectives, contacts, etc.) as well as geographic anomalies, social-economic and culture of the area to be developed such as territorial extension, land aspects, local population, roads and amenities (fuel stations ,restaurants and hotels), infra-structure of the cities (health, education, entertainment, housing, transport, etc.) and logistically the distance between cities the estimated travel time, ROW access maps and notable points, among other relevant information. With the idea of making this information available for everyone involved in the enterprise, it was elaborated for GASCAC Spread 2A a rapid guide containing all the information mentioned above and made it available for all the vehicles used to transport employees and visitors to the spread. With this, everyone quickly received the majority of information necessary in one place, in a practical, quick, and precise manner, since the information is always used and controlled by the same person. This study includes the model used in the gas pipeline GASCAC Spread 2A project and the methodology used to draft and update the information. Besides the above, a file in the GIS format was prepared containing all necessary planning, execution and tracking information for enterprise activities, from social communication to the execution of the works previously mentioned. Part of the GIS file information was uploaded to Google Earth so as to disclose the information to a greater group of people, bearing in mind that this program is free of charge and easy to use. (author)

Transparency of Mandatory Information Disclosure and Concerns of Health Services Providers and Consumers.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Yu-Hua; Kung, Chih-Ming; Fang, Shih-Chieh; Chen, Yi

2017-01-09

This study analyzed differences between transparency of information disclosure and related demands from the health service consumer's perspective. It also compared how health service providers and consumers are associated by different levels of mandatory information disclosure. We obtained our research data using a questionnaire survey (health services providers, n = 201; health service consumers, n = 384). Health service consumers do not have major concerns regarding mandatory information disclosure. However, they are concerned about complaint channels and settlement results, results of patient satisfaction surveys, and disclosure of hospital financial statements ( p transparency of information disclosure ( p information provided by hospitals. Thus, when a hospital discloses information, it is necessary for the government to consider the information's applicability. Toward improving medical expertise and information asymmetry, the government has to reduce the burden among health service consumers in dealing with this information, and it has to use the information effectively.

Self-referential and anxiety-relevant information processing in subclinical social anxiety: an fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Abraham, Anna; Kaufmann, Carolin; Redlich, Ronny; Hermann, Andrea; Stark, Rudolf; Stevens, Stephan; Hermann, Christiane

2013-03-01

The fear of negative evaluation is one of the hallmark features of social anxiety. Behavioral evidence thus far largely supports cognitive models which postulate that information processing biases in the face of socially relevant information are a key factor underlying this widespread phobia. So far only one neuroimaging study has explicitly focused on the fear of negative evaluation in social anxiety where the brain responses of social phobics were compared to healthy participants during the processing of self-referential relative to other-referential criticism, praise or neutral information. Only self-referential criticism led to stronger activations in emotion-relevant regions of the brain, such as the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortices (mPFC), in the social phobics. The objective of the current study was to determine whether these findings could be extended to subclinical social anxiety. In doing so, the specificity of this self-referential bias was also examined by including both social and non-social (physical illness-related) threat information as well as a highly health anxious control group in the experimental paradigm. The fMRI findings indicated that the processing of emotional stimuli was accompanied by activations in the amygdala and the ventral mPFC, while self-referential processing was associated with activity in regions such as the mPFC, posterior cingulate and temporal poles. Despite the validation of the paradigm, the results revealed that the previously reported behavioral and brain biases associated with social phobia could not be unequivocally extended to subclinical social anxiety. The divergence between the findings is explored in detail with reference to paradigm differences and conceptual issues.

Social relevance enhances memory for impressions in older adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Cassidy, Brittany S; Gutchess, Angela H

2012-01-01

Previous research has demonstrated that older adults have difficulty retrieving contextual material over items alone. Recent research suggests this deficit can be reduced by adding emotional context, allowing for the possibility that memory for social impressions may show less age-related decline than memory for other types of contextual information. Two studies investigated how orienting to social or self-relevant aspects of information contributed to the learning and retrieval of impressions in young and older adults. Participants encoded impressions of others in conditions varying in the use of self-reference (Experiment 1) and interpersonal meaningfulness (Experiment 2), and completed memory tasks requiring the retrieval of specific traits. For both experiments, age groups remembered similar numbers of impressions. In Experiment 1 using more self-relevant encoding contexts increased memory for impressions over orienting to stimuli in a non-social way, regardless of age. In Experiment 2 older adults had enhanced memory for impressions presented in an interpersonally meaningful relative to a personally irrelevant way, whereas young adults were unaffected by this manipulation. The results provide evidence that increasing social relevance ameliorates age differences in memory for impressions, and enhances older adults' ability to successfully retrieve contextual information.

Current food chain information provides insufficient information for modern meat inspection of pigs.

Science.gov (United States)

Felin, Elina; Jukola, Elias; Raulo, Saara; Heinonen, Jaakko; Fredriksson-Ahomaa, Maria

2016-05-01

Meat inspection now incorporates a more risk-based approach for protecting human health against meat-borne biological hazards. Official post-mortem meat inspection of pigs has shifted to visual meat inspection. The official veterinarian decides on additional post-mortem inspection procedures, such as incisions and palpations. The decision is based on declarations in the food chain information (FCI), ante-mortem inspection and post-mortem inspection. However, a smooth slaughter and inspection process is essential. Therefore, one should be able to assess prior to slaughter which pigs are suitable for visual meat inspection only, and which need more profound inspection procedures. This study evaluates the usability of the FCI provided by pig producers and considered the possibility for risk ranking of incoming slaughter batches according to the previous meat inspection data and the current FCI. Eighty-five slaughter batches comprising 8954 fattening pigs were randomly selected at a slaughterhouse that receives animals from across Finland. The mortality rate, the FCI and the meat inspection results for each batch were obtained. The current FCI alone provided insufficient and inaccurate information for risk ranking purposes for meat inspection. The partial condemnation rate for a batch was best predicted by the partial condemnation rate calculated for all the pigs sent for slaughter from the same holding in the previous year (p<0.001) and by prior information on cough declared in the current FCI (p=0.02) statement. Training and information to producers are needed to make the FCI reporting procedures more accurate. Historical meat inspection data on pigs slaughtered from the same holdings and well-chosen symptoms/signs for reporting, should be included in the FCI to facilitate the allocation of pigs for visual inspection. The introduced simple scoring system can be easily used for additional information for directing batches to appropriate meat inspection procedures. To

Providing health information for culturally and linguistically diverse women: priorities and preferences of new migrants and refugees.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Susan K; Sulaiman-Hill, Cheryl M R; Thompson, Sandra C

2013-08-01

Preferences for topics and means of access to health information among newly arrived, culturally and linguistically diverse women in Perth, Western Australia, were explored. A mixed-methods approach was adopted. Qualitative material obtained from focus groups and interviews with 22 service providers and 26 migrant women was used to develop a questionnaire, which was then administered to 268 newly arrived migrant and refugee women from 50 countries. Participants' information and support priorities were ascertained from a ranking exercise conducted in a non-threatening context. Responses of migrant and refugee women were compared quantitatively. Women's top priorities for information and support included employment advice, as well as information regarding mental health issues, women's health, exercise and nutrition, family violence and alcohol and other drug issues. Their preferred methods for receiving information were interactive talks or presentations, with written material support. Audiovisual and Web-based material were also considered useful. There were differences between refugee women's and other migrants' preferences for means of receiving information and topics of most concern. The use of a non-threatening ranking process encouraged women to prioritise sensitive topics, such as family violence, and revealed a need for such topics to be incorporated within general health information presentations. Internet-based technologies are becoming increasingly important methods for disseminating information to migrant women. SO WHAT? Differences between migrant and refugee women's priority health issues and their preferred methods for receiving information highlight the desirability of tailoring information to particular groups. Although advice on employment pathways and mental health concerns were top priorities, the study revealed a need for more discussion on other sensitive topics, such as family violence and alcohol-related issues, and that ideally these should

Self-relevant beauty evaluation: Evidence from an event-related potentials study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Fanchang; Zhang, Yan; Tian, Yuan; Fan, Cuiying; Zhou, Zongkui

2015-03-01

This study examines the electrophysiological correlates of beauty evaluation when participants performed the self-reference task. About 13 (7 men, 6 women) undergraduates participated in the experiment using event-related potentials. Results showed that the response to self-relevant information was faster compared to other-relevant information and no significant differences for self-relevant relative to mother-relevant information were observed. Both physical and interior beauty words for self-relevant information showed an enhanced late positive component as compared to other-relevant information. Physical beauty for self-relevant information yielded a larger late positive component in contrast to mother-relevant information but not for interior beauty. This study indicates that beauty is specific to the person who judges it though an individual and one's mother may hold similar views of interior beauty.

An analysis of contingent factors for the detection of strategic relevance in business information technologies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Paños Álvarez

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Information Technologies are resources able to create competitive advantages for companies. In this analysis, the Resource-based perspective have taken special relevance, because it is argued that this advantages should be identified, reached and maintained. This work is positioned in the analysis of several contingent factors in the process of pointing the possible assesment of these advantages. It is aproaching a portfolio for helping to select what Information Technologies are valuable for what companies and in what activity areas and the study of in what way the sector, the technological innovation profile, the size and the financial capacity of the companies affects this process

Managing minor incidents - Providing information for the public

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joukovskaia, O.

1999-01-01

, it is needed to design a model of an effective system of informatively influencing human mind, given peculiarities of the present stage of the republic's development and features of its evolution under the post- Chernobyl conditions. To provide the public with real and objective information is a forefront problem while resolving these tasks. In this situation it is very important to define the most effective forms and ways of informing the public, to find out a degree to which people trust whatever information. To that end in 1997 conducted a sociological survey among attendees of re-training courses in the field of radiation control (employees of the Ministry of Health, Belarus Consumers' Cooperation Union, Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs, those of Chernobyl divisions of district and region executive committees). It has been revealed that 27 of the respondents trust information of local authorities; Radio and television - 7.2%; foreign scientists - 51.1%; Belarussian scientists and specialists - 51.6% of the respondents. 82.5% of the responders think that the population is insufficiently informed about the questions of safe activity. Information on radio-ecological problems threatens only 72% of the respondents. This kind of information stimulate others to find recommendations on safe activity provision, to understand the situation. As a result of the investigation one can draw a conclusion that the current system of public informing on the Chernobyl problem is insufficient and ineffective, since on the background of a high interest to this problem one can notice a decrease in trust to the majority of information sources, which leads to blocking of adequate perception of the information provided. Bearing this in mind one must: 1. attract specialists working on the affected territories, specialists of radiation control network, doctors, teachers, journalists to information work with population of the affected territories; 2. organise open information data

Internet-based information system of digital geological data providing

Science.gov (United States)

Yuon, Egor; Soukhanov, Mikhail; Markov, Kirill

2015-04-01

One of the Russian Federal аgency of mineral resources problems is to provide the geological information which was delivered during the field operation for the means of federal budget. This information should be present in the current, conditional form. Before, the leading way of presenting geological information were paper geological maps, slices, borehole diagrams reports etc. Technologies of database construction, including distributed databases, technologies of construction of distributed information-analytical systems and Internet-technologies are intensively developing nowadays. Most of geological organizations create their own information systems without any possibility of integration into other systems of the same orientation. In 2012, specialists of VNIIgeosystem together with specialists of VSEGEI started the large project - creating the system of providing digital geological materials with using modern and perspective internet-technologies. The system is based on the web-server and the set of special programs, which allows users to efficiently get rasterized and vectorised geological materials. These materials are: geological maps of scale 1:1M, geological maps of scale 1:200 000 and 1:2 500 000, the fragments of seamless geological 1:1M maps, structural zoning maps inside the seamless fragments, the legends for State geological maps 1:200 000 and 1:1 000 000, full author's set of maps and also current materials for international projects «Atlas of geological maps for Circumpolar Arctic scale 1:5 000 000» and «Atlas of Geologic maps of central Asia and adjacent areas scale 1:2 500 000». The most interesting and functional block of the system - is the block of providing structured and well-formalized geological vector materials, based on Gosgeolkart database (NGKIS), managed by Oracle and the Internet-access is supported by web-subsystem NGKIS, which is currently based on MGS-Framework platform, developed by VNIIgeosystem. One of the leading elements

Transparency of Mandatory Information Disclosure and Concerns of Health Services Providers and Consumers

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Yu-Hua; Kung, Chih-Ming; Fang, Shih-Chieh; Chen, Yi

2017-01-01

Background: This study analyzed differences between transparency of information disclosure and related demands from the health service consumer’s perspective. It also compared how health service providers and consumers are associated by different levels of mandatory information disclosure. Methods: We obtained our research data using a questionnaire survey (health services providers, n = 201; health service consumers, n = 384). Results: Health service consumers do not have major concerns regarding mandatory information disclosure. However, they are concerned about complaint channels and settlement results, results of patient satisfaction surveys, and disclosure of hospital financial statements (p transparency of information disclosure (p < 0.001). Conclusions: It may not be possible for outsiders to properly interpret the information provided by hospitals. Thus, when a hospital discloses information, it is necessary for the government to consider the information’s applicability. Toward improving medical expertise and information asymmetry, the government has to reduce the burden among health service consumers in dealing with this information, and it has to use the information effectively. PMID:28075362

User perspectives on relevance criteria

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Maglaughlin, Kelly L.; Sonnenwald, Diane H.

2002-01-01

, partially relevant, or not relevant to their information need; and explained their decisions in an interview. Analysis revealed 29 criteria, discussed positively and negatively, that were used by the participants when selecting passages that contributed or detracted from a document's relevance......This study investigates the use of criteria to assess relevant, partially relevant, and not-relevant documents. Study participants identified passages within 20 document representations that they used to make relevance judgments; judged each document representation as a whole to be relevant...... matter, thought catalyst), full text (e.g., audience, novelty, type, possible content, utility), journal/publisher (e.g., novelty, main focus, perceived quality), and personal (e.g., competition, time requirements). Results further indicate that multiple criteria are used when making relevant, partially...

Application of Ethics for Providing Telemedicine Services and Information Technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Langarizadeh, Mostafa; Moghbeli, Fatemeh; Aliabadi, Ali

2017-10-01

Advanced technology has increased the use of telemedicine and Information Technology (IT) in treating or rehabilitating diseases. An increased use of technology increases the importance of the ethical issues involved. The need for keeping patients' information confidential and secure, controlling a number of therapists' inefficiency as well as raising the quality of healthcare services necessitates adequate heed to ethical issues in telemedicine provision. The goal of this review is gathering all articles that are published through 5 years until now (2012-2017) for detecting ethical issues for providing telemedicine services and Information technology. The reason of this time is improvement of telemedicine and technology through these years. This article is important for clinical practice and also to world, because of knowing ethical issues in telemedicine and technology are always important factors for physician and health providers. the required data in this research were derived from published electronic sources and credible academic articles published in such databases as PubMed, Scopus and Science Direct. The following key words were searched for in separation and combination: tele-health, telemedicine, ethical issues in telemedicine. A total of 503 articles were found. After excluding the duplicates (n= 93), the titles and abstracts of 410 articles were skimmed according to the inclusion criteria. Finally, 64 articles remained. They were reviewed in full text and 36 articles were excluded. At the end, 28 articles were chosen which met our eligibility criteria and were included in this study. Ethics has been of a great significance in IT and telemedicine especially the Internet since there are more chances provided for accessing information. It is, however, accompanied by a threat to patients' personal information. Therefore, suggestions are made to investigate ethics in technology, to offer standards and guidelines to therapists. Due to the advancement in

40 CFR 310.24 - What happens if I provide incorrect or false information?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... false information? 310.24 Section 310.24 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY... § 310.24 What happens if I provide incorrect or false information? (a) You must not knowingly or recklessly make any statement or provide any information in your reimbursement application that is false...

The relevance of segments reports – measurement methodology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomasz Zimnicki

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The segment report is one of the areas of financial statements, and it obliges a company to provide infor-mation about the economic situation in each of its activity areas. The article evaluates the change of segment reporting standards from IAS14R to IFRS8 in the context of feature relevance. It presents the construction of a measure which allows the relevance of segment disclosures to be determined. The created measure was used to study periodical reports published by companies listed on the main market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange from three reporting periods – 2008, 2009 and 2013. Based on the re-search results, it was found that the change of segment reporting standards from IAS14R to IFRS8 in the context of relevance was legitimate.

47 CFR 64.707 - Public dissemination of information by providers of operator services.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public dissemination of information by providers of operator services. 64.707 Section 64.707 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION... § 64.707 Public dissemination of information by providers of operator services. Providers of operator...

Providing Global Change Information for Decision-Making: Capturing and Presenting Provenance

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Xiaogang; Fox, Peter; Tilmes, Curt; Jacobs, Katherine; Waple, Anne

2014-01-01

Global change information demands access to data sources and well-documented provenance to provide evidence needed to build confidence in scientific conclusions and, in specific applications, to ensure the information's suitability for use in decision-making. A new generation of Web technology, the Semantic Web, provides tools for that purpose. The topic of global change covers changes in the global environment (including alterations in climate, land productivity, oceans or other water resources, atmospheric composition and or chemistry, and ecological systems) that may alter the capacity of the Earth to sustain life and support human systems. Data and findings associated with global change research are of great public, government, and academic concern and are used in policy and decision-making, which makes the provenance of global change information especially important. In addition, since different types of decisions benefit from different types of information, understanding how to capture and present the provenance of global change information is becoming more of an imperative in adaptive planning.

Making Informed Decisions: The Role of Information Literacy in Ethical and Effective Engineering Design

Science.gov (United States)

Fosmire, Michael

2017-01-01

Engineering designers must make evidence-based decisions when applying the practical tools and techniques of their discipline to human problems. Information literacy provides a structure for determining information gaps, locating appropriate and relevant information, applying that information effectively, and documenting and managing the knowledge…

Does providing nutrition information at vending machines reduce calories per item sold?

Science.gov (United States)

Dingman, Deirdre A; Schulz, Mark R; Wyrick, David L; Bibeau, Daniel L; Gupta, Sat N

2015-02-01

In 2010, the United States (US) enacted a restaurant menu labeling law. The law also applied to vending machine companies selling food. Research suggested that providing nutrition information on menus in restaurants might reduce the number of calories purchased. We tested the effect of providing nutrition information and 'healthy' designations to consumers where vending machines were located in college residence halls. We conducted our study at one university in Southeast US (October-November 2012). We randomly assigned 18 vending machines locations (residence halls) to an intervention or control group. For the intervention we posted nutrition information, interpretive signage, and sent a promotional email to residents of the hall. For the control group we did nothing. We tracked sales over 4 weeks before and 4 weeks after we introduced the intervention. Our intervention did not change what the residents bought. We recommend additional research about providing nutrition information where vending machines are located, including testing formats used to present information.

Advancing science, practice, and policy relevant to school psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Jimerson, Shane R

2013-03-01

The purpose of this editorial to inform both readers and potential authors, the editor provides a few details relevant to the School Psychology Quarterly (SPQ) including: the mission, contemporary context, the new emphases of SPQ, the editorial board, and advice for authors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of web program for providing RI-biomics technical information

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

KI, Na Kyung; Kim, Joo Yeon; Jang, Sol Ah; Park, Tai Jin

2014-01-01

For designing the model of the web program, the demand survey for the technology and information has been performed for the students of the related departments, industrialists and researchers. And, the survey, such as advantages and disadvantages, for the current situations has been examined through comparison and analysis by the establishment type and operational process for the present operating web programs having the similar functions in Korea. The contents and web program for the technology and information system have been also developed by the question investigation and the expert opinions. This system for RI-Biomics has been developed by focusing the convenience for the information provision and the information search as the first constructing direction. Information has been collected by the operator in our institute and making contract with Global Trend Briefing of KISTI in Korea. The information collection in the web program has been designed as the direction regularly provided with RSS. Information has been then analyzed by constructing the expert pool provided from the advisory committee for the technology and information, and using them. The publicity for this web program has been performed by webzines and then it is noted that the publicity programs such as some events should be regularly developed when expanded and advanced to a community in future

Does Guiding Toward Task-Relevant Information Help Improve Graph Processing and Graph Comprehension of Individuals with Low or High Numeracy? An Eye-Tracker Experiment.

Science.gov (United States)

Keller, Carmen; Junghans, Alex

2017-11-01

Individuals with low numeracy have difficulties with understanding complex graphs. Combining the information-processing approach to numeracy with graph comprehension and information-reduction theories, we examined whether high numerates' better comprehension might be explained by their closer attention to task-relevant graphical elements, from which they would expect numerical information to understand the graph. Furthermore, we investigated whether participants could be trained in improving their attention to task-relevant information and graph comprehension. In an eye-tracker experiment ( N = 110) involving a sample from the general population, we presented participants with 2 hypothetical scenarios (stomach cancer, leukemia) showing survival curves for 2 treatments. In the training condition, participants received written instructions on how to read the graph. In the control condition, participants received another text. We tracked participants' eye movements while they answered 9 knowledge questions. The sum constituted graph comprehension. We analyzed visual attention to task-relevant graphical elements by using relative fixation durations and relative fixation counts. The mediation analysis revealed a significant ( P attention to task-relevant information, which did not differ between the 2 conditions. Training had a significant main effect on visual attention ( P attention to task-relevant graphical elements than individuals with low numeracy. With appropriate instructions, both groups can be trained to improve their graph-processing efficiency. Future research should examine (e.g., motivational) mediators between visual attention and graph comprehension to develop appropriate instructions that also result in higher graph comprehension.

Discussion of a method for providing general risk information by linking with the nuclear information

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shobu, Nobuhiro; Yokomizo, Shirou; Umezawa, Sayaka

2004-06-01

'Risk information navigator (http://www.ricotti.jp/risknavi/)', an internet tool for arousing public interest and fostering people's risk literacy, has been developed as the contents for the official website of Techno Community Square 'RICOTTI' (http://www.ricotti.jp) at TOKAI village. In this report we classified the risk information into the fields, Health/Daily Life', 'Society/Crime/Disaster' and Technology/Environment/Energy', for the internet tool contents. According to these categories we discussed a method for providing various risk information on general fields by linking with the information on nuclear field. The web contents are attached to this report with the CD-R media. (author)

Information Needs for Water Management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Timmerman, J.G.

2014-01-01

This book provides the necessary elements to determine exactly what information should be collected to make the collected information relevant for policy makers. It highlights the dissatisfaction of information users about the information they get and the reasons for this dissatisfaction. It also

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEMOGRAPHICS AND THE USAGE AND PERCEIVED CREDIBILITY OF SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON ACCOMMODATION PROVIDERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ovidiu I. MOISESCU

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the usage and perceived credibility of several sources of information domestic travelers take into consideration when gathering information on potential accommodation providers, on one hand, and, respectively, travelers’ demographic characteristics, on the other hand. After analyzing data from an online questionnaire based study conducted among a sample of 346 young Romanian Facebook users (between 19 and 35 years old, the results showed that, considering types of information sources usually taken into consideration, personal sources and Facebook are more frequently found among travelers with a lower income, travel agencies are more frequently mentioned as usual sources of information among older travelers and among those with a higher level of education, while women are more inclined than men to use leaflets and booklets as sources of information on accommodation providers. Moreover, the research showed that the higher the income, the higher the level of perceived credibility of online portals is. Also, travel agencies and personal sources are more frequently mentioned among the most credible sources by women, than by men, while men are slightly more confident than women in online banners and blogs. The findings can be very useful and relevant from a practical perspective, especially for communication and promotion purposes in the hospitality industry.

Automated selection of relevant information for notification of incident cancer cases within a multisource cancer registry.

