5,326 research outputs found
Validity of the SS-QOL in Germany and in Survivors of Hemorrhagic or Ischemic Stroke
Objective: The Stroke-Specific Quality of Life Scale (SS-QOL) is a recently developed measure to assess health-related quality of life in stroke patients. The objective of this study was to translate the American version of the SS-QOL and examine the validity of the German proxy version, in both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke survivors.
Methods: The translation was conducted according to published guidelines. The validation was performed in consecutive adult stroke survivors. Data were obtained 1 year after discharge. To examine the dimensionality of the SS-QOL, factor analyses were conducted. The validity was examined by the associations of the subscales with the Functional Independence Measure and Short Form 36.
Results: The literal translation revealed no major changes between the American and the German versions of the SS-QOL. Three hundred seven stroke survivors were included in the study. Unlike the 1st validation study, most of the variance could be explained by 8 instead of 12 factors; therefore, the 8-factor solution was further examined. The validity of the SS-QOL total score and “observable” scales such as “activities” was shown.
Conclusions. For the German proxy version of the SS-QOL, an 8-factor solution was found to be the most appropriate. The psychometric properties of these 8 subscales were good or excellent with respect to internal consistency. The validity of the total score was shown, but some subscales(energy, mood, and thinking) failed the hypothesized associations. Therefore, the SS-QOL needs to be further explored in other settings and populations
Bounds for the probability generating functional of a Gibbs point process
We derive explicit lower and upper bounds for the probability generating
functional of a stationary locally stable Gibbs point process, which can be
applied to summary statistics like the F function. For pairwise interaction
processes we obtain further estimates for the G and K functions, the intensity
and higher order correlation functions. The proof of the main result is based
on Stein's method for Poisson point process approximation.Comment: 15 page
Gibbs point process approximation: Total variation bounds using Stein's method
We obtain upper bounds for the total variation distance between the
distributions of two Gibbs point processes in a very general setting.
Applications are provided to various well-known processes and settings from
spatial statistics and statistical physics, including the comparison of two
Lennard-Jones processes, hard core approximation of an area interaction process
and the approximation of lattice processes by a continuous Gibbs process. Our
proof of the main results is based on Stein's method. We construct an explicit
coupling between two spatial birth-death processes to obtain Stein factors, and
employ the Georgii-Nguyen-Zessin equation for the total bound.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOP895 the Annals of
Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Efficacy of rehabilitation interventions in rheumatic conditions
All industrialized nations are facing a crisis in health care financing. Rising expectations coupled with increasing specialization and technologic capacities have forced health care payers to examine their assumptions and to seek data on the outcomes of medical interventions. Clinical investigators who have been taught to use randomized controlled trials that evaluate efficacy under experimental conditions have been redirected toward studies that can help answer health policy questions. Such studies examine the effectiveness of interventions in more realistic settings on a richer array of patient-centered outcomes such as function and consider cost effectiveness and relative cost effectiveness. Rehabilitation interventions, which are by and large pragmatic, have never had a strong scientific basis grounded in controlled trials, and this lack of evidence has put tremendous pressure on clinicians to justify their practices. In this article, we review the recent literature on effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions in rheumatic disorders
The Butz Stops Here: Why the Food Movement Needs to Rethink Agricultural History
From the 1890s to the 1930s, rural Americans played a vital role in radical leftist politics. While specialists know this history well, the public tends to know a folk history, written by figures associated with contemporary food movements. This folk history rests on several key myths, which cover different periods of modern history from the New Deal to the present. This essay challenges these myths to reveal the causes and extent of the suffering endured by rural families in the 20th century, which in turn, decimated the populist left. A reconsideration of the history of agricultural policy will help food-system reformers develop a more radical and effective vision for rural Americ
Invariance properties of random vectors and stochastic processes based on the zonoid concept
Two integrable random vectors and in are said
to be zonoid equivalent if, for each , the scalar products
and have the same first absolute
moments. The paper analyses stochastic processes whose finite-dimensional
distributions are zonoid equivalent with respect to time shift (zonoid
stationarity) and permutation of its components (swap invariance). While the
first concept is weaker than the stationarity, the second one is a weakening of
the exchangeability property. It is shown that nonetheless the ergodic theorem
holds for swap-invariant sequences and the limits are characterised.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/13-BEJ519 the Bernoulli
(http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical
Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm
Is Misoprostol Cost-effective in the Prevention of Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug—Induced Gastropathy in Patients With Chronic Arthritis?
Whether misoprostol, a synthetic prostaglandin E1 analogue, should be routinely prescribed along with nonsteriodal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) to prevent gastric damage is of great clinical importance and has profound cost implications. No consensus exists on whether misoprostol cotherapy results in a cost-saving, is cost-effective, or is costly. The different conclusions reached by five economic evaluations of misoprostol can be explained solely by the assumed absolute risk reduction of symptomatic ulcer, which was more than seven times greater in the studies that concluded that misoprostol was cost-effective than in a study that concluded misoprostol to be costly. Since no study has directly shown the effectiveness of misoprostol cotherapy in preventing clinically significant ulcer disease (ie, hemorrhage and preforation), it is impossible to judge which assumptions are most appropriate. The absence of firm data on the rate of NSAID-induced gastric ulcers reduced by misoprostol makes it impossible to conclude whether it is cost-effective in patients with chronic arthritis who use NSAIDS
Letters to Joel
A professor and his students answer his brother’s question: Is mathematics art
Civic Engagement and Service Learning Partnerships
Service learning is designed to promote volunteerism and civic awareness. Community engagement in higher education specifically involves university members partnering with local community organizations to address a need. Students engage with community partners through service learning and other activities (Moore & Mendez, 2014). Service learning is a practice that connects new knowledge and social responsibility through active learning (Benson & Younkin, 1996).https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1083/thumbnail.jp
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