The Initiative for Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (IMPT) is a project of CAMI Health, a social impact organization dedicated to improving the health of women and their families worldwide. CAMI Health is housed at the Public Health Institute (PHI).. This project is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) through an interagency agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), cooperative agreement #AID-OAA-A-16-00045. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of the IMPT, CAMI Health, PHI, and its partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government ...

A benefitâ risk assessment model for statins using multicriteria decision analysis based on a discrete choice experiment in Korean patients Ji-Hye Byun,1 Sun-Hong Kwon,1 Ji-Hye Ha,2 Eui-Kyung Lee1 1School of Pharmacy, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 2Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Cheongju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea Purpose: The benefitâ risk balance for drugs can alter post approval owing to additional data on efficacy or adverse events. This study developed a quantitative benefitâ risk assessment (BRA) model for statins using multicriteria decision analysis with discrete choice experiments and compared a recent BRA with that at the time of approval. Patients and methods: Following a systematic review of the literature, the benefit criteria within the statin BRA model were defined as a reduction in the plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level and a reduction in myocardial infarction incidence; the risk criteria were hepatotoxicity (Liv) and fatal

TY - JOUR. T1 - Assessment of pedophilic sexual interest with an attentional choice reaction time task. AU - Mokros, A. AU - Dombert, B. AU - Osterheider, M. AU - Zappalà, A. AU - Santtila, Pekka. PY - 2010. Y1 - 2010. U2 - 10.1007/s10508-009-9530-6. DO - 10.1007/s10508-009-9530-6. M3 - Artikel. VL - 39. SP - 1081. EP - 1090. JO - Archives of Sexual Behavior. JF - Archives of Sexual Behavior. SN - 0004-0002. IS - 5. ER - ...

Downloadable (with restrictions)! When choice data are not available, researchers studying preferences sometimes ask respondents to state the actions they would choose in choice scenarios. Data on stated choices are then used to estimate random utility models, as if they are data on actual choices. Stated and actual choices may differ because researchers typically provide respondents less information than they would have in actuality. Elicitation of choice probabilities overcomes this problem by permitting respondents to express uncertainty about behavior. This article shows how to use elicited choice probabilities to estimate random utility models and reports estimates of preferences for electricity reliability. Copyright (2010) by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

This bibliography includes abstracts of 59 studies and review articles which are related to the effect of color coding on choice reaction time. As color displays become more widely used for information gathering and decision-making tasks, the effect of color coding on these tasks and their components will become increasingly important design considerations. Choice reaction time, the time required to make a binary choice, affects the total execution time of many decision-making and information gathering tasks, and seems to be a particularly relevant measure of effectiveness of color coding. This bibliography draws together much of the current literature, for reference by human factors researchers and systems designers. Two techniques lend themselves to measurement of choice reaction time the Sternberg paradigm and the Within-Task Subtractive Method.

Downloadable! To what extent individual choices are influenced by media exposure? We try to provide evidence on this issue considering how the sales of lotto tickets are determined by the size of the top prize (the jackpot) compared to the amount of attention that media devote to the game. We use data on the Italian SuperEnalotto (2003- 2010) and estimate tickets sales in relation to the jackpot size and to several measures of lotto media coverage. To take into account that media attention may be affected by the amount of tickets sold we instrument media coverage with the availability of other newsworthy material (sport events and disasters). It emerges that media attention to the game is inversely related to the availability of other news. Two-Stage-Least Squares Estimations show that, given the jackpot size, players spend more on lotto when media attention to the game is higher.

TY - JOUR. T1 - Acetaldehyde self-administration by a two-bottle choice paradigm: Consequences on emotional reactivity, spatial learning, and memory. AU - Maniaci, Giuseppe. AU - De Caro, Viviana. AU - Giannola, Libero Italo. AU - Sutera, Flavia Maria. AU - Cannizzaro, Emanuele. AU - Cannizzaro, Carla. AU - Plescia, Fulvio. AU - Brancato, Anna. AU - Venniro, Marco. PY - 2015. Y1 - 2015. N2 - Acetaldehyde, the first alcohol metabolite, is responsible for many pharmacological effects that are not clearly distinguishable from those exerted by its parent compound. It alters motor performance, induces reinforced learning and motivated behavior, and produces different reactions according to the route of administration and the relative accumulation in the brain or in the periphery. The effective activity of oral acetaldehyde represents an unresolved field of inquiry that deserves further investigation. Thus, this study explores the acquisition and maintenance of acetaldehyde drinking behavior in adult ...

Background: Exercise is effective in improving non-specific low back pain (LBP). Certain components of physical exercise, such as the type, intensity and frequency of exercise, are likely to influence participation among working adults with non-specific LBP, but the value and relative importance of these components remain unknown. The studys aim was to examine such specific components and their influence on individual preferences for exercise for secondary prevention of non-specific LBP among working adults. Methods: In a discrete choice experiment, working individuals with non-specific LBP answered a webbased questionnaire. Each respondent was given ten pairs of hypothetical exercise programs and asked to choose one option from each pair. The choices comprised six attributes of exercise (i.e., type of training, design, intensity, frequency, proximity and incentives), each with either three or four levels. A conditional logit regression that reflected the random utility model was used to ...

Background: Exercise is effective in improving non-specific low back pain (LBP). Certain components of physical exercise, such as the type, intensity and frequency of exercise, are likely to influence participation among working adults with non-specific LBP, but the value and relative importance of these components remain unknown. The studys aim was to examine such specific components and their influence on individual preferences for exercise for secondary prevention of non-specific LBP among working adults. Methods: In a discrete choice experiment, working individuals with non-specific LBP answered a webbased questionnaire. Each respondent was given ten pairs of hypothetical exercise programs and asked to choose one option from each pair. The choices comprised six attributes of exercise (i.e., type of training, design, intensity, frequency, proximity and incentives), each with either three or four levels. A conditional logit regression that reflected the random utility model was used to ...

Methods In a discrete choice experiment, participants evaluated eight choice sets, each of which showed two cigarette packages from four different brands and tar levels (high vs low), accompanied by an insert that included between-subject manipulations (ie, listing of HPHCs vs grouping by disease outcome and numeric values ascribed to HPHCs vs no numbers) and within-subject manipulations (ie, 1 of 4 warning topics; statement linking an HPHC with disease vs statement with no HPHC link). For each choice set, participants were asked: (1) which package is more harmful and (2) which motivates them to not smoke; each with a no difference option. Alternative-specific logit models regressed choice on attribute levels. ...

