Candidate Items Research Articles

Development of Reliable and Valid Negative Mood Screening Tools for Orthopaedic Patients with Musculoskeletal Pain.

Negative mood is an important risk factor for poor clinical outcomes among individuals with musculoskeletal pain. Screening for negative mood can aid in identifying those who may need additional psychological interventions. Limitations of current negative mood screening tools include (1) high response burden, (2) a focus on single dimensions of negative mood, (3) poor precision for identifying individuals with low or high negative mood levels, and/or (4) design not specific for use in populations with orthopaedic conditions and musculoskeletal pain. (1) Can item response theory methods be used to construct screening tools for negative mood (such as depression, anxiety, and anger) in patients undergoing physical therapy for orthopaedic conditions? (2) Do these tools demonstrate reliability and construct validity when used in a clinical setting? This was a cross-sectional study involving outpatients having physical therapy in tertiary-care settings. A total of 431 outpatients with neck (n = 93), shoulder (n = 108), low back (n = 119), or knee (n = 111) conditions were enrolled between December 2014 and December 2015, with 24% (103 of 431) seeking care after orthopaedic surgery. Participants completed three validated psychological questionnaires measuring negative mood, resulting in 39 candidate items for item response theory analysis. Factor analysis was used to identify the dimensions (factors) assessed by the candidate items and select items that loaded on the main factor of interest (negative mood), establishing a unidimensional item set. Unidimensionality of an item set suggests they are assessing one main factor or trait, allowing unbiased score estimates. The identified items were assessed for their fit to the graded item response theory model. This model allows for items to vary by the level of difficulty they represent and by their ability to discriminate between patients at different levels of the trait being assessed, in this case, negative mood. Finally, a hierarchical bifactor model where multiple subfactors are allowed to load on an overall factor was used to confirm that the items identified as representing a unidimensional item set explained the large majority of variance of the overall factor, providing additional support for essential unidimensionality. Using the final item bank, we constructed a computer adaptive test administration mode, and reduced item sets were selected to create short forms including items with the highest information (reliability) at targeted score levels of the trait being measured, while also considering clinical content. We identified a 12-item bank for assessment of negative mood; eight-item and four-item short-form versions were developed to reduce administrative burden. Computer adaptive test administration used a mean ± SD of 8 ± 1 items. The item bank's reliability (0 = no reliability; 1 = perfect reliability) was 0.89 for the computer adaptive test administration, 0.86 for the eight-item short form, and 0.71 for the four-item short form. Reliability values equal to or greater than 0.7 are considered acceptable for group level measures. Construct validity sufficient for clinical practice was supported by more severe negative mood scores among individuals with a previous episode of pain in the involved anatomical region, pain and activity limitations during the past 3 months, a work-related injury, education less than a college degree, and income less than or equal to USD 50,000. These newly derived tools include short-form and computer adaptive test options for reliable and valid negative mood assessment in outpatient orthopaedic populations. Future research should determine the responsiveness of these measures to change and establish score thresholds for clinical decision-making. Orthopaedic providers can use these tools to inform prognosis, establish clinical benchmarks, and identify patients who may benefit from psychological and/or behavioral treatments.

Development of a core outcome set for the evaluation of interventions to enhance trial participation decisions on behalf of adults who lack capacity to consent: a mixed methods study (COnSiDER Study)

