Development of a transparent interactive decision interrogator to facilitate the decision-making process in health care.

BACKGROUND: Decisions about the use of new technologies in health care are often based on complex economic models. Decision makers frequently make informal judgments about evidence, uncertainty, and the assumptions that underpin these models. OBJECTIVES: Transparent interactive decision interrogator (TIDI) facilitates more formal critique of decision models by decision makers such as members of appraisal committees of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the UK. By allowing them to run advanced statistical models under different scenarios in real time, TIDI can make the decision process more efficient and transparent, while avoiding limitations on pre-prepared analysis. METHODS: TIDI, programmed in Visual Basic for applications within Excel, provides an interface for controlling all components of a decision model developed in the appropriate software (e.g., meta-analysis in WinBUGS and the decision model in R) by linking software packages using RExcel and R2WinBUGS. TIDI's graphical controls allow the user to modify assumptions and to run the decision model, and results are returned to an Excel spreadsheet. A tool displaying tornado plots helps to evaluate the influence of individual parameters on the model outcomes, and an interactive meta-analysis module allows the user to select any combination of available studies, explore the impact of bias adjustment, and view results using forest plots. We demonstrate TIDI using an example of a decision model in antenatal care. CONCLUSION: Use of TIDI during the NICE appraisal of tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors (in psoriatic arthritis) successfully demonstrated its ability to facilitate critiques of the decision models by decision makers

Classtalk: A Classroom Communication System for Active Learning

This pdf file is an article describing the advantages of using Classtalk technology in the classroom to enhance classroom communication. Classtalk technology cab facilitate the presentation of questions for small group work, collec the student answers and then display histograms showing how the class answered. This new communication technology can help instructors create a more interactive, student centered classroom, especially when teaching large courses. The article describes Classtalk as a very useful tool not only for engaging students in active learning, but also for enhancing the overall communication within the classroom. This article is a selection from the electronic Journal for Computing in Higher Education. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Standard electrocardiographic values in Holstein calves Valores eletrocardiográficos normais para bezerros holandeses

This paper presents electrocardiographic values in 25 Holstein calves using the standard bipolar limbs leads (I, II and III), augmented unipolar limb leads (avL, avR and avF) and a bipolar chest lead (V10). Two groups with different ages were compared (newborn - 18 to 72 hours and calves - 27 to 33 days old). It was concluded that no differences between age groups in P, Q, R, S and T waves, in the PR, QRS, QT and ST intervals and in axis orientation were observed.<br>Este artigo apresenta valores eletrocardiográficos de 25 bezerros da raça Holandesesa, utilizando-se as derivações bipolares de membro (I, II, III), unipolares aumentadas de membro (avL, avR e avF) e uma derivação bipolar de torax (V10). Dois grupos com animais de diferentes idades foram comparados (18 a 72 horas e 27 a 33 dias de idade). Conclui-se que não houve diferença significativa entre os grupos nas ondas P, Q, R, S e T, nos intervalos PR, QRS, QT e ST e no eixo cardíaco