WorldWideScience

Sample records for providing specific recommendations

  1. 77 FR 10535 - Final Guidances for Industry Describing Product-Specific Bioequivalence Recommendations...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-02-22

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

  2. Primary HPV testing recommendations of US providers, 2015.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cooper, Crystale Purvis; Saraiya, Mona

    2017-12-01

    To investigate the HPV testing recommendations of US physicians who perform cervical cancer screening. Data from the 2015 DocStyles survey of U.S. health care providers were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression to identify provider characteristics associated with routine recommendation of primary HPV testing for average-risk, asymptomatic women ≥30years old. The analysis was limited to primary care physicians and obstetrician-gynecologists who performed cervical cancer screening (N=843). Primary HPV testing for average-risk, asymptomatic women ≥30years old was recommended by 40.8% of physicians who performed cervical cancer screening, and 90.1% of these providers recommended primary HPV testing for women of all ages. The screening intervals most commonly recommended for primary HPV testing with average-risk, asymptomatic women ≥30years old were every 3years (35.5%) and annually (30.2%). Physicians who reported that patient HPV vaccination status influenced their cervical cancer screening practices were almost four times more likely to recommend primary HPV testing for average-risk, asymptomatic women ≥30years old than other providers (Adj OR=3.96, 95% CI=2.82-5.57). Many US physicians recommended primary HPV testing for women of all ages, contrary to guidelines which limit this screening approach to women ≥25years old. The association between provider recommendation of primary HPV testing and patient HPV vaccination status may be due to anticipated reductions in the most oncogenic HPV types among vaccinated women. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  3. Characteristics of Adolescents Lacking Provider-Recommended Human Papillomavirus Vaccination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krakow, Melinda; Beavis, Anna; Cosides, Olivia; Rositch, Anne F

    2017-05-01

    To characterize subgroups of teens in the United States for whom provider recommendation is less likely to impact human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine initiation. We analyzed provider-verified vaccination data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2014 National Immunization Survey-Teen. Poisson regression models identified characteristics associated with the lack of HPV vaccine initiation among teens who received a provider recommendation (n = 12,742). Top qualitative reasons for nonvaccination among teens who received a provider recommendation were summarized (n = 1,688). Among teens with provider recommendations, males, younger teens, and white teens were less likely to initiate vaccination, compared to peers. Believing the vaccine was unnecessary, concerns about safety and lack of vaccine knowledge were common reasons parents did not initiate the vaccine, despite receiving provider recommendations. These key subgroups and barriers to HPV vaccination should be targeted with interventions that complement provider recommendation to achieve broad vaccine uptake in the United States. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  4. Receiving recommendations and providing feedback : the user-experience of a recommender system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Knijnenburg, B.P.; Willemsen, M.C.; Hirtbach, S.; Buccafurri, F.; Semeraro, G.

    2010-01-01

    This paper systematically evaluates the user experience of a recommender system. Using both behavioral data and subjective measures of user experience, we demonstrate that choice satisfaction and system effectiveness increase when a system provides personalized recommendations (compared to the same

  5. Patients Provide Recommendations for Improving Patient Satisfaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Angelo D; Hamilton, Jill B; Krusel, Jessica L; Moore, LeeAntoinette G; Pierre-Louis, Bosny J

    2016-04-01

    National Committee for Quality Assurance recommends patient-centered medical homes incorporate input from patient populations; however, many health care organizations do not. This qualitative study used two open-ended questions from 148 active duty Army Soldiers and their family members to illicit recommendations for primary care providers and clinic leadership that would improve their health care experiences. Content analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyze responses. Participant responses were related to four major themes: Access to Care, Interpersonal Interaction, Satisfaction of Care, and Quality of Care. Participants were overall satisfied with their care; however, spending less time waiting for appointments and to see the provider or specialist were the most frequently requested improvements related to Access to Care. For Interpersonal Interaction, 82% of the responses recommended that providers be more attentive listeners, courteous, patient, caring, and respectful. Decreasing wait times and improving interpersonal skills would improve health care experiences and patient satisfaction. Reprint & Copyright © 2016 Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bambini, Riccardo; Cremonesi, Paolo; Turrin, Roberto

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2015-10-01

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

  8. Developing and implementing a monitoring programme: recommendations provided by the MODERN project

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mayer, S.; Bergmans, A.; Garcia-Sineriz, J.L.; Breen, B.; Jobmann, M.

    2012-01-01

    countries and including 8 Waste Management Organizations, who joined their efforts since 2009, with the aim of developing a 'road-map to repository monitoring' by 2013. The MoDeRn project has addressed both the associated Process issues - why to monitor, how to develop a program, and how to use monitoring results - and Science and Technology issues - what to monitor, associated technical requirements and constraints, technology state-of-the-art, focused R and D and in-situ demonstrators. As the project nears its completion, some general guidance and recommendations are provided as part of a Monitoring Reference Framework to assist the development and implementation of a monitoring programme. More specifically, recommendations are provided on: - How to develop, establish and justify main motivations and objectives for monitoring; - How to develop and implement a realistic monitoring programme; and on - The relative importance different monitoring objectives may take in the decision making and governance of the disposal process. It should be noted that this reference framework explicitly acknowledges the need to place the development of a monitoring programme within its national context. Therefore, guidelines and recommendations emphasize those aspects that appear as useful to all national programmes and provide those specific recommendations that seem to be useful in a broad context. , Examples are provided by the projects three case studies carried out in crystalline (based on the Finnish/Swedish concept), sedimentary (based on the French concept) and evaporite (based on the German preliminary concept) host rocks. Furthermore, the project placed a specific attention on the societal implications of monitoring. A focused sociological study contributes to providing a better understanding of whether and how monitoring will contribute to enhancing confidence in and acceptance of the disposal process, as well as providing a basis for further, associated stakeholder engagement

  9. Recommendations for providing protection during the transport of uranium hexafluoride

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1987-06-01

    In July 1986 a group of consultants was convened by the IAEA to provide initial guidance on the transport of UF 6 and the regulations for it considering the hazards posed by this material. A Technical Committee meeting was held in November 1986 to finalize the development of the recommendations for providing protection during the transport of UF 6 . This report provides the recommendations resulting from the meetings of these experts. The IAEA recommends that national competent authorities and other relevant national regulatory and standards-related organizations, and appropriate international organizations seriously consider all of the information provided in this report especially the additional requirements set forth in Section III.3 concerning design, manufacturing and testing requirements, design approval requirements, requirements on loading for transport, and requirements for quality assurance and maintenance. This report also deals with United Nations' Recommendations of the Transport of Dangerous Goods, International Modal Regulatory Documents, ANSIN14.1-1982 and ISO/DIS/7195 Standards

  10. Exploring factors that might influence primary-care provider discussion of and recommendation for prostate and colon cancer screening

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kistler, Christine E; Vu, Maihan; Sutkowi-Hemstreet, Anne; Gizlice, Ziya; Harris, Russell P; Brewer, Noel T; Lewis, Carmen L; Dolor, Rowena J; Barclay, Colleen; Sheridan, Stacey L

    2018-01-01

    Background Primary-care providers may contribute to the use of low-value cancer screening. Objective We sought to examine circumstances under which primary-care providers would discuss and recommend two types of cancer screening services across a spectrum of net benefit and other factors known to influence screening. Patients and methods This was a cross sectional survey of 126 primary-care providers in 24 primary-care clinics in the US. Participants completed surveys with two hypothetical screening scenarios for prostate or colorectal cancer (CRC). Patients in the scenarios varied by age and screening-request status. For each scenario, providers indicated whether they would discuss and recommend screening. Providers also reported on their screening attitudes and the influence of other factors known to affect screening (short patient visits, worry about lawsuits, clinical reminders/performance measures, and screening guidelines). We examined associations between providers’ attitudes and their screening recommendations for hypothetical 90-year-olds (the lowest-value screening). Results Providers reported they would discuss cancer screening more often than they would recommend it (P<0.001). More providers would discuss and recommend screening for CRC than prostate cancer (P<0.001), for younger than older patients (P<0.001), and when the patient requested it than when not (P<0.001). For a 90-year-old patient, every point increase in cancer-specific screening attitude increased the likelihood of a screening recommendation (30% for prostate cancer and 30% for CRC). Discussion While most providers’ reported practice patterns aligned with net benefit, some providers would discuss and recommend low-value cancer screening, particularly when faced with a patient request. Conclusion More work appears to be needed to help providers to discuss and recommend screening that aligns with value. PMID:29844698

  11. Customer satisfaction surveys: Methodological recommendations for financial service providers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Đorđić Marko

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available This methodological article investigates practical challenges that emerge when conducting customer satisfaction surveys (CSS for financial service providers such as banks, insurance or leasing companies, and so forth. It displays methodological recommendations in reference with: (a survey design, (b sampling, (c survey method, (d questionnaire design, and (e data acquisition. Article provides appropriate explanations that usage of: two-stage survey design, SRS method, large samples, and rigorous fieldwork preparation can enhance the overall quality of CSS in financial services. Proposed methodological recommendations can primarily be applied to the primary quantitative marketing research in retail financial services. However, majority of them can be successfully applied when conducting primary quantitative marketing research in corporate financial services as well. .

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Suliman, I.I.; Zoetelief, J.

    2002-01-01

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

  13. 75 FR 33311 - Guidance for Industry on Bioequivalence Recommendations for Specific Products; Availability

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-06-11

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

  14. Correlates of HPV vaccine initiation and provider recommendation among male adolescents, 2014 NIS-Teen.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Landis, Kathryn; Bednarczyk, Robert A; Gaydos, Laura M

    2018-05-08

    Vaccination is a safe and effective way to prevent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection and related cancers; however, HPV vaccine uptake remains low in the US. After the 2011 Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendation for routine HPV vaccination of adolescent males, several studies have examined predictors for initiating the vaccine series in this population of interest, particularly with regard to provider recommendations. This study examined racial and ethnic differences for HPV vaccine initiation and provider recommendation in male adolescents. Based on prior HPV vaccine uptake estimates and healthcare utilization data, we hypothesized that minority adolescents would be more likely to initiate HPV vaccines, but less likely to receive a provider recommendation compared to white counterparts. We analyzed the 2014 National Immunization Survey-Teen (NIS-Teen), which included 10,753 male adolescents with provider-verified vaccination data in 50 US states, using multivariate logistic regression models to evaluate racial/ethnic differences in HPV vaccine initiation and provider recommendation. The odds of HPV vaccine initiation were 76 percent higher for Hispanic adolescents and 43 percent higher for non-Hispanic Other or Multiple race adolescents compared to white adolescents. Approximately half of parents reported receiving a provider recommendation for vaccination, with no significant difference in the odds of receiving a provider recommendation across racial/ethnic groups. Despite similar frequency of recommendations across racial and ethnic groups, male adolescents who are racial/ethnic minorities are more likely to initiate vaccination. Future research should focus on developing tailored interventions to increase HPV vaccine receipt among males of all racial/ethnic groups. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koenig, H.; Klose, K.J.

    1999-01-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2010-02-01

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

  17. Recommendations for the ethical use and design of artificial intelligent care providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luxton, David D

    2014-09-01

    This paper identifies and reviews ethical issues associated with artificial intelligent care providers (AICPs) in mental health care and other helping professions. Specific recommendations are made for the development of ethical codes, guidelines, and the design of AICPs. Current developments in the application of AICPs and associated technologies are reviewed and a foundational overview of applicable ethical principles in mental health care is provided. Emerging ethical issues regarding the use of AICPs are then reviewed in detail. Recommendations for ethical codes and guidelines as well as for the development of semi-autonomous and autonomous AICP systems are described. The benefits of AICPs and implications for the helping professions are discussed in order to weigh the pros and cons of their use. Existing ethics codes and practice guidelines do not presently consider the current or the future use of interactive artificial intelligent agents to assist and to potentially replace mental health care professionals. AICPs present new ethical issues that will have significant ramifications for the mental health care and other helping professions. Primary issues involve the therapeutic relationship, competence, liability, trust, privacy, and patient safety. Many of the same ethical and philosophical considerations are applicable to use and design of AICPs in medicine, nursing, social work, education, and ministry. The ethical and moral aspects regarding the use of AICP systems must be well thought-out today as this will help to guide the use and development of these systems in the future. Topics presented are relevant to end users, AI developers, and researchers, as well as policy makers and regulatory boards. Published by Elsevier B.V.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2018-02-01

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

  19. Interventions to increase recommendation and delivery of screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers by healthcare providers systematic reviews of provider assessment and feedback and provider incentives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sabatino, Susan A; Habarta, Nancy; Baron, Roy C; Coates, Ralph J; Rimer, Barbara K; Kerner, Jon; Coughlin, Steven S; Kalra, Geetika P; Chattopadhyay, Sajal

    2008-07-01

    Most major medical organizations recommend routine screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers. Screening can lead to early detection of these cancers, resulting in reduced mortality. Yet not all people who should be screened are screened, either regularly or, in some cases, ever. This report presents results of systematic reviews of effectiveness, applicability, economic efficiency, barriers to implementation, and other harms or benefits of two provider-directed intervention approaches to increase screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers. These approaches, provider assessment and feedback, and provider incentives encourage providers to deliver screening services at appropriate intervals. Evidence in these reviews indicates that provider assessment and feedback interventions can effectively increase screening by mammography, Pap test, and fecal occult blood test. Health plans, healthcare systems, and cancer control coalitions should consider such evidence-based findings when implementing interventions to increase screening use. Evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of provider incentives in increasing use of any of these tests. Specific areas for further research are suggested in this report, including the need for additional research to determine whether provider incentives are effective in increasing use of any of these screening tests, and whether assessment and feedback interventions are effective in increasing other tests for colorectal cancer (i.e., flexible sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy, or double-contrast barium enema).

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. Meyer

    2012-05-01

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

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

  1. Health care access and quality for persons with disability: Patient and provider recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McClintock, Heather F; Kurichi, Jibby E; Barg, Frances K; Krueger, Alice; Colletti, Patrice M; Wearing, Krizia A; Bogner, Hillary R

    2018-07-01

    Significant disparities in health care access and quality persist between persons with disabilities (PWD) and persons without disabilities (PWOD). Little research has examined recommendations of patients and providers to improve health care for PWD. We sought to explore patient and health care provider recommendations to improve health care access and quality for PWD through focus groups in the physical world in a community center and in the virtual world in an online community. In all, 17 PWD, 4 PWOD, and 6 health care providers participated in 1 of 5 focus groups. Focus groups were conducted in the virtual world in Second Life ® with Virtual Ability, an online community, and in the physical world at Agape Community Center in Milwaukee, WI. Focus group data were analyzed using a grounded theory methodology. Themes that emerged in focus groups among PWD and PWOD as well as health care providers to improve health care access and quality for PWD were: promoting advocacy, increasing awareness and knowledge, improving communication, addressing assumptions, as well as modifying and creating policy. Many participants discussed political empowerment and engagement as central to health care reform. Both PWD and PWOD as well as health care providers identified common themes potentially important for improving health care for PWD. Patient and health care provider recommendations highlight a need for modification of current paradigms, practices, and approaches to improve the quality of health care provision for PWD. Participants emphasized the need for greater advocacy and political engagement. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. 21 CFR 1000.50 - Recommendation for the use of specific area gonad shielding on patients during medical diagnostic...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

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

  3. Factors associated With Medicaid providers' recommendation of the HPV vaccine to low-income adolescent girls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bynum, Shalanda A; Staras, Stephanie A S; Malo, Teri L; Giuliano, Anna R; Shenkman, Elizabeth; Vadaparampil, Susan T

    2014-02-01

    Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in the United States remains a public health challenge with vaccine rates of 50%. Although health care providers can facilitate HPV vaccination, several factors may impede their ability to universally recommend the vaccine. To maximize the potential of HPV vaccines, it is important to understand challenges providers face in the clinical environment. The study sought to identify factors associated with recommendation of the HPV vaccine for low-income adolescents in the early (9-10), target (11-12), early adolescent catch-up (13-14), and late adolescent catch-up (15-17) vaccination groups. Surveys were mailed between October 2009 and April 2010 to a random sample of Florida-based physicians serving Medicaid-enrolled adolescents. Data were analyzed in 2013. Among early adolescents, discomfort discussing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) with teens (odds ratio [OR] = 1.75), difficulty ensuring vaccine completion (OR = .73), and discomfort discussing STIs with parents (OR = .44) were associated with recommendation. For target adolescents, discomfort discussing STIs with teens (OR = 2.45), time constraints (OR = .70), vaccine efficacy concerns (OR = .65), discomfort discussing STIs with parents (OR = .33), obstetrics/gynecology (OR = .25) and family medicine (OR = .24) specialty, and non-Hispanic black patient (OR = .15) were associated with recommendation. In early catch-up adolescents, concerns that teens will practice riskier behaviors (OR = .57), discomfort discussing STIs with parents (OR = .47), and family medicine specialty (OR = .20) were associated with recommendation. For late catch-up adolescents, family medicine specialty (OR = .13) was associated with recommendation. Modifiable factors that impede or influence provider recommendations of HPV vaccines can be addressed through intervention. Overall, findings suggest that efforts should focus on sexuality communication and family medicine specialty

  4. Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Category B ACIP Recommendations among Primary Care Providers for Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kempe, Allison; Allison, Mandy A; MacNeil, Jessica R; O'Leary, Sean T; Crane, Lori A; Beaty, Brenda L; Hurley, Laura P; Brtnikova, Michaela; Lindley, Megan C; Liang, Jennifer L; Albert, Alison P; Smith, Jean C

    2018-04-17

    In 2015, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made a category B recommendation for use of serogroup B meningococcal (MenB) vaccines, meaning individual clinical decision-making should guide recommendations. This was the first use of a category B recommendation pertaining to a large population and the first such recommendation for adolescents. As part of a survey regarding MenB vaccine, our objectives were to assess among pediatricians (Peds) and family physicians (FPs) nationally: 1) knowledge of the meaning of category A versus B recommendations and insurance coverage implications; and 2) attitudes about category A and B recommendations. We surveyed a nationally representative sample of Peds and FPs by e-mail and mail from 10-12/2016. The response rate was 72% (660/916). Although >80% correctly identified the definition of a category A recommendation, only 24% were correct about the definition for category B. Fifty-five percent didn't know that private insurance would pay for vaccines recommended as category B, and 51% didn't know that category B-recommended vaccines would be covered by the Vaccines for Children program. Fifty-nine percent found it difficult to explain category B recommendations to patients; 22% thought ACIP should not make category B recommendations; and 39% were in favor of category B recommendations because they provide leeway in decision-making. For category B recommendations to be useful in guiding practice, primary care clinicians will need to have a better understanding of their meaning, their implications for insurance payment and guidance on how to discuss them with parents and patients. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  5. Parents' Experiences and Perceptions when Classifying their Children with Cerebral Palsy: Recommendations for Service Providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scime, Natalie V; Bartlett, Doreen J; Brunton, Laura K; Palisano, Robert J

    2017-08-01

    This study investigated the experiences and perceptions of parents of children with cerebral palsy (CP) when classifying their children using the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS), the Manual Ability Classification System (MACS), and the Communication Function Classification System (CFCS). The second aim was to collate parents' recommendations for service providers on how to interact and communicate with families. A purposive sample of seven parents participating in the On Track study was recruited. Semi-structured interviews were conducted orally and were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded openly. A descriptive interpretive approach within a pragmatic perspective was used during analysis. Seven themes encompassing parents' experiences and perspectives reflect a process of increased understanding when classifying their children, with perceptions of utility evident throughout this process. Six recommendations for service providers emerged, including making the child a priority and being a dependable resource. Knowledge of parents' experiences when using the GMFCS, MACS, and CFCS can provide useful insight for service providers collaborating with parents to classify function in children with CP. Using the recommendations from these parents can facilitate family-provider collaboration for goal setting and intervention planning.

  6. 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...

  7. Perceived Barriers to Implementing Individual Choosing Wisely® Recommendations in Two National Surveys of Primary Care Providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J; Kullgren, Jeffrey T; Fagerlin, Angela; Klamerus, Mandi L; Bernstein, Steven J; Kerr, Eve A

    2017-02-01

    While some research has examined general attitudes about efforts to reduce overutilization of services, such as the Choosing Wisely ® (CW) initiative, little data exists regarding primary care providers' attitudes regarding individual recommendations. We sought to identify whether particular CW recommendations were perceived by primary care providers as difficult to follow, difficult for patients to accept, or both. Two national surveys, one by mail to a random sample of 2000 U.S. primary care physicians in November 2013, and the second electronically to a random sample of 2500 VA primary care providers (PCPs) in October-December 2014. A total of 603 U.S. primary care physicians and 1173 VA primary care providers. Response rates were 34 and 48 %, respectively. PCP ratings of whether 12 CW recommendations for screening, testing and treatments applicable to adult primary care were difficult to follow and difficult for patients to accept; and ratings of potential barriers to reducing overutilization. For four recommendations regarding not screening or testing in asymptomatic patients, less than 20 % of PCPs found the CW recommendations difficult to accept (range 7.2-16.6 %) or difficult for patients to follow (12.2-19.3 %). For five recommendations regarding testing or treatment for symptomatic conditions, however, there was both variation in reported difficulty to follow (9.8-32 %) and a high level of reported difficulty for patients to accept (35.7-87.1 %). The most frequently reported barriers to reducing overuse included malpractice concern, patient requests for services, lack of time for shared decision making, and the number of tests recommended by specialists. While PCPs found many CW recommendations easy to follow, they felt that some, especially those for symptomatic conditions, would be difficult for patients to accept. Overcoming PCPs' perceptions of patient acceptability will require approaches beyond routine physician education, feedback and

  8. A trajectory-based recommender system for tourism

    OpenAIRE

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

    2012-01-01

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

  9. 14 CFR 11.27 - Are there other ways FAA collects specific rulemaking recommendations before we issue an NPRM?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

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

  10. Obesity prevention, screening, and treatment: practices of pediatric providers since the 2007 expert committee recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rausch, John Conrad; Perito, Emily Rothbaum; Hametz, Patricia

    2011-05-01

    This study surveyed pediatric primary care providers at a major academic center regarding their attitudes and practices of obesity screening, prevention, and treatment. The authors compared the care providers' reported practices to the 2007 American Medical Association and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Expert Committee Recommendations to evaluate their adherence to the guidelines and differences based on level of training and specialty. Of 96 providers surveyed, less than half used the currently recommended criteria for identifying children who are overweight (24.7%) and obese (34.4%), with attendings more likely to use the correct criteria than residents (P obesity, the majority felt their counseling was not effective. There was considerable variability in reported practices of lab screening and referral patterns of overweight and obese children. More efforts are needed to standardize providers' approach to overweight and obese children.

  11. Personalized Recommender System for Digital Libraries

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2014-01-01

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

  12. Providing care for critically ill surgical patients: challenges and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tisherman, Samuel A; Kaplan, Lewis; Gracias, Vicente H; Beilman, Gregory J; Toevs, Christine; Byrnes, Matthew C; Coopersmith, Craig M

    2013-07-01

    Providing optimal care for critically ill and injured surgical patients will become more challenging with staff shortages for surgeons and intensivists. This white paper addresses the historical issues behind the present situation, the need for all intensivists to engage in dedicated critical care per the intensivist model, and the recognition that intensivists from all specialties can provide optimal care for the critically ill surgical patient, particularly with continuing involvement by the surgeon of record. The new acute care surgery training paradigm (including trauma, surgical critical care, and emergency general surgery) has been developed to increase interest in trauma and surgical critical care, but the number of interested trainees remains too few. Recommendations are made for broadening the multidisciplinary training and practice opportunities in surgical critical care for intensivists from all base specialties and for maintaining the intensivist model within acute care surgery practice. Support from academic and administrative leadership, as well as national organizations, will be needed.

  13. Provider Specific Data for Public Use in SAS Format

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Fiscal Intermediary maintains the Provider Specific File (PSF). The file contains information about the facts specific to the provider that affects computations...

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

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

  15. Therapy Decision Support Based on Recommender System Methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-01-01

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

  16. Attitudes of physicians providing family planning services in Egypt about recommending intrauterine device for family planning clients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aziz, Mirette; Ahmed, Sabra; Ahmed, Boshra

    2017-12-01

    To assess the attitudes of physicians providing family planning services at the public sector in Egypt about recommending intrauterine device (IUD) for family planning clients, and to identify the factors that could affect their attitudes. A descriptive cross sectional study, in which all the physicians providing family planning services in Assiut Governorate were invited to complete self-administered questionnaires. The study participants were recruited at the family planning sector monthly meetings of the 13 health directorates of Assiut Governorate, Upper Egypt. 250 physicians accepted to participate in the study. Bivariate and Multivariate regression analyses were performed to identify the most important predictors of recommending IUD to family planning clients when appropriate. Less than 50% of physicians would recommend IUD for clients with proper eligibility criteria; women younger than 20 years old (49.2%), women with history of ectopic pregnancy (34%), history of pelvic inflammatory diseases (40%) or sexually transmitted diseases (18.4%) and nulliparous women (22.8%). Receiving family planning formal training within the year preceding data collection and working in urban areas were the significant predictors of recommending IUD insertion for appropriate clients. Physicians providing family planning services in Upper Egypt have negative attitudes about recommending IUD for family planning clients. Continuous education and in-service training about the updated medical eligibility criteria, especially for physicians working in rural areas may reduce the unfounded medical restrictions for IUD use. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Therapy Decision Support Based on Recommender System Methods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felix Gräßer

    2017-01-01

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

  18. Indonesian News Harvester and Recommender System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adi Wibowo

    2017-09-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-06-07

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    König, H; Klose, K J

    1999-04-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Craig H.

    2004-01-01

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

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pochan, M.J.

    1985-07-01

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

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

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pochan, M.J.

    1985-07-01

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

  4. An exploratory qualitative assessment of factors influencing childhood vaccine providers' intention to recommend immunization in the Netherlands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mollema Liesbeth

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Under the Dutch national immunization program (NIP, childhood vaccination is not mandatory, but its recommendation by childhood vaccine providers (CVP is important for maintaining high vaccination coverage. We therefore examined factors related to providers' intentions to recommend vaccinations to parents of young children. Methods We conducted four focus group discussions with nurses and physicians who provide vaccines to children 0-4 years old in diverse regions of the Netherlands. Three groups represented CVPs at child welfare centers (CWCs serving the general population, with the fourth representing anthroposophical CWCs. Elements of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB were used to design the groups; thematic analysis was used to structure and analyze the dataset. Results Four main themes emerged, including 1 perceived responsibility: to promote vaccines and discuss pros and cons with parents (although this was usually not done if parents readily accepted the vaccination; 2 attitudes toward the NIP: mainly positive, but doubts as to NIP plans to vaccinate against diseases with a low perceived burden; 3 organizational factors: limited time and information can hamper discussions with parents; 4 relationship with parents: crucial and based mainly on communication to establish trust. Compared to CVPs at standard CWCs, the anthroposophical CWCs spent more time communicating and were more willing to adapt the NIP to individual cases. Conclusions Our qualitative assessment provides an overview of beliefs associated with providers' intention to recommend vaccinations. They were motivated to support the NIP, but their intentions to recommend vaccinations were affected by the perceived relevance of the vaccines, practical issues like limited time and by certain types of resistant parents. These results will inform future studies to test the magnitude and relative impact of these factors.

  5. The IAEA recommendations for providing protection during the transport of uranium hexafluoride

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Levin, I.; Wieser, K.

    1988-01-01

    The Regulations for the safe transport of radioactive materials, are the basis of national and international regulations concerning this subject throughout the world. These regulations require that subsidiary hazards associated with radioactive materials should also be considered. Other national and international regulations concerning the transport of dangerous materials consider that a radioactive material having other dangerous properties should be classified as class 7. Following this line and acting upon the recommendations of SAGSTRAM (Standing Advisory Committee on the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials) that the Agency should take the lead in providing guidance to Member States with respect to UF 6 packaging and transport, the Agency convened two expert meetings during 1986 and 1987 in order to look into the special problems associated with the transport of uranium hexafluoride. The experts identified several areas in which additional safety measures should be considered if the transport of UF 6 is to have a non-radiological safety level consistent with that of its radiological risks. In this presentation the new recommendations are described. The main safety issues to be discussed are fire resistance, valve protection and compatibility with service and structural equipment. Another aspect of importance is the interface between the process and the transport phases, bearing in mind that the same containers are used in both. This paper also reveals how far the new recommendations concerning UF 6 have already been endorsed in the forthcoming European Transport Regulations (ADR/RID) together with the 1985 revised Edition of IAEA Safety Series No. 6

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schedl, Markus

    2017-01-01

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

  7. Variation in Recommendation for Surgical Treatment for Compressive Neuropathy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

    2013-01-01

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

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

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2016-01-01

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

  9. Provider Adherence to Syphilis Testing Recommendations for Women Delivering a Stillbirth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patel, Chirag G; Huppert, Jill S; Tao, Guoyu

    2017-11-01

    To assess overall adherence to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommended guidelines for syphilis testing among women who delivered a stillbirth and compare it with other tests recommended for stillbirth evaluation. We used MarketScan claims data with 40 million commercially insured and 8 million Medicaid enrollees annually to estimate prenatal care and follow-up testing among women who had stillbirths between January 1, 2013, and December 24, 2013. Stillbirth was identified if women had any International Classification of Disease, Ninth Revision codes related to a stillbirth outcome. Among women with stillbirths, we estimated the proportions of women who received prenatal care and prenatal syphilis testing within 280 days before stillbirth, and testing at the time of stillbirth (syphilis testing, complete blood count, placental examination and autopsy) using Physician's Current Procedural Terminology codes. We identified 3672 Medicaid-insured women and 6023 commercially insured women with stillbirths in 2013. Approximately, 61.7% of Medicaid-insured women and 66.0% of commercially insured women had claims data indicating prenatal syphilis testing. At the time of stillbirth, Medicaid-insured and commercially insured women had similar rates of syphilis testing (6.5% vs 9.3%), placental examination (61.6% vs 57.8%), and complete blood count (31.9% vs 37.6%). Autopsies were too infrequent to be reported. Approximately, 34.6% of Medicaid-insured women and 29.7% of commercially insured women had no syphilis testing either prenatally or at the time of stillbirth. Syphilis testing among women after stillbirth was less than 10%, illustrating limited adherence to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommendations. Such low prenatal and delivery syphilis testing rates may impact the number of stillbirth cases identified as congenital syphilis cases and

  10. Mining and representing recommendations in actively evolving recommender systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Assent, Ira

    2010-01-01

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

  11. Providing Personalized Services to Users in a Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oduwobi, Olukunle; Ojokoh, Bolanle Adefowoke

    2015-01-01

    Instructors recommend learning materials to a class of students not minding the learning ability and reading habit of each student. Learners are finding it problematic to make a decision about which available learning materials best meet their situation and will be beneficial to their course of study. In order to address this challenge, a new…

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-12-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pearson, Tamera

    2015-09-01

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

  14. Willingness to provide behavioral health recommendations: a cross-sectional study of entering medical students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    McCurdy Stephen A

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Behavioral factors contribute importantly to morbidity and mortality, and physicians are trusted sources for information on reducing associated risks. Unfortunately, many clinical encounters do not include prevention counseling, and medical school curriculum plays an important role in training and promoting such counseling among medical students. Methods We surveyed all 93 freshman medical students at entry to the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in 2009 to evaluate baseline knowledge of population health principles and examine their approach to clinical situations involving four common behavioral risk factors illustrated in brief clinical vignettes: smoking, alcohol use in a patient with indications of alcoholism, diet and exercise in an overweight sedentary patient, and a 16-year-old contemplating initiation of sexual intercourse. Based on vignette responses, we assessed willingness to (1 provide information on risks, (2 recommend elimination of the behavior as the most efficacious means for reducing risk, (3 include strategies apart from elimination of the behavior for lowering risk (i.e., harm reduction, and (4 assure of their intention to continue care whether or not recommendations are accepted. Results Students answered correctly 71.4 % (median; interquartile range 66.7 % - 85.7 % of clinical prevention and population health knowledge questions; men scored higher than women (median 83.3 % vs. 66.7 %, p Conclusion Students showed high willingness to educate and respect patient autonomy. There was high willingness to recommend elimination of risk behaviors for smoking, alcohol, and poor diet/exercise, but not for sexual intercourse in an adolescent considering sexual debut. Further research should address promoting appropriate science-based preventive health messages, and curriculum should include explicit discussion of content of recommendations.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-08-01

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

  16. May I Suggest? Comparing Three PLE Recommender Strategies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felix Mödritscher

    2011-11-01

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

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

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

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

    2011-01-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohammed, Osama; Benlamri, Rachid

    2014-10-01

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

  19. A Policy Language for Modelling Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abou El Kalam, Anas; Balbiani, Philippe

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

  20. Do group-specific equations provide the best estimates of stature?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albanese, John; Osley, Stephanie E; Tuck, Andrew

    2016-04-01

    An estimate of stature can be used by a forensic anthropologist with the preliminary identification of an unknown individual when human skeletal remains are recovered. Fordisc is a computer application that can be used to estimate stature; like many other methods it requires the user to assign an unknown individual to a specific group defined by sex, race/ancestry, and century of birth before an equation is applied. The assumption is that a group-specific equation controls for group differences and should provide the best results most often. In this paper we assess the utility and benefits of using group-specific equations to estimate stature using Fordisc. Using the maximum length of the humerus and the maximum length of the femur from individuals with documented stature, we address the question: Do sex-, race/ancestry- and century-specific stature equations provide the best results when estimating stature? The data for our sample of 19th Century White males (n=28) were entered into Fordisc and stature was estimated using 22 different equation options for a total of 616 trials: 19th and 20th Century Black males, 19th and 20th Century Black females, 19th and 20th Century White females, 19th and 20th Century White males, 19th and 20th Century any, and 20th Century Hispanic males. The equations were assessed for utility in any one case (how many times the estimated range bracketed the documented stature) and in aggregate using 1-way ANOVA and other approaches. This group-specific equation that should have provided the best results was outperformed by several other equations for both the femur and humerus. These results suggest that group-specific equations do not provide better results for estimating stature while at the same time are more difficult to apply because an unknown must be allocated to a given group before stature can be estimated. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Birkhofer, A.

    1999-01-01

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

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    1995-09-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2018-03-01

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

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

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2008-01-01

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

  5. Recommendations by NACP for accurate treatment geometry specification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aaltonen, P.

    1995-01-01

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

  6. Clinical Recommendation: Vulvovaginitis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuckerman, Andrea; Romano, Mary

    2016-12-01

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

  7. Recommendation systems in software engineering

    CERN Document Server

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

    2014-01-01

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

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

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2011-07-01

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

  9. Partition-based Collaborative Tensor Factorization for POI Recommendation

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Wenjing Luan; Guanjun Liu; Changjun Jiang; Liang Qi

    2017-01-01

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

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    1976-01-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Czakert, Judith; Lehmann, Yvonne; Ewers, Michael

    2018-06-08

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

  12. OARSI Clinical Trials Recommendations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2015-01-01

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

  13. Machine learning paradigms applications in recommender systems

    CERN Document Server

    Lampropoulos, Aristomenis S

    2015-01-01

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

  14. Improvements to Technical Specifications surveillance requirements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lobel, R.; Tjader, T.R.

    1992-12-01

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

  15. Recommender systems and the social web leveraging tagging data for recommender systems

    CERN Document Server

    Gedikli, Fatih

    2013-01-01

    There is an increasing demand for recommender systems due to the information overload users are facing on the Web. The goal of a recommender system is to provide personalized recommendations of products or services to users. With the advent of the Social Web, user-generated content has enriched the social dimension of the Web. As user-provided content data also tells us something about the user, one can learn the user's individual preferences from the Social Web. This opens up completely new opportunities and challenges for recommender systems research. Fatih Gedikli deals with the question of

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2014-01-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2014-01-01

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

  18. Context-Aware Location Recommendation Using Geotagged Photos in Social Media

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haosheng Huang

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Recently, the increasing availability of digital cameras and the rapid advances in social media have led to the accumulation of a large number of geotagged photos, which may reflect people’s travel experiences in different cities and can be used to generate location recommendations for tourists. Research on this aspect mainly focused on providing personalized recommendations matching a tourist’s travel preferences, while ignoring the context of the visit (e.g., weather, season and time of the day that potentially influences his/her travel behavior. This article explores context-aware methods to provide location recommendations matching a tourist’s travel preferences and visiting context. Specifically, we apply clustering methods to detect touristic locations and extract travel histories from geotagged photos on Flickr. We then propose a novel context similarity measure to quantify the similarity between any two contexts and develop three context-aware collaborative filtering methods, i.e., contextual pre-filtering, post-filtering and modeling. With these methods, location recommendations like “in similar contexts, other tourists similar to you often visited …” can be provided to the current user. Results of the evaluation with a publicly-available Flickr photo collection show that these methods are able to provide a tourist with location recommendations matching his/her travel preferences and visiting context. More importantly, compared to other state-of-the-art methods, the proposed methods, which employ the introduced context similarity measure, can provide tourists with significantly better recommendations. While Flickr data have been used in this study, these context-aware collaborative filtering (CaCF methods can also be extended for other kinds of travel histories, such as GPS trajectories and Foursquare check-ins, to provide context-aware recommendations.

  19. Lost in translation? How adults living with Cystic Fibrosis understand treatment recommendations from their healthcare providers, and the impact on adherence to therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pakhale, S; Baron, J; Armstrong, M; Tasca, G; Gaudet, E; Aaron, S D; Cameron, W; Balfour, L

    2016-08-01

    This study builds on the limited research documenting Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients' understanding of treatment recommendations and how this may impact adherence to therapy. We surveyed adults with CF and their healthcare professional (HCP) to capture treatment recommendations provided by the HCP, and patients' knowledge, and frequency of performance, of these recommendations. We classified CF participants' understanding of treatment recommendations (correct/incorrect) as compared to the actual recommendations made by the HCP. We computed CF participants' adherence in relation to HCP treatment recommendations and to their own understanding of treatment recommendations (adherent/non-adherent). Complete HCP and patient data were available for 42 participants. The recommended treatment frequency was correctly understood by 0%-87.8% of CF participants. Adherence to HCP treatment recommendations ranged from 0 to 68.3% (mean 45.4%±21.5), and rates were low (<33%) for acapella, percussion/postural drainage, tobramycin nebulization and insulin. Participants' adherence was greater when calculated in relation to participants' understanding of treatment recommendations (62.4%±25.1) than when calculated in relation to actual HCP treatment recommendations (45.4%±21.5%) (p=0.009). Adults with CF misunderstand treatment recommendations; this likely affects treatment adherence. Interventions to ensure HCPs use effective communication strategies are needed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Pak-Hang

    2013-03-01

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

  1. Hanford waste-form release and sediment interaction: A status report with rationale and recommendations for additional studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Serne, R.J.; Wood, M.I.

    1990-05-01

    This report documents the currently available geochemical data base for release and retardation for actual Hanford Site materials (wastes and/or sediments). The report also recommends specific laboratory tests and presents the rationale for the recommendations. The purpose of this document is threefold: to summarize currently available information, to provide a strategy for generating additional data, and to provide recommendations on specific data collection methods and tests matrices. This report outlines a data collection approach that relies on feedback from performance analyses to ascertain when adequate data have been collected. The data collection scheme emphasizes laboratory testing based on empiricism. 196 refs., 4 figs., 36 tabs

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2014-01-01

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

  3. [Organizational recommendations for day surgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bontemps, Gilles

    2014-03-01

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

  4. Comprehensive review of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: screening and preventive recommendations for plastic surgeons and other surgical health care providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Reilly, Eamon B; Johnson, Mark D; Rohrich, Rod J

    2014-11-01

    Up to 2.3 million people are colonized with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the United States, causing well-documented morbidity and mortality. Although the association of clinical outcomes with community and hospital carriage rates is increasingly defined, less is reported about asymptomatic colonization prevalence among physicians, and specifically plastic surgeons and the subsequent association with the incidence of patient surgical-site infection. A review of the literature using the PubMed and Cochrane databases analyzing provider screening, transmission, and prevalence was undertaken. In addition, a search was completed for current screening and decontamination guidelines and outcomes. The methicillin-resistant S. aureus carriage prevalence of surgical staff is 4.5 percent. No prospective data exist regarding transmission and interventions for plastic surgeons. No studies were found specifically looking at prevalence or treatment of plastic surgeons. Current recommendations by national organizations focus on patient-oriented point-of-care testing and intervention, largely ignoring the role of the health care provider. Excellent guidelines exist regarding screening, transmission prevention, and treatment both in the workplace and in the community. No current such guidelines exist for plastic surgeons. No Level I or II evidence was found regarding physician screening, treatment, or transmission. Current expert opinion, however, indicates that plastic surgeons and their staff should be vigilant for methicillin-resistant S. aureus transmission, and once a sentinel cluster of skin and soft-tissue infections is identified, systematic screening and decontamination should be considered. If positive, topical decolonization therapy should be offered. In refractory cases, oral antibiotic therapy may be required, but this should not be used as a first-line strategy.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2018-05-24

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

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

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

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

    2002-02-27

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

  7. Recommended revisions to nuclear regulatory commission seismic design criteria

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Coats, D.W.

    1981-01-01

    Task Action Plan (TAP) A-40 was developed by consolidating specific technical assistance studies initiated to identify and quantify the conservatism inherent in the seismic design sequence of current NRC criteria. Task 10 of TAP A-40 provided a technical review of the results of the other nine engineering and seismological tasks in TAP A-40 and recommended changes to the existing NRC criteria based on this review. We used the team approach to accomplish the objectives of Task 10 in an efficient manner and to provide the best technical product possible within the limited time available. The team consisted of a core group of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory personnel and selected consultants. The recommendations summarized in this paper were not based solely on the results of the tasks in TAP A-40 but went far beyond that data base to encompass all available and appropriate literature. Some recommendations are based on the expertise of core members and consultants that stem from unpublished data, research, and experience. Copies of the pertinent sections of the Standard Review Plan (SRP) and Regulatory Guides as well as the reports developed under TAP A-40 were provided to the participants. These reports, other available engineering literature, and the experience of the consultants and core group provided technical basis for the recommendations. (orig./HP)

  8. Classification of Recommender Expertise in the Wikipedia Recommender System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2011-01-01

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

  9. Classification of Recommender Expertise in the Wikipedia Recommender System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2011-01-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Yan; Qiu, Robin G

    2014-01-01

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

  11. Practical recommendations for the evaluation of improvement initiatives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parry, Gareth; Coly, Astou; Goldmann, Don; Rowe, Alexander K; Chattu, Vijay; Logiudice, Deneil; Rabrenovic, Mihajlo; Nambiar, Bejoy

    2018-01-01

    Abstract A lack of clear guidance for funders, evaluators and improvers on what to include in evaluation proposals can lead to evaluation designs that do not answer the questions stakeholders want to know. These evaluation designs may not match the iterative nature of improvement and may be imposed onto an initiative in a way that is impractical from the perspective of improvers and the communities with whom they work. Consequently, the results of evaluations are often controversial, and attribution remains poorly understood. Improvement initiatives are iterative, adaptive and context-specific. Evaluation approaches and designs must align with these features, specifically in their ability to consider complexity, to evolve as the initiative adapts over time and to understand the interaction with local context. Improvement initiatives often identify broadly defined change concepts and provide tools for care teams to tailor these in more detail to local conditions. Correspondingly, recommendations for evaluation are best provided as broad guidance, to be tailored to the specifics of the initiative. In this paper, we provide practical guidance and recommendations that funders and evaluators can use when developing an evaluation plan for improvement initiatives that seeks to: identify the questions stakeholders want to address; develop the initial program theory of the initiative; identify high-priority areas to measure progress over time; describe the context the initiative will be applied within; and identify experimental or observational designs that will address attribution. PMID:29447410

  12. Finding and Recommending Scholarly Articles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurtz, Michael J.; Henneken, Edwin A.

