BACKGROUND Measures of small-area deprivation may be valuable in geographically targeting limited resources to prevent, diagnose, and effectively manage chronic conditions in vulnerable populations. We developed a census-based small-area socioeconomic deprivation index specifically to predict chronic disease burden among publically insured Medicaid recipients in South Carolina, a relatively poo...

Dr. Todd Walter received his B. S. in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. in 1993 from Stanford University. He is currently a Senior Research Engineer at Stanford University. He is a cochair of the WAAS Integrity Performance Panel (WIPP) focused on the implementation of WAAS and the development of its later stages. Key contributions include: early prototype development p...

OBJECTIVE EuroSCORE has been used in cardiac surgery operative risk assessment, despite important variables were not included. The objective of this study was to validate EuroSCORE on mortality prediction in a Brazilian cardiovascular surgery center, defining the influence of type of procedure and surgical team. METHODS Between January 2006 and June 2011, 2320 consecutive adult patients were ...

BACKGROUND The Quality of Life Questionnaire (QOL-Q) is used widely to evaluate the quality of life of persons with intellectual disability (ID). Its validity for use with Spanish-speaking cultures has been demonstrated for individuals with visual disabilities, but not for those with physical or intellectual disabilities. Such was the purpose of the present study. METHOD Two samples were admi...

Dr. Todd Walter received his B. S. in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. in 1993 from Stanford University. He is currently a Senior Research Engineer at Stanford University. He is a co-chair of the WAAS Integrity Performance Panel (WIPP) focused on the implementation of WAAS and the development of its later stages. Key contributions include: early prototype development ...

We review a general framework of pressure effects on the structures formed by entropically driven self-assembly (for example, denaturation of proteins from their native structure and dissociation of ordered structure of the amyloid fibril occur at high pressures). In the framework, the translational entropy of water is an essential factor. Our findings are as follows: at low pressures, the stru...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have revealed conflicting results for the Breastfeeding Assessment Score (BAS) in predicting early breastfeeding cessation. Our objective was to externally validate the BAS and provide summary accuracy estimates for this clinical prediction model. METHODS We used the original data from a prospective cohort study. Additional studies were identified by searching elec...

OBJECTIVES The ratio of observed to expected mortality (standardized mortality ratio, SMR), is a key indicator of quality of care. We use PreControl Charts to investigate SMR behavior over time of an existing tree-model for predicting mortality in intensive care units (ICUs) and its implications for hospital ranking. We compare the results to those of a logistic regression model. METHODS We c...

The dominant accounts of many visual illusions are based on experience-driven development of sensitivity to certain visual cues. According to such accounts, learned associations between observed two-dimensional cues (say, converging lines) and the real three-dimensional structures they represent (a surface receding in depth) render us susceptible to misperceiving some images that are cleverly c...

For scientific, clinical, and machine learning purposes alike, it is desirable to quantify the verbal reports of high-level visual percepts. Methods to do this simply do not exist at present. Here we propose a novel methodological principle to help fill this gap, and provide empirical evidence designed to serve as the initial "proof" of this principle. In the proposed method, subjects view imag...