Robustness of multiple testing procedures against dependence

An important aspect of multiple hypothesis testing is controlling the significance level, or the level of Type I error. When the test statistics are not independent it can be particularly challenging to deal with this problem, without resorting to very conservative procedures. In this paper we show that, in the context of contemporary multiple testing problems, where the number of tests is often very large, the difficulties caused by dependence are less serious than in classical cases. This is particularly true when the null distributions of test statistics are relatively light-tailed, for example, when they can be based on Normal or Student's $t$ approximations. There, if the test statistics can fairly be viewed as being generated by a linear process, an analysis founded on the incorrect assumption of independence is asymptotically correct as the number of hypotheses diverges. In particular, the point process representing the null distribution of the indices at which statistically significant test results occur is approximately Poisson, just as in the case of independence. The Poisson process also has the same mean as in the independence case, and of course exhibits no clustering of false discoveries. However, this result can fail if the null distributions are particularly heavy-tailed. There clusters of statistically significant results can occur, even when the null hypothesis is correct. We give an intuitive explanation for these disparate properties in light- and heavy-tailed cases, and provide rigorous theory underpinning the intuition.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOS557 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Does Spirituality Play a Role in Smoking Cessation? A Case Study Report of a Smoking Cessation Programme on Service Users with Schizophrenia

Nicotine addiction is a public health problem that increases medical morbidity and mortality. Individuals with mental distress have higher rates of smoking and poorer cessation outcomes than those without mental distress. Individuals with schizophrenia tend to smoke more that those with other diagnostic categories. They are also more likely to smoke high-tar cigarettes than individuals with other forms of mental distress. They are therefore not only more likely to be addicted to nicotine, but they are also at an increased risk of developing serious health complications. Despite these factors, individuals with schizophrenia are generally unlikely to seek help to quit smoking, a function of decreased level of motivation and inability to do so. They are rarely involved in smoking cessation activities. Against this background, The aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of an integrated smoking cessation programme in enabling service users to stop smoking. This article describes the application of this programme on service users with schizophrenia and nicotine addiction. It also describes roles played by its components in smoking cessation

Back to Basics: A New Look at Gate-revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance

Most models with profit maximizing teams conclude that competitive balance is unchanged or reduced in response to gate sharing. We critique these models and then develop three alternatives: adding unshared post-season revenue; modelling the largest market team as a dominant firm with a rising marginal cost of talent; and a new general model that incorporates both a consumer demand for athletic talent and close competition. All three approaches can cause gate sharing to increase competitive balance.Sport, Monopsony, Monopoly Power

Mobilising teacher education: a study of a professional learning community

This paper reports on a study of a community of university educators that investigated the introduction of mobile technologies into their learning and teaching. The study was conducted by a subgroup of that community. Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, members of the community felt they needed to develop expertise in mobile learning so that they could incorporate it into their teaching. They studied their own learning, supported by a critical friend who evaluated the community's functioning and activities, providing valuable feedback. Activities of this group were informed by and focused on: development of awareness of the potential of mobile devices for learning; construction of action plans within the community; and implementation of these plans. They also included investigating best-practice approaches by interviewing experts in the field, exploring the literature on mobile learning and then initiating and testing some mobile learning pedagogies in the context of their own teacher education subjects. The community met regularly to discuss emerging issues and applications. The paper shares some of the findings gained from studying the community, and discusses the challenges and constraints that were experienced. The authors conclude with recommendations for professional learning communities aiming to learn about technology-mediated teaching practices

Exploration of psychiatric nurses` attitudes towards service users who self-harm in secure environments

The literature is clear that self-harm is a serious and widespread behaviour among people with mental health problems, often causing distress to the individuals involved. This issue rightly causes concern among healthcare professionals, whose role it is to safeguard people with mental health problems. Noted in the literature is an apparent differential perception between professionals and service users of the underlying motives for self-harming behaviours in mental health services. This gulf in perception appears to have an impact on the relationship between service users and healthcare professionals, and the care received by the former. What is less clear from the literature is healthcare professionals` experience of self-harm in secure psychiatric settings. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap by investigating the attitudes and perceptions of healthcare professionals toward self-harm in secure settings. This research, which adopted a multi-method phenomenological approach, was conducted just over four years. The study was conducted in a range of secure environments within a large mental health Trust in southern England. It involved 25 individual interviews and six focus groups to uncover the perceptions of healthcare professionals toward this phenomenon. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis according to the procedure recommended by Smith et al (2009). The chief finding is that healthcare professionals have mixed attitudes towards self-harm, but mainly negative ones, which in the main relate to the impact of self-harm and to limited knowledge and skills. This knowledge and skill deficit has implications for effective care provision and recommendations are made to improve this. Routine education about self-harm should be provided for healthcare professionals in secure settings in order to develop their confidence and competence in care provision and communication. Additionally, formal supervision should focus on self-harm management, and staff meetings conducted for the sharing of ideas about how to address challenges. A range of strategies are used by healthcare professionals to cope with the impact of self-harm. Apart for seeking knowledge, staff meetings and supervision, teamworking and blaming service users approaches were also utilised. This is the first study to investigate self-harm within secure settings using this methodology. Its findings provide much needed informati