    2014-05-01

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

  13. Research on Long Tail Recommendation Algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-10-01

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

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Longbing Cao

    2016-06-01

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

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natalia Mira de Assumpção Werutsky

    2008-03-01

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

  16. JBK-75 microstructure specification recommendation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brewer, A.W.

    1977-01-01

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

  17. Recommended well drilling and testing program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Long, J.; Wilson, C.

    1978-07-01

    A well drilling and testing program is recommended by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to identify the hydrology of deep basalts in the Pasco Basin. The ultimate objective of this program is to assist in determining the feasibility of locating a nuclear waste repository on the Hanford Reservation. The recommended program has been staged for maximum effectiveness. In the first stage, six wells have been identified for drilling and testing which, when coupled with existing wells, will provide sufficient data for a preliminary overview of basin hydrology and a preliminary determination of the hydrologic suitability of the deep basalt for a repository site. The rate at which the first stage wells are drilled and tested will depend upon the date at which a preliminary determination of site suitability is required. It was assumed that a preliminary determination of suitability would be required in 1980, in which case all six first stage wells would be drilled in FY 1979. If the results of the first stage analysis are favorable for repository siting, tentative repository sites can be identified and a second stage hydrology program can be implemented to provide the necessary details of the flow system. To accomplish this stage, a number of deep wells would be required at locations both inside and outside the basin, with specific sites to be identified as the work progresses to obtain maximum utility of existing data. A program is recommended for testing in each new well and for completion of testing in each existing well. Recommended tests include borehole geophysics, pressure and permeability testing, geochemical sampling, tracer testing, hydrofracturing and borehole fracture logging. The entire data collection program is oriented toward providing the information required to establish and verify an accurate numerical model of the Pasco Basin

  18. Teacher Leadership: Federal Policy Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gran, Jackie; Young, Margaret; Broin, Alexandra

    2015-01-01

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

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

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

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

    2015-06-15

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2015-12-22

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

  1. Monitoring program design recommendations for uranium mining communities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1978-10-01

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

  2. Semantically Enhanced Recommender Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruiz-Montiel, Manuela; Aldana-Montes, José F.

    Recommender Systems have become a significant area in the context of web personalization, given the large amount of available data. Ontologies can be widely taken advantage of in recommender systems, since they provide a means of classifying and discovering of new information about the items to recommend, about user profiles and even about their context. We have developed a semantically enhanced recommender system based on this kind of ontologies. In this paper we present a description of the proposed system.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-02-01

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

  4. Clinical practice recommendations for depression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malhi, G S; Adams, D; Porter, R; Wignall, A; Lampe, L; O'Connor, N; Paton, M; Newton, L A; Walter, G; Taylor, A; Berk, M; Mulder, R T

    2009-01-01

    To provide clinically relevant evidence-based recommendations for the management of depression in adults that are informative, easy to assimilate and facilitate clinical decision making. A comprehensive literature review of over 500 articles was undertaken using electronic database search engines (e.g. MEDLINE, PsychINFO and Cochrane reviews). In addition articles, book chapters and other literature known to the authors were reviewed. The findings were then formulated into a set of recommendations that were developed by a multidisciplinary team of clinicians who routinely deal with mood disorders. The recommendations then underwent consultative review by a broader advisory panel that included experts in the field, clinical staff and patient representatives. The clinical practice recommendations for depression (Depression CPR) summarize evidence-based treatments and provide a synopsis of recommendations relating to each phase of the illness. They are designed for clinical use and have therefore been presented succinctly in an innovative and engaging manner that is clear and informative. These up-to-date recommendations provide an evidence-based framework that incorporates clinical wisdom and consideration of individual factors in the management of depression. Further, the novel style and practical approach should promote uptake and implementation.

  5. Choosing Wisely Imaging Recommendations: Initial Implementation in New England Emergency Departments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ali S. Raja

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: In June 2016, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP Emergency Quality Network began its Reduce Avoidable Imaging Initiative, designed to “reduce testing and imaging with low risk patients through the implementation of Choosing Wisely recommendations.” However, it is unknown whether New England emergency departments (ED have already implemented evidence-based interventions to improve adherence to ACEP Choosing Wisely recommendations related to imaging after their initial release in 2013. Our objective was to determine this, as well as whether provider-specific audit and feedback for imaging had been implemented in these EDs. Methods: This survey study was exempt from institutional review board review. In 2015, we mailed surveys to 195 hospital-affiliated EDs in all six New England states to determine whether they had implemented Choosing Wisely-focused interventions in 2014. Initial mailings included cover letters denoting the endorsement of each state’s ACEP chapter, and we followed up twice with repeat mailings to nonresponders. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and a comparison of state differences using Fisher’s exact test. Results: A total of 169/195 (87% of New England EDs responded, with all individual state response rates >80%. Overall, 101 (60% of responding EDs had implemented an intervention for at least one Choosing Wisely imaging scenario; 57% reported implementing a specific guideline/policy/clinical pathway and 28% reported implementing a computerized decision support system. The most common interventions were for chest computed tomography (CT in patients at low risk of pulmonary embolism (47% of EDs and head CT in patients with minor trauma (45% of EDs. In addition, 40% of EDs had implemented provider-specific audit and feedback, without significant interstate variation (range: 29-55%. Conclusion: One year after release of the ACEP Choosing Wisely recommendations, most New England EDs

  6. Travel vaccination recommendations and endemic infection risks in solid organ transplantation recipients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trubiano, Jason A; Johnson, Douglas; Sohail, Asma; Torresi, Joseph

    2016-06-01

    Solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients are often heavily immunosuppressed and consequently at risk of serious illness from vaccine preventable viral and bacterial infections or with endemic fungal and parasitic infections. We review the literature to provide guidance regarding the timing and appropriateness of vaccination and pathogen avoidance related to the immunological status of SOT recipients. A PUBMED search ([Vaccination OR vaccine] AND/OR ["specific vaccine"] AND/OR [immunology OR immune response OR cytokine OR T lymphocyte] AND transplant was performed. A review of the literature was performed in order to develop recommendations on vaccination for SOT recipients travelling to high-risk destinations. Whilst immunological failure of vaccination in SOT is primarily the result of impaired B-cell responses, the role of T-cells in vaccine failure and success remains unknown. Vaccination should be initiated at least 4 weeks prior to SOT or more than 6 months post-SOT. Avoidance of live vaccination is generally recommended, although some live vaccines may be considered in the specific situations (e.g. yellow fever). The practicing physician requires a detailed understanding of region-specific endemic pathogen risks. We provide a vaccination and endemic pathogen guide for physicians and travel clinics involved in the care of SOT recipients. In addition, recommendations based on timing of anticipated immunological recovery and available evidence regarding vaccine immunogenicity in SOT recipients are provided to help guide pre-travel consultations. © International Society of Travel Medicine, 2016. All rights reserved. Published by Oxford University Press. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  7. A bottom-up approach to MEDLINE indexing recommendations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2011-01-01

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

  8. 40 CFR 60.1170 - What plant-specific training must I provide?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ...) December 6, 2001. (3) The date before an employee assumes responsibilities that affect operation of the... 40 Protection of Environment 6 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What plant-specific training must I provide? 60.1170 Section 60.1170 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR...

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2018-02-01

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

  10. Verbal and numerical consumer recommendations: switching between recommendation formats leads to preference inconsistencies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maciejovsky, Boris; Budescu, David V

    2013-06-01

    Many Web sites provide consumers with product recommendations, which are typically presented by a sequence of verbal reviews and numerical ratings. In three experiments, we demonstrate that when participants switch between formats (e.g., from verbal to numerical), they are more prone to preference inconsistencies than when they aggregate the recommendations within the same format (e.g., verbal). When evaluating recommendations, participants rely primarily on central-location measures (e.g., mean) and less on other distribution characteristics (e.g., variance). We explain our findings within the theoretical framework of stimulus-response compatibility and we make practical recommendations for the design of recommendation systems and Web portals.

  11. Recommender systems in knowledge-mining

    Science.gov (United States)

    Volna, Eva

    2017-07-01

    The subject of the paper is to analyse the possibilities of application of recommender systems in the field of data mining. The work focuses on three basic types of recommender systems (collaborative, content-based and hybrid). The goal of the article is to evaluate which of these three concepts of recommender systems provides forecast with the lowest error rate in the domain of recommending movies. This target is fulfilled by the practical part of the work - at first, the own recommender system was designed and created, capable of obtaining movies recommendation from the database based on the user's preferences. Next, we verified experimentally which recommender system produces more accurate results.

  12. Defining and Supporting Narrative-driven Recommendation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn

    2017-01-01

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

  13. RARD: The Related-Article Recommendation Dataset

    OpenAIRE

    Beel, Joeran; Carevic, Zeljko; Schaible, Johann; Neusch, Gabor

    2017-01-01

    Recommender-system datasets are used for recommender-system evaluations, training machine-learning algorithms, and exploring user behavior. While there are many datasets for recommender systems in the domains of movies, books, and music, there are rather few datasets from research-paper recommender systems. In this paper, we introduce RARD, the Related-Article Recommendation Dataset, from the digital library Sowiport and the recommendation-as-a-service provider Mr. DLib. The dataset contains ...

  14. Evaluation and recommendations on U.C. Lawrence Livermore Labortory Quality Assurance Program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Carpenter, F.D.; Horner, M.H.

    1978-01-01

    A study was conducted of the University of California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Quality Assurance Program, which focused on training needs and recommendations tailored to the various on-going programs. Specific attention was directed to an assessment of the quality status for the MFTF facility and the capabilities of assigned quality project engineers. Conclusions and recommendations are presented which not only address the purpose of this study, but extend into other areas to provide insight and needs for a total cost effective application of a quality assurance program

  15. Recommendations on basic requirements for intensive care units: structural and organizational aspects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valentin, Andreas; Ferdinande, Patrick

    2011-10-01

    To provide guidance and recommendations for the planning or renovation of intensive care units (ICUs) with respect to the specific characteristics relevant to organizational and structural aspects of intensive care medicine. The Working Group on Quality Improvement (WGQI) of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) identified the basic requirements for ICUs by a comprehensive literature search and an iterative process with several rounds of consensus finding with the participation of 47 intensive care physicians from 23 countries. The starting point of this process was an ESICM recommendation published in 1997 with the need for an updated version. The document consists of operational guidelines and design recommendations for ICUs. In the first part it covers the definition and objectives of an ICU, functional criteria, activity criteria, and the management of equipment. The second part deals with recommendations with respect to the planning process, floorplan and connections, accommodation, fire safety, central services, and the necessary communication systems. This document provides a detailed framework for the planning or renovation of ICUs based on a multinational consensus within the ESICM.

  16. OARSI Clinical Trials Recommendations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2015-01-01

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

  17. A family-specific use of the Measure of Processes of Care for Service Providers (MPOC-SP).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siebes, R C; Nijhuis, B J G; Boonstra, A M; Ketelaar, M; Wijnroks, L; Reinders-Messelink, H A; Postema, K; Vermeer, A

    2008-03-01

    To examine the validity and utility of the Dutch Measure of Processes of Care for Service Providers (MPOC-SP) as a family-specific measure. A validation study. Five paediatric rehabilitation settings in the Netherlands. The MPOC-SP was utilized in a general (reflecting on services provided for all clients and clients' families) and family-specific way (filled out in reference to a particular child and his or her family). Professionals providing rehabilitation and educational services to children with cerebral palsy. For construct validity, Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients (r ) between the scales were calculated. The ability of service providers to discriminate between general and family-specific ratings was examined by exploration of absolute difference scores. One hundred and sixteen service professionals filled out 240 family-specific MPOC-SPs. In addition, a subgroup of 81 professionals filled out a general MPOC-SP. For each professional, family-specific and general scores were paired, resulting in 151 general-family-specific MPOC-SP pairs. The construct validity analyses confirmed the scale structure: 21 items (77.8%) loaded highest in the original MPOC-SP factors, and all items correlated best and significantly with their own scale score (r 0.565 to 0.897; PService providers were able to discriminate between general and family-specific MPOC-SP item ratings. The family-specific MPOC-SP is a valid measure that can be used for individual evaluation of family-centred services and can be the impetus for family-related quality improvement.

  18. Exercise recommendations in patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Brad; Spencer, Horace; Kortebein, Patrick

    2012-04-01

    To evaluate exercise recommendations in patients newly diagnosed with fibromyalgia. A retrospective chart review. A public university rheumatology clinic. Patients newly diagnosed with fibromyalgia (N = 122). Frequency and type of exercise recommendations. The mean (standard deviation) age of these patients with fibromyalgia was 45 ± 12 years; 91% were women. Exercise was recommended as part of the documented treatment plan in 47% of these patients (57/122); only 3 patients had a documented contraindication for exercise. Aquatic exercise was most frequently recommended (56% [32/57]), followed by combined aquatic-aerobic exercise (26% [15/57]), and, infrequently, aerobic exercise only (5% [3/57]); only 7% of these patients (4/57) were referred for physical therapy. The primary method of communication was verbal discussion (94% [54/57]). Although there is well-documented evidence that exercise is beneficial for patients with fibromyalgia, we found that less than half of patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia in our study were provided recommendations to initiate an exercise program as part of their treatment plan. Further investigation of these findings are warranted, including evaluation of other university and community rheumatology practices as well as that of other physicians caring for patients with fibromyalgia. However, our findings indicate that there appears to be an opportunity to provide more specific and practical education regarding the implementation of an exercise regimen for patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia. Physiatrists may be particularly well suited to manage the exercise component of patients with fibromyalgia because of their specialized training in exercise prescription. Copyright © 2012 American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. A Real-Time Taxicab Recommendation System Using Big Trajectories Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pengpeng Chen

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Carpooling is becoming a more and more significant traffic choice, because it can provide additional service options, ease traffic congestion, and reduce total vehicle exhaust emissions. Although some recommendation systems have proposed taxicab carpooling services recently, they cannot fully utilize and understand the known information and essence of carpooling. This study proposes a novel recommendation algorithm, which provides either a vacant or an occupied taxicab in response to a passenger’s request, called VOT. VOT recommends the closest vacant taxicab to passengers. Otherwise, VOT infers destinations of occupied taxicabs by similarity comparison and clustering algorithms and then recommends the occupied taxicab heading to a close destination to passengers. Using an efficient large data-processing framework, Spark, we greatly improve the efficiency of large data processing. This study evaluates VOT with a real-world dataset that contains 14747 taxicabs’ GPS data. Results show that the ratio of range (between forecasted and actual destinations of less than 900 M can reach 90.29%. The total mileage to deliver all passengers is significantly reduced (47.84% on average. Specifically, the reduced total mileage of nonrush hours outperforms other systems by 35%. VOT and others have similar performances in actual detour ratio, even better in rush hours.

  20. Probabilistic approaches to recommendations

    CERN Document Server

    Barbieri, Nicola; Ritacco, Ettore

    2014-01-01

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

  1. Statistical and Economic Techniques for Site-specific Nematode Management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Zheng; Griffin, Terry; Kirkpatrick, Terrence L

    2014-03-01

    Recent advances in precision agriculture technologies and spatial statistics allow realistic, site-specific estimation of nematode damage to field crops and provide a platform for the site-specific delivery of nematicides within individual fields. This paper reviews the spatial statistical techniques that model correlations among neighboring observations and develop a spatial economic analysis to determine the potential of site-specific nematicide application. The spatial econometric methodology applied in the context of site-specific crop yield response contributes to closing the gap between data analysis and realistic site-specific nematicide recommendations and helps to provide a practical method of site-specifically controlling nematodes.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2007-07-01

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

  3. NSPWG-recommended safety requirements and guidelines for SEI nuclear propulsion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marshall, A.C.; Lee, J.H.; McCulloch, W.H.; Sawyer, J.C. Jr.; Bari, R.A.; Brown, N.W.; Cullingford, H.S.; Hardy, A.C.; Remp, K.; Sholtis, J.A.

    1992-01-01

    An Interagency Nuclear Safety Policy Working Group (NSPWG) was chartered to recommend nuclear safety policy, requirements, and guidelines for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) nuclear propulsion program to facilitate the implementation of mission planning and conceptual design studies. The NSPWG developed a top- level policy to provide the guiding principles for the development and implementation of the nuclear propulsion safety program and the development of Safety Functional Requirements. In addition the NSPWG reviewed safety issues for nuclear propulsion and recommended top-level safety requirements and guidelines to address these issues. Safety requirements were developed for reactor start-up, inadvertent criticality, radiological release and exposure, disposal, entry, and safeguards. Guidelines were recommended for risk/reliability, operational safety, flight trajectory and mission abort, space debris and meteoroids, and ground test safety. In this paper the specific requirements and guidelines will be discussed

  4. Recommendation System for Adaptive Learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yunxiao; Li, Xiaoou; Liu, Jingchen; Ying, Zhiliang

    2018-01-01

    An adaptive learning system aims at providing instruction tailored to the current status of a learner, differing from the traditional classroom experience. The latest advances in technology make adaptive learning possible, which has the potential to provide students with high-quality learning benefit at a low cost. A key component of an adaptive learning system is a recommendation system, which recommends the next material (video lectures, practices, and so on, on different skills) to the learner, based on the psychometric assessment results and possibly other individual characteristics. An important question then follows: How should recommendations be made? To answer this question, a mathematical framework is proposed that characterizes the recommendation process as a Markov decision problem, for which decisions are made based on the current knowledge of the learner and that of the learning materials. In particular, two plain vanilla systems are introduced, for which the optimal recommendation at each stage can be obtained analytically.

  5. Recommendations to Improve Downloads of Large Earth Observation Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rahul Ramachandran

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available With the volume of Earth observation data expanding rapidly, cloud computing is quickly changing the way these data are processed, analyzed, and visualized. Collocating freely available Earth observation data on a cloud computing infrastructure may create opportunities unforeseen by the original data provider for innovation and value-added data re-use, but existing systems at data centers are not designed for supporting requests for large data transfers. A lack of common methodology necessitates that each data center handle such requests from different cloud vendors differently. Guidelines are needed to support enabling all cloud vendors to utilize a common methodology for bulk-downloading data from data centers, thus preventing the providers from building custom capabilities to meet the needs of individual vendors. This paper presents recommendations distilled from use cases provided by three cloud vendors (Amazon, Google, and Microsoft and are based on the vendors’ interactions with data systems at different Federal agencies and organizations. These specific recommendations range from obvious steps for improving data usability (such as ensuring the use of standard data formats and commonly supported projections to non-obvious undertakings important for enabling bulk data downloads at scale. These recommendations can be used to evaluate and improve existing data systems for high-volume data transfers, and their adoption can lead to cloud vendors utilizing a common methodology.

  6. Extracorporeal treatment for barbiturate poisoning: recommendations from the EXTRIP Workgroup.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mactier, Robert; Laliberté, Martin; Mardini, Joelle; Ghannoum, Marc; Lavergne, Valery; Gosselin, Sophie; Hoffman, Robert S; Nolin, Thomas D

    2014-09-01

    The EXTRIP (Extracorporeal Treatments in Poisoning) Workgroup conducted a systematic review of barbiturate poisoning using a standardized evidence-based process to provide recommendations on the use of extracorporeal treatment (ECTR) in patients with barbiturate poisoning. The authors reviewed all articles, extracted data, summarized key findings, and proposed structured voting statements following a predetermined format. A 2-round modified Delphi method was used to reach a consensus on voting statements, and the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method was used to quantify disagreement. 617 articles met the search inclusion criteria. Data for 538 patients were abstracted and evaluated. Only case reports, case series, and nonrandomized observational studies were identified, yielding a low quality of evidence for all recommendations. Using established criteria, the workgroup deemed that long-acting barbiturates are dialyzable and short-acting barbiturates are moderately dialyzable. Four key recommendations were made. (1) The use of ECTR should be restricted to cases of severe long-acting barbiturate poisoning. (2) The indications for ECTR in this setting are the presence of prolonged coma, respiratory depression necessitating mechanical ventilation, shock, persistent toxicity, or increasing or persistently elevated serum barbiturate concentrations despite treatment with multiple-dose activated charcoal. (3) Intermittent hemodialysis is the preferred mode of ECTR, and multiple-dose activated charcoal treatment should be continued during ECTR. (4) Cessation of ECTR is indicated when clinical improvement is apparent. This report provides detailed descriptions of the rationale for all recommendations. In summary, patients with long-acting barbiturate poisoning should be treated with ECTR provided at least one of the specific criteria in the first recommendation is present. Copyright © 2014 National Kidney Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Clinical practice recommendations for bipolar disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malhi, G S; Adams, D; Lampe, L; Paton, M; O'Connor, N; Newton, L A; Walter, G; Taylor, A; Porter, R; Mulder, R T; Berk, M

    2009-01-01

    To provide clinically relevant evidence-based recommendations for the management of bipolar disorder in adults that are informative, easy to assimilate and facilitate clinical decision-making. A comprehensive literature review of over 500 articles was undertaken using electronic database search engines (e.g. MEDLINE, PsychINFO and Cochrane reviews). In addition articles, book chapters and other literature known to the authors were reviewed. The findings were then formulated into a set of recommendations that were developed by a multidisciplinary team of clinicians who routinely deal with mood disorders. These preliminary recommendations underwent extensive consultative review by a broader advisory panel that included experts in the field, clinical staff and patient representatives. The clinical practice recommendations for bipolar disorder (bipolar CPR) summarise evidence-based treatments and provide a synopsis of recommendations relating to each phase of the illness. They are designed for clinical use and have therefore been presented succinctly in an innovative and engaging manner that is clear and informative. These up-to-date recommendations provide an evidence-based framework that incorporates clinical wisdom and consideration of individual factors in the management of bipolar disorder. Further, the novel style and practical approach should promote their uptake and implementation.

  8. Information Retrieval and Graph Analysis Approaches for Book Recommendation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chahinez Benkoussas

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A combination of multiple information retrieval approaches is proposed for the purpose of book recommendation. In this paper, book recommendation is based on complex user's query. We used different theoretical retrieval models: probabilistic as InL2 (Divergence from Randomness model and language model and tested their interpolated combination. Graph analysis algorithms such as PageRank have been successful in Web environments. We consider the application of this algorithm in a new retrieval approach to related document network comprised of social links. We called Directed Graph of Documents (DGD a network constructed with documents and social information provided from each one of them. Specifically, this work tackles the problem of book recommendation in the context of INEX (Initiative for the Evaluation of XML retrieval Social Book Search track. A series of reranking experiments demonstrate that combining retrieval models yields significant improvements in terms of standard ranked retrieval metrics. These results extend the applicability of link analysis algorithms to different environments.

  9. Information Retrieval and Graph Analysis Approaches for Book Recommendation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benkoussas, Chahinez; Bellot, Patrice

    2015-01-01

    A combination of multiple information retrieval approaches is proposed for the purpose of book recommendation. In this paper, book recommendation is based on complex user's query. We used different theoretical retrieval models: probabilistic as InL2 (Divergence from Randomness model) and language model and tested their interpolated combination. Graph analysis algorithms such as PageRank have been successful in Web environments. We consider the application of this algorithm in a new retrieval approach to related document network comprised of social links. We called Directed Graph of Documents (DGD) a network constructed with documents and social information provided from each one of them. Specifically, this work tackles the problem of book recommendation in the context of INEX (Initiative for the Evaluation of XML retrieval) Social Book Search track. A series of reranking experiments demonstrate that combining retrieval models yields significant improvements in terms of standard ranked retrieval metrics. These results extend the applicability of link analysis algorithms to different environments.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-05-01

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

  11. Operational intervention levels for reactor emergencies IAEA recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

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

    2017-07-01

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

  12. Operational intervention levels for reactor emergencies IAEA recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    2017-01-01

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

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

    KAUST Repository

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

    2017-01-01

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

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

    KAUST Repository

    Liu, An

    2017-10-23

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

  15. 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.

  16. Hybrid recommendation methods in complex networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2015-07-01

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

  17. American Society of Clinical Oncology Summit on Addressing Obesity Through Multidisciplinary Provider Collaboration: Key Findings and Recommendations for Action.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ligibel, Jennifer A; Alfano, Catherine M; Hershman, Dawn L; Merrill, Janette K; Basen-Engquist, Karen; Bloomgarden, Zachary T; Demark-Wahnefried, Wendy; Dixon, Suzanne; Hassink, Sandra G; Jakicic, John M; Morton, John Magaña; Okwuosa, Tochi M; Powell-Wiley, Tiffany M; Rothberg, Amy E; Stephens, Mark; Streett, Sarah E; Wild, Robert A; Westman, Eric A; Williams, Ronald J; Wollins, Dana S; Hudis, Clifford A

    2017-11-01

    Given the increasing evidence that obesity increases the risk of developing and dying from malignancy, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) launched an Obesity Initiative in 2013 that was designed to increase awareness among oncology providers and the general public of the relationship between obesity and cancer and to promote research in this area. Recognizing that the type of societal change required to impact the obesity epidemic will require a broad-based effort, ASCO hosted the "Summit on Addressing Obesity through Multidisciplinary Collaboration" in 2016. This meeting was held to review current challenges in addressing obesity within the respective health care provider communities and to identify priorities that would most benefit from a collective and cross-disciplinary approach. Efforts focused on four key areas: provider education and training; public education and activation; research; and policy and advocacy. Summit attendees discussed current challenges in addressing obesity within their provider communities and identified priorities that would most benefit from multidisciplinary collaboration. A synopsis of recommendations to facilitate future collaboration, as well as examples of ongoing cooperative efforts, provides a blueprint for multidisciplinary provider collaboration focused on obesity prevention and treatment. © 2017 The Obesity Society.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hale, Kelli; Capra, Sandra; Bauer, Judy

    2016-12-01

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

  19. USGEO DMWG Cloud Computing Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-12-01

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

  20. Music recommendation according to human motion based on kernel CCA-based relationship

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohkushi, Hiroyuki; Ogawa, Takahiro; Haseyama, Miki

    2011-12-01

    In this article, a method for recommendation of music pieces according to human motions based on their kernel canonical correlation analysis (CCA)-based relationship is proposed. In order to perform the recommendation between different types of multimedia data, i.e., recommendation of music pieces from human motions, the proposed method tries to estimate their relationship. Specifically, the correlation based on kernel CCA is calculated as the relationship in our method. Since human motions and music pieces have various time lengths, it is necessary to calculate the correlation between time series having different lengths. Therefore, new kernel functions for human motions and music pieces, which can provide similarities between data that have different time lengths, are introduced into the calculation of the kernel CCA-based correlation. This approach effectively provides a solution to the conventional problem of not being able to calculate the correlation from multimedia data that have various time lengths. Therefore, the proposed method can perform accurate recommendation of best matched music pieces according to a target human motion from the obtained correlation. Experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed method.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zengwei Zheng

    2017-01-01

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

  2. A Multi-Modality Deep Network for Cold-Start Recommendation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mingxuan Sun

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Collaborative filtering (CF approaches, which provide recommendations based on ratings or purchase history, perform well for users and items with sufficient interactions. However, CF approaches suffer from the cold-start problem for users and items with few ratings. Hybrid recommender systems that combine collaborative filtering and content-based approaches have been proved as an effective way to alleviate the cold-start issue. Integrating contents from multiple heterogeneous data sources such as reviews and product images is challenging for two reasons. Firstly, mapping contents in different modalities from the original feature space to a joint lower-dimensional space is difficult since they have intrinsically different characteristics and statistical properties, such as sparse texts and dense images. Secondly, most algorithms only use content features as the prior knowledge to improve the estimation of user and item profiles but the ratings do not directly provide feedback to guide feature extraction. To tackle these challenges, we propose a tightly-coupled deep network model for fusing heterogeneous modalities, to avoid tedious feature extraction in specific domains, and to enable two-way information propagation from both content and rating information. Experiments on large-scale Amazon product data in book and movie domains demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model for cold-start recommendation.

  3. Recommendation-Aware Smartphone Sensing System

    OpenAIRE

    Chen, Mu-Yen; Wu, Ming-Ni; Chen, Chia-Chen; Chen, Young-Long; Lin, Hsien-En

    2014-01-01

    The context-aware concept is to reduce the gap between users and information systems so that the information systems actively get to understand users’ context and demand and in return provide users with better experience. This study integrates the concept of context-aware with association algorithms to establish the context-aware recommendation systems (CARS). The CARS contains three modules and provides the product recommendations for users with their smartphone. First, the simple RSSI Indoo...

  4. Permian Basin location recommendation report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1983-09-01

    Candidate study areas are screened from the Palo Duro and Dalhart Basin areas using data obtained from studies to date and criteria and specifications that consider: rock geometry; rock characteristics; human intrusion potential; surface characteristics; and environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Two preferred locations are recommended from among these areas for additional characterization to identify potential National Waste Terminal Storage (NWTS) salt repository sites. One location, in northeastern Deaf Smith County and southeastern Oldham County, is underlain by two salt units that meet the adopted screening specifications. The other location, in northcentral Swisher County, is underlain by one salt unit that meets the adopted screening specifications. Both locations have several favorable features, relative to surrounding areas, and no obviously undesirable characteristics. Both lie wholly on the Southern High Plains surface, are in relatively sparsely populated areas, contain no unique land use conflicts, and comprise large enough geographic areas to provide flexibility in site selection. Data gathered to date indicate that these locations contain salt units sufficient in thickness and in depth for the safe construction and operation of the underground facilities under consideration. 93 references, 34 figures, 6 tables

  5. ISFG: Recommendations on biostatistics in paternity testing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2007-01-01

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

  6. Towards Information Enrichment through Recommendation Sharing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weng, Li-Tung; Xu, Yue; Li, Yuefeng; Nayak, Richi

    Nowadays most existing recommender systems operate in a single organisational basis, i.e. a recommender system recommends items to customers of one organisation based on the organisation's datasets only. Very often the datasets of a single organisation do not have sufficient resources to be used to generate quality recommendations. Therefore, it would be beneficial if recommender systems of different organisations with similar nature can cooperate together to share their resources and recommendations. In this chapter, we present an Ecommerce-oriented Distributed Recommender System (EDRS) that consists of multiple recommender systems from different organisations. By sharing resources and recommendations with each other, these recommenders in the distributed recommendation system can provide better recommendation service to their users. As for most of the distributed systems, peer selection is often an important aspect. This chapter also presents a recommender selection technique for the proposed EDRS, and it selects and profiles recommenders based on their stability, average performance and selection frequency. Based on our experiments, it is shown that recommenders' recommendation quality can be effectively improved by adopting the proposed EDRS and the associated peer selection technique.

  7. Recommended environmental dose calculation methods and Hanford-specific parameters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schreckhise, R.G.; Rhoads, K.; Napier, B.A.; Ramsdell, J.V.; Davis, J.S.

    1993-03-01

    This document was developed to support the Hanford Environmental Dose overview Panel (HEDOP). The Panel is responsible for reviewing all assessments of potential doses received by humans and other biota resulting from the actual or possible environmental releases of radioactive and other hazardous materials from facilities and/or operations belonging to the US Department of Energy on the Hanford Site in south-central Washington. This document serves as a guide to be used for developing estimates of potential radiation doses, or other measures of risk or health impacts, to people and other biota in the environs on and around the Hanford Site. It provides information to develop technically sound estimates of exposure (i.e., potential or actual) to humans or other biotic receptors that could result from the environmental transport of potentially harmful materials that have been, or could be, released from Hanford operations or facilities. Parameter values and information that are specific to the Hanford environs as well as other supporting material are included in this document

  8. Recommended environmental dose calculation methods and Hanford-specific parameters

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schreckhise, R.G.; Rhoads, K.; Napier, B.A.; Ramsdell, J.V. (Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)); Davis, J.S. (Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States))

    1993-03-01

    This document was developed to support the Hanford Environmental Dose overview Panel (HEDOP). The Panel is responsible for reviewing all assessments of potential doses received by humans and other biota resulting from the actual or possible environmental releases of radioactive and other hazardous materials from facilities and/or operations belonging to the US Department of Energy on the Hanford Site in south-central Washington. This document serves as a guide to be used for developing estimates of potential radiation doses, or other measures of risk or health impacts, to people and other biota in the environs on and around the Hanford Site. It provides information to develop technically sound estimates of exposure (i.e., potential or actual) to humans or other biotic receptors that could result from the environmental transport of potentially harmful materials that have been, or could be, released from Hanford operations or facilities. Parameter values and information that are specific to the Hanford environs as well as other supporting material are included in this document.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2010-03-09

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

  10. An incentive-based architecture for social recommendations

    KAUST Repository

    Bhattacharjee, Rajat; Goel, Ashish; Kollias, Konstantinos

    2009-01-01

    We present an incentive-based architecture for providing recommendations in a social network. We maintain a distinct reputation system for each individual and we rely on users to identify appropriate correlations and rate the items using a system-provided recommendation language. The key idea is to design an incentive structure and a ranking system such that any inaccuracy in the recommendations implies the existence of a profitable arbitrage opportunity, hence making the system resistant to malicious spam and presentation bias. We also show that, under mild assumptions, our architecture provides users with incentive to minimize the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the ratings and the actual item qualities, quickly driving the system to an equilibrium state with accurate recommendations. Copyright 2009 ACM.

  11. Nuclear power plant shift technical advisor. Recommendations for position description, qualifications, education and training

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1981-01-01

    The purpose of this document is to describe the position and identify specific areas of formal education, plant-specific training and experience necessary to assure an advanced level of analytical ability on shift. These recommendations will provide a level of technical ability that is essential to improved operational safety and are consistent with regulatory requirements. This position was developed in conjunction with representatives of utilities, equipment vendors and engineering educators, giving consideration to specific contributions the function must make to shift operations

  12. Implementing a Commercial-Strength Parallel Hybrid Movie Recommendation Engine

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Amolochitis, Emmanouil; Christou, Ioannis T.; Tan, Zheng-Hua

    2014-01-01

    AMORE is a hybrid recommendation system that provides movie recommendations for a major triple-play services provider in Greece. Combined with our own implementations of several user-, item-, and content-based recommendation algorithms, AMORE significantly outperforms other state......-of-the-art implementations both in solution quality and response time. AMORE currently serves daily recommendation requests for all active subscribers of the provider's video-on-demand services and has contributed to an increase of rental profits and customer retention....

  13. Recommender Systems for Learning

    CERN Document Server

    Manouselis, Nikos; Verbert, Katrien; Duval, Erik

    2013-01-01

    Technology enhanced learning (TEL) aims to design, develop and test sociotechnical innovations that will support and enhance learning practices of both individuals and organisations. It is therefore an application domain that generally covers technologies that support all forms of teaching and learning activities. Since information retrieval (in terms of searching for relevant learning resources to support teachers or learners) is a pivotal activity in TEL, the deployment of recommender systems has attracted increased interest. This brief attempts to provide an introduction to recommender systems for TEL settings, as well as to highlight their particularities compared to recommender systems for other application domains.

  14. Recommender systems for location-based social networks

    CERN Document Server

    Symeonidis, Panagiotis; Manolopoulos, Yannis

    2014-01-01

    Online social networks collect information from users' social contacts and their daily interactions (co-tagging of photos, co-rating of products etc.) to provide them with recommendations of new products or friends. Lately, technological progressions in mobile devices (i.e. smart phones) enabled the incorporation of geo-location data in the traditional web-based online social networks, bringing the new era of Social and Mobile Web. The goal of this book is to bring together important research in a new family of recommender systems aimed at serving Location-based Social Networks (LBSNs). The chapters introduce a wide variety of recent approaches, from the most basic to the state-of-the-art, for providing recommendations in LBSNs. The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 provides introductory material on recommender systems, online social networks and LBSNs. Part 2 presents a wide variety of recommendation algorithms, ranging from basic to cutting edge, as well as a comparison of the characteristics of t...

  15. Child Care Provider Adherence to Infant and Toddler Feeding Recommendations: Findings from the Baby Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (Baby NAP SACC) Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davison, Kirsten K.; Hesketh, Kathryn; Taveras, Elsie M.; Gillman, Matthew W.; Benjamin Neelon, Sara E.

    2015-01-01

    Abstract Background: Identifying characteristics associated with the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) recommended feeding practices among infant and toddler care providers in child care centers could help in preventing childhood obesity. Methods: In 2009, at baseline in a pilot intervention study of 29 licensed Massachusetts child care centers with at least 50% of enrolled children identified as racial minorities, 57 infant and 109 toddler providers completed feeding questionnaires. To assess provider adherence to six IOM-recommended behaviors, we used cluster-adjusted multivariable logistic regression models including provider type (infant or toddler), race, education, and center Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) participation. Results: In multivariable analysis, CACFP participation was associated with providers sitting with children at meals (odds ratio [OR], 5.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.2–21.7), offering fruits and vegetables (OR, 3.3; 95% CI 1.7–6.2), and limiting fast food (OR, 3.5; 95% CI, 1.8–6.7). Providers at centers serving meals family style were less likely to allow children to leave food unfinished (OR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.09–0.77). Infant providers were more likely than toddler providers to sit with children at meals (OR, 6.98; 95% CI, 1.51–32.09), allow children to eat when hungry (OR, 3.50; 95% CI, 1.34–9.16), and avoid serving sugary (OR, 8.74; 95% CI, 3.05–25.06) or fast foods (OR, 11.56; 95% CI, 3.20–41.80). Conclusions: CACFP participation may encourage IOM-recommended feeding practices among infant and toddler providers. Child care providers may benefit from education about how to feed infants and toddlers responsively, especially when offering foods family style. Future research should explore ways to promote child-centered feeding practices, while addressing barriers to providing children with nutrient-rich foods. PMID:25918873

  16. DIETOS: A dietary recommender system for chronic diseases monitoring and management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agapito, Giuseppe; Simeoni, Mariadelina; Calabrese, Barbara; Caré, Ilaria; Lamprinoudi, Theodora; Guzzi, Pietro H; Pujia, Arturo; Fuiano, Giorgio; Cannataro, Mario

    2018-01-01

    Use of mobile and web-based applications for diet and weight management is currently increasing. However, the impact of known apps on clinical outcomes is not well-characterized so far. Moreover, availability of food recommender systems providing high quality nutritional advices to both healthy and diet-related chronic diseases users is very limited. In addition, the potentiality of nutraceutical properties of typical regional foods for improving app utility has not been exerted to this end. We present DIETOS, a recommender system for the adaptive delivery of nutrition contents to improve the quality of life of both healthy subjects and patients with diet-related chronic diseases. DIETOS provides highly specialized nutritional advices in different health conditions. DIETOS was projected to provide users with health profile and individual nutritional recommendation. Health profiling was based on user answers to dynamic real-time medical questionnaires. Furthermore, DIETOS contains catalogs of typical foods from Calabria, a southern Italian region. Several Calabrian foods have been inserted because of their nutraceutical properties widely reported in several quality studies. DIETOS includes some well known methods for user profiling (overlay profiling) and content adaptation (content selection) coming from general purpose adaptive web systems. DIETOS has been validated for usability for both patients and specialists and for assessing the correctness of the profiling and recommendation, by enrolling 20 chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients at the Department of Nephrology and Dialysis, University Hospital, Catanzaro (Italy) and 20 age-matched healthy controls. Recruited subjects were invited to register to DIETOS and answer to medical questions to determine their health status. Based on our results, DIETOS has high specificity and sensitivity, allowing to determine a medical-controlled user's health profile and to perform a fine-grained recommendation that is better

  17. ICRS Recommendation Document

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2011-01-01

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

  18. Review of specific radiological accident considerations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elder, J.

    1984-01-01

    Specific points of guidance provided in the forthcoming document A Guide to Radiological Accident Considerations for Siting and Design of Nonreactor Nuclear Facilities are discussed. Of these, the following are considered of particular interest to analysts of hypothetical accidents: onsite dose limits; population dose, public health effects, and environmental contamination as accident consequences which should be addressed; risk analysis; natural phenomena as accident initiators; recommended dose models; multiple organ equivalent dose; and recommended methods and parameters for source terms and release amount calculations. Comments are being invited on this document, which is undergoing rewrite after the first stage of peer review

  19. Great Explanations: Opinionated Explanations for Recommendation

    OpenAIRE

    Muhammad, Khalil; Lawlor, Aonghus; Rafter, Rachael; Smyth, Barry

    2015-01-01

    Explaining recommendations helps users to make better, more satisfying decisions. We describe a novel approach to explanation for recommender systems, one that drives the recommendation process, while at the same time providing the user with useful insights into the reason why items have been chosen and the trade-os they may need to consider when making their choice. We describe this approach in the context ofa case-based recommender system that harnesses opinions mined from user-generated re...

  20. Guidelines for preparing specifications for nuclear power plants (NCIG-04): Final report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1988-04-01

    This document provides guidance for preparing technical requirements used in procurement and installation specifications. It is a compilation of recommend practices for writing specifications to preserve the best guidance coming out of recent years experience from construction of nuclear plants. It is intended to: Establish good practices for the content of specifications used for nuclear power plants; Be applicable to a wide range of specifications used for initial construction of plants and modifications to existing plants, including equipment replacement; and Provide guidance to specification preparers and reviewers

  1. Building a biomedical ontology recommender web service

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jonquet Clement

    2010-06-01

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

  2. Publication Ethics: A Case Series with Recommendations According to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fazly Bazzaz, Bibi Seddigheh; Sadeghi, Ramin

    2012-09-01

    Ethical misconduct is not a new issue in the history of science and literature. However, ethical misconducts in science have grown considerably in the modern era which is due to emphasis on the scientific proliferation in research institutes and gauging scientists according to their publications. In the current case series, several misconducts occurring over the previous years in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (Mashhad, Iran) either for Journals or Faculty members were gathered and specific recommendations were provided to avoid similar events in the future. All recommendations are according to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

  3. Consensus clinical recommendations for the management of plasma lipid disorders in the Middle East.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Al Sayed, Nasreen; Al Waili, Khalid; Alawadi, Fatheya; Al-Ghamdi, Saeed; Al Mahmeed, Wael; Al-Nouri, Fahad; Al Rukhaimi, Mona; Al-Rasadi, Khalid; Awan, Zuhier; Farghaly, Mohamed; Hassanein, Mohamed; Sabbour, Hani; Zubaid, Mohammad; Barter, Philip

    2016-12-15

    Plasma lipid disorders are key risk factors for the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) and are prevalent in the Middle East, with rates increasing in recent decades. Despite this, no region-specific guidelines for managing plasma lipids exist and there is a lack of use of guidelines developed in other regions. A multidisciplinary panel of regional experts was convened to develop consensus clinical recommendations for the management of plasma lipids in the Middle East. The panel considered existing international guidelines and regional clinical experience to develop recommendations. The panel's recommendations include plasma lipid screening, ASCVD risk calculation and treatment considerations. The panel recommend that plasma lipid levels should be measured in all at-risk patients and at regular intervals in all adults from the age of 20years. A scoring system should be used to calculate ASCVD risk that includes known lipid and non-lipid risk factors. Primary treatment targets include low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Lifestyle modifications should be first-line treatment for all patients; the first-line pharmacological treatment targeting plasma lipids in patients at moderate-to-high risk of ASCVD is statin therapy, with a number of adjunctive or second-line agents available. Guidance is also provided on the management of underlying conditions and special populations; of particular pertinence in the region are familial hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes and metabolic dyslipidaemia. These consensus clinical recommendations provide practicing clinicians with comprehensive, region-specific guidance to improve the detection and management of plasma lipid disorders in patients in the Middle East. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  4. TMI-2 Lessons Learned Task Force status report and short-term recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1979-07-01

    Review of the Three Mile Island accident by the TMI-2 Lessons Learned Task Force has disclosed a number of actions in the areas of design and analysis and plant operations that the Task Force recommends be required in the short term to provide substantial additional protection which is required for the public health and safety. All nuclear power plants in operation or in various stages of construction or licensing action are affected to varying degrees by the specific recommendations. The Task Force is continuing work in areas of general safety criteria, systems design requirements, nuclear power plant operations, and nuclear power plant licensing

  5. Treatment recommendations for DSM-5-defined mixed features.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosenblat, Joshua D; McIntyre, Roger S

    2017-04-01

    The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) mixed features specifier provides a less restrictive definition of mixed mood states, compared to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), including mood episodes that manifest with subthreshold symptoms of the opposite mood state. A limited number of studies have assessed the efficacy of treatments specifically for DSM-5-defined mixed features in mood disorders. As such, there is currently an inadequate amount of data to appropriately inform evidence-based treatment guidelines of DSM-5 defined mixed features. However, given the high prevalence and morbidity of mixed features, treatment recommendations based on the currently available evidence along with expert opinion may be of benefit. This article serves to provide these interim treatment recommendations while humbly acknowledging the limited amount of evidence currently available. Second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) appear to have the greatest promise in the treatment of bipolar disorder (BD) with mixed features. Conventional mood stabilizing agents (ie, lithium and divalproex) may also be of benefit; however, they have been inadequately studied. In the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) with mixed features, the comparable efficacy of antidepressants versus other treatments, such as SGAs, remains unknown. As such, antidepressants remain first-line treatment of MDD with or without mixed features; however, there are significant safety concerns associated with antidepressant monotherapy when mixed features are present, which merits increased monitoring. Lurasidone is the only SGA monotherapy that has been shown to be efficacious specifically in the treatment of MDD with mixed features. Further research is needed to accurately determine the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of treatments specifically for mood episodes with mixed features to adequately inform

  6. Parent-provider communication during hospitalization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Mark J; Broome, Marion E

    2011-02-01

    Parents and health care providers interact and communicate with each other during a child's hospitalization. The purpose of this study was to compare communication experiences of parents, nurses, and physicians. A unique aspect of this study involved combining three individual data sources into a collective unit of study (triad). Triads involved in the care of three children in the inpatient setting of an urban children's hospital served as the sample for this study (n = 10). Participants were asked semistructured questions during face-to-face interviews. Findings included (a) the importance of providing information by health care providers using a caring and inclusive approach, (b) the benefits of establishing interpersonal connections and nurturing relationships, and (c) the identification of specific behaviors in all members of the triad that contribute to and sustain positively perceived communication. Future research directions examining triadic interactions, communication, and relationships among parents, nurses, and physicians are recommended. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Exercise for prevention of cardiovascular disease: Evidence-based recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geevar Zachariah

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Sedentary lifestyle is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD. In India, a large percentage of the people are physically inactive with fewer than 10% engaging in recreational physical activity. Physical activity has many beneficial effects on the risk factors for CVD. Apart from improving fitness level, it decreases myocardial oxygen demand and improves myocardial perfusion. There is an inverse association between physical activity and all-cause mortality. In primary prevention, physical inactivity is associated with a two-fold increase in the risk for coronary events. In secondary prevention, data confirm the existence of an inverse dose–response relationship between cardiovascular fitness and the all-cause mortality in large populations of cardiovascular patients. Guidelines from the American authorities as well as the European Society of Cardiology provide specific recommendations for exercise depending on the clinical setting (primary or secondary prevention of CVD and the patient-specific factors (the patient's physical activity level and the perceived CVD risk. The present review summarizes the clinical evidence regarding the role of exercise in CVD prevention and the exercise recommendations from the leading Cardiac societies.

