Differences In Acceptance Rates Research Articles

Exceptional LAS Requests in Eurotransplant: Analysis of an 8-year Effort to Improve Lung Allocation for Precarious Patients

Following introduction of the lung allocation score (LAS) in 2011, Eurotransplant member centers can apply for an exceptional LAS (eLAS) if the calculated LAS insufficiently reflects the perceived transplant benefit for a patient, specifically in case of primary pulmonary hypertension group 1 and 4; combined lung+non-renal transplantation; rare diseases; or extracorporeal support. Each eLAS proposal is evaluated by a LAS Review Board, consisting of ≥3 lung transplant experts, which subsequently declines or approves the eLAS request in consensus of ≥3 votes. In case of a lower than accepted score, predefined business rules to assign LAS percentiles are used. A retrospective analysis of all eLAS requests in Eurotransplant from December 2011 until September 2019. Overall, 5183 lung transplants (deceased donors) were performed and 420 eLAS requests were made (Germany 52%, Netherlands 18%, Austria 18%, Belgium 13%), of which 116 (28%) were approved. Most eLAS requests concerned group B/Pulmonary vascular disease (44%), followed by group C/Cystic fibrosis or immunodeficiency disorder (28%), then group D/Restrictive lung disease (15%) and finally group A/Obstructive lung disease (11%); whereas 10 patients (2%) were not classified. The proportion of accepted eLAS requests significantly differed between countries (Germany 25%, Netherlands 37%, Austria 20%, Belgium 36%) (p=0.042). eLAS requests decreased in the Netherlands following its LAS introduction in 2014 (2011-2014 mean 13/yr vs. 2015-2019 mean 4.6/yr; p=0.060). However, since 2015 an overall annual increasing number of eLAS requests is seen, with doubling of the eLAS requests in 2018 vs. 2015, but no difference in acceptance rate (2015-2018: 22.4%) (Figure). Acceptance rates were 38% for Group B, 21% for Group C, 20% for Group D and 11% for Group A. The observed variations require further investigation to optimize lung allocation for specific patient populations in Eurotransplant.

Knowledge, Attitude and Acceptance of a COVID-19 Vaccine: A Global Cross-Sectional Study

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world, with the United States being highly affected. A vaccine provides the best hope for a permanent solution to controlling the pandemic. Several coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines are currently in human trials. However, to be effective, a vaccine must be accepted and used by a large majority of the population. This study aimed to investigate the acceptability of COVID-19 vaccines and its predictors in addition to the attitudes towards these vaccines among public. This study did an online survey during the period June-September 2020, were collected from 26,852 individuals aged 19 years or older across six continents as part of 60 nationally representative surveys to determine potential acceptance rates and factors influencing acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine. Results revealed that two-thirds of respondents were at least moderately worried about a widespread COVID-19 outbreak. Differences in acceptance rates ranged from almost 93% (in Tonga) to less than 43% (in Egypt). Respondents reporting higher levels of trust in information from government sources were more likely to accept a vaccine and take their employer’s advice to do so. Systematic interventions are required by public health authorities to reduce the levels of vaccines’ hesitancy and improve their acceptance. These results and specifically the low rate of acceptability is alarming to public health authorities and should stir further studies on the root causes and the need of awareness campaigns. These interventions should take the form of reviving the trust in national health authorities and structured awareness campaigns that offer transparent information about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines and the technology that was utilized in their production.

