Search

This handbook was written for use with the Argonne National Laboratory's electronic bulletin board system (BBS) called NEWTON, which is designed to create an electronic network that will link scientists, teachers, and students with the many diversified resources of the Argonne National Laboratory. The link to Argonne will include such resources as scientists, research programs, and educational programs (workshops, conferences, and instructional materials), and serve as a forum for sharing knowledge, new ideas, and teaching materials. Through the BBS, students will be able to interact with fellow students throughout the nation, and the BBS will help to build a teacher support group that will work with established teacher-alliance networks and worldwide research networks, including Internet. This manual begins with the mission statement which identifies objectives, primary users, materials, and services of NEWTON. The introduction then examines telecommunications and education and the NEWTON BBS. Additional sections contain information on accessing NEWTON; equipment needed to login to NEWTON; the setup of the equipment; the login procedure; and a list of NEWTON's features including system, personal, and group features. Appendices contain information on: (1) hardware/software purchasing; (2) other educational BBS's and services; and (3) basic commands for Hayes modems. A glossary of terms is also provided. (JLB)

This handbook was written by the Argonne National Laboratory for use with their electronic bulletin board system (BBS) called Newton. Newton is an educational BBS for use by teachers, students, and parents. Topics range from discussions of science fair topics to online question and answer sessions with scientists. Future capabilities will include some Internet services. Newton has two dial-in phone lines and is connected to the Department of Energy's Energy Science Network (CESNet). This manual is for the first-time user, but some advanced features are explored. Sections examine equipment, setup, getting to Newton, registration and login, and Newton's features. A number of personal preference options for screen and file handling are available. Appendices present: (1) hardware and software purchasing advice; (2) a map of Newton; (3) other educational BBS's and services; and (4) basic modem commands. Seven figures illustrate Newton screens. A glossary is attached. (SLD)

Introduction Evidence-based ventilation strategies for infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) remain unknown. Determining whether contemporary ventilation approaches cluster as specific BPD strategies may better characterize care and enhance the design of clinical trials. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that unsupervised, multifactorial clustering analysis of point prevalence ventilator setting data would classify a discrete number of physiology-based approaches to mechanical ventilation in a multicenter cohort of infants with severe BPD. Methods We performed a secondary analysis of a multicenter point prevalence study of infants with severe BPD treated with invasive mechanical ventilation. We clustered the cohort by mean airway pressure (MAP), positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP), set respiratory rate, and inspiratory time (Ti) using Ward's hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). Results Seventy-eight patients with severe BPD were included from 14 centers. HCA classified three discrete clusters as determined by an agglomerative coefficient of 0.97. Cluster stability was relatively strong as determined by Jaccard coefficient means of 0.79, 0.85, and 0.77 for clusters 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The median PEEP, MAP, rate, Ti, and PIP differed significantly between clusters for each comparison by Kruskall–Wallis testing (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In this study, unsupervised clustering analysis of ventilator setting data identified three discrete approaches to mechanical ventilation in a multicenter cohort of infants with severe BPD. Prospective trials are needed to determine whether these approaches to mechanical ventilation are associated with specific severe BPD clinical phenotypes and differentially modify respiratory outcomes.

OBJECTIVES: Automatic job coding tools were developed to reduce the laborious task of manually assigning job codes based on free-text job descriptions in census and survey data sources, including large occupational health studies. The objective of this study is to provide a case study of comparative performance of job coding and JEM (Job-Exposure Matrix)-assigned exposures agreement using existing coding tools.METHODS: We compared three automatic job coding tools [AUTONOC, CASCOT (Computer-Assisted Structured Coding Tool), and LabourR], which were selected based on availability, coding of English free-text into coding systems closely related to the 1988 version of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88), and capability to perform batch coding. We used manually coded job histories from the AsiaLymph case-control study that were translated into English prior to auto-coding to assess their performance. We applied two general population JEMs to assess agreement at exposure level. Percent agreement and PABAK (Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa) were used to compare the agreement of results from manual coders and automatic coding tools.RESULTS: The coding per cent agreement among the three tools ranged from 17.7 to 26.0% for exact matches at the most detailed 4-digit ISCO-88 level. The agreement was better at a more general level of job coding (e.g. 43.8-58.1% in 1-digit ISCO-88), and in exposure assignments (median values of PABAK coefficient ranging 0.69-0.78 across 12 JEM-assigned exposures). Based on our testing data, CASCOT was found to outperform others in terms of better agreement in both job coding (26% 4-digit agreement) and exposure assignment (median kappa 0.61).CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we observed that agreement on job coding was generally low for the three tools but noted a higher degree of agreement in assigned exposures. The results indicate the need for study-specific evaluations prior to their aut