Download or read book Systems Analysis and Systems Engineering in Environmental Remediation Programs at the Department of Energy Hanford Site written by Committee on Remediation of Buried and Tank Wastes and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-09-04 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary purpose of systems engineering is to organize information and knowledge to assist those who manage, direct, and control the planning, development, production, and operation of the systems necessary to accomplish a given mission. However, this purpose can be compromised or defeated if information production and organization becomes an end unto itself. Systems engineering was developed to help resolve the engineering problems that are encountered when attempting to develop and implement large and complex engineering projects. It depends upon integrated program planning and development, disciplined and consistent allocation and control of design and development requirements and functions, and systems analysis. The key thesis of this report is that proper application of systems analysis and systems engineering will improve the management of tank wastes at the Hanford Site significantly, thereby leading to reduced life cycle costs for remediation and more effective risk reduction. The committee recognizes that evidence for cost savings from application of systems engineering has not been demonstrated yet.

Download or read book Handbook of EHealth Evaluation written by Francis Yin Yee Lau and published by . This book was released on 2016-11 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To order please visit https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/press/books/ordering/

Download or read book The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Randomized clinical trials are the primary tool for evaluating new medical interventions. Randomization provides for a fair comparison between treatment and control groups, balancing out, on average, distributions of known and unknown factors among the participants. Unfortunately, these studies often lack a substantial percentage of data. This missing data reduces the benefit provided by the randomization and introduces potential biases in the comparison of the treatment groups. Missing data can arise for a variety of reasons, including the inability or unwillingness of participants to meet appointments for evaluation. And in some studies, some or all of data collection ceases when participants discontinue study treatment. Existing guidelines for the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the analysis of the resulting data, provide only limited advice on how to handle missing data. Thus, approaches to the analysis of data with an appreciable amount of missing values tend to be ad hoc and variable. The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials concludes that a more principled approach to design and analysis in the presence of missing data is both needed and possible. Such an approach needs to focus on two critical elements: (1) careful design and conduct to limit the amount and impact of missing data and (2) analysis that makes full use of information on all randomized participants and is based on careful attention to the assumptions about the nature of the missing data underlying estimates of treatment effects. In addition to the highest priority recommendations, the book offers more detailed recommendations on the conduct of clinical trials and techniques for analysis of trial data.

Download or read book Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions written by Julian P. T. Higgins and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2008-11-24 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Healthcare providers, consumers, researchers and policy makers are inundated with unmanageable amounts of information, including evidence from healthcare research. It has become impossible for all to have the time and resources to find, appraise and interpret this evidence and incorporate it into healthcare decisions. Cochrane Reviews respond to this challenge by identifying, appraising and synthesizing research-based evidence and presenting it in a standardized format, published in The Cochrane Library (www.thecochranelibrary.com). The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions contains methodological guidance for the preparation and maintenance of Cochrane intervention reviews. Written in a clear and accessible format, it is the essential manual for all those preparing, maintaining and reading Cochrane reviews. Many of the principles and methods described here are appropriate for systematic reviews applied to other types of research and to systematic reviews of interventions undertaken by others. It is hoped therefore that this book will be invaluable to all those who want to understand the role of systematic reviews, critically appraise published reviews or perform reviews themselves.

Download or read book Cost Effectiveness in Health and Medicine written by Peter J. Neumann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CEAs (cost-effectiveness analyses) are used by decision makers in the health sector to make enlightened evaluations and this book provides an in depth look at how to evaluate the evaluator. The book is aimed specifically at Public health specialists.

