Lung Cancer Screening: An Evidence-Based Practice Change Project

Practice Problem: Lung cancer is the leading cause of global cancer deaths and is a significant health issue in the US, claiming more than 155,000 lives each year. Lung cancer screening through low dose computed tomography (LDCT) can reduce lung cancer mortality by 20 percent but unfortunately, lung cancer screening is underutilized. PICOT Question: The PICOT question that guided this project was: in a patient population eligible for LDCT lung screening (P), how does auditing of practice with feedback to the providers (I), compared to not doing the interventions as mentioned above (C), increase LDCT lung cancer screenings in the identified population (O), in an eight-week period (T)? Evidence: A thorough literature review was conducted to determine if audit and feedback is an evidence-based strategy for increasing cancer screening rates. The literature review produced ample evidence supporting audit and feedback as an effective strategy for significantly increasing cancer screening rates. Intervention: A lung cancer screening audit tool with essential elements for determining patient eligibility for LDCT lung cancer screening was created for this project, and the face validity of the audit tool was obtained. During the project’s intervention and evaluation phase, each audit tool submitted was analyzed for completeness, and performance feedback was given to the clinic’s providers on a weekly basis. Outcome: Although Chi-Square analysis did not show statistical significance, the number of LDCT lung cancer screening scans nearly doubled during the intervention phase compared to the baseline phase of the project. Conclusion: The continued usage of the lung cancer screening audit and feedback tool is recommended for increasing the number of LDCT lung cancer screenings

A unified interpretation of several combinatorial dualities

AbstractSeveral combinatorial structures exhibit a duality relation that yields interesting theorems, and, sometimes, useful explanations or interpretations of results that do not concern duality explicitly. We present a common characterization of the duality relations associated with matroids, clutters (Sperner families), oriented matroids, and weakly oriented matroids. The same conditions characterize the orthogonality relation on certain families of vector spaces. This leads to a notion of abstract duality

Economic Patterns in Voting

After the controversial election of 2016, many questions were left unanswered by traditional polling and prediction standards. Our paper aims to examine economic and demographic behaviors that drive voting patterns in three key Rust Belt states. After examining several pivotal works, we describe their contribution to the literature, and explain how our work will contribute to the research discussed. We then proceed to examine American Community Survey data for years predating general elections in the three pivotal states – Illinois, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – examining each at the county level. Our results suggest several important factors in voter decisions, especially when examining the interactions between demographic factors and economic factors. Consequently, we find that while economic factors may be significant in voter decisions, they may not be key in voter decisions

A Measure of the Factors Impacting the Effectiveness and Efficiency of eBay in the Supply Chain of Online Firms

This research investigates the auction properties that influence eBay\u27s effectiveness (ability to attract bidders) and efficiency (ability to maximize price and profit) as the distribution link of the supply chain. The research extends the literature pioneered by Lucking-Reiley (2000) on eBay auctions. We found that the effectiveness of using eBay is influenced by the item description in the auction heading, the initial price, the timing of the auction and the operating condition of the item, in our case an inexpensive, functional HP 12-C financial calculator. The efficiency of eBay, on the other hand, is influenced by the ability to attract bidders, the pricing factors set up by the seller, the product\u27s description, its operating condition, the timing of the auction, and the method of payment options available to the buyer

Are Firms Constrained By Their Bank? A Pilot Study

Financial intermediation theory assigns banks a unique role in the resolution of information asymmetry, while monetary theory assigns banks a unique role in money creation and the of monetary policy. The bank’s willingness to lend depends on perceptions of the project’s payoffs and the moral rectitude of the borrowers, while the bank’s ability to lend depends on the adequacy of the bank’s capital and the stance of monetary policy. Small firms are largely dependent on bank financing - information asymmetry, moral hazard and switching costs restrict access to alternate financing sources. If firms were constrained by their bank’s ability to lend, measures of bank capital would be significant determinants of the firm’s growth. By identifying specific bank-borrower relationships, we explore the hypothesis that a bank’s capital adequacy situation has the potential to influence lending decisions and hence affect the bank’s asset structure and the small firm’s ability to finance operations

Missing the Match: A Comparison of the Demographic Characteristics of Employees Who Contribute More to Those Who Contribute Less Than the Employer 401k Match

Investing for retirement generally requires an analysis of and selection from a variety of investment options. This study compares the demographic characteristics of employees that chose to contribute more than the 3 percent employer match rate with those who contributed less than the match. To add power to the test, we eliminated the group that contributed the matched amount. This classification system should identify those employee characteristics that lead to substantial differences in the employee\u27s propensity to invest in a defined contribution retirement plan. The data used in this study was from a civilian component of the Department of Defense as of the end of 2005

Steady and unsteady transonic small disturbance analysis of realistic aircraft configurations

A transonic unsteady aerodynamic and aeroelastic code called CAP-TSD (Computational Aeroelasticity Program - Transonic Small Disturbance) was developed for application to realistic aircraft configurations. It permits the calculation of steady and unsteady flows about complete aircraft configurations for aeroelastic analysis of the flutter critical transonic speed range. The CAP-TSD code uses a time accurate approximate factorization algorithm for solution of the unsteady transonic small disturbance potential equation. An overview is given of the CAP-TSD code development effort along with recent algorithm modifications which are listed and discussed. Calculations are presented for several configurations including the General Dynamics 1/9th scale F-16C aircraft model to evaluate the algorithm and hence the reliability of the CAP-TSD code in general. Calculations are also presented for a flutter analysis of a 45 deg sweptback wing which agree well with the experimental data. Descriptions are presented of the CAP-TSD code and algorithm details along with results and comparisons which demonstrate the stability, accuracy, efficiency, and utility of CAP-TSD

Calculation of steady and unsteady pressures at supersonic speeds with CAP-TSD

A finite difference technique is used to solve the transonic small disturbance flow equation making use of shock capturing to treat wave discontinuities. Thus the nonlinear effects of thickness and angle of attack are considered. Such an approach is made feasible by the development of a new code called CAP-TSD (Computational Aeroelasticity Program - Transonic Small Disturbance), and is based on a fully implicit approximate factorization (AF) finite difference method to solve the time dependent transonic small disturbance equation. The application of the CAP-TSD code to the calculation of low to moderate supersonic steady and unsteady flows is presented. In particular, comparisons with exact linear theory solutions are made for steady and unsteady cases to evaluate shock capturing and other features of the current method. In addition, steady solutions obtained from an Euler code are used to evaluate the small disturbance aspects of the code. Steady and unsteady pressure comparisons are made with measurements for an F-15 wing model and for the RAE tailplane model