Simple Facts Research Articles

A Theory-Based Educational Booklet Improves Colonoscopy Attendance and Bowel Preparation Quality

Introduction: Patients who “no-show” for colonoscopy or present with poor bowel preparation waste endoscopic resources and do not receive adequate examination for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. At our VA hospital, which does not use open access endoscopy, the colonoscopy no-show rate is high and inadequate bowel preparation is a common occurrence. To address these issues, we designed a patient education booklet using health behavior theory and evaluated its effect on no-show rates and bowel preparation quality. Methods: We adapted the Health Belief Model for screening/surveillance colonoscopy and identified major targets for intervention. We then designed a 12-page color patient education booklet to target individual perceptions about CRC using simple facts, provide cues to action using graphics to explain the bowel preparation process, and increase likelihood of action by adopting a more palatable low residue diet (Fig 1). We compared the no-show rate over a two month period before and after introduction of the booklet, allowing for a wash-out period during which booklet use was inconsistent. We compared the Boston Bowel Prep Scale (BPPS) in 100 consecutive patients who underwent colonoscopy during each of the two periods.Figure: Select Sections of Patient Education Pamphlet.Results: Baseline characteristics between the two groups were similar, although patients who received the booklet were younger (Table). The no-show rate was significantly lower in patients who received the booklet than those who did not (13% vs. 21%, P=.01). The percentage of patients with adequate bowel prep—defined as BBPS>1 in all segments—increased from 82% to 86% after introduction of the booklet and surpassed the 85% metric recommended US Multi-Society Task Force, although the difference was not statistically significant (P=.44). The proportion of patients with BBPS=9 was significantly higher in the booklet group (Fig 2; 41% vs. 27%, P=.03). There was no difference in adenoma and sessile serrated adenoma detection rates before and after the booklet.Figure: Boston Bowel Preparation Scale Outcomes Before and After Patient Education Booklet.Table: Table. Patient Characteristics and OutcomesConclusion: Using a theory-based patient education intervention, we decreased our colonoscopy noshow rate by 38% and increased our adequate bowel preparation rate above the guideline-recommended 85%. Our adaptation of the Health Belief Model for screening/surveillance colonoscopy may be a useful construct for future health behavioral interventions.

Benefits and Limitations of Text Messages to Stimulate Higher Learning Among Community Providers: Participants' Views of an mHealth Intervention to Support Continuing Medical Education in Vietnam.

A randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2015 to evaluate a mobile continuing medical education (mCME) intervention that provided daily text messages to community-based physicians' assistants (CBPAs) in Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam. Although the intervention failed to improve medical knowledge over a 6-month period, a companion qualitative study provided insights on the views and experiences of intervention participants. We conducted focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews (IDIs) among participants randomized to receive text messages containing either simple medical facts or quiz questions. Trained interviewers collected data immediately following the conclusion of the trial in December 2015. Using semi-structured question guides, respondents were queried on their views of the intervention, positive and negative, and perceived impacts of the intervention. During analysis, after learning that the intervention had failed to increase knowledge among participants, we also examined reasons for lack of improvement in medical knowledge. All analyses were performed in NVivo using a thematic approach. A total of 70 CBPAs engaged in one of 8 FGDs or an IDI. One-half were men; average age among all respondents was 40 years. Most (81%) practiced in rural settings and most (51%) focused on general medicine. The mean length of work experience was 3 years. All respondents made positive comments about the intervention; convenience, relevance, and quick feedback (quiz format) were praised. Downsides encompassed lack of depth of information, weak interaction, technology challenges, and challenging/irrelevant messages. Respondents described perceived impacts encompassing increased motivation, knowledge, collegial discussions, Internet use to search for more information, and clinical skills. Overall, they expressed a desire for the intervention to continue and recommended expansion to other medical professionals. Overreliance on the text messages, lack of effective self-study, and technical/language-based barriers may be potential explanations for intervention failure. As a form of mCME, daily text messages were well-received by community-level health care providers in Vietnam. This mCME approach appears very promising in low-resource environments or where traditional forms of CME are impractical. Future models might consider enhancements to foster linkages to relevant medical materials, improve interaction with medical experts, and tailor medical content to the daily activities of medical staff.

Linear Transformation Recognition Using Radon Transform

Given two regular functions (images) f and g on R2 where g is formed from f by a general linear transformation, g(x) = f (Ax + b). We present a procedure to determine the transformation ‘parameters’ A and b using Radon projections of f and only two projections of g. We use these projections together with simple facts on matrix vector multiplication to recover the matrix A. The assumptions we have here are: f is nonnegative and A is nonsingular. Commonly used transformations in image processing such as rotation, scaling and others are special cases of our approach.

Responding to Climate Change Deniers with Simple Facts and Logic

A sequence of five questions and answers that can be used by scientists to communicate some simple concepts of climate change to broader audiences.

The Yosida space and representation of the projectable hull of an archimedean ℓ-group with weak unit

W is the category of archimedean ℓ-groups with designated weak order unit. The full subcategory of W of objects for which the unit is strong unit is denoted by W∗; such ℓ-groups are called bounded. Thus arises a coreflection . For G ∈W, Y G is the Yosida space, and G ≤ pG is the much-studied projectable hull. Recently, in [1], for G ∈ W∗, Y pG is identified as the Stone space of a certain boolean algebra of subsets of the minimal prime spectrum Min(G), and skepticism is expressed about extending this to W. Here, we show that indeed such an extension is possible, using a result from [5] and the following simple facts: in very concrete ways Min(G) and Min(BG) are homeomorphic spaces, and and are isomorphic boolean algebras; p and B commute.

A duty of forgetting bombers or iconoclasm? A French example for the Erostrate rule

Summary Could the Erostrate rule be applied to terrorists in France: an obligation to forget their names? Such individuals are presented by the media as iconic personalities (evil for many, but examples to follow for some). Maybe simple facts (male, 42, or initials) would suffice in order to prevent hagiographic extrapolation by followers? It would definitely be beneficial, in the sense that the religion would not be apparent, no name, no organization. An anonymous act of terrorism does not motivate others because others would not know what to be motivated from. However, theoretically, it is tantamount to taking away someone's identity and reducing them to their biology (male, 42) or initials (A.B.). So maybe the ethics of it become morally ambiguous. Although, there is certainly a benefit that they cannot be revered. But the problem is that the state has the power to remove someone's name from public and to what extent could it go? Will all criminals’ names be removed eventually? Then who gets to decide? Eventually, anyone outside the prescribed societal moral code potentially can lose his or her identity.

国際交流組織ATBATの結成と変容

The ATBAT (Atelier des Bâtisseurs), probably best known as the architectural design office of Le Corbusier that realized the Unité d'habitation of Marseille, was not solely Le Corbusier's main place of activity; many architects and engineers from various origins attempted to produce their own planning theory through activities all over the world. Assuming the ATBAT is an international exchange organization, this research will clarify how its key members joined it, what they learned about the related area through cooperation both within and outside of the ATBAT, and how they finally became independent from Le Corbusier. Unknown previous experiences of the key members, who later became important architects and urban planners, are historically clarified. The result of this historical research will be meaningful for future studies examining the ATBAT's planning theory from the cultural and regional viewpoints. The overall picture of the ATBAT, which has been an object of much praise, criticism, and reassignment from members, is complicated. In this research, four key members who represent the international exchange at the ATBAT are chosen and the background of their participation and collaboration with the ATBAT is clarified. The key members are Vladimir Bodiansky, George Candilis, Gérald Hanning, and Gyoji Banshoya. The contents of their exchanges, including points of opposition among them, will be examined by analyzing primary materials, such as their letters, business records, autobiographies, planning documents, and magazine articles, to clarify the history of the ATBAT's organizational transformation. In contrast, in this research, I will not examine the content of their plans; my consideration is limited to the simple facts of the members' footprints by studying the remaining documents and records. This research aims to clarify the history of the ATBAT organization as this aspect has not been systematically treated in previous studies in which planning-theory research was the main focus. Based on the participation process of the key members and the work experience in the Unité d'habitation of Marseille, the history of the formation and transformation of the initial ATBAT was clarified. In the formation process, the key members worked for the creation of the CSTB, associated with the Syrian–Lebanese expert Michel Ecochard who could deal with historical urban spaces and modernism very well, and worked with the United Nations and the MRU. All their works can be regarded as international exchange activities in the ATBAT that were created for promoting the reconstruction of war-damaged France. The organizational change of the ATBAT can be understood in the era of industrialization wherein architects and engineers were divided according to their specializations. Furthermore, Le Corbusier was a highly successful architect of the Unité d'habitation. In other words, the friendly relation between Le Corbusier and the ATBAT members at the beginning of the formation rapidly changed, and the engineers were adopted by the architects to work at a disadvantage. Therefore, the talented ATBAT members who had contributed to the project in Marseille had to explore their own path. Hanning willingly left Le Corbusier. Candilis was ambitious enough to be an architect himself. Bodiansky began pursuing an independent career as a consultant engineer. Since then, the ATBAT underwent a further major change, but its trigger was brought about by the work experience of the Unité d'habitation of Marseille, which is still a symbol of the era.

The Criticism of Written Sources in Ivan Franko's History-Pedagogical Works

The criticism technologies of written sources, which were applied by the outstanding Ukrainian scientist Ivan Franko (1856–1916) in his works from the history of education, are analyzed in this article. Relevance of the study is attributed to the following factors: 1) nowadays active attention of the scientists is connected with the methodologies of history-pedagogical research; 2) technologies of criticism by historians of education including Ivan Franko are unexplored. The author used such methods as content-analysis of scientific and journalistic works of Ivan Franko from the history of education, analysis and synthesis, typological interpretation, logical- semantic method. The results of the study are: a) Ivan Franko paid great attention to written sources to study the history of education; b) the mechanisms of external criticism of sources which Ivan Franko applied (analysis of location, material basis, format, language, date and authorship, addressee, representativeness of documents) are indentified; c) methods of internal criticism of sources, which were based on explaining certain concepts, establishing the genesis of ideas, separating simple facts without further verification, are clarified. The following conclusions are drawn: Ivan Franko used external criticism in his works from the history of education but internal criticism was less used. The next task is to study the understanding of the concept ''fact'' by Ivan Franko.

The number of distinct eigenvalues for which an index decreases multiplicity

For an Hermitian matrix A whose graph is a tree T, we study the number of eigenvalues of A whose multiplicity decreases when a particular vertex is deleted from T. Explicit results are given when that number of eigenvalues is less than 4 and an inductive result thereafter. The work is based, in part, on classical results about multiplicities, but also on some new facts, including a useful identity. This allows us to give strong bounds based on simple facts about the location of the vertex in the tree. Some facts about matrices whose graphs are not trees are included, and the classical diameter bound about the number of distinct eigenvalues for a tree follows.

MUG: A Parameterless No-Reference JPEG Quality Evaluator Robust to Block Size and Misalignment

In this letter, a very simple no-reference image quality assessment (NR-IQA) model for JPEG compressed images is proposed. The proposed metric called median of unique gradients (MUG) is based on the very simple facts of unique gradient magnitudes of JPEG compressed images. MUG is a parameterless metric and does not need training. Unlike other NR-IQAs, MUG is independent to block size and cropping. A more stable index called MUG+ is also introduced. The experimental results on six benchmark datasets of natural images and a benchmark dataset of synthetic images show that MUG is comparable to the state-of-the-art indices in literature. In addition, its performance remains unchanged for the case of the cropped images in which block boundaries are not known. The MATLAB source code of the proposed metrics is available at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74505502/MUG.m and https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74505502/MUGplus.m.

Optimal Prize Allocations in Contests

Given a fixed prize budget for a contest, what is the optimal prize allocation among contestants? The answer depends on the objective of the contest designer, which typically is either to maximize the total performance of all contestants or simply the champion's performance. We try to shed light on this question for both objectives in a standard model in which contestants are heterogeneous in skill and exert effort to win a prize. We show that weak concavity of the reduced-form cost function leads to optimality of single prize for both objectives, which generalizes the previous results in the literature. We find a dual relationship between the cost function and the principal's utility function (in particular, risk attitude), which not only helps to provide intuition for the optimality but also directly provides results for a principal with a different risk attitude. Surprisingly, with the traditional Cobb-Douglas functional form, optimality of single prize, when the number of contestants is three, continues to hold for arbitrary degree of convexity under maximal performance objective. On the contrary, if the reduced-form cost function is piecewise linear, then it may be optimal to reward the runners-up if the function is convex enough. When the number of prizes under consideration is two, there is an interesting relationship between the two objectives. In the derivation of the results, a series of simple facts about the winning probability functions are presented, which may be useful for future works in contest theory and multi-object auction theory.

Posets of Finite Functions

The symmetric group $ S(n) $ is partially ordered by Bruhat order. This order is extended by L. Renner to the set of partial injective functions of $ \{ 1, 2, \ldots, n \} $ (see, Linear Algebraic Monoids, Springer, 2005). This poset is investigated by M. Fortin in his paper The MacNeille Completion of the Poset of Partial Injective Functions [Electron. J. Combin., 15, R62, 2008]. In this paper we show that Renner order can be also defined for sets of all functions, partial functions, injective and partial injective functions from $ \{ 1, 2, \ldots, n \} $ to $ \{ 1, 2, \ldots, m \} $. Next, we generalize Fortin's results on these posets, and also, using simple facts and methods of linear algebra, we give simpler and shorter proofs of some fundamental Fortin's results. We first show that these four posets can be order embedded in the set of $ n \times m $-matrices with non-negative integer entries and with the natural componentwise order. Second, matrix representations of the Dedekind-MacNeille completions of our posets are given. Third, we find join- and meet-irreducible elements for every finite sublattice of the lattice of all $ n \times m $-matrices with integer entries. In particular, we obtain join- and meet-irreducible elements of these Dedekind-MacNeille completions. Hence and by general results concerning Dedekind-MacNeille completions, join- and meet-irreducible elements of our four posets of functions are also found. Moreover, subposets induced by these irreducible elements are precisely described.

The ant trap: rebuilding the foundations of the social sciences

INTRODUCTION PART ONE DL FOUNDATIONS, OLD AND NEW 1 Individualism: a recipe for warding off 2 Getting to the consensus view 3 Seeds of doubt 4 Another puzzle: a competing consensus 5 Tools and terminology 6 Grounding and anchoring 7 Case study: laws as frame principles 8 Two kinds of individualism 9 Against conjunctivism PART TWO DL GROUPS AND THE FAILURE OF INDIVIDUALISM 10 Groups and constitution 11 Simple facts about groups 12 The identity of groups 13 Kinds of groups 14 Group attitudes: patterns of grounding 15 Group action: more than member action 16 Group intention 17 Other theories I: social integrate models 18 Other theories II: status models LOOKING AHEAD Acknowledgements Bibliography Index

INFINITARY TABLEAU FOR SEMANTIC TRUTH

AbstractWe provide infinitary proof theories for three common semantic theories of truth: strong Kleene, van Fraassen supervaluation and Cantini supervaluation. The value of these systems is that they provide an easy method of proving simple facts about semantic theories. Moreover we shall show that they also give us a simpler understanding of the computational complexity of these definitions and provide a direct proof that the closure ordinal for Kripke’s definition is $\omega _1^{CK}$. This work can be understood as an effort to provide a proof-theoretic counterpart to Welch’s game-theoretic (Welch, 2009).

Vested Interests and Political Institutions

VESTED INTERESTS ARE PARTOF THE EVERYDAY LANGUAGE of political science. But they are not part of its theories, at least not in any explicit or systematic way. My argument here is that, particularly in our efforts to understand the stability and change of political institutions, vested interests are not only substantively important—which is why political scientists cannot help but talk about them—but also have great analytic value and provide an especially productive basis for theory. If we think about political institutions in terms of the formal structures of government, including governmental programs and the structural arrangements surrounding them, a good place to begin is with a few simple but profound facts. Vested interests are present in every realm of public policy—in health care, defense, agriculture, transportation, international trade, you name it—in every part of the world. All institutions, across all policy arenas, everywhere, naturally and inevitably generate them, simply because certain people and groups reap benefits (often in very different ways) from what the institutions do. Vested interests then have strong incentives to protect those institutions when faced with threatening reforms—and in the politics of change, therefore, they have the potential to be powerful forces for stability. This is a universal phenomenon that, when built into our theories, stands to tell us a great deal about the political

Real wages in the business cycle and the theory of income distribution: an unresolved conflict between theory and facts in mainstream macroeconomics

The focus of this article is the recurring tension between mainstream macroeconomics and observed facts in connection with the difficult task of providing explanations of the business cycle consistent both with the traditional theory of income distribution and with the empirical evidence concerning the co-movements of real wages and employment over the cycle. The attempts to reconcile facts and theory have led to the continuous introduction of specific and arguably ad hoc hypotheses, in contrast with the search for greater theoretical rigour claimed by the various streams of macroeconomic modelling subsequent to the neo-classical synthesis. In addition, the specific assumptions introduced in the models, or their implications, are in turn often contradicted or, at best, not confirmed by subsequent empirical research. It is suggested in the conclusions that the difficulty of keeping together in a simple and consistent framework theory and facts reflects the flawed theoretical foundations of mainstream theory.

The Slug by E. Gravel

Gravel,Elise. The Slug. New York: Tundra Books, 2014. Print.One of the many titles in Gravel’s series, Disgusting Critters, this charmingly-illustrated volume contains a multitude of facts about slugs. Considered to be one of the garden’s more unappealing creatures, the slug is an uncommon subject in the world of bug and insect books, hence making this read all the more interesting.Many kids love books about interesting creatures, and the slug is one of the more slimy creatures living in backyards. Many of the physical features of the slug are described in this book: mucous, multiple tentacles, their breathing holes located on the sides of their faces, and soft, squishy bodies that ooze along. The cheerful land slug appears on every page, and happily teaches readers all about the basic body parts of a slug, and their important role in the garden as a transformer of waste plant matter into usable nutrients. Their reproductive process is described in child-friendly language. The most enjoyable pages discuss the many ways slugs use mucous: as a transportation aid, an escape mechanism, and as an aid to attract mates.Readers will find the humorous cartoons to be a refreshing alternative to the photographs commonly found in non-fiction books. These pictures, paired with simple facts, make this book suitable for early readers, and could ease the transition into non-fiction for children who are reluctant to explore the genre. It is also recommended for readers who are ready to start exploring simple chapter books. The Slug would be a welcome addition to both public and school library collections.Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Carlene SlobodianCarlene Slobodian is an MLIS candidate at the University of Alberta with a lifelong passion for children’s literature. When not devouring books, she can be found knitting, cooking, or discovering new kinds of tea to sample.

Processing the Text of the Holy Quran: a Text Mining Study

The Holy Quran is the reference book for more than 1.6 billion of Muslims all around the world Extracting information and knowledge from the Holy Quran is of high benefit for both specialized people in Islamic studies as well as non-specialized people. This paper initiates a series of research studies that aim to serve the Holy Quran and provide helpful and accurate information and knowledge to the all human beings. Also, the planned research studies aim to lay out a framework that will be used by researchers in the field of Arabic natural language processing by providing a ”Golden Dataset” along with useful techniques and information that will advance this field further. The aim of this paper is to find an approach for analyzing Arabic text and then providing statistical information which might be helpful for the people in this research area. In this paper the holly Quran text is preprocessed and then different text mining operations are applied to it to reveal simple facts about the terms of the holy Quran. The results show a variety of characteristics of the Holy Quran such as its most important words, its wordcloud and chapters with high term frequencies. All these results are based on term frequencies that are calculated using both Term Frequency (TF) and Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) methods.

Improving multiplication fact fluency by choosing between competing answers

Developing fluency in arithmetic facts is instrumental to mathematics learning. This study compares the effects of two practice conditions on children's fluency in simple multiplication facts. Third and fourth graders in the Netherlands (N = 282) practised in either a conventional recall condition where they produced answers to problems, or a choice condition where they had to choose between competing answers that included common multiplication errors. Practice in the choice condition was faster and as accurate as recall practice but was not more beneficial to performance on speed tests of practised facts. For more experienced students, recall practice led to greater improvement on a conventional recall fluency test. Differential effects of practice conditions on test performance are explained in terms of practice-to-test transfer demands. The relative merits of recall and choice tasks in multiplication fact learning are discussed.

Influence of laser parameters on information capacity of communication channel

Contemporary tendencies in developing computing and communication systems are, more than ever, pointing out the necessity of transfer from computer and information systems to the optic and even quantum ones [1---4]. Saturation of microelectronics potencies can be seen in the simple and obvious facts, i.e. slowdown of effectiveness increase rates for the classical Turing computing systems and transfer to multicore parallel computations in electronics, as well as greater attention is paid to the optical communication channels, memory and data transmission systems, which is due to high density of information pack in the optical spectrum of electromagnetic waves [5---7].Taking into account the classical Shannon's understanding of the information quantity and specific characteristics of an optical communication channel, in this work, we are trying to draw a parallel between the classical communication channel and the quantum one, which enables us, in some simple cases, to consider the approximate dependence of maximum information transmission rate on the key characteristics of laser emitter, including the average transmission power, bandwidth, and polarization.