Exploring the relationship between fairness and ‘brain types’ in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder

BackgroundExisting research typically focuses on only one domain of cognition with regard to fairness—theory of mind or executive function. However, children with High-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) are cognitively impaired in both domains. Moreover, little is known about fairness characteristics in children with HF-ASD in relation to both domains of cognition. MethodsThirty children with HF-ASD as well as 39 children with typical development (TD) were evaluated in this study. We investigated the development of children's fairness characteristics as a responder in a mini ultimatum game (UG). The different ‘brain types,’ i.e., with or without HF-ASD, were evaluated using the Empathy Questionnaire-Systemizing Questionnaire (E/SC-Q). Furthermore, we explored the relationship between fairness and brain types using Pearson correlation analyses. ResultsChildren in the HF-ASD group were more likely to accept unfair offers than were children in the TD group (χ2 = 17.513, p = .025). In the HF-ASD group, the acceptance rate of unfair offers was correlated with the discrepancy score (r = 0.363, p = .048), while there were no significant correlations in the TD group. In HF-ASD group, compared with Type S, acceptance rate of unfair offer was significant higher in Extreme Type S ‘brain type’ (F = 28.584, p < .001). While dividing TD participants by ‘brain type’, there was no significant difference in acceptance rate of unfair offer among five difference ‘brain types’ (F = 1.131, p = .358). Stepwise regression revealed that Extreme Type S positively predicted acceptance of unfair offers (F [1, 68] = 8.695, p < .001). DiscussionOur findings show that children with HF-ASD were more likely to accept an unfair offer; in particular, the more unbalanced the development of empathy and systemizing was, the more significant the unfairness preference observed. Extreme Type S positively predicted the acceptance of unfair offers by children with HF-ASD. Registration of clinical trialsWorld Health Organization class I registered international clinical trial platform, ChiCTR-ROC-17012877.

Effects of a Management–Labor Context and Team Play on Ultimatum Game Outcomes

Laboratory experiments are usually done on individuals, but many business decisions involve groups. Therefore, we ran ultimatum games using individuals and two-person teams. We primed business roles with the labels “labor” and “management,” or we used the generic labels of “proposer” and “responder.” With business labels, individuals offered lower shares at higher stakes with no significant differences in acceptance rates. For teams, business labels had no significant effect on shares offered, with significantly lower acceptance rates at higher stakes. Teams offered less than individuals, along with higher acceptance rates with generic labels, compared to no significant differences with business labels.

APhA recognizes 2016’s Immunization Champions

Clinic, a walk-in clinic for patients aged 15 years and older, at a large Indian Health Service medical center in Phoenix. But providing only 10% of the vaccines given on campus, the clinic’s reach isn’t great enough for Van Lew. “We want vaccines addressed at every visit,” Van Lew said. Primary care alone, she noted, can’t cover all adult vaccines. Patients may have many specialty visits between less frequent primary care visits at the time immunizations are due. Van Lew aimed to standardize the approach to immunizations across the medical center campus. Through education campaigns, she has motivated nurses to embrace CDC recommendations to address immunizations at every visit. She successfully advocated for a protocol that would allow all nurses to offer routine vaccines anywhere on campus. In 2015, she provided 20 education sessions to more than 250 providers across specialties and professions to increase vaccine awareness, integrate vaccination into workflows, and devise better ways to use electronic health records and screening tools in this endeavor. Nationally, Van Lew has collaborated on research with CDC and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases to better understand and improve adult vaccination rates. “I get involved in so many different arenas because there’s so many different ways we can impact vaccination rates—not just in the clinic.” In 2015, on Van Lew’s watch, more than 44,000 vaccines were administered to children and adults in her health system, substantially increasing immunization rates for zoster, human papillomavirus, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis.

Emotion Regulation in Adolescent Males with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Testing the Effects of Comorbid Conduct Disorder.

Although attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been linked to emotion dysregulation, few studies have experimentally investigated this whilst controlling for the effects of comorbid conduct disorder (CD). Economic decision-making games that assess how individuals respond to offers varying in fairness have been used to study emotion regulation. The present study compared adolescent boys with ADHD (n = 90), ADHD + CD (n = 94) and typical controls (n = 47) on the Ultimatum Game and examined the contribution of ADHD and CD symptom scores and callous and unemotional traits to acceptance levels of unfair offers. There were no significant differences in acceptance rates of fair and highly unfair offers between groups, and only boys with ADHD did not significantly differ from the controls. However, the subgroup of boys with ADHD and additional high levels of aggressive CD symptoms rejected significantly more ambiguous (i.e., moderately unfair) offers than any other subgroup, suggesting impaired emotion regulation in those with ADHD and aggressive CD. Correlations within the CD group showed that the rejection rate to moderately unfair offers was predicted by aggressive CD symptom severity, but not callous and unemotional traits. These findings highlight the fact that ADHD is a heterogeneous condition from an emotion regulation point of view.

Pilot evaluation of an optimized context-specific drug–drug interaction alerting system: A controlled pre-post study

ObjectivesClinical decision support (CDS) systems are frequently used to reduce unwanted drug–drug interactions (DDIs) but often result in alert fatigue. The main objective of this study was to investigate whether a newly developed context-specific DDI alerting system would improve alert acceptance. MethodsA controlled pre-post intervention study was conducted in 4 departments in a university hospital. After a 7-month pre-intervention period, the new system was activated in the intervention departments, while the old system remained activated in the control departments. Post-intervention data was collected for a 7-month period. ResultsA significant increase of the overall acceptance rate was observed between the pre- and post-intervention period (2.2% versus 52.4%; p<0.001) for the intervention departments and between the intervention and control departments (2.5% versus 52.4%; p<0.001) in the post-intervention period. There were no significant differences in acceptance rates between the pre- and post-intervention period in the control departments and also not between the control and intervention departments in the pre-intervention period. ConclusionsThe improvement was probably related to several optimization strategies including the customization of the severity classification, the creation of individual screening intervals, the inclusion of context factors for risk assessment, the new alert design and the creation of a follow-up system. The marked increase in alert acceptance looks promising and should be further evaluated after hospital wide implementation. System aspects that require further optimization were identified and will be developed. Further research is warranted to develop context-aware algorithms for complex class–class interactions.

Fate of Manuscripts Rejected From the Red Journal

To evaluate characteristics associated with higher rates of acceptance for original manuscripts submitted for publication to the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (IJROBP) and describe the fate of rejected manuscripts. Manuscripts submitted to the IJROBP from May 1, 2010, to August 31, 2010, and May 1, 2012, to August 31, 2012, were evaluated for author demographics and acceptance status. A PubMed search was performed for each IJROBP-rejected manuscript to ascertain whether the manuscript was ultimately published elsewhere. The Impact Factor of the accepting journal and the number of citations of the published manuscript were also collected. Of the 500 included manuscripts, 172 (34.4%) were accepted and 328 (65.6%) were rejected. There was no significant difference in acceptance rates according to gender or degree of the submitting author, but there were significant differences seen based on the submitting author's country, rank, and h-index. On multivariate analysis, earlier year submitted (P<.0001) and higher author h-index (P=.006) remained significantly associated with acceptance into the IJROBP. Two hundred thirty-five IJROBP-rejected manuscripts (71.7%) were ultimately published in a PubMed-listed journal as of July 2014. There were no significant differences in any submitting author characteristics. Journals accepting IJROBP-rejected manuscripts had a lower median [interquartile range] 2013 impact factor compared with the IJROBP (2.45 [1.53-3.71] vs 4.176). The IJROBP-rejected manuscripts ultimately published elsewhere had a lower median [interquartile range] number of citations (1 [0-4] vs 6 [2-11]; P<.001), which persisted on multivariate analysis. The acceptance rate for manuscripts submitted to the IJROBP is approximately one-third, and approximately 70% of rejected manuscripts are ultimately published in other PubMed-listed journals, but these ultimate-destination journals usually have a lower impact factor, leading to fewer citations and overall visibility.

Annual Report and Editorial Commentary forThe Accounting Review

Annual Report and Editorial Commentary for<i>The Accounting Review</i>

Barriers to Uptake of Free Pediatric Cataract Surgery in Malawi

Purpose: To examine the demographic, sociocultural and socioeconomic factors that prevent families of cataract blind children from accepting free pediatric cataract surgery in Malawi.Methods: A total 58 parents of 62 children were recruited into the study. Of these, 53 parents partook in in-depth interviews and focus group discussions after the children were screened and the parents offered free cataract surgery. Overall, 37 parents accepted (acceptors) and 16 parents did not accept (non-acceptors) cataract surgery. All interviews were transcribed and iteratively analyzed. Household economic status was quantified using the Progress out of Poverty Index for Malawi.Results: Acceptors were better off economically (p = 0.13). Understanding of cataract, its causing blindness and impairment, as well as treatment options, by the decision makers in the families was poor. Decision-making involved a complex array of aspects needing consideration before accepting, of which distance to the health facility was a frequently mentioned barrier. Non-acceptors were more likely to come from twice the distance compared to acceptors (p = 0.0098). Non-acceptors were more likely to be peasant (subsistence) farmers than acceptors (p = 0.048). Non-acceptors were more likely to live in a house made of mud bricks with a roof of grass thatch (p = 0.001). There was no significant difference in acceptance rate between educated and non-educated mothers (p = 0.11). Intensive counseling as provided in this project increased the likelihood of accepting surgery.Conclusion: Economic hardship and long distances to health facilities decrease acceptance even of free pediatric cataract surgical services, highlighting that just providing surgery free of cost may not be sufficient for the most economically disadvantaged in rural Africa.

Gender Cues and Acceptance of Supreme Court Decisions: An Experimental Study on Source Cues

The issue of gender, politics, and the judiciary has widely been reviewed. Previous research hasobserved judges craft both gender motivated and other self interested decisions. Rather thanconducting an examination into possible gender motivated decision making; an experimentalinvestigation is employed to examine the acceptance rates of perceived gender motivateddecisions by the Supreme Court. This study employs the use of cues (information shortcuts)presented to participants as to the gender of the justice in a Supreme Court decision regardingwomen’s rights in order to measure differences in acceptance rates. It is theorized that arelationship exists between a perceived gender motivated decision and a decline in acceptancerates of specific decision; or in other words when it appears a judge is acting in a self interestedmanner through this will yield lower rates of publics’ acceptance of the Court’s decision. Theprevious theory is advanced further to suggest as to when a judge issues an opinion or behaves ina way that goes against general expectations the actions are perceived by the public to be morecredible. This is demonstrated in the study below which finds when a female Supreme CourtJustice issues a majority opinion that is against women’s rights the decision enjoys a statisticallysignificant greater rate of acceptance; than a male justice issuing the same decision. This findingparallels with previous research across multiple disciplines of political science, psychology, andcommunications on credibility of a communicator (Supreme Court Justice) and the use of a cue(gender).

Do Patients With Income-Based Insurance Have Access to Total Joint Arthroplasty?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is expected to increase health care availability through Medicaid expansion. The objective of this study was to evaluate potential effects of the PPACA by examining access to total hip arthroplasty in Southern California. 39 orthopaedic surgeons were called to schedule a hip arthroplasty. Insurances used included a Preferred Provider Organization (PPO), Medicare, and three income-based insurances. There was a significant difference in acceptance rate when comparing PPO and Medicare patients with income-based insurances (P<0.001). This study showed that in Southern California, patients with income-based insurances are limited in the number of surgeons from whom they can receive care. Thus, although the PPACA will increase the number of insured patients, it may not similarly increase access to providers.

Journal acceptance rates: A cross-disciplinary analysis of variability and relationships with journal measures

There are many indicators of journal quality and prestige. Although acceptance rates are discussed anecdotally, there has been little systematic exploration of the relationship between acceptance rates and other journal measures. This study examines the variability of acceptance rates for a set of 5094 journals in five disciplines and the relationship between acceptance rates and JCR measures for 1301 journals. The results show statistically significant differences in acceptance rates by discipline, country affiliation of the editor, and number of reviewers per article. Negative correlations are found between acceptance rates and citation-based indicators. Positive correlations are found with journal age. These relationships are most pronounced in the most selective journals and vary by discipline. Open access journals were found to have statistically significantly higher acceptance rates than non-open access journals. Implications in light of changes in the scholarly communication system are discussed.

