A Cross Country Comparison of Best Practices in Recruitment and Selection

This study examines best practices in hiring related to the recruitment and selection process in English-speaking countries with an Anglo-Saxon heritage. Since such countries share a similar cultural backgrounds and histories, best practices are likely to be somewhat similar. Studies of best practices were examined in the following countries: United States of America, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. After looking at commonalities across “best practices” studies, the current investigation presents a common set of such practices in terms of usage

A Cross Country Comparison of Best Practices in Recruitment and Selection

This study examines best practices in hiring related to the recruitment and selection process in English-speaking countries with an Anglo-Saxon heritage. Since such countries share a similar cultural backgrounds and histories, best practices are likely to be somewhat similar. Studies of best practices were examined in the following countries: United States of America, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. After looking at commonalities across “best practices” studies, the current investigation presents a common set of such practices in terms of usage

Optimum Magnetometer Transect Spacing to Locate Legacy Oil and Gas Wells: Preliminary Results

The purpose of this project was to examine the optimum transect spacing to locate legacy oil and gas wells using an Overhauser magnetometer. Widely known to be a potential environmental hazard, legacy oil and gas wells may act as a conduit for methane and/or deeper subsurface fluids (naturally occurring brines, injected waste fluids, or injected CO2) to the surface or shallow subsurface. Many plugged wells have all surface equipment removed leaving no visible trace at the surface and thus making the environmental assessment of these wells difficult. Using a magnetometer along a set of predefined transects, magnetic anomalies from the metal casing can be detected. In order to assess large numbers of wells, understanding the typical anomaly size is critical to maximize the transect spacing and therefore minimize magnetometer field work time. Here we briefly review the wide range of transect spacings reported in the literature and show the results of five wells with an initial survey grid at two meter spacing. Although there is significant variation in the anomaly size (X, Y, and Z), transect spacing of 20 m was sufficient to identify all buried wells using the method described herein. The anomalies associated with four of the wells ranged from approximately 1000-4000 nanoteslas (nT), while one well anomaly exhibited more than 10,000 nT above background

Agreeing on meaning: a fundamental sharing of health information

Topic: A preliminary study on the reproducibility of results when mapping terms from an existing terminology to SNOMED CT post-coordinated expressions is described. Background: Implementing SNOMED CT requires a strategy for migrating existing systems and data that currently use other terminologies as well as ensuring that SNOMED CT contains suitable content that covers the domain. Mapping terms from these terminologies to SNOMED CT is one element of such a strategy. Snapper is a tool designed to assist in this complex task and enable the creation of quality mappings. Methods: Ten terms from the ANZICS diagnosis codes were selected to be mapped according to specified guidelines. The resulting mapping expressions were compared with each other and discussions were conducted with the mapping participants to determine issues they encountered during the process. Results: Consistency was easily achievable with mapping to single concepts, but was more difficult when mapping to post-coordinated expressions. The difficulties were traced to a lack of specificity in the supplied guidelines resulting in uncertainty in structuring the representation of compound concepts

A regularisation approach to causality theory for C^{1,1}Lorentzian metrics

We show that many standard results of Lorentzian causality theory remain valid if the regularity of the metric is reduced to C^{1,1}. Our approach is based on regularisations of the metric adapted to the causal structure

Late Ediacaran occurrences of the organic-walled microfossils Granomarginata and flask-shaped Lagoenaforma collaris gen. et sp. nov.

New occurrences of flask-shaped and envelope-bearing microfossils, including the predominantly Cambrian taxon Granomarginata, are reported from new localities, as well as from earlier in time (Ediacaran) than previously known. The stratigraphic range of Granomarginata extends into the Cambrian System, where it had a cosmopolitan distribution. This newly reported Ediacaran record includes areas from Norway (Baltica), Newfoundland (Avalonia) and Namibia (adjacent to the Kalahari Craton), and puts the oldest global occurrence of Granomarginata in the Indreelva Member (< 563 Ma) of the Stáhpogieddi Formation on the Digermulen Peninsula, Arctic Norway. Although Granomarginata is rare within the assemblage, these new occurrences together with previously reported occurrences from India and Poland, suggest a potentially widespread palaeogeographic distribution of Granomarginata through the middle–late Ediacaran interval. A new flask-shaped microfossil Lagoenaforma collaris gen. et sp. nov. is also reported in horizons containing Granomarginata from the Stáhpogieddi Formation in Norway and the Dabis Formation in Namibia, and flask-shaped fossils are also found in the Gibbett Hill Formation in Newfoundland. The Granomarginata–Lagoenaforma association, in addition to a low-diversity organic-walled microfossil assemblage, occurs in the strata postdating the Shuram carbon isotope excursion, and may eventually be of use in terminal Ediacaran biostratigraphy. These older occurrences of Granomarginata add to a growing record of body fossil taxa spanning the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary

The effectiveness of web-based interventions designed to decrease alcohol consumption – a systematic review

OBJECTIVE To review the published literature on the effectiveness of web-based interventions designed to decrease consumption of alcohol and/or prevent alcohol abuse. METHOD Relevant articles published up to, and including, May 2006 were identified through electronic searches of Medline, PsycInfo, Embase, Cochrane Library, ASSIA, Web of Science and Science Direct. Reference lists of all articles identified for inclusion were checked for articles of relevance. An article was included if its stated or implied purpose was to evaluate a web-based intervention designed to decrease consumption of alcohol and/or to prevent alcohol abuse. Studies were reliably selected and quality-assessed, and data were independently extracted and interpreted by two authors. RESULTS Initial searches identified 191 articles of which 10 were eligible for inclusion. Of these, five provided a process evaluation only, with the remaining five providing some pre-to post-intervention measure of effectiveness. In general the percentage quality criteria met was relatively low and only one of the 10 articles selected was a randomized control trial. CONCLUSION The current review provides inconsistent evidence on the effectiveness of eIectronic screening and brief intervention (eSBI) for alcohol use. Process research suggests that web-based interventions are generally well received. However further controlled trials are needed to fully investigate their efficacy, to determine which elements are keys to outcome and to understand if different elements are required in order to engage low- and high-risk drinkers

The science of clinical practice: disease diagnosis or patient prognosis? Evidence about "what is likely to happen" should shape clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis is the traditional basis for decision-making in clinical practice. Evidence is often lacking about future benefits and harms of these decisions for patients diagnosed with and without disease. We propose that a model of clinical practice focused on patient prognosis and predicting the likelihood of future outcomes may be more useful. DISCUSSION: Disease diagnosis can provide crucial information for clinical decisions that influence outcome in serious acute illness. However, the central role of diagnosis in clinical practice is challenged by evidence that it does not always benefit patients and that factors other than disease are important in determining patient outcome. The concept of disease as a dichotomous 'yes' or 'no' is challenged by the frequent use of diagnostic indicators with continuous distributions, such as blood sugar, which are better understood as contributing information about the probability of a patient's future outcome. Moreover, many illnesses, such as chronic fatigue, cannot usefully be labelled from a disease-diagnosis perspective. In such cases, a prognostic model provides an alternative framework for clinical practice that extends beyond disease and diagnosis and incorporates a wide range of information to predict future patient outcomes and to guide decisions to improve them. Such information embraces non-disease factors and genetic and other biomarkers which influence outcome. SUMMARY: Patient prognosis can provide the framework for modern clinical practice to integrate information from the expanding biological, social, and clinical database for more effective and efficient care

Accommodating heterogeneous missing data patterns for prostate cancer risk prediction

Objective: We compared six commonly used logistic regression methods for accommodating missing risk factor data from multiple heterogeneous cohorts, in which some cohorts do not collect some risk factors at all, and developed an online risk prediction tool that accommodates missing risk factors from the end-user. Study Design and Setting: Ten North American and European cohorts from the Prostate Biopsy Collaborative Group (PBCG) were used for fitting a risk prediction tool for clinically significant prostate cancer, defined as Gleason grade group greater or equal 2 on standard TRUS prostate biopsy. One large European PBCG cohort was withheld for external validation, where calibration-in-the-large (CIL), calibration curves, and area-underneath-the-receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) were evaluated. Ten-fold leave-one-cohort-internal validation further validated the optimal missing data approach. Results: Among 12,703 biopsies from 10 training cohorts, 3,597 (28%) had clinically significant prostate cancer, compared to 1,757 of 5,540 (32%) in the external validation cohort. In external validation, the available cases method that pooled individual patient data containing all risk factors input by an end-user had best CIL, under-predicting risks as percentages by 2.9% on average, and obtained an AUC of 75.7%. Imputation had the worst CIL (-13.3%). The available cases method was further validated as optimal in internal cross-validation and thus used for development of an online risk tool. For end-users of the risk tool, two risk factors were mandatory: serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and age, and ten were optional: digital rectal exam, prostate volume, prior negative biopsy, 5-alpha-reductase-inhibitor use, prior PSA screen, African ancestry, Hispanic ethnicity, first-degree prostate-, breast-, and second-degree prostate-cancer family history

Prevention and early detection of prostate cancer

This Review was sponsored and funded by the International Society of Cancer Prevention (ISCaP), the European Association of Urology (EAU), the National Cancer Institute, USA (NCI) (grant number 1R13CA171707-01), Prostate Cancer UK, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) (grant number C569/A16477), and the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR