GPs should use “premier” information sources when prescribing

Physicians should be cautious when prescribing diclofenac.

When Should Sellers Use Auctions?

When it is costly to participate in the sale of an asset, potential buyers typically submit offers either simultaneously, as in an auction, or sequentially, so that later potential entrants may observe previous bids. We show in an IPV setting that when the entry process is selective, so that buyers with higher values are more likely to enter, both sellers and buyers generally prefer the sequent...

When Should We Use Natural Features?

Some features of computer programs can make the programs easier to use by enabling users to interact with them in the familiar ways they interact with other people. Including these features is hard, however, and doing a good job at it is even harder. We present some of these features, and compare the pros and cons of including them in a computer program. We conclude with criteria designers can ...

Programmers Should Still Use Slices When Debugging

What is the best technique for fault localization? In a study of 37 real bugs (and 37 injected faults) in more than a dozen open source C programs, we compare the effectiveness of statistical debugging against dynamic slicing—the first study ever to compare the techniques. On average, dynamic slicing is more effective than statistical debugging, requiring programmers to examine only 14% (42 lin...

When should epidemiologic regressions use random coefficients?

Regression models with random coefficients arise naturally in both frequentist and Bayesian approaches to estimation problems. They are becoming widely available in standard computer packages under the headings of generalized linear mixed models, hierarchical models, and multilevel models. I here argue that such models offer a more scientifically defensible framework for epidemiologic analysis ...