  8. Recommendations for ICT use in Alzheimer's disease assessment: Monaco CTAD Expert Meeting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robert, P H; Konig, A; Andrieu, S; Bremond, F; Chemin, I; Chung, P C; Dartigues, J F; Dubois, B; Feutren, G; Guillemaud, R; Kenisberg, P A; Nave, S; Vellas, B; Verhey, F; Yesavage, J; Mallea, P

    2013-01-01

    Alzheimer disease (AD) and other related dementia represent a major challenge for health care systems within the aging population. It is therefore important to develop better instruments for assessing disease severity and disease progression to optimize patient's care and support to care providers, and also provide better tools for clinical research. In this area, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are of particular interest. Such techniques enable accurate and standardized assessments of patients' performance and actions in real time and real life situations. The aim of this article is to provide basic recommendation concerning the development and the use of ICT for Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. During he ICT and Mental Health workshop (CTAD meeting held in Monaco on the 30th October 2012) an expert panel was set up to prepare the first recommendations for the use of ICT in dementia research. The expert panel included geriatrician, epidemiologist, neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, ICT engineers, representatives from the industry and patient association. The recommendations are divided into three sections corresponding to 1/ the clinical targets of interest for the use of ICT, 2/ the conditions, the type of sensors and the outputs (scores) that could be used and obtained, 3/ finally the last section concerns specifically the use of ICT within clinical trials.

  9. Semantic content-based recommendations using semantic graphs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Weisen; Kraines, Steven B

    2010-01-01

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

  10. Toward Privacy-Preserving Personalized Recommendation Services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cong Wang

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Recommendation systems are crucially important for the delivery of personalized services to users. With personalized recommendation services, users can enjoy a variety of targeted recommendations such as movies, books, ads, restaurants, and more. In addition, personalized recommendation services have become extremely effective revenue drivers for online business. Despite the great benefits, deploying personalized recommendation services typically requires the collection of users’ personal data for processing and analytics, which undesirably makes users susceptible to serious privacy violation issues. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to develop practical privacy-preserving techniques to maintain the intelligence of personalized recommendation services while respecting user privacy. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the literature related to personalized recommendation services with privacy protection. We present the general architecture of personalized recommendation systems, the privacy issues therein, and existing works that focus on privacy-preserving personalized recommendation services. We classify the existing works according to their underlying techniques for personalized recommendation and privacy protection, and thoroughly discuss and compare their merits and demerits, especially in terms of privacy and recommendation accuracy. We also identity some future research directions. Keywords: Privacy protection, Personalized recommendation services, Targeted delivery, Collaborative filtering, Machine learning

  11. A Federated Recommender System for Online Learning Environments

    OpenAIRE

    Zhou, Lei; El Helou, Sandy; Moccozet, Laurent; Opprecht, Laurent; Benkacem, Omar; Salzmann, Christophe; Gillet, Denis

    2012-01-01

    From e-commerce to social networking sites, recommender systems are gaining more and more interest. They provide connections, news, resources, or products of interest. This paper presents a federated recommender system, which exploits data from different online learning platforms and delivers personalized recommendation. The underlying educational objective is to enable academic institutions to provide a Web 2.0 dashboard bringing together open resources from the Cloud and proprietary content...

  12. Treatment Recommendation Actions, Contingencies, and Responses: An Introduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stivers, Tanya; Barnes, Rebecca K

    2017-08-21

    In the era of patient participation in health care decision making, we know surprisingly little about the ways in which treatment recommendations are made, the contexts that shape their formulation, and the consequences of these formulations. In this article, we introduce a systematic collective investigation of how recommendations for medications are responded to and made in primary versus secondary care, in the US versus the UK, and in contexts where the medication was over the counter versus by prescription. This article provides an overview of the coding system that was used in this project including describing what constitutes a recommendation, the primary action types clinicians use for recommendations, and the types of responses provided by patients to recommendations.

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

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

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

    2014-04-15

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

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    2014-01-01

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

  15. A survey of exercise advice and recommendations in United Kingdom paediatric cardiac clinics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Craig A; Gowing, Lucy; Horn, Richard; Stuart, Alan Graham

    2017-07-01

    Physical activity and exercise have important health benefits for children and adolescents with CHD. The objective of this study was to survey the provision of advice and recommendations in United Kingdom paediatric CHD clinics. A three-page questionnaire was sent out to paediatric cardiac consultants in the United Kingdom, paediatric consultants with expertise in cardiology, and nursing staff (Paediatricians with Expertise in Cardiology Special Interest Group), as well as all members of the British Congenital Cardiovascular Association. The aim of this questionnaire was to determine the extent and scope of current information provision and to assess the importance that clinicians place on this advice. There were 68 responses in total, and the data showed that, of these, 24 (36%) clinicians had never provided paediatric CHD patients with written advice about exercise. Only 27 (39%) clinicians provided physical activity advice at every appointment. Lack of time during consultation (n=39, 56.9%), lack of training (n=38, 55.2%), and uncertainty about appropriate recommendations (n=38, 55.2%) were identified as the main factors preventing clinicians from providing patients with advice about physical activity. Although healthcare providers consider physical activity to be very important, the provision of clear, specific advice and recommendations is underutilised; therefore, more education and provision of resources to support the promotion of exercise need to be provided to clinicians and their support teams.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erdt, Mojisola; Fernandez, Alejandro; Rensing, Christoph

    2015-01-01

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

  17. International recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lindell, Bo

    1986-01-01

    Full text: This short presentation will indicate the general radiation protection background to protective measures against foodstuffs contaminated with radioactive substances. A number of international organizations are involved in various aspects of radiation protection, for example, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Two international organizations, however, provide the basic background. These are the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). UNSCEAR provides the scientific information on radiation levels and effects. It consists of 21 member countries, with truly international coverage. It issues reports to the UN General Assembly, including comprehensive scientific annexes. Its latest comprehensive report was issued in 1982, the next is expected to be published in 1988. That report will include an assessment of the radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident. The ICRP is a non-governmental organization. It has issued recommendations on radiation protection since 1928. The postulated biological basis for radiation protection recommendations involves two types of biological effects. The so-called non-stochastic effects, mainly due to cell death, appear only when the radiation doses exceed a certain threshold value. These effects, therefore, can only appear after high accidental exposures. After the Chernobyl accident, they only affected about 200 individuals involved in fire extinction and rescue work at the damaged nuclear power plant. Stochastic effects, with some simplification, may be seen as the result of initial changes in the genetic code of some surviving cells. If these cells are germ cells, this may lead to hereditary harm. If they are somatic cells, the result could be cancer

  18. An effective trust-based recommendation method using a novel graph clustering algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moradi, Parham; Ahmadian, Sajad; Akhlaghian, Fardin

    2015-10-01

    Recommender systems are programs that aim to provide personalized recommendations to users for specific items (e.g. music, books) in online sharing communities or on e-commerce sites. Collaborative filtering methods are important and widely accepted types of recommender systems that generate recommendations based on the ratings of like-minded users. On the other hand, these systems confront several inherent issues such as data sparsity and cold start problems, caused by fewer ratings against the unknowns that need to be predicted. Incorporating trust information into the collaborative filtering systems is an attractive approach to resolve these problems. In this paper, we present a model-based collaborative filtering method by applying a novel graph clustering algorithm and also considering trust statements. In the proposed method first of all, the problem space is represented as a graph and then a sparsest subgraph finding algorithm is applied on the graph to find the initial cluster centers. Then, the proposed graph clustering algorithm is performed to obtain the appropriate users/items clusters. Finally, the identified clusters are used as a set of neighbors to recommend unseen items to the current active user. Experimental results based on three real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms several state-of-the-art recommender system methods.

  19. Recommendations for Promoting Physical Activity for Children and Adolescents in Germany. A Consensus Statement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christine Graf

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Increasing physical activity and reduction of sedentary behaviour play important roles in health promotion and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases in children and adolescents. However, the question of how much physical activity is useful for which target group is still a matter of debate. International guidelines (World Health Organization; European Association for the Study of Obesity, which are mainly based on expert opinions, recommend 60 min of physical activity every day. Age- and sex-specific features and regional differences are not taken into account. Therefore, expert consensus recommendations for promoting physical activity of children and adolescents in Germany were developed with special respect to national data, but also with respect to aspects of specific target groups, e.g., children with a lower socio-economic status (SES or with migration background. They propose 90 min/day of physical activity, or at least 12,000 steps daily. Additionally, lifestyle factors, especially restriction of media consumption, were integrated. The recommendations provide orientation for parents and caregivers, for institutions such as schools and kindergartens as well as for communities and stakeholders.

  20. Recommendations for Promoting Physical Activity for Children and Adolescents in Germany. A Consensus Statement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graf, Christine; Beneke, Ralph; Bloch, Wilhelm; Bucksch, Jens; Dordel, Sigrid; Eiser, Stefanie; Ferrari, Nina; Koch, Benjamin; Krug, Susanne; Lawrenz, Wolfgang; Manz, Kristin; Naul, Roland; Oberhoffer, Renate; Quilling, Eike; Schulz, Henry; Stemper, Theo; Stibbe, Günter; Tokarski, Walter; Völker, Klaus; Woll, Alexander

    2014-01-01

    Increasing physical activity and reduction of sedentary behaviour play important roles in health promotion and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases in children and adolescents. However, the question of how much physical activity is useful for which target group is still a matter of debate. International guidelines (World Health Organization; European Association for the Study of Obesity), which are mainly based on expert opinions, recommend 60 min of physical activity every day. Age- and sex-specific features and regional differences are not taken into account. Therefore, expert consensus recommendations for promoting physical activity of children and adolescents in Germany were developed with special respect to national data, but also with respect to aspects of specific target groups, e.g., children with a lower socio-economic status (SES) or with migration background. They propose 90 min/day of physical activity, or at least 12,000 steps daily. Additionally, lifestyle factors, especially restriction of media consumption, were integrated. The recommendations provide orientation for parents and caregivers, for institutions such as schools and kindergartens as well as for communities and stakeholders. PMID:24821136

  1. Recommendations for pneumococcal immunization outside routine childhood immunization programs in Western Europe.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castiglia, Paolo

    2014-10-01

    The global burden of pneumococcal diseases is high, with young children and adults≥50 years of age at highest risk of infection. Two types of vaccine are available for the prevention of pneumococcal diseases caused by specific Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes: the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23) and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7, PCV10, and PCV13). Despite pneumococcal immunization programs in adults and children, the burden in adults has remained high. Most European countries have national or local/regional vaccination recommendations. The objective of this review was to provide an overview of the government recommendations for pneumococcal vaccination outside routine childhood vaccination programs for 16 Western European countries as of August 2014. We found that recommendations for pneumococcal immunization across Europe are complex and vary greatly among countries in terms of age groups and risk groups recommended for vaccination, as well as which vaccine should be administered. Clarifying or simplifying these recommendations and improving their dissemination could help to increase pneumococcal vaccine uptake and decrease the high burden of pneumococcal diseases in adults, both through a direct effect of the vaccine and via a herd effect in unvaccinated individuals.

  2. Recommendations to bridge rural/urban drug-use(r) research and practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leukefeld, C G; Edwards, R W

    1999-01-01

    This article presents recommendations developed by a group of United States drug-use(r) researchers interested in rural and urban research and practice who met in Lexington, Kentucky, in October 1996. Overall, there was consensus about the importance of better understanding the urban/rural drug and alcohol use/dependency continuum. It was emphasized that drug and alcohol use/dependency are chronic and relapsing disorders. Definitions of rural and urban are most important, and different definitions may be associated with factors that are masked by population density. Specific recommendations are presented in the following areas: Rural Factors, Epidemiology, HIV/AIDS, Treatment and Other Services, Migration, Youth, Protective Factors, Systems Perspective, Measurement, Confidentiality, Criminal Justice, Research, Policy Research, Economic Factors, Service Providers, and Managed Care.

  3. Recommendations for enforcing and administering lighting-efficiency standards in existing public buildings in New York State. Final report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None

    1977-09-30

    To determine the most efficient, cost-effective means of enforcing lighting standards in existing public buildings, various enforcement procedures were investigated. A summary of conclusions and recommendations are presented. In Chapter 1, the adoption of a modified version of the sections of the proposed ASHRAE 100 standards that relate to lighting is recommended. The basic features of the proposed ASHRAE 100 standards are described and compared with those of other types of standards, and the modifications recommended to facilitate implementation are then presented. In Chapter 2, the structure is outlined and the details are provided of the enforcement strategy devised based on self-certification and penalties for noncompliance. Chapter 3 is intended to guide the state in implementing that strategy; it is suggested that the State Energy Office begin to conduct inspections of buildings selected first randomly and then according to a specific discriminant-analysis scheme. The timetable that should be followed and the management responsibilities that should be assigned if the state is to meet its 1980 goals related to saving energy through the implementation of lighting-efficiency standards are delineated in Chapter 4. The appendixes provide additional information and data supporting the specific conclusions and recommendations presented throughout the text. (MCW)

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kasra Madadipouya

    2017-07-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Hoye, Greet

    2008-08-01

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

  6. Fusing Recommendations for Social Bookmarking Websites

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; van den Bosch, Antal

    2011-01-01

    Social bookmarking websites are rapidly growing in popularity. Recommender systems, a promising remedy to the information overload accompanying the explosive growth in content, are designed to identify which unseen content might be of interest to a particular user, based on his or her past...... that use tag overlap and metadata provide better results for social bookmarking data sets than the transaction patterns that are used traditionally in recommender systems research. In addition, we investigate how to fuse different recommendation approaches to further improve recommendation accuracy. We...... preferences. Most previous work in recommendation for social bookmarking suffers from a lack of comparisons between the different available approaches. In this article, we address this issue by comparing and evaluating eight recommendation approaches on four data sets from two domains. We find that approaches...

  7. Creating adaptive web recommendation system based on user behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walek, Bogdan

    2018-01-01

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

  8. Functional Foods Programs Serve as a Vehicle to Provide Nutrition Education to Groups

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cirignano, Sherri M.

    2011-01-01

    An increase in consumer interest in functional foods provides an opportunity for FCS educators to use this topic in Extension programming to promote current nutrition recommendations. The Functional Foods for Life Educational Programs (FFL) are a curriculum of six evidence-based mini-seminars that highlight specific functional foods that have the…

  9. Archetypal Game Recommender Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sifa, Rafet; Bauckhage, C.; Drachen, Anders

    2014-01-01

    Contemporary users (players, consumers) of digital games have thousands of products to choose from, which makes nding games that t their interests challenging. Towards addressing this challenge, in this paper two dierent formulations of Archetypal Analysis for Top-L recommender tasks using implicit...... feedback are presented: factor- and neighborhood-oriented models. These form the rst application of rec- ommender systems to digital games. Both models are tested on a dataset of 500,000 users of the game distribution platform Steam, covering game ownership and playtime data across more than 3000 games....... Compared to four other recommender models (nearest neighbor, two popularity mod- els, random baseline), the archetype based models provide the highest recall rates showing that Archetypal Analysis can be successfully applied for Top-L recommendation purposes...

  10. Preventive Care Recommendations for Adults with MS

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... risk factors including prolonged use of steroids or anticonvulsants, a family history of osteoporosis, and a sedentary ... care provider. Yearly. Monthly. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends starting at age eighteen. Preventive Care Recommendations | ...

  11. Implementing Trauma-Informed Care: Recommendations on the Process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diane K. Yatchmenoff

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The importance of trauma-informed care (TIC is now recognized across most health and human service systems. Providers are calling for concrete examples of what TIC means in practice and how to create more trauma-informed organizations. However, much of the current understanding about implementation rests on principles and values rather than specific recommendations for action. This paper addresses this gap based on observations during the provision of technical assistance over the past decade in fields like mental health and addictions, juvenile justice, child welfare, healthcare, housing, and education. Focusing on the infrastructure for making change (the TIC workgroup, assessment and planning, and the early stages of implementation, the authors discuss barriers and challenges that are commonly encountered, strategies that have proven effective in addressing barriers, and specific action steps that can help sustain momentum for the longer term.

  12. Recommended observational skills training for IAEA safeguards inspections. Final report: Recommended observational skills training for IAEA safeguards inspections

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Toquam, J.L.; Morris, F.A.

    1994-09-01

    This is the second of two reports prepared to assist the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA or Agency) in enhancing the effectiveness of its international safeguards inspections through inspector training in open-quotes Observational Skillsclose quotes. The first (Phase 1) report was essentially exploratory. It defined Observational Skills broadly to include all appropriate cognitive, communications, and interpersonal techniques that have the potential to help IAEA safeguards inspectors function more effectively. It identified 10 specific Observational Skills components, analyzed their relevance to IAEA safeguards inspections, and reviewed a variety of inspection programs in the public and private sectors that provide training in one or more of these components. The report concluded that while it should be possible to draw upon these other programs in developing Observational Skills training for IAEA inspectors, the approaches utilized in these programs will likely require significant adaption to support the specific job requirements, policies, and practices that define the IAEA inspector's job. The overall objective of this second (Phase 2) report is to provide a basis for the actual design and delivery of Observational Skills training to IAEA inspectors. The more specific purposes of this report are to convey a fuller understanding of the potential application of Observational Skills to the inspector's job, describe inspector perspectives on the relevance and importance of particular Observational Skills, identify the specific Observational Skill components that are most important and relevant to enhancing safeguards inspections, and make recommendations as to Observational Skills training for the IAEA's consideration in further developing its Safeguards training program

  13. Recommended observational skills training for IAEA safeguards inspections. Final report: Recommended observational skills training for IAEA safeguards inspections

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Toquam, J.L.; Morris, F.A.

    1994-09-01

    This is the second of two reports prepared to assist the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA or Agency) in enhancing the effectiveness of its international safeguards inspections through inspector training in {open_quotes}Observational Skills{close_quotes}. The first (Phase 1) report was essentially exploratory. It defined Observational Skills broadly to include all appropriate cognitive, communications, and interpersonal techniques that have the potential to help IAEA safeguards inspectors function more effectively. It identified 10 specific Observational Skills components, analyzed their relevance to IAEA safeguards inspections, and reviewed a variety of inspection programs in the public and private sectors that provide training in one or more of these components. The report concluded that while it should be possible to draw upon these other programs in developing Observational Skills training for IAEA inspectors, the approaches utilized in these programs will likely require significant adaption to support the specific job requirements, policies, and practices that define the IAEA inspector`s job. The overall objective of this second (Phase 2) report is to provide a basis for the actual design and delivery of Observational Skills training to IAEA inspectors. The more specific purposes of this report are to convey a fuller understanding of the potential application of Observational Skills to the inspector`s job, describe inspector perspectives on the relevance and importance of particular Observational Skills, identify the specific Observational Skill components that are most important and relevant to enhancing safeguards inspections, and make recommendations as to Observational Skills training for the IAEA`s consideration in further developing its Safeguards training program.

  14. A Novel Contextual Information Recommendation Model and Its Application in e-Commerce Customer Satisfaction Management

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Feipeng Guo

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In the current supply chain environment, distributed cognition theory tells us that various types of context information in which a recommendation is provided are important for e-commerce customer satisfaction management. However, traditional recommendation model does not consider the distributed and differentiated impact of different contexts on user needs, and it also lacks adaptive capacity of contextual recommendation service. Thus, a contextual information recommendation model based on distributed cognition theory is proposed. Firstly, the model analyzes the differential impact of various sensitive contexts and specific examples on user interest and designs a user interest extraction algorithm based on distributed cognition theory. Then, the sensitive contexts extracted from user are introduced into the process of collaborative filtering recommendation. The model calculates similarity among user interests. Finally, a novel collaborative filtering algorithm integrating with context and user similarity is designed. The experimental results in e-commerce and benchmark dataset show that this model has a good ability to extract user interest and has higher recommendation accuracy compared with other methods.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mao Ye

    2015-08-01

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

  16. Evolution of chemical specifications following the working group of international inter-comparison

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leduc-Brunet, Murielle; Gressier, F.; Mole, D.; Massias, O.; Marescot, O.; Bretelle, Jean Luc

    2012-09-01

    As part of a continuous improvement process and the inclusion of Experience Feedback, EDF has launched a working group to analyse its reference of Chemical Specifications with regard to the guidelines of EPRI and VGB.. As a result of the analysis of over 1000 lines of specifications, a large number of recommendations were issued, referring either to control of new chemical parameters or to an enhancement of measurement frequencies. These recommendations are to be developed by preliminary studies which will provide supporting evidence for future decisions. To implement these recommendations, EDF launched a dedicated project in 2011, whose main objectives were to: - raise the requirements of chemical specifications in line with international standards and compare the technical basis of the different international standards, - strengthen monitoring and anticipation of corrective actions in the field of plant chemistry with a view to extending nuclear plant lifetime to 60 years. This project, scheduled for 2011 to 2016, covers the following activities: - studies on the technical background of the specifications (2011-14), - study of the possibility of adopting an 'Actions Levels' approach in EDF's own specifications (2012-14), - new propositions evolution of the specifications (2015-16). (authors)

  17. Challenging Obesity: Patient, Provider, and Expert Perspectives on the Roles of Available and Emerging Nonsurgical Therapies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Apovian, Caroline M.; Garvey, W. Timothy; Ryan, Donna H.

    2015-01-01

    Objective Adult obesity is recognized as a chronic disease. According to principles of chronic disease management, healthcare professionals should work collaboratively with patients to determine appropriate therapeutic strategies that address overweight and obesity, specifically considering a patient’s disease status in addition to their individual needs, preferences, and attitudes regarding treatment. A central role and responsibility of healthcare professionals in this process is to inform and educate patients about their treatment options. Although current recommendations for the management of adult obesity provide general guidance regarding safe and proper implementation of lifestyle, pharmacological, and surgical interventions, healthcare professionals need awareness of specific evidence-based information that supports individualized clinical application of these therapies. More specifically, healthcare professionals should be up-to-date on approaches that promote successful lifestyle management and be knowledgeable about newer weight loss pharmacotherapies, so they can offer patients with obesity a wide range of options to personalize their treatment. Accordingly, this educational activity has been developed to provide participants with the latest information on treatment recommendations and therapeutic advances in lifestyle intervention and pharmacotherapy for adult obesity management. Design and Methods This supplement is based on the content presented at a live CME symposium held in conjunction with ObesityWeek 2014. Results This supplement provides an expert summary of current treatment recommendations and recent advances in nonsurgical therapies for the management of adult obesity. Patient and provider perspectives on obesity management are highlighted in embedded video clips available via QR codes, and new evidence will be applied using clinically relevant case studies. Conclusions This supplement provides a topical update of obesity management

  18. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics benchmarks for nutrition in child care 2011: are child-care providers across contexts meeting recommendations?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dev, Dipti A; McBride, Brent A

    2013-10-01

    The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Academy) recommends feeding practices for child-care providers to establish nutrition habits in early childhood to prevent obesity. With >12 million US children in child care, little is known about child-care providers' feeding practices. The purpose of this study was to examine child-care providers' feeding practices to assess whether providers met the Academy's benchmarks and whether attainment of benchmarks varied across child-care contexts (Head Start, Child and Adult Care Food Program [CACFP], and non-CACFP). Cross-sectional data was collected in 2011 and 2012 from 118 child-care providers who completed self-administered surveys regarding their feeding practices for 2- to 5-year-old children. χ(2) tests and analysis of variance were used to determine variation across contexts. Head Start providers sat more frequently with children during meals (P=0.01), ate the same foods as children (P=0.001), and served meals family style (Pchildren (P=0.01) received more nutrition-education opportunities compared with CACFP and non-CACFP. Head Start providers encouraged more balance and variety of foods (Pchildren about nutrition (PAcademy's benchmarks compared with CACFP and non-CACFP providers. Possible reasons for this compliance might be attributed to Head Start nutrition performance standards and increased nutrition-training opportunities for Head Start staff. Head Start programs can serve as a model in implementing the Academy's benchmarks. Copyright © 2013 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

    OpenAIRE

    Mazumder, Sahisnu

    2016-01-01

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

  20. Industry disagrees with water quality recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Begley, R.

    1992-01-01

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

  1. Good Practices for Real-World Data Studies of Treatment and/or Comparative Effectiveness: Recommendations from the Joint ISPOR-ISPE Special Task Force on Real-World Evidence in Health Care Decision Making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berger, Marc L; Sox, Harold; Willke, Richard J; Brixner, Diana L; Eichler, Hans-Georg; Goettsch, Wim; Madigan, David; Makady, Amr; Schneeweiss, Sebastian; Tarricone, Rosanna; Wang, Shirley V; Watkins, John; Mullins, C Daniel

    2017-09-01

    Real-world evidence (RWE) includes data from retrospective or prospective observational studies and observational registries and provides insights beyond those addressed by randomized controlled trials. RWE studies aim to improve health care decision making. The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE) created a task force to make recommendations regarding good procedural practices that would enhance decision makers' confidence in evidence derived from RWD studies. Peer review by ISPOR/ISPE members and task force participants provided a consensus-building iterative process for the topics and framing of recommendations. The ISPOR/ISPE Task Force recommendations cover seven topics such as study registration, replicability, and stakeholder involvement in RWE studies. These recommendations, in concert with earlier recommendations about study methodology, provide a trustworthy foundation for the expanded use of RWE in health care decision making. The focus of these recommendations is good procedural practices for studies that test a specific hypothesis in a specific population. We recognize that some of the recommendations in this report may not be widely adopted without appropriate incentives from decision makers, journal editors, and other key stakeholders. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  2. Web Page Recommendation Using Web Mining

    OpenAIRE

    Modraj Bhavsar; Mrs. P. M. Chavan

    2014-01-01

    On World Wide Web various kind of content are generated in huge amount, so to give relevant result to user web recommendation become important part of web application. On web different kind of web recommendation are made available to user every day that includes Image, Video, Audio, query suggestion and web page. In this paper we are aiming at providing framework for web page recommendation. 1) First we describe the basics of web mining, types of web mining. 2) Details of each...

  3. Interpreting Contextual Effects By Contextual Modeling In Recommender Systems

    OpenAIRE

    Zheng, Yong

    2017-01-01

    Recommender systems have been widely applied to assist user's decision making by providing a list of personalized item recommendations. Context-aware recommender systems (CARS) additionally take context information into considering in the recommendation process, since user's tastes on the items may vary from contexts to contexts. Several context-aware recommendation algorithms have been proposed and developed to improve the quality of recommendations. However, there are limited research which...

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

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

    2014-01-01

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

  5. An Agent Framework of Tourism Recommender System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jia Zhi Yang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper proposes the development of an Agent framework for tourism recommender system. The recommender system can be featured as an online web application which is capable of generating a personalized list of preference attractions for tourists. Traditional technologies of classical recommender system application domains, such as collaborative filtering, content-based filtering and content-based filtering are effectively adopted in the framework. In the framework they are constructed as Agents that can generate recommendations respectively. Recommender Agent can generate recommender information by integrating the recommendations of Content-based Agent, collaborative filtering-based Agent and constraint-based Agent. In order to make the performance more effective, linear combination method of data fusion is applied. User interface is provided by the tourist Agent in form of webpages and mobile app.

  6. RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS IN E-COMMERCE APPLICATIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gyöngyvér KOVÁCS

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available One of the major problem with online shopping is finingd the right product, because finding the right product presumes that we know its name, but in most cases it is not so. For this reason the users need help in the process of online searching/shopping. Recommender systems have became a popular technique and strategy for helping users to select desirable products or services. In the past few years the recommender systems have changed from novelties used by a few big e-commerce sites, to serious business tools that are re-shaping the world of e-commerce. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of the classification of recommendation systems based on technology used to create recommendations, and inputs they need from the customers. Furthermore we analyze a few algorithms used by recommender systems and we will also present some marketing recommender systems and their comparative analysis.

  7. CBRecSys 2016. New Trends on Content-Based Recommender Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    While content-based recommendation has been applied successfully in many different domains, it has not seen the same level of attention as collaborative filtering techniques have. However, there are many recommendation domains and applications where content and metadata play a key role, either...... these data sources should be combined to provided the best recommendation performance. The CBRecSys 2016 workshop provides a dedicated venue for papers dedicated to all aspects of content-based recommendation....

  8. Using data mining techniques to explore physicians' therapeutic decisions when clinical guidelines do not provide recommendations: methods and example for type 2 diabetes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toussi, Massoud; Lamy, Jean-Baptiste; Le Toumelin, Philippe; Venot, Alain

    2009-06-10

    Clinical guidelines carry medical evidence to the point of practice. As evidence is not always available, many guidelines do not provide recommendations for all clinical situations encountered in practice. We propose an approach for identifying knowledge gaps in guidelines and for exploring physicians' therapeutic decisions with data mining techniques to fill these knowledge gaps. We demonstrate our method by an example in the domain of type 2 diabetes. We analyzed the French national guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes to identify clinical conditions that are not covered or those for which the guidelines do not provide recommendations. We extracted patient records corresponding to each clinical condition from a database of type 2 diabetic patients treated at Avicenne University Hospital of Bobigny, France. We explored physicians' prescriptions for each of these profiles using C5.0 decision-tree learning algorithm. We developed decision-trees for different levels of detail of the therapeutic decision, namely the type of treatment, the pharmaco-therapeutic class, the international non proprietary name, and the dose of each medication. We compared the rules generated with those added to the guidelines in a newer version, to examine their similarity. We extracted 27 rules from the analysis of a database of 463 patient records. Eleven rules were about the choice of the type of treatment and thirteen rules about the choice of the pharmaco-therapeutic class of each drug. For the choice of the international non proprietary name and the dose, we could extract only a few rules because the number of patient records was too low for these factors. The extracted rules showed similarities with those added to the newer version of the guidelines. Our method showed its usefulness for completing guidelines recommendations with rules learnt automatically from physicians' prescriptions. It could be used during the development of guidelines as a complementary source from

  9. Using data mining techniques to explore physicians' therapeutic decisions when clinical guidelines do not provide recommendations: methods and example for type 2 diabetes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Toussi Massoud

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Clinical guidelines carry medical evidence to the point of practice. As evidence is not always available, many guidelines do not provide recommendations for all clinical situations encountered in practice. We propose an approach for identifying knowledge gaps in guidelines and for exploring physicians' therapeutic decisions with data mining techniques to fill these knowledge gaps. We demonstrate our method by an example in the domain of type 2 diabetes. Methods We analyzed the French national guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes to identify clinical conditions that are not covered or those for which the guidelines do not provide recommendations. We extracted patient records corresponding to each clinical condition from a database of type 2 diabetic patients treated at Avicenne University Hospital of Bobigny, France. We explored physicians' prescriptions for each of these profiles using C5.0 decision-tree learning algorithm. We developed decision-trees for different levels of detail of the therapeutic decision, namely the type of treatment, the pharmaco-therapeutic class, the international non proprietary name, and the dose of each medication. We compared the rules generated with those added to the guidelines in a newer version, to examine their similarity. Results We extracted 27 rules from the analysis of a database of 463 patient records. Eleven rules were about the choice of the type of treatment and thirteen rules about the choice of the pharmaco-therapeutic class of each drug. For the choice of the international non proprietary name and the dose, we could extract only a few rules because the number of patient records was too low for these factors. The extracted rules showed similarities with those added to the newer version of the guidelines. Conclusion Our method showed its usefulness for completing guidelines recommendations with rules learnt automatically from physicians' prescriptions. It could be used

  10. Système de Recommendation basé sur Traits de Personnalité

    OpenAIRE

    Silveira Netto Nunes , Maria Augusta

    2008-01-01

    The World Wide Web is a great source of products and services available to people. Scientists have made a huge effort to create effective strategies to personalize those products/services for anyone willing to use them. The personalization may be provided by Recommender Systems which are able to match people's preferences to specific products or services.Scientists from different research areas such as Psychology, Neurology and Affective Computing agree that human reasoning and decision-makin...

  11. Sem-Fit: a semantic based expert system to provide recommendations in the tourism domain

    OpenAIRE

    García-Crespo, Ángel; López-Cuadrado, José Luis; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; González-Carrasco, Israel; Ruiz-Mezcua, Belén

    2011-01-01

    The hotel industry is one of the leading stakeholders in the tourism sector. In order to reduce the trav eler’s cost of seeking accommodations, enforce the return ratio efficiency of guest rooms and enhance total operating performance, evaluating and selecting a suitable hotel location has become one of the most critical issues for the hotel industry. In this scenario, recommender services are increasingly emerg ing which employ intelligent agents and artificial intelligence to ‘‘cut through’...

  12. Recommendation 93-5 Implementation Plan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1994-01-01

    On July 19, 1993, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) provided to the Secretary of Energy its Recommendation 93-5, which commented on the Hanford Tank Waste Characterization effort. Recommendation 93-5 highlighted the need to accelerate the characterization of the Hanford Site tank wastes to expedite the resolution of identified tank safety issues, and to provide timely design data in support of activities addressing the disposal of the tank wastes. The Department of Energy (DOE) and its prime contractor, Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC), are in full agreement with the content of Recommendation 93-5 and have prepared this Implementation Plan to document those actions that have been or will be taken to meet Recommendation 93-5. The new Characterization Strategy embodied by this Plan acknowledges that waste distribution within a tank is the critical unknown with respect to successfully characterizing the tank for any Tank Waste Remediation Systems (TWRS) programmatic need. The new strategy has been incorporated into the following seven task: (1) strengthen technical management; (2) accelerate safety related characterization; (3) improve the quality and quantity of sampling (4) streamline tank access; (5) improve the quality and quantity of analyses; (6) improve data management; and (7) change control

  13. Organizational culture associated with provider satisfaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scammon, Debra L; Tabler, Jennifer; Brunisholz, Kimberly; Gren, Lisa H; Kim, Jaewhan; Tomoaia-Cotisel, Andrada; Day, Julie; Farrell, Timothy W; Waitzman, Norman J; Magill, Michael K

    2014-01-01

    Organizational culture is key to the successful implementation of major improvement strategies. Transformation to a patient-centered medical home (PCHM) is such an improvement strategy, requiring a shift from provider-centric care to team-based care. Because this shift may impact provider satisfaction, it is important to understand the relationship between provider satisfaction and organizational culture, specifically in the context of practices that have transformed to a PCMH model. This was a cross-sectional study of surveys conducted in 2011 among providers and staff in 10 primary care clinics implementing their version of a PCMH: Care by Design. Measures included the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument and the American Medical Group Association provider satisfaction survey. Providers were most satisfied with quality of care (mean, 4.14; scale of 1-5) and interactions with patients (mean, 4.12) and were least satisfied with time spent working (mean, 3.47), paperwork (mean, 3.45), and compensation (mean, 3.35). Culture profiles differed across clinics, with family/clan and hierarchical cultures the most common. Significant correlations (P ≤ .05) between provider satisfaction and clinic culture archetypes included family/clan culture negatively correlated with administrative work; entrepreneurial culture positively correlated with the Time Spent Working dimension; market/rational culture positively correlated with how practices were facing economic and strategic challenges; and hierarchical culture negatively correlated with the Relationships with Staff and Resource dimensions. Provider satisfaction is an important metric for assessing experiences with features of a PCMH model. Identification of clinic-specific culture archetypes and archetype associations with provider satisfaction can help inform practice redesign. Attention to effective methods for changing organizational culture is recommended.

  14. Intelligent Knowledge Recommendation Methods for R&D Knowledge Portals

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    KIM Jongwoo; LEE Hongjoo; PARK Sungjoo

    2004-01-01

    The personalization in knowledge portals and knowledge management systems is mainly performed based on users' explicitly specified categories and keywords. The explicit specification approach requires users' participation to start personalization services, and has limitation to adapt changes of users' preference. This paper suggests two implicit personalization approaches: automatic user category assignment method and automatic keyword profile generation method. The performances of the implicit personalization approaches are compared with traditional personalization approach using an Internet news site experiment. The result of the experiment shows that the suggested personalization approaches provide sufficient recommendation effectiveness with lessening users'unwanted involvement in personalization process.

  15. Recommendations for epidemiological studies on COPD

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bakke, P S; Rönmark, E; Eagan, T

    2011-01-01

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

  16. Exercise redox biochemistry: Conceptual, methodological and technical recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James N. Cobley

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Exercise redox biochemistry is of considerable interest owing to its translational value in health and disease. However, unaddressed conceptual, methodological and technical issues complicate attempts to unravel how exercise alters redox homeostasis in health and disease. Conceptual issues relate to misunderstandings that arise when the chemical heterogeneity of redox biology is disregarded: which often complicates attempts to use redox-active compounds and assess redox signalling. Further, that oxidised macromolecule adduct levels reflect formation and repair is seldom considered. Methodological and technical issues relate to the use of out-dated assays and/or inappropriate sample preparation techniques that confound biochemical redox analysis. After considering each of the aforementioned issues, we outline how each issue can be resolved and provide a unifying set of recommendations. We specifically recommend that investigators: consider chemical heterogeneity, use redox-active compounds judiciously, abandon flawed assays, carefully prepare samples and assay buffers, consider repair/metabolism, use multiple biomarkers to assess oxidative damage and redox signalling. Keywords: Exercise, Oxidative stress, Free radical, Antioxidants, Redox signalling

  17. Exercise redox biochemistry: Conceptual, methodological and technical recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cobley, James N; Close, Graeme L; Bailey, Damian M; Davison, Gareth W

    2017-08-01

    Exercise redox biochemistry is of considerable interest owing to its translational value in health and disease. However, unaddressed conceptual, methodological and technical issues complicate attempts to unravel how exercise alters redox homeostasis in health and disease. Conceptual issues relate to misunderstandings that arise when the chemical heterogeneity of redox biology is disregarded: which often complicates attempts to use redox-active compounds and assess redox signalling. Further, that oxidised macromolecule adduct levels reflect formation and repair is seldom considered. Methodological and technical issues relate to the use of out-dated assays and/or inappropriate sample preparation techniques that confound biochemical redox analysis. After considering each of the aforementioned issues, we outline how each issue can be resolved and provide a unifying set of recommendations. We specifically recommend that investigators: consider chemical heterogeneity, use redox-active compounds judiciously, abandon flawed assays, carefully prepare samples and assay buffers, consider repair/metabolism, use multiple biomarkers to assess oxidative damage and redox signalling. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. CBRecSys 2015. New Trends on Content-Based Recommender Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    While content-based recommendation has been applied successfully in many different domains, it has not seen the same level of attention as collaborative filtering techniques have. However, there are many recommendation domains and applications where content and metadata play a key role, either...... these data sources should be combined to provided the best recommendation performance. The CBRecSys 2015 workshop aims to address this by providing a dedicated venue for papers dedicated to all aspects of content-based recommendation....

  19. Strategy Guideline: Advanced Construction Documentation Recommendations for High Performance Homes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lukachko, A.; Gates, C.; Straube, J.

    2011-12-01

    As whole house energy efficiency increases, new houses become less like conventional houses that were built in the past. New materials and new systems require greater coordination and communication between industry stakeholders. The Guideline for Construction Documents for High Performance Housing provides advice to address this need. The reader will be presented with four changes that are recommended to achieve improvements in energy efficiency, durability and health in Building America houses: create coordination drawings, improve specifications, improve detail drawings, and review drawings and prepare a Quality Control Plan.

  20. Recommendations for mechanical ventilation of critically ill children from the Paediatric Mechanical Ventilation Consensus Conference (PEMVECC).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kneyber, Martin C J; de Luca, Daniele; Calderini, Edoardo; Jarreau, Pierre-Henri; Javouhey, Etienne; Lopez-Herce, Jesus; Hammer, Jürg; Macrae, Duncan; Markhorst, Dick G; Medina, Alberto; Pons-Odena, Marti; Racca, Fabrizio; Wolf, Gerhard; Biban, Paolo; Brierley, Joe; Rimensberger, Peter C

    2017-12-01

    Much of the common practice in paediatric mechanical ventilation is based on personal experiences and what paediatric critical care practitioners have adopted from adult and neonatal experience. This presents a barrier to planning and interpretation of clinical trials on the use of specific and targeted interventions. We aim to establish a European consensus guideline on mechanical ventilation of critically children. The European Society for Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care initiated a consensus conference of international European experts in paediatric mechanical ventilation to provide recommendations using the Research and Development/University of California, Los Angeles, appropriateness method. An electronic literature search in PubMed and EMBASE was performed using a combination of medical subject heading terms and text words related to mechanical ventilation and disease-specific terms. The Paediatric Mechanical Ventilation Consensus Conference (PEMVECC) consisted of a panel of 15 experts who developed and voted on 152 recommendations related to the following topics: (1) general recommendations, (2) monitoring, (3) targets of oxygenation and ventilation, (4) supportive measures, (5) weaning and extubation readiness, (6) normal lungs, (7) obstructive diseases, (8) restrictive diseases, (9) mixed diseases, (10) chronically ventilated patients, (11) cardiac patients and (12) lung hypoplasia syndromes. There were 142 (93.4%) recommendations with "strong agreement". The final iteration of the recommendations had none with equipoise or disagreement. These recommendations should help to harmonise the approach to paediatric mechanical ventilation and can be proposed as a standard-of-care applicable in daily clinical practice and clinical research.