Quantifying explainable discrimination and removing illegal discrimination in automated decision making

Recently, the following discrimination-aware classification problem was introduced. Historical data used for supervised learning may contain discrimination, for instance, with respect to gender. The question addressed by discrimination-aware techniques is, given sensitive attribute, how to train discrimination-free classifiers on such historical data that are discriminative, with respect to the given sensitive attribute. Existing techniques that deal with this problem aim at removing all discrimination and do not take into account that part of the discrimination may be explainable by other attributes. For example, in a job application, the education level of a job candidate could be such an explainable attribute. If the data contain many highly educated male candidates and only few highly educated women, a difference in acceptance rates between woman and man does not necessarily reflect gender discrimination, as it could be explained by the different levels of education. Even though selecting on education level would result in more males being accepted, a difference with respect to such a criterion would not be considered to be undesirable, nor illegal. Current state-of-the-art techniques, however, do not take such gender-neutral explanations into account and tend to overreact and actually start reverse discriminating, as we will show in this paper. Therefore, we introduce and analyze the refined notion of conditional non-discrimination in classifier design. We show that some of the differences in decisions across the sensitive groups can be explainable and are hence tolerable. Therefore, we develop methodology for quantifying the explainable discrimination and algorithmic techniques for removing the illegal discrimination when one or more attributes are considered as explanatory. Experimental evaluation on synthetic and real-world classification datasets demonstrates that the new techniques are superior to the old ones in this new context, as they succeed in removing almost exclusively the undesirable discrimination, while leaving the explainable differences unchanged, allowing for differences in decisions as long as they are explainable.

Patient perspectives on opt-out HIV screening in a Guyanese emergency department

In 2007, the WHO recommended that healthcare providers in areas of a generalised HIV epidemic perform HIV testing on all adults and adolescents presenting for healthcare. Studies regarding patient acceptability of opt-out testing, however, have reported wide variation in acceptance rates. This study examines patient-reported acceptability of such testing at the emergency department (ED) of Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, the largest public hospital in Guyana. In June 2010, a convenience sample of 343 non-critical adult patients who presented to the ED were interviewed regarding potential acceptance of opt-out HIV testing, with 75.5% (95% CI 70.5-80.0%) stating they would accept testing should it be implemented in the ED. Of 12 patient characteristics, 3 had significant differences in acceptance rates on multivariate analysis: age; gender; and previous HIV testing. In this study, potential reasons for declining testing were also examined. The highest percentage of patient agreement was with the statements 'I have had an HIV test recently enough' (84%, 95% CI 74.0-91.4%) and 'I am not at risk for HIV/AIDS' (83%, 95% CI 73.0-90.4%). The results of this study indicate that the majority of patients in this setting would accept opt-out HIV testing, although some still had concerns regarding testing. Opt-out testing in the ED has the potential to facilitate national goals for increased testing and diagnosis.

Combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy in the treatment of chronic depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundChronic depression represents a substantial portion of depressive disorders and is associated with severe consequences. This review examined whether the combination of pharmacological treatments and psychotherapy is associated with higher effectiveness than pharmacotherapy alone via meta-analysis; and identified possible treatment effect modifiers via meta-regression-analysis.MethodsA systematic search was conducted in the following databases: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, ISI Web of Science, BIOSIS, PsycINFO, and CINAHL. Primary efficacy outcome was a response to treatment; primary acceptance outcome was dropping out of the study. Only randomized controlled trials were considered.ResultsWe identified 8 studies with a total of 9 relevant comparisons. Our analysis revealed small, but statistically not significant effects of combined therapies on outcomes directly related to depression (BR = 1.20) with substantial heterogeneity between studies (I² = 67%). Three treatment effect modifiers were identified: target disorders, the type of psychotherapy and the type of pharmacotherapy. Small but statistically significant effects of combined therapies on quality of life (SMD = 0.18) were revealed. No differences in acceptance rates and the long-term effects between combined treatments and pure pharmacological interventions were observed.ConclusionsThis systematic review could not provide clear evidence for the combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. However, due to the small amount of primary studies further research is needed for a conclusive decision.

