Over the last three decades, advances in information technology have improved banks’ efficiency of credit scoring/rating. I infer that the technology of credit rating improves by 45% from 1990 to 2007. I evaluate the effects of this technological improvement on the US commercial banking market with a dynamic, quantitative model. In the model, banks have an economy of scale at utilizing new tech...

The aims of this study were to assess agreement among instructors in scoring preclinical dental procedures, the effect of this agreement on grades, and factors associated with agreement and grades differences. Twenty-six instructors from five clinical specialties participated in a scoring exercise at the College of Dentistry, University of Dammam, Saudi Arabia, in January 2015. Instructors blin...

This study examined the influence of rater training and scoring context on the manifestation of rater effects in a group of trained raters. 120 raters participated in the study and experienced one of three training/scoring contexts: (a) online training in a distributed scoring context, (b) online training in a regional scoring context, and (c) stand-up training in a regional context. After trai...

F ibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by body aches, widespread pain, sleep problems, extreme fatigue, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms, in combination with tenderness of specific areas (muscles and tender points) on the body. Recently, Gormsen et al 1 reported that patients with fibromyalgia had significantly more mental distress including depression and anxiety than health...

The effectiveness of splanchnic nerve neurolysis (SNN) for cancer-related abdominal pain has been investigated using numeric pain intensity rating as an outcome variable. The outcome variable in this study used the grid method for obtaining a targeted pain drawing score on 60 patients with pain from pancreatic or gastro-intestinal primary cancers or metastatic disease to the abdominal region. R...

One difficulty with analyzing performance in hockey is the relatively low scoring rates compared to sports like basketball. Fenwick rating (shots plus missed shots) and Corsi rating (shots, missed shots, blocked shots) have been used to analyze players and teams because they have been shown to be better than goals as a predictor of future goals. In this paper, we use variables like faceoffs, hi...

OBJECTIVE Limited consumer use of health care report cards may be due to the large amount of information presented in report cards, which can be difficult to understand. These limitations may be overcome with summary measures. Our objective was to evaluate consumer response to summary measures in the setting of nursing homes. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING 2005-2010 nursing home Minimum Data Set ...

BACKGROUND Apathy is usually defined as reduced interest and participation in various activities. It is a frequent consequence of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Although various scoring methods have been proposed, there is a lack of validated, standardised instruments for detecting apathy and assessing its severity. OBJECTIVE To develop an apathy rating scale using a structured stand...

OBJECTIVES To examine the comparative reliability and validity of three simple ways of rating upper limb tremor in patients with multiple sclerosis. METHODS Three examiners independently rated severity of upper limb tremor in patients with multiple sclerosis on a 0-10 scale by studying videotape recordings of patients' examinations, spiral drawings, and handwriting samples. The correlations o...

OBJECTIVES To develop and validate a quantitative radiographic scoring system, the Ghent University Scoring System (GUSS), with better ability to detect progression over a shorter period of time in erosive osteoarthritis (OA) of the interphalangeal (IP) finger joints compared with the existing anatomic phase scoring system. METHODS Thirty IP finger joints showing erosive features at baseline ...