An investigation of routes to cancer diagnosis in 10 international jurisdictions, as part of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership: survey development and implementation

Objectives This paper describes the methods used in the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership Module 4 Survey (ICBPM4) which examines time intervals and routes to cancer diagnosis in 10 jurisdictions. We present the study design with defining and measuring time intervals, identifying patients with cancer, questionnaire development, data management and analyses.
Design and setting Recruitment of participants to the ICBPM4 survey is based on cancer registries in each jurisdiction. Questionnaires draw on previous instruments and have been through a process of cognitive testing and piloting in three jurisdictions followed by standardised translation and adaptation. Data analysis focuses on comparing differences in time intervals and routes to diagnosis in the jurisdictions.
Participants Our target is 200 patients with symptomatic breast, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancer in each jurisdiction. Patients are approached directly or via their primary care physician (PCP). Patients’ PCPs and cancer treatment specialists (CTSs) are surveyed, and ‘data rules’ are applied to combine and reconcile conflicting information. Where CTS information is unavailable, audit information is sought from treatment records and databases.
Main outcomes Reliability testing of the patient questionnaire showed that agreement was complete (κ=1) in four items and substantial (κ=0.8, 95% CI 0.333 to 1) in one item. The identification of eligible patients is sufficient to meet the targets for breast, lung and colorectal cancer. Initial patient and PCP survey response rates from the UK and Sweden are comparable with similar published surveys. Data collection was completed in early 2016 for all cancer types.
Conclusion An international questionnaire-based survey of patients with cancer, PCPs and CTSs has been developed and launched in 10 jurisdictions. ICBPM4 will help to further understand international differences in cancer survival by comparing time intervals and routes to cancer diagnosis.

Improving Smartphones Battery Life by Reducing Energy Waste of Background Applications

Smartphones have undergone a remarkable evolution over the last few years, from simple calling devices to full fledged computing devices where multiple services and applications run concurrently. Unfortunately, battery capacity increases at much slower pace, resulting as a main bottleneck for Internet connected smartphones. Several software-based techniques have been proposed in the literature for improving the battery life. Most common techniques include data compression, packet aggregation or batch scheduling, offloading partial computations to cloud, switching OFF interfaces (e.g., WiFi or 3G/4G) periodically for short intervals etc. However, there has been no focus on eliminating the energy waste of background applications that extensively utilize smartphone resources such as CPU, memory, GPS, WiFi, 3G/4G data connection etc. In this paper, we propose an Application State Proxy (ASP) that suppresses/stops the applications on smartphones and maintains their presence on any other network device. The applications are resumed/restarted on smartphones only in case of any event, such as a new message arrival. In this paper, we present the key requirements for the ASP service and different possible architectural designs. In short, the ASP concept can significantly improve the battery life of smartphones, by reducing to maximum extent the usage of its resources due to background applications.