  1. TOURISM RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM: EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

    OpenAIRE

    Biljana PETREVSKA; Saso KOCESKI

    2012-01-01

    The paper makes an attempt to justify the necessity of implementing recommendation system which will assist tourists in identification of their ideal holiday. The proposed recommendation system based on collaborative filtering notes positive impulses in the case of Macedonia. A software module is developed being capable to generate a personalized list of favorable and tailor-made items. The research outcomes indicate that the designed national tourism web portal can provide satisfactory perfo...

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

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

    2015-01-01

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

  3. Recommender Systems for the Social Web

    CERN Document Server

    Pazos Arias, José J; Díaz Redondo, Rebeca P

    2012-01-01

    The recommendation of products, content and services cannot be considered newly born, although its widespread application is still in full swing. While its growing success in numerous sectors, the progress of the  Social Web has revolutionized the architecture of participation and relationship in the Web, making it necessary to restate recommendation and reconciling it with Collaborative Tagging, as the popularization of authoring in the Web, and  Social Networking, as the translation of personal relationships to the Web. Precisely, the convergence of recommendation with the above Social Web pillars is what motivates this book, which has collected contributions from well-known experts in the academy and the industry to provide a broader view of the problems that Social Recommenders might face with.  If recommender systems have proven their key role in facilitating the user access to resources on the Web, when sharing resources has become social, it is natural for recommendation strategies in the Social Web...

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

    OpenAIRE

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

    2015-01-01

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

  5. A collaborative approach for research paper recommender system.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-01-01

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

  6. Building Scientific Data's list of recommended data repositories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hufton, A. L.; Khodiyar, V.; Hrynaszkiewicz, I.

    2016-12-01

    When Scientific Data launched in 2014 we provided our authors with a list of recommended data repositories to help them identify data hosting options that were likely to meet the journal's requirements. This list has grown in size and scope, and is now a central resource for authors across the Nature-titled journals. It has also been used in the development of data deposition policies and recommended repository lists across Springer Nature and at other publishers. Each new addition to the list is assessed according to a series of criteria that emphasize the stability of the resource, its commitment to principles of open science and its implementation of relevant community standards and reporting guidelines. A preference is expressed for repositories that issue digital object identifiers (DOIs) through the DataCite system and that share data under the Creative Commons CC0 waiver. Scientific Data currently lists fourteen repositories that focus on specific areas within the Earth and environmental sciences, as well as the broad scope repositories, Dryad and figshare. Readers can browse and filter datasets published at the journal by the host repository using ISA-explorer, a demo tool built by the ISA-tools team at Oxford University1. We believe that well-maintained lists like this one help publishers build a network of trust with community data repositories and provide an important complement to more comprehensive data repository indices and more formal certification efforts. In parallel, Scientific Data has also improved its policies to better support submissions from authors using institutional and project-specific repositories, without requiring each to apply for listing individually. Online resources Journal homepage: http://www.nature.com/scientificdata Data repository criteria: http://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/data-policies#repo-criteria Recommended data repositories: http://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories Archived copies of the list: https

  7. Tuberous sclerosis complex surveillance and management: recommendations of the 2012 International Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Consensus Conference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krueger, Darcy A; Northrup, Hope

    2013-10-01

    Tuberous sclerosis complex is a genetic disorder affecting every organ system, but disease manifestations vary significantly among affected individuals. The diverse and varied presentations and progression can be life-threatening with significant impact on cost and quality of life. Current surveillance and management practices are highly variable among region and country, reflective of the fact that last consensus recommendations occurred in 1998 and an updated, comprehensive standard is lacking that incorporates the latest scientific evidence and current best clinical practices. The 2012 International Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Consensus Group, comprising 79 specialists from 14 countries, was organized into 12 separate subcommittees, each led by a clinician with advanced expertise in tuberous sclerosis complex and the relevant medical subspecialty. Each subcommittee focused on a specific disease area with important clinical management implications and was charged with formulating key clinical questions to address within its focus area, reviewing relevant literature, evaluating the strength of data, and providing a recommendation accordingly. The updated consensus recommendations for clinical surveillance and management in tuberous sclerosis complex are summarized here. The recommendations are relevant to the entire lifespan of the patient, from infancy to adulthood, including both individuals where the diagnosis is newly made as well as individuals where the diagnosis already is established. The 2012 International Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Consensus Recommendations provide an evidence-based, standardized approach for optimal clinical care provided for individuals with tuberous sclerosis complex. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Possible implications of draft ICRP recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2003-01-01

    The Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health (CRPPH) of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has, since its inception, worked to develop and improve international norms in the area of radiological protection of the public, workers and the environment. International radiological protection norms continue to evolve, with significant new steps having been taken by the International Radiological Protection Commission (ICRP). Since the issuance of its 1990 recommendations, which form the basis of the international system of radiological protection, the ICRP has continued to add to them. The sum of these recommendations has become overly complicated and at times incoherent. In 1999 the ICRP therefore began to re-evaluate its recommendations with the aim of consolidation, simplification and clarification. New ICRP recommendations are due to be published in 2005. The CRPPH is contributing to the development of these new recommendations by providing the views of regulators and practitioners from its member countries. This report summarises the views of the CRPPH regarding the conceptual framework that the ICRP has recently proposed as the basis for its forthcoming detailed recommendations. The CRPPH highly appreciates the open stakeholder process that the ICRP has initiated to gather input for the development of new recommendations. This document, which is supported by the NEA Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health, and by the NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee, provides detailed suggestions with regard to the proposed ICRP framework. The stakeholder views expressed in this report have been presented to the ICRP at the second NEA/ICRP Forum in April 2003, and have persuaded the ICRP to reintroduce several key concepts into its proposed new system. (author)

  9. TDCCREC: AN EFFICIENT AND SCALABLE WEB-BASED RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K.Latha

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Web browsers are provided with complex information space where the volume of information available to them is huge. There comes the Recommender system which effectively recommends web pages that are related to the current webpage, to provide the user with further customized reading material. To enhance the performance of the recommender systems, we include an elegant proposed web based recommendation system; Truth Discovery based Content and Collaborative RECommender (TDCCREC which is capable of addressing scalability. Existing approaches such as Learning automata deals with usage and navigational patterns of users. On the other hand, Weighted Association Rule is applied for recommending web pages by assigning weights to each page in all the transactions. Both of them have their own disadvantages. The websites recommended by the search engines have no guarantee for information correctness and often delivers conflicting information. To solve them, content based filtering and collaborative filtering techniques are introduced for recommending web pages to the active user along with the trustworthiness of the website and confidence of facts which outperforms the existing methods. Our results show how the proposed recommender system performs better in predicting the next request of web users.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bourgeois, Isabelle; Whynot, Jane

    2018-06-01

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

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

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2009-01-01

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

  12. Recommendations for international gambling harm-minimisation guidelines: comparison with effective public health policy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gainsbury, Sally M; Blankers, Matthijs; Wilkinson, Claire; Schelleman-Offermans, Karen; Cousijn, Janna

    2014-12-01

    Problem gambling represents a significant public health problem, however, research on effective gambling harm-minimisation measures lags behind other fields, including other addictive disorders. In recognition of the need for consistency between international jurisdictions and the importance of basing policy on empirical evidence, international conventions exist for policy on alcohol, tobacco, and illegal substances. This paper examines the evidence of best practice policies to provide recommendations for international guidelines for harm-minimisation policy for gambling, including specific consideration of the specific requirements for policies on Internet gambling. Evidence indicates that many of the public health policies implemented for addictive substances can be adapted to address gambling-related harms. Specifically, a minimum legal age of at least 18 for gambling participation, licensing of gambling venues and activities with responsible gambling and consumer protection strategies mandated, and brief interventions should be available for those at-risk for and experiencing gambling-related problems. However, there is mixed evidence on the effectiveness of limits on opening hours and gambling venue density and increased taxation to minimise harms. Given increases in trade globalisation and particularly the global nature of Internet gambling, it is recommended that jurisdictions take actions to harmonise gambling public health policies.

  13. Developing Federal Clinical Care Recommendations for Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godfrey, Emily M; Tepper, Naomi K; Curtis, Kathryn M; Moskosky, Susan B; Gavin, Loretta E

    2015-08-01

    The provision of family planning services has important health benefits for the U.S. Approximately 25 million women in the U.S. receive contraceptive services annually and 44 million make at least one family planning-related clinical visit each year. These services are provided by private clinicians, as well as publicly funded clinics, including specialty family planning clinics, health departments, Planned Parenthoods, community health centers, and primary care clinics. Recommendations for providing quality family planning services have been published by CDC and the Office of Population Affairs of the DHHS. This paper describes the process used to develop the women's clinical services portion of the new recommendations and the rationale underpinning them. The recommendations define family planning services as contraceptive care, pregnancy testing and counseling, achieving pregnancy, basic infertility care, sexually transmitted disease services, and preconception health. Because many women who seek family planning services have no other source of care, the recommendations also include additional screening services related to women's health, such as cervical cancer screening. These clinical guidelines are aimed at providing the highest-quality care and are designed to establish a national standard for family planning in the U.S. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  14. Contemporaneous International Asthma Guidelines Present Differing Recommendations: An Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samir Gupta

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background. Several international groups develop asthma guidelines. Conflicting recommendations across guidelines have been described in several disease areas and may contribute to practice variability. Accordingly, we compared the latest Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS asthma guideline with contemporaneous international asthma guidelines to evaluate conflicting recommendations and their causes. Methods. We identified the latest CTS asthma guideline update (2012 and the following societies which also updated their guidelines in 2012: the British Thoracic Society and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network and the Global Initiative for Asthma. We compared these three guidelines on (1 key methodological factors and (2 adult pharmacotherapy recommendations. Results. Methods used and documentation provided for literature search strategy and dates, evidence synthesis, outcomes considered, evidence appraisal, and recommendation formulation varied between guidelines. Criteria used to define suboptimal asthma control varied widely between guidelines. Inhaled corticosteroid dosing recommendations diverged, as did recommendations surrounding use of budesonide/formoterol as a reliever and controller and recommendations in the subsequent step. Conclusions. There are important differences between recommendations provided in contemporaneous asthma guidelines. Causes include differences in methods used for interpreting evidence and formulating recommendations. Adopting a common set of valid and explicit methods across international societies could harmonize recommendations and facilitate guideline implementation.

  15. Global Advisory Group: conclusions and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1986-02-01

    The conclusions and recommendations formulated for the global program by the 8th meeting of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) Global Advisory Group, which took place during November 1985, are summarized. The Global Advisory Group recommends that, in furtherance of the Five-Point Action Program endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 1983, 3 general and 4 specific actions be taken by national immunization programs with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) to accelerate EPI progress. These recommendations reflect optimism that the 1990 goal of reducing morbidity and mortality by providing immunization for all children of the world can be realized but also acknowledge that many fundamental problems of national program management remain to be resolved. The general actions are: to promote the achievement of the 1990 immunization goal at national and international levels through collaboration among ministries, organizations, and individuals in both the public and private sectors; to adopt a mix of complementary strategies for program acceleration; and to ensure that rapid increases in coverage can be sustained through mechanisms which strengthen th delivery of other primary health care interventions. The specific actions are as follows: to provide immunization at every contact point; to reduce dropout rates between 1st and last immunizations; to improve immunization services to the disadvantaged in urban areas; and to increase priority for the control of measles, poliomyelitis, and neonatal tetanus. The WHO and the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) have collaborated in support of the EPI since the early days of the program. The acceleration of national efforts heightens the importance of this collaboration, particularly at the national level. It may be further facilitated by the provision of policy guidance from global and regional levels, by WHO and UNICEF collaborative agreements at the regional level, and by country agreements

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-01-01

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

  17. Synthetic Sling Failure - Evaluations and Recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Henderson, C. S. [Washington River Protection Solutions, Richland, WA (United States); Mackey, Thomas C. [Washington River Protection Solutions, Richland, WA (United States)

    2009-10-26

    The information and evaluations provided in this report were compiled to address the recurring problem of synthetic sling failure. As safety is the number one priority in all work aspects, a solution must be devised to prevent accidents from occurring. A total of thirteen cases regarding synthetic sling failure were evaluated in order to determine their causes, effects, and preventative measures. From the collected data, it was found that all cases in which the synthetic sling contacted the edge of its load resulted in sling failure. It is required that adequate synthetic sling protection devices be used to protect slings in any lift where the sling comes in direct contact with the edge or corner of its load. However, there are no consensus codes or standards stating the type, material, or purpose of the type of protective device used to protect the sling from being cut. Numerous industry standards and codes provide vague descriptions on how to protect synthetic slings. Without a clear, concise statement of how to protect synthetic slings, it is common for inadequate materials and sling protection devices to be used in an attempt to meet the intent of these requirements. The use of an inadequate sling protection device is the main cause of synthetic sling failure in all researched cases. Commercial sling protection devices come in many shapes and sizes, and have a variety of names, as well as advertised uses. 'Abrasion pads' and 'wear protectors' are two different names for products with the same intended purpose. There is no distinguishable way to determine the extent of sling protection which these devices will provide, or what specific scenarios they are made for. This creates room for error in a field where error is unacceptable. This report provides a recommended action for hoisting and rigging activities which require synthetic slings to contact a load, as well as recommended changes to industry standards which will benefit overall

  18. Automated recommendation for cervical cancer screening and surveillance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagholikar, Kavishwar B; MacLaughlin, Kathy L; Casey, Petra M; Kastner, Thomas M; Henry, Michael R; Hankey, Ronald A; Peters, Steve G; Greenes, Robert A; Chute, Christopher G; Liu, Hongfang; Chaudhry, Rajeev

    2014-01-01

    Because of the complexity of cervical cancer prevention guidelines, clinicians often fail to follow best-practice recommendations. Moreover, existing clinical decision support (CDS) systems generally recommend a cervical cytology every three years for all female patients, which is inappropriate for patients with abnormal findings that require surveillance at shorter intervals. To address this problem, we developed a decision tree-based CDS system that integrates national guidelines to provide comprehensive guidance to clinicians. Validation was performed in several iterations by comparing recommendations generated by the system with those of clinicians for 333 patients. The CDS system extracted relevant patient information from the electronic health record and applied the guideline model with an overall accuracy of 87%. Providers without CDS assistance needed an average of 1 minute 39 seconds to decide on recommendations for management of abnormal findings. Overall, our work demonstrates the feasibility and potential utility of automated recommendation system for cervical cancer screening and surveillance.

  19. IRCAD recommendation on safe laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-11-01

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

  20. Requirements for Semantic Educational Recommender Systems in Formal E-Learning Scenarios

    OpenAIRE

    Jesus G. Boticario; Olga C. Santos

    2011-01-01

    This paper analyzes how recommender systems can be applied to current e-learning systems to guide learners in personalized inclusive e-learning scenarios. Recommendations can be used to overcome current limitations of learning management systems in providing personalization and accessibility features. Recommenders can take advantage of standards-based solutions to provide inclusive support. To this end we have identified the need for developing semantic educational recommender systems, which ...

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1981-06-01

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

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

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

    2007-01-01

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

  3. Ensuring treatment fidelity in a multi-site behavioral intervention study: implementing NIH Behavior Change Consortium recommendations in the SMART trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robb, Sheri L; Burns, Debra S; Docherty, Sharron L; Haase, Joan E

    2011-11-01

    The Stories and Music for Adolescent/Young Adult Resilience during Transplant (SMART) study (R01NR008583; U10CA098543; U10CA095861) is an ongoing multi-site Children's Oncology Group randomized clinical trial testing the efficacy of a therapeutic music video intervention for adolescents/young adults (11-24 years of age) with cancer undergoing stem cell transplant. Treatment fidelity strategies from our trial are consistent with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Behavior Change Consortium Treatment Fidelity Workgroup (BCC) recommendations and provide a successful working model for treatment fidelity implementation in a large, multi-site behavioral intervention study. In this paper, we summarize 20 specific treatment fidelity strategies used in the SMART trial and how these strategies correspond with NIH BCC recommendations in five specific areas: (1) study design, (2) training providers, (3) delivery of treatment, (4) receipt of treatment, and (5) enactment of treatment skills. Increased use and reporting of treatment fidelity procedures is essential in advancing the reliability and validity of behavioral intervention research. The SMART trial provides a strong model for the application of fidelity strategies to improve scientific findings and addresses the absence of published literature, illustrating the application of BCC recommendations in behavioral intervention studies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  4. Recommendations for the use of microarrays in prenatal diagnosis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suela, Javier; López-Expósito, Isabel; Querejeta, María Eugenia; Martorell, Rosa; Cuatrecasas, Esther; Armengol, Lluis; Antolín, Eugenia; Domínguez Garrido, Elena; Trujillo-Tiebas, María José; Rosell, Jordi; García Planells, Javier; Cigudosa, Juan Cruz

    2017-04-07

    Microarray technology, recently implemented in international prenatal diagnosis systems, has become one of the main techniques in this field in terms of detection rate and objectivity of the results. This guideline attempts to provide background information on this technology, including technical and diagnostic aspects to be considered. Specifically, this guideline defines: the different prenatal sample types to be used, as well as their characteristics (chorionic villi samples, amniotic fluid, fetal cord blood or miscarriage tissue material); variant reporting policies (including variants of uncertain significance) to be considered in informed consents and prenatal microarray reports; microarray limitations inherent to the technique and which must be taken into account when recommending microarray testing for diagnosis; a detailed clinical algorithm recommending the use of microarray testing and its introduction into routine clinical practice within the context of other genetic tests, including pregnancies in families with a genetic history or specific syndrome suspicion, first trimester increased nuchal translucency or second trimester heart malformation and ultrasound findings not related to a known or specific syndrome. This guideline has been coordinated by the Spanish Association for Prenatal Diagnosis (AEDP, «Asociación Española de Diagnóstico Prenatal»), the Spanish Human Genetics Association (AEGH, «Asociación Española de Genética Humana») and the Spanish Society of Clinical Genetics and Dysmorphology (SEGCyD, «Sociedad Española de Genética Clínica y Dismorfología»). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  5. Context-Aware Recommender System: A Review of Recent Developmental Process and Future Research Direction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Khalid Haruna

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Intelligent data handling techniques are beneficial for users; to store, process, analyze and access the vast amount of information produced by electronic and automated devices. The leading approach is to use recommender systems (RS to extract relevant information from the vast amount of knowledge. However, early recommender systems emerged without the cognizance to contextualize information regarding users’ recommendations. Considering the historical methodological limitations, Context-Aware Recommender Systems (CARS are now deployed, which leverage contextual information in addition to the classical two-dimensional search processes, providing better-personalized user recommendations. This paper presents a review of recent developmental processes as a fountainhead for the research of a context-aware recommender system. This work contributes by taking an integrated approach to the complete CARS developmental process, unlike other review papers, which only address a specific aspect of the CARS process. First, an in-depth review is presented pertaining to the state-of-the-art and classified literature, considering the domain of the application models, filters, extraction and evaluation approaches. Second, viewpoints are presented relating to the extraction of literature with analysis on the merit and demerit of each, and the evolving processes between them. Finally, the outstanding challenges and opportunities for future research directions are highlighted.

  6. Nuclear security recommendations on nuclear and other radioactive material out of regulatory control: Recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this publication is to provide guidance to States in strengthening their nuclear security regimes, and thereby contributing to an effective global nuclear security framework, by providing: - Recommendations to States and their competent authorities on the establishment or improvement of the capabilities of their nuclear security regimes, for carrying out effective strategies to deter, detect and respond to a criminal act, or an unauthorized act, with nuclear security implications, involving nuclear or other radioactive material that is out of regulatory control; - Recommendations to States in support of international cooperation aimed at ensuring that any nuclear or other radioactive material that is out of regulatory control, whether originating from within the State or from outside that State, is placed under regulatory control and the alleged offenders are, as appropriate, prosecuted or extradited

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Russell, J.E.

    1979-06-01

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

  8. Recommendations for a Software Quality Assurance Plan for the CMR Facility at LANL

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Adams, K.; Matthews, S. D.; McQueen, M. A.

    1998-01-01

    The Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) organizations 1 and 3 within the Chemical and Metallurgical Research (CMR) facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory are working to achieve Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) certification to enable them to transport their TRU waste to WIPP. This document is intended to provide not only recommendations to address the necessary software quality assurance activities to enable the NMT-1 and NMT-3 organizations to be WIPP compliant but is also meant to provide a template for the final Software Quality Assurance Plan (SQAP). This document specifically addresses software quality assurance for all software used in support of waste characterization and analysis. Since NMT-1 and NMT-3 currently have several operational software products that are used for waste characterization and analysis, these software quality assurance recommendations apply to the operations, maintenance and retirement of the software and the creation and development of any new software required for waste characterization and analyses

  9. Results from Development of Model Specifications for Multifamily Energy Retrofits

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brozyna, K.

    2012-08-01

    Specifications, modeled after CSI MasterFormat, provide the trade contractors and builders with requirements and recommendations on specific building materials, components and industry practices that comply with the expectations and intent of the requirements within the various funding programs associated with a project. The goal is to create a greater level of consistency in execution of energy efficiency retrofits measures across the multiple regions a developer may work. IBACOS and Mercy Housing developed sample model specifications based on a common building construction type that Mercy Housing encounters.

  10. Results From Development of Model Specifications for Multifamily Energy Retrofits

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brozyna, Kevin [IBACOS, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA (United States)

    2012-08-01

    Specifications, modeled after CSI MasterFormat, provide the trade contractors and builders with requirements and recommendations on specific building materials, components and industry practices that comply with the expectations and intent of the requirements within the various funding programs associated with a project. The goal is to create a greater level of consistency in execution of energy efficiency retrofits measures across the multiple regions a developer may work. IBACOS and Mercy Housing developed sample model specifications based on a common building construction type that Mercy Housing encounters.

  11. Reducing Health Inequities in the U.S.: Recommendations From the NHLBI's Health Inequities Think Tank Meeting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sampson, Uchechukwu K A; Kaplan, Robert M; Cooper, Richard S; Diez Roux, Ana V; Marks, James S; Engelgau, Michael M; Peprah, Emmanuel; Mishoe, Helena; Boulware, L Ebony; Felix, Kaytura L; Califf, Robert M; Flack, John M; Cooper, Lisa A; Gracia, J Nadine; Henderson, Jeffrey A; Davidson, Karina W; Krishnan, Jerry A; Lewis, Tené T; Sanchez, Eduardo; Luban, Naomi L; Vaccarino, Viola; Wong, Winston F; Wright, Jackson T; Meyers, David; Ogedegbe, Olugbenga G; Presley-Cantrell, Letitia; Chambers, David A; Belis, Deshirée; Bennett, Glen C; Boyington, Josephine E; Creazzo, Tony L; de Jesus, Janet M; Krishnamurti, Chitra; Lowden, Mia R; Punturieri, Antonello; Shero, Susan T; Young, Neal S; Zou, Shimian; Mensah, George A

    2016-08-02

    The National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a Think Tank meeting to obtain insight and recommendations regarding the objectives and design of the next generation of research aimed at reducing health inequities in the United States. The panel recommended several specific actions, including: 1) embrace broad and inclusive research themes; 2) develop research platforms that optimize the ability to conduct informative and innovative research, and promote systems science approaches; 3) develop networks of collaborators and stakeholders, and launch transformative studies that can serve as benchmarks; 4) optimize the use of new data sources, platforms, and natural experiments; and 5) develop unique transdisciplinary training programs to build research capacity. Confronting health inequities will require engaging multiple disciplines and sectors (including communities), using systems science, and intervening through combinations of individual, family, provider, health system, and community-targeted approaches. Details of the panel's remarks and recommendations are provided in this report. Copyright © 2016 American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Recommendations for Laboratory Containment and Management of Gene Drive Systems in Arthropods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benedict, Mark Q; Burt, Austin; Capurro, Margareth L; De Barro, Paul; Handler, Alfred M; Hayes, Keith R; Marshall, John M; Tabachnick, Walter J; Adelman, Zach N

    2018-01-01

    Versatile molecular tools for creating driving transgenes and other invasive genetic factors present regulatory, ethical, and environmental challenges that should be addressed to ensure their safe use. In this article, we discuss driving transgenes and invasive genetic factors that can potentially spread after their introduction into a small proportion of individuals in a population. The potential of invasive genetic factors to increase their number in natural populations presents challenges that require additional safety measures not provided by previous recommendations regarding accidental release of arthropods. In addition to providing physical containment, invasive genetic factors require greater attention to strain management, including their distribution and identity confirmation. In this study, we focus on insects containing such factors with recommendations for investigators who are creating them, institutional biosafety committees charged with ensuring safety, funding agencies providing support, those managing insectaries handling these materials who are responsible for containment, and other persons who will be receiving insects-transgenic or not-from these facilities. We give specific examples of efforts to modify mosquitoes for mosquito-borne disease control, but similar considerations are relevant to other arthropods that are important to human health, the environment, and agriculture.

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    1993-01-01

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

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ashley Sanello

    2018-03-01

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

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

    OpenAIRE

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

    2016-01-01

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

  16. Controlled air incinerator for radioactive waste. Volume I. Rationale, process, equipment, performance, and recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Neuls, A.S.; Draper, W.E.; Koenig, R.A.; Newmyer, J.M.; Warner, C.L.

    1982-11-01

    This two-volume report is a detailed design and operating documentation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Controlled Air Incinerator (CAI) and is an aid to technology transfer to other Department of Energy contractor sites and the commercial sector. Volume I describes the CAI process, equipment, and performance, and it recommends modifications based on Los Alamos experience. It provides the necessary information for conceptual design and feasibility studies. Volume II provides descriptive engineering information such as drawings specifications, calculations, and costs. It aids duplication of the process at other facilities

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Xiao-Liang; Wang, Nan

    2013-01-01

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

  18. Procedure-specific pain management and outcome strategies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Joshi, Girish P; Schug, Stephan A; Kehlet, Henrik

    2014-01-01

    Optimal dynamic pain relief is a prerequisite for optimizing post-operative recovery and reducing morbidity and convalescence. Procedure-specific pain management initiative aims to overcome the limitations of conventional guidelines and provide health-care professionals with practical recommendat......, optimizing fluid therapy and optimizing post-operative nursing care with early mobilization and oral feeding are utilized....... recommendations formulated in a way that facilitates clinical decision making across all the stages of the perioperative period. The procedure-specific evidence is supplemented with data from other similar surgical procedures and clinical practices to balance benefits and risks of each analgesic technique...

  19. An assessment of space reactor technology needs and recommendations for development

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marshall, A.C.; Wiley, R.L.

    1996-01-01

    In order to provide a strategy for space reactor technology development, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) has authorized a brief review of potential national needs that may be addressed by space reactor systems. A systematic approach was used to explore needs at several levels that are increasingly specific. sm-bullet Level 0 emdash General Trends and Issues sm-bullet Level 1 emdash Generic Space Capabilities to Address Trends sm-bullet Level 2 emdash Requirements to Support Capabilities sm-bullet Level 3 emdash System Types Capable of Meeting Requirements sm-bullet Level 4 emdash Generic Reactor System Types sm-bullet Level 5 emdash Specific Baseline Systems Using these findings, a strategy was developed to support important space reactor technologies within a limited budget. A preliminary evaluation identified key technical issues and provide a prioritized set of candidate research projects. The evaluation of issues and the recommended research projects are presented in a companion paper. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics

  20. Nursing domain of CI governance: recommendations for health IT adoption and optimization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Collins, Sarah A; Alexander, Dana; Moss, Jacqueline

    2015-05-01

    There is a lack of recommended models for clinical informatics (CI) governance that can facilitate successful health information technology implementation. To understand existing CI governance structures and provide a model with recommended roles, partnerships, and councils based on perspectives of nursing informatics leaders. We conducted a cross-sectional study through administering a survey via telephone to facilitate semistructured interviews from June 2012 through November 2012. We interviewed 12 nursing informatics leaders, across the United States, currently serving in executive- or director-level CI roles at integrated health care systems that have pioneered electronic health records implementation projects. We found the following 4 themes emerge: (1) Interprofessional partnerships are essential. (2) Critical role-based levels of practice and competencies need to be defined. (3) Integration into existing clinical infrastructure facilitates success. (4) CI governance is an evolving process. We described specific lessons learned and a model of CI governance with recommended roles, partnerships, and councils from the perspective of nursing informatics leaders. Applied CI work is highly interprofessional with patient safety implications that heighten the need for best practice models for governance structures, adequate resource allocation, and role-based competencies. Overall, there is a notable lack of a centralized CI group comprised of formally trained informaticians to provide expertise and promote adherence to informatics principles within EHR implementation governance structures. Our model of the nursing domain of CI governance with recommended roles, partnerships, and councils provides a starting point that should be further explored and validated. Not only can the model be used to understand, shape, and standardize roles, competencies, and structures within CI practice for nursing, it can be used within other clinical domains and by other informaticians

  1. weHelp: A Reference Architecture for Social Recommender Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sheth, Swapneel; Arora, Nipun; Murphy, Christian; Kaiser, Gail

    2010-01-01

    Recommender systems have become increasingly popular. Most of the research on recommender systems has focused on recommendation algorithms. There has been relatively little research, however, in the area of generalized system architectures for recommendation systems. In this paper, we introduce weHelp : a reference architecture for social recommender systems - systems where recommendations are derived automatically from the aggregate of logged activities conducted by the system's users. Our architecture is designed to be application and domain agnostic. We feel that a good reference architecture will make designing a recommendation system easier; in particular, weHelp aims to provide a practical design template to help developers design their own well-modularized systems.

  2. Privacy enhanced recommender system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Erkin, Zekeriya; Erkin, Zekeriya; Beye, Michael; Veugen, Thijs; Lagendijk, Reginald L.

    2010-01-01

    Recommender systems are widely used in online applications since they enable personalized service to the users. The underlying collaborative filtering techniques work on user’s data which are mostly privacy sensitive and can be misused by the service provider. To protect the privacy of the users, we

  3. Recommender system based on scarce information mining.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Wei; Chung, Fu-Lai; Lai, Kunfeng; Zhang, Liang

    2017-09-01

    Guessing what user may like is now a typical interface for video recommendation. Nowadays, the highly popular user generated content sites provide various sources of information such as tags for recommendation tasks. Motivated by a real world online video recommendation problem, this work targets at the long tail phenomena of user behavior and the sparsity of item features. A personalized compound recommendation framework for online video recommendation called Dirichlet mixture probit model for information scarcity (DPIS) is hence proposed. Assuming that each clicking sample is generated from a representation of user preferences, DPIS models the sample level topic proportions as a multinomial item vector, and utilizes topical clustering on the user part for recommendation through a probit classifier. As demonstrated by the real-world application, the proposed DPIS achieves better performance in accuracy, perplexity as well as diversity in coverage than traditional methods. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    2002-01-01

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

  5. Recommended environmental dose calculation methods and Hanford-specific parameters. Revision 2

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schreckhise, R.G.; Rhoads, K.; Napier, B.A.; Ramsdell, J.V. [Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States); Davis, J.S. [Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States)

    1993-03-01

    This document was developed to support the Hanford Environmental Dose overview Panel (HEDOP). The Panel is responsible for reviewing all assessments of potential doses received by humans and other biota resulting from the actual or possible environmental releases of radioactive and other hazardous materials from facilities and/or operations belonging to the US Department of Energy on the Hanford Site in south-central Washington. This document serves as a guide to be used for developing estimates of potential radiation doses, or other measures of risk or health impacts, to people and other biota in the environs on and around the Hanford Site. It provides information to develop technically sound estimates of exposure (i.e., potential or actual) to humans or other biotic receptors that could result from the environmental transport of potentially harmful materials that have been, or could be, released from Hanford operations or facilities. Parameter values and information that are specific to the Hanford environs as well as other supporting material are included in this document.

  6. Health service providers in Somalia: their readiness to provide malaria case-management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noor, Abdisalan M; Rage, Ismail A; Moonen, Bruno; Snow, Robert W

    2009-05-13

    Studies have highlighted the inadequacies of the public health sector in sub-Saharan African countries in providing appropriate malaria case management. The readiness of the public health sector to provide malaria case-management in Somalia, a country where there has been no functioning central government for almost two decades, was investigated. Three districts were purposively sampled in each of the two self-declared states of Puntland and Somaliland and the south-central region of Somalia, in April-November 2007. A survey and mapping of all public and private health service providers was undertaken. Information was recorded on services provided, types of anti-malarial drugs used and stock, numbers and qualifications of staff, sources of financial support and presence of malaria diagnostic services, new treatment guidelines and job aides for malaria case-management. All settlements were mapped and a semi-quantitative approach was used to estimate their population size. Distances from settlements to public health services were computed. There were 45 public health facilities, 227 public health professionals, and 194 private pharmacies for approximately 0.6 million people in the three districts. The median distance to public health facilities was 6 km. 62.3% of public health facilities prescribed the nationally recommended anti-malarial drug and 37.7% prescribed chloroquine as first-line therapy. 66.7% of public facilities did not have in stock the recommended first-line malaria therapy. Diagnosis of malaria using rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) or microscopy was performed routinely in over 90% of the recommended public facilities but only 50% of these had RDT in stock at the time of survey. National treatment guidelines were available in 31.3% of public health facilities recommended by the national strategy. Only 8.8% of the private pharmacies prescribed artesunate plus sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine, while 53.1% prescribed chloroquine as first-line therapy. 31.4% of

  7. Health service providers in Somalia: their readiness to provide malaria case-management

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moonen Bruno

    2009-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Studies have highlighted the inadequacies of the public health sector in sub-Saharan African countries in providing appropriate malaria case management. The readiness of the public health sector to provide malaria case-management in Somalia, a country where there has been no functioning central government for almost two decades, was investigated. Methods Three districts were purposively sampled in each of the two self-declared states of Puntland and Somaliland and the south-central region of Somalia, in April-November 2007. A survey and mapping of all public and private health service providers was undertaken. Information was recorded on services provided, types of anti-malarial drugs used and stock, numbers and qualifications of staff, sources of financial support and presence of malaria diagnostic services, new treatment guidelines and job aides for malaria case-management. All settlements were mapped and a semi-quantitative approach was used to estimate their population size. Distances from settlements to public health services were computed. Results There were 45 public health facilities, 227 public health professionals, and 194 private pharmacies for approximately 0.6 million people in the three districts. The median distance to public health facilities was 6 km. 62.3% of public health facilities prescribed the nationally recommended anti-malarial drug and 37.7% prescribed chloroquine as first-line therapy. 66.7% of public facilities did not have in stock the recommended first-line malaria therapy. Diagnosis of malaria using rapid diagnostic tests (RDT or microscopy was performed routinely in over 90% of the recommended public facilities but only 50% of these had RDT in stock at the time of survey. National treatment guidelines were available in 31.3% of public health facilities recommended by the national strategy. Only 8.8% of the private pharmacies prescribed artesunate plus sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine, while 53

  8. Privacy in Recommender Systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

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

  9. Chapter 6: Conclusions and recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1995-01-01

    This chapter provides a brief summary of conclusions with respect to project implementation issues. Furthermore, the chapter contains recommendations on future applications of the modelling system and on water resources management in the project area

  10. Recommendations for quality assurance programs in nuclear medicine facilities. Radiation recommendations series

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Segal, P.; Hamilton, D.R.

    1984-10-01

    The publication provides the elements that should be considered by nuclear medicine facilities to improve their existing programs or develop new quality assurance programs. The important administrative aspects of quality assurance programs are stressed. Each facility is encouraged to adopt those elements of the recommended program that are appropriate to its individual needs and resources

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sánchez Emília

    2006-03-01

    technology assessment into professional practice. Results identify determinant factors that should be considered in the elaboration of strategies to support the implementation of evidence-based practice, with respect to emerging health technologies and modalities of practice. However, it is important to emphasise that behavioural determinants of evidence-based practice vary according to the specific technology considered. Evidence-based implementation of HTA recommendations, as well as other evidence-based practices, should build on a theoretical understanding of the complex forces that shape the practice of healthcare professionals.

  12. A Hybrid Approach for Thread Recommendation in MOOC Forums

    OpenAIRE

    Ahmad. A. Kardan; Amir Narimani; Foozhan Ataiefard

    2017-01-01

    Recommender Systems have been developed to provide contents and services compatible to users based on their behaviors and interests. Due to information overload in online discussion forums and users diverse interests, recommending relative topics and threads is considered to be helpful for improving the ease of forum usage. In order to lead learners to find relevant information in educational forums, recommendations are even more needed. We present a hybrid thread recommender system for MOOC ...

  13. Personalized recommendation based on unbiased consistence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Xuzhen; Tian, Hui; Zhang, Ping; Hu, Zheng; Zhou, Tao

    2015-08-01

    Recently, in physical dynamics, mass-diffusion-based recommendation algorithms on bipartite network provide an efficient solution by automatically pushing possible relevant items to users according to their past preferences. However, traditional mass-diffusion-based algorithms just focus on unidirectional mass diffusion from objects having been collected to those which should be recommended, resulting in a biased causal similarity estimation and not-so-good performance. In this letter, we argue that in many cases, a user's interests are stable, and thus bidirectional mass diffusion abilities, no matter originated from objects having been collected or from those which should be recommended, should be consistently powerful, showing unbiased consistence. We further propose a consistence-based mass diffusion algorithm via bidirectional diffusion against biased causality, outperforming the state-of-the-art recommendation algorithms in disparate real data sets, including Netflix, MovieLens, Amazon and Rate Your Music.

  14. Recommendations for reducing ambiguity in written procedures.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Matzen, Laura E.

    2009-11-01

    Previous studies in the nuclear weapons complex have shown that ambiguous work instructions (WIs) and operating procedures (OPs) can lead to human error, which is a major cause for concern. This report outlines some of the sources of ambiguity in written English and describes three recommendations for reducing ambiguity in WIs and OPs. The recommendations are based on commonly used research techniques in the fields of linguistics and cognitive psychology. The first recommendation is to gather empirical data that can be used to improve the recommended word lists that are provided to technical writers. The second recommendation is to have a review in which new WIs and OPs and checked for ambiguities and clarity. The third recommendation is to use self-paced reading time studies to identify any remaining ambiguities before the new WIs and OPs are put into use. If these three steps are followed for new WIs and OPs, the likelihood of human errors related to ambiguity could be greatly reduced.

  15. Cystic Fibrosis Colorectal Cancer Screening Consensus Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2018-02-01

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

  16. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Recommendations for Prostate Cancer Screening.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vickers, Andrew J; Eastham, James A; Scardino, Peter T; Lilja, Hans

    2016-05-01

    The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) recommendations on prostate cancer screening were developed in response to three limitations of previous screening guidelines: insufficient evidence base, failure to link screening with treatment, and lack of risk stratification. The objective of the recommendations is to provide a schema for prostate cancer screening that maximizes the benefits, in terms of reduction in prostate cancer-specific mortality, and minimizes the harms, in terms of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. We recommend the following schema for men choosing to be screened following informed decision-making: starting at age 45, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) without digital rectal examination. If PSA ≥ 3 ng/mL: consider prostate biopsy; if PSA ≥ 1 but decision to biopsy a man with a PSA > 3 ng/mL should be based on a variety of factors including repeat blood draw for confirmatory testing of the PSA level, digital rectal examination results, and workup for benign disease. Additional reflex tests in blood such as a free-to-total PSA ratio, the Prostate Health Index, or 4Kscore, or urinary testing of PCA3, can also be informative in some patients. The best evidence suggests that more restricted indication for prostate biopsy and a more focused approach to pursue screening in men at highest risk of lethal cancer would retain most of the mortality benefits of aggressive screening schema, while importantly reducing harms from overdetection and overtreatment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. Useful and usable alarm systems : recommended properties

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    2001-01-01

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

  18. Requirements for Semantic Educational Recommender Systems in Formal E-Learning Scenarios

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jesus G. Boticario

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes how recommender systems can be applied to current e-learning systems to guide learners in personalized inclusive e-learning scenarios. Recommendations can be used to overcome current limitations of learning management systems in providing personalization and accessibility features. Recommenders can take advantage of standards-based solutions to provide inclusive support. To this end we have identified the need for developing semantic educational recommender systems, which are able to extend existing learning management systems with adaptive navigation support. In this paper we present three requirements to be considered in developing these semantic educational recommender systems, which are in line with the service-oriented approach of the third generation of learning management systems, namely: (i a recommendation model; (ii an open standards-based service-oriented architecture; and (iii a usable and accessible graphical user interface to deliver the recommendations.

  19. Recommendations of ICRP for radiation protection in 2005

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Holm, L. E.

    2004-01-01

    The present recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) were published in 1991, and since then, the ICRP has provided additional recommendations. The system of protection has become increasingly co plex with time, and the Commission has decided to adopt a new set of recommendations in 2005- These should be seen as a consolidation of earlier recommendations. The new recommendations will recognize where the responsibility for justifying the introduction of a new practice lies, maintain the existing dose limits for individuals, develop the concept of dose constraints, require optimisation of protection from any source to ensure that exposures are as law as reasonably achievable, include of a policy for protection of non-human species, and clarify the dramatics quantities. The Commission intends to adopt the new recommendations in 2005, and this will be 15 years after the current recommendations were adopted. (Author) 13 refs

  20. Recommending Ads from Trustworthy Relationships in Pervasive Environments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francisco Martinez-Pabon

    2016-01-01

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

  1. Whooping Cough Vaccine Recommendation for Babies and Young Children

    Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

    This podcast provides information about whooping cough and the recommendation that all children receive the DTaP vaccine, according to CDC’s recommended schedule, to help protect them from this serious disease.

  2. Web items recommendation using hybridized content-based and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Recommender Systems are software agent developed to tackle the problem of information overload by providing recommendations that assist individual users identify contents of interest by using the opinions of a community of users, similarities between items contents or the user's preferences. The exponential growth of ...

  3. An effective collaborative movie recommender system with cuckoo search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rahul Katarya

    2017-07-01

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

  4. Badali recommends simplified bills

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anon

    2003-04-01

    A report on the variety of retail electricity bills across the province, authored by Salvatore Badali of Deloitte Consulting, was recently released by the Ontario Government. The report was commissioned by the Government to examine the underlying reasons for the significant format differences and the wide variation of fixed and variable charges among the approximately 95 local electricity distribution companies across the province. Regarding the appropriateness of the charges the report recommends common definitions for local distribution company (LDC) fixed and variable costs, and consideration of options for reducing LDC charges, mainly by consolidating the sector and sharing such services as customer billing, accounting and out sourcing operations. Seven recommendations deal with bill simplification. These include bills that are clear and easy to read and provide sufficient information for consumers to verify charges; promote energy conservation, e.g. by including historical information; allow comparisons between retail suppliers and distributors; accommodate revenue collection, marketing needs and other billing services. The report also recommends clearly defined and consistently used terminology for standardized line items, suggests ways to provide consumer information in a form useful for making energy conservation decisions, development of an LDC scorecard to enable stake holders to compare their own LDCs with LDCs around the province, creation of a conservation and bill calculation website, consideration of further use of shared services, and solutions to address the removal of line losses from invoices.

