“Treasures” from the Canadian War Museum’s Backlog

In the 1970s Canadian War Museum curatorial staff decided they needed to bolster the scope of the museum’s national military collection. Consequently, they placed ads in Legion magazine and enclosed flyers in veterans’ pension cheques inviting veterans to send in military or military related items they had in their possession that they thought would be of interest to the museum. The response was overwhelming. In the end, a grand total of 24,400 objects poured in; many more than was anticipated and much too large a number for the museum’s small staff to properly register and catalogue. The only option was to carry out a basic inventory and then pack the objects away in boxes (which occupied a total of 197 pallets) pending the day when sufficient resources would become available to process them adequately, so that they would become properly identified and usable museum artifacts

Never Lost: On the Pacific Crest Trail Before Smartphones, a Hiker Never Had to Choose

On the Pacific Crest Trail before smartphones, Dan White never had to choose between technology and quiet. Hikers left notes under dried cow droppings

An exploration of the missing data mechanism in an Internet based smoking cessation trial.

BACKGROUND: Missing outcome data are very common in smoking cessation trials. It is often assumed that all such missing data are from participants who have been unsuccessful in giving up smoking ("missing=smoking"). Here we use data from a recent Internet based smoking cessation trial in order to investigate which of a set of a priori chosen baseline variables are predictive of missingness, and the evidence for and against the "missing=smoking" assumption. METHODS: We use a selection model, which models the probability that the outcome is observed given the outcome and other variables. The selection model includes a parameter for which zero indicates that the data are Missing at Random (MAR) and large values indicate "missing=smoking". We examine the evidence for the predictive power of baseline variables in the context of a sensitivity analysis. We use data on the number and type of attempts made to obtain outcome data in order to estimate the association between smoking status and the missing data indicator. RESULTS: We apply our methods to the iQuit smoking cessation trial data. From the sensitivity analysis, we obtain strong evidence that older participants are more likely to provide outcome data. The model for the number and type of attempts to obtain outcome data confirms that age is a good predictor of missing data. There is weak evidence from this model that participants who have successfully given up smoking are more likely to provide outcome data but this evidence does not support the "missing=smoking" assumption. The probability that participants with missing outcome data are not smoking at the end of the trial is estimated to be between 0.14 and 0.19. CONCLUSIONS: Those conducting smoking cessation trials, and wishing to perform an analysis that assumes the data are MAR, should collect and incorporate baseline variables into their models that are thought to be good predictors of missing data in order to make this assumption more plausible. However they should also consider the possibility of Missing Not at Random (MNAR) models that make or allow for less extreme assumptions than "missing=smoking".RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

A general method for handling missing binary outcome data in randomized controlled trials.

AIMS: The analysis of randomized controlled trials with incomplete binary outcome data is challenging. We develop a general method for exploring the impact of missing data in such trials, with a focus on abstinence outcomes. DESIGN: We propose a sensitivity analysis where standard analyses, which could include 'missing = smoking' and 'last observation carried forward', are embedded in a wider class of models. SETTING: We apply our general method to data from two smoking cessation trials. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 489 and 1758 participants from two smoking cessation trials. MEASUREMENTS: The abstinence outcomes were obtained using telephone interviews. FINDINGS: The estimated intervention effects from both trials depend on the sensitivity parameters used. The findings differ considerably in magnitude and statistical significance under quite extreme assumptions about the missing data, but are reasonably consistent under more moderate assumptions. CONCLUSIONS: A new method for undertaking sensitivity analyses when handling missing data in trials with binary outcomes allows a wide range of assumptions about the missing data to be assessed. In two smoking cessation trials the results were insensitive to all but extreme assumptions

The ban on gaming consoles in China: protecting national culture, morals, and industry within an international regulatory framework

From its ‘opening up’ policy in 19781 to the present day, China’s rapid economic growth has not only lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty and made many extremely rich, but it has also been the catalyst for immense social transformation. In this chapter, we explore the tension between 1) Chinese policymakers’ desire for the wealth that access to global markets gives its citizens; and 2) the challenges to Chinese cultural and traditional ideas about morality that this social transformation brings in its wake. Our investigation focuses primarily on one particular case that exemplifes this tension: the Chinese government’s 2000 to 2014 ban on the importation of foreign-made video game consoles. We frst situate the ban within the context of China’s international commitments to ‘free trade’ and then consider the arguments made for exempting media content from such commitments. Here, the Chinese leadership’s ambiguous stance toward Western infuence is an important policy-shaping factor. For the second half, we zoom in on the policy document installing the de facto ban on consoles. Here policymakers frame the ban as a way of curbing the negative infuence of wangbas—Internet cafes—on China’s youth. We discuss whether such a move actually resonated with the public and to what extent public concerns were constructed rather than refected by the media. Although a critical approach to video game policy should remain skeptical of the motivations underlying policy, it also needs to acknowledge the possibility that policy responds to actual public concerns, even in a one-party state