Telling about something that you do not really know: blind people are talking about vision!

In Turkey, the laws which define disability have become increasingly harsh, and require disabled people to be assessed in order to determine ‘how disabled’ they are. For blind people, as for other disabled people, these assessments have real consequences. This article aims to discuss an appealing piece that arose during a project, which has bearing on how disabled people tend to answer these questions. The participants are legally blind adults. We, as sighted researchers, asked totally blind individuals to describe their vision. Interestingly, they all answered this question without hesitation. The paradoxical nature of this question was only realized during the analysis. We requested the participants to talk about something they do not really know. This might be a reflection of our over-visualized world and might be due to our subtle prejudices. This type of questioning not only has implications for research, but also for assessments of disability in Turkey.     

Prostate-specific antigen decline pattern in advanced prostate cancer receiving androgen deprivation therapy and relationship with prostate-specific antigen progression

Introduction: The aim of this study is to evaluate prostate-specific antigen decline pattern including prostate-specific antigen kinetics following androgen deprivation therapy on prostate-specific antigen progression in the patients with advanced prostate cancer.

Materials and methods: Ninety-seven advanced prostate cancer patients receiving maximum androgen deprivation therapy were enrolled in case–control study. Baseline prostate-specific antigen, Gleason Score, bone metastase, nadir prostate-specific antigen, time to nadir prostate-specific antigen, declining slope to nadir prostate-specific antigen, estimated baseline prostate-specific antigen half-time, current prostate-specific antigen, post-nadir prostate-specific antigen time, estimated prostate-specific antigen, estimated decline of baseline prostate-specific antigen as quantitative, and ratio were recorded and calculated.

Results: The ratio of prostate-specific antigen progression was significantly lower at the patients who had slower declining slope to prostate-specific antigen, longer time to nadir prostate-specific antigen, and lower estimated decline ratio of baseline prostate-specific antigen (p: .016, p: .020, and p: .026, respectively).

Conclusions: The shorter time to nadir prostate-specific antigen following androgen deprivation therapy, faster declining slope to nadir prostate-specific antigen and higher estimated decline ratio of baseline prostate-specific antigen are associated with higher risk of disease progression in patients with hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.     

The evaluation of socio-economic development of development agency regions in Turkey using classical and robust principal component analyses

In this study, classical and robust principal component analyses are used to evaluate socioeconomic development of regions of development agencies that give service on the purpose of decreasing development difference among regions in Turkey. Due to the high differences between development levels of regions outlier problem occurs, hence robust statistical methods are used. Also, classical and robust statistical methods are used to investigate if there are any outliers in data set. In classic principal component analyse, the number of observations must be larger than the number of variables. Otherwise determinant of covariance matrix is zero. In Robust method for Principal Component Analysis (ROBPCA), a robust approach to principal component analyse in high-dimensional data, even if the number of variables is larger than the number of observations, principal components are obtained. In this paper, firstly 26 development agencies are evaluated with 19 variables by using principal component analysis based on classical and robust scatter matrices and then these 26 development agencies are evaluated with 46 variables by using the ROBPCA method.     

An evaluation of ridge estimator in linear mixed models: an example from kidney failure data

This paper is concerned with the ridge estimation of fixed and random effects in the context of Henderson's mixed model equations in the linear mixed model. For this purpose, a penalized likelihood method is proposed. A linear combination of ridge estimator for fixed and random effects is compared to a linear combination of best linear unbiased estimator for fixed and random effects under the mean-square error (MSE) matrix criterion. Additionally, for choosing the biasing parameter, a method of MSE under the ridge estimator is given. A real data analysis is provided to illustrate the theoretical results and a simulation study is conducted to characterize the performance of ridge and best linear unbiased estimators approach in the linear mixed model.     

Should occupational codes be obtained from census data or from retrospective survey data in studies on occupational health?

The aim of this study was to assess the quality of occupational history information obtained via retrospective interview questions by comparison with occupational information for the same individuals obtained via a number of censuses. Moreover, morbidity patterns were investigated for different occupational exposure categories that were constructed either on occupational data gathered retrospectively or on data gathered longitudinally through censuses. The study population consisted of 6764 men and 2104 women who were interviewed within the Swedish Survey on Living Conditions. Census data on occupation from 1960, 1970 and 1975 were used for comparison. There was high level of agreement between the two data bases for occupational categories containing workers who were stable in their occupations. The correspondence was better for women. Prevalence rates for different long-term illnesses were almost the same for the categories, no matter which of the data bases was used for constructing the categories. Thus, we have found that self-reported work histories might be a useful way of controlling for occupational exposures in the past.     

Multiple input transfer function noise modelling in the time and frequency domain:empirical evidence from Monte Carlo simulations

In the present study we have evaluated two competing methods for estimation of the impulse response weights used in the identification of transfer function models:a time domain method involving biased regression techniques and a frequency domain method utilizing a discrete Fourier transform of the cross-covariance system of the transfer function model. The algorithms were implemented on a VAX-8800 computer at the Computing Center at Åbo Akademi. The evaluation of the competing methods was carried out by simulations of different transfer function noise model structures. The models are essentially the same as those of Edlund, but we have used a far greater number of replications in the cases tested. Furthermore, we have used actually identified and estimated autoregressive integrated moving-average models of the residuals in the identification procedure of impulse response weights, in contrast with Edlund who only used theoretical noise models in filtering the input and output series. After a shot discussion of the underlying theory, we present the procedures and results of the empirical testing.     

Bargaining over a finite set of alternatives

We analyze bilateral bargaining over a finite set of alternatives. We look for "good" ordinal solutions to such problems and show that Unanimity Compromise and Rational Compromise are the only bargaining rules that satisfy a basic set of properties. We then extend our analysis to admit problems with countably infinite alternatives. We show that, on this class, no bargaining rule choosing finite subsets of alternatives can be neutral. When rephrased in the utility framework of Nash (1950), this implies that there is no ordinal bargaining rule that is finite-valued. Professor Sertel passed away on January 25, 2003.     

A Randomized,Waiting-List-Controlled Study Shows That Brief,Mindfulness-Based Psychological Interventions Are Effective for Treatment of Women’s Low Sexual Desire

We evaluated two treatment conditions for low sexual desire in women: one where participants were administered a mindfulness-based treatment protocol and another with exercises focusing on scheduled sex and motivations for sex in addition to the aforementioned protocol. Seventy women (M_age 39.2, SD = 9.8) with complaints of low sexual desire were randomly allocated to one of these treatment conditions or a waiting-list condition. Participants attended four individual sessions and completed homework exercises. Questionnaire data were collected before and after treatment and at follow-ups three and six months later. Primary outcomes were the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) desire subdomain and the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory–Female (SIDI-F). Secondary outcomes were the Female Sexual Distress Scale–Revised (FSDS-R), the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS), the Perceived Relationship Quality Components Inventory (PRQC), and the Brief Symptom Inventory–18 (BSI-18). Women in both treatment conditions reported significantly higher sexual desire (FSFI desire d = 0.75 to 1.06) immediately following treatment, compared to the waiting list. Improvements were sustained at follow-up, accompanied by improvements in some secondary outcomes. We found no significant differences between the treatment conditions in terms of treatment effectiveness. Our study adds to the literature suggesting that mindfulness-based treatments are suitable options for treating low sexual desire in women.