Williams College

About: Williams College is a education organization based out in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Politics. The organization has 2257 authors who have published 5015 publications receiving 213160 citations. The organization is also known as: Williams.

Association Between Academic Medical Center Pharmaceutical Detailing Policies and Physician Prescribing

Abstract: Importance In an effort to regulate physician conflicts of interest, some US academic medical centers (AMCs) enacted policies restricting pharmaceutical representative sales visits to physicians (known as detailing) between 2006 and 2012. Little is known about the effect of these policies on physician prescribing. Objective To analyze the association between detailing policies enacted at AMCs and physician prescribing of actively detailed and not detailed drugs. Design, Setting, and Participants The study used a difference-in-differences multivariable regression analysis to compare changes in prescribing by physicians before and after implementation of detailing policies at AMCs in 5 states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York) that made up the intervention group with changes in prescribing by a matched control group of similar physicians not subject to a detailing policy. Exposures Academic medical center implementation of policies regulating pharmaceutical salesperson visits to attending physicians. Main Outcomes and Measures The monthly within-drug class market share of prescriptions written by an individual physician for detailed and nondetailed drugs in 8 drug classes (lipid-lowering drugs, gastroesophageal reflux disease drugs, diabetes drugs, antihypertensive drugs, hypnotic drugs approved for the treatment of insomnia [sleep aids], attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drugs, antidepressant drugs, and antipsychotic drugs) comparing the 10- to 36-month period before implementation of the detailing policies with the 12- to 36-month period after implementation, depending on data availability. Results The analysis included 16 121 483 prescriptions written between January 2006 and June 2012 by 2126 attending physicians at the 19 intervention group AMCs and by 24 593 matched control group physicians. The sample mean market share at the physician-drug-month level for detailed and nondetailed drugs prior to enactment of policies was 19.3% and 14.2%, respectively. Exposure to an AMC detailing policy was associated with a decrease in the market share of detailed drugs of 1.67 percentage points (95% CI, −2.18 to −1.18 percentage points; P P Conclusions and Relevance Implementation of policies at AMCs that restricted pharmaceutical detailing between 2006 and 2012 was associated with modest but significant reductions in prescribing of detailed drugs across 6 of 8 major drug classes; however, changes were not seen in all of the AMCs that enacted policies.

Data Diagnostics Using Second‐Order Tests of Benford's Law

Abstract: SUMMARY: Auditors are required to use analytical procedures to identify the existence of unusual transactions, events, and trends. Benford's Law gives the expected patterns of the digits in numerical data, and has been advocated as a test for the authenticity and reliability of transaction level accounting data. This paper describes a new second‐order test that calculates the digit frequencies of the differences between the ordered (ranked) values in a data set. These digit frequencies approximate the frequencies of Benford's Law for most data sets. The second‐order test is applied to four sets of transactional data. The second‐order test detected errors in data downloads, rounded data, data generated by statistical procedures, and the inaccurate ordering of data. The test can be applied to any data set and nonconformity usually signals an unusual issue related to data integrity that might not have been easily detectable using traditional analytical procedures.

Family nurture intervention improves the quality of maternal caregiving in the neonatal intensive care unit: evidence from a randomized controlled trial.

Abstract: :Objective:This study assessed the impact of Family Nurture Intervention (FNI) on the quality of maternal caregiving behavior (MCB) while in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). FNI is a randomized controlled trial conducted in a high-acuity NICU to facilitate an emotional connection bet

Computing the link center of a simple polygon

Abstract: The link center of a simple polygon P is the set of points x inside P at which the maximal link-distance from x to any other point in P is minimized, where the link distance between two points x, y inside P is defined as the smallest number of straight edges in a polygonal path inside P connecting x to y. We prove several geometric properties of the link center and present an algorithm that calculates this set in time O (n2), where n is the number of sides of P. We also give an O(n log n) algorithm for finding a point x in an approximate link center, namely the maximal link distance from x to any point in P is at most one more than the value attained from the link center.

Blood and Guts: General and Trial-Specific Effects of Videotaped Crime Scenes on Mock Jurors

Abstract: A mock jury study was conducted to evaluate the effects of videotaped crime scenes on juries. Forty-eight subjects took the Juror Bias Scale and read a murder trial transcript. In addition, subjects viewed a videotape of an actual murder victim presented as the victim described in the transcript (trial-relevant video) or as one taken from another case (trial-nonrelevant video), or viewed no tape at all. Subjects filled out a questionnaire, then returned two days later to act as mock jurors in an assault case. Results indicated that exposure to the trial-relevant crime scene led subjects to set lower standards of proof and brought out individual juror biases for the prosecution. On a more general level, the crime scene tape led subjects to make lower estimates of the homicide rate, to believe the rate was increasing, and to view other crimes more seriously. Overall, the findings suggest that crime scene videos can prejudice the outcome of a criminal trial.