Science.gov (United States)

Jouhet, V; Defossez, G; Ingrand, P

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a selection algorithm of relevant records for the notification of incident cases of cancer on the basis of the individual data available in a multi-source information system. This work was conducted on data for the year 2008 in the general cancer registry of Poitou-Charentes region (France). The selection algorithm hierarchizes information according to its level of relevance for tumoral topography and tumoral morphology independently. The selected data are combined to form composite records. These records are then grouped in respect with the notification rules of the International Agency for Research on Cancer for multiple primary cancers. The evaluation, based on recall, precision and F-measure confronted cases validated manually by the registry's physicians with tumours notified with and without records selection. The analysis involved 12,346 tumours validated among 11,971 individuals. The data used were hospital discharge data (104,474 records), pathology data (21,851 records), healthcare insurance data (7508 records) and cancer care centre's data (686 records). The selection algorithm permitted performances improvement for notification of tumour topography (F-measure 0.926 with vs. 0.857 without selection) and tumour morphology (F-measure 0.805 with vs. 0.750 without selection). These results show that selection of information according to its origin is efficient in reducing noise generated by imprecise coding. Further research is needed for solving the semantic problems relating to the integration of heterogeneous data and the use of non-structured information.

Prescription painkillers and controlled substances: an appraisal of drug information provided by six US pharmacies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gill PS

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Preetinder S GillCollege of Technology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, USABackground: Health literacy impacts health outcomes. Health literacy is a measure of a person's competence to find, access, contextualize, and understand the information needed to make health decisions. Low levels of health literacy have been associated with poor health status. Health literacy can be enhanced by improving the readability of health literature. Misuse and abuse of prescription medicines and controlled substances is rising. It could be argued that improving the readability of the drug-information documents associated with these medicines could serve to alleviate this situation in a small, albeit incremental, manner. This paper provides a readability assessment of 71 such documents.Methods: The readability of drug-information documents associated with 12 commonly misused and abused painkiller medicines and controlled substances published by the top six US pharmacies was assessed. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch Reading Ease, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG indices were used to assess the readability of these drug-information documents. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA was used to compare the readability of the documents.Results: The average Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level index score was found to be 11.16. The average Flesch Reading Ease index score was found to be 45.94. The average SMOG index score was found to be 13.60. Pharmacies C and E had the best average readability scores, whereas pharmacies A and B had the worst average readability scores.Conclusion: Access, contents, and formatting of the documents were qualitatively analyzed to make recommendations to improve readability. Pharmacies C and E were used as benchmarks to identify the seven best practices. Good drug-information documents should have: (1 clear purpose, (2 limited scope, (3 summary/brief review, (4 well-placed graphics, (5 informative illustrations, (6 clean

Transparency of Mandatory Information Disclosure and Concerns of Health Services Providers and Consumers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu-Hua Yan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background: This study analyzed differences between transparency of information disclosure and related demands from the health service consumer’s perspective. It also compared how health service providers and consumers are associated by different levels of mandatory information disclosure. Methods: We obtained our research data using a questionnaire survey (health services providers, n = 201; health service consumers, n = 384. Results: Health service consumers do not have major concerns regarding mandatory information disclosure. However, they are concerned about complaint channels and settlement results, results of patient satisfaction surveys, and disclosure of hospital financial statements (p < 0.001. We identified significant differences in health service providers’ and consumers’ awareness regarding the transparency of information disclosure (p < 0.001. Conclusions: It may not be possible for outsiders to properly interpret the information provided by hospitals. Thus, when a hospital discloses information, it is necessary for the government to consider the information’s applicability. Toward improving medical expertise and information asymmetry, the government has to reduce the burden among health service consumers in dealing with this information, and it has to use the information effectively.

Health Information Provided by Retail Health Food Outlets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaclyn Calder

2000-01-01

Full Text Available Alternative health practices have become increasingly popular in recent years. Many patients visit specific complementary practitioners, while others attempt to educate themselves, trusting advice from employees at local health food stores or the Internet. Thirty-two retail health food stores were surveyed on the nature of the information provided by their staff. A research assistant visited the stores and presented as the mother of a child in whom Crohn’s disease had been diagnosed. Seventy-two per cent (23 of 32 of store employees offered advice, such as to take nutritional and herbal supplements. Of the 23 stores where recommendations were made, 15 (65% based their recommendation on a source of information. Fourteen of the 15 stores using information sources used the same reference book. This had a significant impact on the recommendations; the use of nutritional supplements was favoured. In conclusion, retail health food stores are not as inconsistent as hypothesized, although there are many variances in the types of supplements recommended for the same chronic disease.

Satisfaction with information provided to Danish cancer patients: validation and survey results.

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, Lone; Petersen, Morten Aagaard; Johnsen, Anna Thit; Lundstrøm, Louise Hyldborg; Groenvold, Mogens

2013-11-01

To validate five items (CPWQ-inf) regarding satisfaction with information provided to cancer patients from health care staff, assess the prevalence of dissatisfaction with this information, and identify factors predicting dissatisfaction. The questionnaire was validated by patient-observer agreement and cognitive interviews. The prevalence of dissatisfaction was assessed in a cross-sectional sample of all cancer patients in contact with hospitals during the past year in three Danish counties. The validation showed that the CPWQ performed well. Between 3 and 23% of the 1490 participating patients were dissatisfied with each of the measured aspects of information. The highest level of dissatisfaction was reported regarding the guidance, support and help provided when the diagnosis was given. Younger patients were consistently more dissatisfied than older patients. The brief CPWQ performs well for survey purposes. The survey depicts the heterogeneous patient population encountered by hospital staff and showed that younger patients probably had higher expectations or a higher need for information and that those with more severe diagnoses/prognoses require extra care in providing information. Four brief questions can efficiently assess information needs. With increasing demands for information, a wide range of innovative initiatives is needed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Providing Consumers with Web-Based Information on the Environmental Effects of Automobiles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Saulsbury, J.W.

2003-08-25

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provide consumers with web-based information on the environmental effects of automobiles so that individuals can make informed choices about the vehicles they use or may purchase. DOE and EPA maintain a web site (www.fueleconomy.gov) that provides users with information about fuel economy [as well as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution emissions] for the cars and trucks they use or may consider purchasing. EPA also maintains a separate web site (www.epa.gov/greenvehicles) that offers similar information, with the focus on air pollution emissions rather than fuel economy. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) (www.greenercars.com) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) (www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/ccbg/ccbg.htm) also maintain web sites that provide consumers with information on the environmental effects of automobiles. Through the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, DOE has supported some initial qualitative research with people who are interested in purchasing a new or used vehicle and whose actions identify them as at least somewhat concerned about the environment. The purpose of this research was to explore and understand how these people respond to the different ratings and measurements of environmental effects provided by the four web sites. The goal of the research is to optimize the communication of information provided on the DOE/EPA web site (www.fueleconomy.gov). Working with a private marketing research firm (The Looking Glass Group of Knoxville, Tennessee), NTRC staff initiated this research by meeting with two focus groups in Knoxville on February 27, 2001. To obtain information for comparison, staff from the NTRC and the Looking Glass Group also met with two focus groups in Los Angeles, California, on August 13, 2001.

The Criteria People Use in Relevance Decisions on Health Information: An Analysis of User Eye Movements When Browsing a Health Discussion Forum.

Science.gov (United States)

Pian, Wenjing; Khoo, Christopher Sg; Chang, Yun-Ke

2016-06-20

People are increasingly accessing health-related social media sites, such as health discussion forums, to post and read user-generated health information. It is important to know what criteria people use when deciding the relevance of information found on health social media websites, in different situations. The study attempted to identify the relevance criteria that people use when browsing a health discussion forum, in 3 types of use contexts: when seeking information for their own health issue, when seeking for other people's health issue, and when browsing without a particular health issue in mind. A total of 58 study participants were self-assigned to 1 of the 3 use contexts or information needs and were asked to browse a health discussion forum, HealthBoards.com. In the analysis, browsing a discussion forum was divided into 2 stages: scanning a set of post surrogates (mainly post titles) in the summary result screen and reading a detailed post content (including comments by other users). An eye tracker system was used to capture participants' eye movement behavior and the text they skim over and focus (ie, fixate) on during browsing. By analyzing the text that people's eyes fixated on, the types of health information used in the relevance judgment were determined. Post-experiment interviews elicited participants' comments on the relevance of the information and criteria used. It was found that participants seeking health information for their own health issue focused significantly more on the poster's symptoms, personal history of the disease, and description of the disease (P=.01, .001, and .02). Participants seeking for other people's health issue focused significantly more on cause of disease, disease terminology, and description of treatments and procedures (P=.01, .01, and .02). In contrast, participants browsing with no particular issue in mind focused significantly more on general health topics, hot topics, and rare health issues (P=.01, .01, and .01

The Criteria People Use in Relevance Decisions on Health Information: An Analysis of User Eye Movements When Browsing a Health Discussion Forum

Science.gov (United States)

Khoo, Christopher SG; Chang, Yun-Ke

2016-01-01

Background People are increasingly accessing health-related social media sites, such as health discussion forums, to post and read user-generated health information. It is important to know what criteria people use when deciding the relevance of information found on health social media websites, in different situations. Objective The study attempted to identify the relevance criteria that people use when browsing a health discussion forum, in 3 types of use contexts: when seeking information for their own health issue, when seeking for other people’s health issue, and when browsing without a particular health issue in mind. Methods A total of 58 study participants were self-assigned to 1 of the 3 use contexts or information needs and were asked to browse a health discussion forum, HealthBoards.com. In the analysis, browsing a discussion forum was divided into 2 stages: scanning a set of post surrogates (mainly post titles) in the summary result screen and reading a detailed post content (including comments by other users). An eye tracker system was used to capture participants’ eye movement behavior and the text they skim over and focus (ie, fixate) on during browsing. By analyzing the text that people’s eyes fixated on, the types of health information used in the relevance judgment were determined. Post-experiment interviews elicited participants’ comments on the relevance of the information and criteria used. Results It was found that participants seeking health information for their own health issue focused significantly more on the poster’s symptoms, personal history of the disease, and description of the disease (P=.01, .001, and .02). Participants seeking for other people’s health issue focused significantly more on cause of disease, disease terminology, and description of treatments and procedures (P=.01, .01, and .02). In contrast, participants browsing with no particular issue in mind focused significantly more on general health topics, hot

30 CFR 291.111 - How does MMS treat the confidential information I provide?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false How does MMS treat the confidential information... SHELF LANDS ACT § 291.111 How does MMS treat the confidential information I provide? (a) Any person who provides documents under this part in response to a request by MMS to inform a decision on whether open...

Searchers' relevance judgments and criteria in evaluating Web pages in a learning style perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Papaeconomou, Chariste; Zijlema, Annemarie F.; Ingwersen, Peter

2008-01-01

The paper presents the results of a case study of searcher's relevance criteria used for assessments of Web pages in a perspective of learning style. 15 test persons participated in the experiments based on two simulated work tasks that provided cover stories to trigger their information needs. Two...... learning styles were examined: Global and Sequential learners. The study applied eye-tracking for the observation of relevance hot spots on Web pages, learning style index analysis and post-search interviews to gain more in-depth information on relevance behavior. Findings reveal that with respect to use......, they are statistically insignificant. When interviewed in retrospective the resulting profiles tend to become even similar across learning styles but a shift occurs from instant assessments with content features of web pages replacing topicality judgments as predominant relevance criteria....

Types of Lexicographical Information Needs and their Relevance for Information Science

OpenAIRE

Bergenholtz, Henning; Agerbo, Heidi

2017-01-01

In some situations, you need information in order to solve a problem that has occurred. In information science, user needs are often described through very specific examples rather than through a classification of situation types in which information needs occur. Furthermore, information science often describes general human needs, typically with a reference to Maslow's classification of needs (1954), instead of actual information needs. Lexicography has also focused on information needs, but...

Zika Virus: Critical Information for Emergency Providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Shastry, Siri; Koenig, Kristi L; Hirshon, Jon Mark

2016-08-01

Zika virus is an arbovirus of the Flaviviridae family. It is primarily a minimally symptomatic mosquito-borne infection. However, with Zika's 2015 to 2016 introduction into the Western Hemisphere and its dramatic and rapid spread, it has become a public health concern, in large part due to congenital abnormalities associated with infection in pregnant women. In early 2016, the World Health Organization declared the microcephaly and other neurologic conditions associated with Zika virus infection a public health emergency of international concern. This article discusses the current epidemiologic and clinical understanding of Zika virus, focusing on critical information needed by emergency providers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Protection of safety-relevant information in distributed energy information systems; Schutz sicherheitsrelevanter Informationen in verteilten Energieinformationssystemen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Beenken, Petra

2010-07-01

Within the last years there has been an ongoing change in the energy domain. The German renewable energies law EnWG requires a liberalization that leads to a strict separation of domains such as transportation, supply and conversion of energy. Furthermore, climate and environmental protection as well as cost transparency and energy saving in combination with efficiency of resources leads to new challenges for the energy industry. The so called smart grid vision and the concluding design of an ICT-based information structure for the energy domain will help to reach these goals by integrating renewable energy resources, saving fuels and getting a higher energy efficiency. In order to reach these goals, information about current energy generation, energy storage and energy demand is required. Through an efficient network and fast information exchange by means of an energy information network an efficient energy use can be gained. The federated networking of an energy information network like this can tend to a weakness for cyber security within the energy domain. The growing number of people involved and data exchanges will create more potential points of attacks than before. Therefore, a suitable protection of an energy information network is necessary. Through paragraph 9 EnWG the protection goal confidentiality is particularly important. But the implementation of confidentiality must not lead to a violation of availability requirements, which are very important at some point of the energy domain. Additionally to the identification of such crucial side effects, the implementation of confidentiality for distributed, decentral systems is a challenge for the domain. The ENERTRUST security model includes a knowledge base construction, which allows the identification of such side effects or conflicts in the energy domain by applying reasoning techniques. Moreover, it allows the realization of confidentiality from distributed locations through a use and combination of

Duty to provide pre-contractual information of crop insurance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivančević Katarina

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Crop insurance is one of the most important types of agricultural insurance. From the aspect of insurance technique, this insurance is very challenging and requires careful drafting of insurance terms and tariffs. This type of insurance can provide security to farmers in case of financial losses caused by numerous risks which they are exposed to. Insufficient knowledge of the opportunities that the insurance provides is caused in part by inaccurate and vague explanations that have been offered by insurers in negotiation stage to interested farmers. In this regard, an important novelty in Serbian law is the obligation of contractual information which was introduced by the new Insurance Law (IL. In this way, additional protection to users of the service of insurance in relation to the provisions of the obligation law is provided. The goal of this obligation is to allow a negotiator to gain a clear idea of the essential elements of the insurance contract, to consider the proposed coverage and make a reasonable decision whether to accept the conclusion of the insurance contract or not, i.e. under what conditions it should be concluded. Sanctions for failure in the obligation to inform act preventively and repressively on insurers. The aim of this study is analyse the legal and factual position of the service beneficiaries in terms of obligation of economically and experientially superior contractor of lawful and full information of a policyholder prior to the conclusion of an insurance contract in a very specific branch of insurance, such as crop insurance. The application of inductive-deductive and comparative-legal research method, points to certain doctrinal and normative solutions from other legal systems, legal provisions applicable in the law of the Republic of Serbia are critically set out, as well as the daily practice of insurance companies.

Use and perceptions of information among family physicians: sources considered accessible, relevant, and reliable.

Science.gov (United States)

Kosteniuk, Julie G; Morgan, Debra G; D'Arcy, Carl K

2013-01-01

The research determined (1) the information sources that family physicians (FPs) most commonly use to update their general medical knowledge and to make specific clinical decisions, and (2) the information sources FPs found to be most physically accessible, intellectually accessible (easy to understand), reliable (trustworthy), and relevant to their needs. A cross-sectional postal survey of 792 FPs and locum tenens, in full-time or part-time medical practice, currently practicing or on leave of absence in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan was conducted during the period of January to April 2008. Of 666 eligible physicians, 331 completed and returned surveys, resulting in a response rate of 49.7% (331/666). Medical textbooks and colleagues in the main patient care setting were the top 2 sources for the purpose of making specific clinical decisions. Medical textbooks were most frequently considered by FPs to be reliable (trustworthy), and colleagues in the main patient care setting were most physically accessible (easy to access). When making specific clinical decisions, FPs were most likely to use information from sources that they considered to be reliable and generally physically accessible, suggesting that FPs can best be supported by facilitating easy and convenient access to high-quality information.

Geometric information provider platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meisam Yousefzadeh

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Renovation of existing buildings is known as an essential stage in reduction of the energy loss. Considerable part of renovation process depends on geometric reconstruction of building based on semantic parameters. Following many research projects which were focused on parameterizing the energy usage, various energy modelling methods were developed during the last decade. On the other hand, by developing accurate measuring tools such as laser scanners, the interests of having accurate 3D building models are rapidly growing. But the automation of 3D building generation from laser point cloud or detection of specific objects in that is still a challenge.  The goal is designing a platform through which required geometric information can be efficiently produced to support energy simulation software. Developing a reliable procedure which extracts required information from measured data and delivers them to a standard energy modelling system is the main purpose of the project.

75 FR 20843 - Notice of Workshop To Discuss Policy-Relevant Science to Inform EPA's Integrated Plan for the...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-21

... Policy-Relevant Science to Inform EPA's Integrated Plan for the Review of the Lead National Ambient Air.... Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing that a workshop entitled, ``Workshop to Discuss Policy... workshop will be open to attendance by interested public observers on a first-come, first-served basis up...

Kernel-Based Relevance Analysis with Enhanced Interpretability for Detection of Brain Activity Patterns

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andres M. Alvarez-Meza

2017-10-01

Full Text Available We introduce Enhanced Kernel-based Relevance Analysis (EKRA that aims to support the automatic identification of brain activity patterns using electroencephalographic recordings. EKRA is a data-driven strategy that incorporates two kernel functions to take advantage of the available joint information, associating neural responses to a given stimulus condition. Regarding this, a Centered Kernel Alignment functional is adjusted to learning the linear projection that best discriminates the input feature set, optimizing the required free parameters automatically. Our approach is carried out in two scenarios: (i feature selection by computing a relevance vector from extracted neural features to facilitating the physiological interpretation of a given brain activity task, and (ii enhanced feature selection to perform an additional transformation of relevant features aiming to improve the overall identification accuracy. Accordingly, we provide an alternative feature relevance analysis strategy that allows improving the system performance while favoring the data interpretability. For the validation purpose, EKRA is tested in two well-known tasks of brain activity: motor imagery discrimination and epileptic seizure detection. The obtained results show that the EKRA approach estimates a relevant representation space extracted from the provided supervised information, emphasizing the salient input features. As a result, our proposal outperforms the state-of-the-art methods regarding brain activity discrimination accuracy with the benefit of enhanced physiological interpretation about the task at hand.

Sexual health-related information delivery - are patient information leaflets still relevant?

Science.gov (United States)

Varma, Rick; Chung, Charles; Townsend, Amanda; Power, Melissa

2016-06-01

Background Patient information leaflets (PILs) are widely utilised within publically funded sexual health clinics to deliver sexual health-related information (SHRI); however, their continued value to clients in the era of social media is unclear. This study aimed to evaluate clients' opinions on three newly developed PILs and examine client views on other forms of SHRI delivery. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was completed by clients attending the Western Sydney Sexual Health Centre (WSSHC) in 2012. High-risk population (HRP) vs non-high-risk population (non-HRP) views on PILs vs alternative methods of SHRI delivery were analysed by using Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon, McNemar and χ(2) tests. Over half (210/315; (67%)) of the consecutive clients from a culturally diverse population completed the survey. Sex workers (SW) and young people (YP) were significantly likely to have a high school education than non-HRP (PInformation Link (SHIL), a state-wide website and telephone line, were ranked significantly higher as a means of SHRI delivery on a Likert scale than newer technologies including Facebook (P<0.001), email (P<0.001), mobile phone applications (P<0.001), TVs in waiting rooms (P<0.001) and business cards (P<0.001). There was no significant difference in opinion between HRP and non-HRP. This study provides evidence for the ongoing use of PILs to deliver SHRI to clinic attendees, in conjunction with other forms of SHRI delivery such as websites and SHIL. Novel methods may require additional consumer engagement and a greater understanding of specific population's needs.

The Relevance of Vocational High School Curriculum with the Requirement of the Heavy Equipment Industries

Science.gov (United States)

Asfiyanur, E. P.; Sumardi, K.; Rahayu, Y.; Putra, R. C.

2018-02-01

This study aims to determine the relevance of competencies developed by vocational high schools with the needs of workers in the industrial world. This is to answer the statement from the world of industry that the competencies possessed by vocational secondary education graduates are not in accordance with industry standards. This research is a qualitative research conducted by collecting data, presenting accurate and objective information. Respondents of this research are industrial institutions in the field of heavy equipment, vocational education institutions and government agencies in charge of manpower. Selection of informants / sources of information used is purposive sample technique, which aims to give consideration to select informants who meet the criteria in providing accurate information. The results of this study provide insight and input to vocational secondary education managers about various information in developing vocational secondary education curriculum, major issues include curriculum content relevance, technological advances in the heavy equipment industry, updating of school facilities and collaboration between educational institutions and labor institutions and the industrial world in the development of vocational secondary education.

30 CFR 250.1406 - When will MMS notify me and provide penalty information?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false When will MMS notify me and provide penalty information? 250.1406 Section 250.1406 Mineral Resources MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE... (OCS) Civil Penalties § 250.1406 When will MMS notify me and provide penalty information? If the...

Atlas selection for hippocampus segmentation: Relevance evaluation of three meta-information parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

Dill, Vanderson; Klein, Pedro Costa; Franco, Alexandre Rosa; Pinho, Márcio Sarroglia

2018-04-01

Current state-of-the-art methods for whole and subfield hippocampus segmentation use pre-segmented templates, also known as atlases, in the pre-processing stages. Typically, the input image is registered to the template, which provides prior information for the segmentation process. Using a single standard atlas increases the difficulty in dealing with individuals who have a brain anatomy that is morphologically different from the atlas, especially in older brains. To increase the segmentation precision in these cases, without any manual intervention, multiple atlases can be used. However, registration to many templates leads to a high computational cost. Researchers have proposed to use an atlas pre-selection technique based on meta-information followed by the selection of an atlas based on image similarity. Unfortunately, this method also presents a high computational cost due to the image-similarity process. Thus, it is desirable to pre-select a smaller number of atlases as long as this does not impact on the segmentation quality. To pick out an atlas that provides the best registration, we evaluate the use of three meta-information parameters (medical condition, age range, and gender) to choose the atlas. In this work, 24 atlases were defined and each is based on the combination of the three meta-information parameters. These atlases were used to segment 352 vol from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. Hippocampus segmentation with each of these atlases was evaluated and compared to reference segmentations of the hippocampus, which are available from ADNI. The use of atlas selection by meta-information led to a significant gain in the Dice similarity coefficient, which reached 0.68 ± 0.11, compared to 0.62 ± 0.12 when using only the standard MNI152 atlas. Statistical analysis showed that the three meta-information parameters provided a significant improvement in the segmentation accuracy. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd

7 CFR 2902.6 - Providing product information to Federal agencies.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... manufacturers and vendors to provide product, business contacts, and product information for designated items... characteristics, including verification of such characteristics if requested. (b) Advertising, labeling and marketing claims. Manufacturers and vendors are reminded that their advertising, labeling, and other...

