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Source: American Roentgen Ray Society Date: May 6, 2007 Voice Recognition Systems Seem To Make More Errors WIth Women's Dictation Science Daily — There is a significantly higher rate of transcription error in women compared to men when using commercial voice recognition applications, according to a recent study. "Our residency program and department recently made the transition to speech recognition from a digital dictation system," said Syed Ali, MD, lead author of the study. "This prompted us to ask research questions about how to increase our accuracy rates and what factors adversely impacted speech recognition," said Dr. Ali. Ten radiology...

he Texas state auditor has concluded that transportation officials used inflated numbers when they reported an $86 billion funding gap for highways and transportation projects. The audit released April 30 has a familiar ring to it because it is the second scathing review of transportation funding estimates this year in the state. State Auditor John Keel said the $86 billion estimate by Texas Department of Transportation officials should be more like $77.4 billion, but that’s not all. Nearly $38 billion of that estimate took into account undocumented cost estimates from city officials competing for shared transportation dollars. Keel’s team of...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The state auditor's office on Monday challenged the validity of more than half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation and cautioned that the estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion, based on 2004 figures, has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The State Auditor's Office this morning released a report challenging the validity of almost half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation, and cautioning that the gap estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion figure has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

LOS ANGELES -- The state Mental Health Department agreed to pay a Los Angeles hotel $877 million in 2005 to hold a two-day training conference, according to state records. $877 million? For a two-day conference? It's wrong -- not even close. The actual contract was $36,200 and the agency spent only about $21,000, invoices show. Inclusion of the dramatically higher amount in a vast computerized index of state contracts was an honest mistake, the result of a worker typing a billing code where the contract's value should have been listed, officials say. An attempted fix created a duplicate listing, leading...

Uncovered: Many Errors by Election Clerks Protect Marriage Illinois and the Illinois Family Institute recently filed a complaint in Federal Court to protect the rights of Illinois citizens who have, in good faith, petitioned their government for a Marriage Protection Referendum to be placed on the Illinois General Election ballot on November 7, 2006. Background For the past three weeks PMI, IFI and dozens of good hearted volunteers have been analyzing thousands of signatures -- signatures that were "invalidated" by various Illinois Election Authorities (Boards of Election in Chicago, Cook, DuPage, Stark and others) in a random sample of PMI's...

When figuring out what to do about the overall energy situation, or predicting the future, I confess to having some degree of modesty. Looking at all the bad predictions from smart people in the past, it's easy to be less than confident when it comes to forecasting what's going to happen 10 and 50 years from now with oil, solar batteries, wave power, ethanol, Chinese motoring, hybrid cars, nuclear power, energy wars, windmills, bicycle sales, wood chips, melting glaciers or switch grass. Here, for example, are some of the more notable predictions from experts on things a lot less complicated...

WASHINGTON - The House ethics committee's top Democrat, under fire from Republicans, said Friday he's unaware of any errors in his financial disclosures the past nine years. Rep. Alan Mollohan (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., provided a detailed explanation of his investments a week after a conservative group questioned the accuracy of his annual financial reporting. Republican campaign officials called for his resignation from the ethics panel, but Mollohan refused to step down. The allegations could have an impact on the ethics committee's ability to investigate wrongdoing and could be a factor in this year's congressional elections. The committee has...

Private auditors have found that San Diego overstated its net assets by more than $640 million in fiscal 2002 – a problem that portends greater difficulty for the city's restoration to sound fiscal health. The city's net assets will be lowered almost 10 percent from their reported total of $6.8 billion, a miscalculation used in three bond offerings, which opens the city to possible lawsuits and new federal sanctions and fines. The errors include the double counting of roads and bridges, delays in depreciating the value of water and sewer plants, and the inclusion of abandoned capital projects as well...

So the LORD gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass (Joshua 21:43-45). The return of the Jews to the land of Israel is a major...