BackgroundTrials involving adults who lack capacity to provide consent rely on proxy or surrogate decision-makers, usually a family member, to make decisions about participation. Interventions to enhance proxy decisions about trial participation are now being developed. However, a lack of standardised outcome measures limits evaluation of these interventions. The aim of this study was to establish an agreed standardised core outcome set (COS) for use when evaluating interventions to improve proxy decisions about trial participation.MethodsWe used established methods to develop the COS including a consensus study with key stakeholder groups comprising those who will use the COS in research (researchers and healthcare professionals) and patients or their representatives. Following a scoping review to identify candidate items, we used a modified two-round Delphi survey to achieve consensus on core outcomes, with equivocal items taken to a consensus meeting for discussion. The COS was finalised following an online consensus meeting in October 2020.ResultsA total of 28 UK stakeholders (5 researchers, 10 trialists, 3 patient/family representatives, 7 recruiters and 3 advisors/approvers) participated in the online Delphi survey to rank candidate items from the scoping review (n = 36) and additional items proposed by participants (n = 1). Items were broadly grouped into three categories: how family members make decisions, their experiences of making decisions, and the personal aspects that influence the decision. Following the Delphi survey, 27 items were included and ten items exhibited no consensus which required discussion at the consensus meeting. Sixteen participants attended the meeting, including additional patient/family representatives invited to increase representation from this key group (n = 2). We reached consensus for the inclusion of 28 outcome items, including one selected at the consensus meeting.ConclusionsThe study identified outcomes that should be measured as a minimum in all evaluations of interventions to enhance proxy decisions about trials. These relate to the process of decision-making, proxies’ experience of decision-making, and factors that influence decision-making such as understanding. Further work with people with impairing conditions and their families is needed to explore their views about the COS and to identify appropriate outcome measures and timing of measurement.Trial registrationThe study is registered on the COMET database (https://www.comet-initiative.org/Studies/Details/1409)

Optimizing ranking systems online as bandits

Ranking system is the core part of modern retrieval and recommender systems, where the goal is to rank candidate items given user contexts. Optimizing ranking systems online means that the deployed system can serve users' requests, e.g., queries in the web search, and optimize the ranking policy by learning from user interactions, e.g., clicks. Bandit is a general online learning framework and can be used in our optimization task. However, due to the unique features of ranking, there are several challenges in designing bandit algorithms for ranking system optimization. In this thesis, we study and propose bandit algorithms for four challenges in optimizing ranking systems online: effectiveness, safety, nonstationarity, and diversification. We first focus on the large-scale online ranker evaluation problem. The challenge is that the number of pair-wise ranker comparisons grows quadratically with respect to the number of rankers. We proposed the merge double Thompson sampling (MergeDTS) method to solve the problem. MergeDTS takes the divide-and-conquer idea in Merge Sort to decrease the complexity and uses the Thompson sampling to increase the effectiveness of pair-wise comparisons. We then address the safety Online Learning to Rank (OLTR) by introducing the BubbleRank algorithm. BubbleRank uses the offline trained ranker, e.g., the production ranker, to obtain the initial ranked list, and then conducts safe online pairwise exploration to improve this list. The safety comes from the fact that BubbleRank explores the ranked lists by randomly exchanging items with their neighbors. Thus, during exploration, low-quality items are hardly shifted at top positions. Non-stationarity widely appears in interactive systems since user preferences are affected by different factors and change over time. It is critical to design algorithms that capture the non-stationarity in OLTR. This thesis provides CascadeDUCB and CascadeSWUCB algorithms to solve the non-stationary OLTR. We derive gap-dependent bounds on their regret and show the theoretical soundness of the proposed algorithms, and then we conduct simulated experiments to validate the empirical effectiveness. Result diversification and relevance ranking are two important aspects in modern recommender systems. Ideal learning algorithms should be able to display a ranked list whose items are relevant and the topics of items are diverse. The last research chapter of the thesis focuses on this challenge and provides the CascadeHybrid algorithm. CascadeHybrid learns from interactive feedback online and trained a ranker, which is a hybrid of a linear function capturing the relevance part and a submodular function responding to the results diversification. Awarded by : University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands on 4 March 2021. Supervised by : Maarten de Rijke. Available at : https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=f043b9b4-e666-48e0-8a6c-7c5431660e17.

Establishing clinical remission criteria and the framework of a treat-to-targetalgorithm for Takayasu arteritis: Results of a Delphi exercise carried out by an expert panel of the Japan Research Committee of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for intractable vasculitis.

To develop a proposal for remission criteria and a framework for a treat-to-target (T2T) algorithm for Takayasu arteritis (TAK). A study group of the large-vessel vasculitis group of the Japanese Research Committee of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for Intractable Vasculitis consists of 10 rheumatologists, 5 cardiologists, 1 nephrologist, 1 vascular surgeon, 1 cardiac surgeon, and 2 paediatric rheumatologists. A Delphi survey of remission criteria items was circulated among the study group over four reiterations. To develop the T2T algorithm, the study group conducted four face-to-face meetings and two rounds of Delphi together with three patients. Initial literature review resulted in a list of 117 candidate items for remission criteria, of which 56 items with a mean score of ≥4 (0-5) were extracted including disease activity domains and treatment/comorbidity domains. The study group provided six overarching principles for the T2T algorithm, two recommendations on treatment goals, five on evaluation of disease activity and imaging findings including positron emission tomography-computed tomography, and two on treatment intensification. We developed a T2T algorithm and proposals for standardised remission criteria by means of a Delphi exercise. These will guide future evaluation of different TAK treatment regimens.