  5. Badali recommends simplified bills

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon

    2003-01-01

    A report on the variety of retail electricity bills across the province, authored by Salvatore Badali of Deloitte Consulting, was recently released by the Ontario Government. The report was commissioned by the Government to examine the underlying reasons for the significant format differences and the wide variation of fixed and variable charges among the approximately 95 local electricity distribution companies across the province. Regarding the appropriateness of the charges the report recommends common definitions for local distribution company (LDC) fixed and variable costs, and consideration of options for reducing LDC charges, mainly by consolidating the sector and sharing such services as customer billing, accounting and out sourcing operations. Seven recommendations deal with bill simplification. These include bills that are clear and easy to read and provide sufficient information for consumers to verify charges; promote energy conservation, e.g. by including historical information; allow comparisons between retail suppliers and distributors; accommodate revenue collection, marketing needs and other billing services. The report also recommends clearly defined and consistently used terminology for standardized line items, suggests ways to provide consumer information in a form useful for making energy conservation decisions, development of an LDC scorecard to enable stake holders to compare their own LDCs with LDCs around the province, creation of a conservation and bill calculation website, consideration of further use of shared services, and solutions to address the removal of line losses from invoices

  6. A Machine Learning Recommender System to Tailor Preference Assessments to Enhance Person-Centered Care Among Nursing Home Residents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gannod, Gerald C; Abbott, Katherine M; Van Haitsma, Kimberly; Martindale, Nathan; Heppner, Alexandra

    2018-05-21

    Nursing homes (NHs) using the Preferences for Everyday Living Inventory (PELI-NH) to assess important preferences and provide person-centered care find the number of items (72) to be a barrier to using the assessment. Using a sample of n = 255 NH resident responses to the PELI-NH, we used the 16 preference items from the MDS 3.0 Section F to develop a machine learning recommender system to identify additional PELI-NH items that may be important to specific residents. Much like the Netflix recommender system, our system is based on the concept of collaborative filtering whereby insights and predictions (e.g., filters) are created using the interests and preferences of many users. The algorithm identifies multiple sets of "you might also like" patterns called association rules, based upon responses to the 16 MDS preferences that recommends an additional set of preferences with a high likelihood of being important to a specific resident. In the evaluation of the combined apriori and logistic regression approach, we obtained a high recall performance (i.e., the ratio of correctly predicted preferences compared with all predicted preferences and nonpreferences) and high precision (i.e., the ratio of correctly predicted rules with respect to the rules predicted to be true) of 80.2% and 79.2%, respectively. The recommender system successfully provides guidance on how to best tailor the preference items asked of residents and can support preference capture in busy clinical environments, contributing to the feasibility of delivering person-centered care.

  7. Tests for the Assessment of Sport-Specific Performance in Olympic Combat Sports: A Systematic Review With Practical Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chaabene, Helmi; Negra, Yassine; Bouguezzi, Raja; Capranica, Laura; Franchini, Emerson; Prieske, Olaf; Hbacha, Hamdi; Granacher, Urs

    2018-01-01

    The regular monitoring of physical fitness and sport-specific performance is important in elite sports to increase the likelihood of success in competition. This study aimed to systematically review and to critically appraise the methodological quality, validation data, and feasibility of the sport-specific performance assessment in Olympic combat sports like amateur boxing, fencing, judo, karate, taekwondo, and wrestling. A systematic search was conducted in the electronic databases PubMed, Google-Scholar, and Science-Direct up to October 2017. Studies in combat sports were included that reported validation data (e.g., reliability, validity, sensitivity) of sport-specific tests. Overall, 39 studies were eligible for inclusion in this review. The majority of studies (74%) contained sample sizes sport-specific tests (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.43-1.00). Content validity was addressed in all included studies, criterion validity (only the concurrent aspect of it) in approximately half of the studies with correlation coefficients ranging from r = -0.41 to 0.90. Construct validity was reported in 31% of the included studies and predictive validity in only one. Test sensitivity was addressed in 13% of the included studies. The majority of studies (64%) ignored and/or provided incomplete information on test feasibility and methodological limitations of the sport-specific test. In 28% of the included studies, insufficient information or a complete lack of information was provided in the respective field of the test application. Several methodological gaps exist in studies that used sport-specific performance tests in Olympic combat sports. Additional research should adopt more rigorous validation procedures in the application and description of sport-specific performance tests in Olympic combat sports.

  8. Authentic Assessment: An Extensive Literary Review and Recommendations for Administrators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henderson, Pamela; Karr-Kidwell, PJ

    This paper provides an extensive literature review and recommendations for authentic assessment, and then provides recommendations for administrators in order to implement authentic assessment in elementary schools. A lack of comfort, with the way in which standardized tests seems to dictate what teachers teach as part of the curriculum, was a…

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-02-01

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

  10. PDF4LHC recommendations for LHC Run II

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Butterworth, Jon; Carrazza, Stefano; Cooper-Sarkar, Amanda; Roeck, Albert de; Feltesse, Joel; Forte, Stefano; Gao, Jun; Glazov, Sasha; Huston, Joey; Kassabov, Zahari; McNulty, Ronan; Morsch, Andreas; Nadolsky, Pavel; Radescu, Voica; Rojo, Juan; Thorne, Robert S.

    2015-01-01

    We provide an updated recommendation for the usage of sets of parton distribution functions (PDFs) and the assessment of PDF and PDF+$\\alpha_s$ uncertainties suitable for applications at the LHC Run II. We review developments since the previous PDF4LHC recommendation, and discuss and compare the new

  11. TOURISM RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM: EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Biljana PETREVSKA

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper makes an attempt to justify the necessity of implementing recommendation system which will assist tourists in identification of their ideal holiday. The proposed recommendation system based on collaborative filtering notes positive impulses in the case of Macedonia. A software module is developed being capable to generate a personalized list of favorable and tailor-made items. The research outcomes indicate that the designed national tourism web portal can provide satisfactory performance and may be of high importance to all key-tourism actors in the process of identifying measures necessary for creating competitive tourism product.

  12. A Recommendation System to Facilitate Business Process Modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-06-01

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

  13. Workshop on New Trends in Content-based Recommender Systems (CBRecSys 2014)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn; Cantádor, Ivan

    2014-01-01

    While content-based recommendation has been applied successfully in many different domains, it has not seen the same level of attention as collaborative filtering techniques have. However, there are many recommendation domains and applications where content and metadata play a key role, either...... these data sources should be combined to provided the best recommendation performance. The CBRecSys 2014 workshop aims to address this by providing a dedicated venue for papers dedicated to all aspects of content-based recommendation....

  14. Healthcare Hackathons Provide Educational and Innovation Opportunities: A Case Study and Best Practice Recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silver, Julie K; Binder, David S; Zubcevik, Nevena; Zafonte, Ross D

    2016-07-01

    Physicians and other healthcare professionals are often the end users of medical innovation; however, they are rarely involved in the beginning design stages. This often results in ineffective healthcare solutions with poor adoption rates. At the early design stage, innovation would benefit from input from healthcare professionals. This report describes the first-ever rehabilitation hackathon-an interdisciplinary and competitive team event aimed at accelerating and improving healthcare solutions and providing an educational experience for participants. Hackathons are gaining traction as a way to accelerate innovation by bringing together a diverse group of interdisciplinary professionals from different industries who work collaboratively in teams and learn from each other, focus on a specific problem ("pain point"), develop a solution using design thinking techniques, pitch the solution to participants, gather fast feedback and quickly alter the prototype design ("pivoting"). 102 hackers including 19 (18.6 %) physicians and other professionals participated, and over the course of 2 days worked in teams, pitched ideas and developed design prototypes. Three awards were given for prototypes that may improve function in persons with disabilities. 43 hackers were women (42.2 %) and 59 men (57.8 %); they ranged in age from 16 to 79 years old; and, of the 75 hackers who reported their age, 63 (84 %) were less than 40 years old and 12 (16 %) were 40 years or older. This report contributes to the emerging literature on healthcare hackathons as a means of providing interdisciplinary education and training and supporting innovation.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-10-01

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

  16. Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions: Recommendations from a 2009 NRC Report

    Science.gov (United States)

    Race, Margaret; Farmer, Jack

    A 2009 report by the National Research Council (NRC) reviewed a previous study on Mars Sample Return (1997) and provided updated recommendations for future sample return mis-sions based on our current understanding about Mars and its biological potential, as well as advances in technology and analytical capabilities. The committee* made 12 specific recommen-dations that fall into three general categories—one related to current scientific understanding, ten based on changes in the technical and/or policy environment, and one aimed at public com-munication. Substantive changes from the 1997 report relate mainly to protocols and methods, technology and infrastructure, and general oversight. This presentation provides an overview of the 2009 report and its recommendations and analyzes how they may impact mission designs and plans. The full report, Assessment of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions is available online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?recordi d = 12576 * Study participants: Jack D. Farmer, Arizona State University (chair) James F. Bell III, Cornell University Kathleen C. Benison, Central Michigan University William V. Boynton, University of Arizona Sherry L. Cady, Portland State University F. Grant Ferris, University of Toronto Duncan MacPherson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Margaret S. Race, SETI Institute Mark H. Thiemens, University of California, San Diego Meenakshi Wadhwa, Arizona State University

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farber, Daniel C; Knutsen, Elisa J

    2013-12-01

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

  18. Optimizing Greenhouse Rice Production: Summary of Recommendations

    OpenAIRE

    Eddy, Robert; Acosta, Kevin; Liu, Yisi; Russell, Michael

    2016-01-01

    This publication provides a single-page chart summarizing our protocols for growing Rice (japonica). Split into three production goals, recommendations are given for photoperiod, temperature, lighting, container, root medium, planting density, irrigation, fertilization, algae control and fungus gnat control. This version updates our fertilization frequency, pot size, root medium and algae control recommendations. This document summarizes a series of questions and answers originally posted ...

  19. Do recommender systems benefit users? a modeling approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeung, Chi Ho

    2016-04-01

    Recommender systems are present in many web applications to guide purchase choices. They increase sales and benefit sellers, but whether they benefit customers by providing relevant products remains less explored. While in many cases the recommended products are relevant to users, in other cases customers may be tempted to purchase the products only because they are recommended. Here we introduce a model to examine the benefit of recommender systems for users, and find that recommendations from the system can be equivalent to random draws if one always follows the recommendations and seldom purchases according to his or her own preference. Nevertheless, with sufficient information about user preferences, recommendations become accurate and an abrupt transition to this accurate regime is observed for some of the studied algorithms. On the other hand, we find that high estimated accuracy indicated by common accuracy metrics is not necessarily equivalent to high real accuracy in matching users with products. This disagreement between estimated and real accuracy serves as an alarm for operators and researchers who evaluate recommender systems merely with accuracy metrics. We tested our model with a real dataset and observed similar behaviors. Finally, a recommendation approach with improved accuracy is suggested. These results imply that recommender systems can benefit users, but the more frequently a user purchases the recommended products, the less relevant the recommended products are in matching user taste.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paula Andrea RODRÍGUEZ MARÍN

    2015-12-01

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

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

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Lu; Li; Erjia; Yang; Tusheng; Xiao

    2014-01-01

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

  2. E-Learning Recommender System Based on Collaborative Filtering and Ontology

    OpenAIRE

    John Tarus; Zhendong Niu; Bakhti Khadidja

    2017-01-01

    In recent years, e-learning recommender systems has attracted great attention as a solution towards addressing the problem of information overload in e-learning environments and providing relevant recommendations to online learners. E-learning recommenders continue to play an increasing educational role in aiding learners to find appropriate learning materials to support the achievement of their learning goals. Although general recommender systems have recorded significant success in solving ...

  3. Preference Elicitation and Negotiation in a Group Recommender System

    OpenAIRE

    Álvarez Márquez , Jesús ,; Ziegler , Jurgen

    2015-01-01

    International audience; We present a novel approach to group recommender systems that better takes into account the social interaction in a group when formulating, discussing and negotiating the features of the item to be jointly selected. Our approach provides discussion support in a collaborative preference elicitation and negotiation process. Individual preferences are continuously aggregated and immediate feedback of the resulting recommendations is provided. We also support the last stag...

  4. Clinical recommendations of Cochrane reviews in pediatric gastroenterology: systematic analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goda, Yvonne; Sauer, Harald; Schöndorf, Dominik; Hennes, Pia; Gortner, Ludwig; Gräber, Stefan; Meyer, Sascha

    2015-01-01

    Systematic and up-to-date Cochrane reviews in pediatrics in general and in pediatric gastroenterology in particular are important tools in disseminating the best available evidence to the medical community, thus providing the physician at the bedside with invaluable information and recommendations with regard to specific clinical questions. A systematic literature review was conducted, including all Cochrane reviews published by the Cochrane Review Group in the field of pediatric gastroenterology between 1993 and 2012, with regard to the percentage of reviews that concluded that a certain intervention provided a benefit, percentage of reviews that concluded that a certain intervention should not be performed, and percentage of studies that concluded that the current level of evidence was inconclusive. In total, 86 reviews in the field of pediatric gastroenterology were included. The majority of reviews assessed pharmacological interventions (46/86); other important fields included prevention (15/86) and nutrition (9/86). A total of 33/86 reviews issued definite recommendations (positive, 19/86; negative, 14/86). The remaining 53/86 reviews were either inconclusive (24/86) or only of limited conclusiveness (29/86). The percentage of inconclusive reviews increased from 9% (1998-2002) to 19% (2003-2007; P < 0.05) to finally 24% (2008-2012) (P < 0.05). The three most common reasons for the need for further research were heterogeneity of studies (26/86), small number of patients (18/86), and insufficient data (16/86). Further high-quality research is necessary to increase the proportion of reviews with clear recommendations. Funding and research agencies are key to selecting the most appropriate research programs. © 2014 Japan Pediatric Society.

  5. Cervical cancer: intracavitary dose specification and prescription

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

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

    1987-01-01

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

  6. Development of Monte Carlo simulations to provide scanner-specific organ dose coefficients for contemporary CT

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jansen, Jan T. M.; Shrimpton, Paul C.

    2016-07-01

    The ImPACT (imaging performance assessment of CT scanners) CT patient dosimetry calculator is still used world-wide to estimate organ and effective doses (E) for computed tomography (CT) examinations, although the tool is based on Monte Carlo calculations reflecting practice in the early 1990’s. Subsequent developments in CT scanners, definitions of E, anthropomorphic phantoms, computers and radiation transport codes, have all fuelled an urgent need for updated organ dose conversion factors for contemporary CT. A new system for such simulations has been developed and satisfactorily tested. Benchmark comparisons of normalised organ doses presently derived for three old scanners (General Electric 9800, Philips Tomoscan LX and Siemens Somatom DRH) are within 5% of published values. Moreover, calculated normalised values of CT Dose Index for these scanners are in reasonable agreement (within measurement and computational uncertainties of  ±6% and  ±1%, respectively) with reported standard measurements. Organ dose coefficients calculated for a contemporary CT scanner (Siemens Somatom Sensation 16) demonstrate potential deviations by up to around 30% from the surrogate values presently assumed (through a scanner matching process) when using the ImPACT CT Dosimetry tool for newer scanners. Also, illustrative estimates of E for some typical examinations and a range of anthropomorphic phantoms demonstrate the significant differences (by some 10’s of percent) that can arise when changing from the previously adopted stylised mathematical phantom to the voxel phantoms presently recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), and when following the 2007 ICRP recommendations (updated from 1990) concerning tissue weighting factors. Further simulations with the validated dosimetry system will provide updated series of dose coefficients for a wide range of contemporary scanners.

  7. Recommendations for the use of PET and PET-CT for radiotherapy planning in research projects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Somer, E J; Pike, L C; Marsden, P K

    2012-08-01

    With the increasing use of positron emission tomography (PET) for disease staging, follow-up and therapy monitoring in a number of oncological indications there is growing interest in the use of PET and PET-CT for radiation treatment planning. In order to create a strong clinical evidence base for this, it is important to ensure that research data are clinically relevant and of a high quality. Therefore the National Cancer Research Institute PET Research Network make these recommendations to assist investigators in the development of radiotherapy clinical trials involving the use of PET and PET-CT. These recommendations provide an overview of the current literature in this rapidly evolving field, including standards for PET in clinical trials, disease staging, volume delineation, intensity modulated radiotherapy and PET-augmented planning techniques, and are targeted at a general audience. We conclude with specific recommendations for the use of PET in radiotherapy planning in research projects.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dobbins, Elizabeth H

    2016-09-22

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

  9. Association Rule Analysis for Tour Route Recommendation and Application to Wctsnop

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fang, H.; Chen, C.; Lin, J.; Liu, X.; Fang, D.

    2017-09-01

    The increasing E-tourism systems provide intelligent tour recommendation for tourists. In this sense, recommender system can make personalized suggestions and provide satisfied information associated with their tour cycle. Data mining is a proper tool that extracting potential information from large database for making strategic decisions. In the study, association rule analysis based on FP-growth algorithm is applied to find the association relationship among scenic spots in different cities as tour route recommendation. In order to figure out valuable rules, Kulczynski interestingness measure is adopted and imbalance ratio is computed. The proposed scheme was evaluated on Wangluzhe cultural tourism service network operation platform (WCTSNOP), where it could verify that it is able to quick recommend tour route and to rapidly enhance the recommendation quality.

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

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kappos, Ludwig; Bates, David; Edan, Gilles

    2011-01-01

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

  11. Evaluation and recommendations for work group integration within the Materials and Processes Lab

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farrington, Phillip A.

    1992-01-01

    The goal of this study was to evaluate and make recommendations for improving the level of integration of several work groups within the Materials and Processes Lab at the Marshall Space Flight Center. This evaluation has uncovered a variety of projects that could improve the efficiency and operation of the work groups as well as the overall integration of the system. In addition, this study provides the foundation for specification of a computer integrated manufacturing test bed environment in the Materials and Processes Lab.

  12. Recommendations for medical training: a Native Hawaiian patient perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamaka, Martina L; Paloma, Diane S L; Maskarinec, Gregory G

    2011-11-01

    Culturally competent health care providers are needed to eliminate healthcare disparities. In the State of Hawai'i, Native Hawaiians suffer some of the worst health disparities. Prior to implementing a cultural competency curriculum to address these disparities, the John A. Burns School of Medicine's Department of Native Hawaiian Health Cultural Competency Curriculum Development team asked Native Hawaiian patients about their experiences and recommendations. We conducted four focus groups of Native Hawaiians to obtain recommendations on physician training, to be incorporated into the curriculum. Participants came from both rural and urban areas. Classical qualitative analysis of data identified recurrent themes. Five primary themes, arising in all four groups, were: (1) customer service; (2) respect for the patient; (3) inter-personal skills; (4) thoroughness of care; and (5) costs of medical care. Secondary themes, occurring in three of the four groups, were: (1) cultural competency training; (2) the training of medical office staff; (3) continuity of care; and (4) the role of the patient. Participants specifically requested that medical students receive cultural competency training about the host culture, its history, values, and traditional and alternative healing practices. The emphasis participants placed on the need for cultural competency training of physicians supports the need to address the role of culture in medical education. Although most of the issues raised are not unique to Hawai'i, participants' recommendations to teach students about the host culture and traditional healing practices identify important themes not usually found in medical school curricula.

  13. Reactive power interconnection requirements for PV and wind plants : recommendations to NERC.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    McDowell, Jason (General Electric, Schenectady, NY); Walling, Reigh (General Electric, Schenectady, NY); Peter, William (SunPower, Richmond, CA); Von Engeln, Edi (NV Energy, Reno, NV); Seymour, Eric (AEI, Fort Collins, CO); Nelson, Robert (Siemens Wind Turbines, Orlando, FL); Casey, Leo (Satcon, Boston, MA); Ellis, Abraham; Barker, Chris. (SunPower, Richmond, CA)

    2012-02-01

    Voltage on the North American bulk system is normally regulated by synchronous generators, which typically are provided with voltage schedules by transmission system operators. In the past, variable generation plants were considered very small relative to conventional generating units, and were characteristically either induction generator (wind) or line-commutated inverters (photovoltaic) that have no inherent voltage regulation capability. However, the growing level of penetration of non-traditional renewable generation - especially wind and solar - has led to the need for renewable generation to contribute more significantly to power system voltage control and reactive power capacity. Modern wind-turbine generators, and increasingly PV inverters as well, have considerable dynamic reactive power capability, which can be further enhanced with other reactive support equipment at the plant level to meet interconnection requirements. This report contains a set of recommendations to the North-America Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) as part of Task 1-3 (interconnection requirements) of the Integration of Variable Generation Task Force (IVGTF) work plan. The report discusses reactive capability of different generator technologies, reviews existing reactive power standards, and provides specific recommendations to improve existing interconnection standards.

  14. Illuminating the Decision Path: The Yucca Mountain Site Recommendation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Knox, E.; Slothouber, L.

    2003-02-25

    On February 14, 2002, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham provided to the President the ''Recommendation by the Secretary of Energy Regarding the Suitability of the Yucca Mountain Site for a Repository Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.'' This Recommendation, along with supporting materials, complied with statutory requirements for communicating a site recommendation to the President, and it did more: in 49 pages, the Recommendation also spoke directly to the Nation, illuminating the methodology and considerations that led toward the decision to recommend the site. Addressing technical suitability, national interests, and public concerns, the Recommendation helped the public understand the potential risks and benefits of repository development and placed those risks and benefits in a meaningful national context.

  15. Illuminating the Decision Path: The Yucca Mountain Site Recommendation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Knox, E.; Slothouber, L.

    2003-01-01

    On February 14, 2002, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham provided to the President the ''Recommendation by the Secretary of Energy Regarding the Suitability of the Yucca Mountain Site for a Repository Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.'' This Recommendation, along with supporting materials, complied with statutory requirements for communicating a site recommendation to the President, and it did more: in 49 pages, the Recommendation also spoke directly to the Nation, illuminating the methodology and considerations that led toward the decision to recommend the site. Addressing technical suitability, national interests, and public concerns, the Recommendation helped the public understand the potential risks and benefits of repository development and placed those risks and benefits in a meaningful national context

  16. Allergic Rhinitis in Children: Principles of Early Diagnosis and Effective Therapy. Overview of Clinical Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander A. Baranov

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The article briefly summarizes the key provisions of the clinical recommendations on medical care delivery for children with allergic rhinitis: modern approaches to diagnosis and therapy. The current document was developed by the professional association of pediatric specialists —the Union of Pediatricians of Russia — together with the leading experts of the Russian Association of Allergists and Clinical Immunologists. The recommendations are regularly updated due to the latest evidence-based results of effectiveness and safety of various medical interventions. The article presents information on the epidemiology of allergic rhinitis in children, specific diagnostic features which provide the opportunity for the timely and correct diagnosis and an effective therapy with personal approach.

  17. Recommendations for Institutional Prematriculation Immunizations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Journal of American College Health, 2011

    2011-01-01

    The recommendations presented in this article are provided to colleges and universities to facilitate the implementation of a comprehensive institutional prematriculation immunization policy. Vaccine-preventable diseases continue to occur on American campuses. In response to changing epidemiology and the introduction of new vaccines, the ACHA…

  18. HyRA: A Hybrid Recommendation Algorithm Focused on Smart POI. Ceutí as a Study Scenario

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gómez-Oliva, Andrea; Molina, Germán

    2018-01-01

    Nowadays, Physical Web together with the increase in the use of mobile devices, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Social Networking Sites (SNS) have caused users to share enriched information on the Web such as their tourist experiences. Therefore, an area that has been significantly improved by using the contextual information provided by these technologies is tourism. In this way, the main goals of this work are to propose and develop an algorithm focused on the recommendation of Smart Point of Interaction (Smart POI) for a specific user according to his/her preferences and the Smart POIs’ context. Hence, a novel Hybrid Recommendation Algorithm (HyRA) is presented by incorporating an aggregation operator into the user-based Collaborative Filtering (CF) algorithm as well as including the Smart POIs’ categories and geographical information. For the experimental phase, two real-world datasets have been collected and preprocessed. In addition, one Smart POIs’ categories dataset was built. As a result, a dataset composed of 16 Smart POIs, another constituted by the explicit preferences of 200 respondents, and the last dataset integrated by 13 Smart POIs’ categories are provided. The experimental results show that the recommendations suggested by HyRA are promising. PMID:29562590

  19. HyRA: A Hybrid Recommendation Algorithm Focused on Smart POI. Ceutí as a Study Scenario.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alvarado-Uribe, Joanna; Gómez-Oliva, Andrea; Barrera-Animas, Ari Yair; Molina, Germán; Gonzalez-Mendoza, Miguel; Parra-Meroño, María Concepción; Jara, Antonio J

    2018-03-17

    Nowadays, Physical Web together with the increase in the use of mobile devices, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Social Networking Sites (SNS) have caused users to share enriched information on the Web such as their tourist experiences. Therefore, an area that has been significantly improved by using the contextual information provided by these technologies is tourism. In this way, the main goals of this work are to propose and develop an algorithm focused on the recommendation of Smart Point of Interaction (Smart POI) for a specific user according to his/her preferences and the Smart POIs' context. Hence, a novel Hybrid Recommendation Algorithm (HyRA) is presented by incorporating an aggregation operator into the user-based Collaborative Filtering (CF) algorithm as well as including the Smart POIs' categories and geographical information. For the experimental phase, two real-world datasets have been collected and preprocessed. In addition, one Smart POIs' categories dataset was built. As a result, a dataset composed of 16 Smart POIs, another constituted by the explicit preferences of 200 respondents, and the last dataset integrated by 13 Smart POIs' categories are provided. The experimental results show that the recommendations suggested by HyRA are promising.

  20. Los Alamos Controlled Air Incinerator for radioactive waste. Volume I. Rationale, process, equipment, performance, and recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Neuls, A.S.; Draper, W.E.; Koenig, R.A.; Newmyer, J.M.; Warner, C.L.

    1982-08-01

    This two-volume report is a detailed design and operating documentation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Controlled Air Incinerator (CAI) and is an aid to technology transfer to other Department of Energy contractor sites and the commercial sector. Volume I describes the CAI process, equipment, and performance, and it recommends modifications based on Los Alamos experience. It provides the necessary information for conceptual design and feasibility studies. Volume II provides descriptive engineering information such as drawing, specifications, calculations, and costs. It aids duplication of the process at other facilities

  1. Los Alamos Controlled Air Incinerator for radioactive waste. Volume I. Rationale, process, equipment, performance, and recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Neuls, A.S.; Draper, W.E.; Koenig, R.A.; Newmyer, J.M.; Warner, C.L.

    1982-08-01

    This two-volume report is a detailed design and operating documentation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Controlled Air Incinerator (CAI) and is an aid to technology transfer to other Department of Energy contractor sites and the commercial sector. Volume I describes the CAI process, equipment, and performance, and it recommends modifications based on Los Alamos experience. It provides the necessary information for conceptual design and feasibility studies. Volume II provides descriptive engineering information such as drawing, specifications, calculations, and costs. It aids duplication of the process at other facilities.

  2. Exploring implementation of the 2010 Institute of Medicine’s Child and Adult Food Care Program recommendations for after-school snacks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nanney, Marilyn S; Glatt, Carissa

    2012-01-01

    Objective The aim of the present study was to explore the implementation of nutrition recommendations made in the 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Child and Adult Care Food Program: Aligning Dietary Guidance for All, in school-based after-school snack programmes. Design A descriptive study. Setting One large suburban school district in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Subjects None. Results Major challenges to implementation included limited access to product labelling and specifications inconsistent with the IOM’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) recommendations, limited access to healthier foods due to current school district buying consortium agreement, and increased costs of wholegrain and lower-sodium foods and pre-packaged fruits and vegetables. Conclusions Opportunities for government and industry policy development and partnerships to support schools in their efforts to promote healthy after-school food environments remain. Several federal, state and industry leadership opportunities are proposed: provide product labelling that makes identifying snacks which comply with the 2010 IOM CACFP recommended standards easy; encourage compliance with recommendations by providing incentives to programmes; prioritize the implementation of paperwork and technology that simplifies enrolment and accountability systems; and provide support for food safety training and/or certification for non-food service personnel. PMID:22050891

  3. DRARS, A Dynamic Risk-Aware Recommender System

    OpenAIRE

    Bouneffouf , Djallel

    2013-01-01

    The vast amount of information generated and maintained everyday by information systems and their users leads to the increasingly important concern of overload information. In this context, traditional recommender systems provide relevant information to the users. Nevertheless, with the recent dissemination of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), there is a gradual user migration to the use of pervasive computing environments. The problem with the traditional recommendation approaches is...

  4. Implementing universal HIV treatment in a high HIV prevalence and rural South African setting - Field experiences and recommendations of health care providers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melanie Plazy

    Full Text Available We aimed to describe the field experiences and recommendations of clinic-based health care providers (HCP regarding the implementation of universal antiretroviral therapy (ART in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.In Hlabisa sub-district, the local HIV programme of the Department of Health (DoH is decentralized in 18 clinics, where ART was offered at a CD4 count ≤500 cells/μL from January 2015 to September 2016. Within the ANRS 12249 TasP trial, implemented in part of the sub-district, universal ART (no eligibility criteria was offered in 11 mobile clinics between March 2012 and June 2016. A cross-sectional qualitative survey was conducted in April-July 2016 among clinic-based nurses and counsellors providing HIV care in the DoH and TasP trial clinics. In total, 13 individual interviews and two focus groups discussions (including 6 and 7 participants were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.All HCPs reported an overall good experience of delivering ART early in the course of HIV infection, with most patients willing to initiate ART before being symptomatic. Yet, HCPs underlined that not feeling sick could challenge early ART initiation and adherence, and thus highlighted the need to take time for counselling as an important component to achieve universal ART. HCPs also foresaw logistical challenges of universal ART, and were especially concerned about increasing workload and ART shortage. HCPs finally recommended the need to strengthen the existing model of care to facilitate access to ART, e.g., community-based and integrated HIV services.The provision of universal ART is feasible and acceptable according to HCPs in this rural South-African area. However their experiences suggest that universal ART, and more generally the 90-90-90 UNAIDS targets, will be difficult to achieve without the implementation of new models of health service delivery.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S Aggarwal

    2018-01-01

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

  6. Adherence to colonoscopy recommendations for first-degree relatives of young patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guilherme H. Garcia

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available OBJECTIVES:Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States. The American College of Gastroenterology recommends screening for first-degree relatives of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer before the age of 50. A colonoscopy is one of the most commonly recommended exams due to its specificity and the possibility to resect pre-malignant lesions. Nevertheless, the rate of physician adherence to this recommendation is unknown.METHODS:This transversal study was performed at a major cancer center in Brazil with 62 patients, aged 18 to 50, who completed a questionnaire on information received from their physicians regarding screening their first-degree relatives. We used the answers from patients who provided explicit consent.RESULTS:Two hundred and three patients were eligible to participate and 93 (45.8% agreed to complete the questionnaire. Twenty-three questionnaires (24.73% were returned and 39 were completed by telephone. Of the patients who answered the questionnaire, 39 (62.9% had received a colonoscopy recommendation for their first-degree relatives and 23 (37.1% were not informed of the recommendation. Among the patients who received the recommendations, 20.51% affirmed that all relatives completed the exam and 51.28% stated that no relatives completed the exam.DISCUSSION:The adherence rate of our physicians to the ACG guideline recommendations was 62.9%. Considering that our study was performed at a leading center for cancer treatment in Latin America, we had expected better adherence. The results show that adherence to the colorectal cancer screening recommendations for high-risk patients must be improved.

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

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

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

    2008-01-01

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

  8. 21 CFR 14.174 - Advice and recommendations in writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

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

  9. [Normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism: recommendations for management and follow-up].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez Díaz-Guerra, Guillermo; Jódar Gimeno, Esteban; Reyes García, Rebeca; Gómez Sáez, José Manuel; Muñoz-Torres, Manuel

    2013-10-01

    To provide practical recommendations for evaluation and follow-up of patients with normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism. Members of the Bone Metabolism Working Group of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology. A systematic search was made in MEDLINE (PubMed), using the terms normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism and primary hyperparathyroidism, for articles in English published before 22 November 2012. Literature was reviewed by 2 members of the Bone Metabolism Working Group of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology, and after development of recommendations, the manuscript was reviewed by all other members of the Group, and their suggestions were incorporated. The document provides practical recommendations for evaluation and follow-up of patients with normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism. There is however little evidence available about different aspects of this disease, mainly progression rate and clinical impact. More data are therefore needed before definite recommendations may be made. Copyright © 2012 SEEN. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fogelholm Mikael

    2010-01-01

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

  11. Leveraging position bias to improve peer recommendation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristina Lerman

    Full Text Available With the advent of social media and peer production, the amount of new online content has grown dramatically. To identify interesting items in the vast stream of new content, providers must rely on peer recommendation to aggregate opinions of their many users. Due to human cognitive biases, the presentation order strongly affects how people allocate attention to the available content. Moreover, we can manipulate attention through the presentation order of items to change the way peer recommendation works. We experimentally evaluate this effect using Amazon Mechanical Turk. We find that different policies for ordering content can steer user attention so as to improve the outcomes of peer recommendation.

  12. Recent developments in affective recommender systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katarya, Rahul; Verma, Om Prakash

    2016-11-01

    Recommender systems (RSs) are playing a significant role since 1990s as they provide relevant, personalized information to the users over the internet. Lots of work have been done in information filtering, utilization, and application related to RS. However, an important area recently draws our attention which is affective recommender system. Affective recommender system (ARS) is latest trending area of research, as publication in this domain are few and recently published. ARS is associated with human behaviour, human factors, mood, senses, emotions, facial expressions, body gesture and physiological with human-computer interaction (HCI). Due to this assortment and various interests, more explanation is required, as it is in premature phase and growing as compared to other fields. So we have done literature review (LR) in the affective recommender systems by doing classification, incorporate reputed articles published from the year 2003 to February 2016. We include articles which highlight, analyse, and perform a study on affective recommender systems. This article categorizes, synthesizes, and discusses the research and development in ARS. We have classified and managed ARS papers according to different perspectives: research gaps, nature, algorithm or method adopted, datasets, the platform on executed, types of information and evaluation techniques applied. The researchers and professionals will positively support this survey article for understanding the current position, research in affective recommender systems and will guide future trends, opportunity and research focus in ARS.

  13. Remarks of the SFRP working group about ICRP recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schieber, C.; Cordoliani, Y.S.

    2005-01-01

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

  14. Third Workshop on New Trends in Content-based Recommender Systems (CBRecSys 2016)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn; Musto, Cataldo

    2016-01-01

    While content-based recommendation has been applied successfully in many different domains, it has not seen the same level of attention as collaborative filtering techniques have. However, there are many recommendation domains and applications where content and metadata play a key role, either...... these data sources should be combined to provided the best recommendation performance. The CBRecSys 2016 workshop provides a dedicated venue for papers dedicated to all aspects of content-based recommendation....

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raciel Yera Toledo

    2018-04-01

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

  16. A Study on Multiattribute Aggregation Approaches to Product Recommendation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing-Zhong Jin

    2013-01-01

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

  17. ASSOCIATION RULE ANALYSIS FOR TOUR ROUTE RECOMMENDATION AND APPLICATION TO WCTSNOP

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. Fang

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The increasing E-tourism systems provide intelligent tour recommendation for tourists. In this sense, recommender system can make personalized suggestions and provide satisfied information associated with their tour cycle. Data mining is a proper tool that extracting potential information from large database for making strategic decisions. In the study, association rule analysis based on FP-growth algorithm is applied to find the association relationship among scenic spots in different cities as tour route recommendation. In order to figure out valuable rules, Kulczynski interestingness measure is adopted and imbalance ratio is computed. The proposed scheme was evaluated on Wangluzhe cultural tourism service network operation platform (WCTSNOP, where it could verify that it is able to quick recommend tour route and to rapidly enhance the recommendation quality.

  18. Fissile material disposition program final immobilization form assessment and recommendation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cochran, S.G.; Dunlop, W.H.; Edmunds, T.A.; MacLean, L.M.; Gould, T.H.

    1997-01-01

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in its role as the lead laboratory for the development of plutonium immobilization technologies for the Department of Energy's Office of Fissile Materials Disposition (MD), has been requested by MD to recommend an immobilization technology for the disposition of surplus weapons- usable plutonium. The recommendation and supporting documentation was requested to be provided by September 1, 1997. This report addresses the choice between glass and ceramic technologies for immobilizing plutonium using the can-in-canister approach. Its purpose is to provide a comparative evaluation of the two candidate technologies and to recommend a form based on technical considerations

  19. Recommendations for Guidelines for EMF Personal Exposure Measurements, Rapid Project #4

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    T. Dan Bracken, Inc.

    1997-08-01

    The purpose of developing guidelines for electric and magnetic field (EMF) personal exposure measurements (lF'EM) is to ensure reliable and comparable data across I?EM studies. Study techniques may vary due to different populations or objectives, but the resulting data should be consistently reported and comparable, to the extent possible. Any guideline must allow creativity by the research-oriented investigator and provide specific guidance to industrial hygienists or other results-oriented investigators, requiring a standard protocol. Recognizing measurement studies with different purposes is an important aspect of these recommendations. The guidelines presented here intend to produce comparable data across studies while remaining flexible. The recommendations for designing and implementing an EMF PEM program describe a three-stage process. The first step is to clearly state the purpose of the PEM program. The next stage addresses the fundamental elements of an EMF PEM study, including an assessment of the scientific and organizational resources that will be required. This process is codified in a written study plan. These stages are described in 1 Section 5 of this report. The third stage of a PEM study involves the design, implementation and documentation of specific procedures and protocols fo~ sampling strategies, selection of measurement parameters; instrumentation, measurement and data collection, data management, data analysis, quality assurance, uncertainty evaluation, and archiving the study methods and results. The methods for designing these elements of an EMF PEM study are described in Section 6: Specific Guidelines for EMF I?EM Study Design.

  20. Translating knowledge into practice: An exploratory study of dementia-specific training for community-based service providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Sullivan, Grace; Hocking, Clare; McPherson, Kathryn

    2017-08-01

    Objective To develop, deliver, and evaluate dementia-specific training designed to inform service delivery by enhancing the knowledge of community-based service providers. Methods This exploratory qualitative study used an interdisciplinary, interuniversity team approach to develop and deliver dementia-specific training. Participants included management, care staff, and clients from three organizations funded to provide services in the community. Data on the acceptability, applicability, and perceived outcomes of the training were gathered through focus group discussions and individual interviews. Transcripts were analyzed to generate open codes which were clustered into themes and sub-themes addressing the content, delivery, and value of the training. Findings Staff valued up-to-date knowledge and "real stories" grounded in practice. Clients welcomed the strengths-based approach. Contractual obligations impact on the application of knowledge in practice. Implications The capacity to implement new knowledge may be limited by the legislative policies which frame service provision, to the detriment of service users.

  1. Workshop on Recommendation in Complex Scenarios (ComplexRec 2017)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn; Mobasher, Bamshad

    2017-01-01

    Recommendation algorithms for ratings prediction and item ranking have steadily matured during the past decade. However, these state-of-the-art algorithms are typically applied in relatively straightforward scenarios. In reality, recommendation is often a more complex problem: it is usually just...... a single step in the user's more complex background need. These background needs can often place a variety of constraints on which recommendations are interesting to the user and when they are appropriate. However, relatively little research has been done on these complex recommendation scenarios....... The ComplexRec 2017 workshop addressed this by providing an interactive venue for discussing approaches to recommendation in complex scenarios that have no simple one-size-fits-all-solution....

  2. Recommended Measures for the Assessment of Cognitive and Physical Performance in Older Patients with Dementia: A Systematic Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Willem J.R. Bossers

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Aim/Goal: To recommend a set of neuropsychological and physical exercise tests for researchers to assess cognition and physical fitness in clinical trials with older patients with dementia; to create consensus, decrease heterogeneity, and improve research quality. Methods: A literature search (2005–2011 yielded 89 randomized controlled trials. To provide information on test recommendations the frequency of test use, effect size of the test outcome, study quality, and psychometric properties of tests were analyzed. Results: Fifty-nine neuropsychological tests (cognitive domains: global cognition, executive functioning, memory, and attention and 10 exercise tests (physical domains: endurance capacity, muscle strength, balance, and mobility were found. Conclusion: The Severe Impairment Battery, Mini Mental State Examination, and Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale – cognitive subscale were recommended to measure global cognition. The Verbal Fluency Test Category/Letters, Clock Drawing Test, and Trail Making Test-B were recommended to measure executive functioning. No specific memory test could be recommended. The Digit Span Forward, Digit Span Backward, and Trail Making Test-A were recommended to measure attention. As physical exercise tests, the Timed Up and Go and Six Meter Walk for mobility, the Six Minute Walk Distance for endurance capacity, and the Tinetti Balance Scale were recommended.

  3. Intelligent system for topic survey in MEDLINE by keyword recommendation and learning text characteristics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tanaka, M; Nakazono, S; Matsuno, H; Tsujimoto, H; Kitamura, Y; Miyano, S

    2000-01-01

    We have implemented a system for assisting experts in selecting MEDLINE records for database construction purposes. This system has two specific features: The first is a learning mechanism which extracts characteristics in the abstracts of MEDLINE records of interest as patterns. These patterns reflect selection decisions by experts and are used for screening the records. The second is a keyword recommendation system which assists and supplements experts' knowledge in unexpected cases. Combined with a conventional keyword-based information retrieval system, this system may provide an efficient and comfortable environment for MEDLINE record selection by experts. Some computational experiments are provided to prove that this idea is useful.

  4. Chapter 9. Educational process. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Richards, Guy A.; Sprung, Charles L.; Christian, Michael D.; Camargo, Ruben; Ceraso, Daniel; Azoulay, Elie; Duguet, Alexandre; Guery, Benoit; Reinhart, Konrad; Adini, Bruria; Barlavie, Yaron; Benin-Goren, Odeda; Cohen, Robert; Klein, Motti; Leoniv, Yuval; Margalit, Gila; Rubinovitch, Bina; Sonnenblick, Moshe; Steinberg, Avraham; Weissman, Charles; Wolff, Donna; Kesecioglu, Jozef; de Jong, Menno; Moreno, Rui; An, Youzhong; Du, Bin; Joynt, Gavin M.; Colvin, John; Loo, Shi; Richards, Guy; Artigas, Antonio; Pugin, Jerome; Amundson, Dennis; Devereaux, Asha; Beigel, John; Danis, Marion; Farmer, Chris; Hick, John L.; Maki, Dennis; Masur, Henry; Rubinson, Lewis; Sandrock, Christian; Talmor, Daniel; Truog, Robert; Zimmerman, Janice; Brett, Steve; Montgomery, Hugh; Rhodes, Andrew; Sanderson, Frances; Taylor, Bruce

    2010-01-01

    To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital preparations for an influenza pandemic or mass disaster with focus on education of all stakeholders, specifically the emergency executive control groups, ICU staff and staff co-opted to

  5. Chapter 8. Medical procedures. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zimmerman, Janice L.; Sprung, Charles L.; Christian, Michael D.; Camargo, Ruben; Ceraso, Daniel; Azoulay, Elie; Duguet, Alexandre; Guery, Benoit; Reinhart, Konrad; Adini, Bruria; Barlavie, Yaron; Benin-Goren, Odeda; Cohen, Robert; Klein, Motti; Leoniv, Yuval; Margalit, Gila; Rubinovitch, Bina; Sonnenblick, Moshe; Steinberg, Avraham; Weissman, Charles; Wolff, Donna; Kesecioglu, Jozef; de Jong, Menno; Moreno, Rui; An, Youzhong; Du, Bin; Joynt, Gavin M.; Colvin, John; Loo, Shi; Richards, Guy; Artigas, Antonio; Pugin, Jerome; Amundson, Dennis; Devereaux, Asha; Beigel, John; Danis, Marion; Farmer, Chris; Hick, John L.; Maki, Dennis; Masur, Henry; Rubinson, Lewis; Sandrock, Christian; Talmor, Daniel; Truog, Robert; Zimmerman, Janice; Brett, Steve; Montgomery, Hugh; Rhodes, Andrew; Sanderson, Frances; Taylor, Bruce

    2010-01-01

    To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza pandemic or mass disaster with a specific focus on ensuring that adequate resources are available and appropriate protocols are developed to safely perform procedures in

  6. Recommended vitamin D levels in the general population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varsavsky, Mariela; Rozas Moreno, Pedro; Becerra Fernández, Antonio; Luque Fernández, Inés; Quesada Gómez, José Manuel; Ávila Rubio, Verónica; García Martín, Antonia; Cortés Berdonces, María; Naf Cortés, Silvia; Romero Muñoz, Manuel; Reyes García, Rebeca; Jódar Gimeno, Esteban; Muñoz Torres, Manuel

    2017-03-01

    To provide recommendations based on evidence on the management of vitaminD deficiency in the general population. Members of the Bone Metabolism Working Group of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology. Recommendations were formulated using the GRADE system (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) to describe both the strength of recommendations and the quality of evidence. A systematic search was made in MEDLINE (Pubmed) using the term VitaminD and the name of each issue. Papers in English and Spanish with publication date before 17 March 2016 were included. Recommendations were jointly discussed by the Working Group. This document summarizes the data about vitaminD deficiency in terms of prevalence, etiology, screening indications, adequate levels and effects of supplementation on bone and non-skeletal health outcomes. Copyright © 2017 SEEN. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-05-01

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

  8. Recommendations for designing and conducting veterinary clinical pathology biologic variation studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freeman, Kathleen P; Baral, Randolph M; Dhand, Navneet K; Nielsen, Søren Saxmose; Jensen, Asger L

    2017-06-01

    The recent creation of a veterinary clinical pathology biologic variation website has highlighted the need to provide recommendations for future studies of biologic variation in animals in order to help standardize and improve the quality of published information and to facilitate review and selection of publications as standard references. The following recommendations are provided in the format and order commonly found in veterinary publications. A checklist is provided to aid in planning, implementing, and evaluating veterinary studies on biologic variation (Appendix S1). These recommendations provide a valuable resource for clinicians, laboratorians, and researchers interested in conducting studies of biologic variation and in determining the quality of studies of biologic variation in veterinary laboratory testing. © 2017 American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology.

