47,916 research outputs found
Patient delays in seeking help at the onset of rheumatoid arthritis: the problem, its causes and potential solutions
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease for which early treatment is vital to limit long term joint damage. However, people often delay in seeking medical help at the onset of RA symptoms. The early interpretation of symptoms and the process of making sense of symptoms impacts on both help-seeking decision-making and self-management. Furthermore, the general public’s perceptions and knowledge of RA may also affect the way that symptoms are interpreted. Examining the psychology behind early symptom interpretation, the barriers to help-seeking behaviour and investigating the public understandings of RA, can help us understand how decisions are made and guide us in developing interventions which encourage people to seek help promptly at the onset of RA
An algorithm to identify rheumatoid arthritis in primary care: a Clinical Practice Research Datalink study
Objective:
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a multisystem,
inflammatory disorder associated with increased levels
of morbidity and mortality. While much research into
the condition is conducted in the secondary care
setting, routinely collected primary care databases
provide an important source of research data. This
study aimed to update an algorithm to define RA that
was previously developed and validated in the General
Practice Research Database (GPRD).
Methods:
The original algorithm consisted of two criteria. Individuals meeting at least one were considered to have RA. Criterion 1:≥1 RA Read code and a disease modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) without an alternative indication. Criterion 2:≥2RA Read codes, with at least one
'strong' code and no alternative diagnoses. Lists of codes for consultations and prescriptions were obtained from the authors of the original algorithm where these were available, or compiled based on the original description and clinical knowledge. 4161 people with a first Read code for RA between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2012 were
selected from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink
(CPRD, successor to the GPRD), and the criteria applied.
Results:
Code lists were updated for the introduction of new Read codes and biological DMARDs. 3577/
4161 (86%) of people met the updated algorithm for
RA, compared to 61% in the original development
study. 62.8% of people fulfilled both Criterion 1 and
Criterion 2.
Conclusions:
Those wishing to define RA in the CPRD, should consider using this updated algorithm, rather than a single RA code, if they wish to identify only those who are most likely to have RA
Learning from MARQuIS: future direction of quality and safety in hospital care in the European Union.
This article summarises the significant lessons to be drawn from, and the policy implications of, the findings of the Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies (MARQuIS) project--a part of the suite of research projects intended to support policy established by the European Commission through its Sixth Framework Programme. The article first reviews the findings of MARQuIS and their implications for healthcare providers (and particularly for hospitals), and then addresses the broader policy implications for member states of the European Union (EU) and for the commission itself. Against the background of the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, it then outlines a number of future areas for research to inform policy and practice in quality and safety in Europe. The article concludes that at this stage, a unique EU-wide quality improvement system for hospitals does not seem to be feasible or effective. Because of possible future community action in this field, attention should focus on the use of existing research on quality and safety strategies in healthcare, with the aim of combining soft measures to accelerate mutual learning. Concrete measures should be considered only in areas for which there is substantial evidence and effective implementation can be ensured
What does a primary care annual review for RA include? A national GP survey
Letter to the edito
Collider Signatures of the N=3 Lee-Wick Standard Model
Inspired by the Lee-Wick higher-derivative approach to quantum field theory,
Grinstein, O'Connell, and Wise have illustrated the utility of introducing into
the Standard Model negative-norm states that cancel quadratic divergences in
loop diagrams, thus posing a potential resolution of the hierarchy problem.
Subsequent work has shown that consistency with electroweak precision
parameters requires many of the partner states to be too massive to be detected
at the LHC. We consider the phenomenology of a yet-higher derivative theory
that exhibits three poles in its bare propagators (hence N=3), whose states
alternate in norm. We examine the interference effects of W boson partners on
LHC scattering cross sections, and find that the N=3 LWSM already makes
verifiable predictions at 10 fb^(-1) of integrated luminosity.Comment: 15 pages, 4 PDF figures. Version accepted for publication by JHE
Autonomic Computing
Modern networks offer end-to-end connectivity however; the increasing amount of traditional offered services may still not fulfill the requirements of ever demanding distributed applications and must therefore be enriched by some form of increased intelligence in the network. This is where the promise of autonomous systems comes into play. Paul Horn of IBM Research first suggested the idea of autonomic computing on 15 October 2001 at the Agenda conference in Arizona. The need centers around the exponential growth of networking complexity. Autonomous systems are capable of performing activities by taking into account the local environment and adapting to it. No planning is required hence autonomous systems simply have to make the best of the resources at hand. Locality in this scenario is no longer geographical but rather the information and applications on the boundary of the autonomic communicating element which may be distributed over a wide area. The most common definition of an autonomic computing system is one which can control the functioning of computer applications and systems without input from the user, in the same way that the autonomic nervous system regulates body systems without conscious input from the individual. Thus, we attempt here to more clearly identify the need for autonomous systems, their architecture, the path of evolution from traditional network elements and the future of such systems.</jats:p
Experimental study of Pomeron
A Pomeron phenomenon remains a mystery. A short review of the experimental
situation in diffractive physics and an account of some spectacular
manifestations of the Pomeron are given.Comment: 17 pages, 7 Figs, LATEX. Talk given at the conference "From the
smallest to largest distances", ITEP, Moscow, 24-26 May 2001. Changes: Fig.2
replace
TK: The Twitter Top-K Keywords Benchmark
Information retrieval from textual data focuses on the construction of
vocabularies that contain weighted term tuples. Such vocabularies can then be
exploited by various text analysis algorithms to extract new knowledge, e.g.,
top-k keywords, top-k documents, etc. Top-k keywords are casually used for
various purposes, are often computed on-the-fly, and thus must be efficiently
computed. To compare competing weighting schemes and database implementations,
benchmarking is customary. To the best of our knowledge, no benchmark currently
addresses these problems. Hence, in this paper, we present a top-k keywords
benchmark, TK, which features a real tweet dataset and queries with
various complexities and selectivities. TK helps evaluate weighting
schemes and database implementations in terms of computing performance. To
illustrate TK's relevance and genericity, we successfully performed
tests on the TF-IDF and Okapi BM25 weighting schemes, on one hand, and on
different relational (Oracle, PostgreSQL) and document-oriented (MongoDB)
database implementations, on the other hand
- …