Increasingly heterogeneous markets, together with shorter product life cycles, are forcing many companies to simultaneously compete in the three domains of product, process, and supply chain. Dependencies among decisions across these domains make this competitive situation very complex. To address this complexity, three-dimensional concurrent engineering (3D-CE) has been suggested ([Fine, C.H.,...

OBJECTIVE To quantify the effect of strategies to improve retention in randomised trials. DESIGN Systematic review and meta-analysis. DATA SOURCES Sources searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, DARE, CENTRAL, CINAHL, C2-SPECTR, ERIC, PreMEDLINE, Cochrane Methodology Register, Current Controlled Trials metaRegister, WHO trials platform, Society for Clinical Trials (SCT) conference proceedings ...

This paper describes a general overview of parallel multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEA) from the design and the implementation point of views. A unified taxonomy using three hierarchical parallel models is proposed. Different parallel architectures are considered. The performance evaluation issue of parallel MOEA is also discussed.

Objective To propose how to incorporate equity issues, using the GRADE approach, into the development and implementation of Colombian Clinical Practice Guidelines. Methodology review and the development of a preliminary proposal about how to include equity Results A proposal on how to incorporate equity issues into the GRADE approach was developed. It places particular emphasis on the recogniti...

Thomas Nettleton (1683–1742) was one of the first, possibly the first, to use quantitative assessments of the effects of medical interventions. Prior to establishing a medical practice in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Nettleton had been educated at Bradford Grammar School, and had studied medicine at Edinburgh and Leyden, where he was awarded his Doctorate of Medicine. In December 1721, during an ep...

Letters Stopping a medical research project for financial reasons Sir, We are writing to provide some clarifications on the Editorial Comment by Druëke et al. [1]. We would have been happy to provide these very same clarifications had we been fairly invited to do so before the publication of the article. First of all, we would like to underline that cancelling a clinical trial is always a diffi...

OBJECTIVE To determine family physicians' perceptions of and attitudes toward leg ulcer care and awareness of effective treatments for venous leg ulcers. DESIGN Self-administered, cross-sectional faxed and mailed survey. SETTING Ottawa-Carleton, Ont. PARTICIPANTS All physicians in the region who were members of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. RESULTS Response rate was 62%. D...

Blogs are being used for PR, online newsmagazines are booming, and young people are watching TV more and more often via Internet portals such as YouTube. Increasingly, publicity results from stories and news on the Internet. This development is unstoppable, just like when the market switched from black-and-white to color photography, from silent movies to sound films, and more recently from let...

A dependable system has to meet some quality criteria in order to provide certain reliance on its operation. The quality of a system depends on the complex composition of the quality of its subsystems. Specifications of non-functional properties are commonly used to describe provided quality, required quality, resource usage and resource availability. Enclosing these specifications along with a...

Despite the prevalence of studies examining economic decision-making as a purely rational phenomenon, common sense suggests that emotions affect our decision-making particularly in a social context. To explore the influence of emotions on economic decision-making, we manipulated opponent-directed emotions prior to engaging participants in two social exchange decision-making games (the Trust Gam...