Artificial Intelligence for Computer Vision in Surgery: A Call for Developing Reporting Guidelines.

Artificial Intelligence for Computer Vision in Surgery: A Call for Developing Reporting Guidelines.

A domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus) model of triarchic psychopathy factors: Development and initial validation of the CAT-Tri+ questionnaire

We operationalised the triarchic model of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition) in domestic cats using a cat triarchic (CAT-Tri) questionnaire. In study 1 (n = 549), we identified candidate items for CAT-Tri scales using thematically analysed cat owner questionnaire responses. In study 2 (n = 1463), owners completed a questionnaire battery; the preliminary CAT-Tri questionnaire, Feline Five, and Cat-Owner Relationship Subscales. In study 3 (n = 30), associations between feline daily activity and Cat-Tri scales were investigated. A five-factor cat triarchic plus (CAT-Tri+) solution emerged: boldness, disinhibition, meanness, pet-unfriendliness, and human-unfriendliness. Disinhibition and pet-unfriendliness predicted a higher quality cat-owner relationship; meanness and boldness predicted a lower quality relationship. Findings provide insight into the structure of triarchic psychopathy in cats.

Personalised context-aware re-ranking in recommender system

Recommender systems can help correlate information and recommend personalised services to users as a general information filtering tool. However, contextual factors significantly affect user behaviour, especially in the Internet of Things (IoT), which brings difficulties to modelling user preferences. In this paper, we propose a personalised context-aware re-ranking algorithm (p-CAR) in IoT. Our primary purpose is to improve the recommender performance from multiple metrics, such as precision, recall, diversity, and popularity. The core idea is to re-rank the ranking list using the user's preference behaviour under different contexts. The re-ranking process is an iterative selection process; each time an optimal item that meets the target criteria is selected from the candidate items and added to the re-ranked list. The selection of items depends on the given context and the user's interest in that context. User's preference and interest in contexts are both expressed by probability in our algorithm. In addition, we use a weight parameter to control the influence of contexts and model the contextual personalisation of different users through local personalisation parameters. We verify our algorithm through experiments on the real Movielens 100K dataset and show the performance advantage with the existing algorithm.

The Tension Between Pragmatism and Rigor in Choosing Wisely.

The Tension Between Pragmatism and Rigor in Choosing Wisely.

Quantifying Neck Fibrosis and Its Functional Implications: Development of the Neck Fibrosis Scale.

Despite increasing recognition of the importance of functional outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer, post-treatment neck fibrosis remains poorly understood. We sought to develop and validate a patient reported outcome measure for head and neck cancer patients with neck fibrosis. Prospective multiphase cross-sectional study. To guide instrument development, we employed the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as our conceptual framework. Items were generated using a composite strategy consisting of patient focus groups, literature review, and expert opinion from a multidisciplinary group. Candidate items were reduced through the item impact method. Preliminary psychometric properties of the finalized instrument were evaluated through measures of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity. Four in person focus groups were held with 13 head and neck cancer patients. The process of item generation led to 221 relevant citations and 68 unique items. An additional 17 items were identified from review of existing neck disability questionnaires and expert opinion. A draft instrument with 25 candidate items was generated and reduced to its final 15-item scale using item impact method. Early psychometric testing revealed excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.95) and test-retest reliability [ICC=0.95]. Internal consistency at the item level was good (>0.7) for 11/15 individual items. Four separate constructs were evaluated. Three of the four constructs matched our a priori hypotheses. The Neck Fibrosis Scale demonstrates preliminary reliability and validity for discriminate use. Further research is needed to confirm dimensionality and assess responsiveness. NA Laryngoscope, 132:1015-1021, 2022.

Adaptation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Parenting Concerns Questionnaire-Advanced Disease.

