In the United States, prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) or prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are state-run programs which collect and distribute data about the prescription and dispensation of federally controlled substances and, depending on state requirements, other potentially abusable prescription drugs. PMPs are meant to help prevent adverse drug-related events such as opioid overdoses, drug diversion, and substance abuse by decreasing the amount and/or frequency of opioid prescribing, and by identifying those patients who are obtaining prescriptions from multiple providers (i.e., "doctor shopping") or those physicians overprescribing opioids. Most US health care workers support the idea of PMPs, which intend to assist physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, dentists and other prescribers, the pharmacists, chemists and support staff of dispensing establishments. The database, whose use is required by State law, typically requires prescribers and pharmacies dispensing controlled substances to register with their respective state PMPs and (for pharmacies and providers who dispense from their offices) to report the dispensation of such prescriptions to an electronic online database. The majority of PMPs are authorized to notify law enforcement agencies or licensing boards or physicians when a prescriber, or patients receiving prescriptions, exceed thresholds established by the state or prescription recipient exceeds thresholds established by the State. All states have implemented PDMPs, although evidence for the effectiveness of these programs is mixed. While prescription of opioids has decreased with PMP use, overdose deaths in many states have actually increased, with those states sharing data with neighboring jurisdictions or requiring reporting of more drugs experiencing highest increases in deaths. This may be because those declined opioid prescriptions turn to street drugs, whose potency and contaminants carry greater overdose risk. == History == Prescription drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs, are an example of one initiative proposed to alleviate effects of the opioid crisis. The programs are designed to restrict prescription drug abuse by limiting a patient's ability to obtain similar prescriptions from multiple providers (i.e. “doctor shopping”) and reducing diversion of controlled substances. This is meant to reduce risk of fatal overdose caused by high doses of opioids or interactions between opioids and benzodiazepenes, and to enable better decision making on the part of healthcare providers who may be unaware of a patient's prescription drug use, history or other prescriptions. PDMPs have been implemented in state legislations since 1939 in California, a time before electronic medical records, though implementation rose alongside increased awareness of overprescribing of opioids and overdose. A later New York state program was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Whalen v. Roe. But, by 2019, 49 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam had enacted PDMP legislation. In 2021 Missouri, the last State to not use a PMP, adopted legislation to create one. PMPs are constantly being updated to increase speed of data collection, sharing of data across States, and ease of interpretation. This is being done by integrating PDMP reports with other health information technologies such as health information exchanges (HIE), electronic health record (EHR) systems, and/ or pharmacy dispensing software systems. One program that has been implemented in nine states is called the PDMP Electronic Health Records Integration and Interoperability Expansion, also known as PEHRIIE. Another software, marketed by Bamboo Health and integrated with PMPs in 43 states, uses an algorithm to track factors thought to increase risk of diversion, abuse or overdose, and assigns patients a three digit score based on presumed indicators of risk. While some studies have suggested that PDMP-HIT integration and sharing of interstate data brings benefits such as reduced opioid-related inpatient morbidity, others have found no or negative impact on mortality compared to states without PMP data sharing. Patient and media reports suggest need for testing and evaluation of algorithmic software used to score risk, with some patients reporting denial of prescriptions without c explanation or clarity of data. == Goals == Most health care workers support PMPs which intend to assist physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, dentists and other prescribers, the pharmacists, chemists and support staff of dispensing establishments, as well as law-enforcement agencies. The collaboration supports the legitimate medical use of controlled substances while limiting their abuse and diversion. Pharmacies dispensing controlled substances and prescribers typically must register with their respective state PMPs and (for pharmacies and providers who dispense controlled substances from their offices) report the dispensation to an electronic online database. Some pharmacy software can submit these reports automatically to multiple states. == Usage == === List of programs by state === === Software systems === NarxCare is a prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) run by Bamboo Health. Bamboo Health was formerly known as Appriss. It is widely used across the United States by pharmacies including Rite Aid as well as those at Walmart and Sam’s Club. The NarxCare software allows doctors to view data about a patient, combining data from the prescription registries of various U.S. states to make the registries interoperable nationally. It also uses machine learning to generate an "Overdose Risk Score" that potentially includes EMS and criminal justice data; these scores have been criticized by researchers and patient advocates for the lack of transparency in the process as well as the potential for disparate treatment of women and minority groups. Advertised as an "analytics tool and care management platform", the NarxCare software allows doctors to view data about a patient including how many pharmacies they have visited and the combinations of medication they are prescribed. It combines data from the prescription registries of various U.S. states, making the registries interoperable nationally. It additionally uses machine learning to generate various three-digit "risk scores" and an overall "Overdose Risk Score", collectively referred to as Narx Scores, in a process that potentially includes EMS and criminal justice data as well as court records. == Controversy == Many doctors and researchers support the idea of PDMPs as a tool in combatting the opioid epidemic. Opioid prescribing, opioid diversion and supply, opioid misuse, and opioid-related morbidity and mortality are common elements in data entered into PDMPs. Prescription Monitoring Programs are purported to offer economic benefits for the states who implement them by decreasing overall health care costs, lost productivity, and investigation times. However, there are many studies that conclude the impact of PDMPs is unclear. While use of PMPs has been accompanied by decrease in opioid prescribing, few analyses consider corresponding use of street opioids, extramedical use, or diversion, which might provide a more holistic method for evaluation of PMP intent and efficacy. Evidence for PDMP impact on fatal overdoses is decidedly mixed, with multiple studies finding increased overdose rates in some states, decreases in others, or no clear impact. Interestingly, an increase in heroin overdoses after PDMP implementation has been commonly reported, presumably as denial of prescription opioids sends patients in search of street drugs. Narx Scores have been criticized by researchers and patient advocates for the lack of transparency in the generation process as well as the potential for disparate treatment of women and minority groups. Writing in Duke Law Journal, Jennifer Oliva stated that "black-box algorithms" are used to generate the scores.
GasBuddy
GasBuddy is a technology company headquartered in Dallas, United States, that offers mobile applications and websites for tracking crowd-sourced locations and prices of gas stations and convenience stores in the United States and Canada. Their platforms offer information sourced from users, gas station operators, and partner companies. They also provide business-to-business services to gas stations and convenience store owners. == History == GasBuddy was founded in Minneapolis in 2000 by Dustin Coupal, Jason Toews as a community website for sharing gas prices. In 2004, they filed as a for-profit corporation in Minnesota under the name GasBuddy Organization Inc. In 2009, GasBuddy launched OpenStore, a platform that allows convenience stores to build and manage their own mobile apps. In 2010, the company launched its own mobile apps that allowed users to input gas prices from their smartphones. In 2013, Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), a subsidiary of UCG, acquired GasBuddy. OPIS is a provider of petroleum pricing and news for businesses. In 2016, IHS acquired OPIS, separating from GasBuddy, which remained with UCG as a subsidiary company. Initially only available in the United States and Canada, GasBuddy launched in Australia in March 2016. Also in that year, GasBuddy released a completely redesigned app, its first major redesign since its release in 2010. GasBuddy also unveiled a new logo and launched GasBuddy Business Pages. GasBuddy shut down the Australian version of their app in 2022. In 2017, GasBuddy launched a gas savings program titled "Pay with GasBuddy" intended to let consumers save at gas stations in the United States. In the same year, GasBuddy was involved in a lawsuit with Reveal Mobile, a location-based marketing company, over the sale of user location data. It was revealed that GasBuddy sold information on more than 4.5 million users to Reveal each month for $9.50 per 1000 users. According to CNET, that information included "users' latitude, longitude, IP address, and time stamps on the data collected," which sparked concern in the media and between its users. In 2021, the GasBuddy app rose to the most popular app on both Android and iPhone platforms in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack PDI acquired GasBuddy in 2021.
Linguistic value
In artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic operations research, and related fields, a linguistic value is a natural language term which is derived using quantitative or qualitative reasoning such as with probability and statistics or fuzzy sets and systems. Variables that take linguistic values are called linguistic variables. == Examples of linguistic variables and values == For example, "age" may be a linguistic variable if its values are not numerical, e.g. very young, quite young, not young, old, not very old etc. These values could be derived from the numeric values for age. As another example, if a shuttle heat shield is deemed of having a linguistic value of a "very low" percentage of damage in re-entry, based upon knowledge from experts in the field, that probability would be given a value of say, 5%. From there on out, if it were to be used in an equation, the variable of percentage of damage will be at 5% if it deemed very low percentage.
Meta Content Framework
Meta Content Framework (MCF) is a specification of a content format for structuring metadata about web sites and other data. == History == MCF was developed by Ramanathan V. Guha at Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group between 1995 and 1997. Rooted in knowledge-representation systems such as CycL, KRL, and KIF, it sought to describe objects, their attributes, and the relationships between them. One application of MCF was HotSauce, also developed by Guha while at Apple. It generated a 3D visualization of a web site's table of contents, based on MCF descriptions. By late 1996, a few hundred sites were creating MCF files and Apple HotSauce allowed users to browse these MCF representations in 3D. When the research project was discontinued, Guha left Apple for Netscape, where, in collaboration with Tim Bray, he adapted MCF to use XML and created the first version of the Resource Description Framework (RDF). == MCF format == An MCF file consists of one or more blocks, each corresponding to an entity. A block looks like this:The identifier is a unique identifier for that entity (more on the scope of the identifier below) and is used to refer to that entity. The following lines each specify a property and one or more values, separated by commas. Each value can be a reference to another entity (via its identifier), a string (enclosed by double quotes) or a number. For example:NOTE: The identifier must not include a comma (,) and must not be enclosed within double quotes. A common parsing failure is due to odd number of unescaped double quotes in text. For instance, "foo bar" baz" needs to be "foo bar\" baz". Commas within double quotes are not considered as value separators. Every entity has at least one property: typeOf.
