On behalf of fellow contributors to the journal, we would like to thank you for choosing Appalachian health as the theme for the October 2006 issue of Preventing Chronic Disease. We appreciate your willingness to call attention to this persistent disparity in chronic disease, including cancer. This health disparity is unlike any other because it is defined by geography and interwoven with cultu...

Clinical examinations are accompanied by biological analyzes to guide or confirm the clinical diagnosis. The results of these analyzes are interpreted by comparison with reference values. Studies on the biological norms of Africans are rare if not quasi-nonexistent. The aim of this study was to establish population-specific reference values for biochemical indices serving as renal function biom...

According to Bruno de Finetti’s Representation Theorem, exchangeable beliefs over infinite sequences of observable Bernoulli quantities can be represented as mixtures of independent coin tossing experiments. Extensions of this theorem give rise to representations as mixtures of other familiar sampling distributions. This paper offers a subjectivist primer based on the premise that appreciation ...

Visualization of data concerns most scientists. The use of color is required in order to display multidimensional information. In addition, color encoding a univariate image can improve the interpretation significantly. However up to 10% of the adult male population are affected by a red-green color perception deficiency which hampers the correct interpretation and appreciation of color encoded...

I'm worried about my paper. " I had a 25-page seminar paper due in less than two weeks. I'd turned in an eight-page proposal, with an outline and an annotated bibliography, and it had been severely and accurately critiqued by the class the day before. It's spring semester, my first year in graduate school at Indiana University. I'd considered myself a poet—I was getting a Masters in Fine Arts—b...

Qing Zou asked me to contribute some remarks introductory to the book that follows. I have not read it. I have indeed only seen a relatively small number of pages. Moreover, although in the course of my career as a mathematician and, in general, in the course of my life, I have acquired a working knowledge of several languages, Chinese in any of its forms is not one of them. Consequently I have...