When patients with advanced cancer have minor children (age < 18), their health-related quality of life is closely linked to their concerns about the impact of progressive illness and death on their children. The Parenting Concerns Questionnaire (PCQ), a validated measure for parents with cancer, does not capture the full range of concerns in advanced cancer. The aim of this was study was to adapt and establish psychometrics for the PCQ for advanced disease (PCQ-AD). After generating an initial item-bank, we conducted concept elicitation interviews with clinicians (n = 8) and cognitive interviews with patients (n = 23) for face validity. New items addressed concerns about impact of parental death, making every moment count, communication, and financial impact of cancer on children. We administered 21 candidate items to 151 parents with advanced cancer. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), calculated internal consistency, and assessed convergent and known-groups validity. We removed 8 redundant items due to residual covariation between items. CFA of the 13-item PCQ-AD demonstrated satisfactory fit (CFI = 0.971, TLI = 0.966, RMSEA = 0.081) and high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94, composite reliability = 0.95). The PCQ-AD demonstrated convergent validity and known-groups validity; patients with poor functional status reported higher scores than patients with better functional status (Cohen's d = 0.56, p = 0.002). Adaptation of the PCQ yielded the addition of constructs important in advanced cancer. The PCQ-AD appears to be a reliable and valid measure of parenting concerns in advanced cancer, but future studies are needed to examine measure performance in diverse populations and responsiveness of the PCQ-AD to interventions.

An efficient randomised trial design for multi-cancer screening blood tests: nested enhanced mortality outcomes of screening trial.

Screening aims to detect cancer at an early, curable stage, and is currently recommended for breast, lung, colorectal, and cervical cancers in some countries. Prostate cancer screening might be considered for some men. Individual screening programmes for most other cancer types are unlikely to be worthwhile, mainly because each of these cancers has relatively low incidence and mortality. Leveraging external data in the design and analysis of clinical trials in neuro-oncologyIntegration of external control data, with patient-level information, in clinical trials has the potential to accelerate the development of new treatments in neuro-oncology by contextualising single-arm studies and improving decision making (eg, early stopping decisions). Based on a series of presentations at the 2020 Clinical Trials Think Tank hosted by the Society of Neuro-Oncology, we provide an overview on the use of external control data representative of the standard of care in the design and analysis of clinical trials. Full-Text PDF Basket clinical trial design for targeted therapies for cancer: a French National Authority for Health statement for health technology assessmentDuring the past decade, health technology assessment bodies have faced new challenges in establishing the benefits of new drugs for individuals and health-care systems. A topic of increasing importance to the field of oncology is the so-called agnostic regulatory approval of targeted therapies for cancer (independent of tumour location and histology) granted on the basis of basket trials. Basket trials in oncology offer the advantage of simultaneously evaluating treatments for multiple tumours, even rare cancers, in a single clinical trial. Full-Text PDF Guidelines for cellular and molecular pathology content in clinical trial protocols: the SPIRIT-Path extensionThe 2013 SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials) Statement provides evidence-based recommendations for the minimum content to be included in a clinical trial protocol. Assessment of biospecimens is often required for trial eligibility or as part of an outcome evaluation, and precision molecular approaches are increasingly used in trial design. However, cellular and molecular pathology practices within trials have not been codified or formalised. We developed international consensus reporting guidelines for cellular and molecular pathology content in clinical trial protocols (the SPIRIT-Path extension) using an international Delphi process, which assesses candidate items generated from a previous systematic review, followed by an expert consensus meeting. Full-Text PDF Late phase 1 studies: concepts and outcomesOver the past two decades, targeted therapies have become cornerstone treatments for numerous cancers with oncogene addiction. Unfortunately, their effectiveness reduces over time and most patients who receive targeted therapies relapse within 12 months. The emergence of drug-resistance mechanisms in tumours paved the way for next-generation inhibitors. However, insufficient concentration of targeted therapy is a frequent but poorly explored mechanism of treatment failure. Additionally, the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) is not always reached in phase studies, and the recommended phase 2 dose is mostly based on benefit–risk ratio and pharmacokinetic considerations, which could result in a suboptimal dose. Full-Text PDF Correction to Lancet Oncol 2021; 22: 1360–62Hackshaw A, Berg CD. An efficient randomised trial design for multi-cancer screening blood tests: nested enhanced mortality outcomes of screening trial. Lancet Oncol 2021; 22: 1360–62—In this Comment the affiliation details for Christine D Berg have been updated. This correction has been made to the online version as of Nov 1, 2021. Full-Text PDF

Development and Initial Validation of the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire.

