Number preferences in lotteries

We explore people's preferences for numbers in large proprietary data sets from two different lottery games. We find that choice is far from uniform, and exhibits some familiar and some new tendencies and biases. Players favor personally meaningful and situationally available numbers, and are attracted towards numbers in the center of the choice form. Frequent players avoid winning numbers from recent draws, whereas infrequent players chase these. Combinations of numbers are formed with an eye for aesthetics, and players tend to spread their numbers relatively evenly across the possible range

A structured registration program can be validly used for quality assessment in general practice

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Patient information, medical history, clinical outcomes and demographic information, can be registered in different ways in registration programs. For evaluation of diabetes care, data can easily be extracted from a structured registration program (SRP). The usability of data from this source depends on the agreement of this data with that of the usual data registration in the electronic medical record (EMR). Aim of the study was to determine the comparability of data from an EMR and from an SRP, to determine whether the use of SRP data for quality assessment is justified in general practice. METHODS: We obtained 196 records of diabetes mellitus patients in a sample of general practices in the Netherlands. We compared the agreement between the two programs in terms of laboratory and non-laboratory parameters. Agreement was determined by defining accordance between the programs in absent and present registrations, accordance between values of registrations, and whether the differences found in values were also a clinically relevant difference. RESULTS: No differences were found in the occurrence of registration (absent/present) in the SRP and EMR for all the laboratory parameters. Smoking behaviour, weight and eye examination were registered significantly more often in the SRP than in the EMR. In the EMR, blood pressure was registered significantly more often than in the SRP. Data registered in the EMR and in the SRP had a similar clinical meaning for all parameters (laboratory and non-laboratory). CONCLUSIONS: Laboratory parameters showed good agreement and non-laboratory acceptable agreement of the SRP with the EMR. Data from a structured registration program can be used validly for research purposes and quality assessment in general practice

Dietary intake in asylum seeker children in The Netherlands, strongly related to age and origin

Objective: To monitor the dietary intake of energy, macro- and micronutrients in asylum seeker children. Design and setting: Cross-sectional study in three asylum seeker centres in The Netherlands. Subjects: Hundred and sixteen children 2-12 years old (86% of the study cohort) provided a dietary history. Method: The dietary intake was estimated by 24 h recall, and the origin of the children was classified in three geographic regions: African (n = 45), Central Asia (n = 34) or Eastern Europe (n = 37). Results: The total energy intake from fat was in 24% of the children above 40En%. Seventy per cent of the children above 4 year of age had a saturated fat intake above 10En%. The children from Eastern Europe had a higher intake of fat and disaccharides than the children from the other regions. Among the children, an intake less than 80% of the recommended daily allowances of micronutrients was found for calcium (42%), iron (49%), vitamin A (45%) and vitamin D (80%). An inadequate dietary intake of iron and vitamin D was significantly more seen among the youngest children, whereas an inadequate intake of calcium and vitamin A was found more among the elder children. Conclusions: The dietary intake of a prominent proportion of these children contains too much fat and insufficient amounts of calcium, iron, vitamin A and vitamin D. The low micronutrient intake of the asylum seeker children can be considered as a nutritional risk. Nutritional education and strategies to improve the macro- and micronutrient intake of asylum seeker children is indicated

Structured primary care for type 2 diabetes has positive effects on clinical outcomes

Background Patients with type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing microvascular and macrovascular complications. In routine diabetes care an adequate reduction of risk factors for these complications is often not achieved