Discussion and Presentation of the Disability Test Results from the Current Population Survey

In accordance with Executive Order 13078, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in cooperation with the Employment Rate Measurement Methodology interagency workgroup, identified the goal of placing a small set of questions within the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure disability. A set of potential questions was drawn from existing surveys, cognitively tested, and placed in the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) for testing. Based on an analysis of the NCS data, a set of seven questions was identified. These seven questions were then cognitively tested to ensure that they would work within the CPS context. This question set was placed in the February 2006 CPS for field testing. The two primary goals of the test were to compare the CPS disability rate to that obtained from the NCS, and to evaluate the effect on CPS response rates in the following month. Analysis of the test data revealed a lower overall disability rate as measured in the CPS than in the NCS, with lower positive response rates for each question. The data did not indicate that there was an adverse effect on the response rates for households that had received the disability questions.Disability, Current Population Survey

Learning together: Collaboration to develop curriculum, pedagogy and assessment that promote belonging

In this paper we describe the processes and outcomes of a two-year project to develop the New Zealand Curriculum Exemplars for Students with Special Education Needs. We will show how the processes of collaboration and sharing which characterised all aspects of the project impacted on those involved and suggest that this is a way of working together that, if used more widely, would lead to capacity-building to promote inclusion. The project focussed on teachers working with students described as working long term at level 1 (of 8 levels) in the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) (Ministry of Education, 2007). Earlier research had shown that teachers in regular classrooms in NZ were often puzzled about how to include some students with special education needs in their planning, teaching and assessment. Many teachers saw the NZC as irrelevant for some students with special education needs. The development of the Exemplars provides a very practical example of a framework that supports educators and families to work collaboratively; as well as the positive outcomes that are possible when working in this way. The project team included classroom and visiting support teachers (from primary and secondary schools, regular classrooms and special schools), curriculum advisors, assessment facilitators, and teacher educators. We pay particular attention to new understandings about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment that emerged as together we learned to use narrative assessment. Assessment tools can both enable and constrain what can be noticed and reported. Assessment methods as well as the results of assessment can lead to painting different kinds of pictures about students and teachers. Participating in the professional learning aspects of this project provided teachers with a language and a framework (Carr, 2006) to consider what learning might look in their classrooms. It became apparent that often progress is evident with the benefit of hindsight. This recognition challenges the belief that assessment should be predictive and predictable. Narrative assessment reminds us of the complexity of life and of learning; it also provides us with the means of better describing some of this complexity. We learned that when we write a narrative assessment, we do so with a particular way of understanding a student, a particular way of seeing and interpreting a student. When we share the narrative with other people, including the student, we are sharing our way of interpreting the student, sharing our sense of who the student is. As we engage in conversation about the narrative, all participants in the conversation are together constructing, and re-constructing the student’s identity as a learner. In our conversations about narrative assessment, we can be excited, affirmed or even challenged in our sense of who a student is. We also learned that our writing is influenced by how we understand ourselves, how we see and interpret ourselves and our actions. The way we construct our own identity shapes, and is shaped by, the identities we construct for our students, as well as the other people in our classroom and school communities. If we cannot see our students’ learning, how might we see our teaching; how might we see ourselves as teachers

A multi-data source surveillance system to detect a bioterrorism attack during the G8 summit in Scotland

In 18 weeks, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) deployed a syndromic surveillance system to early-detect natural or intentional disease outbreaks during the G8 Summit 2005 at Gleneagles, Scotland. The system integrated clinical and non-clinical datasets. Clinical datasets included Accident and Emergency (A and E) syndromes, and General Practice (GPs) codes grouped into syndromes. Non-clinical data included telephone calls to a nurse helpline, laboratory test orders, and hotel staff absenteeism. A cumulative sum-based detection algorithm and a log-linear regression model identified signals in the data. The system had a fax-based track for real-time identification of unusual presentations. Ninety-five signals were triggered by the detection algorithms and four forms were faxed to HPS. Thirteen signals were investigated. The system successfully complemented a traditional surveillance system in identifying a small cluster of gastroenteritis among the police force and triggered interventions to prevent further cases