  9. Second Workshop on New Trends in Content-based Recommender Systems (CBRecSys 2015)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Koolen, Marijn

    2015-01-01

    While content-based recommendation has been applied successfully in many different domains, it has not seen the same level of attention as collaborative filtering techniques have. However, there are many recommendation domains and applications where content and metadata play a key role, either...... these data sources should be combined to provided the best recommendation performance. The CBRecSys 2015 workshop aims to address this by providing a dedicated venue for papers dedicated to all aspects of content-based recommendation....

  10. Self-reported dietary adherence, disease-specific symptoms, and quality of life are associated with healthcare provider follow-up in celiac disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hughey, Jacob J; Ray, Bonnie K; Lee, Anne R; Voorhees, Kristin N; Kelly, Ciaran P; Schuppan, Detlef

    2017-12-11

    The only treatment for celiac disease (CeD) is a lifelong gluten-free diet (GFD). The restrictive nature of the GFD makes adherence a challenge. As an integral part of CeD management, multiple professional organizations recommend regular follow-up with a healthcare provider (HCP). Many CeD patients also participate in patient advocacy groups (PAGs) for education and support. Previous work found that follow-up of CeD patients is highly variable. Here we investigated the self-reported factors associated with HCP follow-up among individuals diagnosed with CeD who participate in a PAG. We conducted a survey of members of Beyond Celiac (a PAG), collecting responses from 1832 U.S. adults ages 19-65 who reported having CeD. The survey queried HCP follow-up related to CeD and included validated instruments for dietary adherence (CDAT), disease-specific symptoms (CSI), and quality of life (CD-QOL). Overall, 27% of respondents diagnosed with CeD at least five years ago reported that they had not visited an HCP about CeD in the last five years. The most frequent reason for not visiting an HCP was "doing fine on my own" (47.6%). Using multiple logistic regression, we identified significant associations between whether a respondent reported visiting an HCP about CeD in the last five years and the scores for all three validated instruments. In particular, as disease-specific symptoms and quality of life worsened, the probability of having visited an HCP increased. Conversely, as dietary adherence worsened, the probability decreased. Our results suggest that many individuals with CeD manage their disease without ongoing support from an HCP. Our results thus emphasize the need for greater access to high quality CeD care, and highlight an opportunity for PAGs to bring together patients and HCPs to improve management of CeD.

  11. Chapter 4. Manpower. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sandrock, Christian; Christian, Michael D.; Camargo, Ruben; Ceraso, Daniel; Azoulay, Elie; Duguet, Alexandre; Guery, Benoit; Reinhart, Konrad; Adini, Bruria; Barlavie, Yaron; Benin-Goren, Odeda; Cohen, Robert; Klein, Motti; Leoniv, Yuval; Margalit, Gila; Rubinovitch, Bina; Sonnenblick, Moshe; Sprung, Charles L.; Steinberg, Avraham; Weissman, Charles; Wolff, Donna; Kesecioglu, Jozef; de Jong, Menno; Moreno, Rui; An, Youzhong; Du, Bin; Joynt, Gavin M.; Colvin, John; Loo, Shi; Richards, Guy; Artigas, Antonio; Pugin, Jerome; Amundson, Dennis; Devereaux, Asha; Beigel, John; Danis, Marion; Farmer, Chris; Hick, John L.; Maki, Dennis; Masur, Henry; Rubinson, Lewis; Talmor, Daniel; Truog, Robert; Zimmerman, Janice; Brett, Steve; Montgomery, Hugh; Rhodes, Andrew; Sanderson, Frances; Taylor, Bruce

    2010-01-01

    To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital preparations for an influenza pandemic or mass disaster with a specific focus on manpower. Based on a literature review and expert opinion, a Delphi process was used to define the essential

  12. Recommendations for the specification of thermocouples for nuclear applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1977-05-01

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

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghauth, Khairil Imran; Abdullah, Nor Aniza

    2011-01-01

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

  14. Best practice recommendations for the development, implementation, and evaluation of online knowledge translation resources in rehabilitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levac, Danielle; Glegg, Stephanie M N; Camden, Chantal; Rivard, Lisa M; Missiuna, Cheryl

    2015-04-01

    The knowledge-to-practice gap in rehabilitation has spurred knowledge translation (KT) initiatives aimed at promoting clinician behavior change and improving patient care. Online KT resources for physical therapists and other rehabilitation clinicians are appealing because of their potential to reach large numbers of individuals through self-paced, self-directed learning. This article proposes best practice recommendations for developing online KT resources that are designed to translate evidence into practice. Four recommendations are proposed with specific steps in the development, implementation, and evaluation process: (1) develop evidence-based, user-centered content; (2) tailor content to online format; (3) evaluate impact; and (4) share results and disseminate knowledge. Based on KT evidence and instructional design principles, concrete examples are provided along with insights gained from experiences in creating and evaluating online KT resources for physical therapists. In proposing these recommendations, the next steps for research are suggested, and others are invited to contribute to the discussion. © 2015 American Physical Therapy Association.

  15. Generating Private Recommendations Efficiently Using Homomorphic Encryption and Data Packing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Erkin, Zekeriya; Veugen, Thijs; Toft, Tomas

    2012-01-01

    Recommender systems have become an important tool for personalization of online services. Generating recommendations in online services depends on privacy-sensitive data collected from the users. Traditional data protection mechanisms focus on access control and secure transmission, which provide...... them under encryption to generate recommendations. By introducing a semitrusted third party and using data packing, we construct a highly efficient system that does not require the active participation of the user. We also present a comparison protocol, which is the first one to the best of our...... security only against malicious third parties, but not the service provider. This creates a serious privacy risk for the users. In this paper, we aim to protect the private data against the service provider while preserving the functionality of the system. We propose encrypting private data and processing...

  16. Recommendations for epidemiological studies on COPD

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bakke, P S; Rönmark, E; Eagan, T

    2011-01-01

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

  17. Evaluating the environmental impacts of dietary recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Behrens, Paul; Kiefte-de Jong, Jessica C; Bosker, Thijs; Rodrigues, João F D; de Koning, Arjan; Tukker, Arnold

    2017-12-19

    Dietary choices drive both health and environmental outcomes. Information on diets come from many sources, with nationally recommended diets (NRDs) by governmental or similar advisory bodies the most authoritative. Little or no attention is placed on the environmental impacts within NRDs. Here we quantify the impact of nation-specific NRDs, compared with an average diet in 37 nations, representing 64% of global population. We focus on greenhouse gases (GHGs), eutrophication, and land use because these have impacts reaching or exceeding planetary boundaries. We show that compared with average diets, NRDs in high-income nations are associated with reductions in GHG, eutrophication, and land use from 13.0 to 24.8%, 9.8 to 21.3%, and 5.7 to 17.6%, respectively. In upper-middle-income nations, NRDs are associated with slight decrease in impacts of 0.8-12.2%, 7.7-19.4%, and 7.2-18.6%. In poorer middle-income nations, impacts increase by 12.4-17.0%, 24.5-31.9%, and 8.8-14.8%. The reduced environmental impact in high-income countries is driven by reductions in calories (∼54% of effect) and a change in composition (∼46%). The increased environmental impacts of NRDs in low- and middle-income nations are associated with increased intake in animal products. Uniform adoption of NRDs across these nations would result in reductions of 0.19-0.53 Gt CO 2 eq⋅a -1 , 4.32-10.6 Gt [Formula: see text] eq⋅a -1 , and 1.5-2.8 million km 2 , while providing the health cobenefits of adopting an NRD. As a small number of dietary guidelines are beginning to incorporate more general environmental concerns, we anticipate that this work will provide a standardized baseline for future work to optimize recommended diets further. Copyright © 2017 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

  18. Recommendations of the Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) at the Robert Koch Institute – 2017/2018

    OpenAIRE

    Robert Koch-Institut

    2017-01-01

    The Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) is an independent expert committee, consisting of 12 to 18 members, as stipulated in the Infection Against Protection Law [Infektionsschutzgesetz (IfSG)]. The members are appointed by the German Federal Ministry of Health in consultation with the federal state health authorities for a period of 3 years. In accordance with the IfSG the committee provides recommendations on vaccinations and other measures for the specific prophylaxis of commun...

  19. PV GRID Advisory Paper. Consultation version: key recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Barth, Bianca; Concas, Giorgia; Cossent, Rafael; Franz, Oliver; Frias, Pablo; Hermes, Roland; Lama, Riccardo; Loew, Holger; Mateo, Carlos; Rekinger, Manoel; Sonvilla, Paolo Michele; Vandenbergh, Michel

    2014-01-15

    PV GRID is a transnational collaborative effort under the umbrella of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme. The main project goal is to enhance photovoltaic (PV) hosting capacity in distribution grids while overcoming regulatory and normative barriers hampering the application of available technical solutions. The European PV GRID advisory paper aims at providing an overview of the issues and barriers that need to be addressed in order to enhance the distribution grid hosting capacity for PV and other distributed generation (DG).To this purpose, barriers are classified as either cross-cutting challenges or specific barriers, depending on whether they have an overarching, system-wide character or rather focus on one single issue such as curtailment, self-consumption or storage. Finally, a set of preliminary recommendations on how to overcome these issues is presented, allowing for the implementation of the identified technical solutions.

  20. Clustering recommendations to compute agent reputation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bedi, Punam; Kaur, Harmeet

    2005-03-01

    Traditional centralized approaches to security are difficult to apply to multi-agent systems which are used nowadays in e-commerce applications. Developing a notion of trust that is based on the reputation of an agent can provide a softer notion of security that is sufficient for many multi-agent applications. Our paper proposes a mechanism for computing reputation of the trustee agent for use by the trustier agent. The trustier agent computes the reputation based on its own experience as well as the experience the peer agents have with the trustee agents. The trustier agents intentionally interact with the peer agents to get their experience information in the form of recommendations. We have also considered the case of unintentional encounters between the referee agents and the trustee agent, which can be directly between them or indirectly through a set of interacting agents. The clustering is done to filter off the noise in the recommendations in the form of outliers. The trustier agent clusters the recommendations received from referee agents on the basis of the distances between recommendations using the hierarchical agglomerative method. The dendogram hence obtained is cut at the required similarity level which restricts the maximum distance between any two recommendations within a cluster. The cluster with maximum number of elements denotes the views of the majority of recommenders. The center of this cluster represents the reputation of the trustee agent which can be computed using c-means algorithm.

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Coats, D.W.

    1980-05-01

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

  2. [Development of a tool to analyze the menus provided in early childhood daycare centres].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gelin, Élodie; Marquis, Marie; Côté, Stéphanie; Deschamps, Julie; Brochu, Mylène Duplessis; Grand, Philippe; Leblanc, Marie-Josée

    2011-01-01

    A review of the literature reveals that there are currently no tools available to analyze the quality of the menus provided in daycare centres. An analysis grid has been developed for this purpose, specifically targeting the food served to preschool children aged 18 months and over. The tool was produced on the basis of findings from recent scientific research. The final version of the grid features 25 statements that cover types of menus, the food groups and recommendations of Canada's Food Guide, sources of protein, the supply of beverages,processed foods, cariogenic products, nutritional variety,allergens and sensory properties of foods. The data gathered using this grid will help establish recommendations for daycare administrators and kitchen managers with respect to various considerations that are key to promoting healthy eating habits in early childhood. The limitations to its use stem from the need to complement these recommendations by conducting an analysis of the recipes and ingredients used, the beverages served and the portion sizes offered.

  3. Dietary Recommendations for Cyclists during Altitude Training

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-01-01

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

  4. Dietary Recommendations for Cyclists during Altitude Training.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-06-18

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

  5. Psychological Characteristics in Talented Soccer Players - Recommendations on How to Improve Coaches' Assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Musculus, Lisa; Lobinger, Babett H

    2018-01-01

    Psychological characteristics, including personality traits and psychological skills, have been shown to be relevant predictors of soccer performance. In research, general and sport specific standardized self-report questionnaires have been applied in psychological diagnostics of sports talent. However, with regard to the assessment of psychological characteristics of talented soccer players, a gap between research and practice is apparent. While soccer clubs often ask their coaches to assess their players on self-designed, unevaluated scouting sheets, research widely neglects expert coaches' and clubs' perspectives on relevant performance characteristics. As we believe that expert coaches' assessments could be a valid predictor of a player's current performance and future success, we provide recommendations on how to improve coaches' assessment of psychological characteristics. As the quality of the assessment of psychological characteristics is crucial, we provide recommendations on how to ensure the central diagnostic standards: objectivity, reliability, and validity in talent assessment. Further, we argue that assessing psychological characteristics should combine self ratings of players and external ratings of coaches in talent development. Sport psychologists should assist clubs and coaches in improving the diagnostics of psychological characteristics as well as in embedding psychological diagnostics and interventions in the talent development process.

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

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

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

  7. Recommendations for safer radiotherapy: what’s the message?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dunscombe, Peter, E-mail: peter.dunscombe@albertahealthservices.ca [Department of Oncology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB (Canada)

    2012-09-28

    Radiotherapy, with close to a million courses delivered per year in North America, is a very safe and effective intervention for a devastating disease. However, although rare, several deeply regrettable incidents have occurred in radiotherapy and have rightly been the subject of considerable public interest. Partly in response to reports of these incidents a variety of authoritative organizations across the globe has harnessed the expertise amongst their members in attempts to identify the measures that will make radiotherapy safer. While the intentions of all these organizations are clearly good it is challenging for the health care providers in the clinic to know where to start with so much advice coming from so many directions. Through a mapping exercise we have identified commonalities between recommendations made in seven authoritative documents and identified those issues most frequently cited. The documents reviewed contain a total of 117 recommendations. Using the 37 recommendations in “Towards Safer Radiotherapy” as the initial base layer, recommendations in the other documents were mapped, adding to the base layer to accommodate all the recommendations from the additional six documents as necessary. This mapping exercise resulted in the distillation of the original 117 recommendations down to 61 unique recommendations. Twelve topics were identified in three or more of the documents as being pertinent to the improvement of patient safety in radiotherapy. They are, in order of most to least cited: training, staffing, documentation, incident learning, communication, check lists, quality control and preventive maintenance, dosimetric audit, accreditation, minimizing interruptions, prospective risk assessment, and safety culture. This analysis provides guidance for the selection of those activities most likely to enhance safety and quality in radiotherapy based on the frequency of citation in selected recent authoritative literature.

  8. Recommendations for safer radiotherapy: what’s the message?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dunscombe, Peter

    2012-01-01

    Radiotherapy, with close to a million courses delivered per year in North America, is a very safe and effective intervention for a devastating disease. However, although rare, several deeply regrettable incidents have occurred in radiotherapy and have rightly been the subject of considerable public interest. Partly in response to reports of these incidents a variety of authoritative organizations across the globe has harnessed the expertise amongst their members in attempts to identify the measures that will make radiotherapy safer. While the intentions of all these organizations are clearly good it is challenging for the health care providers in the clinic to know where to start with so much advice coming from so many directions. Through a mapping exercise we have identified commonalities between recommendations made in seven authoritative documents and identified those issues most frequently cited. The documents reviewed contain a total of 117 recommendations. Using the 37 recommendations in “Towards Safer Radiotherapy” as the initial base layer, recommendations in the other documents were mapped, adding to the base layer to accommodate all the recommendations from the additional six documents as necessary. This mapping exercise resulted in the distillation of the original 117 recommendations down to 61 unique recommendations. Twelve topics were identified in three or more of the documents as being pertinent to the improvement of patient safety in radiotherapy. They are, in order of most to least cited: training, staffing, documentation, incident learning, communication, check lists, quality control and preventive maintenance, dosimetric audit, accreditation, minimizing interruptions, prospective risk assessment, and safety culture. This analysis provides guidance for the selection of those activities most likely to enhance safety and quality in radiotherapy based on the frequency of citation in selected recent authoritative literature.

  9. Recommendations for safer radiotherapy: what’s the message?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter eDunscombe

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Radiotherapy, with close to a million courses delivered per year in North America, is a very safe and effective intervention for a devastating disease. However, although rare, several deeply regrettable incidents have occurred in radiotherapy and have rightly been the subject of considerable public interest. Partly in response to reports of these incidents a variety of authoritative organizations across the globe has harnessed the expertise amongst their members in attempts to identify the measures that will make radiotherapy safer. While the intentions of all these organizations are clearly good it is challenging for the health care providers in the clinic to know where to start with so much advice coming from so many directions. Through a mapping exercise we have identified commonalities between recommendations made in seven authoritative documents and identified those issues most frequently cited. The documents reviewed contain a total of 117 recommendations. Using the 37 recommendations in Towards Safer Radiotherapy as the initial base layer, recommendations in the other documents were mapped, adding to the base layer to accommodate all the recommendations from the additional six documents as necessary. This mapping exercise resulted in the distillation of the original 117 recommendations down to 61 unique recommendations. Twelve topics were identified in three or more of the documents as being pertinent to the improvement of patient safety in radiotherapy. They are, in order of most to least cited: training, staffing, documentation, incident learning, communication, check lists, quality control and preventive maintenance, dosimetric audit, accreditation, minimizing interruptions, prospective risk assessment and safety culture. This analysis provides guidance for the selection of those activities most likely to enhance safety and quality in radiotherapy based on the frequency of citation in selected recent authoritative literature.

  10. Recommendations for Planning and Managing International Short-term Pharmacy Service Trips.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Kalin L; Alsharif, Naser Z; Rovers, John; Connor, Sharon; White, Nicole D; Hogue, Michael D

    2017-03-25

    International pharmacy service trips by schools and colleges of pharmacy allow students to provide health care to medically underserved areas. A literature review (2000-2016) in databases and Internet searches with specific keywords or terms was performed to assess current practices to establish and maintain successful pharmacy service trips. Educational documents such as syllabi were obtained from pharmacy programs and examined. A preliminary draft was developed and authors worked on sections of interest and expertise. Considerations and current recommendations are provided for the key aspects of the home institution and the host country requirements for pharmacy service trips based on findings from a literature search and the authors' collective, extensive experience. Evaluation of the trip and ethical considerations are also discussed. This article serves as a resource for schools and colleges of pharmacy that are interested in the development of new pharmacy service trips and provides key considerations for continuous quality improvement of current or future activities.

  11. Dietary fibre in Europe: current state of knowledge on definitions, sources, recommendations, intakes and relationships to health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stephen, Alison M; Champ, Martine M-J; Cloran, Susan J; Fleith, Mathilde; van Lieshout, Lilou; Mejborn, Heddie; Burley, Victoria J

    2017-12-01

    Research into the analysis, physical properties and health effects of dietary fibre has continued steadily over the last 40-50 years. From the knowledge gained, countries have developed guidelines for their populations on the optimal amount of fibre to be consumed each day. Food composition tables from many countries now contain values for the dietary fibre content of foods, and, from these, combined with dietary surveys, population intakes have been determined. The present review assessed the uniformity of the analytical methods used, health claims permitted, recommendations and intakes, particularly from national surveys across Europe and around the world. It also assessed current knowledge on health effects of dietary fibre and related the impact of different fibre types on health. The overall intent was to be able to provide more detailed guidance on the types of fibre which should be consumed for good health, rather than simply a total intake figure, the current situation. Analysis of data indicated a fair degree of uniformity in the definition of dietary fibre, the method used for analysis, the recommended amount to be consumed and a growing literature on effects on digestive health and disease risk. However, national dietary survey data showed that intakes do not reach recommendations and very few countries provide guidance on the types of fibre that are preferable to achieve recommended intakes. Research gaps were identified and ideas suggested to provide information for more detailed advice to the public about specific food sources that should be consumed to achieve health benefits.

  12. European LeukemiaNet recommendations for the management of chronic myeloid leukemia: 2013

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deininger, Michael W.; Rosti, Gianantonio; Hochhaus, Andreas; Soverini, Simona; Apperley, Jane F.; Cervantes, Francisco; Clark, Richard E.; Cortes, Jorge E.; Guilhot, François; Hjorth-Hansen, Henrik; Hughes, Timothy P.; Kantarjian, Hagop M.; Kim, Dong-Wook; Larson, Richard A.; Lipton, Jeffrey H.; Mahon, François-Xavier; Martinelli, Giovanni; Mayer, Jiri; Müller, Martin C.; Niederwieser, Dietger; Pane, Fabrizio; Radich, Jerald P.; Rousselot, Philippe; Saglio, Giuseppe; Saußele, Susanne; Schiffer, Charles; Silver, Richard; Simonsson, Bengt; Steegmann, Juan-Luis; Goldman, John M.; Hehlmann, Rüdiger

    2013-01-01

    Advances in chronic myeloid leukemia treatment, particularly regarding tyrosine kinase inhibitors, mandate regular updating of concepts and management. A European LeukemiaNet expert panel reviewed prior and new studies to update recommendations made in 2009. We recommend as initial treatment imatinib, nilotinib, or dasatinib. Response is assessed with standardized real quantitative polymerase chain reaction and/or cytogenetics at 3, 6, and 12 months. BCR-ABL1 transcript levels ≤10% at 3 months, 10% at 6 months and >1% from 12 months onward define failure, mandating a change in treatment. Similarly, partial cytogenetic response (PCyR) at 3 months and complete cytogenetic response (CCyR) from 6 months onward define optimal response, whereas no CyR (Philadelphia chromosome–positive [Ph+] >95%) at 3 months, less than PCyR at 6 months, and less than CCyR from 12 months onward define failure. Between optimal and failure, there is an intermediate warning zone requiring more frequent monitoring. Similar definitions are provided for response to second-line therapy. Specific recommendations are made for patients in the accelerated and blastic phases, and for allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Optimal responders should continue therapy indefinitely, with careful surveillance, or they can be enrolled in controlled studies of treatment discontinuation once a deeper molecular response is achieved. PMID:23803709

  13. How often and under which circumstances do Mexican pharmacy vendors recommend misoprostol to induce an abortion?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lara, Diana; García, Sandra G; Wilson, Kate S; Paz, Francisco

    2011-06-01

    Misoprostol was used by women across Mexico to induce abortion even before 2007, when first-trimester abortion was legalized in Mexico City. Pharmacy vendors' misoprostol recommendation practices across subregions of Mexico after abortion legalization warrant examination. Overall, 192 pharmacies in four regions of Mexico were randomly selected and visited by simulated clients presenting three scenarios (a young woman, an adult woman and a male partner). Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore associations between pharmacy, vendor and client characteristics and drug access. In 558 encounters with simulated clients, 78% of vendors provided information about misoprostol-18% recommended it spontaneously and 60% recommended it only after the client asked specifically for the drug. Fifteen percent of vendors recommended a potentially effective misoprostol dosing regimen. Mexico City-based pharmacies and those in the Central region were significantly less likely than those in the North region to require a prescription to sell misoprostol (odds ratios, 0.2 and 0.3, respectively). Independent pharmacies and those from low-?income areas were significantly more likely to sell misoprostol by the pill than chain pharmacies and those in medium-income areas (3.2 and 2.7, respectively). Access to misoprostol is influenced by neighborhood socioeconomic level, pharmacy location and pharmacy type. The frequently inaccurate and incomplete information provided to clients about using misoprostol for abortion suggests the need to improve pharmacy vendor training in medication abortion options and to develop ways to directly inform women about misoprostol use.

  14. Organ-specific gene expression: the bHLH protein Sage provides tissue specificity to Drosophila FoxA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, Rebecca M; Vaishnavi, Aria; Maruyama, Rika; Andrew, Deborah J

    2013-05-01

    FoxA transcription factors play major roles in organ-specific gene expression, regulating, for example, glucagon expression in the pancreas, GLUT2 expression in the liver, and tyrosine hydroxylase expression in dopaminergic neurons. Organ-specific gene regulation by FoxA proteins is achieved through cooperative regulation with a broad array of transcription factors with more limited expression domains. Fork head (Fkh), the sole Drosophila FoxA family member, is required for the development of multiple distinct organs, yet little is known regarding how Fkh regulates tissue-specific gene expression. Here, we characterize Sage, a bHLH transcription factor expressed exclusively in the Drosophila salivary gland (SG). We show that Sage is required for late SG survival and normal tube morphology. We find that many Sage targets, identified by microarray analysis, encode SG-specific secreted cargo, transmembrane proteins, and the enzymes that modify these proteins. We show that both Sage and Fkh are required for the expression of Sage target genes, and that co-expression of Sage and Fkh is sufficient to drive target gene expression in multiple cell types. Sage and Fkh drive expression of the bZip transcription factor Senseless (Sens), which boosts expression of Sage-Fkh targets, and Sage, Fkh and Sens colocalize on SG chromosomes. Importantly, expression of Sage-Fkh target genes appears to simply add to the tissue-specific gene expression programs already established in other cell types, and Sage and Fkh cannot alter the fate of most embryonic cell types even when expressed early and continuously.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thuy Ngoc Nguyen

    2014-09-01

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

  16. Implementing universal HIV treatment in a high HIV prevalence and rural South African setting – Field experiences and recommendations of health care providers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gumede, Dumile; Boyer, Sylvie; Pillay, Deenan; Dabis, François; Seeley, Janet; Orne-Gliemann, Joanna

    2017-01-01

    Background We aimed to describe the field experiences and recommendations of clinic-based health care providers (HCP) regarding the implementation of universal antiretroviral therapy (ART) in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Methods In Hlabisa sub-district, the local HIV programme of the Department of Health (DoH) is decentralized in 18 clinics, where ART was offered at a CD4 count ≤500 cells/μL from January 2015 to September 2016. Within the ANRS 12249 TasP trial, implemented in part of the sub-district, universal ART (no eligibility criteria) was offered in 11 mobile clinics between March 2012 and June 2016. A cross-sectional qualitative survey was conducted in April–July 2016 among clinic-based nurses and counsellors providing HIV care in the DoH and TasP trial clinics. In total, 13 individual interviews and two focus groups discussions (including 6 and 7 participants) were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. Results All HCPs reported an overall good experience of delivering ART early in the course of HIV infection, with most patients willing to initiate ART before being symptomatic. Yet, HCPs underlined that not feeling sick could challenge early ART initiation and adherence, and thus highlighted the need to take time for counselling as an important component to achieve universal ART. HCPs also foresaw logistical challenges of universal ART, and were especially concerned about increasing workload and ART shortage. HCPs finally recommended the need to strengthen the existing model of care to facilitate access to ART, e.g., community-based and integrated HIV services. Conclusions The provision of universal ART is feasible and acceptable according to HCPs in this rural South-African area. However their experiences suggest that universal ART, and more generally the 90-90-90 UNAIDS targets, will be difficult to achieve without the implementation of new models of health service delivery. PMID:29155832

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-01-01

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

  18. HyRA: A Hybrid Recommendation Algorithm Focused on Smart POI. Ceutí as a Study Scenario

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joanna Alvarado-Uribe

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, Physical Web together with the increase in the use of mobile devices, Global Positioning System (GPS, and Social Networking Sites (SNS have caused users to share enriched information on the Web such as their tourist experiences. Therefore, an area that has been significantly improved by using the contextual information provided by these technologies is tourism. In this way, the main goals of this work are to propose and develop an algorithm focused on the recommendation of Smart Point of Interaction (Smart POI for a specific user according to his/her preferences and the Smart POIs’ context. Hence, a novel Hybrid Recommendation Algorithm (HyRA is presented by incorporating an aggregation operator into the user-based Collaborative Filtering (CF algorithm as well as including the Smart POIs’ categories and geographical information. For the experimental phase, two real-world datasets have been collected and preprocessed. In addition, one Smart POIs’ categories dataset was built. As a result, a dataset composed of 16 Smart POIs, another constituted by the explicit preferences of 200 respondents, and the last dataset integrated by 13 Smart POIs’ categories are provided. The experimental results show that the recommendations suggested by HyRA are promising.

  19. Report of the APS Ad-Hoc Committee on LGBT Issues - Presentation of Findings and Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Long, Elena

    2016-03-01

    In 2014 the Executive Officer of the American Physical Society (APS), Kate Kirby, created an Ad-Hoc Committee on LGBT Issues (C-LGBT) charged with reporting on the obstacles to inclusion of LGBT physicists, a term which for the purpose of this report refers to persons who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, or asexual, as well as other sexual and gender minorities. The full charge was as follows: ``The committee will advise the APS on the current status of LGBT issues in physics, provide recommendations for greater inclusion, and engage physicists in laying the foundation for a more inclusive physics community? More specifically, the committee will investigate LGBT representation in physics, assess the educational and professional climate in physics, recommend changes in policies and practices that impact LGBT physicists, and address other issues that affect inclusion.'' We will present the findings and recommendations of the C-LGBT final report, and a panel discussion will be held following the presentation to discuss the future of APS efforts toward LGBT inclusion in physics.

  20. A Hybrid Approach using Collaborative filtering and Content based Filtering for Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geetha, G.; Safa, M.; Fancy, C.; Saranya, D.

    2018-04-01

    In today’s digital world, it has become an irksome task to find the content of one's liking in an endless variety of content that are being consumed like books, videos, articles, movies, etc. On the other hand there has been an emerging growth among the digital content providers who want to engage as many users on their service as possible for the maximum time. This gave birth to the recommender system comes wherein the content providers recommend users the content according to the users’ taste and liking. In this paper we have proposed a movie recommendation system. A movie recommendation is important in our social life due to its features such as suggesting a set of movies to users based on their interest, or the popularities of the movies. In this paper we are proposing a movie recommendation system that has the ability to recommend movies to a new user as well as the other existing users. It mines movie databases to collect all the important information, such as, popularity and attractiveness, which are required for recommendation. We use content-based and collaborative filtering and also hybrid filtering, which is a combination of the results of these two techniques, to construct a system that provides more precise recommendations concerning movies.

  1. Diffusion-based recommendation with trust relations on tripartite graphs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Ximeng; Liu, Yun; Zhang, Guangquan; Xiong, Fei; Lu, Jie

    2017-08-01

    The diffusion-based recommendation approach is a vital branch in recommender systems, which successfully applies physical dynamics to make recommendations for users on bipartite or tripartite graphs. Trust links indicate users’ social relations and can provide the benefit of reducing data sparsity. However, traditional diffusion-based algorithms only consider rating links when making recommendations. In this paper, the complementarity of users’ implicit and explicit trust is exploited, and a novel resource-allocation strategy is proposed, which integrates these two kinds of trust relations on tripartite graphs. Through empirical studies on three benchmark datasets, our proposed method obtains better performance than most of the benchmark algorithms in terms of accuracy, diversity and novelty. According to the experimental results, our method is an effective and reasonable way to integrate additional features into the diffusion-based recommendation approach.

  2. IMIA Educational Recommendations and Nursing Informatics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mantas, John; Hasman, Arie

    2017-01-01

    The updated version of the IMIA educational recommendations has given an adequate guidelines platform for developing educational programs in Biomedical and Health Informatics at all levels of education, vocational training, and distance learning. This chapter will provide a brief introduction of the

  3. Multidisciplinary family-centred psychosocial care for patients with CHD: consensus recommendations from the AEPC Psychosocial Working Group.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Utens, Elisabeth M W J; Callus, Edward; Levert, Eveline M; Groote, Katya De; Casey, Frank

    2018-02-01

    Because of the enormous advances in the medical treatment of CHD, the long-term survival of patients suffering from this disease has increased significantly. Currently, about 90% of patients reach adulthood, which entails many new challenges both for patients and their families and for healthcare professionals. The main objective of family-centred psychosocial care is to strengthen the emotional resilience of chronically ill patients and their families by adopting a holistic approach. During the biannual meeting of the psychosocial working group in 2012, participants expressed the need for general European guidelines. The present recommendations were written to support medical staff and psychosocial healthcare professionals to provide the best care for children and adolescents with CHD as well as for their families. This article describes in detail how the integrated family-centred psychological care modules work, involving different healthcare specialists, including a paediatric/congenital cardiologist or a general paediatrician. The different clinical implications and specific needs have been taken into account and recommendations have been provided on the following: structured follow-up screening; identification of stressful periods related to cardiac surgery or invasive medical procedures; evidence-based, disease-specific, and family-oriented psychosocial interventions; and interactive media links to medical and psychosocial information.

  4. PERSON-Personalized Expert Recommendation System for Optimized Nutrition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Chih-Han; Karvela, Maria; Sohbati, Mohammadreza; Shinawatra, Thaksin; Toumazou, Christofer

    2018-02-01

    The rise of personalized diets is due to the emergence of nutrigenetics and genetic tests services. However, the recommendation system is far from mature to provide personalized food suggestion to consumers for daily usage. The main barrier of connecting genetic information to personalized diets is the complexity of data and the scalability of the applied systems. Aiming to cross such barriers and provide direct applications, a personalized expert recommendation system for optimized nutrition is introduced in this paper, which performs direct to consumer personalized grocery product filtering and recommendation. Deep learning neural network model is applied to achieve automatic product categorization. The ability of scaling with unknown new data is achieved through the generalized representation of word embedding. Furthermore, the categorized products are filtered with a model based on individual genetic data with associated phenotypic information and a case study with databases from three different sources is carried out to confirm the system.

  5. Extracorporeal treatment for theophylline poisoning: systematic review and recommendations from the EXTRIP workgroup.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghannoum, Marc; Wiegand, Timothy J; Liu, Kathleen D; Calello, Diane P; Godin, Melanie; Lavergne, Valery; Gosselin, Sophie; Nolin, Thomas D; Hoffman, Robert S

    2015-05-01

    The Extracorporeal Treatments in Poisoning workgroup was created to provide evidence-based recommendations on the use of extracorporeal treatments (ECTRs) in poisoning. Here, the workgroup presents its systematic review and recommendations for theophylline. After a systematic review of the literature, a subgroup reviewed articles, extracted data, summarized findings, and proposed structured voting statements following a pre-determined format. A two-round modified Delphi method was chosen to reach a consensus on voting statements and the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method was used to quantify disagreement. Anonymous votes were compiled, returned, and discussed. A second vote determined the final recommendations. 141 articles were included: 6 in vitro studies, 4 animal studies, 101 case reports/case series, 7 descriptive cohorts, 4 observational studies, and 19 pharmacokinetic studies, yielding a low-to-very-low quality of evidence for all recommendations. Data on 143 patients were reviewed, including 10 deaths. The workgroup concluded that theophylline is dialyzable (level of evidence = A) and made the following recommendations: ECTR is recommended in severe theophylline poisoning (1C). Specific recommendations for ECTR include a theophylline concentration [theophylline] > 100 mg/L (555 μmol/L) in acute exposure (1C), the presence of seizures (1D), life-threatening dysrhythmias (1D) or shock (1D), a rising [theophylline] despite optimal therapy (1D), and clinical deterioration despite optimal care (1D). In chronic poisoning, ECTR is suggested if [theophylline] > 60 mg/L (333 μmol/L) (2D) or if the [theophylline] > 50 mg/L (278 μmol/L) and the patient is either less than 6 months of age or older than 60 years of age (2D). ECTR is also suggested if gastrointestinal decontamination cannot be administered (2D). ECTR should be continued until clinical improvement is apparent or the [theophylline] is poisoning is amenable to ECTRs. The workgroup recommended

  6. Report of nuclear utility industry responses to Kemeny Commission recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1989-02-15

    The purpose of this paper is to provide a report of nuclear utility industry progress in responding to the recommendations of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (The Kemeny Commission). On April 11, 1979, in response to TMI, President Carter established a Commission to conduct '.... a comprehensive study and investigation of the recent accident involving the nuclear power facility on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania'. The Commission was chaired by Dr. John G. Kemeny, then President of Dartmouth College. (A list of all members of The Kemeny Commission is provided in Attachment to the Appendix ). The report of the commission's findings and recommendations was transmitted to the President in October 1979. During this same period, the nuclear utility industry responded to TMI by creating the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) with a mission to promote the highest levels of safety and reliability - to promote excellence - in the operation of nuclear electric generating plants. In addition, the Nuclear Safety Analysis Center (NSAC) was established at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI to evaluate the accident and assist in determining the best industry response. In a White House paper (and press release) of December 7 1979, the President announced that he agreed fully with the spirit and intent of al the Kemeny Commission recommendations and requested that the industry and The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) comply with the recommendations. The President also recognized the industry initiative in establishing INPO and called for several actions involving the Institute; the President directed the Department of Energy and other government agencies to provide assistance to INPO and the industry. An overall status of the nuclear utility industry responses to Kemeny Commission recommendations in the key areas directly related to nuclear plant operations is provided below. A more detailed status of industry responses to the

  7. Report of nuclear utility industry responses to Kemeny Commission recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1989-02-01

    The purpose of this paper is to provide a report of nuclear utility industry progress in responding to the recommendations of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (The Kemeny Commission). On April 11, 1979, in response to TMI, President Carter established a Commission to conduct '.... a comprehensive study and investigation of the recent accident involving the nuclear power facility on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania'. The Commission was chaired by Dr. John G. Kemeny, then President of Dartmouth College. (A list of all members of The Kemeny Commission is provided in Attachment to the Appendix ). The report of the commission's findings and recommendations was transmitted to the President in October 1979. During this same period, the nuclear utility industry responded to TMI by creating the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) with a mission to promote the highest levels of safety and reliability - to promote excellence - in the operation of nuclear electric generating plants. In addition, the Nuclear Safety Analysis Center (NSAC) was established at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI to evaluate the accident and assist in determining the best industry response. In a White House paper (and press release) of December 7 1979, the President announced that he agreed fully with the spirit and intent of al the Kemeny Commission recommendations and requested that the industry and The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) comply with the recommendations. The President also recognized the industry initiative in establishing INPO and called for several actions involving the Institute; the President directed the Department of Energy and other government agencies to provide assistance to INPO and the industry. An overall status of the nuclear utility industry responses to Kemeny Commission recommendations in the key areas directly related to nuclear plant operations is provided below. A more detailed status of industry responses to the

  8. Tests for the Assessment of Sport-Specific Performance in Olympic Combat Sports: A Systematic Review With Practical Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Helmi Chaabene

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The regular monitoring of physical fitness and sport-specific performance is important in elite sports to increase the likelihood of success in competition. This study aimed to systematically review and to critically appraise the methodological quality, validation data, and feasibility of the sport-specific performance assessment in Olympic combat sports like amateur boxing, fencing, judo, karate, taekwondo, and wrestling. A systematic search was conducted in the electronic databases PubMed, Google-Scholar, and Science-Direct up to October 2017. Studies in combat sports were included that reported validation data (e.g., reliability, validity, sensitivity of sport-specific tests. Overall, 39 studies were eligible for inclusion in this review. The majority of studies (74% contained sample sizes <30 subjects. Nearly, 1/3 of the reviewed studies lacked a sufficient description (e.g., anthropometrics, age, expertise level of the included participants. Seventy-two percent of studies did not sufficiently report inclusion/exclusion criteria of their participants. In 62% of the included studies, the description and/or inclusion of a familiarization session (s was either incomplete or not existent. Sixty-percent of studies did not report any details about the stability of testing conditions. Approximately half of the studies examined reliability measures of the included sport-specific tests (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.43–1.00. Content validity was addressed in all included studies, criterion validity (only the concurrent aspect of it in approximately half of the studies with correlation coefficients ranging from r = −0.41 to 0.90. Construct validity was reported in 31% of the included studies and predictive validity in only one. Test sensitivity was addressed in 13% of the included studies. The majority of studies (64% ignored and/or provided incomplete information on test feasibility and methodological limitations of the sport-specific

  9. Distributed Online Learning in Social Recommender Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2014-08-01

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

  10. A Knowledge Based Recommender System with Multigranular Linguistic Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luis Martinez

    2008-08-01

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

  11. [FEDERAL CLINICAL RECOMMENDATIONS IN DIAGNOSIS, TREATMENT AND PREVENTION OF HEARING LOSS DUE TO NOISE].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adeninskaya, E E; Bukhtiarov, I V; Bushmanov, A Iu; Dayhes, N A; Denisov, E I; Izmerov, N F; Mazitova, N N; Pankova, V B; Preobrazhenskaya, E A; Prokopenko, L V; Simonova, N I; Tavartkiladze, G A; Fedina, I N

    2016-01-01

    Noise induced hearing loss is a slowly developing hearing impairment, caused by occupational exposure to excessive noise levels, constitutes a lesion of the auditory analyzer and clinically manifested as chronic bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Currently, there is not a treatment that provide a cure of sensorineural hearing loss. Regular, individually tailored treatment should be directed to the pathogenic mechanisms and specific clinical symptoms of hearing loss, as well as the prevention of complications. We recommend using non-drug therapies that can improve blood flow in labyrinth, tissue and cellular metabolism.

  12. Naturally occuring radiation in the Nordic countries - recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1986-01-01

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

  13. Recommendations for open data science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gymrek, Melissa; Farjoun, Yossi

    2016-01-01

    Life science research increasingly relies on large-scale computational analyses. However, the code and data used for these analyses are often lacking in publications. To maximize scientific impact, reproducibility, and reuse, it is crucial that these resources are made publicly available and are fully transparent. We provide recommendations for improving the openness of data-driven studies in life sciences.

  14. Hot news recommendation system from heterogeneous websites based on bayesian model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xia, Zhengyou; Xu, Shengwu; Liu, Ningzhong; Zhao, Zhengkang

    2014-01-01

    The most current news recommendations are suitable for news which comes from a single news website, not for news from different heterogeneous news websites. Previous researches about news recommender systems based on different strategies have been proposed to provide news personalization services for online news readers. However, little research work has been reported on utilizing hundreds of heterogeneous news websites to provide top hot news services for group customers (e.g., government staffs). In this paper, we propose a hot news recommendation model based on Bayesian model, which is from hundreds of different news websites. In the model, we determine whether the news is hot news by calculating the joint probability of the news. We evaluate and compare our proposed recommendation model with the results of human experts on the real data sets. Experimental results demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of our method. We also implement this model in hot news recommendation system of Hangzhou city government in year 2013, which achieves very good results.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos A Celis-Morales

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

  17. Private personalized social recommendations in an IPTV system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elmisery, Ahmed M.

    2014-04-01

    In our connected world, recommender systems have become widely known for their ability to provide expert and personalize referrals to end-users in different domains. The rapid growth of social networks and new kinds of systems so called "social recommender systems" are rising, where recommender systems can be utilized to find a suitable content according to end-users' personal preferences. However, preserving end-users' privacy in social recommender systems is a very challenging problem that might prevent end-users from releasing their own data, which detains the accuracy of extracted referrals. In order to gain accurate referrals, social recommender systems should have the ability to preserve the privacy of end-users registered in this system. In this paper, we present a middleware that runs on end-users' Set-top boxes to conceal their profile data when released for generating referrals, such that computation of recommendation proceeds over the concealed data. The proposed middleware is equipped with two concealment protocols to give users a complete control on the privacy level of their profiles. We present an IPTV network scenario and perform a number of different experiments to test the efficiency and accuracy of our protocols. As supported by the experiments, our protocols maintain the recommendations accuracy with acceptable privacy level.

