The spanning set technique quantifies intertrial variability as the span between polynomial curves representing upper and lower standard deviation curves of a repeated movement. This study aimed to assess the validity of the spanning set technique in quantifying variability and specifically to determine its sensitivity to variability presented at different phases of a movement cycle. Knee angle...

BACKGROUND Adequate participant recruitment is vital to the conduct of a clinical trial. Projected recruitment rates are often over-estimated, and the time to recruit the target population (accrual period) is often under-estimated. METHODS This report illustrates three approaches to estimating the accrual period and applies the methods to a multi-center, randomized, placebo controlled trial u...

The aim of this study was to determine if Häävikko's maturation standards are applicable to Italian children. The sample included 500 healthy Caucasian children 3.9-15.4 years of age: 267 girls [mean age 9.6 years, standard deviation (SD) 2.1] and 233 boys (mean age 9.9 years, SD 2.1), living in Italy. All dental ages were assessed from panoramic films by one examiner using Häävikko's method. A...

A meta-analysis of 797 studies and 1,001 effect sizes tested a theoretical hypothesis that situational constraints, such as perceived social pressure and perceived difficulty, weaken the relationship between attitudes and behavior. This hypothesis was confirmed for attitudes toward performing behaviors and for attitudes toward issues and social groups. Meta-analytic estimates of attitude–behavi...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Our objective was to describe the psychometric properties of a measure of team development that can be used to assess and guide team functioning in health care settings. METHODS The Team Development Measure (TDM) is a 31-item questionnaire constructed using the Rasch rating scale measurement model. We conducted an Mplus exploratory factor analysis using data collecte...

replace, sound pathophysiological considerations. Clinical chemistry is not only an analytical discipline. There is also inter alia a responsibility that, in general, assays are planned with respect to the patients’ medical and biochemical situation, and that the values are interpreted in the light of changes resulting from adaptation mechanisms in disease -a responsibility shared with our coll...

The study aims to assess perceptions of mastery of abilities in clinical management in participants of courses oriented by competency and based on active methodologies of teaching and learning, before and after the offered training process. Three conceptual frameworks were utilized: clinical management, expectation of auto-efficacy, and the holistic concept of competency. Methodologically, an e...

We consider the problem of optimizing signal transmission through multichannel noisy devices. We investigate an array of bithreshold noisy devices which is connected in parallel and convergent on a summing center. Utilizing the concept of noise-induced linearization we derive an analytical approximation of the normalized power norm and clarify the relation between the optimum threshold and the ...

Quasi-Experimental Estimates of the Effect of Class Size on Achievement in Norway Using a comprehensive administrative database we exploit independent quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effect of class size on student achievement in Norway. The first method is based on a maximum class size rule in the spirit Angrist and Lavy (1999). The second method exploits population variation as fir...

BACKGROUND Conventional mixed models for the analysis of diet diary data have introduced several simplifying assumptions, such as that of a single standard deviation for within-person day-to-day variation which is common to all individuals. OBJECTIVE We developed a model in which the within-person standard deviation was allowed to differ from person to person. DESIGN The model was demonstra...