Search results for " decision making"
showing 10 items of 183 documents
Why do house-hunting ants recruit in both directions?
2007
8 pages; International audience; To perform tasks, organisms often use multiple procedures. Explaining the breadth of such behavioural repertoires is not always straightforward. During house hunting, colonies of Temnothorax albipennis ants use a range of behaviours to organise their emigrations. In particular, the ants use tandem running to recruit na? ants to potential nest sites. Initially, they use forward tandem runs (FTRs) in which one leader takes a single follower along the route from the old nest to the new one. Later, they use reverse tandem runs (RTRs) in the opposite direction. Tandem runs are used to teach active ants the route between the nests, so that they can be involved qui…
DESDEO: The Modular and Open Source Framework for Interactive Multiobjective Optimization
2021
Interactive multiobjective optimization methods incorporate preferences from a human decision maker in the optimization process iteratively. This allows the decision maker to focus on a subset of solutions, learn about the underlying trade-offs among the conflicting objective functions in the problem and adjust preferences during the solution process. Incorporating preference information allows computing only solutions that are interesting to the decision maker, decreasing computation time significantly. Thus, interactive methods have many strengths making them viable for various applications. However, there is a lack of existing software frameworks to apply and experiment with interactive …
Prevention of endpoints in primary biliary cholangitis with ursodeoxycholic acid: quantifying the benefit
2020
Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) is a hydrophilic bile acid with an established benefit for patients suffering from primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). It was first introduced in the 60s and took until the late 90s to demonstrate a survival benefit in large meta-cohort studies.1 Since then, UDCA is the established first-line therapy according to current guidelines.2 The benefit of UDCA is multidimensional, and patients receiving UDCA experience increased transplant-free survival, a decreased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma and potentially improved quality of life.3–5 The survival benefit is predicted by a number biochemical markers that reflect cholestasis and that are accepted surrogates of the…
Recommendations for the implementation of BRCA testing in the care and treatment pathways of ovarian cancer patients
2016
In the last 20 years, following the identification of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes (hereinafter referred to as the BRCA genes), preventive pathways have been developed for the identification and clinical management of individuals at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer due to the presence of a pathogenic variant in either of these genes. These pathways are aimed at educating high-risk subjects on programs targeted toward early diagnosis and cancer risk reduction. The approval of a novel class of drugs, the PARP enzyme inhibitors, for the treatment of ovarian cancer patients carrying high-risk BRCA pathogenic variants has changed this scenario. BRCA testing, in addition to providin…
Liquid Biopsy in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor
2017
Over the past 15 years, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) have emerged from a poorly understood neoplasm to a well-defined tumor entity. Starting from 2000, the discovery of gain-of-function mutations involving KIT or PDGFRα (platelet-derived growth factor-α) genes and the development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as imatinib, revolutionized dramatically the management of GISTs. Due to the almost continual emergence of new data about biological complexity of GISTs and more sophisticated whole-genome technologies, to date, the role of molecular biology is clinically important to drive therapeutic decision making.
Building a statistical surveillance dashboard for COVID-19 infection worldwide
2020
When a pandemic like the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) breaks out, it is important that authorities, healthcare organizations and official decision makers, have in place an effective monitoring system to promptly analyze data, create new insights into problematic areas and generate actionable knowledge for fact-based decision making. The aim of this article is to describe an initial work focused on building a comprehensive statistical surveillance dashboard for the epidemic of COVID-19, which can be exploited also for future needs. We propose novel ways of exploring, analyzing and presenting data, using metrics that have not been used previously. We also show the steps necessary to b…
Pooled analysis of prospective European studies assessing the impact of using the 21-gene Recurrence Score assay on clinical decision making in women…
2016
PURPOSE: The 21-gene Recurrence Score assay (Oncotype DX) provides prognostic/predictive information in oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) early breast cancer, but access/reimbursement has been limited in most European countries in the absence of prospective outcome data. Recently, two large prospective studies and a real-life 5-year outcome study have been reported. We performed a pooled analysis of prospective European impact studies to generate robust data on impact of use in different clinical subgroups. METHODS: The analysis included four studies (French, German, Spanish, and British) in ER+ human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative breast cancer patients (n = 527). Node-positiv…
Decision-Making Skills Moderate the Relationship between Psychological and Physical Pain with Suicidal Behavior in Depressed Patients
2019
International audience
Sexism Interacts with Patient–Physician Gender Concordance in Influencing Patient Control Preferences: Findings from a Vignette Experimental Design
2020
Background: Patient preferences regarding their involvement in shared treatments decisions is fundamental in clinical practice. Previous evidences demonstrated a large heterogeneity in these preferences. However, only few studies have analysed the influence of patients’ individual differences, contextual and situational qualities, and their complex interaction in explaining this variability. Methods: We assessed the role of the interaction of patient’s sociodemographic and psychological factors with a physician’s gender. Specifically, we focused on patient gender and attitudes toward male or female physicians. One hundred fifty-three people participated in this randomised controlled study a…
Does access to care play a role in liver cancer survival? The ten-year (2006–2015) experience from a population-based cancer registry in Southern Ita…
2021
Abstract Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary invasive cancer of the liver. During the last decade, the epidemiology of HCC has been continuously changing in developed countries, due to more effective primary prevention and to successful treatment of virus-related liver diseases. The study aims to examine survival by level of access to care in patients with HCC, for all patients combined and by age. Methods We included 2018 adult patients (15–99 years) diagnosed with a primary liver tumour, registered in the Palermo Province Cancer Registry during 2006–2015, and followed-up to 30 October 2019. We obtained a proxy measure of access to care by linking each re…