Successful choice under risk requires the integration of information about outcome probabilities and values and implicates a brain network including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and posterior parietal cortex (pPAR). Damage to the vmPFC is linked to poor decision-making and increased risk-taking. Electrophysiological and neuroimaging data implicate the pPAR in the processing of reward probability during choice, but the causal contribution of this area has not been established. We compared patients with lesions to the pPAR (n = 13), vmPFC (n = 13), and healthy volunteers (n = 22) on the Roulette Betting Task, a measure of risk-sensitive decision-making. Both lesion groups were impaired in adjusting their bets to the probability of winning. This impairment was correlated with the extent of pPAR, but not vmPFC, damage. In addition, the vmPFC group chose higher bets than healthy controls overall, an effect that correlated with lesion volume in the medial orbitofrontal cortex. Both lesion groups

Peterson, George L.; Stynes, Daniel J.; Rosenthal, Donald H.; Dwyer, John F. 1985. Substitution in recreation choice behavior. In: Stankey, George H.; McCool, Stephen F., compilers. Proceedings--symposium on recreation choice behavior; 1984 March 22-23; Missoula, MT. General Technical Report INT-184. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station. p. 19-30 ...

Background This study investigated patient opinion about the provision of nurse-led vs. doctor-led primary health care in the treatment of minor illness.. Design A postal questionnaire survey including discrete choice experiment (DCE) of a national sample followed by telephone interviews with respondent volunteers.. Setting and participants A large random sample of the population of Scotland from a range of general practices including traditional and extended practice nursing roles was invited to participate.. Main outcome measures Patient satisfaction with, opinion of and preference for practice nurse (PN) vs. doctor consultation in primary care in relation to gender, age, education and income.. Results Questionnaire response rate was 49% (1343 of 2740). Women, younger people, the less well-educated and those with higher income had a more positive attitude towards the PN. Older people had a more positive attitude to the doctor. Results from the DCE indicated that whilst most respondents would ...

The 3-day Outcomes Workshop includes material linked directly to the needs of organisations, such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which make decisions about health care delivery and funding. The workshop covers the key principles of outcomes measurement and valuation as well as their practical implementation in health technology assessment. It focusses on the design, construction and application of a range of approaches to measuring and valuing health outcomes. The approaches considered include methods used in healthcare economic evaluation, such as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) based on preference-based generic measures (e.g. EQ-5D, HUI); approaches used to map from clinical and disease-specific outcomes to generic measures; and direct elicitation of preferences. The use of discrete choice experiments is also considered. This workshop assumes participants have a basic familiarity with health technology assessment (HTA) and focuses on the role and ...

Huo, M., Gorayski, P., Poulsen, M., Thompson, K., Pinkham, MB. Evidence-based Peer Review for Radiation Therapy - Updated Review of the Literature with a Focus on Tumour Subsite and Treatment Modality. PubMed-NCBI. ClinOncol (R Coll Radiol). 2017 May 18. pii: S0936-6555(17)30225-X. doi:10.1016/j.clon.2017.04.038.. Huo, M., Gorayski, P., Pinkham MB., Lehman M. Advances in radiotherapy technology for non-small cell lung cancer: What every general practitioner should know. Aus Fam Physician. 2015 No;45(11): 805-809. PMID: 27806449. Lehman M, Gorayski P, Watson S, Edeling D, Jackson J, Whitty J. Patient preferences regarding prophylactic cranial orradiation: A discrete choice experiment. Radiother Oncol. 2016 Nov;121(2): 225-231. doi: 10.1016/j.radonc.2016.09.003.. Nicholls L, Gorayski P, Poulsen M, Plank AW, Schick K, Pham T, Khoo EL. Maintaining prostate contouring consistency following an educational intervention. J Med Radiat Sci. 2016 Sep;63(3):155-60. doi: 10.1002/jmrs.168.. Gorayski, P, ...

Huo, M., Gorayski, P., Poulsen, M., Thompson, K., Pinkham, MB. Evidence-based Peer Review for Radiation Therapy - Updated Review of the Literature with a Focus on Tumour Subsite and Treatment Modality. PubMed-NCBI. ClinOncol (R Coll Radiol). 2017 May 18. pii: S0936-6555(17)30225-X. doi:10.1016/j.clon.2017.04.038.. Huo, M., Gorayski, P., Pinkham MB., Lehman M. Advances in radiotherapy technology for non-small cell lung cancer: What every general practitioner should know. Aus Fam Physician. 2015 No;45(11): 805-809. PMID: 27806449. Lehman M, Gorayski P, Watson S, Edeling D, Jackson J, Whitty J. Patient preferences regarding prophylactic cranial orradiation: A discrete choice experiment. Radiother Oncol. 2016 Nov;121(2): 225-231. doi: 10.1016/j.radonc.2016.09.003.. Nicholls L, Gorayski P, Poulsen M, Plank AW, Schick K, Pham T, Khoo EL. Maintaining prostate contouring consistency following an educational intervention. J Med Radiat Sci. 2016 Sep;63(3):155-60. doi: 10.1002/jmrs.168.. Gorayski, P, ...

PURPOSE: To establish the relative weighting given by patients and healthcare professionals to gains in diagnostic sensitivity versus loss of specificity when using CT colonography (CTC) for colorectal cancer screening. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Following ethical approval and informed consent, 75 patients and 50 healthcare professionals undertook a discrete choice experiment in which they chose between standard CTC and enhanced CTC that raised diagnostic sensitivity 10% for either cancer or polyps in exchange for varying levels of specificity. We established the relative increase in false-positive diagnoses participants traded for an increase in true-positive diagnoses. RESULTS: Data from 122 participants were analysed. There were 30 (25%) non-traders for the cancer scenario and 20 (16%) for the polyp scenario. For cancer, the 10% gain in sensitivity was traded up to a median 45% (IQR 25 to |85) drop in specificity, equating to 2250 (IQR 1250 to |4250) additional false-positives per additional true

In this paper we present a stochastic route choice model for transit networks that explicitly addresses route correlation due to overlapping alternatives. The model is based on a multi-objective mathematical programming problem, the optimality conditions of which generate an extension to the Multinomial Logit models. The proposed model considers a fixed point problem for treating correlations between routes, which can be solved iteratively. We estimated the new model on the Santiago (Chile) Metro network and compared the results with other route choice models that can be found in the literature. The new model has better explanatory and predictive power that many other alternative models, correctly capturing the correlation factor. Our methodology can be extended to private transport networks.