Regional Information System for Educators. Information Resources; Installation and Evaluation; Information Services; An Operational Handbook; Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 6, 1969. (five documents)

Science.gov (United States)

Grimes, George; And Others

A series of four pamphlets which describe the Regional Information System (RIS) of the Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory (MOREL), a system designed to provide an effective, systematic methodology for linking users with relevant resources, compose the major portion of this information package. Each publication details an aspect of the…

Providing public information in the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fon Jager, Mojca

2000-01-01

Full text: Good safety culture is strongly related to transparent and timely information. Experience has shown that radiation and nuclear safety are under continuous surveillance by the public. The provision of open and authentic information to the public is a fundamental policy of the SNSA. The SNSA endeavors to provide substantial and reliable information to the interested institutions, mass media and to the citizens through press conferences, public statements, media discussions, and active participation in domestic and international meetings, symposia and congresses, through publications, the Internet and direct contacts with the interested public. The SNSA regularly provides information on nuclear safety to the Government, the National Assembly and the citizens of the Republic of Slovenia. The Annual Report on Nuclear and Radiation Safety is published in Poroeevalec (Reporter) - the publication of the National Assembly - in autumn, and is available in public libraries throughout Slovenia. Annual Report is available also on the Internet (http://www.sigov.si/ursjv/uvod.html) in Slovene and English. Access to data of the Central Radiation Early Warning System of Slovenia (CROSS), recording the real time (at half-hour intervals) gamma dose rate levels, is also available through Internet. The report in English is sent every year to Slovenian embassies world-wide, to certain foreign embassies in Slovenia and to other organizations participating in the activities in the nuclear and radiological field. Reports on the SNSA activities are also published in the bulletin Okolje in prostor (Environment and Spatial Planning), published by the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning. The SNSA regularly contributes articles on courses, seminars and symposia attended at home and abroad. The articles are intended to give basic information on training and the names of contact persons to provide additional information on certain topics to those interested. More than half of

The applicability of constructivist user studies: how can constructivist inquiry inform service providers and systems designers? Constructivist inquiry, Case study, Systems design, User behaviour

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alison Pickard

2004-01-01

Full Text Available This paper has attempted to clarify the ways in which individual, holistic case studies, produced via the process of constructivist inquiry, can be tested for trustworthiness and applied to other, similar situations. Service providers and systems designers need contextual information concerning their users in order to design and provide systems and services that will function effectively and efficiently within those contexts. Abstract models can only provide abstract insight into human behaviour and this is rarely sufficient detail upon which to base the planning and delivery of a service. The methodological issues which surround the applicability of individual, holistic case studies are discussed, explaining the concept of 'contextual applicability.' The relevance and usefulness of in-depth case study research to systems designers and service providers is highlighted.

[Test Reviews in Child Psychology: Test Users Wish to Obtain Practical Information Relevant to their Respective Field of Work].

Science.gov (United States)

Renner, Gerolf; Irblich, Dieter

2016-11-01

Test Reviews in Child Psychology: Test Users Wish to Obtain Practical Information Relevant to their Respective Field of Work This study investigated to what extent diagnosticians use reviews of psychometric tests for children and adolescents, how they evaluate their quality, and what they expect concerning content. Test users (n = 323) from different areas of work (notably social pediatrics, early intervention, special education, speech and language therapy) rated test reviews as one of the most important sources of information. Readers of test reviews value practically oriented descriptions and evaluations of tests that are relevant to their respective field of work. They expect independent reviews that critically discuss opportunities and limits of the tests under scrutiny. The results show that authors of test reviews should not only have a background in test theory but should also be familiar with the practical application of tests in various settings.

The value relevance of voluntary disclosure in the annual report

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Banghøj, Jesper; Plenborg, Thomas

2006-01-01

This paper examines if the level of voluntary disclosure affects the association between current returns and future earnings. Economic theory suggests that firms might find it advantageous to provide additional pieces of information (i.e., voluntary disclosure) to investors and analysts (Verrecchia...... 1983). Our results indicate that more voluntary disclosure does not improve the association between current returns and future earnings; i.e. current returns do not reflect more future earnings news. This finding raises the question whether voluntary information in the annual report contains value...... relevant information about future earnings or if investors are simply not capable of incorporating voluntary information in the firm value estimates. Key words: Disclosure, future earnings, informativeness...

Culturally-Relevant Online Cancer Education Modules Empower Alaska's Community Health Aides/Practitioners to Disseminate Cancer Information and Reduce Cancer Risk.

Science.gov (United States)

Cueva, Katie; Revels, Laura; Cueva, Melany; Lanier, Anne P; Dignan, Mark; Viswanath, K; Fung, Teresa T; Geller, Alan C

2017-04-12

To address a desire for timely, medically accurate cancer education in rural Alaska, ten culturally relevant online learning modules were developed with, and for, Alaska's Community Health Aides/Practitioners (CHA/Ps). The project was guided by the framework of Community-Based Participatory Action Research, honored Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and was informed by Empowerment Theory. A total of 428 end-of-module evaluation surveys were completed by 89 unique Alaska CHA/Ps between January and December 2016. CHA/Ps shared that as a result of completing the modules, they were empowered to share cancer information with their patients, families, friends, and communities, as well as engage in cancer risk reduction behaviors such as eating healthier, getting cancer screenings, exercising more, and quitting tobacco. CHA/Ps also reported the modules were informative and respectful of their diverse cultures. These results from end-of-module evaluation surveys suggest that the collaboratively developed, culturally relevant, online cancer education modules have empowered CHA/Ps to reduce cancer risk and disseminate cancer information. "brought me to tears couple of times, and I think it will help in destroying the silence that surrounds cancer".

Types of lexicographical information needs and their relevance for information science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bergenholtz, Henning; Pedersen, Heidi Agerbo

2017-01-01

often describes general human needs, typically with a reference to Maslow’s classification of needs (1954), instead of actual information needs. Lexicography has also focused on information needs, but has developed a more abstract classification of types of information needs, though (until more recent...

30 CFR 203.70 - What information must I provide after MMS approves relief?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What information must I provide after MMS... information must I provide after MMS approves relief? You must submit reports to us as indicated in the following table. Sections 203.81, 203.90, and 203.91 describe what these reports must include. The MMS...

Health information technology to facilitate communication involving health care providers, caregivers, and pediatric patients: a scoping review.

Science.gov (United States)

Gentles, Stephen James; Lokker, Cynthia; McKibbon, K Ann

2010-06-18

Pediatric patients with health conditions requiring follow-up typically depend on a caregiver to mediate at least part of the necessary two-way communication with health care providers on their behalf. Health information technology (HIT) and its subset, information communication technology (ICT), are increasingly being applied to facilitate communication between health care provider and caregiver in these situations. Awareness of the extent and nature of published research involving HIT interventions used in this way is currently lacking. This scoping review was designed to map the health literature about HIT used to facilitate communication involving health care providers and caregivers (who are usually family members) of pediatric patients with health conditions requiring follow-up. Terms relating to care delivery, information technology, and pediatrics were combined to search MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL for the years 1996 to 2008. Eligible studies were selected after three rounds of duplicate screening in which all authors participated. Data regarding patient, caregiver, health care provider, HIT intervention, outcomes studied, and study design were extracted and maintained in a Microsoft Access database. Stage of research was categorized using the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions. Quantitative and qualitative descriptive summaries are presented. We included 104 eligible studies (112 articles) conducted in 17 different countries and representing 30 different health conditions. The most common conditions were asthma, type 1 diabetes, special needs, and psychiatric disorder. Most studies (88, 85%) included children 2 to 12 years of age, and 73 (71%) involved home care settings. Health care providers operated in hospital settings in 96 (92%) of the studies. Interventions featured 12 modes of communication (eg, Internet, intranets, telephone, video conferencing, email, short message service [SMS], and

Family benefits - Obligation to provide information

CERN Multimedia

HR Department

2015-01-01

Pursuant to Article R V 1.38 of the Staff Regulations, members of the personnel are reminded that they are required to inform the Organization in writing, within 30 calendar days, of any change in their family situation (marriage, partnership, birth of a child, etc.) and of the amount of any financial benefit of a similar nature to those provided for in the Staff Regulations (e.g. family allowance, child allowance, infant allowance, non-resident allowance or international indemnity) to which they or a member of their family may be entitled from a source other than CERN.   The procedures to be followed are available in the Admin e-guide: https://admin-eguide.web.cern.ch/en/procedure/change-family-situation Members of the personnel are also reminded that any false declaration or failure to make a declaration with a view to deceiving others or achieving a gain resulting in a loss of funds or reputation for CERN constitutes fraud and may lead to disciplinary action in accordance with Article S ...

Perceptions of climate change and trust in information providers in rural Australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Buys, Laurie; Aird, Rosemary; van Megen, Kimberley; Miller, Evonne; Sommerfeld, Jeffrey

2014-02-01

Disagreement within the global science community about the certainty and causes of climate change has led the general public to question what to believe and whom to trust on matters related to this issue. This paper reports on qualitative research undertaken with Australian residents from two rural areas to explore their perceptions of climate change and trust in information providers. While overall, residents tended to agree that climate change is a reality, perceptions varied in terms of its causes and how best to address it. Politicians, government, and the media were described as untrustworthy sources of information about climate change, with independent scientists being the most trusted. The vested interests of information providers appeared to be a key reason for their distrust. The findings highlight the importance of improved transparency and consultation with the public when communicating information about climate change and related policies.

Providing written information increases patient satisfaction: a web-based questionnaire survey of Japanese cancer survivors.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakai, Hitomi; Katsumata, Noriyuki; Takahashi, Miyako

2017-07-01

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the United States recommends that all cancer survivors be provided with a survivorship care plan (SCP), which includes a patient treatment summary and a follow-up care plan. However, SCPs have not been widely adopted in Japan. To provide basic data necessary for implementing SCPs in Japan, we aimed to investigate the forms of clinical and survivorship-related information that Japanese cancer survivors receive from their healthcare providers, and to examine whether written information increases their satisfaction. We performed a cross-sectional online survey of cancer survivors who underwent acute cancer treatment and had at least one follow-up with a physician in the past year. Cancer survivors provided the elements and forms (verbally and/or written) of information they received, as well as the degree of satisfaction with the information provided. Responses were obtained from 545 cancer survivors. Information elements such as surgical procedure (98.3%), surgical outcome (98.1%), and names of administered chemotherapy agents (97.8%) were commonly provided, whereas mental care resources and providers (29.7%), effects on marital relationship and sexual health (35.7%), and effects on fertility (43.4%) were less common. A large proportion of cancer survivors received verbal information only. For 18 of 20 elements, except for effects on fertility and duration of hormonal therapy, satisfaction was significantly higher when both forms of information were provided (P information can better meet the needs of Japanese cancer survivors. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

Making Deferred Taxes Relevant

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brouwer, Arjan; Naarding, Ewout

2018-01-01

We analyse the conceptual problems in current accounting for deferred taxes and provide solutions derived from the literature in order to make International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) deferred tax numbers value-relevant. In our view, the empirical results concerning the value relevance of

Using imputation to provide location information for nongeocoded addresses.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frank C Curriero

2010-02-01

Full Text Available The importance of geography as a source of variation in health research continues to receive sustained attention in the literature. The inclusion of geographic information in such research often begins by adding data to a map which is predicated by some knowledge of location. A precise level of spatial information is conventionally achieved through geocoding, the geographic information system (GIS process of translating mailing address information to coordinates on a map. The geocoding process is not without its limitations, though, since there is always a percentage of addresses which cannot be converted successfully (nongeocodable. This raises concerns regarding bias since traditionally the practice has been to exclude nongeocoded data records from analysis.In this manuscript we develop and evaluate a set of imputation strategies for dealing with missing spatial information from nongeocoded addresses. The strategies are developed assuming a known zip code with increasing use of collateral information, namely the spatial distribution of the population at risk. Strategies are evaluated using prostate cancer data obtained from the Maryland Cancer Registry. We consider total case enumerations at the Census county, tract, and block group level as the outcome of interest when applying and evaluating the methods. Multiple imputation is used to provide estimated total case counts based on complete data (geocodes plus imputed nongeocodes with a measure of uncertainty. Results indicate that the imputation strategy based on using available population-based age, gender, and race information performed the best overall at the county, tract, and block group levels.The procedure allows for the potentially biased and likely under reported outcome, case enumerations based on only the geocoded records, to be presented with a statistically adjusted count (imputed count with a measure of uncertainty that are based on all the case data, the geocodes and imputed

Microtubules provide directional information for core PCP function

Science.gov (United States)

Matis, Maja; Russler-Germain, David A; Hu, Qie; Tomlin, Claire J; Axelrod, Jeffrey D

2014-01-01

Planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling controls the polarization of cells within the plane of an epithelium. Two molecular modules composed of Fat(Ft)/Dachsous(Ds)/Four-jointed(Fj) and a ‘PCP-core’ including Frizzled(Fz) and Dishevelled(Dsh) contribute to polarization of individual cells. How polarity is globally coordinated with tissue axes is unresolved. Consistent with previous results, we find that the Ft/Ds/Fj-module has an effect on a MT-cytoskeleton. Here, we provide evidence for the model that the Ft/Ds/Fj-module provides directional information to the core-module through this MT organizing function. We show Ft/Ds/Fj-dependent initial polarization of the apical MT-cytoskeleton prior to global alignment of the core-module, reveal that the anchoring of apical non-centrosomal MTs at apical junctions is polarized, observe that directional trafficking of vesicles containing Dsh depends on Ft, and demonstrate the feasibility of this model by mathematical simulation. Together, these results support the hypothesis that Ft/Ds/Fj provides a signal to orient core PCP function via MT polarization. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02893.001 PMID:25124458

The changing face of government information providing access in the twenty-first century

CERN Document Server

Kumar, Suhasini L

2006-01-01

Learn what innovative changes lie in the future of government information The Changing Face of Government Information comprehensively examines the way government documents' librarians acquire, provide access, and provide reference services in the new electronic environment. Noted experts discuss the impact electronic materials have had on the Government Printing Office (GPO), the reference services within the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), and the new opportunities in the transition from paper-based information policy to an electronic e-government. This source reveals the latest changes in the field of government documents librarianship and the knowledge and expertise needed to teach users how to access what they need from this enormous wealth of government information. Major changes have taken place in the way government information is created, disseminated, accessed, and preserved. The Changing Face of Government Information explains in detail the tremendous change taking place in libraries and ...

77 FR 36281 - Solicitation of Information and Recommendations for Revising OIG's Provider Self-Disclosure Protocol

Science.gov (United States)

2012-06-18

...] Solicitation of Information and Recommendations for Revising OIG's Provider Self-Disclosure Protocol AGENCY... Register notice informs the public that OIG: (1) Intends to update the Provider Self-Disclosure Protocol... Provider Self-Disclosure Protocol (the Protocol) to establish a process for health care providers to...

Identifying the relevant dependencies of the neural network response on characteristics of the input space

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

This talk presents an approach to identify those characteristics of the neural network inputs that are most relevant for the response and therefore provides essential information to determine the systematic uncertainties.

Personal Information Request Form

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

PC Forms Inc. 834-4048

To apply for information under the Privacy Act, complete this form or a written request mentioning the Act. Describe the information being sought and provide any relevant details necessary to help the. International Development Research Centre. (IDRC) find it. If you require assistance, refer to. Info Source (Sources of ...

A systematic mapping review of effective interventions for communicating with, supporting and providing information to parents of preterm infants.

Science.gov (United States)

Brett, Jo; Staniszewska, Sophie; Newburn, Mary; Jones, Nicola; Taylor, Lesley

2011-06-02

Background and objective The birth of a preterm infant can be an overwhelming experience of guilt, fear and helplessness for parents. Provision of interventions to support and engage parents in the care of their infant may improve outcomes for both the parents and the infant. The objective of this systematic review is to identify and map out effective interventions for communication with, supporting and providing information for parents of preterm infants. Design Systematic searches were conducted in the electronic databases Medline, Embase, PsychINFO, the Cochrane library, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Midwives Information and Resource Service, Health Management Information Consortium, and Health Management and Information Service. Hand-searching of reference lists and journals was conducted. Studies were included if they provided parent-reported outcomes of interventions relating to information, communication and/or support for parents of preterm infants prior to the birth, during care at the neonatal intensive care unit and after going home with their preterm infant. Titles and abstracts were read for relevance, and papers judged to meet inclusion criteria were included. Papers were data-extracted, their quality was assessed, and a narrative summary was conducted in line with the York Centre for Reviews and Dissemination guidelines. Studies reviewed Of the 72 papers identified, 19 papers were randomised controlled trials, 16 were cohort or quasi-experimental studies, and 37 were non-intervention studies. Results Interventions for supporting, communicating with, and providing information to parents that have had a premature infant are reported. Parents report feeling supported through individualised developmental and behavioural care programmes, through being taught behavioural assessment scales, and through breastfeeding, kangaroo-care and baby-massage programmes. Parents also felt supported through organised support groups and

To what extent Fair Value is Fair, an Analysis of Reliability and Relevance of the Fair Value Accounting Paradigm.

OpenAIRE

Dugarte, Rafael

2006-01-01

To what extent Fair Value is Fair, an Analysis of Reliability and Relevance of the Fair Value Accounting Paradigm. Rafael Dugarte Escalante September, 2006 Fair value accounting is fair and important for financial reporting in providing relevant, reliable, comparable and understandable information to the users depending on what kind of information is expected from it, and the way in which fair value is actually found. This study complemen...

Opinion On Drug Information Services Provided In A Multi- Specialty Teaching Hospital

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vijayakumar TM, Poovi G & Dhanaraju MD

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Objective: To evaluate the various drug information queriesreceived, and to access the drug information services providedby the pharmacy practice department.Method: Drug information queries received during wardrounds, direct communication, telephone or internet etc. weredocumented in the drug information request anddocumentation forms prepared by the department over theperiod of January 2010 to June 2010. Various parameters likestatus of enquirer, their specialty, mode of receipt of query,purpose of query, type of query etc. were consider forevaluation.Results: Out of 208 queries received, major 56 (26.9% frommale medical ward. Maximum [82 (39.4 %] queries were fromthe physicians. 73 (35.0 % of the queries were about therecent advances and the updating of the information, It wasfound that mostly the mode of request was during wardrounds 85 (40.9%. Most of the queries [126 (60.6%] wereanswered by written or printout format. Majority of thequeries [195 (93.8 %] were answered directly to theenquirers through direct access. Most of the queries wereanswered through books in the department [86 (41.3 %].Conclusion: Results of the external auditing revealed thatrequestors were generally satisfied with the service provided.The drug information services provided by clinical pharmacistsat the hospital were found to be useful and beneficial to thehealthcare professionals and patients.

Structural analysis of health-relevant policy-making information exchange networks in Canada.

Science.gov (United States)

Contandriopoulos, Damien; Benoît, François; Bryant-Lukosius, Denise; Carrier, Annie; Carter, Nancy; Deber, Raisa; Duhoux, Arnaud; Greenhalgh, Trisha; Larouche, Catherine; Leclerc, Bernard-Simon; Levy, Adrian; Martin-Misener, Ruth; Maximova, Katerina; McGrail, Kimberlyn; Nykiforuk, Candace; Roos, Noralou; Schwartz, Robert; Valente, Thomas W; Wong, Sabrina; Lindquist, Evert; Pullen, Carolyn; Lardeux, Anne; Perroux, Melanie

2017-09-20

Health systems worldwide struggle to identify, adopt, and implement in a timely and system-wide manner the best-evidence-informed-policy-level practices. Yet, there is still only limited evidence about individual and institutional best practices for fostering the use of scientific evidence in policy-making processes The present project is the first national-level attempt to (1) map and structurally analyze-quantitatively-health-relevant policy-making networks that connect evidence production, synthesis, interpretation, and use; (2) qualitatively investigate the interaction patterns of a subsample of actors with high centrality metrics within these networks to develop an in-depth understanding of evidence circulation processes; and (3) combine these findings in order to assess a policy network's "absorptive capacity" regarding scientific evidence and integrate them into a conceptually sound and empirically grounded framework. The project is divided into two research components. The first component is based on quantitative analysis of ties (relationships) that link nodes (participants) in a network. Network data will be collected through a multi-step snowball sampling strategy. Data will be analyzed structurally using social network mapping and analysis methods. The second component is based on qualitative interviews with a subsample of the Web survey participants having central, bridging, or atypical positions in the network. Interviews will focus on the process through which evidence circulates and enters practice. Results from both components will then be integrated through an assessment of the network's and subnetwork's effectiveness in identifying, capturing, interpreting, sharing, reframing, and recodifying scientific evidence in policy-making processes. Knowledge developed from this project has the potential both to strengthen the scientific understanding of how policy-level knowledge transfer and exchange functions and to provide significantly improved advice

Task-relevant perceptual features can define categories in visual memory too.

Science.gov (United States)

Antonelli, Karla B; Williams, Carrick C

2017-11-01

Although Konkle, Brady, Alvarez, and Oliva (2010, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139(3), 558) claim that visual long-term memory (VLTM) is organized on underlying conceptual, not perceptual, information, visual memory results from visual search tasks are not well explained by this theory. We hypothesized that when viewing an object, any task-relevant visual information is critical to the organizational structure of VLTM. In two experiments, we examined the organization of VLTM by measuring the amount of retroactive interference created by objects possessing different combinations of task-relevant features. Based on task instructions, only the conceptual category was task relevant or both the conceptual category and a perceptual object feature were task relevant. Findings indicated that when made task relevant, perceptual object feature information, along with conceptual category information, could affect memory organization for objects in VLTM. However, when perceptual object feature information was task irrelevant, it did not contribute to memory organization; instead, memory defaulted to being organized around conceptual category information. These findings support the theory that a task-defined organizational structure is created in VLTM based on the relevance of particular object features and information.

Quality and use of consumer information provided with home test kits: room for improvement.

Science.gov (United States)

Grispen, Janaica E J; Ickenroth, Martine H P; de Vries, Nanne K; van der Weijden, Trudy; Ronda, Gaby

2014-10-01

Diagnostic self-tests (tests on body materials that are initiated by consumers with the aim of diagnosing a disorder or risk factor) are becoming increasingly available. Although the pros and cons of self-testing are currently not clear, it is an existing phenomenon that is likely to gain further popularity. To examine consumers' use of and needs for information about self-testing, and to assess the quality of consumer information provided with home test kits, as perceived by consumers and as assessed using a checklist of quality criteria. A cross-sectional Internet survey among 305 self-testers assessed their use of and needs for information and their perception of the quality of consumer information provided with self-test kits. A meta-search engine was used to identify Dutch and English consumer information for home diagnostic tests available online at the time of the study. The quality of this consumer information was evaluated using a checklist of quality criteria. The consumers' information needs were in line with the most frequently used information, and the information was perceived as being of moderate to good quality. The information was mostly in agreement with clinical practice guidelines, although information on reliability and follow-up behaviour was limited. Approximately half of the instruction leaflets did not include information on the target group of the test. Although generally of moderate to good quality, some aspects of the information provided were in many cases insufficient. European legislation concerning self-tests and accompanying information needs to be adapted and adhered to more closely. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Coulomb disintegration as an information source for relevant processes in nuclear astrophysics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bertulani, C.A.