Misophonia is characterized by decreased tolerance and accompanying defensive motivational system responding to certain aversive sounds and contextual cues associated with such stimuli, typically repetitive oral (e. g., eating sounds) or nasal (e.g., breathing sounds) stimuli. Responses elicit significant psychological distress and impairment in functioning, and include acute increases in (a) negative affect (e.g., anger, anxiety, and disgust), (b) physiological arousal (e.g., sympathetic nervous system activation), and (c) overt behavior (e.g., escape behavior and verbal aggression toward individuals generating triggers). A major barrier to research and treatment of misophonia is the lack of rigorously validated assessment measures. As such, the primary purpose of this study was to develop and psychometrically validate a self-report measure of misophonia, the Duke Misophonia Questionnaire (DMQ). There were two phases of measure development. In Phase 1, items were generated and iteratively refined from a combination of the scientific literature and qualitative feedback from misophonia sufferers, their family members, and professional experts. In Phase 2, a large community sample of adults (n = 424) completed DMQ candidate items and other measures needed for psychometric analyses. A series of iterative analytic procedures (e.g., factor analyses and IRT) were used to derive final DMQ items and scales. The final DMQ has 86 items and includes subscales: (1) Trigger frequency (16 items), (2) Affective Responses (5 items), (3) Physiological Responses (8 items), (4) Cognitive Responses (10 items), (5) Coping Before (6 items), (6) Coping During (10 items), (7) Coping After (5 items), (8) Impairment (12 items), and Beliefs (14 items). Composite scales were derived for overall Symptom Severity (combined Affective, Physiological, and Cognitive subscales) and Coping (combined the three Coping subscales). Depending on the needs of researchers or clinicians, the DMQ may be use in full form, individual subscales, or with the derived composite scales.

Upper Quadrant Edema Patient-Reported Outcome Measure Is Reliable, Valid, and Efficient for Patients With Lymphatic and Venous Disorders.

The main aims of this study were to (1) create a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) item bank for measuring the impact of upper quadrant edema (UQE) on physical function by calibrating responses to newly developed items; and (2) assess reliability, validity, and administration efficiency of scores based on computerized adaptive test (CAT) and 10-item short-form (SF) administration modes. This was a retrospective study including data from patients treated in outpatient rehabilitation clinics for UQE that responded to all 27 candidate items at intake. Item response theory model assumptions of unidimensionality, local item independence, item fit, and presence of differential item functioning were evaluated. UQE-CAT- and UQE-SF-generated scores were assessed for reliability, validity, and administration efficiency. The total cohort included 3486 patients (mean [SD] age = 61 [13] years; range = 14-89 years). After removing 2 items, a 25-item solution was supported for its unidimensionality and fit to the item response theory model with reliability estimates of more than 0.93 for scores based on both CAT and SF administration modes. No items demonstrated differential item functioning. Scores discriminated among multiple patient groups in clinically logical ways and were moderately responsive to change with negligible floor and acceptable ceiling effects. CAT scores were generated using an average of 5.6 items (median = 5). Scores on the UQE PROM were reliable, valid, and efficient for assessing perceived physical function of patients with upper quadrant edema; thus, the measure is suitable for research and routine clinical administration. The newly developed UQE PROM is reliable and valid and offers efficient administration modes for assessing perceived physical function of patients with UQE caused by lymphatic and venous disorders, both for research and routine clinical care in busy outpatient rehabilitation settings. As an item response theory-based measure, the UQE PROM allows administration of condition-specific functional questions with low response burden for patients. This study supports a transition to PROMs that are based on modern measurement approaches to achieve high accuracy and efficiency.

Development of an environmental contextual factor item set relevant to global functioning and health in patients with axial spondyloarthritis.

