Appropriate use criteria for echocardiography in the Netherlands

Introduction Appropriate use criteria (AUC) for echocardiography based on clinical scenarios were previously published by an American Task Force. We determined whether members of the Dutch Working Group on Echocardiography (WGE) would rate these scenarios in a similar way. Methods All 32 members of the WGE were invited to judge clinical scenarios independently using a blanked version of the previously published American version of AUC for echocardiography. During a face-to-face meeting, consensus about the final rating was reached by open discussion for each indication. For reasons of simplicity, the scores were reduced from a 9-point scale to a 3-point scale (indicating an appropriate, uncertain or inappropriate echo indication, respectively). Results Nine cardiologist members of the WGE reported their judgment on the echo cases (n = 153). Seventy-one indications were rated as appropriate, 35 were rated as uncertain, and 47 were rated as inappropriate. In 5% of the cases the rating was opposite to that in the original (appropriate compared with inappropriate and vice versa), whereas in 20% judgements differed by 1 level of appropriateness. After the consensus meeting, the appropriateness of 7 (5%) cases was judged differently compared with the original paper. Conclusions Echocardiography was rated appropriate when it is applied for an initial diagnosis, a change in clinical status or a change in patient management. However, in about 5% of the listed clinical scenarios, members of the Dutch WGE rated the AUC for echocardiography differently as compared with their American counterparts. Further research is warranted to analyse this decreased external validity

Proposal for Topologically Unquenched QCD

A proposal is presented for simulating an improvement on quenched QCD with dynamical fermions which interact with the gluon configuration only via the topological index of the latter. Strengths and shortcomings of the method are discussed and it is argued that the approximation - though being crude - shares some qualitative aspects of full QCD which relate to the issue of chiral symmetry breaking.Comment: latex, 13pp, material rearranged and better focused, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

THE TOOLS AND MONTE CARLO WORKING GROUP Summary Report from the Les Houches 2009 Workshop on TeV Colliders

This is the summary and introduction to the proceedings contributions for the Les Houches 2009 "Tools and Monte Carlo" working group.Comment: 144 Pages. Workshop site http://wwwlapp.in2p3.fr/conferences/LesHouches/Houches2009/ . Conveners were Butterworth, Maltoni, Moortgat, Richardson, Schumann and Skand

Characterizing Interdisciplinarity of Researchers and Research Topics Using Web Search Engines

Researchers' networks have been subject to active modeling and analysis. Earlier literature mostly focused on citation or co-authorship networks reconstructed from annotated scientific publication databases, which have several limitations. Recently, general-purpose web search engines have also been utilized to collect information about social networks. Here we reconstructed, using web search engines, a network representing the relatedness of researchers to their peers as well as to various research topics. Relatedness between researchers and research topics was characterized by visibility boost-increase of a researcher's visibility by focusing on a particular topic. It was observed that researchers who had high visibility boosts by the same research topic tended to be close to each other in their network. We calculated correlations between visibility boosts by research topics and researchers' interdisciplinarity at individual level (diversity of topics related to the researcher) and at social level (his/her centrality in the researchers' network). We found that visibility boosts by certain research topics were positively correlated with researchers' individual-level interdisciplinarity despite their negative correlations with the general popularity of researchers. It was also found that visibility boosts by network-related topics had positive correlations with researchers' social-level interdisciplinarity. Research topics' correlations with researchers' individual- and social-level interdisciplinarities were found to be nearly independent from each other. These findings suggest that the notion of "interdisciplinarity" of a researcher should be understood as a multi-dimensional concept that should be evaluated using multiple assessment means.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in PLoS On

The dynamics of university units as a multi-level process. Credibility cycles and resource dependencies

This paper presents an analysis of resource acquisition and profile development of institutional units within universities. We conceptualize resource acquisition as a two level nested process, where units compete for external resources based on their credibility, but at the same time are granted faculty positions from the larger units (department) to which they belong. Our model implies that the growth of university units is constrained by the decisions of their parent department on the allocation of professorial positions, which represent the critical resource for most units’ activities. In our field of study this allocation is largely based on educational activities, and therefore, units with high scientific credibility are not necessarily able to grow, despite an increasing reliance on external funds. Our paper therefore sheds light on the implications that the dual funding system of European universities has for the development of units, while taking into account the interaction between institutional funding and third-party funding

Moyal star product approach to the Bohr-Sommerfeld approximation

The Bohr-Sommerfeld approximation to the eigenvalues of a one-dimensional quantum Hamiltonian is derived through order $\hbar^2$ (i.e., including the first correction term beyond the usual result) by means of the Moyal star product. The Hamiltonian need only have a Weyl transform (or symbol) that is a power series in $\hbar$, starting with $\hbar^0$, with a generic fixed point in phase space. The Hamiltonian is not restricted to the kinetic-plus-potential form. The method involves transforming the Hamiltonian to a normal form, in which it becomes a function of the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian. Diagrammatic and other techniques with potential applications to other normal form problems are presented for manipulating higher order terms in the Moyal series.Comment: 27 pages, no figure

Memory-experience gap in early adolescents' happiness reports

Studies among adult populations show that estimates of how happy one has felt in the past tend to be more positive than average happiness as assessed using time sampling techniques. This ‘memory-experience gap’ is attributed to cognitive biases, among which fading affect bias. In this paper we report a study among 352 pupils of a secondary school in the Netherlands. These youngsters reported subsequently: 1) how happy they had felt yesterday, 2) how happy they had felt during the last month, 3) what they had done the previous day and 4) how the

Assessing the Effectiveness of a Performance Evaluation System in the Public Health Care Sector: Some Novel Evidence from the Tuscany Region Experience

Since 80's the introduction of New Public Management principles has promoted the use of performance measurement to drive a more efficient, effective and accountable public sector. The adoption of a sophisticated and comprehensive multidimensional performance measurement system, which looks beyond traditional financial measures, based on organization strategies, such as the balanced scorecard, has thus been suggested. This revolution in the public management came together with the devolution processes that involved most European public health systems. Set within this context, in the last decade, each of the twenty Italian regions developed its own management tools. Among others, the Tuscan performance evaluation system (PES) has been valued as a particularly innovative and comprehensive system. This paper reports the novel experience of the Tuscan PES; in particular, it measures PES effectiveness and discusses the critical factors that could have led to the PES success. Five are the critical success factors identified by researchers: the visual reporting system, the linkage between PES and CEO's reward system, the public disclosure of data, the high level of employees and managers involvement into the entire process and the strong political commitment. All those factors run together to achieve better results; however, the process of development of the system plays a pivotal role. Scholars suggest the use of a constructive approach in order to gain effective changes in human organization. According to this stream of literature, this paper contributes by the novel experience of the Tuscan PES in addressing as a further fruitful application of the constructivist approach in healthcare

Shadow Places: Patterns of Spatial Concentration and Incorporation of Irregular Immigrants in the Netherlands

Summary: In Western countries, irregular immigrants constitute a sizeable segment of the population. By combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, this article describes and explains irregular immigrants’ patterns of spatial concentration and incorporation in the Netherlands. So far these spatial patterns have not been described and explained systematically, neither in the Netherlands nor elsewhere. The article shows that illegal residence is selectively embedded in the (urban) social structure in various ways. The authors argue that irregular immigrants are likely to be spatially concentrated and incorporated in similar ways in other Western countries; now and in the foreseeable future