1989-01-01

The possibility of obtaining the photodisintegration cross section using the equivalent-photon number method first deduced and employed for the Coulomb disintegration processes has been suggested. This is very interesting because there exist radioactive capture processes, related to the photodisintegration through time reversal, that are relevant in astrophysics. In this paper, the recent results of the Karlsruhe and the Texas A and M groups on the Coulomb disintegration of 6 Li and 7 Li and the problems of the method are discussed. The ideas developed in a previous paper (Nucl. Phys. A458 (1986) 188) are confirmed qualitatively. To understand the process quantitatively it is necessary to use a quantum treatment that would imply the introduction of Coulomb excitation effects of higher orders. The Coulomb disintegration of exotic secondary beams is also studied. It is particularly interesting the question about what kind of nuclear structure information, as binding energies of momentum distributions, may be obtained. (Author) [es

THE RELEVANCE OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING FOR THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Briciu Sorin

2012-07-01

Full Text Available In the contemporary period the tourism and hospitality industry has experienced dynamic growth despite the challenges facing not only the global crisis, but also market changes, consumer behavior and technological trends. Accounting, the language of business is required to keep up with changes made to each particular area of activity so that they can provide timely relevant information to be managed by an efficient information system. Our article focuses on presenting the importance of management accounting and cost information system in the hospitality industry, then consider identifying features of this sector and their impact on accounting. The methodology of our research falls within the economic research, being theoretical, aiming primarily to knowledge objectives and the relevance of management accounting for economic entities, and then we have the characteristics of hospitality industry and possible organizational management accounting in this sector. In our perspective cost calculation for services, packages or travel benefits must take into account the development of the accounts from Class 9, so we propose a possible method to customize them according to the Direct Costing and CVP analysis. Our research will also be explanatory descriptive, trying to answer the questions How? and Why?

Locating relevant patient information in electronic health record data using representations of clinical concepts and database structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Pan, Xuequn; Cimino, James J

2014-01-01

Clinicians and clinical researchers often seek information in electronic health records (EHRs) that are relevant to some concept of interest, such as a disease or finding. The heterogeneous nature of EHRs can complicate retrieval, risking incomplete results. We frame this problem as the presence of two gaps: 1) a gap between clinical concepts and their representations in EHR data and 2) a gap between data representations and their locations within EHR data structures. We bridge these gaps with a knowledge structure that comprises relationships among clinical concepts (including concepts of interest and concepts that may be instantiated in EHR data) and relationships between clinical concepts and the database structures. We make use of available knowledge resources to develop a reproducible, scalable process for creating a knowledge base that can support automated query expansion from a clinical concept to all relevant EHR data.

DownloadAccess to Information Request form

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

PC Forms Inc. 834-4048

To apply for information under the Access to. Information Act, complete this form or a written request mentioning the Act. Describe the information being sought and provide any relevant details necessary to help the International. Development Research Centre (IDRC) find it. If you require assistance, refer to Info Source.

An Information System for Brownfield Regeneration: providing customised information according to stakeholders' characteristics and needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Rizzo, Erika; Pizzol, Lisa; Zabeo, Alex; Giubilato, Elisa; Critto, Andrea; Cosmo, Luca; Marcomini, Antonio

2018-07-01

In the EU brownfield presence is still considered a widespread problem. Even though, in the last decades, many research projects and initiatives developed a wealth of methods, guidelines, tools and technologies aimed at supporting brownfield regeneration. However, this variety of products had and still has a limited practical impact on brownfield revitalisation success, because they are not used in their entire potential due to their scarce visibility. Also, another problem that stakeholders face is finding customised information. To overcome this non-visibility and not-sufficient customisation of information, the Information System for Brownfield Regeneration (ISBR) has been developed, based on Artificial Neural Networks, which allows understanding stakeholders' information needs by providing tailored information. The ISBR has been tested by stakeholders from the EU project TIMBRE case studies, located in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Romania. Data gained during tests allowed to understand stakeholders' information needs. Overall, stakeholders showed to be concerned first on remediation aspects, then on benchmarking information, which are valuable to improve practices in the complex field of brownfield regeneration, and then on the relatively new issue of sustainability applied to brownfield regeneration and remediation. Mature markets confirmed their interest for remediation-related aspects, highlighting the central role that risk assessment plays in the process. Emerging markets showed to seek information and tools for strategic and planning issues, like brownfield inventories and georeferenced data sets. Results led to conclude that a new improved platform, combining the ISBR functionalities with geo-referenced ones, would be useful and could represent a further research application. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

NIDDK Information Network (DKnet)

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The NIDDK Information Network serves the needs of basic and clinical investigators by providing seamless access to large pools of data relevant to the mission of...

Handbook of information science

CERN Document Server

Stock, Wolfgang G

2013-01-01

Dealing with information is one of the vital skills in thetwenty-first century. It takes a fair degree of information savvy to create, represent and supply information as well as to search for and retrieve relevant knowledge. This Handbook is a basic work of information science, providing a comprehensive overview of the current state of information retrieval and knowledge representation. It addresses readers from all professions and scientific disciplines, but particularly scholars, practitioners and students of Information Science, Library Science, Computer Science, Information Management, an

Enriching science, practice, and policy relevant to school psychology around the globe.

Science.gov (United States)

Jimerson, Shane R

2016-03-01

This editorial provides a brief synthesis of the past, present, and future of School Psychology Quarterly, highlighting important contributions as an international resource to enrich, invigorate, enhance, and advance science, practice, and policy relevant to school psychology around the globe. Information herein highlights (a) the value of high quality and timely reviews, (b) publishing manuscripts that address a breadth of important topics relevant to school psychology, and (c) the structure and contributions of the special topic sections featured in School Psychology Quarterly. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of providing climate and health information on support for alternative electricity portfolios

Science.gov (United States)

Sergi, Brian; Davis, Alex; Azevedo, Inês

2018-02-01

Support for addressing climate change and air pollution may depend on the type of information provided to the public. We conduct a discrete choice survey assessing preferences for combinations of electricity generation portfolios, electricity bills, and emissions reductions. We test how participants’ preferences change when emissions information is explicitly provided to them. We find that support for climate mitigation increases when mitigation is accompanied by improvements to air quality and human health. We estimate that an average respondent would accept an increase of 19%-27% in their electricity bill if shown information stating that either CO2 or SO2 emissions are reduced by 30%. Furthermore, an average respondent is willing to pay an increase of 30%-40% in electricity bills when shown information stating that both pollutants are reduced by 30% simultaneously. Our findings suggest that the type of emissions information provided to the public will affect their support for different electricity portfolios.

Study about the relevance and the disclosure of biological assets of listed companies in BM&FBOVESPA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciana Holtz

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The main objective this article is to verify that the information content of biological assets disclosed in the financial statements are relevant and, the secondary objective perform content analysis of the notes verifying the compliance of information supplied by entities with CPC 29. The study sample was composed of publicly traded stock companies listed on the BM & FBOVESPA with data for the year 2010 and 2011. The empirical tests were conducted applying relevance models, using observations of 347 active companies characterizing a study model pooled ordinary least squares – POLS, including companies that have reported biological assets into account specific .The companies that had values of biological assets posted have had analyzed explanatory notes referring to this account. The results provide empirical evidence that the information content of biological assets disclosed by companies is not relevant to the sample. In relation the content analysis of the notes was checked a partial compliance of the standard, there is a disparity in the information disclosure practices by the companies analyzed, as well as an omission of items required by the standard. Can be inferred that loss of the relevance has occurred, in part, by the poor quality of the notes, which may make it difficult for outside users in interpreting the information disclosed.

Multiple genetic interaction experiments provide complementary information useful for gene function prediction.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Magali Michaut

Full Text Available Genetic interactions help map biological processes and their functional relationships. A genetic interaction is defined as a deviation from the expected phenotype when combining multiple genetic mutations. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, most genetic interactions are measured under a single phenotype - growth rate in standard laboratory conditions. Recently genetic interactions have been collected under different phenotypic readouts and experimental conditions. How different are these networks and what can we learn from their differences? We conducted a systematic analysis of quantitative genetic interaction networks in yeast performed under different experimental conditions. We find that networks obtained using different phenotypic readouts, in different conditions and from different laboratories overlap less than expected and provide significant unique information. To exploit this information, we develop a novel method to combine individual genetic interaction data sets and show that the resulting network improves gene function prediction performance, demonstrating that individual networks provide complementary information. Our results support the notion that using diverse phenotypic readouts and experimental conditions will substantially increase the amount of gene function information produced by genetic interaction screens.

Should informed consent be based on rational beliefs?

OpenAIRE

Savulescu, J; Momeyer, R W

1997-01-01

Our aim is to expand the regulative ideal governing consent. We argue that consent should not only be informed but also based on rational beliefs. We argue that holding true beliefs promotes autonomy. Information is important insofar as it helps a person to hold the relevant true beliefs. But in order to hold the relevant true beliefs, competent people must also think rationally. Insofar as information is important, rational deliberation is important. Just as physicians should aim to provide ...

When is a randomised controlled trial health equity relevant? Development and validation of a conceptual framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Jull, J; Whitehead, M; Petticrew, M; Kristjansson, E; Gough, D; Petkovic, J; Volmink, J; Weijer, C; Taljaard, M; Edwards, S; Mbuagbaw, L; Cookson, R; McGowan, J; Lyddiatt, A; Boyer, Y; Cuervo, L G; Armstrong, R; White, H; Yoganathan, M; Pantoja, T; Shea, B; Pottie, K; Norheim, O; Baird, S; Robberstad, B; Sommerfelt, H; Asada, Y; Wells, G; Tugwell, P; Welch, V

2017-09-25

Randomised controlled trials can provide evidence relevant to assessing the equity impact of an intervention, but such information is often poorly reported. We describe a conceptual framework to identify health equity-relevant randomised trials with the aim of improving the design and reporting of such trials. An interdisciplinary and international research team engaged in an iterative consensus building process to develop and refine the conceptual framework via face-to-face meetings, teleconferences and email correspondence, including findings from a validation exercise whereby two independent reviewers used the emerging framework to classify a sample of randomised trials. A randomised trial can usefully be classified as 'health equity relevant' if it assesses the effects of an intervention on the health or its determinants of either individuals or a population who experience ill health due to disadvantage defined across one or more social determinants of health. Health equity-relevant randomised trials can either exclusively focus on a single population or collect data potentially useful for assessing differential effects of the intervention across multiple populations experiencing different levels or types of social disadvantage. Trials that are not classified as 'health equity relevant' may nevertheless provide information that is indirectly relevant to assessing equity impact, including information about individual level variation unrelated to social disadvantage and potentially useful in secondary modelling studies. The conceptual framework may be used to design and report randomised trials. The framework could also be used for other study designs to contribute to the evidence base for improved health equity. © 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 otherwise expressly granted.

Comics as a Medium for Providing Information on Adult Immunizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Muzumdar, Jagannath M; Pantaleo, Nicholas L

2017-10-01

This study compared the following effects of two vaccine information flyers-one developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) versus one adapted from this information to a comic medium (comic)-on adults: (a) attitude toward the flyer; (b) perceived informativeness of the flyer; (c) intention to seek more information about adult immunizations after viewing the flyer; and (d) intention to get immunized after viewing the flyer. A between-group, randomized trial was used to randomly assign adults (age 18 years or older) at an ambulatory care center to review the CDC or comic flyer. Participants were asked to complete a survey to measure several outcome variables. Items were measured using a 7-point semantic differential scale. Independent-samples t-test was used for comparisons. A total of 265 surveys (CDC n = 132 vs comic n = 133) were analyzed. The comic flyer had a statistically significant effect on participants' attitudes and their perception of the flyer's informativeness compared to the CDC flyer. Flyer type did not have a statistically significant effect on intention-related variables. The study findings showed that the comic flyer was positively evaluated compared to the CDC flyer. These findings could provide a new direction for developing adult educational materials.

Are women getting relevant information about mammography screening for an informed consent: a critical appraisal of information brochures used for screening invitation in Germany, Italy, Spain and France.

Science.gov (United States)

Gummersbach, Elisabeth; Piccoliori, Giuliano; Zerbe, Cristina Oriol; Altiner, Attila; Othman, Cecile; Rose, Christine; Abholz, Heinz-Harald

2010-08-01

The aim was to find out if information brochures on mammography screening in Germany, Italy, Spain and France contain more information to facilitate informed consent than in similar studies carried out over the last few years in Sweden, Canada, USA and the UK, countries with different medical cultures. We generated a list of essential information items on mammography screening for the purpose of informed consent. We mostly used the same items of information as had been used in previous studies and analysed the information brochures of major national initiatives in Germany and France, and three brochures each from regionalized programmes in Italy and Spain. We cross-checked which of our items were covered in the brochures and if correct numbers were given. We found that the information brochures contained only about half of the information items we defined. Six of the eight brochures mentioned the reduction in breast-cancer fatalities. Four of the eight provided information on false positives, and four of the brochures highlighted the side-effects of radiation. The information on side-effects and risks provided by the brochures was generally of poor quality, and none of them referred to over diagnosis. When numbers were given, they were only indicated in terms of relative numbers. The information brochures currently being used in Germany, Italy, Spain and France are no better than the brochures analysed some years ago. Our results suggest that the providers of mammography screening programmes continue to conceal information from women that is essential when making an informed decision.

29 CFR 37.38 - What information must grant applicants and recipients provide to CRC?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... provide to CRC? 37.38 Section 37.38 Labor Office of the Secretary of Labor IMPLEMENTATION OF THE... information must grant applicants and recipients provide to CRC? In addition to the information which must be collected, maintained, and, upon request, submitted to CRC under § 37.37: (a) Each grant applicant and...

Analysis of interoperability requirements and of relevant activities in standards bodies and fora

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Guarneri, R.; Skouby, Knud Erik; Falch, Morten

1999-01-01

The aim of this deliverable is to provide the summary of the standardisation activities considered of most relevance for the work of the PRIME project with respect to interoperability; this information is of prime importance for the planning of further PRIME technical work in this area....

Conditional net survival: Relevant prognostic information for colorectal cancer survivors. A French population-based study.

Science.gov (United States)

Drouillard, Antoine; Bouvier, Anne-Marie; Rollot, Fabien; Faivre, Jean; Jooste, Valérie; Lepage, Côme

2015-07-01

Traditionally, survival estimates have been reported as survival from the time of diagnosis. A patient's probability of survival changes according to time elapsed since the diagnosis and this is known as conditional survival. The aim was to estimate 5-year net conditional survival in patients with colorectal cancer in a well-defined French population at yearly intervals up to 5 years. Our study included 18,300 colorectal cancers diagnosed between 1976 and 2008 and registered in the population-based digestive cancer registry of Burgundy (France). We calculated conditional 5-year net survival, using the Pohar Perme estimator, for every additional year survived after diagnosis from 1 to 5 years. The initial 5-year net survival estimates varied between 89% for stage I and 9% for advanced stage cancer. The corresponding 5-year net survival for patients alive after 5 years was 95% and 75%. Stage II and III patients who survived 5 years had a similar probability of surviving 5 more years, respectively 87% and 84%. For survivors after the first year following diagnosis, five-year conditional net survival was similar regardless of age class and period of diagnosis. For colorectal cancer survivors, conditional net survival provides relevant and complementary prognostic information for patients and clinicians. Copyright © 2015 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Public service providers and users in the information society

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernt Krohn Solvang

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The issue to be discussed in this article is to what extent does ICT create new challenges for the relationship between public service providers and users? It is important to recognize the concept of social capital because the concept is vital to the understanding of access to the information society and efficient functioning of government in its service to citizens. In this way we see social capital as a mediating “institution” between public authorities and the citizens (users.

Providing Information about Reading Lists via a Dashboard Interface

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr Jason Cooper

2013-01-01

Full Text Available As developers of the open source LORLS Resource/Reading List Management System we have developed a dashboard to better support academic staffs’ understanding of how their students use reading lists. This dashboard provides both graphical and tabulated information drawn from LORLS and the Aleph Integrated Library System. Development of the dashboard required changes to back-end functionality of LORLS such as logging views of reading lists and caching of loan data. Changes to the front end included the use of HTML5 canvas elements to generate pie charts and line graphs. Recently launched to academic staff at Loughborough University, the dashboard has already garnered much praise. It is hoped that further development of the dashboard will provide even more support for academics in the compilation of their reading lists.

Effective information management in academic libraries in Nigeria ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The problem facing most establishments including libraries in developing countries like Nigeria is the collection and management of information. Information management aims at improving the effectiveness of organizations by managing information as a resource-providing access to relevant information in a timely and ...

Relevance as process: judgements in the context of scholarly research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Theresa D. Anderson

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction. This paper discusses how exploring the research process in-depth and over time contributes to a fuller understanding of interactions with various representations of information. Method. A longitudinal ethnographic study explored decisions made by two informants involved in scholarly research. Relevance assessment and information seeking were observed as part of informants' own ongoing research projects. Fieldwork used methods of discovery that allowed informants to shape the exploration of the practices surrounding the evolving understandings of their topics. Analysis. Inductive analysis was carried out on the qualitative data collected over a two-year period of judgements observed on a document-by-document basis. The paper introduces broad categories that point to the variability and richness of the ways that informants used representations of information resources to make relevance judgements. Results. Relevance judgements appear to be drivers of the search and research processes informants moved through during the observations. Focusing on research goals rather than on retrieval tasks brings us to a fuller understanding of the relationship between ultimate research goals and the articulation of those goals in interactions with information systems. Conclusion. Relevance assessment is a process that unfolds in the doing of a search, the making of judgements and the using of texts and representations of information.

Which Type of Risk Information to Use for Whom? Moderating Role of Outcome-Relevant Involvement in the Effects of Statistical and Exemplified Risk Information on Risk Perceptions.

Science.gov (United States)

So, Jiyeon; Jeong, Se-Hoon; Hwang, Yoori

2017-04-01

The extant empirical research examining the effectiveness of statistical and exemplar-based health information is largely inconsistent. Under the premise that the inconsistency may be due to an unacknowledged moderator (O'Keefe, 2002), this study examined a moderating role of outcome-relevant involvement (Johnson & Eagly, 1989) in the effects of statistical and exemplified risk information on risk perception. Consistent with predictions based on elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984), findings from an experiment (N = 237) concerning alcohol consumption risks showed that statistical risk information predicted risk perceptions of individuals with high, rather than low, involvement, while exemplified risk information predicted risk perceptions of those with low, rather than high, involvement. Moreover, statistical risk information contributed to negative attitude toward drinking via increased risk perception only for highly involved individuals, while exemplified risk information influenced the attitude through the same mechanism only for individuals with low involvement. Theoretical and practical implications for health risk communication are discussed.

Does a ban on informal health providers save lives? Evidence from Malawi

Science.gov (United States)

Godlonton, Susan; Okeke, Edward N.

2015-01-01

Informal health providers ranging from drug vendors to traditional healers account for a large fraction of health care provision in developing countries. They are, however, largely unlicensed and unregulated leading to concern that they provide ineffective and, in some cases, even harmful care. A new and controversial policy tool that has been proposed to alter household health seeking behavior is an outright ban on these informal providers. The theoretical effects of such a ban are ambiguous. In this paper, we study the effect of a ban on informal (traditional) birth attendants imposed by the Malawi government in 2007. To measure the effect of the ban, we use a difference-in-difference strategy exploiting variation across time and space in the intensity of exposure to the ban. Our most conservative estimates suggest that the ban decreased use of traditional attendants by about 15 percentage points. Approximately three quarters of this decline can be attributed to an increase in use of the formal sector and the remainder is accounted for by an increase in relative/friend-attended births. Despite the rather large shift from the informal to the formal sector, we do not find any evidence of a statistically significant reduction in newborn mortality on average. The results are robust to a triple difference specification using young children as a control group. We examine several explanations for this result and find evidence consistent with quality of formal care acting as a constraint on improvements in newborn health. PMID:26681821

Which Domains of Thyroid-Related Quality of Life Are Most Relevant? Patients and Clinicians Provide Complementary Perspectives

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Watt, Torquil; Hegedüs, Laszlo; Rasmussen, Åse Krogh

2007-01-01

, 17 thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy, and 16 primary hypothyroidism) were interviewed. METHODS: The relevance of 138 thyroid disease-related issues was rated during interviews. For each issue, three relevance measures were obtained: a diagnosis-specific patient rating, a diagnosis-specific expert...

Explaining citizens’ perceptions of international climate-policy relevance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schleich, Joachim; Faure, Corinne

2017-01-01

This paper empirically analyses the antecedents of citizens’ perceptions of the relevance of international climate policy. Its use of representative surveys in the USA, China and Germany controls for different environmental attitudes and socio-economic factors between countries. The findings of the micro-econometric analysis suggest that the perceived relevance of international climate policy is positively affected by its perceived effectiveness, approval of the key topics discussed at international climate conferences, and environmental attitudes, but is not affected by perceived procedural justice. A higher level of perceived trust in international climate policy was positively related to perceived relevance in the USA and in China, but not in Germany. Citizens who felt that they were well informed and that their position was represented at climate summits were more likely to perceive international climate policy as relevant in China in particular. Generally, the results show only weak evidence of socio-demographic effects. - Highlights: • Perceptions of climate-policy relevance increase with perceptions of effectiveness. • In China and the USA, trust increases perceptions of climate-policy relevance. • Environmental attitudes are related to perceptions of climate-policy relevance. • In China, well-informed citizens perceive climate policy as more relevant. • Socio-demographics only weakly affect perceptions of climate-policy relevance.

Health care providers' use of a drug information service for pregnancy-related inquiries.

Science.gov (United States)

Patil, Avinash S; Patil, Neelima P; Lewis, Ashley N; Swamy, Geeta K; Murtha, Amy P

2014-01-01

To characterize pregnancy and lactation-related medication inquiries to a drug information center to identify classes of medications of most concern to providers. A secondary objective was to identify any trends in provider inquiries over the study period. A retrospective descriptive study of pregnancy and lactation-related inquiries to the University of North Carolina Health Care System Drug Information Center database between January 2001 and December 2010. University of North Carolina Health Care System Drug Information Center. Provider inquiries and responses were extracted and characterized by indication for treatment and reason for inquiry. Comparison of the first and second 5-year periods was performed to delineate trends. Descriptive statistics, Fisher's Exact and χ2 tests were used for analysis. Inquiry origin, time, and subject. 433 inquiries were retrieved over the study period from physicians (50%), pharmacists (21%), and nurses (18%). Inquiries were most often made during the antepartum period (34%), followed by the postpartum (28%) and preconception (22%) periods. The most frequent indications for inquiry were psychiatry (15%) and infectious diseases (14%), which remained constant throughout the study period. Safety was the most common reason for inquiry (52%). The responses provided to callers were limited due to lack of information availability 37% of the time. Psychiatry and infectious disease-related indications are the most frequent subjects of provider inquiry regarding medication use in pregnancy. Rates of inquiry remained constant throughout the past decade in most therapeutic areas. These findings are consistent with previous observations in other developed countries and suggest high-yield areas for pharmacist education.

Raw material monitoring assists companies. German Mineral Resources Agency at BGR provides information on global developments in resource markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2016-01-01

Germany is dependent on imports for its metalliferous natural resources. Although prices have been declining significantly in recent months, numerous raw materials such as platinum, cobalt and rare earth elements continue to be exposed to price and supply risks. To ensure that German industry can respond better to this situation in their procurement activities, the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA) at BGR has developed a raw material monitoring system on behalf of the German government. DERA experts have con figured a screening method for the early identification of possible procurement risks. This is the platform which enables German companies to gain the specific advice they require. All of the most important information on this issue is bundled within DERA 's internet portal (www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de). BGR also provides its expertise in other important fields with great societal relevance. BGR has been advising the national commission on ''Storage of High-level Radioactive Waste'' since 2014. Due to their comprehensive research activities in the field of radioactive waste disposal, BGR scientists are important technical experts to which the commission can turn to for geological information and advice.