To date there have been no value sets to support the use of the EQ-5D-Y in cost-utility analysis. Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) can be used to obtain values on a latent scale, but these values require anchoring at 0 = dead to meet the conventions of quality-adjusted life year (QALY) estimation. This Research Paper describes a study in which four stated preference methods for anchoring EQ-5D-Y values were compared: visual analogue scale, DCE (with a duration attribute), lag-time TTO and the recently developed location-of-dead (LOD) element of the personal utility function approach. ...

MyJournals.org - Science - Criteria for prioritization of HIV programs in Viet Nam: a discrete choice experiment (BMC Health Services Research)

A study conducted by researchers based at the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital has determined that healthy lifestyle choices can help cancer survivors avoid the metabolic syndrome.

Behavior becomes difficult to analyze when there are many stimuli and many response options. As a consequence, in most laboratory experiments the numbers of stimuli and choices are limited, with the two-alternative forced-choice experiment the most widely adopted. This minimal approach has been successful in studying reinforcement learning, in which responses to rewarded stimuli lead to predictable changes in behavior (1). To what extent can the basic principles of reinforcement learning, coupled with a complex environment and a large memory, account for more complex behaviors? The leaders of the cognitive revolution in the 1950s assumed that reinforcement learning could not account for cognitive behaviors such as language and reasoning, but surprisingly, recent advances in computational theory and experimental studies have challenged this assumption. A tour de force study in PNAS (2) adds to this evidence by showing that reinforcement learning can explain not only behavioral choice in a complex ...

The UK Black and The Health Divide reports considered two primary mechanisms for understanding how social determinants influence health: cultural/behavioral and materialist/structuralist[17] The cultural/behavioral explanation is that individuals behavioral choices (e.g., tobacco and alcohol use, diet, physical activity, etc.) were responsible for their development and deaths from a variety of diseases. However, both the Black and Health Divide reports found that behavioral choices are determined by ones material conditions of life, and these behavioral risk factors account for a relatively small proportion of variation in the incidence and death from various diseases. The materialist/structuralist explanation emphasizes the peoples material living conditions. These conditions include availability of resources to access the amenities of life, working conditions, and quality of available food and housing among others. Within this view, three frameworks have been developed to explain how social ...

Listing of the answers to the question: What are some easy ways to make eco-friendly choices at the supermarket? (Weekly Topic Inspiration) Going green at the grocery store can make a big impact on the environment- and ones budget! Sometimes, though, its hard to know where to start. What are your tips for making more sustainable choices at the supermarket? If you would like to use a keyword-researched and search friendly title or get some group support writing your Hub Answer, stop by our forum thread: http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/94967

Figure 15: Research on Preference Polyhedron Model Based Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization Method for Multilink Transmission Mechanism Conceptual Design

Cowell, Frank and Amiel, Yoram (2007) Social welfare and individual preferences under uncertainty: a questionnaire-experimental approach. In: Bishop, John and Amiel, Yoram, (eds.) Inequality and Poverty: Papers From the Society for the Study of Economic Inequalities Inaugural Meeting. Research on economic inequality,14. Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 345-364. ISBN 0762313749 ...

Castilla, Carolina and Timothy Haab. Limited Attention to Search Costs in the Gasoline Retail Market: Evidence from a Choice Experiment on Consumer Willingness to Search Am. J. Agr. Econ. (2013) 95(1): 181-199 doi:10.1093/ajae/aas131 Abstract: We conduct a choice experiment to investigate whether U.S. gasoline consumers exhibit limited attention to the...

WWII German Choice Model 1942 Normandy Camo Helmet- We recently acquired this beautiful helmet from a prominent Swiss collector. It has a fantastic tri-color, sprayed on finish of green, tan and red. It remains 95% intact. Inside there is a brown leather liner that remains very soft and supple. There is moderate wear,

We have previously documented the exquisite motion sensitivity of neurons in extrastriate area MT by studying the relationship between their responses and the direction and strength of visual motion signals delivered to their receptive fields. These results suggested that MT neurons might provide th …

Even a simple sensory stimulus can elicit distinct innate behaviors and sequences. During sensorimotor decisions, competitive interactions among neurons that

Waiting times for elective care have been considered a serious problem in many health care systems. A topic of particular concern has been how administrative boundaries act as barriers to efficient patient flows. In Norway, a policy combining patients choice of hospital and removal of restriction on referrals was introduced in 2001, thereby creating a nationwide competitive referral system for elective hospital treatment. The article aims to analyse if patient choice and an increased opportunity for geographical mobility has reduced waiting times for individual elective patients. A survey conducted among Norwegian somatic patients in 2004 gave information about whether the choice of hospital was made by the individual patient or by others. Survey data was then merged with administrative data on which hospital that actually performed the treatment. The administrative data also gave individual waiting time for hospital admission. Demographics, socio-economic position, and medical need were controlled for

The RPL can take on a number of different functional forms and incorporate a number of underlying distribution assumptions. The most popular assumptions are normal, triangular, uniform and log-normal distributions (Bhat, 2000; 2001). The log-normal distribution is applied if the response parameter needs to be a specific sign (Louviere et al., 2000; Carlsson et al., 2003). Where dummy variables are used, a uniform distribution with a (0, 1) bound is appropriate. It can be difficult to determine which variables to distribute and which distributions to choose. Some applications only randomise the cost variable, others choose to randomise all non-price variables and leave cost as non-random (Layton, 2000; Anderson, 2003). The latter choice is favoured for two reasons: firstly, the distribution of the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for an attribute is simply the distribution of that attributes parameter estimate, and, secondly, it allows the cost variable to be restricted to be non-positive for ...