I love a Washington feeding frenzy don't you? I mean, aren't we all glued to our seats to watch the next roasting (I mean press briefing) starring Scott McClellan? Months and years of a tightly wound and controlled Bush White House has forced the MSM (mainstream media) to lose their collective minds over the prospect of delivering Karl Rove's head on a silver platter to their friends on the Left side of the aisle in the Beltway. And just as the Left continues to embarrass themselves with righteous indignation over President Bush's refusal to allow them to name the next...

* There are a couple of issues which attend to this Newsweek thing. First, there is the First Amendment to the Constitution. For those of us who haven't actually read the First Amendment since 8th Grade Social Studies, here it is: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. * This is a pretty big bag of freedoms in one Amendment. Religion, speech,...

Sometimes I get the idea that my daily newspaper, the L.A. Times, is cutting a few too many corners. I’m getting the feeling that in a desperate attempt to save a few bucks, they’ve slashed not only editors, copyreaders and fact checkers, but even reporters with junior high diplomas. I mean, it’s one thing to put out a newspaper while keeping an eye on the bottom line and quite another to hire a bunch of people who can’t spell bottom line. Having studied the paper closely for the past several months, I’d say that the mistakes fall mainly into three...

"Congress shall create a Tax Code weighing more than the combined poundage of the largest member of the House and the largest member of the Senate, plus a standard musk ox." Article I, Section VI of the Constitution of the United States (according to "Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway") It's that time of year again. Dig out the receipts showing every possible legal deduction. Find all those canceled checks proving that you paid all those doctor bills last year. Add up the mileage for all those business-related trips you took. Put it all into a shoebox, take it down...

As a rule, when I write a piece about all the mistakes my newspaper, the L.A. Times, makes, I have to wait a week or even two to compile a selection large enough to make it worth our while. It’s not that they don’t come up with a ready supply on a daily basis. Heck, UPS doesn’t deliver the goods with such regularity. But some of the goofs are simply too boring to mention, as when they get the days and times of certain events wrong or when they simply misspell someone’s name. Sometimes, too, the corrections run even longer...

NEW YORK (AP) - City officials recalled preparation material for math tests that had been sent to teachers after discovering they were filled with math and spelling mistakes. The materials were designed for math students in grades 3 through 7, and had been sent to math coaches and local instructional superintendents. The errors were found late Wednesday before the guide reached classrooms. Several answers in the guide were wrong. There were also sloppy diagrams and improper notation of exponents. There were at least 18 errors in the guide, and grammar and spelling issues proved just as problematic as the math....

Beware not the ides but the start of March – and April and May and every month. In the first few days of each month, fatalities due to medication errors rise by as much as 25 percent above normal, according to new research by University of California, San Diego sociologist David Phillips. Published in the January issue of Pharmacotherapy, the journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the study is the first to document a beginning-of-the-month spike in deaths attributed to mistakes in prescription drugs. The primary suspect, Phillips says, is a beginning-of-the-month increase in pharmacy workloads and a...

In the first public disclosure of its kind, Minnesota hospitals acknowledged medical errors that caused 20 deaths and four serious disabilities over a 15-month period, according to a report released Wednesday. Thirty hospitals across the state reported preventable errors such as bedsores, fatal falls or surgery on the wrong body part or patient. In all, there were 99 cases of preventable errors during the study period from July 1, 2003, to October 6, 2004. The report, which was required by a new state law, provides a baseline in measuring a problem that so far has lacked reliable comparisons nationally. There...

Regret The Error reports on corrections, retractions, clarifications, and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in North American media.

Report: Computers Can Add to Errors Computer systems designed to prevent medication errors in hospitals can actually contribute to mistakes, according to a new report. As more hospitals have implemented automated systems for administering drugs, the number of errors associated with them has risen, according to an annual report on medication errors released yesterday by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), a nonprofit group that sets standards for the drug industry. "It would seem logical that applying computer technology to the medication use process would have a significant positive impact in preventing medication errors," said Diane Cousins, vice president of USP's Center...