System for Approving New Medical Options Needs Improvement

Posted on December 31, 2012  Comments (0)

Something Doesn’t Add Up

Not only did the team find that evidence for Infuse’s benefits over existing alternatives for most patients was questionable; they also discovered in a broad array of published research that risks of complications (including cancer, male sterility and other serious side effects) appeared to be 10 to 50 times higher than 13 industry-sponsored studies had shown. And they learned that authors of the early studies that found no complications had been paid between $1 million and $23 million annually by the company for consulting, royalties and other compensation. Carragee, MD ’82, estimates Medtronic has sold several billion dollars’ worth of Infuse for uses both approved and “off label.”
…
Without a rigorous, data-driven context, medicine’s expensive traditions and hunch-based treatments threaten to bankrupt us. “People say that we shouldn’t delay science; people are dying; we should get new treatments out there. I do not feel the pressure to do that until we have solid evidence,” Ioannidis asserts. “The resources many procedures draw are enormous.” And that leaves insufficient funds for the prevention plans and treatments we know actually work.

I have written about the problems with our health care research system several times. The existing system is in need of improvement and is made much worse by the general state of the broken health care system in the USA. Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis, the focus of the article, is doing fantastic work in this area.

Related: Majority of Clinical Trials Don’t Provide Meaningful Evidence – Statistical Errors in Medical Studies – USA Spends $7,960 Compared to Around $3,800 for Other Rich Countries on Health Care with No Better Health Results – Drug Company Funding Taints Published Medical Research – Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation – Understanding Data

Make Crosswalks More Visible

Posted on December 25, 2012  Comments (2)

Good simple idea. And then executed well – for nighttime at least. Crosswalk lights up when in use giving drivers a more visible clue to stop.

Related: Ministry of Silly Walks – Kindergarten Students Pedel Their Own Bus to School – Passion for Mechanical Engineering Nurtured as a Child – Bird Feeder That Automatically Takes Photos When Birds Feed – Encouraging Curiosity in Kids

Circumhorizontal Arcs – Fire Rainbows – Cloud Rainbows

Posted on December 20, 2012  Comments (1)

photo of rainbow in a cloud

Fire Rainbow, Johor Bahru by John Hunter

Yesterday afternoon I spotted this odd, colorful, spectrum seemingly in a cloud in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The colors are similar to a rainbow but the prism effect takes on a bit different form than a rainbow as I learned with a bit of searching online. I added a short post to this blog, about the phenomenon a few years ago.

photo of a large cloud over Johor Bahru

Johor Bahru under a large cloud which is topped with a fire rainbow.

A circumhorizontal arc is an optical phenomenon – an ice-halo formed by plate-shaped ice crystals in high level cirrus clouds. They are also known as “fire rainbows,” if the cloud is at the right angle to the sun, the crystals will refract the sunlight just as when rainbow is created.

Read more

Working as a Software Developer

Posted on December 17, 2012  Comments (11)

For most of my career I have been focused on management improvement – helping organizations improve results. Technology plays a big role in that and along the way I found myself becoming a programer for a while; and then a software development program manager. This is a good post on working as a software developer:

reading code is a very important skill. Before a program can be modified, you need to understand what it does, and how it does it. Only then can new functionality be added so it fits in with the existing structure, and without breaking anything. Reading and understanding a program can be a major effort, and one sign of a well-designed program is that it is relatively straight-forward to modify it.
…
Write for people first, computer second. The code you write will be read many times in the future (by you, or another developer). The computer doesn’t care how the code is written, so make it as easy as possible to understand for the next person that has to read it. A corollary to this is: don’t be too clever. It’s better to be clear than to be clever.

When there is a compelling need to write for the computer first and people second make sure to document that code well. For example, some code that is extremely dense and complex and confusing but greatly enhances the efficiency of a critical area of code.

I recently wrote a book, Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. There are many great things about a career in software development. It certainly is also challenging and not for someone looking for the easiest career but I have seem a higher percentage of happy software developers than I have seen in any other discipline.

Related: How To Become A Software Engineer/Programmer – The Software Developer Labor Market – Avoiding Tragedy of the Commons for Software Development – Preparing Computer Science Students for Jobs – Hiring the Best Fit For Your Company in an Inefficient Job Market – Want to be a Computer Game Programmer? – What Graduates Should Know About an IT Career

Promoting Innovation in Sierra Leone

Posted on December 13, 2012  Comments (0)

Another inspirational kid that shows that the potential for human good is much greater than the talking heads and politicians that litter the TV screen so often.

In the video Kelvin says, “That is my aim: to Promote Innovation in Seira Leone, among young people.” See another video as Kelvin explains his homemade battery.

Support these young engineers in Sierra Leone via innovate Salone.

Related: Inspirational Engineer Build Windmill Using Trash – Supporting the Natural Curiosity of Kids – What Kids can Learn If Given a Chance – I was Interviewed About Encouraging Kids to Pursue Engineering

Physics Lesson

Posted on December 9, 2012  Comments (0)

Related: Brian Cox Lecture on Science and Quantum Mechanics – Scientific Inquiry Process Finds More Evidence Supporting Einstein’s Theory of Gravity – Friday Fun: CERN Version

Arduino Introduction Video Tutorial

Posted on December 5, 2012  Comments (0)

Arduino is a very cool open source programable hardware engineering initiative. It is great for kids and adults who like to learn and create electronic devices. The Arduino Starter Kit is a great education gift for those interested in such things.

The video explains how to build a basic circuit with the Arduino board, and how to use each of the basic components such as LEDs, switches, and resistors. See more videos on related topics. Massimo Banzi, the co-creator and CEO of Arduino, and seen in the videos, also has a book: Getting Started with Arduino.

Related: Schematics of Electronic Circuits – EZ-Builder Robot Control Software

Cancer Risks From Our Food

Posted on December 3, 2012  Comments (3)

comic showing the dangers of drawing false conclusion based on statistical significance

Randall Munroe illustrates RA Fisher’s point that you must think to draw reasonable conclusions from data. Click the image to see the full xkcd comic.

Pretty much everything you eat is associated with cancer. Don’t worry about it. by Sarah Kliff

The changes in cancer risk were all over the map: 39 percent found an increased risk, 33 percent found a decreased risk and 23 percent showed no clear evidence either way.
…
The vast majority of those studies, Schoenfeld and Ioannidis found, showed really weak associations between the ingredient at hand and cancer risk. A full 80 percent of the studies had shown statistical relationships that were “weak or nominally significant,” as measured by the study’s P-values. Seventy-five percent of the studies purporting to show a higher cancer risk fell into this category, as did 76 percent of those showing a lower cancer risk.

Sadly the evidence is often not very compelling but creates uncertainly in the public. Poorly communicated results and scientific illiteracy (both from publishers and the public) leads to more confusion than is necessary. Even with well done studies, good communication and a scientifically literate population nutrition and human health conclusion are more often questionable than they are clear.

Related: Researchers Find Switch That Allows Cancer Cells to Spread – Global Cancer Deaths to Double by 2030 – Physical Inactivity Leads to 5.3 Million Early Deaths a Year