Share Survey Data Research Articles

International Survey of Mechanical Thrombectomy Stroke Systems of Care During COVID-19 Pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has strained the healthcare systems across the world but its impact on acute stroke care is just being elucidated. We hypothesized a major global impact of COVID-19 not only on stroke volumes but also on various aspects of thrombectomy systems. AimsWe conducted a convenience electronic survey with a 21-item questionnaire aimed to identify the changes in stroke admission volumes and thrombectomy treatment practices seen during a specified time period of the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsThe survey was designed using Qualtrics software and sent to stroke and neuro-interventional physicians around the world who are part of the Global Executive Committee (GEC) of Mission Thrombectomy 2020, a global coalition under the aegis of Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology, between April 5th and May 15th, 2020. ResultsThere were 113 responses to the survey across 25 countries with a response rate of 31% among the GEC members. Globally there was a median 33% decrease in stroke admissions and a 25% decrease in mechanical thrombectomy (MT) procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic period until May 15th, 2020 compared to pre-pandemic months. The intubation policy for MT procedures during the pandemic was highly variable across participating centers: 44% preferred intubating all patients, including 25% of centers that changed their policy to preferred-intubation (PI) from preferred non-intubation (PNI). On the other hand, 56% centers preferred not intubating patients undergoing MT, which included 27% centers that changed their policy from PI to PNI. There was no significant difference in rate of COVID-19 infection between PI versus PNI centers (p=0.60) or if intubation policy was changed in either direction (p=1.00). Low-volume (<10 stroke/month) compared with high-volume stroke centers (>20 strokes/month) were less likely to have neurointerventional suite specific written personal protective equipment protocols (74% vs 88%) and if present, these centers were more likely to report them to be inadequate (58% vs 92%). ConclusionOur data provides a comprehensive snapshot of the impact on acute stroke care observed worldwide during the pandemic. Overall, respondents reported decreased stroke admissions as well as decreased cases of MT with no clear preponderance in intubation policy during MT. Data access statementThe corresponding author will consider requests for sharing survey data. The study was exempt from institutional review board approval as it did not involve patient level data.

Visualizing Health and Well-Being Inequalities Among Older Europeans

In this study, we propose a hyper-simplified indicator of health and well-being for data visualization purposes in large datasets and apply it to SHARE survey data, the largest macro survey on health, ageing and retirement for 18 European countries. The indicator is based on four thematic sub-indicators, each focussing on a particular issue, which are obtained from more than twenty mixed variables measured on more than 60,000 respondents; Next, PCA is used to summarize their information in order to find and visualize profiles of “healthy ageing” across Europe. As a result, EU countries are classified in three groups, that segment the database into the least to the most individuals at risk of health and well-being. The methodology we propose is wide enough to be extended to other surveys or disciplines.

Are we ready to track climate-driven shifts in marine species across international boundaries? - A global survey of scientific bottom trawl data.

Marine biota are redistributing at a rapid pace in response to climate change and shifting seascapes. While changes in fish populations and community structure threaten the sustainability of fisheries, our capacity to adapt by tracking and projecting marine species remains a challenge due to data discontinuities in biological observations, lack of data availability, and mismatch between data and real species distributions. To assess the extent of this challenge, we review the global status and accessibility of ongoing scientific bottom trawl surveys. In total, we gathered metadata for 283,925 samples from 95 surveys conducted regularly from 2001 to 2019. We identified that 59% of the metadata collected are not publicly available, highlighting that the availability of data is the most important challenge to assess species redistributions under global climate change. Given that the primary purpose of surveys is to provide independent data to inform stock assessment of commercially important populations, we further highlight that single surveys do not cover the full range of the main commercial demersal fish species. An average of 18 surveys is needed to cover at least 50% of species ranges, demonstrating the importance of combining multiple surveys to evaluate species range shifts. We assess the potential for combining surveys to track transboundary species redistributions and show that differences in sampling schemes and inconsistency in sampling can be overcome with spatio‐temporal modeling to follow species density redistributions. In light of our global assessment, we establish a framework for improving the management and conservation of transboundary and migrating marine demersal species. We provide directions to improve data availability and encourage countries to share survey data, to assess species vulnerabilities, and to support management adaptation in a time of climate‐driven ocean changes.

Modelling Based on a Certified Level of Accuracy: The Case of the Solimene Façade

The advances in surveying techniques based on high resolution 3D laser scanners and photo shot data sets make it possible to measure the deviation between the numerical experimental model and the mathematical model. The former model is discontinuous but objectively defined on the bases of the precision of the instrument whereas the latter is continuous but abstract in its analogically idealized geometrical form. By sharing survey data it is possible to devise interoperable workflows which are useful in the design activities of architects and engineers. This paper discusses the convenience of sharing survey data to manage models and information presenting a case study of the facade of Paolo Soleri’s Solimene factory as a pilot procedure to organize a shared and interoperable workflow.

Matrix methods in health demography: a new approach to the stochastic analysis of healthy longevity and DALYs

BackgroundIncreases in human longevity have made it critical to distinguish healthy longevity from longevity without regard to health. Current methods focus on expectations of healthy longevity, and are often limited to binary health outcomes (e.g., disabled vs. not disabled). We present a new matrix formulation for the statistics of healthy longevity, based on health prevalence data and Markov chain theory, applicable to any kind of health outcome and which provides variances and higher moments as well as expectations of healthy life.MethodThe model is based on a Markov chain description of the life course coupled with the moments of health outcomes (“rewards”) at each age or stage. As an example, we apply the method to nine European countries using the SHARE survey data on the binary outcome of disability as measured by activities of daily living, and the continuous health outcome of hand grip strength.ResultsWe provide analytical formulas for the mean, variance, coefficient of variation, skewness and other statistical properties of healthy longevity. The analysis is applicable to binary, categorical, ordinal, or interval scale health outcomes. The results are easily evaluated in any matrix-oriented software. The SHARE results reveal familiar patterns for the expectation of life and of healthy life: women live longer than men but spend less time in a healthy condition. New results on the variance shows that the standard deviation of remaining healthy life declines with age, but the coefficient of variation is nearly constant. Remaining grip strength years decrease with age more dramatically than healthy years but their variability pattern is similar to the pattern of healthy years. Patterns are similar across nine European countries.ConclusionsThe method extends, in several directions, current calculations of health expectancy (HE) and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). It applies to both categorical and continuous health outcomes, to combinations of multiple outcomes (e.g., death and disability in the formulation of DALYs) and to age- or stage-classified models. It reveals previously unreported patterns of variation among individuals in the outcomes of healthy longevity.

Advancing research data publishing practices for the social sciences: from archive activity to empowering researchers

Sharing and publishing social science research data have a long history in the UK, through long-standing agreements with government agencies for sharing survey data and the data policy, infrastructure, and data services supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. The UK Data Service and its predecessors developed data management, documentation, and publishing procedures and protocols that stand today as robust templates for data publishing. As the ESRC research data policy requires grant holders to submit their research data to the UK Data Service after a grant ends, setting standards and promoting them has been essential in raising the quality of the resulting research data being published. In the past, received data were all processed, documented, and published for reuse in-house. Recent investments have focused on guiding and training researchers in good data management practices and skills for creating shareable data, as well as a self-publishing repository system, ReShare. ReShare also receives data sets described in published data papers and achieves scientific quality assurance through peer review of submitted data sets before publication. Social science data are reused for research, to inform policy, in teaching and for methods learning. Over a 10 years period, responsive developments in system workflows, access control options, persistent identifiers, templates, and checks, together with targeted guidance for researchers, have helped raise the standard of self-publishing social science data. Lessons learned and developments in shifting publishing social science data from an archivist responsibility to a researcher process are showcased, as inspiration for institutions setting up a data repository.

4. Creating Community: One Institution’s Experience With Communities of Practice

This article examines the use and benefits of communities of practice (CoPs) in academic settings. In the 2010-2011 academic year Teaching Support Services at Wilfrid Laurier University introduced four theme-based CoPs for faculty and academic support staff after a successful pilot initiative. This article explores our motivation for focusing our programming efforts on CoPs and our anticipated outcomes of the project. We highlight the successes and challenges as well as share survey data and participant feedback on their experience. Central to the article as well as our philosophy is the idea that “good talk about good teaching” (Palmer, 1993) can prompt personal reflection about one’s teaching and meaningful exchange between colleagues.

Common Practices for Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery at a Small Private University

The purpose of this article is to outline the “best common practices” at Regent University Library, and share survey data illustrating their effectiveness. Also discussed is how transitioning from an entirely graduate university to a university serving both graduates and undergraduates has influenced library services. The new constituency will increase interlibrary loan transactions and test the library's practices. Providing quality interlibrary loan service to a growing academic population requires innovative ideas and practices while keeping the workflow streamlined. New programs implemented over the past several years include books on demand and providing more electronic books and journals. A growing distance education student population has led to paying for library cards for academic libraries located near students' homes and permitting them to return materials to satellite campuses.