To describe the development of an Environmental contextual factors (EF) Item Set (EFIS) accompanying the disease specific Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society Health Index (ASAS HI). First, a candidate item pool was developed by linking items from existing questionnaires to 13 EF previously selected for the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) /ASAS Core Set. Second, using data from two international surveys, which contained the EF item pool as well as the items from the ASAS HI, the number of EF items was reduced based on the correlation between the item and the ASAS HI sum score combined with expert opinion. Third, the final English EFIS was translated into 15 languages and cross-culturally validated. The initial item pool contained 53 EF addressing four ICF EF chapters: products and technology (e1), support and relationship (e3), attitudes (e4) and health services (e5). Based on 1754 responses of axial spondyloarthritis patients in an international survey, 44 of 53 initial items were removed based on low correlations to the ASAS HI or redundancy combined with expert opinion. Nine items of the initial item pool (range correlation 0.21-0.49) form the final EFIS. The EFIS was translated into 15 languages and field tested in 24 countries. An EFIS is available complementing the ASAS HI and helps to interpret the ASAS HI results by gaining an understanding of the interaction between a health condition and contextual factors. The EFIS emphasizes the importance of support and relationships, as well as attitudes of the patient and health services in relation to self-reported health.

Is diversity optimization always suitable? Toward a better understanding of diversity within recommendation approaches

The diversity of the item list suggested by recommender systems has been proven to impact user satisfaction significantly. Most of the existing diversity optimization approaches re-rank the list of candidate items during a post-processing step. However, the diversity level of the candidate list strongly depends on the recommender system used. Hence, applying the same post-processing diversification strategy may not be as effective for different recommendation approaches. Moreover, individual users’ diversity needs are usually ignored in the diversification post-processing.This article aims at providing an in-depth analysis of the diversity performances of different recommender systems. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first study to systematically compare diversity performances of the main types of recommendation models using benchmark datasets in different domains (movie, anime and book). Semantics related to items may be considered a key factor in measuring diversity within recommender systems. In this study, we leverage support from the knowledge engineering domain and take advantage of resources such as Linked Data and knowledge graphs, to assert the diversity of recommendations. We also propose a variant of the classic diversification post-processing objective that allows to take into account specific users’ diversity needs. We measure the adequacy between the diversity levels a recommender system suggests to its users and those of users’ profiles with the R2 coefficient of determination.Our study indicates that: (1) none of the tested recommender systems, even the most recent ones, provides items with levels of diversity that suit user profiles (R2<0.2); (2) the classic post-processing diversification approach may lead to over-diversification compared to users’ diversity needs and (3) the diversity adjustment that accounts for user profiles has more benefits (greater R2 and smaller accuracy loss). All the source code and datasets used in our study are available to ensure the reproductibility of the study.

Development of the Perth Adolescent Worry Scale (PAWS)

Tools to assess worry among adolescents exist but do not capture the content of worries. This study reports on the development of a brief, psychometrically sound measure of worry for use with adolescents. Phase 1 involved identification of 27 potential items from existing instruments as well as item generation identified in interviews with students, teachers, school psychologists, and parents. In Phase 2, the candidate items were completed by 835 Australian adolescents (317 males, 508 females, 10 unspecified; Mean age = 13.55, SD = 1.31) from Grades 5 to 10. These data were randomly split in half, and an exploratory factor analysis on the first half identified a two-factor solution with 12 items: Peer Relationships (6 items) and Academic Success and the Future (6 items). On the second half of the data, confirmatory factor analyses supported the factor structure and supported strong invariance across age, socioeconomic status, and presence/absence of a diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorder. Weak invariance was evident across sex. Differences across groups are reported as are correlations with indicators of psychological wellbeing. In conclusion, the Perth Adolescent Worry Scale provides both applied professionals and researchers with a short, easy-to-administer, and psychometrically strong instrument to evaluate adolescents’ everyday worries.

Developing the nursing practice environment scale for home health care: A trial study in Japan.

AimTo develop the nursing practice environment scale in home health care (NPES‐HHC), which measures the attractiveness of nursing practice environments in Japan.DesignCross‐sectional study.MethodsThe answers of 1,050 mail surveys conducted for nurses at 421 home‐visit nursing agencies in Japan were analysed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the NPES‐HHC’s candidate items were performed. Relationships between the newly developed NPES‐HHC and participants’ intention to remain at the workplace, job satisfaction and quality of care were also tested.ResultsA seven‐dimensional model with 37 items was obtained by exploratory factor analysis (Cronbach's alpha: 0.77–0.92). Confirmatory factor analysis supported this model. NPES‐HHC scores had significant positive relations with participants’ intention to remain at the workplace, job satisfaction and quality of care (p < .01). The NPES‐HHC is a reliable and valid instrument to assess the attractiveness of the practice environment for home‐visit nursing agencies.

