Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, Technology / 03.02.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_58711" align="alignleft" width="150"]Michael J. Mahan Ph.D Professor Dept of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9625 Dr. Mahan[/caption] Michael J. Mahan Ph.D Professor Dept of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9625 MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?  Response: A critical need exists in resource-poor settings for low-cost, low-tech, yet highly reliable and scalable testing for SARS-CoV-2 virus that is robust against circulating variants. 
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Melanoma, Technology / 19.09.2019

SkinVision   MedicalResearch.com Interview with:  Andreea Udrea, PhD Associate Professor University Politehnica of Bucharest   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? The skin cancer incidence rate is increasing worldwide. Early diagnosis and prevention can reduce morbidity and are also linked to decreased healthcare costs. During the last years, efforts have been made in developing smartphone applications for skin lesion risk assessment to be used by laypersons. In parallel, as machine learning (ML) is on the rise, and medical image databases are increasing in size, a series of algorithms have been developed and compared in clinical studies to dermatologists for skin cancer diagnosis. The accuracy of the algorithms and experts were comparable. One drawback of these clinical studies is that they use images acquired by professionals in standardized conditions. So, there is little knowledge of what the accuracy will be when including an ML algorithm in an app and testing it in a non-clinical setup where the image quality may be lower, and the variability in image taking scenarios is higher as images are acquired by non-professionals using the smartphone camera. This study is one of the first that evaluates the accuracy of an app (SkinVision) when being used for risk assessment of skin lesions in the general population.
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, Technology / 18.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_48552" align="alignleft" width="150"]Associate Professor Josip CarMD, PhD, DIC, MSc, FFPH, FRCP (Edin)​Associate Professor of Health Services Outcomes Research,​Director, Health Services Outcomes Research Programme and DirectorCentre for Population Health SciencesPrincipal Investigator, Population Health & Living Laboratory Prof. Car[/caption] Associate Professor Josip Car MD, PhD, DIC, MSc, FFPH, FRCP (Edin)​ Associate Professor of Health Services Outcomes Research,​ Director, Health Services Outcomes Research Programme and Director Centre for Population Health Sciences Principal Investigator, Population Health & Living Laboratory  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In 2018, almost 8% of people with diabetes who owned a smartphone used a diabetes app to support self-management. Currently, most apps are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We downloaded and assessed 371 diabetes self-management apps, to see if they provided evidence-based decision support and patient education. 
Author Interviews, Social Issues / 21.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Droid Apps Cell Phone” by Carissa Rogers is licensed under CC BY 2.0Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair  PhD Professor, Department of Psychology Norwegian University of Science and Technology  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: The background is all earlier research on sexual behavior, showing both robust individual differences predictors as well as sex differences. We wished to investigate to what degree picture (PBMDA) based mobile dating apps differ from other arenas of sexual behavior.
  • How many have used or are current users:
  • Nearly half of the participants reported former or current Picture-Based Mobile Dating Apps (PBMDA) use. One in five was a current user.”
Our main prediction was confirmed:
  • We found that PBMDA-users tend to report being less restricted in their sociosexuality (as measured with the SOI-R) than participants who have never used PBMDAs
Including  specifation:
  • This effect was equally strong for men and women. Sociosexuality essentially accounted for the effects of other variables such as seeking a casual sex partner, being comfortable picking up strangers, and self-reported short-term mate value.
Sex differences were also found:
  • As predicted, women and men's reasons for using PBMDAs differed. Relative to women, men emphasized desire for sex as a reason for using PBMDAs.
The most surprising finding was as often due to a discussion with reviewer who was worried whether unrestricted sociosexuality was not more likely a result of use rather than a predictor of use. This improved the detail of our analysis and the conclusion that “When controlling for sex, age and SOI Desire there was no evidence that length of use increased lifetime casual sex partners.”