A preliminary analysis of the cost-effectiveness of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program – demonstrating the potential value of comprehensive real world data

Background The complexity and cost of treating cancer patients is escalating rapidly and increasingly difficult decisions are being made regarding which interventions provide value for money. BioGrid Australia supports collection and analysis of comprehensive treatment and outcome data across multiple sites. Here we use preliminary data regarding the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) and stage-specific treatment costs for colorectal cancer (CRC) to demonstrate the potential value of real world data for cost-effectiveness analyses (CEA).

Methods Data regarding the impact of NBCSP on stage at diagnosis was combined with stage-specific CRC treatment costs and existing literature. An incremental CEA was undertaken from a government healthcare perspective, comparing NBCSP to no-screening. The 2008 invited population (n=681,915) was modelled in both scenarios. Effectiveness was expressed as CRC-related life years saved (LYS). Costs and benefits were discounted at 3% per annum.

Results Over the lifetime and relative to no-screening, NBCSP was predicted to save 1,265 life-years, prevent 225 CRC cases and cost an additional $48.3 million, equivalent to a cost-effectiveness ratio of $38,217 per LYS. A scenario analysis assuming full participation improved this to $23,395.

Conclusions This preliminary CEA based largely on contemporary real world data suggests population-based FOBT screening for CRC is attractive. Planned ongoing data collection will enable repeated analyses over time, using the same methodology in the same patient populations, permitting an accurate analysis of the impact of new therapies and changing practice. Similar CEA using real world data related to other disease types and interventions appears desirable.

Emotional reactions to real-world events in social networks

A convergence of emotions among people in social networks is potentially resulted by the occurrence of an unprecedented event in real world. E.g., a majority of bloggers would react angrily at the September 11 terrorist attacks. Based on this observation, we introduce a sentiment index, computed from the current mood tags in a collection of blog posts utilizing an affective lexicon, potentially revealing subtle events discussed in the blogosphere. We then develop a method for extracting events based on this index and its distribution. Our second contribution is establishment of a new bursty structure in text streams termed a sentiment burst. We employ a stochastic model to detect bursty periods of moods and the events associated. Our results on a dataset of more than 12 million mood-tagged blog posts over a 4-year period have shown that our sentiment-based bursty events are indeed meaningful, in several ways.

Through the looking glass : teaching and learning in blended immersive multiuser virtual and real world environments

This paper reports on the participation of higher education students and educators in blended immersive multi user virtual (MUVE) environments and real life teaching and learning experiences. Selected next generation technologies engage students and educators within the virtual socially networked elearning landscape of Deakin Arts Education Centre , and support the interaction of communities of learners in multiple modes, ranging from text and images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system to the "through the looking glass" virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side“ of their computer screens.

These constructed environments enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools, and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and participate in collaborative art learning.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in mixed reality virtual and real world environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

The best of all worlds : immersive interfaces for art education in virtual and real world teaching and learning environments

A collaborative constructivist model of e-learning enabled second year undergraduate students and art educators to establish a community of learners within an augmented immersive learning environment. Artistic practice and work based learning was enhanced through the creation of digital artifacts to support shared knowledge building using authentic learning tasks and social networking.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user's creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

The best of all worlds: Immersive interfaces for art education in virtual and real world teaching and learning environments

A narrative interpretative research methodology was used to investigate collaboration between higher education students and an art educator with the aim of establishing a community of learners. Located, Cloud based and graphically built 3D virtual, socially networked, e-learning environments were used to encourage synchronous and asynchronous student participation in authentic learning and collaborative art practice. Discussion focuses on art educator observations, student visual journal entries, their virtual exhibition of artworks on Deakin Art Education Island in Second Life and student evaluations of the unit Navigating the Visual World. It was concluded that immersion in an e-technology rich blended learning environment resulted in the establishment of an effective e-learning community of art.

Uni has a different language … to the real world: demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds

The Australian government has set ambitious targets for increased higher-education participation of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. There is, thus, a pressing need to explore how best to empower these students with what they require to progress and succeed at university. The paper draws on a literature review and qualitative data from a national study in which 89 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and 26 staff were interviewed. The paper argues that demystifying academic culture and discourses for these students is a key step institutions and staff can take in assisting students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to progress and succeed at university. A recurring theme to emerge from both the literature and interviews with students and staff was that teaching the discourse empowers and enables students to learn, has a positive impact on their sense of belonging and ultimately helps them succeed in higher education.

Hepatitis C virus treatment in the 'real-world': how well do 'real' patients respond?

Background: Published clinical trials of the treatment of HCV are largely multicentre prospective pharmaceutical trials. Patients in clinical trials tend to have more favorable outcomes than patients in the 'real-world', due to strict patient selection and differences in treatment conditions and available resources. Objectives: To assess the outcomes of Hepatitis C infected patients treated at the Barwon Health Liver Clinic with combination Pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and Ribavirin (RBV) therapy and to determine factors associated with a treatment response. Methods: Retrospective review of patients who received treatment for Hepatitis C at our institution's Liver Clinic from January 2001-September 2011. Patient demographics, comorbidities, treatment-related parameters and side effects were extracted from medical records and analyzed. Results: A total of 190 patients (120 male, 70 female) with a mean age of 42.8 years (range 20-68 years) commenced treatment. The most common genotype was genotype 3 (48.9%), followed by genotype 1 (42.6%). 150 of 190 patients (78.9%) completed treatment and had end of treatment data available. 107 of 182 patients, (58.8%) for whom sustained virologic response (SVR) rate data was available achieved an SVR. Overall response rates were; 46.9%, 68.8% and 62.4% in genotypes 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The response rate was significantly lower in 29 patients with documented cirrhosis (20.7%). Age, diabetes and alcohol abuse did not predict treatment response in our cohort. Side effects reported in 81.6% of patients included general malaise, hematological disturbance and psychiatric issues, and necessitated cessation of therapy in 16 patients (8.4%) and dose reduction in 26 patients (13.7%). Conclusions: Response rates to combination PEG-IFN and RBV therapy at our institution are comparable to other 'real-world' and pharmaceutical registration trials. Side effects of combination therapy were prominent but resulted in fewer discontinuations of therapy compared to pharmaceutical trials.

A novel Physarum-Based ant colony system for solving the real-world traveling salesman problem

The solutions to Traveling Salesman Problem can be widely applied in many real-world problems. Ant colony optimization algorithms can provide an approximate solution to a Traveling Salesman Problem. However, most ant colony optimization algorithms suffer premature convergence and low convergence rate. With these observations in mind, a novel ant colony system is proposed, which employs the unique feature of critical tubes reserved in the Physaurm-inspired mathematical model. A series of experiments are conducted, which are consolidated by two realworld Traveling Salesman Problems. The experimental results show that the proposed new ant colony system outperforms classical ant colony system, genetic algorithm, and particle swarm optimization algorithm in efficiency and robustness.