Download or read book Assessing Prevalence and Trends in Obesity written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Obesity has come to the forefront of the American public health agenda. The increased attention has led to a growing interest in quantifying obesity prevalence and determining how the prevalence has changed over time. Estimates of obesity prevalence and trends are fundamental to understanding and describing the scope of issue. Policy makers, program planners, and other stakeholders at the national, state, and local levels are among those who search for estimates relevant to their population(s) of interest to inform their decision-making. The differences in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data have given rise to a body of evidence that is inconsistent and has created barriers to interpreting and applying published reports. As such, there is a need to provide guidance to those who seek to better understand and use estimates of obesity prevalence and trends. Assessing Prevalence and Trends in Obesity examines the approaches to data collection, analysis, and interpretation that have been used in recent reports on obesity prevalence and trends at the national, state, and local level, particularly among U.S. children, adolescents, and young adults. This report offers a framework for assessing studies on trends in obesity, principally among children and young adults, for policy making and program planning purposes, and recommends ways decision makers and others can move forward in assessing and interpreting reports on obesity trends.

Download or read book Real Analysis Theory Of Measure And Integration 3rd Edition written by James J Yeh and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 840 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a unified treatise of the theory of measure and integration. In the setting of a general measure space, every concept is defined precisely and every theorem is presented with a clear and complete proof with all the relevant details. Counter-examples are provided to show that certain conditions in the hypothesis of a theorem cannot be simply dropped. The dependence of a theorem on earlier theorems is explicitly indicated in the proof, not only to facilitate reading but also to delineate the structure of the theory. The precision and clarity of presentation make the book an ideal textbook for a graduate course in real analysis while the wealth of topics treated also make the book a valuable reference work for mathematicians.The book is also very helpful to graduate students in statistics and electrical engineering, two disciplines that apply measure theory.

Download or read book Understanding and Evaluating Research written by Sue L. T. McGregor and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding and Evaluating Research: A Critical Guide shows students how to be critical consumers of research and to appreciate the power of methodology as it shapes the research question, the use of theory in the study, the methods used, and how the outcomes are reported. The book starts with what it means to be a critical and uncritical reader of research, followed by a detailed chapter on methodology, and then proceeds to a discussion of each component of a research article as it is informed by the methodology. The book encourages readers to select an article from their discipline, learning along the way how to assess each component of the article and come to a judgment of its rigor or quality as a scholarly report.

Download or read book Statistical Models and Analysis in Auditing A Study of Statistical Models and Methods for Analyzing Nonstandard Mixtures of Distributions in Auditing written by Panel on Nonstandard Mixtures of Distributions and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Valuing Health for Regulatory Cost Effectiveness Analysis written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2006-04-28 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Promoting human health and safety by reducing exposures to risks and harms through regulatory interventions is among the most important responsibilities of the government. Such efforts encompass a wide array of activities in many different contexts: improving air and water quality; safeguarding the food supply; reducing the risk of injury on the job, in transportation, and from consumer products; and minimizing exposure to toxic chemicals. Estimating the magnitude of the expected health and longevity benefits and reductions in mortality, morbidity, and injury risks helps policy makers decide whether particular interventions merit the expected costs associated with achieving these benefits and inform their choices among alternative strategies. Valuing Health for Regulatory Cost-Effectiveness Analysis provides useful recommendations for how to measure health-related quality of- life impacts for diverse public health, safety, and environmental regulations. Public decision makers, regulatory analysts, scholars, and students in the field will find this an essential review text. It will become a standard reference for all government agencies and those consultants and contractors who support the work of regulatory programs.

Download or read book Finding What Works in Health Care written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

Download or read book Material Properties for Postshot Mixed Company Analyses Recommendations Based on Recent Laboratory and in Situ Test Data written by John Q. Ehrgott and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Conducting Biosocial Surveys written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-10-02 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen a growing tendency for social scientists to collect biological specimens such as blood, urine, and saliva as part of large-scale household surveys. By combining biological and social data, scientists are opening up new fields of inquiry and are able for the first time to address many new questions and connections. But including biospecimens in social surveys also adds a great deal of complexity and cost to the investigator's task. Along with the usual concerns about informed consent, privacy issues, and the best ways to collect, store, and share data, researchers now face a variety of issues that are much less familiar or that appear in a new light. In particular, collecting and storing human biological materials for use in social science research raises additional legal, ethical, and social issues, as well as practical issues related to the storage, retrieval, and sharing of data. For example, acquiring biological data and linking them to social science databases requires a more complex informed consent process, the development of a biorepository, the establishment of data sharing policies, and the creation of a process for deciding how the data are going to be shared and used for secondary analysis-all of which add cost to a survey and require additional time and attention from the investigators. These issues also are likely to be unfamiliar to social scientists who have not worked with biological specimens in the past. Adding to the attraction of collecting biospecimens but also to the complexity of sharing and protecting the data is the fact that this is an era of incredibly rapid gains in our understanding of complex biological and physiological phenomena. Thus the tradeoffs between the risks and opportunities of expanding access to research data are constantly changing. Conducting Biosocial Surveys offers findings and recommendations concerning the best approaches to the collection, storage, use, and sharing of biospecimens gathered in social science surveys and the digital representations of biological data derived therefrom. It is aimed at researchers interested in carrying out such surveys, their institutions, and their funding agencies.