Improving Surgical Training Phantoms by Hyperrealism: Deep Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation from Real Surgeries

Current `dry lab' surgical phantom simulators are a valuable tool for surgeons which allows them to improve their dexterity and skill with surgical instruments. These phantoms mimic the haptic and shape of organs of interest, but lack a realistic visual appearance. In this work, we present an innovative application in which representations learned from real intraoperative endoscopic sequences are transferred to a surgical phantom scenario. The term hyperrealism is introduced in this field, which we regard as a novel subform of surgical augmented reality for approaches that involve real-time object transfigurations. For related tasks in the computer vision community, unpaired cycle-consistent Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have shown excellent results on still RGB images. Though, application of this approach to continuous video frames can result in flickering, which turned out to be especially prominent for this application. Therefore, we propose an extension of cycle-consistent GANs, named tempCycleGAN, to improve temporal consistency.The novel method is evaluated on captures of a silicone phantom for training endoscopic reconstructive mitral valve procedures. Synthesized videos show highly realistic results with regard to 1) replacement of the silicone appearance of the phantom valve by intraoperative tissue texture, while 2) explicitly keeping crucial features in the scene, such as instruments, sutures and prostheses. Compared to the original CycleGAN approach, tempCycleGAN efficiently removes flickering between frames. The overall approach is expected to change the future design of surgical training simulators since the generated sequences clearly demonstrate the feasibility to enable a considerably more realistic training experience for minimally-invasive procedures.Comment: 8 pages, accepted at MICCAI 2018, supplemental material at https://youtu.be/qugAYpK-Z4

The physiotherapy experience in private practice: The patients' perspective

The aim of this study was to identify the qualities of a ‘good’ physiotherapist and to ascertain the characteristics of good and bad experiences in private practice physiotherapy from the patients' perspective. The nominal group technique was implemented with separate groups of patients (n = 26) and revealed that communication ability, professional behaviour and organisational ability, and characteristics of the service provided were the main qualities of a ‘good’ physiotherapist. In particular, communication ability of the physiotherapist was ranked first or second in importance by all groups of patients. Good experiences in physiotherapy were most often attributed to effective communication by the physiotherapist, while bad experiences most often related to dissatisfaction with the service followed by poor physiotherapist communication. Based on the findings from this study, we suggest physiotherapists should actively seek to involve patients in their management. To do this effectively, physiotherapists would benefit from further training in communication skills to ensure that they can successfully adopt a patient-centred approach and to optimise the physiotherapist-patient interaction in private practice physiotherapy

A Methodology for Capacity Needs Assessments Towards Implementation of the Port State Measures Agreement

Port-based compliance and enforcement measures for fishing and fishing-support vessels are a relatively cost-effective element of a monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) system and, as such, are attractive and effective. The main cost is related to establishing and maintaining an adequate, well-trained fisheries inspectorate with good levels of communication between national agencies, including customs and port authorities, and cooperation with regional and global bodies. This core capacity requirement, both in human and institutional terms, received considerable attention during negotiation of the recently adopted U.N. Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA). Developing countries were especially concerned about the resources required to build this capacity. It is for this reason that The Pew Charitable Trusts has been working to develop a simple and robust methodology that can determine the specific and real capacity-building needs of each country, and provide a platform for the development of a capacity-building plan which, when implemented, would enable ratification of and effective compliance with the PSMA. In cooperation with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), through its Stop Illegal Fishing Working Group, and six African countries, The Pew Charitable Trusts has supported the development of a capacity needs assessment (CNA) methodology, which is part of a set of tools that The Pew Charitable Trusts has committed to help develop to ensure that States have the necessary tools at hand to effectively implement the PSMA, and can move quickly towards closing all ports to the world's fleets engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing