A Critical Examination of the Environmental Mastery Scale

The Psychological well being Inventory (PWBI) is a multidimensional instrument that has enjoyed widespread use in a variety of research initiatives, from small-scale studies to national surveys. Recent empirical investigation of the measure has raised questions about its validity. This study examines the factorial validity of the Environmental Mastery Scale of the PWBI, a construct that receives much attention in mental health research. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis did not support the unidimensional factor structure of the measure. Correlated uniqueness models were also examined, which did not reveal evidence of a method effect. There are problems with the measure at the item level, which also raises significant questions about the underlying theory of its parent measure.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61157/1/EMS.pd

Diagnostic management of acute pulmonary embolism: a prediction model based on a patient data meta-analysis

AimsRisk stratification is used for decisions regarding need for imaging in patients with clinically suspected acute pulmonary embolism (PE). The aim was to develop a clinical prediction model that provides an individualized, accurate probability estimate for the presence of acute PE in patients with suspected disease based on readily available clinical items and D-dimer concentrations.Methods and resultsAn individual patient data meta-analysis was performed based on sixteen cross-sectional or prospective studies with data from 28 305 adult patients with clinically suspected PE from various clinical settings, including primary care, emergency care, hospitalized and nursing home patients. A multilevel logistic regression model was built and validated including ten a priori defined objective candidate predictors to predict objectively confirmed PE at baseline or venous thromboembolism (VTE) during follow-up of 30 to 90 days. Multiple imputation was used for missing data. Backward elimination was performed with a P-value ConclusionThe present model provides an absolute, individualized probability of PE presence in a broad population of patients with suspected PE, with very good discrimination and calibration. Its clinical utility needs to be evaluated in a prospective management or impact study.Thrombosis and Hemostasi

Does TV advertising make children fat? : what the evidence tells us

There is growing public concern over rising levels of obesity among children, in the UK and many other countries in the developed world, as World Health Organisation reports have warned (as illustrated by 2003). The Royal College of Physicians reports that obesity has doubled among two to four year olds between 1989 and 1998, and trebled among six to fifteen year olds between 1990 and 2002. Similarly, in the USA, obesity among six to nineteen year olds has trebled over the past four decades, to 16 per cent in 1999-2002, while the incidence of type 2 diabetes has doubled in the past decade, with notable increases also in the risk of heart disease, stroke, circulatory problems, some cancers, osteoporosis and blindness. The evidence of rising obesity, it seems, is beyond question. The explanation is less clear. The USA’s Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Committee on Food Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth observed in their major report to Congress (2005), children’s diets “result from the interplay of many factors… all of which, apart from genetic predispositions, have undergone significant transformations over the past three decades”. In other words, researchers are generally agreed that multiple factors account for childhood obesity, including individual, social, environmental and cultural factors (Story, Neumark-Sztainer, & French, 2002). These factors are, for the most part, subject to change, and many of them interact with each other in complex ways not yet well understood. One consequence is that policy decisions regarding intervention are highly contested, for multiple stakeholders, with competing interests, are involved. It is in this context that this essay focuses on just one putative explanation for childhood obesity, namely food promotion, particularly television advertising of foods high in fact, salt or sugar. It asks one key question: is the evidence base linking advertising to children’s health sufficient to guide policy decisions

Mathematical proofs at a crossroad

Abstract. For more than 2000 years, from Pythagoras and Euclid to Hilbert and Bourbaki, mathematical proofs were essentially based on axiomatic-deductive reasoning. In the last decades, the increasing length and complexity of many mathematical proofs led to the expansion of some empirical, experimental, psychological and social aspects, yesterday only marginal, but now changing radically the very essence of proof. In this paper, we try to organize this evolution, to distinguish its different steps and aspects, and to evaluate its advantages and shortcomings. Axiomatic-deductive proofs are not a posteriori work, a luxury we can marginalize nor are computer-assisted proofs bad mathematics. There is hope for integration!