Improving the analysis of composite endpoints in rare disease trials

Background: Composite endpoints are recommended in rare diseases to increase power and/or to sufficiently capture complexity. Often, they are in the form of responder indices which contain a mixture of continuous and binary components. Analyses of these outcomes typically treat them as binary, thus only using the dichotomisations of continuous components. The augmented binary method offers a more efficient alternative and is therefore especially useful for rare diseases. Previous work has indicated the method may have poorer statistical properties when the sample size is small. Here we investigate small sample properties and implement small sample corrections. Methods: We re-sample from a previous trial with sample sizes varying from 30 to 80. We apply the standard binary and augmented binary methods and determine the power, type I error rate, coverage and average confidence interval width for each of the estimators. We implement Firth's adjustment for the binary component models and a small sample variance correction for the generalized estimating equations, applying the small sample adjusted methods to each sub-sample as before for comparison. Results: For the log-odds treatment effect the power of the augmented binary method is 20-55% compared to 12-20% for the standard binary method. Both methods have approximately nominal type I error rates. The difference in response probabilities exhibit similar power but both unadjusted methods demonstrate type I error rates of 6-8%. The small sample corrected methods have approximately nominal type I error rates. On both scales, the reduction in average confidence interval width when using the adjusted augmented binary method is 17-18%. This is equivalent to requiring a 32% smaller sample size to achieve the same statistical power. Conclusions: The augmented binary method with small sample corrections provides a substantial improvement for rare disease trials using composite endpoints. We recommend the use of the method for the primary analysis in relevant rare disease trials. We emphasise that the method should be used alongside other efforts in improving the quality of evidence generated from rare disease trials rather than replace them

W.A.G.E. Parity: Artist compensation practices at nonprofit visual arts organizations

Artists are often uncompensated for the services they provide nonprofit visual arts organizations, and in cases where they are paid as independent contractors, fair payment standards do not exist. Activist groups led by artists, most notably the group Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), have recently criticized this lack of payment standards as exploitative. This thesis examines institutional practices related to artist compensation focusing on the experiences of artists and administrators working in the Philadelphia area. The research conducted herein reveals that artists and administrators have a broad familiarity with the fee structure proposed by W.A.G.E., which establishes minimum standards of payment based on institutional budget size. I critically examine the potential adoption of the fee structure as a means of addressing artist compensation. Prioritizing artist compensation is expected to improve artist relations and help address fieldwide issues of diversity and inclusion.M.S., Arts Administration -- Drexel University, 201

Statin use and breast cancer survival: a nationwide cohort study in Scotland

BACKGROUND: Preclinical evidence suggests that statins could delay cancer progression. Previous epidemiological findings have been inconsistent and some have been limited by small sample sizes, as well as certain time-related biases. This study aimed to investigate whether breast cancer patients who were exposed to statins had reduced breast cancer-specific mortality. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 15,140 newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer patients diagnosed from 2009 to 2012 within the Scottish Cancer Registry. Dispensed medication usage was obtained from linkages to the Scottish Prescribing Information System and breast cancer-specific deaths were identified from National Records of Scotland Death Records. Using time-dependent Cox regression models, hazard ratios (HR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) were calculated for the association between post-diagnostic exposure to statins (including simvastatin) and breast cancer-specific mortality. Adjustments were made for a range of potential confounders including age at diagnosis, year of diagnosis, cancer stage, grade, cancer treatments received, comorbidities, socioeconomic status and use of aspirin. RESULTS: A total of 1,190 breast cancer-specific deaths occurred up to January 2015. Overall, after adjustment for potential confounders, there was no evidence of an association between statin use and breast cancer-specific death (adjusted HR 0.93, 95 % CI 0.77, 1.12). No significant associations were observed in dose–response analyses or in analysis of all-cause mortality. For simvastatin use specifically, a weak non-significant reduction in breast cancer-specific mortality was observed compared to non-users (adjusted HR 0.89, 95 % CI 0.73, 1.08). Statin use before diagnosis was weakly associated with a reduction in breast cancer-specific mortality (adjusted HR 0.85, 95 % CI 0.74, 0.98). CONCLUSION: Overall, we found little evidence of a protective association between post-diagnostic statin use and cancer-specific mortality in a large nation-wide cohort of breast cancer patients. These findings will help inform the decision whether to conduct randomised controlled trials of statins as an adjuvant treatment in breast cancer