Electric Vehicles: Rolling Over Barriers and Merging with Regulation

Electric vehicles are merging into the mainstream of transportation. Although the technology still comprises a small fraction of the current market, it ismorewidely available due to competitivepricing, technological improvements, and available state and federal incentives. The benefits of electric vehicles include reduced fossil fuel emissions and associated climate change mitigation, new independence from oil-driven policies in foreignmarkets and international relations, and potential opportunities for increasing and complementing renewable energy electric resources. The risks of widespread electric vehicle deployment are largely thought to involve potential impacts on existingutility generation,distribution, and transmission systems and how the costs of any needed changes to these resources should be allocated among customers, including those not utilizing the technology. This Article argues that the potential risks of increased electric vehicle deployment can be tempered by targeted involvement of the state agencies tasked with regulating electricity, for example in requiring utilities to take the lead on public education and in mandating certain rate structures that minimize load impacts. It provides a road map for state agencies to answer the novel legal and policy questions posed by traveling vehicles as electric load, and also examines how state involvement can actually mitigate the barriers to further growth in this nascent sector by allowing increased opportunities for competition, information gathering and dissemination, andminimization of unnecessary regulatory burdens, particularly at this early stage of deployment. This Article makes the case that, given the scope of potential environmental and social benefits, state agencies can and should actively explore and develop policy mechanisms to integrate electric vehicle growth into the electric regulation space

Grade pending: Lessons for hospital quality reporting from the New York City restaurant sanitation inspection program

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110556/1/jhm2292.pd

Nutrition Risk Classification: A Reproducible and Valid Tool for Nurses

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141661/1/ncp0020.pd

Prophylactic anticoagulation to prevent venous thromboembolism in traumatic intracranial hemorrhage: a decision analysis

Abstract Introduction Patients with intracranial hemorrhage due to traumatic brain injury are at high risk of developing venous thromboembolism including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). Thus, there is a trade-off between the risks of progression of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) versus reduction of DVT/PE with the use of prophylactic anticoagulation. Using decision analysis modeling techniques, we developed a model for examining this trade-off for trauma patients with documented ICH. Methods The decision node involved the choice to administer or to withhold low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) anticoagulation prophylaxis at 24 hours. Advantages of withholding therapy were decreased risk of ICH progression (death, disabling neurologic deficit, non-disabling neurologic deficit), and decreased risk of systemic bleeding complications (death, massive bleed). The associated disadvantage was greater risk of developing DVT/PE or death. Probabilities for each outcome were derived from natural history studies and randomized controlled trials when available. Utilities were obtained from accepted databases and previous studies. Results The expected value associated with withholding anticoagulation prophylaxis was similar (0.90) to that associated with the LMWH strategy (0.89). Only two threshold values were encountered in one-way sensitivity analyses. If the effectiveness of LMWH at preventing DVT exceeded 80% (range from literature 33% to 82%) our model favoured this therapy. Similarly, our model favoured use of LMWH if this therapy increased the risk of ICH progression by no more than 5% above the baseline risk. Conclusions Our model showed no clear advantage to providing or withholding anticoagulant prophylaxis for DVT/PE prevention at 24 hours after traumatic brain injury associated with ICH. Therefore randomized controlled trials are justifiable and needed to guide clinicians

Determinants of patient recruitment in a multicenter clinical trials group: trends, seasonality and the effect of large studies

BACKGROUND: We examined whether quarterly patient enrollment in a large multicenter clinical trials group could be modeled in terms of predictors including time parameters (such as long-term trends and seasonality), the effect of large trials and the number of new studies launched each quarter. We used the database of all clinical studies launched by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) between October 1986 and November 1999. Analyses were performed in two datasets: one included all studies and substudies (n = 475, total enrollment 69,992 patients) and the other included only main studies (n = 352, total enrollment 57,563 patients). RESULTS: Enrollment differed across different months of the year with peaks in spring and late fall. Enrollment accelerated over time (+27 patients per quarter for all studies and +16 patients per quarter for the main studies, p < 0.001) and was affected by the performance of large studies with target sample size > 1,000 (p < 0.001). These relationships remained significant in multivariate autoregressive modeling. A time series based on enrollment during the first 32 quarters could forecast adequately the remaining 21 quarters. CONCLUSIONS: The fate and popularity of large trials may determine the overall recruitment of multicenter groups. Modeling of enrollment rates may be used to comprehend long-term patterns and to perform future strategic planning

Directly observed antiretroviral therapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials.

BACKGROUND: Directly observed therapy has been recommended to improve adherence for patients with HIV infection who are on highly active antiretroviral therapy, but the benefit and cost-effectiveness of this approach has not been established conclusively. We did a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials of directly observed versus self-administered antiretroviral treatment. METHODS: We did duplicate searches of databases (from inception to July 27, 2009), searchable websites of major HIV conferences (up to July, 2009), and lay publications and websites (March-July, 2009) to identify randomised trials assessing directly observed therapy to promote adherence to antiretroviral therapy in adults. Our primary outcome was virological suppression at study completion. We calculated relative risks (95% CIs), and pooled estimates using a random-effects method. FINDINGS: 12 studies met our inclusion criteria; four of these were done in groups that were judged to be at high risk of poor adherence (drug users and homeless people). Ten studies reported on the primary outcome (n=1862 participants); we calculated a pooled relative risk of 1.04 (95% CI 0.91-1.20, p=0.55), and noted moderate heterogeneity between the studies (I(2)= 53.8%, 95% CI 0-75.7, p=0.0247) for directly observed versus self-administered treatment. INTERPRETATION: Directly observed antiretroviral therapy seems to offer no benefit over self-administered treatment, which calls into question the use of such an approach to support adherence in the general patient population. FUNDING: None

Does the revised cardiac risk index predict cardiac complications following elective lung resection?

Background: Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI) score and Thoracic Revised Cardiac Risk Index (ThRCRI) score were developed to predict the risks of postoperative major cardiac complications in generic surgical population and thoracic surgery respectively. This study aims to determine the accuracy of these scores in predicting the risk of developing cardiac complications including atrial arrhythmias after lung resection surgery in adults. Methods: We studied 703 patients undergoing lung resection surgery in a tertiary thoracic surgery centre. Observed outcome measures of postoperative cardiac morbidity and mortality were compared against those predicted by risk. Results: Postoperative major cardiac complications and supraventricular arrhythmias occurred in 4.8% of patients. Both index scores had poor discriminative ability for predicting postoperative cardiac complications with an area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.59 (95% CI 0.51-0.67) for the RCRI score and 0.57 (95% CI 0.49-0.66) for the ThRCRI score. Conclusions: In our cohort, RCRI and ThRCRI scores failed to accurately predict the risk of cardiac complications in patients undergoing elective resection of lung cancer. The British Thoracic Society (BTS) recommendation to seek a cardiology referral for all asymptomatic pre-operative lung resection patients with > 3 RCRI risk factors is thus unlikely to be of clinical benefit