Dearth by a Thousand Cuts? Accounting for Gender Differences in Top-Ranked Publication Rates in Social Psychology.

Publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a flagship indicator of scientific prestige, shows dramatic gender disparities. A bibliometric analysis included yoked-control authors matched for Ph.D. prestige and cohort. Though women publish less, at slower annual rates, they are more cited in handbooks and textbooks per JPSP-article-published. No gender differences emerged on variables reflecting differential qualifications. Many factors explain gender discrepancy in productivity. Among top publishers, per-year rate and first authorship especially differ by gender; rate uniquely predicts top-male productivity, whereas career-length uniquely predicts top-female productivity. Among men, across top-publishers and controls, productivity correlates uniquely with editorial negotiating and being married. For women, no personal variables predict productivity. A separate inquiry shows tiny gender differences in acceptance rates per JPSP article submitted; discrimination would be a small-but-plausible contributor, absent independent indicators of manuscript quality. Recent productivity rates mirror earlier gender disparities, suggesting gender gaps will continue.

Racial Differences in Inequality Aversion: Evidence from Real World Respondents in the Ultimatum Game

The distinct historical and cultural experiences of American blacks and whites may influence whether members of those groups perceive a particular exchange as fair. We investigate racial differences in fairness standards using preferences for equal treatment in the ultimatum game, where responders choose to allow a proposed division of a monetary amount or to block it. Although previous research has studied group differences in the ultimatum game, no study has been able to examine these across races in America. We use a sample of over 1600 blacks and whites drawn from the universe of registered voters in three states and merged with information on neighborhood income and racial composition. We experimentally vary proposed divisions as well as the implied race of the ultimatum game proposer. We find no overall racial differences in acceptance rates or aversion to unequal divisions. However, we uncover racial differences in the response to pecuniary returns conditional on inequality of the division. This is driven by the lowest income group in our sample, which represents the 10th percentile of the black income distribution. The racial differences are robust across gender and age groups. We also find that blacks are more sensitive to unfair proposals from other blacks.

An Exploration of Teacher Acceptability of Treatment Plan Implementation: Monitoring and Feedback Methods

To date, treatment plan implementation (TPI) monitoring and feedback methods have increased teacher TPI levels in single-subject designs and a randomized field trial. However, when innovative procedures such as these require significant changes in teachers' daily practice, acceptability becomes an important variable, and the extent to which teachers view various TPI monitoring and feedback methods as acceptable is unknown. The purposes of this exploratory research thus were to document teachers' acceptability ratings of these methods, differences in acceptability ratings between teachers having differential characteristics, and other TPI support methods that teachers identify. Respondents completed a survey that assesses acceptability of monitoring and feedback methods, gathers information on demographics, and provides an opportunity to supply other potential methods of TPI support. Results indicated significant differences between acceptability ratings regarding the personnel involved, frequency, communication format, and procedures of TPI monitoring and feedback methods. Special education teachers rated TPI monitoring methods more acceptable than did regular education teachers. Finally, respondents identified a variety of other potentially helpful TPI support methods.

Shifting Patterns in the Premedical Education of African Americans and the Role of the HBCU

In today's highly competitive educational environment, becoming a physician requires that the students attend a high school that offers both a challenging curriculum and advanced course work. Ideally, the learning will occur in classroom environments with certified and nurturing teachers. Once accepted to college the students must survive two years of intense science coursework across the three disciplines of Biology, Chemistry and Physics and maintain a grade point average (GPA) of 3.5 or better. Still very few African American students reach these final steps on the challenging road to a career in medicine. This paper describes some of the historical and contemporary barriers African American physicians have faced as well as their underrepresentation as medical students including the differences in acceptance rates. The paper also discusses the impact of undergraduate science education on African American students’ medical school admissions. The importance of this review relates to the fact that there is currently an insufficient number of physicians and that African American physicians are underrepresented in that group.