Download or read book Recommendations for Design and Analysis of Earth Structures using Geosynthetic Reinforcements EBGEO written by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geotechnik and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-01-09 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The completely revised and extended Recommendations deal with all questions relevant to the planning and dimensioning of geosynthetics-reinforced earth structures. In addition to the demands on materials and analysis principles, the applications of geosynthetics in a range of foundation systems, ground improvement measures, highways engineering projects, in slopes and retaining structures, and in landfill engineering are discussed. The Recommendations have been supplemented by the following sections: - reinforced earth structures over point or linear bearing elements, - foundation systems using geotextile-encased columns, - bridging subsidence, - dynamic actions of geosynthetic-reinforced systems. The remaining sections have been fundamentally revised and updated in line with current standards and codes of practice.

Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Currency. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

Download or read book Military bases analysis of DOD s 2005 selection process and recommendations for base closures and realignments report to the congressional committees written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 13, 2005, the Secretary of Defense submitted proposed base realignment and closure (BRAC) actions to an independent commission for its review. The Commission must submit its recommendations to the President by September 8, 2005, for his acceptance or rejection in their entirety. Congress has final action to accept or reject these recommendations in their entirety later this year. The law required that GAO issue a report on the Department of Defense's (DoD) recommendations and selection process by July 1, 2005. GAO's objectives for this report were as follows: (1) determine the extent to which DoD's proposals achieved its stated BRAC goals, (2) analyze whether the process for developing recommendations was logical, and (3) identify issues with the recommendations that may warrant further attention. Time constraints limited GAO's ability to examine implementation details of most of the individual recommended actions. DoD had varying success in achieving its 2005 BRAC goals of reducing excess infrastructure and producing savings, furthering transformation, and fostering jointness. While DoD proposed a record number of closures and realignments, exceeding all prior BRAC rounds combined, many proposals focused on reserve bases and relatively few on closing active bases. Projected savings are almost equally large, but most savings are derived from 10 percent of the recommendations. While GAO believes savings would be achieved, overall up-front investment costs of an estimated $24 billion are required, and there are clear limitations associated with DoD's projection of nearly $50 billion in savings over a 20-year period. Much of the projected net annual recurring savings (47 percent) is associated with eliminating jobs currently held by military personnel. However, rather than reducing end-strength levels, DoD indicates the positions are expected to be reassigned to other areas, which may enhance capabilities but also limit dollar savings available for other use7.

Download or read book Forensic Analysis written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-04-26 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1960s, testimony by representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in thousands of criminal cases has relied on evidence from Compositional Analysis of Bullet Lead (CABL), a forensic technique that compares the elemental composition of bullets found at a crime scene to the elemental composition of bullets found in a suspect's possession. Different from ballistics techniques that compare striations on the barrel of a gun to those on a recovered bullet, CABL is used when no gun is recovered or when bullets are too small or mangled to observe striations. Forensic Analysis: Weighing Bullet Lead Evidence assesses the scientific validity of CABL, finding that the FBI should use a different statistical analysis for the technique and that, given variations in bullet manufacturing processes, expert witnesses should make clear the very limited conclusions that CABL results can support. The report also recommends that the FBI take additional measures to ensure the validity of CABL results, which include improving documentation, publishing details, and improving on training and oversight.