This study aimed to review the literature describing and quantifying time lags in the health research translation process. Papers were included in the review if they quantified time lags in the development of health interventions. The study identified 23 papers. Few were comparable as different studies use different measures, of different things, at different time points. We concluded that the current state of knowledge of time lags is of limited use to those responsible for R&D and knowledge transfer who face difficulties in knowing what they should or can do to reduce time lags. This effectively ‘blindfolds’ investment decisions and risks wasting effort. The study concludes that understanding lags first requires agreeing models, definitions and measures, which can be applied in practice. A second task would be to develop a process by which to gather these data.

The Answer Is 17 Years, What Is the Question

Complex biological systems and cellular networks may underlie most genotype to phenotype relationships. Here, we review basic concepts in network biology, discussing different types of interactome networks and the insights that can come from analyzing them. We elaborate on why interactome networks are important to consider in biology, how they can be mapped and integrated with each other, what global properties are starting to emerge from interactome network models, and how these properties may relate to human disease.

Interactome networks and human disease

Comprehensive discharge planning and home follow-up of hospitalized elders: A randomized clinical trial

Misconceptions of chance are not limited to naive subjects. A study of the statistical intuitions of experienced research psychologists revealed a lingering belief in what might be called the "law of small numbers," according to which even small samples are highly representative of the populations from which they are drawn. The responses of these investigators reflected the expectation that a valid hypothesis about a population will be represented by a statistically significant result in a sample—with little regard for its size. As a consequence the researchers put too much faith in the results of small samples and grossly overestimated the replicability of such results. In the actual conduct of research, this bias leads to the selection of samples of inadequate size and to overinterpretation of findings.

Belief in the law of small numbers

Microeconomic analysis : answers to exercises

Social media applications have proven to be a dependable communication channel even when traditional methods fail. Their application to emergency management offers new benefits to the domain. For instance, analysis of information as the event unfolds may increase situational awareness, news and alerts may reach larger audiences in less time and decision makers may monitor public activities as well as coordinate with stakeholders. With such benefits, it seems the adoption of social media applications to emergency management should be automatic. However, their implementation introduces risks as well. To better understand the benefits and challenges, a review and analysis of the literature regarding the application of social media to emergency management was conducted. Identified research gaps were mapped into social and technological challenges. These challenges were then analyzed to set research directions for practitioners and researchers.

Social media applications and emergency management: A literature review and research agenda

The increasing size and complexity of acquisition and development projects in both the public and private sectors has begun to exceed the capabilities of traditional management techniques to control them. This situation had led cost overrun, late delivery, and performance shortfalls to become commonplace. One way to contain these adverse consequences of complexity is through the principled application of risk management. This paper presents a general discussion of the concepts involved in conducting project risk management, which is in large part based on tools and methods currently employed by the authors. While some of these tools and methods are from previously published work, this paper presents them in an integrated methodology and introduces some recent modifications and improvements unpublished heretofore in the literature. Central to these new modifications is an improved method of risk tracking, the objective of which is to monitor risks continuously and to contain them before they get out of hand. The methodology presented in this paper covers risk identification, risk filtration, risk assessment, risk management, and risk tracking for large scale socio-technological systems such as acquisition or development projects. The emphasis is on the use of ratio scales for risk tracking and avoiding the pitfalls of algebraic operations on ordinal scales for risk filtration. The described methodology is demonstrated via an example involving aircraft development, and there is a discussion of the lessons learned from the application of risk tracking to a government acquisition project. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 5: 89–108, 2002

Principles and guidelines for project risk management

The Top 10 Illusions of Systems Engineering: A Research Agenda

Enterprises are essential to the sustainment of our modern society. However, they rarely receive the level of attention and rigor that technical systems do. Treating enterprises as systems is a promising approach, but enterprises depend on a substantial social component. The inherent complexity of social systems introduces epistemic limitations that inhibit our ability to model social systems and predict their behavior. Consequently, traditional engineering approaches that rely on prediction and control can be ineffective or misleading when applied to enterprises. In this paper we explore the implications of these epistemic limitations on the engineering of enterprises. We conclude that it is necessary to apply dynamic strategies to mitigate these limitations and adapt enterprise modeling efforts accordingly. The goal with enterprises, in contrast to traditional technical systems, is to influence rather than control. We outline an interdisciplinary research agenda to progress toward this goal.

Michael J. Pennock

Papers

Social media applications and emergency management: A literature review and research agenda

Principles and guidelines for project risk management

The Top 10 Illusions of Systems Engineering: A Research Agenda

The Epistemology of Enterprises

Guiding the behavior of sociotechnical systems: The role of agent‐based modeling