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Certain Criteria (certain + criterion)
Selected AbstractsCan the Discretionary Nature of Certain Criteria Lead to Differential Prediction Across Cultural Groups?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT, Issue 2 2007Oleksandr S. Chernyshenko We examined the conjecture that relations between constructs across cultures may be susceptible to cultural moderation where the performance of the criterion construct is discretionary. This hypothesis was investigated using the relationship between personality and three performance constructs, with samples from the United States and New Zealand, two ideologically distinct cultures with respect to achievement orientation. All hypotheses were supported by results of hierarchical moderated regression analyses using bias free measures, suggesting that considering whether construct behaviors are discretionary is important when considering the merit of generalizing research findings across cultures. [source] Semantic Forcing in Disjunctive Logic ProgramsCOMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Issue 4 2001Marina De Vos We propose a semantics for disjunctive logic programs, based on the single notion of forcing. We show that the semantics properly extends, in a natural way, previous approaches. A fixpoint characterization is also provided. We also take a closer look at the relationship between disjunctive logic programs and disjunctive-free logic programs. We present certain criteria under which a disjunctive program is semantically equivalent with its disjunctive-free (shifted) version. [source] Soft tissue augmentation 2006: filler fantasyDERMATOLOGIC THERAPY, Issue 3 2006Arnold William Klein ABSTRACT:, As an increasing number of patients seek esthetic improvement through minimally invasive procedures, interest in soft tissue augmentation and filling agents is at an all-time high. One reason for this interest is the availability of botulinum toxin type A, which works superbly in the upper face. The rejuvenation of the upper face has created much interest in injectable filling agents and implant techniques that work equally well in the restoration of the lower face. One of the central tenets of soft tissue augmentation is the concept of the three-dimensional face. The youthful face has a soft, full appearance, as opposed to the flat, pulled, two-dimensional look often achieved by more traditional surgical approaches. Injectable filling agents can augment and even at times, replace pulling. Additionally, with the lip as the focal center of the lower face, subtle lip enhancement is here to stay, and is in fact, the number one indication for injectable fillers. Moreover, minimally invasive soft tissue augmentation offers cosmetic enhancement without the cost and recovery time associated with more invasive procedures. As more and more physicians take interest in minimally invasive surgery, courses in cosmetic surgery techniques are becoming increasingly popular at the medical meetings of many specialties. Today, physicians have a much larger armamentarium of techniques and materials with which to improve facial contours, ameliorate wrinkles, and provide esthetic rejuvenation to the face. For a substance or device to be amenable for soft tissue augmentation in the medical community, it must meet certain criteria. It must have both a high "use" potential, producing cosmetically pleasing results with a minimum undesirable reactions, and have a low abuse potential in that widespread or incorrect or indiscriminate use would not result in significant morbidity. It must be nonteratogenic, noncarcinogenic, and nonmigratory. In addition, the agent must provide predictable, persistent correction through reproducible implantation techniques. Finally, the substance, agent or device must be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which assures purity, safety, and accessibility, as well as much-needed information regarding use. Having a thorough understanding of the filling agents available, their indications and contraindications, as well as having thorough knowledge of implant technique are vital in providing the patient with an esthetically pleasing result. [source] Optimal designs for estimating penetrance of rare mutations of a disease-susceptibility geneGENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 3 2003Gail Gong Abstract Many clinical decisions require accurate estimates of disease risks associated with mutations of known disease-susceptibility genes. Such risk estimation is difficult when the mutations are rare. We used computer simulations to compare the performance of estimates obtained from two types of designs based on family data. In the first (clinic-based designs), families are ascertained because they meet certain criteria concerning multiple disease occurrences among family members. In the second (population-based designs), families are sampled through a population-based registry of affected individuals called probands, with oversampling of probands whose families are more likely to segregate mutations. We generated family structures, genotypes, and phenotypes using models that reflect the frequencies and penetrances of mutations of the BRCA1/2 genes. We studied the effects of risk heterogeneity due to unmeasured, shared risk factors by including risk variation due to unmeasured genotypes of another gene. The simulations were chosen to mimic the ascertainment and selection processes commonly used in the two types of designs. We found that penetrance estimates from both designs are nearly unbiased in the absence of unmeasured shared risk factors, but are biased upward in the presence of such factors. The bias increases with increasing variation in risks across genotypes of the second gene. However, it is small compared to the standard error of the estimates. Standard errors from population-based designs are roughly twice those from clinic-based designs with the same number of families. Using the root-mean-square error as a measure of performance, we found that in all instances, the clinic-based designs gave more accurate estimates than did the population-based designs with the same numbers of families. Rough variance calculations suggest that clinic-based designs give more accurate estimates because they include more identified mutation carriers. Genet Epidemiol 24:173,180, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Market Valuation of Research and Development Spending under Canadian GAAP,ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVES, Issue 1 2004ANTONELLO CALLIMACI ABSTRACT Section 3450 of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) Handbook requires Canadian firms to capitalize development costs that meet certain criteria and to expense those that relate to research. International Accounting Standard (IAS) No. 38 favours a similar approach. In the United States, Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) No. 2 recommends the immediate expensing of all research and development (R&D) spending. The only exception is SFAS No. 86, which requires software development costs to be capitalized when a product successfully passes a technological feasibility test. Consequently, the Canadian financial disclosure regime provides a rich setting for testing the market valuation of capitalized R&D. Our primary research question asks whether capitalized R&D provides useful information to market participants investing in Canadian firms. We use price-level and return models to assess the value relevance of capitalized R&D disclosed in the financial statements under Canadian GAAP. In line with expectations, using a price-level model, we find that capitalized R&D and R&D expense as disclosed in the financial statements provide information that is value relevant to market participants. However, we find that R&D capitalized during the year helps explain returns while R&D expense does not. Thus we conclude that the application of section 3450 of the CICA Handbook produces value-relevant information. [source] Users want more sophisticated search assistants: Results of a task-based evaluationJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 13 2005Udo Kruschwitz The Web provides a massive knowledge source, as do intranets and other electronic document collections. However, much of that knowledge is encoded implicitly and cannot be applied directly without processing into some more appropriate structures. Searching, browsing, question answering, for example, could all benefit from domain-specific knowledge contained in the documents, and in applications such as simple search we do not actually need very "deep" knowledge structures such as ontologies, but we can get a long way with a model of the domain that consists of term hierarchies. We combine domain knowledge automatically acquired by exploiting the documents' markup structure with knowledge extracted on the fly to assist a user with ad hoc search requests. Such a search system can suggest query modification options derived from the actual data and thus guide a user through the space of documents. This article gives a detailed account of a task-based evaluation that compares a search system that uses the outlined domain knowledge with a standard search system. We found that users do use the query modification suggestions proposed by the system. The main conclusion we can draw from this evaluation, however, is that users prefer a system that can suggest query modifications over a standard search engine, which simply presents a ranked list of documents. Most interestingly, we observe this user preference despite the fact that the baseline system even performs slightly better under certain criteria. [source] Parents as experts: the position of parents of children with profound multiple disabilitiesCHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2002K. I. De Geeter Abstract Background Parents of children with disabilities are increasingly considered as experts in the field of care. Their expertise can deliver an important contribution towards planning their child's care and education. The law is increasingly taking this factor into consideration. On the one hand, parents already possess an abundance of know-how; on the other, they still have to increase their knowledge and sometimes their skills too. Aim The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the supposition that co-operation between parents and professionals must meet certain criteria if parents are to receive a proper chance of using their existing knowledge, while at the same time adding to their skills. Design A questionnaire was sent to 723 parents of children with profound multiple disabilities enquiring about their relationship with the professionals at their child's school for special education. Subsequently, for one group of parents, a method that recognizes the parents' expertise and assigns them a formal role was introduced. For the other group, no change in method occurred. Results The results demonstrate that parents regard co-operation in a favourable light. Comparing both groups after a year, the expected effect of the method (a better rating of the co-operation by the parents) could not be demonstrated. This is probably a result of a problem with the questionnaire used in this study. Conclusion Other studies, however, appear to support our supposition. [source] | |||||||||||||