Characterization of Patient Interest in Provider-Based Consumer Health Information Technology: Survey Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Featherall, Joseph; Lapin, Brittany; Chaitoff, Alexander; Havele, Sonia A; Thompson, Nicolas; Katzan, Irene

2018-04-19

Consumer health information technology can improve patient engagement in their health care and assist in navigating the complexities of health care delivery. However, the consumer health information technology offerings of health systems are often driven by provider rather than patient perspectives and inadequately address patient needs, thus limiting their adoption by patients. Consideration given to patients as stakeholders in the development of such technologies may improve adoption, efficacy, and consumer health information technology resource allocation. The aims of this paper were to measure patient interest in different health system consumer health information technology apps and determine the influence of patient characteristics on consumer health information technology interest. Patients seen at the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute were electronically surveyed on their interest in using different consumer health information technology apps. A self-efficacy scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression screen, and EuroQol 5 dimensions health-related quality of life scale were also completed by patients. Logistic regression was used to determine the influence of patient characteristics on interest in consumer health information technology in the categories of self-management, education, and communication. The majority of 3852 patient respondents had an interest in all technology categories assessed in the survey. The highest interest was in apps that allow patients to ask questions of providers (3476/3852, 90.24%) and to schedule appointments (3211/3839, 83.64%). Patient interest in consumer health information technology was significantly associated with greater depression symptoms, worse quality of life, greater health self-efficacy, and smartphone ownership (Pinformation technology development and their perspectives should consistently guide development efforts. Health systems should consider focusing on consumer health information technologies

Readability, relevance and quality of the information in Spanish on the Web for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Science.gov (United States)

Castillo-Ortiz, Jose Dionisio; Valdivia-Nuno, Jose de Jesus; Ramirez-Gomez, Andrea; Garagarza-Mariscal, Heber; Gallegos-Rios, Carlos; Flores-Hernandez, Gabriel; Hernandez-Sanchez, Luis; Brambila-Barba, Victor; Castaneda-Sanchez, Jose Juan; Barajas-Ochoa, Zalathiel; Suarez-Rico, Angel; Sanchez-Gonzalez, Jorge Manuel; Ramos-Remus, Cesar

Education is a major health determinant and one of the main independent outcome predictors in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The use of the Internet by patients has grown exponentially in the last decade. To assess the characteristics, legibility and quality of the information available in Spanish in the Internet regarding to rheumatoid arthritis. The search was performed in Google using the phrase rheumatoid arthritis. Information from the first 30 pages was evaluated according to a pre-established format (relevance, scope, authorship, type of publication and financial objective). The quality and legibility of the pages were assessed using two validated tools, DISCERN and INFLESZ respectively. Data extraction was performed by senior medical students and evaluation was achieved by consensus. The Google search returned 323 hits but only 63% were considered relevant; 80% of them were information sites (71% discussed exclusively RA, 44% conventional treatment and 12% alternative therapies) and 12.5% had a primary financial interest. 60% of the sites were created by nonprofit organizations and 15% by medical associations. Web sites posted by medical institutions from the United States of America were better positioned in Spanish (Arthritis Foundation 4th position and American College of Rheumatology 10th position) than web sites posted by Spanish speaking countries. There is a risk of disinformation for patients with RA that use the Internet. We identified a window of opportunity for rheumatology medical institutions from Spanish-speaking countries to have a more prominent societal involvement in the education of their patients with RA. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier España, S.L.U. and Sociedad Española de Reumatología y Colegio Mexicano de Reumatología. All rights reserved.

Information and research: an essential partnership

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oen, C.J.

1975-01-01

Information support is provided to the Nevada Applied Ecology Group (NAEG) through the Ecological Sciences Information Center (ESIC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to offer an effective, easy-to-use link between the individual researcher and the literature relevant to his work. Information within the interest areas defined by NAEG administration is identified and entered into a computerized system that provides rapid, accurate retrieval. The primary topics are the environmental aspects of the transuranic elements. (auth)

EVIDENCE FROM THE GERMAN CAPITAL MARKET REGARDING THE VALUE RELEVANCE OF CONSOLIDATED VERSUS PARENT COMPANY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muller Victor - Octavian

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Financial statements main objective is to give information on the financial position, performance and changes in financial position of the reporting entity, which is useful to investors and other users in making economic decisions. In order to be useful, financial information needs to be relevant to the decision-making process of users in general, and investors in particular. Hence, the following question arises logically which of the two sets best serves the information needs of investors (and other categories of users, respectively which of the two sets is more relevant for investors? Of course, the possibility of both sets at the same time best serving the information needs should not be ruled out. In our scientific endeavor we conducted an empirical association study on the problem of market value relevance of consolidated financial statements and of individual financial statements of the parent company, searching for an answer to the above question. In this sense, we analyze the absolute and relative market value relevance of consolidated accounting information of listed companies on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (one of the largest three stock markets in the European Union between 2003 and 2008. Through this empirical study we intend to contribute to the relatively limited literature on this topic with a comparative time analysis of the absolute and incremental relevance of financial information supplied by the two categories of financial statements (group and individual. The results obtained indicate a statistically significant superiority of the relevance of consolidated statements (in detriment of individual ones. However, we could not statistically prove a superior value relevance of information provided together by consolidated and parent company financial statements as opposed to consolidated information. On the one hand, these results prove the importance (usefulness of consolidated financial statements especially for investors on

Composite Indexes Economic and Social Performance: Do they Provide Valuable Information?

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Nasierowski Wojciech

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the information content of the selected composite indexes, namely the Global Competitiveness Report Index, the Human Development Index, the Knowledge Economy Index, the Innovation Union Scoreboard, and the like. These indexes are examined from the viewpoint of country rankings. It is argued that these indexes provide highly similar information, which brings to question the usefulness of such a variety of approaches. This paper also explores the drawbacks of composite indexes, and questions whether these indexes can adequately serve as policy-setting mechanisms.

Using small XML elements to support relevance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

G. Ramirez Camps (Georgina); T.H.W. Westerveld (Thijs); A.P. de Vries (Arjen)

2006-01-01

htmlabstractSmall XML elements are often estimated relevant by the retrieval model but they are not desirable retrieval units. This paper presents a generic model that exploits the information obtained from small elements. We identify relationships between small and relevant elements and use this

A study on the relevance and influence of the existing regulation and risk informed/performance based regulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cheong, B. J.; Koh, Y. J.; Kim, H. S.; Koh, S. H.; Kang, D. H.; Kang, T. W. [Cheju National Univ., Jeju (Korea, Republic of)

2004-02-15

The goal of this study is to estimate the Relevance and Influence of the Existing Regulation and the RI-PBR to the institutionalization of the regulatory system. This study reviews the current regulatory system and the status of the RI-PBR implementation of the US NRC and Korea based upon SECY Papers, Risk Informed Regulation Implementation Plan (RIRIP) of the US NRC and other domestic studies. Also the recent trends of the individual technologies regarding the RI-PBR and RIA are summarized.

78 FR 11654 - Draft Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff; Providing Information About...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-02-19

...] Draft Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff; Providing Information About... Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff: Providing Information About Pediatric Uses of...ComplianceRegulatoryInformation/default.htm . To receive ``Draft Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug...

THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF PROVIDING SOUND SCIENTIFIC ADVICE TO POLICY MAKERS IN GOVERNMENT

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G. S. Pearson

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The article gives an idea of the scope of professional activity of scientists working in the field of biosafety in terms of providing timely and effective advice for politicians and diplomats in the government. It should be acknowledged that politicians and diplomats are also involved in a varying degree with biosafety issues such as toxicological and biological weapons, formulated in the relevant Convention: Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. However taking into account their professional interests, they mightn’t have appropriate information on relevant events in these and other activities. The value of these activities of qualified scientists knowing the latest information in the field of biosafety is difficult to overestimate, as they have the possibility to analyze any situation on the range of relevant activities and use their knowledge to make informed proposals which could be acceptable for their co-worker scientists in other areas of biological science. For highly qualified scientists such activities appeared to be effective, it is a vital aspect of their professional activity, because such scientists are able to provide scientific advice, analyze and summarize relevant scientific aspects on a specific topic of interest for politicians and diplomats. Such an analysis should include identification of key elements that are relevant to a given scientific problem and should be formulated so as the consequences of the various elements of the Convention were clearly appreciated and understood by politicians and diplomats. In other words, the rele vant scientific aspects should be analyzed, summarized and presented in the context of the Convention, together with suggestions on what steps in this direction should be taken by politicians and diplomats.

Characterizing Urban Air Quality to Provide Actionable Information

Science.gov (United States)

Lary, D. J.

2017-12-01

The urbanization of national and global populations is associated with increasing challenges to creation of sustainable and livable communities. In urban environments, there is currently a lack of accurate actionable information on atmospheric composition on fine spatial and temporal scales. There is a pressing need to better characterize the complex spatial distribution of environmental features of cityscapes and improve understanding of their relationship to health and quality of life. This talk gives an overview of integrating sensing of atmospheric composition on multiple scales using a wide range of devices from distributed low cost-sensors, to aerial vehicles, to satellites. Machine learning plays a key role in providing both the cross-calibration and turning the exposure dosimetry into actionable insights for urban environments.

Scientific support, soil information and education provided by the Austrian Soil Science Society

Science.gov (United States)

Huber, Sigbert; Baumgarten, Andreas; Birli, Barbara; Englisch, Michael; Tulipan, Monika; Zechmeister-Boltenstern, Sophie

2015-04-01

The Austrian Soil Science Society (ASSS), founded in 1954, is a non-profit organisation aiming at furthering all branches of soil science in Austria. The ASSS provides information on the current state of soil research in Austria and abroad. It organizes annual conferences for scientists from soil and related sciences to exchange their recent studies and offers a journal for scientific publications. Annually, ASSS awards the Kubiena Research Prize for excellent scientific studies provided by young scientists. In order to conserve and improve soil science in the field, excursions are organized, also in cooperation with other scientific organisations. Due to well-established contacts with soil scientists and soil science societies in many countries, the ASSS is able to provide its members with information about the most recent developments in the field of soil science. This contributes to a broadening of the current scientific knowledge on soils. The ASSS also co-operates in the organisation of excursions and meetings with neighbouring countries. Several members of the ASSS teach soil science at various Austrian universities. More detail on said conferences, excursions, publications and awards will be given in the presentation. Beside its own scientific journal, published once or twice a year, and special editions such as guidebooks for soil classification, the ASSS runs a website providing information on the Society, its activities, meetings, publications, awards and projects. Together with the Environment Agency Austria the ASSS runs a soil platform on the internet. It is accessible for the public and thus informs society about soil issues. This platform offers a calendar with national and international soil events, contacts of soil related organisations and networks, information on national projects and publications. The society has access to products, information material and information on educational courses. Last but not least information on specific soil

Value Relevance of Investment Properties: Evidence from the Brazilian Capital Market

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Ketlyn Alves Gonçalves

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the relevance to the capital market of the assets recognized as investment properties of companies listed on the BM&F BOVESPA, in the period from 2011 to 2014. The research conducted was based on the Ohlson model (1995 and panel analysis was carried out using linear regression with POLS and Fixed and Random Effects estimators. Two hypothesis were made: (i that Earning and Equity generate accounting information relevant to investors; and (2 that Earning, Equity and Investment Property generate accounting information relevant to investors, assuming that investment properties have incremental effect on the relevance of this information relative only to earning and to equity. Both hypotheses were rejected, so it is concluded that Investment Property assets are not of value relevance in the determination of share price and do not influence the decision making of users of accounting information. The study adds to the limited literature on the value relevance of Investment Property, permitting a better understanding of the impact of accounting disclosures used by companies on their market value.

Adaptation to Recent Conflict in the Classical Color-Word Stroop-Task Mainly Involves Facilitation of Processing of Task-Relevant Information

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Sascha ePurmann

2015-03-01

Full Text Available To process information selectively and to continuously fine-tune selectivity of information processing are important abilities for successful goal-directed behavior. One phenomenon thought to represent this fine-tuning are conflict adaptation effects in interference tasks, i.e. reduction of interference after an incompatible trial and when incompatible trials are frequent. The neurocognitive mechanisms of these effects are currently only partly understood and results from brainimaging studies so far are mixed. In our study we validate and extend recent findings by examining adaption to recent conflict in the classical Stroop task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Consistent with previous research we found increased activity in a fronto-parietal network comprising the medial prefrontal cortex, ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex when contrasting incompatible with compatible trials. These areas have been associated with attentional processes and might reflect increased cognitive conflict and resolution thereof during incompatible trials. While carefully controlling for non-attentional sequential effects we found smaller Stroop interference after an incompatible trial (conflict adaptation effect. These behavioral conflict adaptation effects were accompanied by changes in activity in visual color-selective areas (V4, V4α, while there was no modulation by previous trial compatibility in a visual word-selective area (VWFA. Our results provide further evidence for the notion, that adaptation to recent conflict seems to be based mainly on enhancement of processing of the task-relevant information.

Adaptation to recent conflict in the classical color-word Stroop-task mainly involves facilitation of processing of task-relevant information.

Science.gov (United States)

Purmann, Sascha; Pollmann, Stefan

2015-01-01

To process information selectively and to continuously fine-tune selectivity of information processing are important abilities for successful goal-directed behavior. One phenomenon thought to represent this fine-tuning are conflict adaptation effects in interference tasks, i.e., reduction of interference after an incompatible trial and when incompatible trials are frequent. The neurocognitive mechanisms of these effects are currently only partly understood and results from brainimaging studies so far are mixed. In our study we validate and extend recent findings by examining adaption to recent conflict in the classical Stroop task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Consistent with previous research we found increased activity in a fronto-parietal network comprising the medial prefrontal cortex, ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex when contrasting incompatible with compatible trials. These areas have been associated with attentional processes and might reflect increased cognitive conflict and resolution thereof during incompatible trials. While carefully controlling for non-attentional sequential effects we found smaller Stroop interference after an incompatible trial (conflict adaptation effect). These behavioral conflict adaptation effects were accompanied by changes in activity in visual color-selective areas (V4, V4α), while there was no modulation by previous trial compatibility in a visual word-selective area (VWFA). Our results provide further evidence for the notion, that adaptation to recent conflict seems to be based mainly on enhancement of processing of the task-relevant information.

Causal and Epistemic Relevance in Appeals to Authority

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Sebastiano Lommi

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Appeals to authority have a long tradition in the history of argumentation theory. During the Middle Age they were considered legitimate and sound arguments, but after Locke’s treatment in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding their legitimacy has come under question. Traditionally, arguments from authority were considered informal arguments, but since the important work of Charles Hamblin (Hamblin, 1970 many attempts to provide a form for them have been done. The most convincing of them is the presumptive form developed by Douglas Walton and John Woods (Woods, Walton, 1974 that aims at taking into account the relevant contextual aspects in assessing the provisional validity of an appeal to authority. The soundness of an appeal depends on its meeting the adequacy conditions set to scrutinize all the relevant questions. I want to claim that this approach is compatible with the analysis of arguments in terms of relevance advanced by David Hitchcock (Hitchcock, 1992. He claims that relevance is a triadic relation between two items and a context. The first item is relevant to the second one in a given context. Different types of relevance relation exist, namely causal relevance and epistemic relevance. “Something is [causally] relevant to an outcome in a given situation if it helps to cause that outcome in the situation” (Hitchcock, 1992, p. 253, whereas it is epistemically relevant when it helps to achieve an epistemic goal in a given situation. I claim that we can adapt this conception to Walton and Krabbe’s theory of dialogue type (Walton, Krabbe, 1995, seeing the items of a relevance relation as the argument and its consequence and the context as the type of dialogue in which these arguments are advanced. According to this perspective, an argument from authority that meets the adequacy conditions has to be considered legitimate because it is an epistemically relevant relation. Therefore, my conclusion is that an analysis of appeals to

Advancing the Relevance Criteria for Video Search and Visual Summarization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rudinac, S.

2013-01-01

To facilitate finding of relevant information in ever-growing multimedia collections, a number of multimedia information retrieval solutions have been proposed over the past years. The essential element of any such solution is the relevance criterion deployed to select or rank the items from a

Perceptions of informal care givers: health and support services provided to people with multiple sclerosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Buchanan, Robert; Radin, Dagmar; Chakravorty, Bonnie J; Tyry, Tuula

2010-01-01

About 30% of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) need some form of home care assistance, with 80% of that assistance provided by informal or unpaid care givers. This study focuses on the care givers to 530 more disabled people with MS, with the objective to learn more about informal care giving to people with greater dependency and need for assistance. The data presented in this study were collected in a national survey of 530 informal care givers to people with MS who have greater levels of physical dependency. About 70% of informal care givers responded that assisting the person with MS perform daily activities or personal care took up the largest amount of their care giving time. Care givers also reported a range of home and community-based services that would make care giving easier or improve the care provided. However, informal care givers generally reported low satisfaction with health insurance coverage of these services, especially coverage by health maintenance organizations and other managed care plans. Lack of health insurance coverage of needed home and community-based services can reduce the quality of informal care provided, as well as increase the burden of informal care giving.

Relevant Scatterers Characterization in SAR Images

Science.gov (United States)

Chaabouni, Houda; Datcu, Mihai

2006-11-01

Recognizing scenes in a single look meter resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, requires the capability to identify relevant signal signatures in condition of variable image acquisition geometry, arbitrary objects poses and configurations. Among the methods to detect relevant scatterers in SAR images, we can mention the internal coherence. The SAR spectrum splitted in azimuth generates a series of images which preserve high coherence only for particular object scattering. The detection of relevant scatterers can be done by correlation study or Independent Component Analysis (ICA) methods. The present article deals with the state of the art for SAR internal correlation analysis and proposes further extensions using elements of inference based on information theory applied to complex valued signals. The set of azimuth looks images is analyzed using mutual information measures and an equivalent channel capacity is derived. The localization of the "target" requires analysis in a small image window, thus resulting in imprecise estimation of the second order statistics of the signal. For a better precision, a Hausdorff measure is introduced. The method is applied to detect and characterize relevant objects in urban areas.

Twenty years of providing information on nuclear power. The experience of EDF

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Durr, M.; Ansel, P.; Chaussade, J.P.; Haller, P.; Hezard, L.; Hue, L.

1995-01-01

In France, the anti-nuclear protest movement became a real problem after 1968, as new sites were sought. Initially, information on nuclear power involved communication by the entities responsible for building the plants. Once Government officials and politicians overcame their initial hesitation, their support, which underscores the continuity of France's energy policy, came to play a major role in the public acceptance of nuclear power. Electricite de France (EDF) then had to master the art of informing and communicating with the public. The change in the parliamentary majority in 1981 did not call into question the nuclear programme, and new plants were commissioned with relative ease. The situation changed dramatically with the Chernobyl disaster. It therefore became vital to establish an efficient structure for crisis communications, and transparency became crucial. The focus shifted from launching new plants to operating existing facilities and restoring public confidence. While not neglecting the general public, the emphasis was on certain strategic segments of the population, notably teachers and health care professionals. Advertising campaigns are today aimed at certain segments of the public, whose opinion could well shift in favour of nuclear power. Lastly, EDF, as power plant operator, has to realize the importance of providing information on nuclear waste. Starting from a strategic policy of informing politicians and senior decision makers, in 1974 EDF began to focus on providing information that would 'educate' the public. This information was issued via technicians who had no specific training in communications techniques. In addition to the need to explain and justify its projects, EDF had to adopt a policy of transparency, and to dispense with the esoteric language of specialists and their preference for secrecy. After Chernobyl, EDF's managers made communications with the 'outside world' an integral part of their jobs. Nuclear information became a

Knowledge-based driver assistance systems traffic situation description and situation feature relevance

CERN Document Server

Huelsen, Michael

2014-01-01

The comprehension of a traffic situation plays a major role in driving a vehicle. Interpretable information forms a basis for future projection, decision making and action performing, such as navigating, maneuvering and driving control. Michael Huelsen provides an ontology-based generic traffic situation description capable of supplying various advanced driver assistance systems with relevant information about the current traffic situation of a vehicle and its environment. These systems are enabled to perform reasonable actions and approach visionary goals such as injury and accident free driv

Using the Characteristics of Documents, Users and Tasks to Predict the Situational Relevance of Health Web Documents

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Melinda Oroszlányová

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Relevance is usually estimated by search engines using document content, disregarding the user behind the search and the characteristics of the task. In this work, we look at relevance as framed in a situational context, calling it situational relevance, and analyze whether it is possible to predict it using documents, users and tasks characteristics. Using an existing dataset composed of health web documents, relevance judgments for information needs, user and task characteristics, we build a multivariate prediction model for situational relevance. Our model has an accuracy of 77.17%. Our findings provide insights into features that could improve the estimation of relevance by search engines, helping to conciliate the systemic and situational views of relevance. In a near future we will work on the automatic assessment of document, user and task characteristics.

Perceived barriers, resources, and training needs of rural primary care providers relevant to the management of childhood obesity.

Science.gov (United States)

Findholt, Nancy E; Davis, Melinda M; Michael, Yvonne L

2013-08-01

To explore the perceived barriers, resources, and training needs of rural primary care providers in relation to implementing the American Medical Association Expert Committee recommendations for assessment, treatment, and prevention of childhood obesity. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 rural primary care providers in Oregon. Transcribed interviews were thematically coded. Barriers to addressing childhood obesity fell into 5 categories: barriers related to the practice (time constraints, lack of reimbursement, few opportunities to detect obesity), the clinician (limited knowledge), the family/patient (family lifestyle and lack of parent motivation to change, low family income and lack of health insurance, sensitivity of the issue), the community (lack of pediatric subspecialists and multidisciplinary/tertiary care services, few community resources), and the broader sociocultural environment (sociocultural influences, high prevalence of childhood obesity). There were very few clinic and community resources to assist clinicians in addressing weight issues. Clinicians had received little previous training relevant to childhood obesity, and they expressed an interest in several topics. Rural primary care providers face extensive barriers in relation to implementing recommended practices for assessment, treatment, and prevention of childhood obesity. Particularly problematic is the lack of local and regional resources. Employing nurses to provide case management and behavior counseling, group visits, and telehealth and other technological communications are strategies that could improve the management of childhood obesity in rural primary care settings. © 2013 National Rural Health Association.

Motivation and challenges for use of malaria rapid diagnostic tests among informal providers in Myanmar: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Sudhinaraset, May; Briegleb, Christina; Aung, Moe; Khin, Hnin Su Su; Aung, Tin

2015-02-06

Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria enable proper diagnosis and have been shown to reduce overuse of artemisinin combination therapy. Few studies have evaluated the feasibility and use of RDTs in the private sector in Myanmar. The objectives of the study were to: 1) understand the acceptability of using RDTs in the informal sector in Myanmar; 2) examine motivations for use among informal providers; and, 3) highlight decision-making and knowledge of providers for diagnostic testing and treatment. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 informal providers. Purposeful sampling was used to enrol study participants in the Mon and Shan State in Myanmar. All interviews were conducted in Burmese, translated into English, and two researchers coded all interviews using Atlas ti. Major themes identified included: 1) informal provider and outlet characteristics, including demographic and background characteristics; 2) the benefits and challenges of using RDTs according to providers; 3) provider experiences with using RDTs, including motivations for using the RDT; 4) adherence to test results, either positive or negative; and, 5) recommendations from informal providers to promote increased use of RDTs in their communities. This study found that introducing RDTs to informal providers in Myanmar was feasible, resulting in improved provider empowerment and patient-provider relationships. Specific challenges included facility infrastructure to use and dispose RDTs and provider knowledge. This varied across the type of informal provider, with itinerant drug vendors more comfortable and knowledgeable about RDTs compared to general retail sellers and medical drug representatives. This study found informal providers in Myanmar found the introduction of RDTs to be highly acceptable. Providers discussed improvement in service quality including provider empowerment and patient-provider relationships. The study also highlighted a number of challenges that informal providers

Informed consent: information or knowledge?