Relations between an dependent categorial variable and independent variables can be analyzed with logit models. The first part of the paper gives an short overview on different logit models including models for binary panel data, ordinal variables and decision trees. The availability of these model... mehr Relations between an dependent categorial variable and independent variables can be analyzed with logit models. The first part of the paper gives an short overview on different logit models including models for binary panel data, ordinal variables and decision trees. The availability of these models im BMDP, LIMDEP, SAS, SPSS, SYSTAT and the free ware statistical system TDA is discussed in the second part. Though only few procedures are designed especially to estimate the parameters of logistic models other procedures can be used as well. For example, the conditional logit model or logistic discrete choice model may be estimated by procedures for event history analysis. Exemplaric program ...

City, University of London is an independent member institution of the University of London. Established by Royal Charter in 1836, the University of London consists of 18 independent member institutions with outstanding global reputations and several prestigious central academic bodies and activities. © 2017 City, University of London. ...

Perceptual decisions occur after the evaluation and integration of momentary sensory inputs, and dividing attention between spatially disparate sources of information impairs decision performance. However, it remains unknown whether dividing attention degrades the precision of sensory signals, precludes their conversion into decision signals, or dampens the integration of decision information toward an appropriate response. Here we recorded human electroencephalographic (EEG) activity while participants categorized one of two simultaneous and independent streams of visual gratings according to their average tilt. By analyzing trial-by-trial correlations between EEG activity and the information offered by each sample, we obtained converging behavioral and neural evidence that dividing attention between left and right visual fields does not dampen the encoding of sensory or decision information. Under divided attention, momentary decision information from both visual streams was encoded in slow parietal

How do we make decisions? Conventional decision theory tells us only which behavioral choices we ought to make if we follow certain axioms. In real life, however, our choices are governed by cognitive mechanisms shaped over evolutionary time through the process of natural selection. Evolution has created strong biases in how and when we process information, and it is these evolved cognitive building blocks-from signal detection and memory to individual and social learning-that provide the foundation for our choices ...

The integration of stimuli from the same or different modalities offers many benefits such as enhanced discrimination and accelerated reaction to objects. This thesis investigates the effects of stimulis spatial location on the redundancy gain (RG) obtained with cross-modal and within-modal stimulations. The RG is a decrease in reaction times (RT) when two or more stimuli are presented simultaneously rather than a single stimulation. The first study investigated cross-modal visuo-tactile integration in a single reaction time task and a choice reaction time task. Each unisensory stimulus was presented to either the left or right hemispace, and multisensory stimuli were presented in a unilateral (e.g. visual right/tactile right) or bilateral configuration (e.g. visual right/tactile left). The first task was a simple reaction time (SRT) paradigm where participants had to responded to all stimulations, irrespective of spatial position. Results showed that multisensory gain and coactivation were the ...

RECOGNITION OF EXCELLENCE - patients choice (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017): Based on the preset criteria, analysis of evaluation and comments on all doctors (physicians) in the Republic of Croatia, available at the www.najdoktor.comportal, Professor Ivica Klapan, MD, PhD, has been chosen as one of the best doctors according to patients choice, and also as the superior ENT specialist/head and neck surgeon in 2014., 2015. 2016., and 2017. The list of all doctors chosen by patients is available at http://najdoktor.com/najbolji-lijecnici-po-preporukama-pacijenata/a223#&panel1-2. ...

By Dr Eider M Arenaza-Urquijo (posted 16th December 2016) There is now much evidence to support the idea that healthy lifestyle choices may play an important role in the prevention of Alzheimers disease. Studies show that keeping mentally and physically active may offer protection against developing cognitive decline and dementia. For almost four years, we…

Along with other medications, some of your lifestyle choices may affect your International Normalised Ratio (INR), which in turn may affect your warfarin dose.

Develop a current state value stream map for a service of your choice at your organization (Devereux Foundation). Analyze/assess this process for value

Anatomical, neuroimaging and lesion studies indicate that prefrontal cortex (PFC) can be subdivided into different subregions supporting distinct aspects of decision making. However, explanations of neuronal computations within these subregions varies widely across studies. An integrated and mechanistic account of PFC function therefore remains elusive. Resolving these debates demands a rich dataset that directly contrasts neuronal activity across multiple PFC subregions within a single paradigm, whilst experimentally controlling factors such as the order, duration and frequency in which choice options are attended and compared. Here, we contrast neuronal population responses between macaque orbitofrontal (OFC), anterior cingulate (ACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC) during sequential value-guided information search and choice. From the first fixation of choice-related stimuli, a strong triple dissociation of information encoding emerges in parallel across these PFC subregions. As further

Many women have dense breasts, and they may benefit from other forms of cancer screening beyond mammograms. But none of the options is ideal, and the available data dont make the decision easier.

This course takes place online at The Institute for 4 weeks. During each course week, you participate at times of your own choosing - there are no set times when you must be online. Course participants will be given access to a private discussion board. In class discussions led by the instructor, you can post questions, seek clarification, and interact with your fellow students and the instructor.. At the beginning of each week, you receive the relevant material, in addition to answers to exercises from the previous session. During the week, you are expected to go over the course materials, work through exercises, and submit answers. Discussion among participants is encouraged. The instructor will provide answers and comments, and at the end of the week, you will receive individual feedback on your homework answers. ...

This study examined performance measures and eye movements associated with complex arithmetic strategies in young and older adults. Participants added pairs of three-digit numbers using two different strategies, under choice and no-choice conditions. Older adults made more errors but were not significantly slower than young adults, and response times and errors showed no interaction between age and the number of carries. Older adults chose strategies less adaptively than young adults. Eye movements were consistent with use of required strategies on no-choice trials and reported strategies on choice trials. Eye movement data also suggested that young adults more successfully distinguished between strategies. Implications of these findings for understanding aging effects in complex arithmetic are discussed ...

Free Choice South Lake in South Lake, WA, 6164. Business contact details for Free Choice South Lake including phone number, reviews & map location - TrueLocal

Choice of career is very significant for all 16+ students. A great deal of thought and careful consideration should be given to the very important decisions that have to be made at this stage. The Skills Development Scotland (SDS) Careers Adviser attached to Bucksburn Academy, and in school 2-3 days per week, is Ms Claire Rankine. SDS aim to help pupils understand and develop Career Management Skills to ensure they are successful planners not only in school and as they approach transition points, but throughout their lives. A flexible approach is adopted - use of www.myworldofwork.co.uk as well as face to face support from Ms Rankine through group work, drop in clinics, 1:1 interviews and attendance at reviews/meetings as appropriate. Combined with Pupil Support Staff and appropriate classroom teachers, a valuable careers information, advice and guidance service designed to meet all young peoples needs is provided.. Students should be aware of the constantly changing labour market and the ...