  18. Recommended practice for the neutron radiography of nuclear fuels

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Matfield, R.S.

    1983-01-01

    The document is part of a Neutron Radiography Handbook being prepared by a Neutron Radiography Working Party of the European Community. It commences with a description of the information that should be provided by a user of neutron radiography services and then gives recommendations on the equipment to be used. This is followed by two sections on the techniques to be used for detecting discontinuities and the making of measurements on nuclear fuel. This is then followed by recommended safety practices and then sections on film handling, film processing, viewing of radiographs, references, radiographs, storage and records. Recommendations on training and certification are being prepared. It does not include any technical justification for the practices which are recommended. (Auth.)

  19. Variation in adult vaccination policies across Europe: an overview from VENICE network on vaccine recommendations, funding and coverage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kanitz, Elisabeth E; Wu, Lauren A; Giambi, Cristina; Strikas, Raymond A; Levy-Bruhl, Daniel; Stefanoff, Pawel; Mereckiene, Jolita; Appelgren, Eva; D'Ancona, Fortunato

    2012-07-27

    In 2010-2011, in the framework of the VENICE project, we surveyed European Union (EU) and Economic Area (EEA) countries to fill the gap of information regarding vaccination policies in adults. This project was carried out in collaboration with the United States National Vaccine Program Office, who conducted a similar survey in all developed countries. VENICE representatives of all 29 EU/EEA-countries received an online questionnaire including vaccination schedule, recommendations, funding and coverage in adults for 17 vaccine-preventable diseases. The response rate was 100%. The definition of age threshold for adulthood for the purpose of vaccination ranged from 15 to 19 years (median=18 years). EU/EEA-countries recommend between 4 and 16 vaccines for adults (median=11 vaccines). Tetanus and diphtheria vaccines are recommended to all adults in 22 and 21 countries respectively. The other vaccines are mostly recommended to specific risk groups; recommendations for seasonal influenza and hepatitis B exist in all surveyed countries. Six countries have a comprehensive summary document or schedule describing all vaccines which are recommended for adults. None of the surveyed countries was able to provide coverage estimates for all the recommended adult vaccines. Vaccination policies for adults are not consistent across Europe, including the meaning of "recommended vaccine" which is not comparable among countries. Coverage data for adults should be collected routinely like for children vaccination. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Specification and acceptance testing of radiotherapy treatment planning systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2007-04-01

    Quality assurance (QA) in the radiation therapy treatment planning process is essential to ensure accurate dose delivery to the patient and to minimize the possibility of accidental exposure. The computerized radiotherapy treatment planning systems (RTPSs) are now widely available in industrialized and developing countries and it is of special importance to support hospitals in Member States in developing procedures for acceptance testing, commissioning and QA of their RTPSs. Responding to these needs, a group of experts developed an IAEA publication with such recommendations, which was published in 2004 as IAEA Technical Reports Series No. 430. This report provides a general framework and describes a large number of tests and procedures that should be considered by the users of new RTPSs. However, small hospitals with limited resources or large hospitals with high patient load and limited staff are not always able to perform complete characterization, validation and software testing of algorithms used in RTPSs. Therefore, the IAEA proposed more specific guidelines that provide a step-by-step recommendation for users at hospitals or cancer centres how to implement acceptance and commissioning procedures for newly purchased RTPSs. The current publication was developed in the framework of the Coordinated Research Project on Development of Procedures for Quality Assurance for Dosimetry Calculations in Radiotherapy and uses the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard IEC 62083, Requirements for the Safety of Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Systems as its basis. The report addresses the procedures for specification and acceptance testing of RTPSs to be used by both manufacturers and users at the hospitals. Recommendations are provided for specific tests to be performed at the manufacturing facility known as type tests, and for acceptance tests to be performed at the hospital known as site tests. The purpose of acceptance testing is to demonstrate to the

  1. Cystinosis in adult and adolescent patients: Recommendations for the comprehensive care of cystinosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gema Ariceta

    2015-05-01

    Conclusions: Guidelines for the comprehensive care of cystinosis provide a support tool for health professionals who look after these patients. They are based on the following main pillars: (a a multidisciplinary approach; (b appropriate disease monitoring and control of white blood cell (WBC cystine levels; (c the importance of adherence to cysteamine treatment; and (d the promotion of patient self-care by means of disease education programmes. All these recommendations will lead us, in a second phase, to create a coordinated model of transition from paediatric to adult care services which will cover the specific needs of cystinosis.

  2. Recommendations on the use and design of risk matrices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Duijm, Nijs Jan

    2015-01-01

    of the risk matrix. The objective of this paper is to explore these weaknesses, and provide recommendations for the use and design of risk matrices. The paper reviews the few relevant publications and adds some observations of its own in order to emphasize existing recommendations and add some suggestions...... of its own. The recommendations cover a range of issues, among them: the relation between coloring the risk matrix and the definition of risk and major hazard aversion; the qualitative, subjective assessment of likelihood and consequence; the scaling of the discrete likelihood and consequence categories...

  3. Chapter 7. Critical care triage. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Christian, Michael D.; Joynt, Gavin M.; Hick, John L.; Colvin, John; Danis, Marion; Sprung, Charles L.; Christian, Micahel D.; Camargo, Ruben; Ceraso, Daniel; Azoulay, Elie; Duguet, Alexandre; Guery, Benoit; Reinhart, Konrad; Adini, Bruria; Barlavie, Yaron; Benin-Goren, Odeda; Cohen, Robert; Klein, Motti; Leoniv, Yuval; Margalit, Gila; Rubinovitch, Bina; Sonnenblick, Moshe; Steinberg, Avraham; Weissman, Charles; Wolff, Donna; Kesecioglu, Jozef; de Jong, Menno; Moreno, Rui; An, Youzhong; Du, Bin; Loo, Shi; Richards, Guy; Artigas, Antonio; Pugin, Jerome; Amundson, Dennis; Devereaux, Asha; Beigel, John; Farmer, Chris; Maki, Dennis; Masur, Henry; Rubinson, Lewis; Sandrock, Christian; Talmor, Daniel; Truog, Robert; Zimmerman, Janice; Brett, Steve; Montgomery, Hugh; Rhodes, Andrew; Sanderson, Frances; Taylor, Bruce

    2010-01-01

    To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital preparations for an influenza pandemic or mass disaster with a specific focus on critical care triage. Based on a literature review and expert opinion, a Delphi process was used to define the

  4. Reducing Delay in Diagnosis: Multistage Recommendation Tracking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wandtke, Ben; Gallagher, Sarah

    2017-11-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine whether a multistage tracking system could improve communication between health care providers, reducing the risk of delay in diagnosis related to inconsistent communication and tracking of radiology follow-up recommendations. Unconditional recommendations for imaging follow-up of all diagnostic imaging modalities excluding mammography (n = 589) were entered into a database and tracked through a multistage tracking system for 13 months. Tracking interventions were performed for patients for whom completion of recommended follow-up imaging could not be identified 1 month after the recommendation due date. Postintervention compliance with the follow-up recommendation required examination completion or clinical closure (i.e., biopsy, limited life expectancy or death, or subspecialist referral). Baseline radiology information system checks performed 1 month after the recommendation due date revealed timely completion of 43.1% of recommended imaging studies at our institution before intervention. Three separate tracking interventions were studied, showing effectiveness between 29.0% and 57.8%. The multistage tracking system increased the examination completion rate to 70.5% (a 52% increase) and reduced the rate of unknown follow-up compliance and the associated risk of delay in diagnosis to 13.9% (a 74% decrease). Examinations completed after tracking intervention generated revenue of 4.1 times greater than the labor cost. Performing sequential radiology recommendation tracking interventions can substantially reduce the rate of unknown follow-up compliance and add value to the health system. Unknown follow-up compliance is a risk factor for delay in diagnosis, a form of preventable medical error commonly identified in malpractice claims involving radiologists and office-based practitioners.

  5. Achieving Appropriate Gestational Weight Gain: The Role of Healthcare Provider Advice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deputy, Nicholas P; Sharma, Andrea J; Kim, Shin Y; Olson, Christine K

    2018-01-10

    The Institute of Medicine (IOM) revised gestational weight gain recommendations in 2009. We examined associations between healthcare provider advice about gestational weight gain and inadequate or excessive weight gain, stratified by prepregnancy body mass index category. We analyzed cross-sectional data from women delivering full-term (37-42 weeks of gestation), singleton infants from four states that participated in the 2010-2011 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (unweighted n = 7125). Women reported the weight gain range (start and end values) advised by their healthcare provider; advice was categorized as follows: starting below recommendations, starting and ending within recommendations (IOM consistent), ending above recommendations, not remembered, or not received. We examined associations between healthcare provider advice and inadequate or excessive, compared with appropriate, gestational weight gain using adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Overall, 26.3% of women reported receiving IOM-consistent healthcare provider advice; 26.0% received no advice. Compared with IOM-consistent advice, advice below recommendations was associated with higher likelihood of inadequate weight gain among underweight (aPR 2.22, CI 1.29-3.82) and normal weight women (aPR 1.57, CI 1.23-2.02); advice above recommendations was associated with higher likelihood of excessive weight gain among all but underweight women (aPR range 1.36, CI 1.08-1.72 to aPR 1.42, CI 1.19-1.71). Not remembering or not receiving advice was associated with both inadequate and excessive weight gain. Few women reported receiving IOM-consistent advice; not receiving IOM-consistent advice put women at-risk for weight gain outside recommendations. Strategies that raise awareness of IOM recommendations and address barriers to providing advice are needed.

  6. Redundant correlation effect on personalized recommendation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qiu, Tian; Han, Teng-Yue; Zhong, Li-Xin; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Chen, Guang

    2014-02-01

    The high-order redundant correlation effect is investigated for a hybrid algorithm of heat conduction and mass diffusion (HHM), through both heat conduction biased (HCB) and mass diffusion biased (MDB) correlation redundancy elimination processes. The HCB and MDB algorithms do not introduce any additional tunable parameters, but keep the simple character of the original HHM. Based on two empirical datasets, the Netflix and MovieLens, the HCB and MDB are found to show better recommendation accuracy for both the overall objects and the cold objects than the HHM algorithm. Our work suggests that properly eliminating the high-order redundant correlations can provide a simple and effective approach to accurate recommendation.

  7. An Automatic User Grouping Model for a Group Recommender System in Location-Based Social Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elahe Khazaei

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Spatial group recommendation refers to suggesting places to a given set of users. In a group recommender system, members of a group should have similar preferences in order to increase the level of satisfaction. Location-based social networks (LBSNs provide rich content, such as user interactions and location/event descriptions, which can be leveraged for group recommendations. In this paper, an automatic user grouping model is introduced that obtains information about users and their preferences through an LBSN. The preferences of the users, proximity of the places the users have visited in terms of spatial range, users’ free days, and the social relationships among users are extracted automatically from location histories and users’ profiles in the LBSN. These factors are combined to determine the similarities among users. The users are partitioned into groups based on these similarities. Group size is the key to coordinating group members and enhancing their satisfaction. Therefore, a modified k-medoids method is developed to cluster users into groups with specific sizes. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method, its mean intra-cluster distance and its distribution of cluster sizes are compared to those of general clustering algorithms. The results reveal that the proposed method compares favourably with general clustering approaches, such as k-medoids and spectral clustering, in separating users into groups of a specific size with a lower mean intra-cluster distance.

  8. Preconception care policy, guidelines, recommendations and services across six European countries

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shawe, Jill; Delbaere, Ilse; Ekstrand, Maria

    2015-01-01

    : Governmental policy and legislation; Professional bodies and organisations; Healthcare providers; Charitable organisations; Web-based public information and internet sites. Results All countries had preconception recommendations for women with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and epilepsy. Recommendations...

  9. Study on Personalized Recommendation Model of Internet Advertisement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Ning; Chen, Yongyue; Zhang, Huiping

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

  10. A New Profile Learning Model for Recommendation System based on Machine Learning Technique

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shereen H. Ali

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Recommender systems (RSs have been used to successfully address the information overload problem by providing personalized and targeted recommendations to the end users. RSs are software tools and techniques providing suggestions for items to be of use to a user, hence, they typically apply techniques and methodologies from Data Mining. The main contribution of this paper is to introduce a new user profile learning model to promote the recommendation accuracy of vertical recommendation systems. The proposed profile learning model employs the vertical classifier that has been used in multi classification module of the Intelligent Adaptive Vertical Recommendation (IAVR system to discover the user’s area of interest, and then build the user’s profile accordingly. Experimental results have proven the effectiveness of the proposed profile learning model, which accordingly will promote the recommendation accuracy.

  11. Electronic Resources Management System: Recommendation Report 2017

    KAUST Repository

    Ramli, Rindra M.

    2017-01-01

    This recommendation report provides an overview of the selection process for the new Electronic Resources Management System. The library has decided to move away from Innovative Interfaces Millennium ERM module. The library reviewed 3 system

  12. Recommendations for citizen-oriented risk communication

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fertmann, R.

    2005-01-01

    The purpose of recommendations for citizen-oriented risk communication should be to provide ''banisters'' which leave the players their freedom of action and allow them to adapt communicative structures to the situation at hand. Uncertainty and controversial issues at the levels of information, participation and assessment are identified as potential stumbling blocks in risk communication. The experiences gained in Hamburg shed a light on a diversity of processes in risk communication, which the present paper proceeds to evaluate. One of its essential recommendations is to have dialogic processes develop into forms of participation. A guide on risk communication which was formulated in the USA has been adapted to conditions as they prevail in Germany. The adapted version is more practically oriented than the rules of the EPA or the more recent CDC recommendations. Suitable success criteria include a fair procedure, a common baseline of what is known and not known, the acceptance of different assessment criteria, and the exchange of the pros and cons of different options

  13. Understanding Older Adult's Perceptions of Factors that Support Trust in Human and Robot Care Providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stuck, Rachel E; Rogers, Wendy A

    2017-06-01

    As the population of older adults increase so will the need for care providers, both human and robot. Trust is a key aspect to establish and maintain a successful older adult-care provider relationship. However, due to trust volatility it is essential to understand it within specific contexts. This proposed mixed methods study will explore what dimensions of trust emerge as important within the human-human and human-robot dyads in older adults and care providers. First, this study will help identify key qualities that support trust in a care provider relationship. By understanding what older adults perceive as needing to trust humans and robots for various care tasks, we can begin to provide recommendations based on user expectations for design to support trust.

  14. Four simple recommendations to encourage best practices in research software.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiménez, Rafael C; Kuzak, Mateusz; Alhamdoosh, Monther; Barker, Michelle; Batut, Bérénice; Borg, Mikael; Capella-Gutierrez, Salvador; Chue Hong, Neil; Cook, Martin; Corpas, Manuel; Flannery, Madison; Garcia, Leyla; Gelpí, Josep Ll; Gladman, Simon; Goble, Carole; González Ferreiro, Montserrat; Gonzalez-Beltran, Alejandra; Griffin, Philippa C; Grüning, Björn; Hagberg, Jonas; Holub, Petr; Hooft, Rob; Ison, Jon; Katz, Daniel S; Leskošek, Brane; López Gómez, Federico; Oliveira, Luis J; Mellor, David; Mosbergen, Rowland; Mulder, Nicola; Perez-Riverol, Yasset; Pergl, Robert; Pichler, Horst; Pope, Bernard; Sanz, Ferran; Schneider, Maria V; Stodden, Victoria; Suchecki, Radosław; Svobodová Vařeková, Radka; Talvik, Harry-Anton; Todorov, Ilian; Treloar, Andrew; Tyagi, Sonika; van Gompel, Maarten; Vaughan, Daniel; Via, Allegra; Wang, Xiaochuan; Watson-Haigh, Nathan S; Crouch, Steve

    2017-01-01

    Scientific research relies on computer software, yet software is not always developed following practices that ensure its quality and sustainability. This manuscript does not aim to propose new software development best practices, but rather to provide simple recommendations that encourage the adoption of existing best practices. Software development best practices promote better quality software, and better quality software improves the reproducibility and reusability of research. These recommendations are designed around Open Source values, and provide practical suggestions that contribute to making research software and its source code more discoverable, reusable and transparent. This manuscript is aimed at developers, but also at organisations, projects, journals and funders that can increase the quality and sustainability of research software by encouraging the adoption of these recommendations.

  15. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents Aged 18 Years or Younger - United States, 2018.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robinson, Candice L; Romero, José R; Kempe, Allison; Pellegrini, Cynthia; Szilagyi, Peter

    2018-02-09

    In October 2017, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) approved the Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents Aged 18 Years or Younger - United States, 2018. The 2018 child and adolescent immunization schedule summarizes ACIP recommendations, including several changes from the 2017 immunization schedules, in three figures and footnotes to the figures. These documents can be found on the CDC immunization schedule website (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/index.html). These immunization schedules are approved by ACIP (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html), the American Academy of Pediatrics (https://www.aap.org), the American Academy of Family Physicians (https://www.aafp.org), and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (https://www.acog.org). Health care providers are advised to use the figures and the footnotes together. The full ACIP recommendations for each vaccine, including contraindications and precautions, can be found at https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/acip-recs/index.html. Providers should be aware that changes in recommendations for specific vaccines can occur between annual updates to the childhood/adolescent immunization schedules. If errors or omissions are discovered within the child and adolescent schedule, CDC posts revised versions on the CDC immunization schedule website.

  16. Recommending Peers for Learning: Matching on Dissimilarity in Interpretations to Provoke Breakdown

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rajagopal, Kamakshi; van Bruggen, Jan M.; Sloep, Peter B.

    2017-01-01

    People recommenders are a widespread feature of social networking sites and educational social learning platforms alike. However, when these systems are used to extend learners' Personal Learning Networks, they often fall short of providing recommendations of learning value to their users. This paper proposes a design of a people recommender based…

  17. Dietary Recommendations for Cyclists during Altitude Training

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Małgorzata Michalczyk

    2016-06-01

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

  18. A Novel and Optimized Product Recommendation Method in E-commerce

    OpenAIRE

    Madani, Fariborz Mousavi; Memari, Mozhgan

    2007-01-01

    The rapid growth of e-commerce has caused product overload where customers on the Web are no longer able to effectively choose the products they are exposed to. Developing an intelligent recommendation system is proposed to overcome the problem of overloaded product's information provided by the e-commerce enterprises. This paper proposes a new hybrid recommendation scheme, called NOVEL, based on CF, WebCF-AR and WebCF-PT to enhance the recommendation quality and the system performance o...

  19. Mobile Apps Providing Tailored Nursing Interventions for Patients with Metabolic Syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeon, Eunjoo; Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Jo, Soojung; Kang, Hannah; Lee, Joo Yun

    2016-01-01

    This study developed and evaluated four mobile applications (apps) that provide tailored nursing recommendations for metabolic syndrome management. Mobile apps for obesity, gestational diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia management were developed according to the system development life cycle and evaluations by experts and users. Six lifestyle management and five disease-specific knowledge domains were extracted. Functions such as 'Log in' and 'Record data using diary' to be used in all of the apps were extracted, while disease-specific functions were also extracted, including 'Determine the goal' to be used in the obesity app. The proficiency and efficiency of the algorithms ranged from 69.0 to 100.0. In a heuristics evaluation all of the problems were resolved and all of the usability scores exceeded 3.5 out of 5. This study demonstrates that metabolic syndrome can be effectively managed using special functions provided by smartphones, such as automatic feedback, alerts, diaries, and social media integration. Future work will include integrating and harmonizing these four apps in order to improve their semantic interoperability.

  20. Chapter 5. Essential equipment, pharmaceuticals and supplies. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sprung, Charles L.; Kesecioglu, Jozef; Christian, Michael D.; Camargo, Ruben; Ceraso, Daniel; Azoulay, Elie; Duguet, Alexandre; Guery, Benoit; Reinhart, Konrad; Adini, Bruria; Barlavie, Yaron; Benin-Goren, Odeda; Cohen, Robert; Klein, Motti; Leoniv, Yuval; Margalit, Gila; Rubinovitch, Bina; Sonnenblick, Moshe; Steinberg, Avraham; Weissman, Charles; Wolff, Donna; de Jong, Menno; Moreno, Rui; An, Youzhong; Du, Bin; Joynt, Gavin M.; Colvin, John; Loo, Shi; Richards, Guy; Artigas, Antonio; Pugin, Jerome; Amundson, Dennis; Devereaux, Asha; Beigel, John; Danis, Marion; Farmer, Chris; Hick, John L.; Maki, Dennis; Masur, Henry; Rubinson, Lewis; Sandrock, Christian; Talmor, Daniel; Truog, Robert; Zimmerman, Janice; Brett, Steve; Montgomery, Hugh; Rhodes, Andrew; Sanderson, Frances; Taylor, Bruce

    2010-01-01

    To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza pandemic or mass disaster with a specific focus on essential equipment, pharmaceuticals and supplies. Based on a literature review and expert opinion, a Delphi process was

  1. Fractional lasers in dermatology - Current status and recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Apratim Goel

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Fractional laser technology is a new emerging technology to improve scars, fine lines, dyspigmentation, striae and wrinkles. The technique is easy, safe to use and has been used effectively for several clinical and cosmetic indications in Indian skin. Devices: Different fractional laser machines, with different wavelengths, both ablative and non-ablative, are now available in India. A detailed understanding of the device being used is recommended. Indications: Common indications include resurfacing for acne, chickenpox and surgical scars, periorbital and perioral wrinkles, photoageing changes, facial dyschromias. The use of fractional lasers in stretch marks, melasma and other pigmentary conditions, dermatological conditions such as granuloma annulare has been reported. But further data are needed before adopting them for routine use in such conditions. Physician qualification: Any qualified dermatologist may administer fractional laser treatment. He/ she should possess a Master′s degree or diploma in dermatology and should have had specific hands-on training in lasers, either during postgraduation or later at a facility which routinely performs laser procedures under a competent dermatologist or plastic surgeon with experience and training in using lasers. Since parameters may vary with different systems, specific training tailored towards the concerned device at either the manufacturer′s facility or at another center using the machine is recommended. Facility: Fractional lasers can be used in the dermatologist′s minor procedure room for the above indications. Preoperative counseling and Informed consent: Detailed counseling with respect to the treatment, desired effects and possible postoperative complications should be provided to the patient. The patient should be provided brochures to study and also adequate opportunity to seek information. A detailed consent form needs to be completed by the patient. Consent form should

  2. EULAR evidence-based recommendations for the management of fibromyalgia syndrome

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Carville, S.F.; Arendt-Nielsen, S.; Bliddal, H.

    2008-01-01

    Objective: To develop evidence-based recommendations for the management of fibromyalgia syndrome. Methods: A multidisciplinary task force was formed representing 11 European countries. The design of the study, including search strategy, participants, interventions, outcome measures, data collection...... quality studies were used to base recommendations on. When there was insufficient evidence from the literature, a Delphi process was used to provide basis for recommendation. Results: 146 studies were eligible for the review. 39 pharmacological intervention studies and 59 non-pharmacological were included......-pharmacological''. In many studies sample size was small and the quality of the study was insufficient for strong recommendations to be made. Conclusions: Nine recommendations for the management of fibromyalgia syndrome were developed using a systematic review and expert consensus Udgivelsesdato: 2008/4...

  3. Vaccination recommended for pregnant women

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Justyna Magdalena Skolarczyk

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available A vaccine is a formulation of biological origin that contains substances capable of inducing immune processes without the ability to cause a disease. Vaccination is considered the best mean to prevent infectious diseases and their serious complications. Vaccination of a pregnant women can provide protection against severe infectious diseases of both pregnant women and their children. The aim of the study is to present currently available types of vaccines recommended for pregnant women and indications for their use by analyzing the data available in the PubMed, and Medline electronic databases. In the United States, vaccination recommendations for pregnant women include inactivated influenza vaccine and tetanus and diphtheria toxoid vaccine (Tdap. In some countries, pregnant women also receive a vaccine against hepatitis B as well as anti hepatitis A and E. There are also studies on vaccines against the RSV virus and pneumococci. Vaccination is the most effective form of prevention of infectious diseases and their use during pregnancy does not entail any additional risk to the mother or her baby. The benefits of vaccination are huge, so pregnant women should take  recommended vaccination and shouldn’t  be afraid of using them.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-04-01

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

  5. Revisiting safe sleep recommendations for African-American infants: why current counseling is insufficient.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaydos, Laura M; Blake, Sarah C; Gazmararian, Julie A; Woodruff, Whitney; Thompson, Winifred W; Dalmida, Safiya George

    2015-03-01

    The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children be placed in the supine position on firm bedding and not bed share with parents or other children. Health professionals increasingly understand that many African-American parents do not follow these recommendations, but little research exists on provider reactions to this non-compliance. This study was intended to better understand how low-income, African-American mothers understand and act upon safe sleep recommendations for newborns and how providers counsel these mothers. We conducted focus groups with 60 African-American, low-income, first-time mothers and telephone interviews with 20 providers serving these populations to explore provider counseling and patient decision making. The large majority of mothers reported understanding, but not following, the safe-sleeping recommendations. Key reasons for non-compliance included perceived safety, convenience, quality of infant sleep and conflicting information from family members. Mothers often take measures intended to mitigate risk associated with noncompliance, instead increasing SIDS risk. Providers recognize that many mothers are non-compliant and attribute non-compliance largely to cultural and familial influence. However, few provider attempts are made to mitigate SIDS risks from non-compliant behaviors. We suggest that counseling strategies should be adapted to: (1) provide greater detailed rationale for SIDS prevention recommendations; and (2) incorporate or acknowledge familial and cultural preferences. Ignoring the reasons for sleep decisions by African-American parents may perpetuate ongoing racial/ethnic disparities in SIDS.

  6. Specific descriptions of functional providing of the special endurance of boxers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S.B. Kiprich

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: to determine the specific characteristics of functional and metabolic support of special endurance of qualified boxers. Material: in research took part 16 boxers of high qualification at the age of 19-26 years. To estimate special endurance is used technique of detection the basic parameters of performance boxers "Spuderg-10." To estimate the response of cardiorespiratory system during the test "3x3" is used portable ergo-spirometry complex «Meta Max 3B» (Cortex, Germany. Results: It is shown that the range of individual distinctions of indexes of capacity and functional providing of the special endurance increased in every round under act of accumulation of fatigue. It is related to distinctions of kinetics of the cardiorespiratory system (by the increase of pulmonary ventilation in the first round, by the consumption of О 2 (by a capacity for the achievement of VO 2 max - in the second and by power of reaction of respiratory indemnification of metabolic acidosis - in the third. These distinctions are registered in default of reliable distinctions of quantitative descriptions of acidemic changes in an organism, increasing in the process of the test job processing. Conclusions: in different periods (rounds in boxers high grade found differences of manifestation and combinations of properties features of functional readiness.

  7. Personalized recommendation based on preferential bidirectional mass diffusion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Guilin; Gao, Tianrun; Zhu, Xuzhen; Tian, Hui; Yang, Zhao

    2017-03-01

    Recommendation system provides a promising way to alleviate the dilemma of information overload. In physical dynamics, mass diffusion has been used to design effective recommendation algorithms on bipartite network. However, most of the previous studies focus overwhelmingly on unidirectional mass diffusion from collected objects to uncollected objects, while overlooking the opposite direction, leading to the risk of similarity estimation deviation and performance degradation. In addition, they are biased towards recommending popular objects which will not necessarily promote the accuracy but make the recommendation lack diversity and novelty that indeed contribute to the vitality of the system. To overcome the aforementioned disadvantages, we propose a preferential bidirectional mass diffusion (PBMD) algorithm by penalizing the weight of popular objects in bidirectional diffusion. Experiments are evaluated on three benchmark datasets (Movielens, Netflix and Amazon) by 10-fold cross validation, and results indicate that PBMD remarkably outperforms the mainstream methods in accuracy, diversity and novelty.

  8. Dietary Supplements and Young Teens: Misinformation and Access Provided by Retailers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herriman, Maguire; Fletcher, Laura; Tchaconas, Alexis; Adesman, Andrew; Milanaik, Ruth

    2017-02-01

    Despite the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendations against pediatric use of creatine and testosterone boosters, research suggests that many young teenagers take these dietary supplements. Our objective was to determine to what extent health food stores would recommend and/or sell creatine and testosterone boosters to a 15-year-old boy customer. Research personnel posing as 15-year-old high school athletes seeking to increase muscle strength contacted 244 health food stores in the United States via telephone. Researchers asked the sales attendant what supplements he/she would recommend. If a sales attendant did not mention creatine or testosterone boosters initially, each of these supplements was then specifically asked about. Supplement recommendations were recorded. Sales attendants were also asked if a 15-year-old could purchase these products on his own in the store. A total of 67.2% (164/244) of sales attendants recommended creatine: 38.5% (94/244) recommended creatine without prompting, and an additional 28.7% (70/244) recommended creatine after being asked specifically about it. A total of 9.8% (24/244) of sales attendants recommended a testosterone booster. Regarding availability for sale, 74.2% (181/244) of sales attendants stated a 15-year-old was allowed to purchase creatine, whereas 41.4% (101/244) stated one could purchase a testosterone booster. Health food store employees frequently recommend creatine and testosterone boosters for boy high school athletes. In response to these findings, pediatricians should inform their teenage patients, especially athletes, about safe, healthy methods to improve athletic performance and discourage them from using creatine or testosterone boosters. Retailers and state legislatures should also consider banning the sale of these products to minors. Copyright © 2017 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

  9. Recommender engine for continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Li; Yang, Yi-feng; Wang, Lei

    2017-03-01

    Recommender systems play an essential role in the modern business world. They recommend favorable items such as books, movies, and search queries to users based on their past preferences. Applying similar ideas and techniques to Monte Carlo simulations of physical systems boosts their efficiency without sacrificing accuracy. Exploiting the quantum to classical mapping inherent in the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo methods, we construct a classical molecular gas model to reproduce the quantum distributions. We then utilize powerful molecular simulation techniques to propose efficient quantum Monte Carlo updates. The recommender engine approach provides a general way to speed up the quantum impurity solvers.

  10. The APOSTEL recommendations for reporting quantitative optical coherence tomography studies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cruz-Herranz, Andrés; Balk, Lisanne J; Oberwahrenbrock, Timm

    2016-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: To develop consensus recommendations for reporting of quantitative optical coherence tomography (OCT) study results. METHODS: A panel of experienced OCT researchers (including 11 neurologists, 2 ophthalmologists, and 2 neuroscientists) discussed requirements for performing and reporting...... quantitative analyses of retinal morphology and developed a list of initial recommendations based on experience and previous studies. The list of recommendations was subsequently revised during several meetings of the coordinating group. RESULTS: We provide a 9-point checklist encompassing aspects deemed...... relevant when reporting quantitative OCT studies. The areas covered are study protocol, acquisition device, acquisition settings, scanning protocol, funduscopic imaging, postacquisition data selection, postacquisition data analysis, recommended nomenclature, and statistical analysis. CONCLUSIONS...

  11. Hot News Recommendation System from Heterogeneous Websites Based on Bayesian Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhengyou Xia

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The most current news recommendations are suitable for news which comes from a single news website, not for news from different heterogeneous news websites. Previous researches about news recommender systems based on different strategies have been proposed to provide news personalization services for online news readers. However, little research work has been reported on utilizing hundreds of heterogeneous news websites to provide top hot news services for group customers (e.g., government staffs. In this paper, we propose a hot news recommendation model based on Bayesian model, which is from hundreds of different news websites. In the model, we determine whether the news is hot news by calculating the joint probability of the news. We evaluate and compare our proposed recommendation model with the results of human experts on the real data sets. Experimental results demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of our method. We also implement this model in hot news recommendation system of Hangzhou city government in year 2013, which achieves very good results.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masood, Mona; Mokmin, Nur Azlina Mohamed

    2017-10-01

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

  13. A multi-agent brokerage platform for media content recommendation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Veloso Bruno

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Near real time media content personalisation is nowadays a major challenge involving media content sources, distributors and viewers. This paper describes an approach to seamless recommendation, negotiation and transaction of personalised media content. It adopts an integrated view of the problem by proposing, on the business-to-business (B2B side, a brokerage platform to negotiate the media items on behalf of the media content distributors and sources, providing viewers, on the business-to-consumer (B2C side, with a personalised electronic programme guide (EPG containing the set of recommended items after negotiation. In this setup, when a viewer connects, the distributor looks up and invites sources to negotiate the contents of the viewer personal EPG. The proposed multi-agent brokerage platform is structured in four layers, modelling the registration, service agreement, partner lookup, invitation as well as item recommendation, negotiation and transaction stages of the B2B processes. The recommendation service is a rule-based switch hybrid filter, including six collaborative and two content-based filters. The rule-based system selects, at runtime, the filter(s to apply as well as the final set of recommendations to present. The filter selection is based on the data available, ranging from the history of items watched to the ratings and/or tags assigned to the items by the viewer. Additionally, this module implements (i a novel item stereotype to represent newly arrived items, (ii a standard user stereotype for new users, (iii a novel passive user tag cloud stereotype for socially passive users, and (iv a new content-based filter named the collinearity and proximity similarity (CPS. At the end of the paper, we present off-line results and a case study describing how the recommendation service works. The proposed system provides, to our knowledge, an excellent holistic solution to the problem of recommending multimedia contents.

  14. Commentary Considerations for Recommending Extended Use and Limited Reuse of Filtering Facepiece Respirators in Health Care Settings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Edward M.; Shaffer, Ronald E.

    2015-01-01

    Public health organizations, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are increasingly recommending the use of N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) in health care settings. For infection control purposes, the usual practice is to discard FFRs after close contact with a patient (“single use”). However, in some situations, such as during contact with tuberculosis patients, limited FFR reuse (i.e., repeated donning and doffing of the same FFR by the same person) is practiced. A related practice, extended use, involves wearing the same FFR for multiple patient encounters without doffing. Extended use and limited FFR reuse have been recommended during infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics to conserve FFR supplies. This commentary examines CDC recommendations related to FFR extended use and limited reuse and analyzes available data from the literature to provide a relative estimate of the risks of these practices compared to single use. Analysis of the available data and the use of disease transmission models indicate that decisions regarding whether FFR extended use or reuse should be recommended should continue to be pathogen- and event-specific. Factors to be included in developing the recommendations are the potential for the pathogen to spread via contact transmission, the potential that the event could result in or is currently causing a FFR shortage, the protection provided by FFR use, human factors, potential for self-inoculation, the potential for secondary exposures, and government policies and regulations. While recent findings largely support the previous recommendations for extended use and limited reuse in certain situations, some new cautions and limitations should be considered before issuing recommendations in the future. In general, extended use of FFRs is preferred over limited FFR reuse. Limited FFR reuse would allow the user a brief respite from extended wear times, but increases the risk of self-inoculation and

  15. Algorithms for Academic Search and Recommendation Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Amolochitis, Emmanouil

    2014-01-01

    are part of a developed Movie Recommendation system, the first such system to be commercially deployed in Greece by a major Triple Play services provider. In the third part of the work we present the design of a quantitative association rule mining algorithm. The introduced mining algorithm processes......In this work we present novel algorithms for academic search, recommendation and association rules mining. In the first part of the work we introduce a novel hierarchical heuristic scheme for re-ranking academic publications. The scheme is based on the hierarchical combination of a custom...... implementation of the term frequency heuristic, a time-depreciated citation score and a graph-theoretic computed score that relates the paper’s index terms with each other. On the second part we describe the design of hybrid recommender ensemble (user, item and content based). The newly introduced algorithms...

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

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1988-12-01

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

  17. Recommendations, requirements, and radioactive particles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bell, J.M.

    1991-01-01

    Hot particles consisting of activated metal debris and fuel fragments have received increased attention in the last five years. This increased attention resulted from the increased use of more sensitive whole body friskers at nuclear power plants, the relatively high local skin doses associated with the particles, and skin dose limits that were established before hot particles, and skin dose limits that were established before hot particles became a problem and before radiobiological effects data for the particles became available. The skin dose distribution and biological effects associated with hot particles differ from those associated with more uniform skin contamination and differences exist in the scientific community as to which effects should be protected against by a limit on exposures from particles. The NRC staff recognized the need for provisions in the Federal regulations specific to hot particle exposures and requested guidance from the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP). NCRP Report No. 106 was provided to the NRC early in 1990. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is also developing recommendations for limits on exposures from hot particles. The NRC is supporting research on hot particle effects and will likely develop a rule for hot particle exposures

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan Guo

    2017-10-01

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

  19. A Transitive Recommendation System for Information Technology Communities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hesham Ali

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Social networks have become a new trend for research among computer scientist around the world. Social network had an impact on users' way of life. One of social network usages is recommendation systems. The need of recommendation systems is arising when users try to know best choice for them in many items types (books, experts, locations, technologies...etc. The problem is that a single person can't try all alternatives in all possibles life goals to compare. Thus, a person has to use his friends' expertise to select better option in any item category. This process is the main idea of “Recommendation Systems”. Recommendation systems usually depend on users-to-items ratings in a network (graph. Two main challenges for recommendation systems are accuracy of recommendation and computation size. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a suggested technique for transitive recommendation system based on users' collaborative ratings, and also to balance loading of computation. All this has to be applied on a special type of social network. Our work studied the transitivity usage in connections to get a relation (path as a recommendation for nodes not directly connected. The target social network has eight types of nodes. So, there are techniques that are not suitable to this complex type of network. Those we can present a new support for recommending items of several types to users with several types. We believe that this functionality hasn't been fully provided elsewhere. We have suggested using single source shortest path algorithm combined with Map Reduce technique, and mathematically deduced that we have a speeding up of algorithm by 10% approximately. Our testing results shows an accuracy of 89% and false rejection of 99% compared to traditional algorithms with less configuration parameters and more steady count of recommendations.

  20. Recommendations for Assessment of the Reliability, Sensitivity, and Validity of Data Provided by Wearable Sensors Designed for Monitoring Physical Activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Düking, Peter; Fuss, Franz Konstantin; Holmberg, Hans-Christer; Sperlich, Billy

    2018-04-30

    Although it is becoming increasingly popular to monitor parameters related to training, recovery, and health with wearable sensor technology (wearables), scientific evaluation of the reliability, sensitivity, and validity of such data is limited and, where available, has involved a wide variety of approaches. To improve the trustworthiness of data collected by wearables and facilitate comparisons, we have outlined recommendations for standardized evaluation. We discuss the wearable devices themselves, as well as experimental and statistical considerations. Adherence to these recommendations should be beneficial not only for the individual, but also for regulatory organizations and insurance companies. ©Peter Düking, Franz Konstantin Fuss, Hans-Christer Holmberg, Billy Sperlich. Originally published in JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 30.04.2018.

  1. Recommendations for designing and conducting veterinary clinical pathology biologic variation studies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Freeman, Kathleen P; Baral, Randolph M; Dhand, Navneet K

    2017-01-01

    The recent creation of a veterinary clinical pathology biologic variation website has highlighted the need to provide recommendations for future studies of biologic variation in animals in order to help standardize and improve the quality of published information and to facilitate review......). These recommendations provide a valuable resource for clinicians, laboratorians, and researchers interested in conducting studies of biologic variation and in determining the quality of studies of biologic variation in veterinary laboratory testing....

  2. Dementia-specific training for nursing home staff : A systematic literature review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riesch, Julia; Meyer, Lucy; Lehr, Bosco; Severin, Thomas

    2017-08-22

    For people with dementia high-quality care is vital, since at present dementia cannot be cured. In nursing homes this care is provided by the staff, who therefore require dementia-specific training enabling them to improve the quality of life for people with dementia. This article compares existing dementia-specific training for nursing home staff with recommendations, based on the current state of research, by the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and discusses the outcome of this training. A systematic review of the literature was conducted to identify studies addressing dementia-specific training. The electronic databases Embase, Medline, Cochrane, CINAHL, PsychINFO, PSYNDEX, and ScienceDirect were searched. The training topics most commonly considered were person-centered care, communicating with people affected by dementia, and information about dementia. The roles of different social and healthcare professionals, palliative care of people with dementia, and understanding family dynamics are least featured in the training. There are training concepts which focus not only on the transfer of knowledge but also on practical exercises. In general, the recommended topics were addressed in dementia-specific training concepts, but there is potential for optimization. Further research is needed to identify success criteria in dementia-specific training and identify the successful combination of theoretical knowledge and practical exercise.

  3. HPV vaccine hesitancy: findings from a statewide survey of health care providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McRee, Annie-Laurie; Gilkey, Melissa B; Dempsey, Amanda F

    2014-01-01

    Health care provider recommendations are critical for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake. We sought to describe providers' HPV vaccine recommendation practices and explore their perceptions of parental hesitancy. A statewide sample (n = 575) of Minnesota health care providers (20% pediatricians, 47% family medicine physicians, and 33% nurse practitioners) completed our online survey in April 2013. Only 76% of health care providers reported routinely recommending HPV vaccine for girls ages 11 to 12 years, and far fewer (46%) did so for boys (p parents' concerns (74%), but many lacked time to probe reasons (47%) or believed that they could not change parents' minds (55%). Higher levels of self-efficacy and outcome expectations were associated with routine recommendations (p HPV vaccine. Improving providers' self-efficacy to address hesitancy may be important for improving vaccination rates. Copyright © 2014 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Tanks 18 And 19-F Structural Flowable Grout Fill Material Evaluation And Recommendations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Langton, C. A.; Stefanko, D. B.

    2013-01-01

    ) Prepare samples for hydraulic property measurements for comparison to the values in the F and H- Tank Farm Performance Assessments (PAs). 5) Identify a grout mix for the Tanks 18-F and 19-F Grout Procurement Specification [Forty, 2011 a, b, c]. Results for two flowable zero bleed structural fill concepts containing 3/8 inch gravel (70070 Series and LP no. 8 Series) and a sand only mix (SO Series) are provided in this report. Tank Farm Engineering and SRNL Project Management selected the 70070 mix as the base case for inclusion in Revision 0 of the Tanks 18-F and 19-F grout procurement specification [Forty 2011 a] and requested admixture recommendations and property confirmation for this formulation [Forty, 2011 b]. Lower cementitious paste mixes were formulated because the 70070 mix is over designed with respect to strength and generates more heat from hydration reactions than is desirable for mass pour application. Work was also initiated on a modification of the recommended mix which included shrinkage compensation to mitigate fast pathways caused by shrinkage cracking and poor physical bonding to the tank and ancillary equipment. Testing of this option was postponed to FY12. Mix, LP no. 8-16 is recommended for inclusion in the specification for furnishing and delivering tank closure grout for Tanks 18-F and 19-F [Forty, 2011 c]. A shrinkage compensating variation of this mix, LP no 16C, has not been fully developed and characterized at this time

  5. Tanks 18 And 19-F Structural Flowable Grout Fill Material Evaluation And Recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Langton, C. A.; Stefanko, D. B.

    2013-04-23

    ) Prepare samples for hydraulic property measurements for comparison to the values in the F and H- Tank Farm Performance Assessments (PAs). 5) Identify a grout mix for the Tanks 18-F and 19-F Grout Procurement Specification [Forty, 2011 a, b, c]. Results for two flowable zero bleed structural fill concepts containing 3/8 inch gravel (70070 Series and LP#8 Series) and a sand only mix (SO Series) are provided in this report. Tank Farm Engineering and SRNL Project Management selected the 70070 mix as the base case for inclusion in Revision 0 of the Tanks 18-F and 19-F grout procurement specification [Forty 2011 a] and requested admixture recommendations and property confirmation for this formulation [Forty, 2011 b]. Lower cementitious paste mixes were formulated because the 70070 mix is over designed with respect to strength and generates more heat from hydration reactions than is desirable for mass pour application. Work was also initiated on a modification of the recommended mix which included shrinkage compensation to mitigate fast pathways caused by shrinkage cracking and poor physical bonding to the tank and ancillary equipment. Testing of this option was postponed to FY12. Mix, LP#8-16 is recommended for inclusion in the specification for furnishing and delivering tank closure grout for Tanks 18-F and 19-F [Forty, 2011 c]. A shrinkage compensating variation of this mix, LP#16C, has not been fully developed and characterized at this time.