Science.gov (United States)

Berger, Ken

2003-01-01

A fiduciary relationship should be nurtured between patient and physician. This requires effective communication throughout all aspects of care - especially pertaining to treatment decisions. In the context of illness as experienced by the patient a unique set of circumstances is presented. However, communication in an illness context is fraught with problems. The patient is vulnerable and the situation may be overwhelming. Voluminous amounts of information are available to patients from a host of health care providers, family members, support groups, advocacy centers, books, journals, and the internet. Often conflicting and confusion, frequently complex, this information may be of greater burden than benefit. Some information is of high validity and reliability while other information is of dubious reliability. The emotional freight of bad news may further inhibit understanding. An overload of information may pose an obstacle in decision-making. To facilitate the transformation of information into knowledge, the health care provider must act on some occasions as a filter, on other occasions as a conduit, and on still other occasions simply as a reservoir. The evolution of patient rights to receive or refuse treatment, the right to know or not to know calls for a change in processing of overwhelming information in our modem era. In this paper we will discuss the difference between information and knowledge. How can health care providers ensure they have given their patients all necessary and sufficient information to make an autonomous decision? How can they facilitate the transformation of information into knowledge? The effect of knowledge to consent allows a more focused, relevant and modern approach to choice in health care.

Communication at an online infertility expert forum: provider responses to patients' emotional and informational cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Aarts, J W M; van Oers, A M; Faber, M J; Cohlen, B J; Nelen, W L D M; Kremer, J A M; van Dulmen, A M

2015-01-01

Online patient-provider communication has become increasingly popular in fertility care. However, it is not known to what extent patients express cues or concerns and how providers respond. In this study, we investigated cues and responses that occur in online patient-provider communication at an infertility-specific expert forum. We extracted 106 threads from the multidisciplinary expert forum of two Dutch IVF clinics. We performed the following analyses: (1) thematic analysis of patients' questions; and (2) rating patients' emotional and informational cues and subsequent professionals' responses using an adaptation of the validated Medical Interview Aural Rating Scale. Frequencies of themes, frequencies of cues and responses, and sequences (what cue is followed by what response) were extracted. Sixty-five infertile patients and 19 providers participated. The most common themes included medication and lifestyle. Patients gave more informational than emotional cues (106 versus 64). Responses to informational cues were mostly adequate (61%). The most common response to emotional cues was empathic acknowledgment (72%). Results indicate that an online expert forum could have a positive effect on patient outcomes, which should guide future research. Offering infertile patients an expert forum to communicate with providers can be a promising supplement to usual care in both providing information and addressing patients' concerns.

Attitudes toward health care providers, collecting information about patients' race, ethnicity, and language.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, David W; Hasnain-Wynia, Romana; Kandula, Namratha R; Thompson, Jason A; Brown, E Richard

2007-11-01

Experts recommend that health care providers (HCPs) collect patients' race/ethnicity and language, but we know little about public attitudes towards this. To determine attitudes towards HCPs collecting race/ethnicity and language data. A telephone survey was held with 563 Californians, including 105 whites, 97 blacks, 199 Hispanics (162 Spanish-speaking), 129 Asians (73 Chinese-speaking), and 33 multiracial individuals. Attitudes towards HCPs asking patients their race/ethnicity and preferred language, concerns about providing their own information, reactions to statements explaining the rationale for data collection, and attitudes towards possible policies. Most (87.8%) somewhat or strongly agreed that HCPs should collect race/ethnicity information and use this to monitor disparities, and 73.6% supported state legislation requiring this. Support for collection of patients' preferred language was even higher. However, 17.2% were uncomfortable (score 1-4 on 10-point scale) reporting their own race/ethnicity, and 46.3% of participants were somewhat or very worried that providing information could be used to discriminate against them. In addition, 35.9% of Hispanics were uncomfortable reporting their English proficiency. All statements explaining the rationale for data collection modestly increased participants' comfort level; the statement that this would be used for staff training increased comfort the most. Although most surveyed believe that HCPs should collect information about race/ethnicity and language, many feel uncomfortable giving this information and worry it could be misused. Statements explaining the rationale for collecting data may assuage concerns, but community engagement and legislation to prevent misuse may be needed to gain more widespread trust and comfort.

Final report on the proposal to provide Asian science and technology information.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lopez, Wallace H.

2003-06-19

The focus of this program, was to address those scientific, technical, market, and policy activities which are supported/conducted by Japanese and other relevant Asian organizations pursing research, development and/or manufacturing in high performance computing and communications (HPC), networking, and related sectors, as well as, relevant specialized end applications. The scope of the programs and activities were focused on establishing direct and timely analyses of relevant scientific and technical trend and developments.

The Persistence of Informality: Small-Scale Water Providers in Manila’s Post-Privatisation Era

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deborah Cheng

2014-02-01

Full Text Available This article troubles the notion of a formal-informal dichotomy in urban water provision. Whereas expansion of a water utility typically involves the replacement of informal providers, the experience in Manila demonstrates that the rapid connection of low-income areas actually hinges, in part, on the selective inclusion and exclusion of these smaller actors. In this sense, privatisation has not eliminated small-scale water provision, but has led to the reconfiguration of its usage, blurring the boundaries between formal and informal. By examining the spatial and temporal evolution of small-scale water provision in Manila’s post-privatisation era, I show how certain spaces are seen as less serviceable than others. Critically, small providers working in partnership with the utilities are sanctioned because they supplement the utilities’ operations. The areas in which they work are considered served, factoring into aggregate coverage statistics, even though their terms of service are often less desirable than those of households directly connected to the utilities. In contrast, small providers that operate outside of the utilities’ zones of coverage are considered inferior, to be replaced. The result is a differentiation in informality – one in which the private utilities largely determine modes of access and thus the spatialisation of informal water provision.

Federated health information architecture: Enabling healthcare providers and policymakers to use data for decision-making.

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, Manish; Mostafa, Javed; Ramaswamy, Rohit

2018-05-01

Health information systems (HIS) in India, as in most other developing countries, support public health management but fail to enable healthcare providers to use data for delivering quality services. Such a failure is surprising, given that the population healthcare data that the system collects are aggregated from patient records. An important reason for this failure is that the health information architecture (HIA) of the HIS is designed primarily to serve the information needs of policymakers and program managers. India has recognised the architectural gaps in its HIS and proposes to develop an integrated HIA. An enabling HIA that attempts to balance the autonomy of local systems with the requirements of a centralised monitoring agency could meet the diverse information needs of various stakeholders. Given the lack of in-country knowledge and experience in designing such an HIA, this case study was undertaken to analyse HIS in the Bihar state of India and to understand whether it would enable healthcare providers, program managers and policymakers to use data for decision-making. Based on a literature review and data collected from interviews with key informants, this article proposes a federated HIA, which has the potential to improve HIS efficiency; provide flexibility for local innovation; cater to the diverse information needs of healthcare providers, program managers and policymakers; and encourage data-based decision-making.

Antecedent characteristics of online cancer information seeking among rural breast cancer patients: an application of the Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing (C-SHIP) model.

Science.gov (United States)

Shaw, Bret R; Dubenske, Lori L; Han, Jeong Yeob; Cofta-Woerpel, Ludmila; Bush, Nigel; Gustafson, David H; McTavish, Fiona

2008-06-01

Little research has examined the antecedent characteristics of patients most likely to seek online cancer information. This study employs the Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing (C-SHIP) model as a framework to understand what psychosocial characteristics precede online cancer-related information seeking among rural breast cancer patients who often have fewer health care providers and limited local support services. Examining 144 patients who were provided free computer hardware, Internet access, and training for how to use an interactive cancer communication system, pretest survey scores indicating patients' psychosocial status were correlated with specific online cancer information seeking behaviors. Each of the factors specified by the C-SHIP model had significant relationships with online cancer information seeking behaviors, with the strongest findings emerging for cancer-relevant encodings and self-construals, cancer-relevant beliefs and expectancies, and cancer-relevant self-regulatory competencies and skills. Specifically, patients with more negative appraisals in these domains were more likely to seek out online cancer information. Additionally, antecedent variables associated with the C-SHIP model had more frequent relationships with experiential information as compared with to didactic information. This study supports the applicability of the model to discern why people afflicted with cancer may seek online information to cope with their disease.

Antecedent Characteristics of Online Cancer Information Seeking Among Rural Breast Cancer Patients: An Application of the Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing (C-SHIP) Model

Science.gov (United States)

Shaw, Bret R.; DuBenske, Lori L.; Han, Jeong Yeob; Cofta-Woerpel, Ludmila; Bush, Nigel; Gustafson, David H.; McTavish, Fiona

2013-01-01

Little research has examined the antecedent characteristics of patients most likely to seek online cancer information. This study employs the Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing (C-SHIP) model as a framework to understand what psychosocial characteristics precede online cancer-related information seeking among rural breast cancer patients who often have fewer healthcare providers and limited local support services. Examining 144 patients who were provided free computer hardware, Internet access and training for how to use an Interactive Cancer Communication System, pre-test survey scores indicating patients’ psychosocial status were correlated with specific online cancer information seeking behaviors. Each of the factors specified by the C-SHIP model had significant relationships with online cancer information seeking behaviors with the strongest findings emerging for cancer-relevant encodings and self-construals, cancer-relevant beliefs and expectancies and cancer-relevant self-regulatory competencies and skills. Specifically, patients with more negative appraisals in these domains were more likely to seek out online cancer information. Additionally, antecedent variables associated with the C-SHIP model had more frequent relationships with experiential information as compared to didactic information. This study supports the applicability of the model to discern why people afflicted with cancer may seek online information to cope with their disease. PMID:18569368

Ethical principles of informed consent: exploring nurses' dual role of care provider and researcher.

Science.gov (United States)

Judkins-Cohn, Tanya M; Kielwasser-Withrow, Kiersten; Owen, Melissa; Ward, Jessica

2014-01-01

This article describes the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, and justice within the nurse researcher-participant relationship as these principles relate to the informed consent process for research. Within this process, the nurse is confronted with a dual role. This article describes how nurses, who are in the dual role of care provider and researcher, can apply these ethical principles to their practice in conjunction with the American Nurses Association's code of ethics for nurses. This article also describes, as an element of ethical practice, the importance of using participant-centered quality measures to aid informed decision making of participants in research. In addition, the article provides strategies for improving the informed consent process in nursing research. Finally, case scenarios are discussed, along with the application of ethical principles within the awareness of the dual role of the nurse as care provider and researcher. Copyright 2014, SLACK Incorporated.

Development of a culturally relevant consumer health information website for Harlem, New York.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Michelle; Morita, Haruka; Mateo, Katrina F; Nye, Andrea; Hutchinson, Carly; Cohall, Alwyn T

2014-09-01

The process of creating a geographically tailored health information website with ongoing feedback from community members is one of inquiry and discovery, frustration and triumph, and development and reevaluation. This article reviews the development and implementation of GetHealthyHarlem.org, a health literacy level-appropriate consumer health information website tailored to consumers in Harlem, New York City. From 2004 to 2009, the Harlem Health Promotion Center, one of 37 Prevention Research Centers in the United States, sought to determine the use and seeking of online health information in Harlem, New York City in order to further explore the possibility of providing online health information to this community. Specifically, this article details how we sought to identify gaps, concerns, and uses of online health information and health care seeking in this local, predominantly racial and ethnic minority population. We review how we identified and addressed the multitude of variables that play a role in determining the degree of success in finding and using online health information, and include discussions about the genesis of the website and our successes and challenges in the development and implementation stages. © 2014 Society for Public Health Education.

Adequacy of pharmacological information provided in pharmaceutical drug advertisements in African medical journals.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oshikoya KA

2009-06-01

manufacturer on both the container and pack of the drug} were mentioned in 65.6% and 50% adverts, respectively. The product and package descriptions were provided in 57 (72.2% Nigerian medical journals, which was significantly higher than in other African medical journals 39 (37.9% (P<0.001.Conclusions: None of the drug advertisements in the journals adequately provided the basic information required by the WHO for appropriate prescribing. More guidance and regulation is needed to ensure adequate information is provided.

Improving Nigerian health policymakers' capacity to access and utilize policy relevant evidence: outcome of information and communication technology training workshop.

Science.gov (United States)

Uneke, Chigozie Jesse; Ezeoha, Abel Ebeh; Uro-Chukwu, Henry; Ezeonu, Chinonyelum Thecla; Ogbu, Ogbonnaya; Onwe, Friday; Edoga, Chima

2015-01-01

Information and communication technology (ICT) tools are known to facilitate communication and processing of information and sharing of knowledge by electronic means. In Nigeria, the lack of adequate capacity on the use of ICT by health sector policymakers constitutes a major impediment to the uptake of research evidence into the policymaking process. The objective of this study was to improve the knowledge and capacity of policymakers to access and utilize policy relevant evidence. A modified "before and after" intervention study design was used in which outcomes were measured on the target participants both before the intervention is implemented and after. A 4-point likert scale according to the degree of adequacy; 1 = grossly inadequate, 4 = very adequate was employed. This study was conducted in Ebonyi State, south-eastern Nigeria and the participants were career health policy makers. A two-day intensive ICT training workshop was organized for policymakers who had 52 participants in attendance. Topics covered included: (i). intersectoral partnership/collaboration; (ii). Engaging ICT in evidence-informed policy making; use of ICT for evidence synthesis; (iv) capacity development on the use of computer, internet and other ICT. The pre-workshop mean of knowledge and capacity for use of ICT ranged from 2.19-3.05, while the post-workshop mean ranged from 2.67-3.67 on 4-point scale. The percentage increase in mean of knowledge and capacity at the end of the workshop ranged from 8.3%-39.1%. Findings of this study suggest that policymakers' ICT competence relevant to evidence-informed policymaking can be enhanced through training workshop.

Foraging for Information in the EHR: The Search for Adherence Related Information by Mental Health Clinicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Gibson, Bryan; Butler, Jorie; Zirkle, Maryan; Hammond, Kenric; Weir, Charlene

2016-01-01

In this project we sought to qualitatively describe clinician's search for information related to the complex construct of adherence. Nineteen think aloud observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted with mental health providers as they prepared for a patient visit. The transcripts were coded according to constructs from information foraging theory (information goal, patch, scent, enrichment, and opportunity cost). The search strategies uncovered were complicated: provider's searches were sometimes multi-staged (e.g. a search of the EHR led to further enquiry when interviewing the patient), and involved multiple 'patches' (i.e. data from the EHR, the patient and other providers were all sought out). In addition, some information that providers considered relevant to understand adherence related questions was non-obvious (e.g. the absence of specific information was considered a useful cue). Providers' information search strategies for complex constructs are at times non-intuitive; implications for the design of EHR summarization tools are discussed.

21 CENTURY LIBRARIANS AND EFFECTIVE INFORMATION ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

21st century librarians to reposition the academic library for effective service delivery. ... to acquire 21st century skills through personal training so as to be relevant ... As information providers, they are constantly under pressure to provide .... to take risks; abiding public service perspective; good interpersonal skills; skill at.

Benchmarking and Its Relevance to the Library and Information Sector. Interim Findings of "Best Practice Benchmarking in the Library and Information Sector," a British Library Research and Development Department Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinnell, Margaret; Garrod, Penny

This British Library Research and Development Department study assesses current activities and attitudes toward quality management in library and information services (LIS) in the academic sector as well as the commercial/industrial sector. Definitions and types of benchmarking are described, and the relevance of benchmarking to LIS is evaluated.…

Preoperative information needs of children undergoing tonsillectomy.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Buckley, Aoife

2012-02-01

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To identify the information needs of children undergoing tonsillectomy with reference to content of information, method of delivery, information providers and timing of information provision. BACKGROUND: Tonsillectomy can be anxiety provoking for children and preoperative preparation programmes are long recognised to reduce anxiety. However, few have been designed from the perspectives of children and to date little is known about how best to prepare children in terms of what to tell them, how to convey information to them, who can best provide information and what is the best timing for information provision. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive study. METHOD: Data were collected from nine children (aged 6-9) using interviews supported by a write and draw technique. Data were coded and categorised into themes reflecting content, method, providers and timing of information. RESULTS: Children openly communicated their information needs especially on what to tell them to expect when facing a tonsillectomy. Their principal concerns were about operation procedures, experiencing \\'soreness\\' and discomfort postoperatively and parental presence. Mothers were viewed as best situated to provide them with information. Children were uncertain about what method of information and timing would be most helpful to them. CONCLUSION: Preoperative educational interventions need to take account of children\\'s information needs so that they are prepared for surgery in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them. Future research is needed in this area. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Practical steps towards informing children about having a tonsillectomy include asking them what they need to know and addressing their queries accordingly. Child-centred information leaflets using a question and answer format could also be helpful to children.

Android Smartphone Relevance to Military Weather Applications

Science.gov (United States)

2011-10-01

lithium -ion battery that may be replaced by the user (unlike Apple iPod Touch devices), thus spare batteries can be carried. If there is only sporadic...Android Smartphone Relevance to Military Weather Applications by David Sauter ARL-TR-5793 October 2011...Android Smartphone Relevance to Military Weather Applications David Sauter Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, ARL

Economic Evaluation of the Information Security Levels Achieved by Electric Energy Providers in North Arctic Region

Science.gov (United States)

Sushko, O. P.; Kaznin, A. A.; Babkin, A. V.; Bogdanov, D. A.

2017-10-01

The study we are conducting involves the analysis of information security levels achieved by energy providers operating in the North Arctic Region. We look into whether the energy providers’ current information security levels meet reliability standards and determine what further actions may be needed for upgrading information security in the context of the digital transformation that the world community is undergoing. When developing the information security systems for electric energy providers or selecting the protection means for them, we are governed by the fact that the assets to be protected are process technologies. While information security risk can be assessed using different methods, the evaluation of the economic damage from these risks appears to be a difficult task. The most probable and harmful risks we have identified when evaluating the electric energy providers’ information security will be used by us as variables. To provide the evaluation, it is necessary to calculate the costs relating to elimination of the risks identified. The final stage of the study will involve the development of an operation algorithm for the North Arctic Region’s energy provider’s business information protection security system - a set of information security services, and security software and hardware.

Cue self-relevance affects autobiographical memory specificity in individuals with a history of major depression.

Science.gov (United States)

Crane, Catherine; Barnhofer, Thorsten; Mark, J; Williams, G

2007-04-01

Previously depressed and never-depressed individuals identified personal characteristics (self-guides) defining their ideal, ought, and feared selves. One week later they completed the autobiographical memory test (AMT). For each participant the number of AMT cues that reflected self-guide content was determined to produce an index of AMT cue self-relevance. Individuals who had never been depressed showed no significant relationship between cue self-relevance and specificity. In contrast, in previously depressed participants there was a highly significant negative correlation between cue self-relevance and specificity--the greater the number of AMT cues that reflected self-guide content, the fewer specific memories participants recalled. It is suggested that in individuals with a history of depression, cues reflecting self-guide content are more likely to prompt a shift to processing of information within the long-term self (Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004), increasing the likelihood that self-related semantic information will be provided in response to cues on the autobiographical memory test.

Adding Value to Facilities Management with Information Technology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ebbesen, Poul

2016-01-01

This PhD project investigates implementation and use of Information Systems (IS) and Information Technologies (IT) in the Facilities management (FM) business domain. This investigation is relevant because implementation and use of IS/IT in FM has potentials for improvements which can provide...

Clearly written, easily comprehended? The readability of websites providing information on epilepsy.

Science.gov (United States)

Brigo, Francesco; Otte, Willem M; Igwe, Stanley C; Tezzon, Frediano; Nardone, Raffaele

2015-03-01

There is a general need for high-quality, easily accessible, and comprehensive health-care information on epilepsy to better inform the general population about this highly stigmatized neurological disorder. The aim of this study was to evaluate the health literacy level of eight popular English-written websites that provide information on epilepsy in quantitative terms of readability. Educational epilepsy material on these websites, including 41 Wikipedia articles, were analyzed for their overall level of readability and the corresponding academic grade level needed to comprehend the published texts on the first reading. The Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) was used to assess ease of comprehension while the Gunning Fog Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Automated Readability Index, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook scales estimated the corresponding academic grade level needed for comprehension. The average readability of websites yielded results indicative of a difficult-to-fairly-difficult readability level (FRE results: 44.0±8.2), with text readability corresponding to an 11th academic grade level (11.3±1.9). The average FRE score of the Wikipedia articles was indicative of a difficult readability level (25.6±9.5), with the other readability scales yielding results corresponding to a 14th grade level (14.3±1.7). Popular websites providing information on epilepsy, including Wikipedia, often demonstrate a low level of readability. This can be ameliorated by increasing access to clear and concise online information on epilepsy and health in general. Short "basic" summaries targeted to patients and nonmedical users should be added to articles published in specialist websites and Wikipedia to ease readability. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An evaluation of dental information sessions provided to childcare educators in NSW in 2010-2011.

Science.gov (United States)

Noller, Jennifer M

2013-12-01

Childcare services provide ideal settings to promote good oral health and help reduce tooth decay in young children. This paper reports the results of an evaluation of the dental information session component of the NSW Little Smiles Program provided by public oral health service professionals to childcare educators in NSW in 2010-2011. The evaluation sought to determine if a face-to-face information session provided to childcare educators by oral health professionals: (i) can improve the confidence of childcare educators to reach national quality standards that relate to oral health; and (ii) is an appropriate model to use. In 2010-2011, 163 dental information sessions were provided to 1716 participants from over 526 childcare centres across NSW. Results showed that a dental information session can improve the confidence of childcare educators to assist their service to reach the required national quality standards for oral hygiene and diet-related oral health issues. Further evaluation is required to determine if oral health can be embedded in the daily practice of childcare services and other options need to be explored to deliver the sessions in a more cost-effective way.

Mands for information using "who?" and "which?" in the presence of establishing and abolishing operations.

Science.gov (United States)

Shillingsburg, M Alice; Bowen, Crystal N; Valentino, Amber L; Pierce, Laura E

2014-01-01

Treatments designed to teach mands for information have included prompting and differential reinforcement, as well as procedures to manipulate the relevant establishing operation (EO). However, previous studies have not included relevant abolishing operation (AO) conditions to ensure that the mand is under relevant antecedent control. Data on listener responses (i.e., use of the information) are also absent in the literature. The current study shows differential responding under EO and AO conditions and reports listener responses that demonstrate use of the provided information. Three participants, diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, learned to mand for information using "who?" and "which?" questions exclusively under EO conditions. In addition, each participant responded to the information provided to access a preferred item. Generalization of the "which?" mand for information was also demonstrated across novel stimuli. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Information Expensiveness Perceived by Vietnamese Patients with Respect to Healthcare Provider's Choice.

Science.gov (United States)

Quan-Hoang, Vuong

2016-10-01

Patients have to acquire information to support their decision on choosing a suitable healthcare provider. But in developing countries like Vietnam, accessibility issues remain an obstacle, thus adversely affect both quality and costliness of healthcare information. Vietnamese use both sources from health professionals and friends/relatives, especially when quality of the Internet-based cheaper sources appear to be still questionable. The search of information from both professionals and friends/relatives incurs some cost, which can be viewed as low or high depending low or high accessibility to the sources. These views potentially affect their choices. To investigate the effects that medical/health services information on perceived expensiveness of patients' labor costs. Two related objectives are a) establishing empirical relations between accessibility to sources and expensiveness; and, b) probabilistic trends of probabilities for perceived expensiveness. There is evidence for established relations among the variables "Convexp" and "Convrel" (all p's perceived expensiveness. a) Probabilistic trends show Vietnamese patients have propensity to value healthcare information highly and do not see it as "expensive"; b) The majority of Vietnamese households still take non-professional advices at their own risks; c) There is more for the public healthcare information system to do to reduce costliness and risk of information. The Internet-based health service users communities cannot replace this system.

