Here’s the abstract (from Pubmed):

Compliance with patient-reported outcomes in multicenter clinical trials: methodologic and practical approaches.

Land SR, Ritter MW, Costantino JP, Julian TB, Cronin WM, Haile SR, Wolmark N, Ganz PA.

National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project Operations and Biostatistical Centers, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. land@pitt.edu

PURPOSE: This report describes interventions undertaken by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) to improve compliance with patient-reported outcome (PRO) assessments in the setting of multicenter cancer clinical trials. We describe the effectiveness of several interventions and of observational factors. METHODS: PRO submission rates were analyzed for the following three NSABP protocols: the Study of Raloxifene and Tamoxifen (STAR), B-32, and B-35. Institutions participating in protocol B-35 were randomly assigned to receive automated reminders of upcoming assessments or not. Compliance was analyzed with a logistic repeated measures mixed modeling. RESULTS: Compliance was high in the three protocols, with rates greater than 80% for nearly all time points. Institutions were a significant source of variability (P < .01). The largest institutions had the highest compliance in STAR (odds ratio [OR] = 0.68 for < 50 participants enrolled and OR = 0.82 for 50 to 99 participants enrolled v larger institutions; P < .001). Midsized institutions had highest compliance in B-32 (OR = 4.63 for 31 to 50 patients enrolled and OR = 3.12 for > 50 patients enrolled v small institutions; P = .007). Compliance increased with participant age in STAR (OR = 0.57, 0.89, and 1.01 for ages < 50, 50 to 60, and 60 to 70 years, respectively, v > 70 years; P < .001). Race was significant in B-32 (OR = 2.63 for white v nonwhite; P < .001) and in STAR (OR = 1.41 for white v nonwhite; P < .001). Treatment group was significant in B-32 (OR = 0.74; P = .006). The B-35 prospective reminder did not improve compliance significantly (P = .30), but in B-32, delinquency sanctions were significant (OR = 1.56; P = .007). CONCLUSION: Compliance in NSABP PRO studies is higher now than a decade ago. Results for compliance initiatives were mixed. Age and race are important factors, but institutional variation remains significant and largely unexplained.

PMID: 17991930 [PubMed - in process]

So let’s see. Martin and I got engaged while in France! We now have a date (August 31st). My mom came down for the weekend a few weeks ago, and we found a dress, and got a lot of the “big picture” parts of the wedding planned. :)  I thought the people in David’s Bridal were a bit strange, but I’m very happy with the dress, and it only took an hour to find. That’s all about the dress for now, I’d like to surprise Martin with it, since not much else is a surprise these days. At least, that’s the plan. I finally have a working wedding website, and am getting the save the dates together.  And, my engagement ring came last week!

Martin and I went to visit Adam and Katy this past weekend in the Carolinas. So, in case you didn’t know, my little brother got engaged a few weeks ago! Anyways, I hadn’t actually met Katy yet, so we thought it was time for a visit. It was great to meet her and hang out with both of them. And, it was Adam’s birthday! We all went to the Carolinas Renaissance Festival (with Katy’s mom) on Saturday, had dinner at “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” (aka, Buca di Beppo), followed by buttermilk cake and presents. Thanks to Adam and Katy for a great weekend!

Martin’s parents are coming in a couple of weeks. We’re all going to see my parents, and then Martin and I will go home for Thanksgiving. I finally (!) have a date for my proposal, at the end of November.

Ok, time to get back to work.

Martin and I got engaged, in France!

(You can see pictures from our trip to France at webpic.stolle.name, looking at calendar dates 8/17 - 9/1. )

This set of pictures that Martin took on Sunday were taken in Lincoln Park. I particularly like: this curvy tree on the path, this one of the Golden Gate Bridge, the labyrinth towards the end of the path, and this one we took of ourselves.

On Monday, while Martin was interviewing, I went up to Fisherman’s Wharf, the Marina, and over as far as Pier 39 (that’s not the path I took, but you get the idea). That area’s pretty touristy, and was quite busy that day (including a lot of Europeans, I think this is their peak vacation time), but also very pretty, and I took a lot of pictures. This shot shows one of the piers, a bunch of small boats, Alcatraz, and mountains. This one is a better shot of downtown, including the Transamerica Pyramid. I have no idea what kind of tree this was, but it’s funny looking. One of the piers was a kind of boat museum, with quite a few “vintage” ships: this schooner, this tugboat and this old steamboat. Pier 39 was by far the most touristy place! At some point (1978?) somebody took over a pier full of junk and developed it into a series of shops and restaurants. There was even a Bubba Gump shrimp place! Pier 39 also has a resident group of Sea Lions, and company that does boat tours around the bay. I took one of the tours, around the bay, getting a better view of SF (including Coit Tower), by Alcatraz, and under the Golden Gate Bridge, but you couldn’t see the top, since it was too foggy, but only right there.

After his interviews were over, Martin came to pick me up and have some dinner before we took off. He took over the camera, and got this one of me with a bit of sun. Also, another one of the sea lions, and some others from around the port there, including a few of the only floating restaurant in the world (or something like that). This shot is a good one of Coit Tower, and this one is just a cool shot.

All in all, a good weekend. We’ll see, maybe I’ll end up back there eventually.

Anyways, it’s been a busy semester, but it’s finally over. I took my last class this semester, numerical methods. I’ve finally, after 4 years in grad school, finished 72 credits and all the course requirements for the biostats program. I was also doing research this semester (every semester until I graduate at this point), which seems to be going well, as my advisor wants me to propose in the fall. But I still have some more things to work out before then, like getting my regression code to work properly.

Martin’s been in Germany since the end of February, so it’s been a strange semester that way, without him around. He’ll be back the beginning of June, it’s about time I was taking German again this semester, so hopefully I’ll have some idea what’s going one when I go with Martin to Europe this summer.

In general, I’ve just been keeping busy. My mom was down this weekend and we redecorated my apartment, new curtains, and a new red couch, plus a bunch of other changes. It’s good to have the place looking good again. (There are pictures here…)
Hope to write more soon…

Now is the time to know
That all you do is sacred.

Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
With veracity
And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
that every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time
For you to deeply compute the impossibility

That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is Sacred.

“When my oldest child, an A-plus stellar student, was in sixth grade, I realized he had no idea, no idea at all, how to do long division,” Ms. Backman said, “so I went to school and talked to the teacher, who said, ‘We don’t teach long division; it stifles their creativity.’ ”

Across the nation, the reconsideration of what should be taught and how has been accelerated by a report in September by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the nation’s leading group of math teachers.

It was a report from this same group in 1989 that influenced a generation of teachers to let children explore their own solutions to problems, write and draw pictures about math, and use tools like the calculator at the same time they learn algorithms.

But this fall, the group changed course, recommending a tighter focus on basic math skills and an end to “mile wide, inch deep” state standards that force schools to teach dozens of math topics in each grade. In fourth grade, for example, the report recommends that the curriculum should center on the “quick recall” of multiplication and division, the area of two-dimensional shapes and an understanding of decimals.

New Zealand’s Qualifications Authority said Friday that it still strongly discourages students from using anything other than full English, but that credit will be given if the answer “clearly shows the required understanding,” even if it contains text-speak.

Hobbes: … No life.

Calvin: Life is too inconvenient.