preference: An R Package for Two-Stage Clinical Trial Design Accounting for Patient Preference

The consideration of a patient's treatment preference may be essential in determining how a patient will respond to a particular treatment. While traditional clinical trials are unable to capture these effects, the two-stage randomized preference design provides an important tool for researchers seeking to understand the role of patient preferences. In addition to the treatment effect, these designs seek to estimate the role of preferences through testing of selection and preference effects. The R package preference facilitates the use of two-stage clinical trials by providing the necessary tools to design and analyze these studies. To aid in the design, functions are provided to estimate the required sample size and to estimate the study power when a sample size is fixed. In addition, analysis functions are provided to determine the significance of each effect using either raw data or summary statistics. The package is able to incorporate either an unstratified or stratified preference design. The functionality of the package is demonstrated using data from a study evaluating two management methods in women found to have an atypical Pap smear

Ancient Latin American objects in the archive: selections from the George and Louise Patten collection of Salem Hyde cultural artifacts at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

https://scholar.utc.edu/exhibition-records/1004/thumbnail.jp

Growth patterns in early childhood: Better trajectories in Afro-Ecuadorians independent of sex and socioeconomic factors.

The first years of life are the most dynamic period for childhood growth. There are limited data available on growth patterns of infants and children living in rural Latin America. The aim of this study was to describe the growth patterns from birth to 5years in children living in a rural District of tropical coastal Ecuador using data from a birth cohort of 2404 neonates. We hypothesize that there would be growth differences according to ethnicity and sex. Evaluations were conducted at birth or until 2weeks of age and at 7, 13, 24, 36 and 60months during clinic and home visits. Individual growth trajectories for weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight/height-for-age Z-scores were estimated using multilevel models. Girls were lighter and shorter than boys at birth. However, Afro-Ecuadorian children (versus mestizo or indigenous) were longer/taller and heavier throughout the first 5years of life and had greater mean trajectories for HAZ and WAZ independent of sex and socioeconomic factors. Our data indicate that ethnicity is a determinant of growth trajectories during the first 5years of life independent of socioeconomic factors in a birth cohort conducted in a rural region of Latin America

Establishing Functional Concepts Vital for Design by Analogy

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2015.7344193© 2015 IEEEStudent designers and professionals alike have difficulty accessing appropriate analogies for design problems. Recognizing the advantages of Design-by-Analogy (DbA), the Design-Analogy Performance Parameter System (D-APPS) tool was developed to include a library of analogy entries and a matching algorithm. These components are combined into the Design Repository & Analogy Computation via Unit-Language Analysis (DRACULA) software package that maps functions across domains in order to present analogies to designers as initiated through engineering performance metrics and critical functions. Most tools developed for DbA emphasize the searching by function feature. Since analogies are based on more than function, DRACULA incorporates both performance and function for the user to identify relevant analogous solutions. Prior to exposing engineering students to this tool, we investigated their ability to use analogies when crossing domains. During this process, we identified three function concepts to be vital for students to effectively use analogies across domains: reoccurring functions, critical functions, and mapping functions. The results establish a better understanding of the information that students utilize in order to formulate appropriate and creative analogous design solutions.10.1109/FIE.2015.734419

Preparing for Threats in Harris County: Utilizing a Community Approach

The recent federal response to the COVID-19 virus outlines the important role of planning in disaster preparedness. One vital variable within the planning phase, that is sometimes overlooked, is messaging to the general public. More succinctly, how can government entities effectively communicate important information to diverse populations? Addressing this question becomes more problematic as the population becomes larger and more diverse and when you also add population sprawl into the equation.Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Managemen

Preparing for Threats in Harris County: Utilizing a Community Approach

The recent federal response to the COVID-19 virus outlines the important role of planning in disaster preparedness. One vital variable within the planning phase, that is sometimes overlooked, is messaging to the general public. More succinctly, how can government entities effectively communicate important information to diverse populations? Addressing this question becomes more problematic as the population becomes larger and more diverse and when you also add population sprawl into the equation.Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Managemen

Prospectus, December 6, 2007

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2007/1026/thumbnail.jp

Ethnicity and prognosis following a cardiovascular event in people with and without type 2 diabetes: observational analysis in over 5 million subjects in England.

AIMS To quantify ethnic differences in the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) events following a first CVD event in people with and without type 2 diabetes. METHODS We identified 5,349,271 subjects with a first CVD between 1 January 2002 and 31 May 2020 in the UK; CVD included aortic aneurism, cerebrovascular accident, heart failure, myocardial infarction, peripheral vascular disease, and other cardiovascular diseases. We estimated adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for type 2 diabetes and ethnicity of three outcomes: fatal and nonfatal second CVD event (different phenotype compared to the first) and all-cause mortality. RESULTS Relative to White, HRs indicated lower rates in all ethnicities and for all outcomes in both men (from 0.64 to 0.79 for all-cause death; 0.78 to 0.79 for CVD-related death; and 0.85 to 0.98 for a second CVD event) and women (0.69 to 0.77; 0.77 to 0.83; 0.83 to 0.95, respectively). Irrespective of ethnicity and sex, type 2 diabetes increased rates of all outcomes by around a third. CONCLUSIONS Prognosis following a CVD event was consistently worse in subjects with type 2 diabetes while varied across ethnicities, suggesting the implementation of different strategies for the secondary prevention of CVD in different ethnic groups