The temporal-relevance temporal-uncertainty model of prospective duration judgment.

Science.gov (United States)

Zakay, Dan

2015-12-15

A model aimed at explaining prospective duration judgments in real life settings (as well as in the laboratory) is presented. The model is based on the assumption that situational meaning is continuously being extracted by humans' perceptual and cognitive information processing systems. Time is one of the important dimensions of situational meaning. Based on the situational meaning, a value for Temporal Relevance is set. Temporal Relevance reflects the importance of temporal aspects for enabling adaptive behavior in a specific moment in time. When Temporal Relevance is above a certain threshold a prospective duration judgment process is evoked automatically. In addition, a search for relevant temporal information is taking place and its outcomes determine the level of Temporal Uncertainty which reflects the degree of knowledge one has regarding temporal aspects of the task to be performed. The levels of Temporal Relevance and Temporal Uncertainty determine the amount of attentional resources allocated for timing by the executive system. The merit of the model is in connecting timing processes with the ongoing general information processing stream. The model rests on findings in various domains which indicate that cognitive-relevance and self-relevance are powerful determinants of resource allocation policy. The feasibility of the model is demonstrated by analyzing various temporal phenomena. Suggestions for further empirical validation of the model are presented. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dramatic lives and relevant becomings

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henriksen, Ann-Karina; Miller, Jody

2012-01-01

of marginality into positions of relevance. The analysis builds on empirical data from Copenhagen, Denmark, gained through ethnographic fieldwork with the participation of 20 female informants aged 13–22. The theoretical contribution proposes viewing conflicts as multi-linear, multi-causal and non...

Obtaining health care in another European Union Member State: how easy is it to find relevant information?

Science.gov (United States)

Santoro, Alessio; Silenzi, Andrea; Ricciardi, Walter; McKee, Martin

2015-02-01

The European Union Directive on cross-border health care places an obligation on member states (MSs) to establish one or more national contact points (NCPs). We evaluated whether MSs were meeting their legal obligations. Two researchers created a set of criteria, drawn from the Directive, to evaluate the information that 18 MSs provide on their NCP websites. Some 15 of the 18 MSs evaluated provided >75% of the information sought. This report shows examples of best practices that could be used to encourage other MSs to improve the quality and quantity of information provided. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

The brain's default network: anatomy, function, and relevance to disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Buckner, Randy L; Andrews-Hanna, Jessica R; Schacter, Daniel L

2008-03-01

Thirty years of brain imaging research has converged to define the brain's default network-a novel and only recently appreciated brain system that participates in internal modes of cognition. Here we synthesize past observations to provide strong evidence that the default network is a specific, anatomically defined brain system preferentially active when individuals are not focused on the external environment. Analysis of connectional anatomy in the monkey supports the presence of an interconnected brain system. Providing insight into function, the default network is active when individuals are engaged in internally focused tasks including autobiographical memory retrieval, envisioning the future, and conceiving the perspectives of others. Probing the functional anatomy of the network in detail reveals that it is best understood as multiple interacting subsystems. The medial temporal lobe subsystem provides information from prior experiences in the form of memories and associations that are the building blocks of mental simulation. The medial prefrontal subsystem facilitates the flexible use of this information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations. These two subsystems converge on important nodes of integration including the posterior cingulate cortex. The implications of these functional and anatomical observations are discussed in relation to possible adaptive roles of the default network for using past experiences to plan for the future, navigate social interactions, and maximize the utility of moments when we are not otherwise engaged by the external world. We conclude by discussing the relevance of the default network for understanding mental disorders including autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease.

Using Social Media as a Marketing Channel : how relevance, realness, and remarkableness influence interactivity and engagement

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. Boer, de

2010-01-01

This research explored a potential working framework for using social media as a marketing channel. Based on an extensive literature review and a multiple case study, important factors for using social media have been identified. Companies should provide relevant information, show signs of real

Monitoring the Carbon Cycle: Improving Our Ability to Proved Policy Relevant Information

Science.gov (United States)

Bruhwiler, L.

2017-12-01

Humans have altered the energy balance of the climate system mainly by producing and consuming fossil fuels, but also by emissions from food production. Manufacture and use of halocarbons, many of which are also strong greenhouse gases (GHGs) have added to anthropogenic radiative forcing. In response, the global atmosphere has warmed over the last half century at a rate of 0.17°C. The largest contribution to radiative forcing is due to CO2, and at present, about half of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been taken up by the oceans and terrestrial biosphere. The size of this "carbon emission discount" may change in the future as more carbon accumulates in the oceans, as human alter landscapes, and as climate changes. Efforts to limit global average temperature increases to 2°C and avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change depend on keeping track of both human emissions of greenhouse gases and changes in natural fluxes of carbon and nitrogen that occur in response to human activities and changing climate. Global in situ network observations provide information about changes in global GHG abundances over recent decades, as well as changing distributions between hemispheres. This information gives insight into changes in global and hemispheric sources and sinks of GHGs. It is, however, currently difficult to obtain robust information about regional sources and to discriminate between natural and anthropogenic fluxes. Information about regional sources is needed for GHG policymaking, while discrimination of natural sources is necessary for detection of trends in GHG fluxes and evaluation of coupled carbon cycle climate models. Although column average GHG abundances from space-based remote sensing data could provide considerable constraints on GHG budgets, there are still technical challenges to be overcome. Possible strategies for making progress involve greater increased observational coverage and more international collaboration, as well as

Informed consent for phase I studies: evaluation of quantity and quality of information provided to patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Tomamichel, M; Sessa, C; Herzig, S; de Jong, J; Pagani, O; Willems, Y; Cavalli, F

1995-04-01

the patients. In 71% of the consultations the three dimensions of information scored more than 3 and balanced one another, indicating a successful consultation by the Meerwein model. The informed consent procedure applied was satisfactory from a quantitative point of view, and the main items of information were acceptable to the patients. Meerweins's model proved to be applicable and useful for identifying pitfalls in communication. Greater attention should be paid to the indirect messages and implied criticisms of the patients to improve their participation in decision making. Physicians should become more skillful in providing adequate information and improve their methods of communication.

Withholding differential risk information on legal consumer nicotine/tobacco products: The public health ethics of health information quarantines.

Science.gov (United States)

Kozlowski, Lynn T; Sweanor, David

2016-06-01

The United States provides an example of a country with (a) legal tobacco/nicotine products (e.g., snus, other smokeless tobacco, cigarettes) differing greatly in risks to health and (b) respected health information websites that continue to omit or provide incorrect differential risk information. Concern for the principles of individual rights, health literacy, and personal autonomy (making decisions for oneself), which are key principles of public health ethics, has been countered by utilitarian arguments for the use of misleading or limited information to protect public health overall. We argue that omitting key health relevant information for current or prospective consumers represents a kind of quarantine of health-relevant information. As with disease quarantines, the coercive effects of quarantining information on differential risks need to be justified, not merely by fears of net negative public health effects, but by convincing evidence that such measures are actually warranted, that public health overall is in imminent danger and that the danger is sufficient to override principles of individual autonomy. Omitting such health-relevant information for consumers of such products effectively blindfolds them and impairs their making informed personal choices. Moral psychological issues that treat all tobacco/nicotine products similarly may also be influencing the reluctance to inform on differential risks. In countries where tobacco/nicotine products are legally sold and also differ greatly in disease risks compared to cigarettes (e.g., smokeless tobacco and vape), science-based, comprehensible, and actionable health information (consistent with health literacy principles) on differential risks should be available and only reconsidered if it is established that this information is causing losses to population health overall. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effect of providing risk information on undergoing cervical cancer screening: a randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Fujiwara, Hiroyuki; Shimoda, Akihiro; Ishikawa, Yoshiki; Taneichi, Akiyo; Ohashi, Mai; Takahashi, Yoshifumi; Koyanagi, Takahiro; Morisawa, Hiroyuki; Takahashi, Suzuyo; Sato, Naoto; Machida, Shizuo; Takei, Yuji; Saga, Yasushi; Suzuki, Mitsuaki

2015-01-01

In Japan, the cervical cancer screening rate is extremely low. Towards improving the cervical cancer screening rate, encouraging eligible people to make an informed choice, which is a decision-making process that relies on beliefs informed by adequate information about the possible benefits and risks of screening, has attracted increased attention in the public health domain. However, there is concern that providing information on possible risks of screening might prevent deter from participating. In total, 1,912 women aged 20-39 years who had not participated in screening in the fiscal year were selected from a Japanese urban community setting. Participants were randomly divided into 3 groups. Group A received a printed reminder with information about the possible benefits of screening, group B received a printed reminder with information about possible benefits and risks, and group C received a printed reminder with simple information only (control group). Out of 1,912 participants, 169 (8.8%) participated in cervical cancer screening. In the intervention groups, 137 (10.9%) participated in cervical cancer screening, compared to only 32 (4.9%) of the control group (p < 0.001). In addition, logistic regression analysis revealed that there was no significant difference in screening rate between group A and group B (p = 0.372). Providing information on the possible risks of screening may not prevent people from taking part in cervical cancer screening among a Japanese non-adherent population.

Can Raters with Reduced Job Descriptive Information Provide Accurate Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) Ratings?

Science.gov (United States)

Friedman, Lee; Harvey, Robert J.

1986-01-01

Job-naive raters provided with job descriptive information made Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) ratings which were validated against ratings of job analysts who were also job content experts. None of the reduced job descriptive information conditions enabled job-naive raters to obtain either acceptable levels of convergent validity with…

Availability and accessibility of evidence-based information resources provided by medical libraries in Australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Ritchie, A; Sowter, B

2000-01-01

This article reports on the results of an exploratory survey of the availability and accessibility of evidence-based information resources provided by medical libraries in Australia. Although barriers impede access to evidence-based information for hospital clinicians, the survey revealed that Medline and Cinahl are available in over 90% of facilities. In most cases they are widely accessible via internal networks and the Internet. The Cochrane Library is available in 69% of cases. The Internet is widely accessible and most libraries provide access to some full-text, electronic journals. Strategies for overcoming restrictions and integrating information resources with clinical workflow are being pursued. State, regional and national public and private consortia are developing agreements utilising on-line technology. These could produce cost savings and more equitable access to a greater range of evidence-based resources.

Medicare Provider Data - Hospice Providers

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Hospice Utilization and Payment Public Use File provides information on services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by hospice providers. The Hospice PUF...

Use of a New International Classification of Health Interventions for Capturing Information on Health Interventions Relevant to People with Disabilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Fortune, Nicola; Madden, Richard; Almborg, Ann-Helene

2018-01-17

Development of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) is currently underway. Once finalised, ICHI will provide a standard basis for collecting, aggregating, analysing, and comparing data on health interventions across all sectors of the health system. In this paper, we introduce the classification, describing its underlying tri-axial structure, organisation and content. We then discuss the potential value of ICHI for capturing information on met and unmet need for health interventions relevant to people with a disability, with a particular focus on interventions to support functioning and health promotion interventions. Early experiences of use of the Swedish National Classification of Social Care Interventions and Activities, which is based closely on ICHI, illustrate the value of a standard classification to support practice and collect statistical data. Testing of the ICHI beta version in a wide range of countries and contexts is now needed so that improvements can be made before it is finalised. Input from those with an interest in the health of people with disabilities and health promotion more broadly is welcomed.

Greek Academic Librarians' Perceptions of the Impact of Google on Their Role as Information Providers

Science.gov (United States)

Garoufallou, Emmanouel; Balatsoukas, Panos; Siatri, Rania; Zafeiriou, Georgia; Asderi, S.; Ekizoglou; P.

2008-01-01

The increased popularity of Google search engine in the daily routine in one's workplace and in the academic information seeking process is undeniable. "Googling" challenges the traditional skills of librarians as information providers and the role of library and information service provision in the digital era. This paper reports on the…

Missouri State information handbook: formerly utilized sites remedial action program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1980-01-01

This volume is one of a series produced under contract with the DOE, by Politech Corporation to develop a legislative and regulatory data base to assist the FUSRAP management in addressing the institutional and socioeconomic issues involved in carrying out the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. This Information Handbook series contains information about all relevant government agencies at the Federal and state levels, the pertinent programs they administer, each affected state legislature, and current Federal and state legislative and regulatory initiatives. This volume is a compilation of information about the State of Missouri. It contains: a description of the state executive branch structure; a summary of relevant state statutes and regulations; a description of the structure of the state legislature chairmen, and a summary of recent relevant legislative action; a description of the organization and structure of local governments affected by remedial action at the St. Louis area sites; a summary of relevant local ordinances and regulations; an identification of relevant public interest groups; a list of radio stations, television stations, and newspapers that provide public information to the St. Louis area or to Jefferson City; and the full text of relevant statutes and regulations

Missouri State information handbook: formerly utilized sites remedial action program

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

1980-12-31

This volume is one of a series produced under contract with the DOE, by Politech Corporation to develop a legislative and regulatory data base to assist the FUSRAP management in addressing the institutional and socioeconomic issues involved in carrying out the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. This Information Handbook series contains information about all relevant government agencies at the Federal and state levels, the pertinent programs they administer, each affected state legislature, and current Federal and state legislative and regulatory initiatives. This volume is a compilation of information about the State of Missouri. It contains: a description of the state executive branch structure; a summary of relevant state statutes and regulations; a description of the structure of the state legislature chairmen, and a summary of recent relevant legislative action; a description of the organization and structure of local governments affected by remedial action at the St. Louis area sites; a summary of relevant local ordinances and regulations; an identification of relevant public interest groups; a list of radio stations, television stations, and newspapers that provide public information to the St. Louis area or to Jefferson City; and the full text of relevant statutes and regulations.

INFORMATIVE ADVERTISING: A MARKET INFORMATION PROVIDER OR A SEED OF MARKET POWER?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anzhelika G. GERASYMENKO

2012-07-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the role of informative advertising in creation and augment of market power as well as the ability of an advertiser to maximize the value of its economic rent. Informative advertising is considered to be a merit good unlike a persuasive one that is mostly associated with a bad. But analysis of the advertisement breakdown in Ukraine shows that the share of price advertisements, which are the most beneficial for the public, is negligible today. Further still those advertisements are mostly situated in the sectors, where price competition is the least strong. Another kind of informative advertising – differentiating advertising – turns from an instrument of informing consumers into the vehicle of manipulation of consumer choice. Using the blind tests the author has compared the quality and the prices of the range of advertised goods and has found out a low level of correlation between the variables. That means that informative advertising serves a function of informing consumers inefficiently. At the same time phantom differentiation and misleading advertising proliferation as well as informative advertising concentration on experience and credible goods instead search ones testify to effective serving a function of maximizing advertiser welfare.

Seeking kinetic pathways relevant to the structural evolution of metal nanoparticles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haldar, Paramita; Chatterjee, Abhijit

2015-01-01

Understanding the kinetic pathways that cause metal nanoparticles to structurally evolve over time is essential for predicting their shape and size distributions and catalytic properties. Consequently, we need detailed kinetic models that can provide such information. Most kinetic Monte Carlo models used for metal systems contain a fixed catalogue of atomic moves; the catalogue is largely constructed based on our physical understanding of the material. In some situations, it is possible that an incorrect picture of the overall dynamics is obtained when kinetic pathways that are relevant to the dynamics are missing from the catalogue. Hence, a computational framework that can systematically determine the relevant pathways is required. This work intends to fulfil this requirement. Examples involving an Ag nanoparticle are studied to illustrate how molecular dynamics (MD) calculations can be employed to find the relevant pathways in a system. Since pathways that are unlikely to be selected at short timescales can become relevant at longer times, the accuracy of the catalogue is maintained by continually seeking these pathways using MD. We discuss various aspects of our approach, namely, defining the relevance of atomic moves to the dynamics and determining when additional MD is required to ensure the desired accuracy, as well as physical insights into the Ag nanoparticle. (paper)

Maternal Healthcare Providers in Uttar Pradesh, India: How to Position Informal Practitioners within the System?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chesta Sharma

2014-12-01

Full Text Available To understand the knowledge and services of informal providers and to explore their role in addressing the human resource gap in Uttar Pradesh, India, within the context of maternal health.The study is exploratory in nature, conducted in four blocks of four districts of Uttar Pradesh state, India. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 114 informal providers.More than one-third (38% providers have some formal education and unrecognized degrees. Approximately three-fourths (74% of them have more than 5 years of work experience. They also provide delivery and in-patient services and have basic equipment available. However, they lack essential knowledge about maternal health. They have mixed opinion about their contribution towards maternal health but the only ones available. Therefore, despite lacking requisite knowledge, training and services, they become indispensable due to lack of emergency and timely public health services, and being the only ones existing in the community.Informal sector practitioners are a critical link in reaching out to population for health services in developing countries. As opposed to the general notion, they possess years of formal education, experience, informal trainings along with trust of communities. Thus, it becomes important to accept their presence and manage them to the best of their abilities even for specialized care like maternal health.

34 CFR 86.302 - What are the procedures used by the Secretary for providing information or technical assistance?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... providing information or technical assistance? 86.302 Section 86.302 Education Office of the Secretary... information or technical assistance? (a) The Secretary provides information or technical assistance to an IHE in writing, through site visits, or by other means. (b) The IHE shall inform the Secretary of any...

Relevance theory: pragmatics and cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Wearing, Catherine J

2015-01-01

Relevance Theory is a cognitively oriented theory of pragmatics, i.e., a theory of language use. It builds on the seminal work of H.P. Grice(1) to develop a pragmatic theory which is at once philosophically sensitive and empirically plausible (in both psychological and evolutionary terms). This entry reviews the central commitments and chief contributions of Relevance Theory, including its Gricean commitment to the centrality of intention-reading and inference in communication; the cognitively grounded notion of relevance which provides the mechanism for explaining pragmatic interpretation as an intention-driven, inferential process; and several key applications of the theory (lexical pragmatics, metaphor and irony, procedural meaning). Relevance Theory is an important contribution to our understanding of the pragmatics of communication. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Should informed consent be based on rational beliefs?

Science.gov (United States)

Savulescu, J; Momeyer, R W

1997-10-01

Our aim is to expand the regulative ideal governing consent. We argue that consent should not only be informed but also based on rational beliefs. We argue that holding true beliefs promotes autonomy. Information is important insofar as it helps a person to hold the relevant true beliefs. But in order to hold the relevant true beliefs, competent people must also think rationally. Insofar as information is important, rational deliberation is important. Just as physicians should aim to provide relevant information regarding the medical procedures prior to patients consenting to have those procedures, they should also assist patients to think more rationally. We distinguish between rational choice/action and rational belief. While autonomous choice need not necessarily be rational, it should be based on rational belief. The implication for the doctrine of informed consent and the practice of medicine is that, if physicians are to respect patient autonomy and help patients to choose and act more rationally, not only must they provide information, but they should care more about the theoretical rationality of their patients. They should not abandon their patients to irrationality. They should help their patients to deliberate more effectively and to care more about thinking rationally. We illustrate these arguments in the context of Jehovah's Witnesses refusing life-saving blood transfusions. Insofar as Jehovah's Witnesses should be informed of the consequences of their actions, they should also deliberate rationally about these consequences.

Considerations for Providing Etymological Information in the Advanced Ndebele Dictionary

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Langa Khumalo

2011-10-01

Full Text Available

Abstract: This article discusses the presentation of etymological information in the prospective Advanced Ndebele Dictionary (henceforth the AND which is still in its planning stage. The AND will be a successor to Isichazamazwi SesiNdebele (henceforth the ISN, a medium-sized, general-purpose, monolingual Ndebele dictionary published in 2001. The AND will not just be larger than the ISN, but will be more advanced with regard to the depth and scope of its lexical items and definitions. Whereas the ISN was based on a corpus size of about a million running words, the AND is envisaged to have as basis a corpus size of about five million. To this end, corpus expansion is an ongoing process. Again, unlike its forerunner, the AND will provide additional grammatical information for ach lexical item, including phonetic transcription, tone marking and etymology. It is the inclusion of etymological information in the AND that is critically examined in this article. There is a long tradition of providing etymological information in modern dictionaries from Oxford's New English Dictionary to ALRI's Duramazwi Guru reChiShona.

Keywords: ETYMOLOGY, ADVANCED NDEBELE DICTIONARY, CULTURE, HERITAGE, LANGUAGE CONTACT

Opsomming: Oorwegings vir die verskaffing van etimologiese inligting in die Gevorderde Ndebelewoordeboek. Hierdie artikel bespreek die aanbieding van etimo-logiese inligting in die toekomstige Gevorderde Ndebelewoordeboek (voortaan die GNW wat nog in sy beplanningstadium is. Die GNW sal 'n opvolger wees van die Isichazamazwi SesiNdebele (voortaan die ISN, 'n middelgroot, meerdoelige, eentalige Ndebelewoordeboek wat in 2001 gepubliseer is. Die GNW sal nie net groter as die ISN wees nie, maar sal meer gevorderd wees wat betref die diepte en omvang van sy leksikale items en definisies. Waar die ISN gebaseer was op 'n korpus-grootte van ongeveer 'n miljoen woordoptekeninge, word voorsien dat die GNW 'n korpusgrootte van ongeveer vyf miljoen as

Customer-Provider Strategic Alignment: A Maturity Model

Science.gov (United States)

Luftman, Jerry; Brown, Carol V.; Balaji, S.

This chapter presents a new model for assessing the maturity of a ­customer-provider relationship from a collaborative service delivery perspective: the Customer-Provider Strategic Alignment Maturity (CPSAM) Model. This model builds on recent research for effectively managing the customer-provider relationship in IT service outsourcing contexts and a validated model for assessing alignment across internal IT service units and their business customers within the same organization. After reviewing relevant literature by service science and information systems researchers, the six overarching components of the maturity model are presented: value measurements, governance, partnership, communications, human resources and skills, and scope and architecture. A key assumption of the model is that all of the components need be addressed to assess and improve customer-provider alignment. Examples of specific metrics for measuring the maturity level of each component over the five levels of maturity are also presented.

Quantum Information: Opportunities and Challenges

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bennink, Ryan S [ORNL

2008-01-01

Modern society is shaped by the ability to transmit, manipulate, and store large amounts of information. Although we tend to think of information as abstract, information is physical, and computing is a physical process. How then should we understand information in a quantum world, in which physical systems may exist in multiple states at once and are altered by the very act of observation? This question has evolved into an exciting new field of research called Quantum Information (QI). QI challenges many accepted rules and practices in computer science. For example, a quantum computer would turn certain hard problems into soft problems, and would render common computationally-secure encryption methods (such as RSA) insecure. At the same time, quantum communication would provide an unprecedented kind of intrinsic information security at the level of the smallest physical objects used to store or transmit the information. This talk provides a general introduction to the subject of quantum information and its relevance to cyber security. In the first part, two of the stranger aspects of quantum physics namely, superposition and uncertainty are explained, along with their relation to the concept of information. These ideas are illustrated with a few examples: quantum ID cards, quantum key distribution, and Grover s quantum search algorithm. The state-of-the-art in quantum computing and communication hardware is then discussed, along with the daunting technological challenges that must be overcome. Relevant experimental and theoretical efforts at ORNL are highlighted. The talk concludes with speculations on the short- and long-term impact of quantum information on cyber security.