Tasks of attention and impulse control in humans have excellent rodent counterparts. In particular, the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT), which is the most widely used task measuring impulsive action and attention performance, has been instrumental in defining the underlying neuroanatomy, neurochemistry and genes pertaining to these cognitive functions.. In the 5CSRTT, mice are required to respond to a brief light stimulus in one of five response apertures. The number of premature responses before the stimulus light switches on is a measure of impulsivity. Omissions of responding, accuracy of responding and the intra-individual variability in response latencies are measures of attention.. ...

TY - JOUR. T1 - Patient preferences for psoriasis treatment. T2 - process characteristics considered more important than outcome attributes. AU - Meredith, Fiona. AU - Ormerod, Anthony. PY - 2012/4. Y1 - 2012/4. N2 - In a recent paper by Schaarschmidt et al., patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis completed a conjoint analysis survey (discrete choice experiment) to determine which factors had influenced their choice of treatment, and the relative importance of each factor. They also assessed how socioeconomic and demographic factors affected patient choice. Using relative importance scores, treatment location was found to be the more important attribute to patients, followed by probability of benefit and method of delivery.. AB - In a recent paper by Schaarschmidt et al., patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis completed a conjoint analysis survey (discrete choice experiment) to determine which factors had influenced their choice of treatment, and the relative importance of each factor. ...

Although research to date indicates that electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) contain much lower levels of harmful toxins as compared to cigarettes and tobacco smoke, their long-term health effects remain unknown.1 However, the lack of information on e-cigarette safety seems to have had little effect on the soaring popularity of these products worldwide.2 E-cigarettes blur the distinctions between traditional nicotine products, such as tobacco cigarettes, and medicinal nicotine replacement therapy and, as a result, present a formidable challenge to regulators.3 Regulatory agencies must balance competing public health priorities: whereas some public health experts have advocated greater access to non-combustible nicotine products among smokers,4 others have called for a more stringent evidence-based approach to minimise uptake among youth and non-smokers.5 E-cigarettes have also prompted the development of new regulatory frameworks in several jurisdictions, such as in the European Union6 and the ...

Disruption of function of left, but not right, lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) with low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) increased choices of immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. rTMS did not change choices involving only delayed rewards or valuation judgments of immediate and delayed rewards, providing causal evidence for a neural lateral-prefrontal cortex-based self-control mechanism in intertemporal choice ...

Experiments aiming to understand sensory-motor systems, cognition and behavior necessitate training animals to perform complex tasks. Traditional training protocols require lab personnel to move the animals between home cages and training chambers, to start and end training sessions, and in some cases, to hand-control each training trial.

Start Over You searched for: Formats Still image ✖Remove constraint Formats: Still image Copyright Copyright may apply ✖Remove constraint Copyright: Copyright may apply Subjects Homosexuality, Male ✖Remove constraint Subjects: Homosexuality, Male Subjects Choice Behavior ✖Remove constraint Subjects: Choice Behavior Publication Year 1980 ✖Remove constraint Publication Year: 1980 ...

This health plan option includes a tiered network feature called Hospital Choice Cost Sharing. As a member in this plan, you will pay different levels of cost share* (such as copayments and/or co-insurance) for certain services depending on the network* general hospital you choose to furnish those covered services. For most network* general hospitals, you will pay the lowest cost sharing level*. However, if you receive certain covered services from any of the network* general hospitals, you pay the highest cost sharing level*. A network* general hospitals cost sharing level may change from time to time. Overall changes to add another network* general hospital to the highest cost sharing level will happen no more than once each calendar year. For help in finding a network* general hospital for which you pay the lowest cost sharing level, check the most current provider directory for your health plan option or download a printable network hospital list for 2019 or printable network hospital list ...

Compared to adults, children have longer simple reaction time (SRT) and choice reaction time (CRT) to simple and choice visual stimuli. Based on the available data, it can be concluded that this occurrence could be due to correlation between age and the information processing speed. Other factors may have an impact, too, such as the shorter attention span which children may have. Some studies indicate that karate favors the development of cognitive functions, including the RT. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to determine whether there is a difference in simple and choice reaction time between boys and girls of preadolescent and early adolescent age on the basic and premastery level of karate training. Testing involved 78 participants divided into four subgroups, in accordance with the gender and the level of training, using a custom designed RT measuring software, developed in LabVIEW 2012 software package. A two-way analysis of variance (Two-way ANOVA) confirmed no differences ...

This talk is based on a large scale study of the molecular genetics of choice behaviour involving more than 3000 Han subjects in China and in Singapore who each contributed blood or saliva samples. We analysed subjects DNA and observed their choice behaviour in incentivized tasks involving both individual decision making, such as risk, ambiguity, and time, and social decision making, including other regarding behaviour (such as altruism, fairness, envy, and trust) and strategic thinking (inferred from auctions and the p-beauty game). This talk will focus on two specific findings (see appended abstracts). One is based on risk taking behaviour observed over three individual choice tasks. Another finding concerns a sense of indignation elicited from responders behavior in a standard ultimatum game in contrast with their behavior in a modified ultimatum game with a randomized proposer. Time permitting, I will discuss additional findings such as those based on telomere length, hormonal response, ...

Lets put ourselves in Ahazs sandals for a moment. What do you think his fears are in this moment? The big one is likely death, right? Or at least that hell follow in the footsteps of other kings who end up getting their thumbs cut off and have to become slaves of another nation.. But there are other fears in there too, right? You know that his legacy has to be rumbling around somewhere in the background. The pressure of him being the leader is huge. Others are depending on him. And he has a reputation to uphold. Does he want to be the guy known for being defeated by Syria and Israel? Theres all those common things present in his heart, I can almost guarantee it. Shame. The things that pride makes you do. Fear of dying. Fear of the unknown. Fear of suffering. Desires for comfort. Desire for reputation. All of that weighs on this decision.. Trust me, says the Lord.. What is happening to Ahaz in this moment is that the national question is driving him into a binary choice. Do we join with ...

The role of the primate middle temporal area (MT) in depth perception was examined by considering the trial-to-trial correlations between neuronal activity and reported depth sensations. A set of moving random dots portrayed a cylinder rotating about its principal axis. In this structure-from-motion stimulus, the direction of rotation is ambiguous and the resulting percept undergoes spontaneous fluctuations. The stimulus can be rendered unambiguous by the addition of binocular disparities. We trained monkeys to report the direction of rotation in a set of these stimuli, one of which had zero disparity. Many disparity-selective neurons in area MT are selective for the direction of rotation defined by disparity. Across repeated presentations of the ambiguous (zero-disparity) stimulus, there was a correlation between neuronal firing and the reported direction of rotation, as found by Bradley et al. (1998). Quantification of this effect using choice probabilities (Britten et al., 1996) allowed us to

Consumer choice refers to the decisions that consumers make with regard to products and services. When we study consumer choice behavior, we examine how consumers decide which products to purchase or consume over time.. ...

TY - JOUR. T1 - Wealth-varying intertemporal elasticities of substitution. T2 - Evidence from panel and aggregate data. AU - Atkeson, Andrew. AU - Ogaki, Masao. PY - 1996/12. Y1 - 1996/12. N2 - This paper constructs and estimates a model of consumer preferences in which the intertemporal elasticity of substitution (IES) of consumption expenditure rises with the level of wealth. The purpose of this paper is to measure the effect that systematic variation in the IES of poor and rich consumers has on the IES of aggregate consumption expenditure. We find economically significant differences in the IES of poor and rich consumers in Indian panel data on the consumption of individual households. We also find economically significant differences in the IES measured in aggregate time series data for the U.S. and India.. AB - This paper constructs and estimates a model of consumer preferences in which the intertemporal elasticity of substitution (IES) of consumption expenditure rises with the level of ...

The study of sensory signaling in the visual cortex has been greatly advanced by the recording of neural activity simultaneously with the performance of a specific psychophysical task. Individual nerve cells may also increase their firing leading up to the particular choice or decision made on a single psychophysical trial. Understanding these signals is important because they have been taken as evidence that a particular nerve cell or group of nerve cells in the cortex is involved in the formation of the perceptual decision ultimately signaled by the organism. However, recent analyses show that the size of a decision-related change in firing in a particular neuron is not a secure basis for concluding anything about the contribution of a single neuron to the formation of a decision: rather the size of the decision-related firing is expected to be dominated by the extent to which the activation of a single neuron is correlated with the firing of the pool of neurons. The critical question becomes what

Some of the markets we have served include green technologies, medical devices, biotechnology, Internet/e-commerce, telecommunications, distance education/e-learning. We take pride in our ability to learn the fundamentals of virtually any industry or technology quickly. When you need your company to have a new website or if you venture on updating your old webpage with a new look and functionality, the choices are versatile. Assuming that you will go the easy way and choose a theme for your WordPress website. When you need your company to have a new website or if you venture on updating your old webpage with a new look and functionality, the choices are versatile. When you need your company to have a new website or if you venture on updating your old webpage with a new look and functionality, the choices are versatile ...

Some of the markets we have served include green technologies, medical devices, biotechnology, Internet/e-commerce, telecommunications, distance education/e-learning. We take pride in our ability to learn the fundamentals of virtually any industry or technology quickly. When you need your company to have a new website or if you venture on updating your old webpage with a new look and functionality, the choices are versatile. Assuming that you will go the easy way and choose a theme for your WordPress website. When you need your company to have a new website or if you venture on updating your old webpage with a new look and functionality, the choices are versatile. When you need your company to have a new website or if you venture on updating your old webpage with a new look and functionality, the choices are versatile. ...

Family policies differ significantly between countries. Depending on jurisdiction, family policy may have a multiplicity of functions: horizontal redistribution, the enhancement of individual choices, increasing fertility rates, supporting economic growth and productivity, as well as reducing gender inequalities (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2015).[155] From a societal perspective, family policies can contribute to horizontal redistribution between generations, as well as between households with and without children; to favour individual choices by supporting the reconciliation between care and paid work; and to reduce the costs of having children and child poverty. From an economic perspective, employment-oriented family policy is part of an overall redesign of welfare states geared to foster active citizenship, also among mothers who were formerly not employed, through the development of an enabling state. More generous family policies are said to lead to higher employment rates for ...

Abstract:We elicit and estimate risk preferences for a pool of young adults in the UK, and explore their links with healthy eating and risky health behaviours. We construct the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) as an overall indicator of nutritional quality, and we use it to complement the body mass index BMI. While for females we find no significant association between the BMI and risk preferences, males with high BMI appear more risk-seeking. However, this association disappears when controlling for the quality of the diet. For males, the HEI is significantly associated with risk preferences. Males smoking status is not associated with risk preferences.

View Notes - 03 reaction-time-and-motor-skills from CS 465 at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. Models of Choice Reaction Time & Motor Skills Brian Bailey Announcements • Homework1

There is increasing evidence that hyperenergetic diets impact on memory in rodents. However, it is largely unknown how diets, such as a cafeteria diet (CD), that mimic a Western diet act on learning and memory, in particular when fed during early stages of development. Here, we fed lactating dams a cafeteria diet and exposed both male and female offspring to a novel object discrimination (NOD) task, a two-trial test of recognition memory in which rats exposed to two identical objects during a training/familiarisation trial can discriminate a novel from a familiar object during the subsequent choice trial. The choice trial was performed following inter-trial interval (ITI) delays of up to 4 h. Maternal diet did not impact on exploration of the objects by either sex during the familiarisation trial. Control males discriminated the novel from the familiar object indicating intact memory with an ITI of 1h, but not 2 or 4h. CD delayed this natural forgetting in male rats such that discrimination was ...

Much politico-economic research on individuals preferences is cross-sectional and does not model dynamic aspects of preference or attitude formation. I present a Bayesian dynamic panel model, which facilitates the analysis of repeated preferences using individual-level panel data. My model deals with three problems. First, I explicitly include feedback from previous preferences taking into account that available survey measures of preferences are categorical. Second, I model individuals initial conditions when entering the panel as resulting from observed and unobserved individual attributes. Third, I capture unobserved individual preference heterogeneity both via standard parametric random effects and a robust alternative based on Bayesian nonparametric density estimation. I use this model to analyze the impact of income and wealth on preferences for government intervention using the British Household Panel Study from 1991 to 2007.. ...

Assisted Hospice Care has been chosen to participate in the Medicare Care Choices Model. Find out more about this great achievement and program.

The implication of spontaneous and induced unhappiness to peoples decision style is examined. It is postulated that unhappy individuals have a greater tendency to avoid frequent losses because these can have depleting effects, and unhappy individuals are more sensitive to such effects. This is evaluated in Study 1 by using an annoying customer call manipulation to induce negative affect; and by examining the effect of this manipulation on choices in an experiential decision task (the Iowa Gambling task). In Study 2 we examined the association between self-reported (un)happiness and choices on the same decision task. In Study 1 the induction of negative affect led to avoidance of choice alternatives with frequent losses, compared to those yielding rarer but larger losses. Specifically, this pertained to the advantageous alternatives with frequent versus non-frequent losses. In Study 2 unhappiness was similarly associated with less exposure to frequent losses; while extreme high happiness was associated

Clinical trial for Pleomorphic Lobular Breast Carcinoma In Situ | Lobular Breast Carcinoma in Situ | LCIS | Lobular Carcinoma In Situ | Atypical Hyperplasia of the Breast , Making Informed Choices on Incorporating Chemoprevention Into Care (MiCHOICE)

Background: In Brazil and other low- and middle-income countries, excess interventions in childbirth are associated with an increase in preterm and early-term births, contributing to stagnant morbidity and mortality of mothers and neonates. The fact that women often report a negative experience with vaginal childbirth, with physical pain and feelings of unsafety, neglect, or abuse, may explain the high acceptability of elective cesarean sections. The recognition of information needs and of the right to informed choice during childbirth can help change this reality. The internet has been the main source of health information, but its quality is highly variable. Objective: This study aimed to develop and evaluate an information and communication strategy through a smartphone app with respect to childbirth, to facilitate informed choices for access to safer and evidence-based care in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A randomized controlled trial, with 2 arms (intervention and control) and a

By Tracy Epton. People engage in many behaviors that are bad for their health such as smoking, not exercising, eating unhealthily or drinking too much alcohol. What is intriguing is that people continue pursuing an unhealthy lifestyle even when they are confronted by information that tells them that these choices are bad for them; they minimize the risks or even deny them altogether. Self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) offers an explanation of why people do this.. Self-affirmation theory states that people are motivated to maintain their self-integrity (i.e., a positive self-image as adaptively and morally adequate, Steele, 1988, p. 262). Certain types of information threaten self-integrity; for example information that suggests that our lifestyle choices are bad for our health would indicate that we were not adaptively adequate (after all, why would someone intentionally continue to do something that is harmful to their health). In these circumstances we act defensively to avoid accepting ...

At Amandala, our Man of The Year 2011 is Toledos Wil Maheia. We honor Wil Maheia because of his continuing efforts to preserve Belizes territorial integrity, his crusade to protect the cleanliness of the land, sea and air in the south of our nation, and his innovative campaigns to educate the people of Toledo where sustainable development and intelligent economic choices are concerned.. Wil Maheia is also the Leader of a Toledo-based political party (PNP), which has recently become more closely involved with the Belmopan-based Vision Inspired by the People (VIP). At Kremandala, our policy has been to have our communications facilities open and available for the PNP and the VIP so that they can reach the Belizean people. These organizations are considered third parties, and because of Belizes so-called first-past-the-post electoral system, leaders and supporters of the two dominant political parties, the UDP and the PUP, have traditionally been in a position to treat third party campaigning ...

Tomas Kalincik, Eva Kubala Havrdova, Dana Horakova, Guillermo Izquierdo, Alexandre Prat, Marc Girard, Pierre Duquette, Pierre Grammond, Marco Onofrj, Alessandra Lugaresi, Serkan Ozakbas, Ludwig Kappos, Jens Kuhle, Murat Terzi, Jeannette Lechner-Scott, Cavit Boz, Francois GrandMaison, Julie Prevost, Patrizia Sola, Diana Ferraro, Franco Granella, Maria Trojano, Roberto Bergamaschi, Eugenio Pucci, Recai Turkoglu, Pamela A McCombe, Vincent Van Pesch, Bart Van Wijmeersch, Claudio Solaro, Cristina Ramo-Tello, Mark Slee, Raed Alroughani, Bassem Yamout, Vahid Shaygannejad, Daniele Spitaleri, José Luis Sánchez-Menoyo, Radek Ampapa, Suzanne Hodgkinson, Rana Karabudak, Ernest Butler, Steve Vucic, Vilija Jokubaitis, Tim Spelman, Helmut Butzkueven. 10.1136/jnnp-2018-319831. January 13, 2019. ...

Introduced autonomous and connected vehicles equipped with emerging technologies are expected to change the automotive market. In this study, using stated preference (SP) data collected from choice experiments conducted in Korea with a mixed multiple discrete-continuous extreme value model (MDCEV), we analyzed how the advent of next-generation of vehicles with advanced vehicle technologies would affect consumer vehicle choices and usage patterns. Additionally, ex-ante market simulations and market segmentation analyses were conducted to provide specific management strategies for next-generation vehicles. The results showed that consumer preference structures of conventional and alternative fuel types primarily differed depending on whether they were drivers or non-drivers. Additionally, although the introduction of electric vehicles to the automobile market is expected to negatively affect the choice probability and mileage of other vehicles, it could have a positive influence on the probability of

We offer a position for initially one year. After a positive evaluation of the progress of the thesis, personal capabilities and compatibility the appointment will be extended by a further three years. Salary range from €2,222 to €2,840 gross per month (pay scale P in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities).. Leiden University offers an attractive benefits package with additional holiday (8%) and end-of-year bonuses (8.3 %), training and career development and sabbatical leave. Our individual choices model gives you some freedom to assemble your own set of terms and conditions. For international spouses we have set up a dual career programme. Candidates from outside the Netherlands may be eligible for a substantial tax break. More at https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/working-at/job-application-procedure-and-employment-conditions. All our PhD students are embedded in the Leiden University Graduate School of Science. Our graduate school offers several PhD ...