Perancangan Aplikasi Data Mining Menggunakan Association Rule Dengan Metode Algoritma Apriori Untuk Analisis Market Basket (Studi Kasus Pada Tesco Swalayan)

The data contained ranging from business transactions to government is very large in size so we need a system that can sort and select the data. Intense competition in the business world, especially in the food industry or supermarkets, requires developers to find strategies that can increase sales. Data mining is used to find patterns and regularities in data sets that are hidden by using technology. In knowing the products purchased by consumers, developers can use market basket analysis, namely an analysis of consumer buying habits and then detect products that consumers often buy simultaneously using association rules. Search for associations or relationships between items taken from a relational database using an a priori algorithm to form candidate item combinations and then tested whether the combination meets the minimum support and confidence parameters which are the threshold values ​​given by the user. Furthermore, it is applied by performing query processing, decision making and so on. Data mining applications with the association rule method have been able to perform calculations correctly as expected. The knowledge generated by the application and manual calculations is 17.2% of all transactions, granulated sugar and pomegranate cooking oil are purchased simultaneously. And of all transactions that buy granulated sugar, 55.5% will buy Pomegranate Cooking Oil. 17.2% of all transactions, Pomegranate Cooking Oil and Granulated Sugar are purchased simultaneously. And of all transactions that buy Pomegranate Cooking Oil, 55.5% will buy granulated sugar.

DeepAssociate: A deep learning model exploring sequential influence and history-candidate association for sequence recommendation

A remarkable progress in sequential recommendation field lies on deep learning techniques, where deep learning was widely used to capture user preference from behavior records. However, researchers usually place emphasis on sequential change while ignore the correlation between user’s historical behaviors and candidate item’s characteristics (history-candidate association), which leads to the inaccurate matching between target users and candidate items. In this paper, we proposed a deep learning model to explore both sequential influence and history-candidate association in sequential recommendation, namely DeepAssociate. First, we considered the history-candidate association in user preference representation and obtained it by two steps, including sequential influence extraction and association feature extraction. Then, by defining a weighted objective function, we introduced an integrated framework which makes a combination of sequential and association features extraction and prediction module to enhance recommendation performance. Experimental results on four real-world datasets demonstrated that DeepAssociate model outperformed state-of-the-art methods on recommendation performance. Furthermore, a series of extensive experiments indicated the benefit of utilizing history-candidate association feature in reducing model complexity and accelerating model convergence.

Development of a short form of the Singapore Caregiver Quality of Life Scale \u2013 Dementia: SCQOLS-D-15

PurposeThe Singapore Caregiver Quality of Life Scale – Dementia (SCQOLS-D), developed based on the Singapore Caregiver Quality of Life Scale (SCQOLS), comprises 5 domains and 63 items. It has been shown to be a valid and reliable measurement scale. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a short form of the SCQOLS-D.MethodsData were collected from 102 family caregivers of person with dementia in Singapore. Candidate items were shortlisted by factor analysis, correlation and best subset regression. Shortlisted items with the best measurement properties including correlations with the long form and other established measures, internal consistency and test-retest reliability were identified. Their properties were compared with the corresponding domain scores in the long form of SCQOLS-D and a short form of the SCQOLS. A total score based on the average of the domain scores was also evaluated.ResultsA total of fifteen items, two to four items per domain, were selected. The total and domain scores generated from these items strongly correlated with the corresponding score of the long form (correlation coefficients: 0.83–0.97). The short and long forms had comparable correlation coefficients with Negative Personal Impact and Positive Personal Impact measures. The short form showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.84–0.92) and test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient: 0.72–0.93). These 15 items form the SCQOLS-D-15, an abbreviated version of the SCQOLS-D.ConclusionThe SCQOLS-D-15 showed acceptable measurement properties. This serves as an alternative to the SCQOLS-D to provide rapid assessment of the overall and domain-specific quality of life of caregivers of persons with dementia.