  6. Chapter 3. Coordination and collaboration with interface units. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Joynt, Gavin M.; Loo, Shi; Taylor, Bruce L.; Margalit, Gila; Christian, Michael D.; Sandrock, Christian; Danis, Marion; Leoniv, Yuval; Sprung, Charles L.; Camargo, Ruben; Ceraso, Daniel; Azoulay, Elie; Duguet, Alexandre; Guery, Benoit; Reinhart, Konrad; Adini, Bruria; Barlavie, Yaron; Benin-Goren, Odeda; Cohen, Robert; Klein, Motti; Rubinovitch, Bina; Sonnenblick, Moshe; Steinberg, Avraham; Weissman, Charles; Wolff, Donna; Kesecioglu, Jozef; de Jong, Menno; Moreno, Rui; An, Youzhong; Du, Bin; Joyng, Gavin M.; Colvin, John; Richards, Guy; Artigas, Antonio; Pugin, Jerome; Amundson, Dennis; Devereaux, Asha; Beigel, John; Farmer, Chris; Hick, John L.; Maki, Dennis; Masur, Henry; Rubinson, Lewis; Talmor, Daniel; Truog, Robert; Zimmerman, Janice; Brett, Steve; Montgomery, Hugh; Rhodes, Andrew; Sanderson, Frances

    2010-01-01

    To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital preparations for an influenza pandemic or mass disaster with a specific focus on enhancing coordination and collaboration between the ICU and other key stakeholders. Based on a literature

  7. Guidelines and good clinical practice recommendations for Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound (CEUS) in the liver - update 2012

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Claudon, Michel; Dietrich, Christoph F; Choi, Byung Ihn

    2013-01-01

    Initially, a set of guidelines for the use of ultrasound contrast agents was published in 2004 dealing only with liver applications. A second edition of the guidelines in 2008 reflected changes in the available contrast agents and updated the guidelines for the liver, as well as implementing some...... Medizin/European Journal of Ultrasound for EFSUMB). These guidelines and recommendations provide general advice on the use of all currently clinically available ultrasound contrast agents (UCA). They are intended to create standard protocols for the use and administration of UCA in liver applications...... non-liver applications. Time has moved on, and the need for international guidelines on the use of CEUS in the liver has become apparent. The present document describes the third iteration of recommendations for the hepatic use of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) using contrast specific imaging...

  8. Calcium hydroxylapatite for jawline rejuvenation: consensus recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dallara, Jean-Marie; Baspeyras, Martine; Bui, Patrick; Cartier, Hugues; Charavel, Marie-Hélène; Dumas, Laurent

    2014-03-01

    Age-associated volume loss is now known to play an important role in the structural changes of the aging face. In the lower face, this manifests as drooping of the corners of the mouth and jowl leading to a loss of the oval jawline of youth. Jawline reshaping by replacing volume has therefore become an indispensable component of modern facial rejuvenation. Calcium hydroxylapatite (CaHA; Radiesse® , Merz Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany) is an injectable filler with a cosmetic indication for tissue augmentation. The ability of calcium hydroxylapatite to provide immediate and long-lasting volume enhancement makes it an ideal agent for restoring an oval jawline. This consensus statement has been developed to assist clinicians who would like to gain more experience in the use of volumizing agents to achieve an optimal outcome with this procedure. Using the recently developed Merz Aesthetics Scale® for jawline, the consensus provides a treatment protocol for individuals at each stage of oval loss and presents a series of before and after images to illustrate the improvements that can be achieved. Specific recommendations for calcium hydroxylapatite including type of anesthesia, injection techniques, volume for injection, use in combination with other procedures, and expected duration of corrections are provided. Techniques for minimizing and managing expected problems and potential complications are also described. Calcium hydroxylapatite is appropriate for treating patients at any stage of oval loss. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  9. Recommendations for skin decontamination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1989-01-01

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

  10. Recommendations service for chronic disease patient in multimodel sensors home environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussain, Maqbool; Ali, Taqdir; Khan, Wajahat Ali; Afzal, Muhammad; Lee, Sungyoung; Latif, Khalid

    2015-03-01

    With advanced technologies in hand, there exist potential applications and services built around monitoring activities of daily living (ADL) of elderly people at nursing homes. Most of the elderly people in these facilities are suffering from different chronic diseases such as dementia. Existing technologies are mainly focusing on non-medication interventions and monitoring of ADL for addressing loss of autonomy or well-being. Monitoring and managing ADL related to cognitive behaviors for non-medication intervention are very effective in improving dementia patients' conditions. However, cognitive functions of patients can be improved if appropriate recommendations of medications are delivered at a particular time. Previously we developed the Secured Wireless Sensor Network Integrated Cloud Computing for Ubiquitous-Life Care (SC(3)). SC(3) services were limited to monitoring ADL of elderly people with Alzheimer's disease and providing non-medication recommendations to the patient. In this article, we propose a system called the Smart Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) as an integral part of the SC(3) platform. Using the Smart CDSS, patients are provided with access to medication recommendations of expert physicians. Physicians are provided with an interface to create clinical knowledge for medication recommendations and to observe the patient's condition. The clinical knowledge created by physicians as the knowledge base of the Smart CDSS produces recommendations to the caregiver for medications based on each patient's symptoms.

  11. Can Dissimilar Users Contribute to Accuracy and Diversity of Personalized Recommendation?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Wei; Shang, Ming-Sheng; Zhang, Qian-Ming; Lü, Linyuan; Zhou, Tao

    Recommender systems are becoming a popular and important set of personalization techniques that assist individual users with navigating through the rapidly growing amount of information. A good recommender system should be able to not only find out the objects preferred by users, but also help users in discovering their personalized tastes. The former corresponds to high accuracy of the recommendation, while the latter to high diversity. A big challenge is to design an algorithm that provides both highly accurate and diverse recommendation. Traditional recommendation algorithms only take into account the contributions of similar users, thus, they tend to recommend popular items for users ignoring the diversity of recommendations. In this paper, we propose a recommendation algorithm by considering both the effects of similar and dissimilar users under the framework of collaborative filtering. Extensive analyses on three datasets, namely MovieLens, Netflix and Amazon, show that our method performs much better than the standard collaborative filtering algorithm for both accuracy and diversity.

  12. Recommending a minimum English proficiency standard for entry-level nursing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Neill, Thomas R; Tannenbaum, Richard J; Tiffen, Jennifer

    2005-01-01

    When nurses who are educated internationally immigrate to the United States, they are expected to have English language proficiency in order to function as a competent nurse. The purpose of this research was to provide sufficient information to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) to make a defensible recommended passing standard for English proficiency. This standard was based upon the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). A large panel of nurses and nurse regulators (N = 25) was convened to determine how much English proficiency is required to be minimally competent as an entry-level nurse. Two standard setting procedures, the Simulated Minimally Competent Candidate (SMCC) procedure and the Examinee Paper Selection Method, were combined to produce recommendations for each panelist. In conjunction with collateral information, these recommendations were reviewed by the NCSBN Examination Committee, which decided upon an NCSBN recommended standard, a TOEFL score of 220. Because the adoption of this standard rests entirely with the individual state, NCSBN has little more to do with implementing the standard, other than answering questions and providing documentation about the standard.

  13. Precast, Prestressed Concrete Bent Caps : Volume 2, Design Recommendations and Design Examples

    Science.gov (United States)

    2018-04-01

    Recommendations for design of pretensioned bent caps are developed based on the findings of full-scale experimental tests of bent cap subassemblages. Companion examples are provided to demonstrate implementation of the design recommendations. First, ...

  14. The Impact of Market Advisory Service Recommendation on Producers' Marketing Decisions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pennings, J.M.E.; Isengildina, O.; Irwin, S.; Good, D.

    2004-01-01

    A conceptual framework was developed that provides insight into the factors affecting the impact of these recommendations on producer pricing decisions. Data from 656 U.S. producers reveal that the perceived performance of the Market Advisory Services (MAS), the way in which MAS recommendations are

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    EM Casartelli

    2005-09-01

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

  16. Reducing Health Inequities in the United States: Insights and Recommendations from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Health Inequities Think Tank Meeting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sampson, Uchechukwu K.A.; Kaplan, Robert M.; Cooper, Richard S.; Diez Roux, Ana V.; Marks, James S.; Engelgau, Michael M.; Peprah, Emmanuel; Mishoe, Helena; Boulware, L. Ebony; Felix, Kaytura L.; Califf, Robert M.; Flack, John M.; Cooper, Lisa A.; Gracia, J. Nadine; Henderson, Jeffrey A.; Davidson, Karina W.; Krishnan, Jerry A.; Lewis, Tené T.; Sanchez, Eduardo; Luban, Naomi L.; Vaccarino, Viola; Wong, Winston F.; Wright, Jackson T.; Meyers, David; Ogedegbe, Olugbenga G.; Presley-Cantrell, Letitia; Chambers, David A.; Belis, Deshirée; Bennett, Glen C.; Boyington, Josephine E; Creazzo, Tony L.; de Jesus, Janet M.; Krishnamurti, Chitra; Lowden, Mia R.; Punturieri, Antonello; Shero, Susan T.; Young, Neal S.; Zou, Shimian; Mensah, George A.

    2016-01-01

    The National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a Think Tank meeting to obtain insight and recommendations regarding the objectives and design of the next generation of research aimed at reducing health inequities in the United States. The panel recommended several specific actions, including: 1) Embrace broad and inclusive research themes; 2) Develop research platforms that optimize the ability to conduct informative and innovative research, and promote systems science approaches; 3) Develop networks of collaborators and stakeholders, and launch transformative studies that can serve as benchmarks; 4) Optimize the use of new data sources, platforms, and natural experiments; and 5) develop unique transdisciplinary training programs to build research capacity. Confronting health inequities will require engaging multiple disciplines and sectors (including communities), using systems science, and intervening through combinations of individual, family, provider, health system, and community-targeted approaches. Details of the panel’s remarks and recommendations are provided in this report. PMID:27470459

  17. Recommendation in evolving online networks

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2016-02-01

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

  18. Whooping Cough Vaccine Recommendation for Babies and Young Children

    Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

    2015-01-22

    This podcast provides information about whooping cough and the recommendation that all children receive the DTaP vaccine, according to CDC’s recommended schedule, to help protect them from this serious disease.  Created: 1/22/2015 by National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), Division of Bacterial Diseases (DBD), Meningitis and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch (MVPDB).   Date Released: 1/22/2015.

  19. Why do we not want to recommend influenza vaccination to young children? A qualitative study of Australian parents and primary care providers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biezen, Ruby; Grando, Danilla; Mazza, Danielle; Brijnath, Bianca

    2018-02-01

    Influenza vaccination has been shown to be safe and effective against influenza and in the prevention of complicating secondary respiratory illnesses. However, its uptake in young children remains low. This study explored the views, attitudes and practices of parents and primary care providers (PCPs) on their knowledge and acceptance of influenza vaccination in children under 5. Using a cross-sectional qualitative research design, we conducted 30 in-depth interviews with PCPs (i.e., general practitioners, practice nurses, maternal and child health nurses, and pharmacists) and five focus groups with parents (n = 50) between June 2014 and July 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. Data were thematically analysed. Parents thought the vaccine could cause influenza, and influenza vaccination was not necessary for their children as they needed to build their own 'immunity'. Parents said that they would consider vaccinating their children if recommended by their GP and if the influenza vaccine was part of the immunisation schedule. PCPs also expressed concerns regarding the efficacy of the vaccine as well as out-of-pocket costs incurred by families, and uncertainty regarding the mortality and morbidity of influenza in otherwise healthy children. However, they said they would recommend the vaccine to high-risk groups (e.g. children with chronic disease(s), and asthma). Despite the established safety of influenza vaccines, barriers to uptake include concerns regarding the iatrogenic effects of vaccination, its administration schedule, and knowledge of influenza severity. Updated information on influenza and the efficacy of the vaccine, and incorporating influenza vaccination into the immunisation schedule may overcome some of these barriers to increase influenza vaccination in this vulnerable cohort. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. A Mobile Ecotourism Recommendations System Using Cars-Context Aware Approaches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yani Nurhadryani

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The requirements to fullfill mobility of ecotourism activities have been urgent to support each traveler with the mobile gadget application. The objective of this research is to develop an application of recommendation system based on online user personalization. This application provided features to recommendation of ecotourism based on profile user and current location, then supplied information about distance and facilities in each ecotourism place. The main of computation worked online which was based on approach called as CARS (Context Aware Recommender Systems algorithm. The result showed that the application framework succeeded to give appropriate recommendations and explaination on a mobile platform both in the form of profile based spatial data and user preferences.

  1. Recommendations based on semantically enriched museum collections

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wang, Y.; Stash, N.; Aroyo, L.M.; Gorgels, P.; Rutledge, L.W.; Schreiber, G.

    2008-01-01

    This article presents the CHIP demonstrator1 for providing personalized access to digital museum collections. It consists of three main components: Art Recommender, Tour Wizard, and Mobile Tour Guide. Based on the semantically enriched Rijksmuseum Amsterdam2 collection, we show how Semantic Web

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burkell, Jacquelyn; Fortier, Alexandre

    2015-09-01

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

  3. Surgery for constipation: systematic review and practice recommendations: Graded practice and future research recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knowles, C H; Grossi, U; Horrocks, E J; Pares, D; Vollebregt, P F; Chapman, M; Brown, S; Mercer-Jones, M; Williams, A B; Yiannakou, Y; Hooper, R J; Stevens, N; Mason, J

    2017-09-01

    This manuscript forms the final of seven that address the surgical management of chronic constipation (CC) in adults. The content coalesces results from the five systematic reviews that precede it and of the European Consensus process to derive graded practice recommendations (GPR). Summary of review data, development of GPR and future research recommendations as outlined in detail in the 'introduction and methods' paper. The overall quality of data in the five reviews was poor with 113/156(72.4%) of included studies providing only level IV evidence and only four included level I RCTs. Coalescence of data from the five procedural classes revealed that few firm conclusions could be drawn regarding procedural choice or patient selection: no single procedure dominated in addressing dynamic structural abnormalities of the anorectum and pelvic floor with each having similar overall efficacy. Of one hundred 'prototype' GPRs developed by the clinical guideline group, 85/100 were deemed 'appropriate' based on the independent scoring of a panel of 18 European experts and use of RAND-UCLA consensus methodology. The remaining 15 were all deemed uncertain. Future research recommendations included some potential RCTs but also a strong emphasis on delivery of large multinational high-quality prospective cohort studies. While the evidence base for surgery in CC is poor, the widespread European consensus for GPRs is encouraging. Professional bodies have the opportunity to build on this work by supporting the efforts of their membership to help convert the documented recommendations into clinical guidelines. © 2017 The Authors. Colorectal Disease published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland.

  4. The attitudes of primary care providers towards screening for colorectal cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jesús López-Torres Hidalgo

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Background and objective: the scientific community supports the appropriateness of colorectal cancer screening, and there is consensus on the need to raise awareness about the significance of prevention among both health care professionals and the population. The goal was to record the attitude of primary care providers towards colorectal cancer screening, as well as the main barriers to both patient and provider participation. Methods: a cross-sectional, observational study was performed of 511 professionals in Albacete Health District. Variables included views on screening effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, acceptance by providers and patients, barriers to participation, frequency of prevention recommendations, and education needs. Results: most (76 % considered screening was effective; 85 % said acceptance of fecal occult blood testing was intermediate or high, and 68.2 % this is also the case for colonoscopy when needed; 71.9 % would recommend screening should a population-based program be implemented (currently only 9.7 % recommends this. Correspondence analysis revealed that recommendation is more common when assigned populations are smaller. Conclusions: most providers consider screening is both effective and acceptable for patients. In today's situation, where screening is only performed in an opportunistic manner, the proportion of professionals who commonly recommend screening for the mid-risk population is low, especially when assigned populations are huge.

  5. A collaborative recommendation framework for ontology evaluation and reuse

    OpenAIRE

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

    2006-01-01

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

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

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    辛欣; 林钦佑; 魏骁驰; 黄河燕

    2015-01-01

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

  7. Consumers’ intention to use health recommendation systems to receive personalized nutrition advice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    S. Wendel (Sonja); B.G.C. Dellaert (Benedict); A. Ronteltap (Amber); H.C.M. van Trijp (Hans)

    2013-01-01

    markdownabstract__Abstract__ __Background:__ Sophisticated recommendation systems are used more and more in the health sector to assist consumers in healthy decision making. In this study we investigate consumers' evaluation of hypothetical health recommendation systems that provide

  8. ACPSEM brachytherapy working group recommendations for quality assurance in brachytherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dempsey, Claire; Smith, Ryan; Nyathi, Thulani; Ceylan, Abdurrahman; Howard, Lisa; Patel, Virendra; Dam, Ras; Haworth, Annette

    2013-01-01

    The Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine (ACPSEM) Radiation Oncology Specialty Group (ROSG) formed a series of working groups in 2011 to develop recommendation papers for guidance of radiation oncology medical physics practice within the Australasian setting. These recommendations are intended to provide guidance for safe work practices and a suitable level of quality control without detailed work instructions. It is the responsibility of the medical physicist to ensure that locally available equipment and procedures are sufficiently sensitive to establish compliance to these recommendations. The recommendations are endorsed by the ROSG, have been subject to independent expert reviews and have also been approved by the ACPSEM Council. For the Australian audience, these recommendations should be read in conjunction with the Tripartite Radiation Oncology Practice Standards. This publication presents the recommendations of the ACPSEM Brachytherapy Working Group (BTWG) and has been developed in alignment with other international associations. However, these recommendations should be read in conjunction with relevant national, state or territory legislation and local requirements, which take precedence over the ACPSEM recommendation papers. It is hoped that the users of this and other ACPSEM recommendation papers will contribute to the development of future versions through the Radiation Oncology Specialty Group of the ACPSEM.

  9. Tag-Driven Online Novel Recommendation with Collaborative Item Modeling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fenghuan Li

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Online novel recommendation recommends attractive novels according to the preferences and characteristics of users or novels and is increasingly touted as an indispensable service of many online stores and websites. The interests of the majority of users remain stable over a certain period. However, there are broad categories in the initial recommendation list achieved by collaborative filtering (CF. That is to say, it is very possible that there are many inappropriately recommended novels. Meanwhile, most algorithms assume that users can provide an explicit preference. However, this assumption does not always hold, especially in online novel reading. To solve these issues, a tag-driven algorithm with collaborative item modeling (TDCIM is proposed for online novel recommendation. Online novel reading is different from traditional book marketing and lacks preference rating. In addition, collaborative filtering frequently suffers from the Matthew effect, leading to ignored personalized recommendations and serious long tail problems. Therefore, item-based CF is improved by latent preference rating with a punishment mechanism based on novel popularity. Consequently, a tag-driven algorithm is constructed by means of collaborative item modeling and tag extension. Experimental results show that online novel recommendation is improved greatly by a tag-driven algorithm with collaborative item modeling.

  10. Integrating Information Extraction Agents into a Tourism Recommender System

    Science.gov (United States)

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

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

  11. Mobile Application Recommender System

    OpenAIRE

    Davidsson, Christoffer

    2010-01-01

    With the amount of mobile applications available increasing rapidly, users have to put a lot of effort into finding applications of interest. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how to aid users in the process of discovering new mobile applications by providing them with recommendations. A prototype system is then built as a proof-of-concept. The work of the thesis is divided into three phases where the aim of the first phase is to study related work and related systems to identify p...

  12. World National Parks Congress. Recommendations. (Bali, Indonesia, October 11-22, 1982).

    Science.gov (United States)

    International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Morges, (Switzerland).

    Recommendations of the World National Parks Congress, which met in Bali, Indonesia, are provided in this document. These recommendations address issues related to: information on protected areas; global system of representative terrestrial protected areas; marine and coastal protected areas; Antarctica; the role of protected areas in sustainable…

  13. Competing infant feeding information in mothers' networks: advice that supports v. undermines clinical recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ashida, Sato; Lynn, Freda B; Williams, Natalie A; Schafer, Ellen J

    2016-05-01

    To identify the social contextual factors, specifically the presence of information that supports v. undermines clinical recommendations, associated with infant feeding behaviours among mothers in low-income areas. Cross-sectional survey evaluating social support networks and social relationships involved in providing care to the infant along with feeding beliefs and practices. Out-patient paediatric and government-funded (Women, Infants, and Children) clinics in an urban, low-income area of the south-eastern USA. Eighty-one low-income mothers of infants between 0 and 12 months old. Most mothers reported receiving both supportive and undermining advice. The presence of breast-feeding advice that supports clinical recommendations was associated with two infant feeding practices that are considered beneficial to infant health: ever breast-feeding (OR=6·7; 95% CI 1·2, 38·1) and not adding cereal in the infant's bottle (OR=15·9; 95% CI 1·1, 227·4). Advice that undermines clinical recommendations to breast-feed and advice about solid foods were not associated with these behaviours. Efforts to facilitate optimal infant feeding practices may focus on increasing information supportive of clinical recommendations while concentrating less on reducing the presence of undermining information within mothers' networks. Cultural norms around breast-feeding may be stronger than the cultural norms around the introduction of solid foods in mothers' social environments; thus, additional efforts to increase information regarding introduction of solid foods earlier in mothers' infant care career may be beneficial.

  14. Discussion on Implementation of ICRP Recommendations Concerning Reference Levels and Optimisation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2013-02-01

    International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Publication 103, 'The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection', issued in 2007, defines emergency exposure situations as unexpected situations that may require the implementation of urgent protective actions and perhaps longer term protective actions. The ICRP continues to recommend optimisation and the use of reference levels to ensure an adequate degree of protection in regard to exposure to ionising radiation in emergency exposure situations. Reference levels represent the level of dose or risk above which it is judged to be inappropriate to plan to allow exposures to occur and for which protective actions should therefore be planned and optimised. National authorities are responsible for establishing reference levels. The Expert Group on the Implementation of New International Recommendations for Emergency Exposure Situations (EGIRES) performed a survey to analyse the established processes for optimisation of the protection strategy for emergency exposure situations and for practical implementation of the reference level concept in several member states of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). The EGIRES collected information on several national optimisation strategy definitions, on optimisation of protection for different protective actions, and also on optimisation of urgent protective actions. In addition, national criteria for setting reference levels, their use, and relevant processes, including specific triggers and dosimetric quantifies in setting reference levels, are focus points that the EGIRES also evaluated. The analysis of national responses to this 2011 survey shows many differences in the interpretation and application of the established processes and suggests that most countries are still in the early stages of implementing these processes. Since 2011, national authorities have continued their study of the ICRP recommendations to incorporate them into

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2017-07-26

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

  16. Group Recommendation in Social Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    interests 8,822,921 DOUBAN Largest Chinese community providing user review and recommendation services for movies, books, and music . It also...doubles up as the Chinese language book, movie and music database. 46,850,000 FACEBOOK General 750,000,000+ FLIXSTER Movies 32,000,000 FOURSQUARE...groups, events and community pages) • More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums , etc.) shared

  17. Supporting Multi-Agent Reputation Calculation in the Wikipedia Recommender System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Christian D.

    2010-01-01

    editorial policy that allows anybody, to create or modify articles. This has resulted in a broad and detailed coverage of subjects, but it has also caused problems relating to the quality of articles. The Wikipedia Recommender System (WRS) was developed to help human users determine the credibility...... articles that they have read. This makes the WRS a rating-based collaborative filtering system, which implements trust metrics to determine the weight of feedback from different recommenders. In this paper the authors describe the WRS outlining some of the requirements and constraints that shaped...... of an article based on feedback from other Wikipedia users. The WRS calculates a personalised rating for any Wikipedia article based on feedback (recommendations) provided by other Wikipedia users. As part of this process, WRS users are expected to provide their own feedback about the quality of Wikipedia...

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

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

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

    2009-01-01

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

  19. AN EFFECTIVE RECOMMENDATIONS BY DIFFUSION ALGORITHM FOR WEB GRAPH MINING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Vasukipriya

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available The information on the World Wide Web grows in an explosive rate. Societies are relying more on the Web for their miscellaneous needs of information. Recommendation systems are active information filtering systems that attempt to present the information items like movies, music, images, books recommendations, tags recommendations, query suggestions, etc., to the users. Various kinds of data bases are used for the recommendations; fundamentally these data bases can be molded in the form of many types of graphs. Aiming at provided that a general framework on effective DR (Recommendations by Diffusion algorithm for web graphs mining. First introduce a novel graph diffusion model based on heat diffusion. This method can be applied to both undirected graphs and directed graphs. Then it shows how to convert different Web data sources into correct graphs in our models.

  20. When Differential Privacy Meets Randomized Perturbation: A Hybrid Approach for Privacy-Preserving Recommender System

    KAUST Repository

    Liu, Xiao

    2017-03-21

    Privacy risks of recommender systems have caused increasing attention. Users’ private data is often collected by probably untrusted recommender system in order to provide high-quality recommendation. Meanwhile, malicious attackers may utilize recommendation results to make inferences about other users’ private data. Existing approaches focus either on keeping users’ private data protected during recommendation computation or on preventing the inference of any single user’s data from the recommendation result. However, none is designed for both hiding users’ private data and preventing privacy inference. To achieve this goal, we propose in this paper a hybrid approach for privacy-preserving recommender systems by combining differential privacy (DP) with randomized perturbation (RP). We theoretically show the noise added by RP has limited effect on recommendation accuracy and the noise added by DP can be well controlled based on the sensitivity analysis of functions on the perturbed data. Extensive experiments on three large-scale real world datasets show that the hybrid approach generally provides more privacy protection with acceptable recommendation accuracy loss, and surprisingly sometimes achieves better privacy without sacrificing accuracy, thus validating its feasibility in practice.

  1. Colon-specific pulsatile drug release provided by electrospun shellac nanocoating on hydrophilic amorphous composites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Yao-Yao; Liu, Zhe-Peng; Yu, Deng-Guang; Wang, Ke; Liu, Ping; Chen, Xiaohong

    2018-01-01

    Colon-specific pulsatile drug release, as a combined drug controlled-release model, is a useful drug delivery manner for a series of diseases. New nanomedicines and related preparation methods are highly desired. With diclofenac sodium (DS) as a model drug, a new type of structural nanocomposite (SC), in which composite polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-DS core was coated by shellac, was fabricated via modified coaxial electrospinning. For comparison, traditional PVP-DS monolithic hydrophilic nanocomposites (HCs) were generated using a traditional blending process. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), water contact angle (WCA), and in vitro dissolution and ex vivo permeation tests were conducted to characterize the composites. SEM images demonstrated that both composites were linear nanofibers with smooth surface morphology and cross sections. TEM disclosed that the SCs had a thin shellac sheath layer of approximately 12 nm. XRD and ATR-FTIR results demonstrated that the crystalline DS was converted into amorphous composites with PVP because of favorable secondary interactions. WCA and in vitro dissolution tests demonstrated that the sheath shellac layers in SC could resist acid conditions and provide typical colon-specific pulsatile release, rather than a pulsatile release of HC under acid conditions. Ex vivo permeation results demonstrated that the SCs were able to furnish a tenfold drug permeation rate than the DS particles on the colon membrane. A new SC with a shellac coating on hydrophilic amorphous nanocomposites could furnish a colon-specific pulsatile drug release profile. The modified coaxial process can be exploited as a useful tool to create nanocoatings.

  2. Planetary Science Technology Infusion Study: Findings and Recommendations Status

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, David J.; Sandifer, Carl E., II; Sarver-Verhey, Timothy R.; Vento, Daniel M.; Zakrajsek, June F.

    2014-01-01

    The Planetary Science Division (PSD) within the National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters sought to understand how to better realize a scientific return on spacecraft system technology investments currently being funded. In order to achieve this objective, a team at NASA Glenn Research Center was tasked with surveying the science and mission communities to collect their insight on technology infusion and additionally sought inputs from industry, universities, and other organizations involved with proposing for future PSD missions. This survey was undertaken by issuing a Request for Information (RFI) activity that requested input from the proposing community on present technology infusion efforts. The Technology Infusion Study was initiated in March 2013 with the release of the RFI request. The evaluation team compiled and assessed this input in order to provide PSD with recommendations on how to effectively infuse new spacecraft systems technologies that it develops into future competed missions enabling increased scientific discoveries, lower mission cost, or both. This team is comprised of personnel from the Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) Program and the In-Space Propulsion Technology (ISPT) Program staff.The RFI survey covered two aspects of technology infusion: 1) General Insight, including: their assessment of barriers to technology infusion as related to infusion approach; technology readiness; information and documentation products; communication; integration considerations; interaction with technology development areas; cost-capped mission areas; risk considerations; system level impacts and implementation; and mission pull. 2) Specific technologies from the most recent PSD Announcements of Opportunities (AOs): The Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG), aerocapture and aeroshell hardware technologies, the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) ion propulsion system, and the

  3. Earth Observing System, Conclusions and Recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    1984-01-01

    The following Earth Observing Systems (E.O.S.) recommendations were suggested: (1) a program must be initiated to ensure that present time series of Earth science data are maintained and continued. (2) A data system that provides easy, integrated, and complete access to past, present, and future data must be developed as soon as possible. (3) A long term research effort must be sustained to study and understand these time series of Earth observations. (4) The E.O.S. should be established as an information system to carry out those aspects of the above recommendations which go beyond existing and currently planned activities. (5) The scientific direction of the E.O.S. should be established and continued through an international scientific steering committee.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2013-04-01

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

  5. Recommending blood glucose monitors, a pharmacy perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carter, Alan

    2007-03-01

    Selection of what blood glucose monitoring system to utilize has become an issue for physicians, diabetes educators, pharmacists, and patients. The field of competing makes and models of blood glucose monitoring systems has become crowded, with manufacturers touting improvements in accuracy, ease of use/alternate site options, stored results capacity, software evaluation tools, and/or price point. Personal interviews of 12 pharmacists from community and academic practice settings about monitor preference, as well as results from a national survey of pharmacist recommendations, were compared to actual wholesale sales data to estimate the impact of such recommendations on final monitor selection by the patient. Accu-Chek monitors were recommended 34.65% of the time and represented 28.58% of sales, with a success rate of 82.48% of being the monitor selected. OneTouch monitors had 27.72% of recommendations but represented 31.43% of sales, indicating possible patient brand loyalty or formulary preference for that product. FreeStyle(R) monitors came in third for pharmacist recommendations and were selected by the patient 61.68% of the time when recommended. The category of "other monitor" choices was selected 60.89% of the time by patients given those suggestions. Included in the "other monitor" category was the new disposable monitor marketed as the Sidekick. Based on sales data provided, the Sidekick made up 2.87% of "other monitor" category sales, representing 68% of the "other monitor" segment. While patients frequently follow pharmacist monitoring system suggestions, the ultimate deciding factor is most often the final out-of-pocket cost to the patient. As a result, cost of supplies often becomes the most important determining factor in final monitor selection at the patient level. If the patient cannot afford to perform the recommended daily testing intervals, all other determining factors and suggestions become moot.

  6. Lipid needs of preterm infants: updated recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lapillonne, Alexandre; Groh-Wargo, Sharon; Gonzalez, Carlos H Lozano; Uauy, Ricardo

    2013-03-01

    Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) are of nutritional interest because they are crucial for normal development of the central nervous system and have potential long-lasting effects that extend beyond the period of dietary insufficiency. Here we review the recent literature and current recommendations regarding LCPUFAs as they pertain to preterm infant nutrition. In particular, findings that relate to fetal accretion, LCPUFA absorption and metabolism, effects on development, and current practices and recommendations have been used to update recommendations for health care providers. The amounts of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) used in early studies were chosen to produce the same concentrations as in term breast milk. This might not be a wise approach for preterm infants, however, particularly for very and extremely preterm infants, whose requirements for LCPUFAs and other nutrients exceed what is normally provided in the small volumes that they are able to tolerate. Recent studies have reported outcome data in preterm infants fed milk with a docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content 2-3 times higher than the current concentration in infant formulas. Overall, these studies show that providing larger amounts of DHA supplements, especially to the smallest infants, is associated with better neurologic outcomes in early life. We emphasize that current nutritional management might not provide sufficient amounts of preformed DHA during the parenteral and enteral nutrition periods and in very preterm/very low birth weight infants until their due date, and that greater amounts than used routinely likely will be needed to compensate for intestinal malabsorption, DHA oxidation, and early deficit. Research should continue to address the gaps in knowledge and further refine adequate intake for each group of preterm infants. Copyright © 2013 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Recommender systems

    OpenAIRE

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

    2012-01-01

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

  8. PRS: PERSONNEL RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR HUGE DATA ANALYSIS USING PORTER STEMMER

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T N Chiranjeevi

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Personal recommendation system is one which gives better and preferential recommendation to the users to satisfy their personalized requirements such as practical applications like Webpage Preferences, Sport Videos preferences, Stock selection based on price, TV preferences, Hotel preferences, books, Mobile phones, CDs and various other products now use recommender systems. The existing Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC and item-based algorithm using PCC, are called as UPCC and IPCC respectively. These systems are mainly based on only the rating services and does not consider the user personal preferences, they simply just give the result based on the ratings. As the size of data increases it will give the recommendations based on the top rated services and it will miss out most of user preferences. These are main drawbacks in the existing system which will give same results to the users based on some evaluations and rankings or rating service, they will neglect the user preferences and necessities. To address this problem we propose a new approach called, Personnel Recommendation System (PRS for huge data analysis using Porter Stemmer to solve the above challenges. In the proposed system it provides a personalized service recommendation list to the users and recommends the most useful services to the users which will increase the accuracy and efficiency in searching better services. Particularly, a set of suggestions or keywords are provided to indicate user preferences and we used Collaborative Filtering and Porter Stemmer algorithm which gives a suitable recommendations to the users. In real, the broad experiments are conducted on the huge database which is available in real world, and outcome shows that our proposed personal recommender method extensively improves the precision and efficiency of service recommender system over the KASR method. In our approach mainly consider the user preferences so it will not miss out the any of the data

  9. MRI of the prostate. Recommendations on patient preparation and scanning protocol

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Franiel, Tobias; Quentin, Michael; Schimmoeller, Lars; Mueller-Lisse, Ullrich Gerd; Asbach, Patrick; Roedel, Stefan; Willinek, Winfried; Hueper, Katja; Beyersdorff, Dirk; Roethke, Matthias

    2017-01-01

    The Working Group Uroradiology and Urogenital Diagnosis of the German Roentgen Society has developed uniform recommendations for the preparation and implementation of prostate MRI. In the first part detailed recommendations are given in tabular form regarding 1. anamnestic data before prostate MRI, 2. termination of examinations and preparation of examinations, 3. examination protocol and 4. MRI-guided in-bore biopsy. In the second part, the recommendations are discussed in detail and relevant background information is provided.

  10. Automated web usage data mining and recommendation system using K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN classification method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D.A. Adeniyi

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The major problem of many on-line web sites is the presentation of many choices to the client at a time; this usually results to strenuous and time consuming task in finding the right product or information on the site. In this work, we present a study of automatic web usage data mining and recommendation system based on current user behavior through his/her click stream data on the newly developed Really Simple Syndication (RSS reader website, in order to provide relevant information to the individual without explicitly asking for it. The K-Nearest-Neighbor (KNN classification method has been trained to be used on-line and in Real-Time to identify clients/visitors click stream data, matching it to a particular user group and recommend a tailored browsing option that meet the need of the specific user at a particular time. To achieve this, web users RSS address file was extracted, cleansed, formatted and grouped into meaningful session and data mart was developed. Our result shows that the K-Nearest Neighbor classifier is transparent, consistent, straightforward, simple to understand, high tendency to possess desirable qualities and easy to implement than most other machine learning techniques specifically when there is little or no prior knowledge about data distribution.

  11. Trust for intelligent recommendation

    CERN Document Server

    Bhuiyan, Touhid

    2013-01-01

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

  12. PDF4LHC recommendations for LHC Run II

    CERN Document Server

    Butterworth, Jon; Cooper-Sarkar, Amanda; De Roeck, Albert; Feltesse, Joel; Forte, Stefano; Gao, Jun; Glazov, Sasha; Huston, Joey; Kassabov, Zahari; McNulty, Ronan; Morsch, Andreas; Nadolsky, Pavel; Radescu, Voica; Rojo, Juan; Thorne, Robert

    2016-01-01

    We provide an updated recommendation for the usage of sets of parton distribution functions (PDFs) and the assessment of PDF and PDF+$\\alpha_s$ uncertainties suitable for applications at the LHC Run II. We review developments since the previous PDF4LHC recommendation, and discuss and compare the new generation of PDFs, which include substantial information from experimental data from the Run I of the LHC. We then propose a new prescription for the combination of a suitable subset of the available PDF sets, which is presented in terms of a single combined PDF set. We finally discuss tools which allow for the delivery of this combined set in terms of optimized sets of Hessian eigenvectors or Monte Carlo replicas, and their usage, and provide some examples of their application to LHC phenomenology.

  13. Statistics Anxiety Update: Refining the Construct and Recommendations for a New Research Agenda.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chew, Peter K H; Dillon, Denise B

    2014-03-01

    Appreciation of the importance of statistics literacy for citizens of a democracy has resulted in an increasing number of degree programs making statistics courses mandatory for university students. Unfortunately, empirical evidence suggests that students in nonmathematical disciplines (e.g., social sciences) regard statistics courses as the most anxiety-inducing course in their degree programs. Although a literature review exists for statistics anxiety, it was done more than a decade ago, and newer studies have since added findings for consideration. In this article, we provide a current review of the statistics anxiety literature. Specifically, related variables, definitions, and measures of statistics anxiety are reviewed with the goal of refining the statistics anxiety construct. Antecedents, effects, and interventions of statistics anxiety are also reviewed to provide recommendations for statistics instructors and for a new research agenda. © The Author(s) 2014.

  14. Consumers’ intention to use health recommendation systems to receive personalized nutrition advice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wendel, S.; Dellaert, B.G.C.; Ronteltap, A.; Trijp, van J.C.M.

    2013-01-01

    Background: Sophisticated recommendation systems are used more and more in the health sector to assist consumers in healthy decision making. In this study we investigate consumers' evaluation of hypothetical health recommendation systems that provide personalized nutrition advice. We examine

  15. Consumers' intention to use health recommendation systems to receive personalized nutrition advice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    S. Wendel (Sonja); B.G.C. Dellaert (Benedict); A. Ronteltap (Amber); H.C.M. van Trijp (Hans)

    2013-01-01

    textabstractBackground: Sophisticated recommendation systems are used more and more in the health sector to assist consumers in healthy decision making. In this study we investigate consumers' evaluation of hypothetical health recommendation systems that provide personalized nutrition advice. We

  16. Psychological Characteristics in Talented Soccer Players – Recommendations on How to Improve Coaches’ Assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Musculus, Lisa; Lobinger, Babett H.

    2018-01-01

    Psychological characteristics, including personality traits and psychological skills, have been shown to be relevant predictors of soccer performance. In research, general and sport specific standardized self-report questionnaires have been applied in psychological diagnostics of sports talent. However, with regard to the assessment of psychological characteristics of talented soccer players, a gap between research and practice is apparent. While soccer clubs often ask their coaches to assess their players on self-designed, unevaluated scouting sheets, research widely neglects expert coaches’ and clubs’ perspectives on relevant performance characteristics. As we believe that expert coaches’ assessments could be a valid predictor of a player’s current performance and future success, we provide recommendations on how to improve coaches’ assessment of psychological characteristics. As the quality of the assessment of psychological characteristics is crucial, we provide recommendations on how to ensure the central diagnostic standards: objectivity, reliability, and validity in talent assessment. Further, we argue that assessing psychological characteristics should combine self ratings of players and external ratings of coaches in talent development. Sport psychologists should assist clubs and coaches in improving the diagnostics of psychological characteristics as well as in embedding psychological diagnostics and interventions in the talent development process. PMID:29459839

  17. Psychological Characteristics in Talented Soccer Players – Recommendations on How to Improve Coaches’ Assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lisa Musculus

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Psychological characteristics, including personality traits and psychological skills, have been shown to be relevant predictors of soccer performance. In research, general and sport specific standardized self-report questionnaires have been applied in psychological diagnostics of sports talent. However, with regard to the assessment of psychological characteristics of talented soccer players, a gap between research and practice is apparent. While soccer clubs often ask their coaches to assess their players on self-designed, unevaluated scouting sheets, research widely neglects expert coaches’ and clubs’ perspectives on relevant performance characteristics. As we believe that expert coaches’ assessments could be a valid predictor of a player’s current performance and future success, we provide recommendations on how to improve coaches’ assessment of psychological characteristics. As the quality of the assessment of psychological characteristics is crucial, we provide recommendations on how to ensure the central diagnostic standards: objectivity, reliability, and validity in talent assessment. Further, we argue that assessing psychological characteristics should combine self ratings of players and external ratings of coaches in talent development. Sport psychologists should assist clubs and coaches in improving the diagnostics of psychological characteristics as well as in embedding psychological diagnostics and interventions in the talent development process.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yibo Wang

    2018-01-01

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

  19. Decision and Recommendation of the Steering Committee Concerning the Application of the Paris Convention to Nuclear Installations in the Process of Being Decommissioned

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2013-01-01

    The NEA Steering Committee for Nuclear Energy adopted the Decision and Recommendation Concerning the Application of the Paris Convention to Nuclear Installations in the Process of Being Decommissioned on 30 October 2014. The purpose of this Decision and Recommendation is to provide updated technical exclusion criteria, replacing the 1990 criteria that were in force. The criteria are relatively conservative, and some nuclear installations in the process of decommissioning will not, at first, be eligible for exclusion. However, at some point during the decommissioning process, the nuclear installation would meet the criteria and could be excluded from the Paris Convention nuclear liability regime, relieving the operator from the obligation to have and maintain the specific, high level nuclear liability insurance coverage. The Decision and Recommendation's Appendix and Explanatory Note are included in the document

  20. Major ion toxicity in effluents: A review with permitting recommendations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Goodfellow, W.L.; Ausley, L.W.; Burton, D.T.; Denton, D.L.; Dorn, P.B.; Grothe, D.R.; Heber, M.A.; Norberg-King, T.J.; Rodgers, J.H. Jr.

    2000-01-01

    Effluent toxicity testing methods have been well defined, but for the most part, these methods do not attempt to segregate the effects of active ionic concentrations and ion imbalances upon test and species performances. The role of various total dissolved solids in effluents on regulatory compliance has emerged during the last few years and has caused confusion in technical assessment and in permitting and compliance issues. This paper assesses the issue of ionic strength and ion imbalance, provides a brief summary of applicable data, presents several case studies demonstrating successful tools to address toxicity resulting from salinity and ion imbalance, and provides recommendations for regulatory and compliance options to manage discharges with salinity/ion imbalance issues. Effluent toxicity resulting from inorganic ion imbalance and the ion concentration of the effluent is pervasive in permitted discharge from many industrial process and municipal discharges where process streams are concentrated, adjusted, or modified. This paper discusses procedures that use weight-of-evidence approaches to identify ion imbalance toxicity, including direct measurement, predictive toxicity models for freshwater, exchange resins, mock effluents, and ion imbalance toxicity with tolerant/susceptible test species. Cost-effective waste treatment control options for a facility whose effluent is toxic because of total dissolved solids (TDS) or because of specific ion(s) are scarce at best. Depending on the discharge situation, TDS toxicity may not be viewed with the same level of concern as other, more traditional, toxicants. These discharge situations often do not require the conservative safety factors required by other toxicants. Selection of the alternative regulatory solutions discussed in this paper may be beneficial, especially because they do not require potentially expensive or high-energy-using treatment options that may be ineffective control options. The information