A summary of clausal features related to transitivity in English, including types of transitivity, subjects (including case marking and verb agreement), objects (including direct and indirect objects), predicative complements, and various types of adjuncts

Market demand is often ignored or assumed to lead uniformly to the decline of resources. Yet little is known about how market demand influences natural resources in particular contexts, or the mediating effects of biological or institutional factors. Here, we investigate this problem by examining the Pacific red snapper (Lutjanus peru) fishery around La Paz, Mexico, where medium or plate-sized fish are sold to restaurants at a premium price. If higher demand for plate-sized fish increases the relative abundance of the smallest (recruit size class) and largest (most fecund) fish, this may be a market mechanism to increase stocks and fishermens revenues. We tested this hypothesis by estimating the effect of prices on the distribution of catch across size classes using daily records of prices and catch. We linked predictions from this economic choice model to a staged-based model of the fishery to estimate the effects on the stock and revenues from harvest. We found that the supply of ...

Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impaired social interaction and communication. Skill deficits are most noticeable in social behavior and these deficits may be related to atypical responsiveness to social stimuli. The current study sought to examine how individuals with an ASD allocated their behavior in the presence of others pre and post social exchange training and to evaluate the qualitative changes in social behavior following training. One adult and three children with an ASD participated. Relative preference for social interaction and the qualitative state of social engagement during social interaction were measured. Participants then received training to initiate and sustain a social exchange. Prompting and reinforcement, in the form of preferred social consequences, were provided. Following social exchange training, the results suggested an increased preference for social interaction for some participants and a qualitatively richer state of social engagement ...

A free platform for explaining your research in plain language, and managing how you communicate around it - so you can understand how best to increase its impact.

Picking up form the points of the related fact sheet this work sheet asks a number of questions around IVF, to test students knowledge of the subject and get them engaging with what they have learned. ...

Introduction to the April 2013 issue on the effects of individual choice on health status. Virtual Mentor is a monthly bioethics journal published by the American Medical Association.

Altogether, the authors conclude, this evolutionary experiment shows that mating preferences â can evolve at least in part in correlation with the environment.â This result is consistent with the classic by-product model of speciation, in which new species arise as a side effect of divergent selection; in this case, mating preferences act as a premating isolation mechanism that arises along with the divergent environments. Interestingly, the authors found no correlation between the CHCs that adapted most and those for which female preferences changed. Teasing apart the relative contributions of natural and sexual selection in the evolution of CHCs and mating preferences may help shed light on the complicated relationship between trait and preference evolution in generalâ and on the role that preference plays in the emergence of new species. â Liza Gross ...

This paper examines the intertemporal relationship between downside risks and expected stock returns for five advanced markets. Using Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) as a measure of downside risk, we find a positive and significant relationship between VaR and the expected return before the world financial crisis (September 2008). However, when we estimate the model using a sample after this date, the results show a negative risk-return relationship. Evidence from a two‐state Markov regime‐switching model indicates that as uncertainty rises, the sign of the risk-return relationship turns negative. Evidence suggests that the Markov regime‐switching model helps to resolve the conflicting signs in the risk-return relationship. ...

Semantic Scholar extracted view of Dramatic decline in abortion mortality due to the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. by Rachel Jewkes et al.

The researchers discovered that the brains of obese adolescents responded differently to sugar consumption, compared to those of lean adolescents.. In obese individuals, eating glucose or fructose reduced blood flow in the prefrontal cortex - a brain region involved with decision making and behavioral choices.. Glucose also increased blood flow in the hypothalamus - a region involved with appetite - whereas fructose increased blood flow in the ventral striatum - a brain region involved with food rewards, cravings and pleasure (3).. In contrast, when normal-weight individuals ate the same amount of glucose, blood flow increased in the prefrontal cortex, while remaining unchanged in the hypothalamus and ventral striatum.. Interpreting these findings, the authors speculated that sugar intake may reduce conscious control of sugar intake and increase brain activity involved with food reward processing. These effects might promote the overconsumption of sugar.. The results are supported by a previous ...

Remarkably, we have actually kind of obtained a similar result in one of our previous study (Svensson et al. 2006 Evolution), where we found that strong divergent sexual selection was accompanied by a significant decrease of female response towards conspecifics from other populations. This is corroborated by another study yet from our group, that found reduced gene flow between some of these populations (Svensson et al. 2004 Heredity), like it has been found in other systems (Rice and Pfennig 2010). I had myself never really thought about it that way, and this opened my mind a lot I must say on what Erik and others of our group have done in the past. And what about learning then? Well, we know it is likely to play an important role in divergence of mate preferences in our system (Svensson et al. 2010 Evolution), and all things considered it might even facilitate this process, as mate choice may change faster and thus the constraining effects of gene flow in the early stages will then not be an ...

In addition to making sure youre getting these key nutrients, you may need to also focus on getting enough calories to meet the bodys needs. Taking in too few calories or protein during your teen years could have implications for your bone health (and health in general) later in life. If your body doesnt have enough calories to burn for energy, it may start burning protein which limits the amount available for growth and development of strong bones and lean body mass. Learning what your daily caloric need is depends on a number of factors, so its worth taking some time to find out your body needs in terms of fuel.. With this knowledge, you and your sister may be ready to plan and execute your new pattern of eating. However, its possible that this transition could still be a challenging one if those around you have different eating habits and preferences. Surrounding yourself with people who support your new dietary choice may help you feel happier about the switch and better able to stick ...

Teva’s Epinephrine Injection May Not Undercut Mylan’s on Price, but It Could Help in Addressing Shortages|br /|  

Sensory Evaluation at the Winery. Heather McMahon. Winemakers spend extensive amounts of time using their expertise to evaluate their products. Wine is the most thoroughly scrutinized food; numerous resources are allocated for chemical and microbiological analysis, but the most important tools remain under utilized. The human senses are the most thorough analytical devices available. In many wineries sensory evaluation is performed improperly and by a single person, usually the winemaker. Idiosyncrasies in individual preferences can lead to disastrous economic effects for the winery as a result of biases. In addition, an unavoidable leave of absence, an allergy, or the common cold can temporarily cripple even the most reliable palate. Establishing an in-house sensory panel can reduce these effects; drawing from the advice of trained sensory judges reduces the illogical dependency on a single or few opinions and provides an invaluable resource. One of the most important aspects of sensory ...