Worse Than Spam: Issues In Sampling Software Developers

Background: Reaching out to professional software developers is a crucial part of empirical software engineering research. One important method to investigate the state of practice is survey research. As drawing a random sample of professional software developers for a survey is rarely possible, researchers rely on various sampling strategies. Objective: In this paper, we report on our experience with different sampling strategies we employed, highlight ethical issues, and motivate the need to maintain a collection of key demographics about software developers to ease the assessment of the external validity of studies. Method: Our report is based on data from two studies we conducted in the past. Results: Contacting developers over public media proved to be the most effective and efficient sampling strategy. However, we not only describe the perspective of researchers who are interested in reaching goals like a large number of participants or a high response rate, but we also shed light onto ethical implications of different sampling strategies. We present one specific ethical guideline and point to debates in other research communities to start a discussion in the software engineering research community about which sampling strategies should be considered ethical.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the 2016 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM 2016), ACM, 201

Guide for audits of Head Start program grants

Federal Domestic Assistance Catalog no. 13.600.Includes appendices.Mode of access: Internet

Studies in Ambulatory Care Quality Assessment in the Indian Health Service Volume 3: Comparison of Rural Private Practice, Health Maintenance Organizations, and the Indian Health Service

This report describes a method designed to assess the quality of ambulatory health care in the Indian Health Service. The first part of the evaluation was a description of the design phase of the quality assurance methodology. The second report describes a pilot study in six IHS Service Units, three private practices, and two large Health Maintenance Organizations. This third volume compares the three different types of health care units. The primary purpose of this report is to determine if there is any significant difference in the performance of the different health care providers of ambulatory health care.Seven tracer conditions were selected on the basis of severity of impact on the patient. The tracer conditions included: severe lacerations, iron deficiency anemia, urinary tract infection, prenatal care, infant care, streptococcal infection, and hypertension. Specific patient cohorts were identified by tracer condition and monitored by criteria indicators. These indicators describe the continuity, distribution, and appropriateness of provider care. The indicators are aggregated into three major types: population based, provider based, and health status indicators. The results were tabulated in frequency tables. Comparisons of tracer cohorts were then made for all three types of health care providers.This comparative phase of the study found that there was no substantial or consistent difference in the performance of the care providers across units. Most of the differences observed were attributable to the provider\u27s ability or inability to recognize the patient\u27s needs, and the patient\u27s ability to articulate their needs. It appeared that IHS units did a more comprehensive job of consumer education. That may be attributable to the multidisciplinary health care teams, and extensive field operations of IHS. Conversely, the recognition of patient needs tends to be higher with private practitioners and HMOs.The study suggests four major methodological areas of concern in the application of quality assurance techniques. First, the evaluation of provider performance alone does not necessarily reflect the adequacy of care provided. Second, the study indicates a continuing need to improve the continuity of care provision. Health status indicators were the weakest part of the quality assessment methodology and require further research and development. Finally, one must use tracer conditions with caution. The adequacy of care resulting from the assessment of one condition may not always be generalizable to insure adequacy of care for similar conditions. Focusing on specific conditions may serve to blind the care provider to other symptomatically similar conditions

Guide for State and local government agencies: cost principles and procedures for establishing cost allocation plans and indirect cost rates for grants and contracts with the Federal government

OASC-10. This publication replaces OASC-6, a guide for State government agencies; OASC-8, a guide for local government agencies. Issued Dec. 197

