In this paper we study approximating the total loss associated with the individual insurance risk model by a compound Poisson random variable. By minimizing the expectation of the absolute deviation of the compound Poisson random variable from the true total loss, we investigate not only the optimal compound Poisson random variable but also the numerical calculation of the approximation error. ...

BACKGROUND Patient-reported outcomes (PRO) questionnaires are being increasingly used in COPD clinical studies. The challenge facing investigators is to determine what change is significant, ie what is the minimal clinically important difference (MCID). This study aimed to identify the MCID for the clinical COPD questionnaire (CCQ) in terms of patient referencing, criterion referencing, and by ...

PURPOSE To investigate inter-rater reliability of the Motor Evaluation Scale for Upper Extremity in Stroke patients (MESUPES), to provide estimates of the minimal detectable change (MDC) of the MESUPES and to investigate concurrent validity in relation to the arm scores of the Modified Motor Assessment Scale (M MAS). METHODS Forty-two stroke patients (mean age 56 ± 12 years) were independentl...

A modified critical-incident analysis technique was used in a retrospective examination of the characteristics of human error and equipment failure in anesthetic practice. The objective was to uncover patterns of frequently occurring incidents that are in need of careful prospective investigation. Forty seven interviews were conducted with staff and resident anesthesiologists at one urban teach...

Let G be a simple graph. A total coloring f of G is called E-total-coloring if no two adjacent vertices of G receive the same color and no edge of G receives the same color as one of its endpoints. For E-total-coloring f of a graph G and any vertex u of G, let Cf (u) or C(u) denote the set of colors of vertex u and the edges incident to u. We call C(u) the color set of u. If C(u) 6= C(v) for an...