Discovering relevance knowledge in data: a growing cell structures approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Azuaje, F; Dubitzky, W; Black, N; Adamson, K

2000-01-01

Both information retrieval and case-based reasoning systems rely on effective and efficient selection of relevant data. Typically, relevance in such systems is approximated by similarity or indexing models. However, the definition of what makes data items similar or how they should be indexed is often nontrivial and time-consuming. Based on growing cell structure artificial neural networks, this paper presents a method that automatically constructs a case retrieval model from existing data. Within the case-based reasoning (CBR) framework, the method is evaluated for two medical prognosis tasks, namely, colorectal cancer survival and coronary heart disease risk prognosis. The results of the experiments suggest that the proposed method is effective and robust. To gain a deeper insight and understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the proposed model, a detailed empirical analysis of the models structural and behavioral properties is also provided.

Apoptosis Gene Information System--AGIS.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakharkar, Kishore R; Clement, Marie V; Chow, Vincent T K; Pervaiz, Shazib

2006-05-01

Genes implicated in apoptosis have great relevance to biology, medicine and oncology. Here, we describe a unique resource, Apoptosis Gene Information System (AGIS) that provides data for over 2400 genes involved directly or indirectly, in apoptotic pathways of more than 350 different organisms. The organization of this information system is based on the principle of one-gene, one record. AGIS will be updated on a six monthly basis as new information becomes available. AGIS can be accessed at: http://www.cellfate.org/AGIS/.

Surveying managers to inform a regionally relevant invasive Phragmites australis control research program.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohal, C B; Kettenring, K M; Sims, K; Hazelton, E L G; Ma, Z

2018-01-15

more pertinent to manager needs and trusted by managers. Such an approach that integrates manager surveys to inform management experiments could be adapted to any developing research program seeking to be relevant to management audiences. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Activity assays and immunoassays for plasma Renin and prorenin: information provided and precautions necessary for accurate measurement

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Campbell, Duncan J; Nussberger, Juerg; Stowasser, Michael

2009-01-01

into focus the differences in information provided by activity assays and immunoassays for renin and prorenin measurement and has drawn attention to the need for precautions to ensure their accurate measurement. CONTENT: Renin activity assays and immunoassays provide related but different information...... provided by these assays and of the precautions necessary to ensure their accuracy....

Pilot information needs survey regarding climate relevant technologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Van Berkel, R.; Van Roekel, A.

1997-02-01

The objective of this pilot survey was to arrive at a preliminary understanding of the initial technology and technology information needs in non-Annex II countries in order to support international efforts to facilitate the transfer of technologies and know-how conducive to mitigating and adapting to climate change. The study encompassed two main components, i.e. the development of a survey instrument and the execution of a pilot survey among selected non-Annex II countries. The survey instrument addresses the present status of enabling activities; technology and technology information needs; and issues related to information supply and accessibility. The survey was distributed to national focal points in 20 non-Annex II countries and to at least 35 other stakeholders in five of these non-Annex II countries. A total of 27 completed questionnaires were received, covering 10 non-Annex II countries. 3 refs

Pilot information needs survey regarding climate relevant technologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Van Berkel, R.; Van Roekel, A.

1997-02-01

The objective of this pilot survey was to arrive at a preliminary understanding of the initial technology and technology information needs in non-Annex II countries in order to support international efforts to facilitate the transfer of technologies and know-how conducive to mitigating and adapting to climate change. The study encompassed two main components, i.e. the development of a survey instrument and the execution of a pilot survey among selected non-Annex II countries. The survey instrument addresses the present status of enabling activities; technology and technology information needs; and issues related to information supply and accessibility. The survey was distributed to national focal points in 20 non-Annex II countries and to at least 35 other stakeholders in five of these non-Annex II countries. A total of 27 completed questionnaires were received, covering 10 non-Annex II countries. 3 refs.

The Relevance of Health Literacy to mHealth.

Science.gov (United States)

Kreps, Gary L

2017-01-01

This chapter examines the importance of health literacy to the design and use of mobile digital health information technology (mHealth) applications. Over the past two decades mHealth has evolved to become a major health communication channel for delivering health care, promoting health, and tracking health behaviors. Yet, there are serious communication challenges that must be addressed concerning the best way to design and utilize mHealth application to achieve key health promotion goals, including assuring the appropriateness and effectiveness of mHealth messaging for audiences with different communication competencies, styles, and health literacy levels, to ensure that mHealth applications are truly effective tools for health promotion. Health literacy is one of the major communication issues relevant to the effective use of mHealth. To be effective, mHealth applications need to match the messages conveyed via these mobile media to the specific health communication needs, orientations, and competencies of intended audience members. Unfortunately, current evidence suggests that many mHealth applications are difficult for audiences to utilize because they provide health information that is not easy for many consumers to understand and apply. Health literacy refers to the ability of participants within the health care system to accurately interpret and utilize relevant health information and resources to achieve their health goals. Evidence suggests that many consumers possess limited levels of health literacy to adequately understand health information, especially when they are feeling ill, since health literacy is both a trait (limited education, language facility, etc.), and a state condition (based on how their current physical and mental states influence their abilities to communicate effectively). Therefore, it is incumbent upon mHealth developers to design and utilize message systems. Strategies for designing and implementing mHealth applications to meet

An Intelligent Virtual Human System For Providing Healthcare Information And Support

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

healthcare system, and also to other SMs and Veterans by way of a variety of social networking tools (e.g., 2nd Life, Facebook, etc.). The user can progress... CyberPsychology and Behavior 8, 3 (2005), 187-211. [2] T. Parsons & A.A. Rizzo, Affective Outcomes of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Anxiety...VH System for Providing Healthcare Information and Support508 [4] G. Riva, Virtual Reality in Psychotherapy: Review, CyberPsychology and Behavior 8

On the relevance of Gibson's affordance concept for geographical information science (GISc).

Science.gov (United States)

Jonietz, David; Timpf, Sabine

2015-09-01

J. J. Gibson's concept of affordances has provided a theoretical basis for various studies in geographical information science (GISc). This paper sets out to explain its popularity from a GISc perspective. Based on a short review of previous work, it will be argued that its main contributions to GISc are twofold, including an action-centered view of spatial entities and the notion of agent-environment mutuality. Using the practical example of pedestrian behavior simulation, new potentials for using and extending affordances are discussed.

76 FR 28758 - Notice of Proposed Information Collection Requests

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-18

...: 1,028. Abstract: This data collection will focus on gathering relevant information on the Technical... collection requirements and provide the requested data in the desired format. The Director, Information... (SEAs) and Part C lead agencies. This data collection will include two activities. The first activity...

25 CFR 115.803 - What information will be provided in a statement of performance?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false What information will be provided in a statement of performance? 115.803 Section 115.803 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR FINANCIAL... provided in a statement of performance? The statement of performance will identify the source, type, and...

Autonomous urban reconnaissance ingress system (AURIS): providing a tactically relevant autonomous door-opening kit for unmanned ground vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Shane, David J.; Rufo, Michael A.; Berkemeier, Matthew D.; Alberts, Joel A.

2012-06-01

The Autonomous Urban Reconnaissance Ingress System (AURIS™) addresses a significant limitation of current military and first responder robotics technology: the inability of reconnaissance robots to open doors. Leveraging user testing as a baseline, the program has derived specifications necessary for military personnel to open doors with fielded UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles), and evaluates the technology's impact on operational mission areas: duration, timing, and user patience in developing a tactically relevant, safe, and effective system. Funding is provided through the US ARMY Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and the project represents a leap forward in perception, autonomy, robotic implements, and coordinated payload operation in UGVs. This paper describes high level details of specification generation, status of the last phase of development, an advanced view of the system autonomy capability, and a short look ahead towards the ongoing work on this compelling and important technology.

Methodical assessment of all non-ionizing radiation sources that can provide a relevant contribution to public exposure. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bornkessel, Christian; Schubert, Markus; Wuschek, Matthias; Brueggemeyer, Hauke; Weiskopf, Daniela

2011-01-01

The aim of the research project was to systematically identify artificial sources on non-ionizing radiation (electric, magnetic or electromagnetic fields in a frequency range from 0 Hz to 300 GHz, as well optical radiation in a wavelength range from 100 nm to 1 mm), that have relevant contribution to public exposure. The report includes the following chapters: (1) Concept for the relevance assessment for non-ionizing radiation sources; (2) concept for the systematic identification of sources from establishes technologies; (3) concept for the systematic identification of sources from new or foreseeable technologies; (4)overview of relevant radiation sources.

The SADI Personal Health Lens: A Web Browser-Based System for Identifying Personally Relevant Drug Interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Vandervalk, Ben; McCarthy, E Luke; Cruz-Toledo, José; Klein, Artjom; Baker, Christopher J O; Dumontier, Michel; Wilkinson, Mark D

2013-04-05

The Web provides widespread access to vast quantities of health-related information that can improve quality-of-life through better understanding of personal symptoms, medical conditions, and available treatments. Unfortunately, identifying a credible and personally relevant subset of information can be a time-consuming and challenging task for users without a medical background. The objective of the Personal Health Lens system is to aid users when reading health-related webpages by providing warnings about personally relevant drug interactions. More broadly, we wish to present a prototype for a novel, generalizable approach to facilitating interactions between a patient, their practitioner(s), and the Web. We utilized a distributed, Semantic Web-based architecture for recognizing personally dangerous drugs consisting of: (1) a private, local triple store of personal health information, (2) Semantic Web services, following the Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration (SADI) design pattern, for text mining and identifying substance interactions, (3) a bookmarklet to trigger analysis of a webpage and annotate it with personalized warnings, and (4) a semantic query that acts as an abstract template of the analytical workflow to be enacted by the system. A prototype implementation of the system is provided in the form of a Java standalone executable JAR file. The JAR file bundles all components of the system: the personal health database, locally-running versions of the SADI services, and a javascript bookmarklet that triggers analysis of a webpage. In addition, the demonstration includes a hypothetical personal health profile, allowing the system to be used immediately without configuration. Usage instructions are provided. The main strength of the Personal Health Lens system is its ability to organize medical information and to present it to the user in a personalized and contextually relevant manner. While this prototype was limited to a single knowledge domain

The SADI Personal Health Lens: A Web Browser-Based System for Identifying Personally Relevant Drug Interactions

Science.gov (United States)

Vandervalk, Ben; McCarthy, E Luke; Cruz-Toledo, José; Klein, Artjom; Baker, Christopher J O; Dumontier, Michel

2013-01-01

Background The Web provides widespread access to vast quantities of health-related information that can improve quality-of-life through better understanding of personal symptoms, medical conditions, and available treatments. Unfortunately, identifying a credible and personally relevant subset of information can be a time-consuming and challenging task for users without a medical background. Objective The objective of the Personal Health Lens system is to aid users when reading health-related webpages by providing warnings about personally relevant drug interactions. More broadly, we wish to present a prototype for a novel, generalizable approach to facilitating interactions between a patient, their practitioner(s), and the Web. Methods We utilized a distributed, Semantic Web-based architecture for recognizing personally dangerous drugs consisting of: (1) a private, local triple store of personal health information, (2) Semantic Web services, following the Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration (SADI) design pattern, for text mining and identifying substance interactions, (3) a bookmarklet to trigger analysis of a webpage and annotate it with personalized warnings, and (4) a semantic query that acts as an abstract template of the analytical workflow to be enacted by the system. Results A prototype implementation of the system is provided in the form of a Java standalone executable JAR file. The JAR file bundles all components of the system: the personal health database, locally-running versions of the SADI services, and a javascript bookmarklet that triggers analysis of a webpage. In addition, the demonstration includes a hypothetical personal health profile, allowing the system to be used immediately without configuration. Usage instructions are provided. Conclusions The main strength of the Personal Health Lens system is its ability to organize medical information and to present it to the user in a personalized and contextually relevant manner. While this

A curated database of cyanobacterial strains relevant for modern taxonomy and phylogenetic studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramos, Vitor; Morais, João; Vasconcelos, Vitor M

2017-04-25

The dataset herein described lays the groundwork for an online database of relevant cyanobacterial strains, named CyanoType (http://lege.ciimar.up.pt/cyanotype). It is a database that includes categorized cyanobacterial strains useful for taxonomic, phylogenetic or genomic purposes, with associated information obtained by means of a literature-based curation. The dataset lists 371 strains and represents the first version of the database (CyanoType v.1). Information for each strain includes strain synonymy and/or co-identity, strain categorization, habitat, accession numbers for molecular data, taxonomy and nomenclature notes according to three different classification schemes, hierarchical automatic classification, phylogenetic placement according to a selection of relevant studies (including this), and important bibliographic references. The database will be updated periodically, namely by adding new strains meeting the criteria for inclusion and by revising and adding up-to-date metadata for strains already listed. A global 16S rDNA-based phylogeny is provided in order to assist users when choosing the appropriate strains for their studies.

Impact of Preparers of Accounting Information on Quality of Financial Reporting in Malaysia(*)

OpenAIRE

Dandago, Prof. Dr.Kabiru Isa; Edem, Akpan; Tsafe, Dr. Bashir Mande

2014-01-01

The primary objective of accounting is to provide information that is useful for decision making purposes. Accounting information that makes information provided useful to users in making economic decisions must possess the following qualities: relevance, reliability, comparability, understandability, neutrality, timeliness and materiality. This paper investigates the factors influencing preparers’ decision to prepare accounting information following the financial reporting rules and regulati...

Task relevance modulates successful retrieval effects during explicit and implicit memory tests.

Science.gov (United States)

Elman, Jeremy A; Shimamura, Arthur P

2011-05-01

The successful retrieval effect refers to greater activation for items identified as old compared to those identified as new. This effect is particularly apparent in the ventral posterior parietal cortex (vPPC), though its functional properties remain unclear. In two experiments, we assessed the activation for old and new items during explicit and implicit tests of memory. In Experiment 1, significant effects were observed during explicit recognition performance and during an implicit lexical decision task. In both tasks, determining mnemonic status provides relevant information to task goals. Experiment 2 included a second implicit task in which determining mnemonic status was not relevant (color discrimination task). In this case, vPPC activation did not distinguish between old and new items. These findings suggest that automatic or implicit processes can drive retrieval-related activation in the vPPC, though such processes are gated by stimulus relevancy and task goals. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Measurement of MMP-9 and -12 degraded elastin (ELM) provides unique information on lung tissue degradation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skjøt-Arkil, Helene; Clausen, Rikke E; Nguyen, Quoc Hai Trieu

2012-01-01

Elastin is an essential component of selected connective tissues that provides a unique physiological elasticity. Elastin may be considered a signature protein of lungs where matrix metalloprotease (MMP) -9-and -12, may be considered the signature proteases of the macrophages, which in part...... are responsible for tissue damage during disease progression. Thus, we hypothesized that a MMP-9/-12 generated fragment of elastin may be a relevant biochemical maker for lung diseases....

76 FR 49459 - Notice of Proposed Information Collection Requests

Science.gov (United States)

2011-08-10

... countries review current policy and develop informed education policy by providing accurate and relevant... feedback; teachers' instructional beliefs and pedagogical practices; school climate and ethos; [[Page 49460...

Missouri state information handbook formerly utilized sites remedial action program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1980-01-01

This volume is one of a series produced under contract with the DOE, by Politech Corporation to develop a legislative and rgulatory data base to assist the FUSRAP management in addressing the institutional and socioeconomic issues involved in carrying out the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. This Information Handbook series contains information about all relevant government agencies at the Federal and state levels, the pertinent programs they administer, each affected state legislature, and current Federal and state legislative and regulatory initiatives. This volume is a compilation of information about the State of Missouri. It contains: a description of the state executive branch structure; a summary of relevant state statutes and regulations; a description of the structure of the state legislature, identification of the officers and committee chairmen, and a summary of recent relevant legislative action; a description of the organization and structure of local governments affected by remedial action at the St. Louis area sites; a summary of relevant local ordinances and regulations; an identification of relevant public interest groups; a list of radio stations, television stations and newspapers that provide public information to the St. Louis area or to Jefferson City; and the full text of relevant statutes and regulations

42 CFR 51.46 - Disclosing information obtained from a provider of mental health services.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... mental health services. 51.46 Section 51.46 Public Health PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND... a provider of mental health services. (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, if a... of mental health services, it may not disclose information from such records to the individual who is...

International seminar on integrated information systems. Book of extended synopses

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2000-04-01

The information available to the IAEA under comprehensive safeguards agreement with an Additional protocol is intended to provide for as complete a picture as practicable of a State's current or planned nuclear programme. The central components of the strengthened safeguards system are: increased IAEA access to and evaluation of information about States' nuclear and nuclear-related activities and increased physical access to relevant locations for verification of the exclusively peaceful content of a States' nuclear programme. Strengthening measures implemented under the existing legal authority of the Agency have contributed to increased information and physical access. Thus the role of integrated information systems for safeguards relevant data acquisition became more significant.

International seminar on integrated information systems. Book of extended synopses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2000-04-01

The information available to the IAEA under comprehensive safeguards agreement with an Additional protocol is intended to provide for as complete a picture as practicable of a State's current or planned nuclear programme. The central components of the strengthened safeguards system are: increased IAEA access to and evaluation of information about States' nuclear and nuclear-related activities and increased physical access to relevant locations for verification of the exclusively peaceful content of a States' nuclear programme. Strengthening measures implemented under the existing legal authority of the Agency have contributed to increased information and physical access. Thus the role of integrated information systems for safeguards relevant data acquisition became more significant

Communication received from the Permanent Mission of Sweden regarding the provision of certain additional information on production, inventories and international transfers of nuclear material and on exports of certain relevant equipment and non-nuclear material

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-01-01

The document reproduces the text of a note verbale dated 28 June 1996 received by the Director General of IAEA from the Permanent Mission of Sweden through which the Government of Sweden provides, on a voluntary basis, certain additional information on production, inventories and international transfers of nuclear material and on exports of certain relevant equipment and non-nuclear material, in order to assist the Agency in the discharge of its safeguards responsibilities

Computerized analysis of isometric tension studies provides important additional information about vasomotor activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vincent M.B.

1997-01-01

Full Text Available Concentration-response curves of isometric tension studies on isolated blood vessels are obtained traditionally. Although parameters such as Imax, EC50 and pA2 may be readily calculated, this method does not provide information on the temporal profile of the responses or the actual nature of the reaction curves. Computerized data acquisition systems can be used to obtain average data that represent a new source of otherwise inaccessible information, since early and late responses may be observed separately in detail

INFORMATION ASSURANCE - INTELLIGENCE - INFORMATION SUPERIORITY RELATIONSHIP WITHIN NATO OPERATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gheorghe BOARU, Ioan-Mihai ILIEŞ

2011-01-01

Full Text Available There is a tight relationship between information assurance, the intelligence cycle and information superiority within NATO operations. The intelligence cycle has a discrete architecture and provides on-time and relevant intelligence products to the joint force commanders and to other authorized users in a specifi c joint area of operations. The intelligence cycle must follow the evolution of the operation. A permanent intelligence estimate will be performed during the military decision making process and operations execution. Information superiority is one of the most powerful intelligence cycle achievements. and decisively infuences the success of NATO joint operations. Information superiority must be preserved and enhanced through information assurance. Information assurance is an information operation that must be planned by the military in charge of operation security or by non-military experts, executed by all personnel during the entire intelligence cycle life time and employed during the planning and execution of NATO joint operations.

The Relevance of Hyperbaric Oxygen to Combat Medicine

Science.gov (United States)

2001-06-01

and Hyperbaric Conditions [les Questions medicales a caractere oprationel liees aux conditions hypobares ou hyperbares ] To order the complete...UNCLASSIFIED Defense Technical Information Center Compilation Part Notice ADPO 11081 TITLE: The Relevance of Hyperbaric Oxygen to Combat Medicine...following component part numbers comprise the compilation report: ADPO11059 thru ADP011100 UNCLASSIFIED 25-1 The Relevance of Hyperbaric Oxygen to

Pharmacy staff perceptions and self-reported behaviors related to providing contraceptive information and counseling.

Science.gov (United States)

Batra, Peter; Aquilino, Mary L; Farris, Karen B

2015-01-01

To evaluate pharmacy staff perspectives of a 2-year pharmacy intervention aimed at reducing unintended pregnancy in 18- to 30-year-old women. Pharmacy staff completed a 48-item, self-administered paper survey consisting of scaled and open-ended questions. 55 community pharmacies in 12 Iowa counties. All pharmacy staff participated, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and other pharmacy employees. Online continuing education (CE) training was made available to all pharmacy staff. Promotional materials including posters, brochures, and shelf talkers were displayed in all of the pharmacies. Pharmacy staff perceptions and self-reported behaviors related to displaying posters, brochures, and shelf talkers in their pharmacies and providing contraceptive information and counseling to patients/customers. A total of 192 (43% return rate) pharmacy staff responded. Only 44% of respondents consistently provided contraceptive information and counseling, yet more than 90% felt that talking with patients/customers about contraceptives was easy, and more than 50% could do so privately. The study showed increased pharmacy staff desire to make this topic a priority. Community pharmacy staff can play a key role in educating and counseling young adult women about contraceptive health and pregnancy planning. This study indicates that staff are comfortable providing this service and that patients/customers are open to receiving guidance from pharmacists. However, pharmacy staff are missing additional opportunities to provide information and counseling. There is also a need for greater attention to provision of nonprescription contraceptive education.

Neutrophil programming dynamics and its disease relevance.

Science.gov (United States)

Ran, Taojing; Geng, Shuo; Li, Liwu

2017-11-01

Neutrophils are traditionally considered as first responders to infection and provide antimicrobial host defense. However, recent advances indicate that neutrophils are also critically involved in the modulation of host immune environments by dynamically adopting distinct functional states. Functionally diverse neutrophil subsets are increasingly recognized as critical components mediating host pathophysiology. Despite its emerging significance, molecular mechanisms as well as functional relevance of dynamically programmed neutrophils remain to be better defined. The increasing complexity of neutrophil functions may require integrative studies that address programming dynamics of neutrophils and their pathophysiological relevance. This review aims to provide an update on the emerging topics of neutrophil programming dynamics as well as their functional relevance in diseases.

Effect of Providing Information on Students' Knowledge and Concerns about Hydraulic Fracking.

Science.gov (United States)

Burger, Joanna; Nakata, Kimi; Liang, Laura; Pittfield, Taryn; Jeitner, Christian

2015-01-01

Governmental agencies, regulators, health professionals, and the public are faced with understanding and responding to new development practices and conditions in their local and regional environment. While hydraulic fracking (fracking) for shale gas has been practiced for over 50 years in some states, it is a relatively recent event in the northeastern United States. Providing environmental health information to the public about fracking requires understanding both the knowledge base and the perceptions of the public. The knowledge, perceptions, and concerns of college students about fracking were examined. Students were interviewed at Rutgers University in New Jersey, a state without any fracking, although fracking occurs in nearby Pennsylvania. Objectives were to determine (1) knowledge about fracking, (2) rating of concerns, (3) trusted information sources, (4) importance of fracking relative to other energy sources, and (5) the effect of a 15-min lecture and discussion on these aspects. On the second survey, students improved on their knowledge (except the components used for fracking), and their ratings changed for some concerns, perceived benefits, and trusted information sources. There was no change in support for further development of natural gas, but support for solar, wind, and wave energy decreased. Data suggest that students' knowledge and perceptions change with exposure to information, but many of these changes were due to students using the Internet to look up information immediately after the initial survey and lecture. Class discussions indicated a general lack of trust for several information sources available on the Web.

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