Studies in Ambulatory Care Quality Assessment in the Indian Health Service

This report describes a method designed to assess the quality of ambulatory health care in the Indian Health Service. This evaluation approaches the issue of quality assurance for ambulatory care through three basic performance criteria: 1) the method must be easily and economically incorporated into the existing system; 2) the method must identify areas of deficiency in health care and suggest adaptive programs to correct deficiencies; and 3) the method must view health care from the community perspective and examine the quality of the care actually received.This study design was developed around six methodological design questions: 1) what mode of health care delivery is assessed; 2) what aspect of quality is measured; 3) what is the content of the evaluation; 4) how is quality assessed; 5) from what perspective are the measurements taken; and 6) how are the results analyzed? The results of the above design decisions are then used to develop criteria-based indicators and instruments. The project product is a set of flow charts or process maps and tables which outline in detail, the performance and process criteria, and forms to be used to connect data and index the progress and effectiveness of actual patient status and health care performance. The final stage in the process is to propose a design for field testing the established methodology. The evaluation instrument was successfully completed, and implemented at the field test study sites.For the purpose of improving the pilot study and subsequent evaluations, the designers of this methodology strongly suggest that: 1) audit specific data should include all usual patient status data, complete patient history data, including negative as well as positive progress, and educational counseling plans and outcomes; 2) validity of proposed criteria ought to be supported by controlled clinical studies; and 3) only those elements of care which can actually be changed should be subjected to compliance with performance criteria

'Zero tolerance' and drug education in Australian Schools

For a decade in Australia, drug education in schools has been shaped by the approach of harm minimization adopted by state and national governments alike. Harm minimization has been accepted broadly by drug educators, and has encouraged schools to deepen their commitment to drug education, allowed them to communicate honestly with students, and to respond to instances of drug use in a less confrontational and more caring manner. Despite those advances, the notion of 'zero tolerance' within schools has been promoted recently by protagonists in the formulation of drug policy and it is mentioned in the recently published national school drug education policy. This article suggests that the adoption of a zero tolerance policy will end the consensus among drug educators, reduce the efficacy of drug education, lead to more punitive treatment of youthful drug experimenters, while doing nothing to reduce drug use. It concludes the existing policy of harm minimization offers schools more scope to address drug issues in a constructive manner than does zero tolerance, which in practice may inflate the harmful effects on young people of drug use

The Use of Health Service Areas for Measuring Provider Availability

Measurement of the availability of health care providers in a geographic area is a useful component in assessing access to health care. One of the problems associated with the county provider-to-population ratio as a measure of availability is that patients frequently travel outside their counties of residence for health care, especially those residing in non-metropolitan counties. Thus, in measuring the number of providers per capita, it is important that the geographic unit of analysis be a health service area. We have defined health care service areas for the coterminous United States, based on 1988 Medicare data on travel patterns between counties for routine hospital care. We used hierarchical cluster analysis to group counties into 802 service areas. More than one half of the service areas include only non-metropolitan counties. The service areas vary substantially in the availability of health care resources as measured by physicians and hospital beds per 100,000 population. For almost all of the service areas, the majority of hospital stays by area residents occur within the service area. In contrast, for 39 percent of counties, the majority of hospital stays by county residents occur outside the county. Thus, the service areas are a more appropriate georgraphic unit than the county for measuring the availability of health care

Perceptions Held by Obese Children and their Parents: Implications for Weight Control Intervention

The study was designed to identify some of the psychosocial barriers to compliance in a hospital-based weight control intervention program for adolescents. Forty obese adolescents, 10 to 16 years of age, and their parents were surveyed prior to participa tion in a behavioral change weight control program at a major teaching hospital. Significant correlations were obtained between weight loss outcome and six factors. In obese adolescents, weight loss was significantly associated with their beliefs regarding: (1) personal control over weight, (2) barriers or difficulty of losing weight, (3) medical problems as a cause of their obesity, (4) family problems as a cause of their obesity, and (5) perceived willingness of family members to diet. It is suggested that greater weight loss in children who perceived more barriers/difficulty and less family willing ness to diet may reflect the importance of having realistic expectations related to be havioral compliance. In addition, a positive parental attitude or expectation that the child was less likely to be overweight in the future was associated with greater weight loss compliance. Other parental health beliefs, however, did not generally predict the child's weight loss response to the intervention. The findings lend support to the sig nificance of the adolescent's beliefs regarding weight and family support in explaining weight loss response to a behavioral change intervention program.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66720/2/10.1177_109019818801500204.pd

We want you to know about nutrition labels on food

Reprinted January 1984. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo