The Research and Development Survey (RANDS) during COVID-19

The National Center for Health Statistics’ (NCHS) Research and Development Survey (RANDS) is a series of commercial panel surveys collected for methodological research purposes. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, NCHS expanded the use of RANDS to rapidly monitor aspects of the public health emergency. The RANDS during COVID-19 survey was designed to include COVID-19 related health outcome and cognitive probe questions. Rounds 1 and 2 were fielded June 9–July 6, 2020 and August 3–20, 2020 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel. Existing and new approaches were used to: 1) evaluate question interpretation and performance to improve future COVID-19 data collections and 2) to produce a set of experimental estimates for public release using weights which were calibrated to NCHS’ National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to adjust for potential bias in the panel. Through the expansion of the RANDS platform and ongoing methodological research, NCHS reported timely information about COVID-19 in the United States and demonstrated the use of recruited panels for reporting national health statistics. This report describes the use of RANDS for reporting on the pandemic and the associated methodological survey design decisions including the adaptation of question evaluation approaches and calibration of panel weights.

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SCATTER PHY: An Open Source Physical Layer for the DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge

Electronics ◽

10.3390/electronics8111343 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (11) ◽

pp. 1343 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Felipe A. P. de Figueiredo ◽

Dragoslav Stojadinovic ◽

Prasanthi Maddala ◽

Ruben Mennes ◽

Irfan Jabandžić ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Research And Development ◽

Open Source ◽

Real Time ◽

Software Defined Radio ◽

Spectrum Sharing ◽

The United States ◽

Radio Spectrum ◽

Physical Layer ◽

Phy Layer ◽

And Performance

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from the United States, has started the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge with the aim to encourage research and development of coexistence and collaboration techniques of heterogeneous networks in the same wireless spectrum bands. Team SCATTER has been participating in the challenge since its beginning, back in 2016. SCATTER’s open-source software defined physical layer (SCATTER PHY) has been developed as a standalone application, with the ability to communicate with higher layers through a set of well defined messages (created with Google’s Protocol buffers) and that exchanged over a ZeroMQ bus. This approach allows upper layers to access it remotely or locally and change all parameters in real time through the control messages. SCATTER PHY runs on top of USRP based software defined radio devices (i.e., devices from Ettus or National Instruments) to send and receive wireless signals. It is a highly optimized and real-time configurable SDR based PHY layer that can be used for the research and development of novel intelligent spectrum sharing schemes and algorithms. The main objective of making SCATTER PHY available to the research and development community is to provide a solution that can be used out of the box to devise disruptive algorithms and techniques to optimize the sub-optimal use of the radio spectrum that exists today. This way, researchers and developers can mainly focus their attention on the development of smarter (i.e., intelligent algorithms and techniques) spectrum sharing approaches. Therefore, in this paper, we describe the design and main features of SCATTER PHY and showcase several experiments performed to assess the effectiveness and performance of the proposed PHY layer.

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Factors Associated With School Nurses’ Self-Efficacy in Provision of Asthma Care and Performance of Asthma Management Behaviors

The Journal of School Nursing ◽

10.1177/1059840519878866 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 105984051987886

Author(s):

Ellen M. McCabe ◽

Catherine McDonald ◽

Cynthia Connolly ◽

Terri H. Lipman

Keyword(s):

Self Efficacy ◽

Online Survey ◽

Survey Design ◽

Asthma Management ◽

The United States ◽

School Nurses ◽

Asthma Care ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

And Performance ◽

Management Behaviors

Asthma is a chronic disease affecting nearly 6 million children in the United States and accounts for nearly 14 million missed school days. School nurses’ performance of asthma management behaviors (AMBs) may reduce exacerbations, thereby decreasing emergency visits and hospitalizations and increasing attendance at school. Self-efficacy can have a positive effect on AMBs. More research is needed on the interplay between environmental factors in school nurses’ work setting, self-efficacy in providing asthma care (hereafter “self-efficacy in asthma care”), and performance of AMBs. This study used a descriptive cross-sectional online survey design with practicing registered school nurses in Pennsylvania ( N = 231). Data analysis included descriptive statistics, correlation tests, and multiple regression. In separate models, self-efficacy in asthma care and student–nurse ratio were significantly associated with performance of AMBs. Schools and school nurses need stronger efforts to strengthen self-efficacy in asthma care, with the goal of increasing nurses’ performance of AMBs.

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Obesity and Multimorbidity in the USA: National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2005-2014

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igab046.2342 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 616-617

Author(s):

David Lynch ◽

Curtis Petersen ◽

Hillary Spangler ◽

Anna Kahkoska ◽

John Batsis

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

National Health ◽

Survey Design ◽

The United States ◽

Obesity Prevalence ◽

Health And Nutrition ◽

The Us ◽

The Usa ◽

Over Time

Abstract Declining mortality rates and an aging population have contributed to increasing rates of multimorbidity (≥2 chronic conditions) in the United States. Obesity is an important risk factor for the development of chronic diseases. We evaluated the association between obesity and multimorbidity, and how the prevalence of concomitant obesity has changed over time. We used data from 8,883 individuals aged ≥60 years with data on body mass index (BMI) and self-reported comorbidities from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2005-2014. Logistic regression was used to quantify the association between BMI categories (<18.5, 18.5-24.9, 25-29.9, ≥30 kg/m2) and multimorbidity (yes/no). Change in proportions of obesity coexisting with multimorbidity by year was tested through linear regression. All analysis used NHANES survey design and weighting to be representative of the US population. The overall proportion of individuals with concomitant multimorbidity and obesity was 75%. As compared to a normal BMI (18.5-24.9 kg/m2), older adults with obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) had higher odds of multimorbidity (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.49,2.12). Persons with obesity had higher odds of decline in physical (1.41 [1.06,1.88]), basic (1.56 [1.13,2.15]), and instrumental activities of daily living (OR 1.58 [1.03,2.40]). The proportion of individuals with obesity and multimorbidity increased over time, but did not reach significance (β = 0.008, p=0.051). These results emphasize the role of obesity as a contributing factor to the burden of multimorbidity among older adults and underscore the importance of identifying and addressing obesity and multimorbidity via interventions to decrease obesity prevalence.

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Undesirable Effects of Goal Setting on Perceived Fairness, Commitment, and Unethical Behavior

Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie A&O ◽

10.1026/0932-4089/a000267 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 62 (2) ◽

pp. 97-107 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nina Keith

Keyword(s):

Goal Setting ◽

Unethical Behavior ◽

The United States ◽

Goal Commitment ◽

Management Technique ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Perceived Fairness ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Positive Effects ◽

And Performance

Abstract. The positive effects of goal setting on motivation and performance are among the most established findings of industrial–organizational psychology. Accordingly, goal setting is a common management technique. Lately, however, potential negative effects of goal-setting, for example, on unethical behavior, are increasingly being discussed. This research replicates and extends a laboratory experiment conducted in the United States. In one of three goal conditions (do-your-best goals, consistently high goals, increasingly high goals), 101 participants worked on a search task in five rounds. Half of them (transparency yes/no) were informed at the outset about goal development. We did not find the expected effects on unethical behavior but medium-to-large effects on subjective variables: Perceived fairness of goals and goal commitment were least favorable in the increasing-goal condition, particularly in later goal rounds. Results indicate that when designing goal-setting interventions, organizations may consider potential undesirable long-term effects.

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Relation of Statistically Significant, Abnormal, and Typical WAIS-R VIQ-PIQ Discrepancies to Full Scale IQs

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027//1015-5759.16.2.107 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 107-114 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Louis M. Hsu ◽

Judy Hayman ◽

Judith Koch ◽

Debbie Mandell

Keyword(s):

Graphical Method ◽

The United States ◽

Full Scale ◽

True Score ◽

Absolute Value ◽

Normative Population ◽

The Us ◽

The Mean ◽

And Performance ◽

Quadratic Models

Summary: In the United States' normative population for the WAIS-R, differences (Ds) between persons' verbal and performance IQs (VIQs and PIQs) tend to increase with an increase in full scale IQs (FSIQs). This suggests that norm-referenced interpretations of Ds should take FSIQs into account. Two new graphs are presented to facilitate this type of interpretation. One of these graphs estimates the mean of absolute values of D (called typical D) at each FSIQ level of the US normative population. The other graph estimates the absolute value of D that is exceeded only 5% of the time (called abnormal D) at each FSIQ level of this population. A graph for the identification of conventional “statistically significant Ds” (also called “reliable Ds”) is also presented. A reliable D is defined in the context of classical true score theory as an absolute D that is unlikely (p < .05) to be exceeded by a person whose true VIQ and PIQ are equal. As conventionally defined reliable Ds do not depend on the FSIQ. The graphs of typical and abnormal Ds are based on quadratic models of the relation of sizes of Ds to FSIQs. These models are generalizations of models described in Hsu (1996) . The new graphical method of identifying Abnormal Ds is compared to the conventional Payne-Jones method of identifying these Ds. Implications of the three juxtaposed graphs for the interpretation of VIQ-PIQ differences are discussed.

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