Voice-stress measure of mental workload

In a planned experiment, male subjects between the age of 18 and 50 will be required to produce speech while performing various tasks. Analysis of the speech produced should reveal which aspects of voice prosody are associated with increased workloads. Preliminary results with two female subjects suggest a possible trend for voice frequency and amplitude to be higher and the variance of the voice frequency to be lower in the high workload condition

Centerscope

Centerscope, formerly Scope, was published by the Boston University Medical Center "to communicate the concern of the Medical Center for the development and maintenance of improved health care in contemporary society.

Exponential sum approximations for t−βt^{-\beta}

Given $\beta>0$ and $\delta>0$, the function $t^{-\beta}$ may be approximated for $t$ in a compact interval $[\delta,T]$ by a sum of terms of the form $we^{-at}$, with parameters $w>0$ and $a>0$. One such an approximation, studied by Beylkin and Monz\'on, is obtained by applying the trapezoidal rule to an integral representation of $t^{-\beta}$, after which Prony's method is applied to reduce the number of terms in the sum with essentially no loss of accuracy. We review this method, and then describe a similar approach based on an alternative integral representation. The main difference is that the new approach achieves much better results before the application of Prony's method; after applying Prony's method the performance of both is much the same.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. I have completely rewritten this paper because after uploading the previous version I realised that there is a much better approach. Note the change to the title. Have included minor corrections following revie

Toward the Development of a Pursuit Decision Calculus: Pursuit Benefits Versus Pursuit Cost

To make unbiased decisions about whether to pursue a fleeing vehicle, officers must understand both the costs and the potential benefits of a pursuit. This manuscript describes an approach that identifies and assesses the impact of pursuit characteristics on pursuit costs. Data from official pursuit forms generated by officers in the Miami-Dade police department were used as a basis of the study. Log-linear models were used to identify direct and interactive effects of the pursuit characteristics. Upon finding significant effects, odds ratios were calculated. The findings indicate that there are certain pursuit characteristics, including number of units and speed, that significantly increase the likelihood of pursuits resulting in a cost to society including personal injury or property damage

African-American patients with cancer Talking About Clinical Trials (TACT) with oncologists during consultations: evaluating the efficacy of tailored health messages in a randomised controlled trial—the TACT study protocol

Introduction Low rates of accrual of African-American (AA) patients with cancer to therapeutic clinical trials (CTs) represent a serious and modifiable racial disparity in healthcare that impedes the development of promising cancer therapies. Suboptimal physician–patient consultation communication is a barrier to the accrual of patients with cancer of any race, but communication difficulties are compounded with AA patients. Providing tailored health messages (THM) to AA patients and their physician about CTs has the potential to improve communication, lower barriers to accrual and ameliorate health disparities. Objective (1) Demonstrate the efficacy of THM to increase patient activation as measured by direct observation. (2) Demonstrate the efficacy of THM to improve patient outcomes associated with barriers to AA participation. (3) Explore associations among preconsultation levels of: (A) trust in medical researchers, (B) knowledge and attitudes towards CTs, (C) patient-family member congruence in decision-making, and (D) involvement/information preferences, and group assignment. Methods and analysis First, using established methods, we will develop THM materials. Second, the efficacy of the intervention is determined in a 2 by 2 factorial randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of (1) providing 357 AA patients with cancer with THM with 2 different ‘depths’ of tailoring and (2) either providing feedback to oncologists about the patients\u27 trial THM or not. The primary analysis compares patient engaged communication in 4 groups preconsultation and postconsultation. Ethics and dissemination This study was approved by the Virginia Commonwealth University Institutional Review Board. To facilitate use of the THM intervention in diverse settings, we will convene ‘user groups’ at 3 major US cancer centres. To facilitate dissemination, we will post all materials and the implementation guide in publicly available locations

Modularity and community detection in bipartite networks

The modularity of a network quantifies the extent, relative to a null model network, to which vertices cluster into community groups. We define a null model appropriate for bipartite networks, and use it to define a bipartite modularity. The bipartite modularity is presented in terms of a modularity matrix B; some key properties of the eigenspectrum of B are identified and used to describe an algorithm for identifying modules in bipartite networks. The algorithm is based on the idea that the modules in the two parts of the network are dependent, with each part mutually being used to induce the vertices for the other part into the modules. We apply the algorithm to real-world network data, showing that the algorithm successfully identifies the modular structure of bipartite networks.Comment: RevTex 4, 11 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; modest extensions to conten