Portable Format for Analytics
The Portable Format for Analytics (PFA) is a JSON-based predictive model interchange format conceived and developed by Jim Pivarski. PFA provides a way for analytic applications to describe and exchange predictive models produced by analytics and machine learning algorithms. It supports common models such as logistic regression and decision trees. Version 0.8 was published in 2015. Subsequent versions have been developed by the Data Mining Group. As a predictive model interchange format developed by the Data Mining Group, PFA is complementary to the DMG's XML-based standard called the Predictive Model Markup Language or PMML. == Release history == == Data Mining Group == The Data Mining Group is a consortium managed by the Center for Computational Science Research, Inc., a nonprofit founded in 2008. == Examples == reverse array: # reverse input array of doubles input: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} output: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} action: - let: { x : input} - let: { z : input} - let: { l : {a.len: [x]}} - let: { i : l} - while : { ">=" : [i,0]} do: - set : {z : {attr: z, path : [i] , to: {attr : x ,path : [ {"-":[{"-" : [l ,i]},1]}] } } } - set : {i : {-:[i,1]}} - z Bubblesort input: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} output: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} action: - let: { A : input} - let: { N : {a.len: [A]}} - let: { n : {-:[N,1]}} - let: { i : 0} - let: { s : 0.0} - while : { ">=" : [n,0]} do : - set : { i : 0 } - while : { "<=" : [i,{-:[n,1]}]} do : - if: {">": [ {attr: A, path : [i]} , {attr: A, path:[{+:[i,1]}]} ]} then : - set : {s : {attr: A, path: [i]}} - set : {A : {attr: A, path: [i], to: {attr: A, path:[{+:[i,1]}]} } } - set : {A : {attr: A, path: [{+:[i,1]}], to: s }} - set : {i : {+:[i,1]}} - set : {n : {-:[n,1]}} - A == Implementations == Hadrian (Java/Scala/JVM) - Hadrian is a complete implementation of PFA in Scala, which can be accessed through any JVM language, principally Java. It focuses on model deployment, so it is flexible (can run in restricted environments) and fast. Titus (Python 2.x) - Titus is a complete, independent implementation of PFA in pure Python. It focuses on model development, so it includes model producers and PFA manipulation tools in addition to runtime execution. Currently, it works for Python 2. Titus 2 (Python 3.x) - Titus 2 is a fork of Titus which supports PFA implementation for Python 3. Aurelius (R) - Aurelius is a toolkit for generating PFA in the R programming language. It focuses on porting models to PFA from their R equivalents. To validate or execute scoring engines, Aurelius sends them to Titus through rPython (so both must be installed). Antinous (Model development in Jython) - Antinous is a model-producer plugin for Hadrian that allows Jython code to be executed anywhere a PFA scoring engine would go. It also has a library of model producing algorithms.
Rapid application development
Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to software development put less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on an adaptive process. Prototypes are often used in addition to or sometimes even instead of design specifications. RAD is especially well suited for (although not limited to) developing software that is driven by user interface requirements. Graphical user interface builders are often called rapid application development tools. Other approaches to rapid development include the adaptive, agile, spiral, and unified models. == History == Rapid application development was a response to plan-driven waterfall processes, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM). One of the problems with these methods is that they were based on a traditional engineering model used to design and build things like bridges and buildings. Software is an inherently different kind of artifact. Software can change the process used to solve a problem. As a result, knowledge gained from the development process itself can feed back to the requirements and design of the solution. Plan-driven approaches attempt to define requirements, the solution, and the implementation plan, and have a process that discourages changes. RAD approaches, on the other hand, recognize that software development is a knowledge intensive process and provide flexible processes that help take advantage of knowledge gained during the project to improve or adapt the solution. The first such RAD alternative was developed by Barry Boehm and was known as the spiral model. Boehm and other subsequent RAD approaches emphasized developing prototypes as well as or instead of rigorous design specifications. Prototypes had several advantages over traditional specifications: Risk reduction. A prototype could test some of the most difficult potential parts of the system early on in the life-cycle. This can provide valuable information as to the feasibility of a design and can prevent the team from pursuing solutions that turn out to be too complex or time-consuming to implement. This benefit of finding problems earlier in the life-cycle rather than later was a key benefit of the RAD approach. The earlier a problem can be found the cheaper it is to address. Users are better at using and reacting than at creating specifications. In the waterfall model it was common for a user to sign off on a set of requirements but then when presented with an implemented system to suddenly realize that a given design lacked some critical features or was too complex. In general most users give much more useful feedback when they can experience a prototype of the running system rather than abstractly define what that system should be. Prototypes can be usable and can evolve into the completed product. One approach used in some RAD methods was to build the system as a series of prototypes that evolve from minimal functionality to moderately useful to the final completed system. The advantage of this besides the two advantages above was that the users could get useful business functionality much earlier in the process. Starting with the ideas of Barry Boehm and others, James Martin developed the rapid application development approach during the 1980s at IBM and finally formalized it by publishing a book in 1991, Rapid Application Development. This has resulted in some confusion over the term RAD even among IT professionals. It is important to distinguish between RAD as a general alternative to the waterfall model and RAD as the specific method created by Martin. The Martin method was tailored toward knowledge intensive and UI intensive business systems. These ideas were further developed and improved upon by RAD pioneers like James Kerr and Richard Hunter, who together wrote the seminal book on the subject, Inside RAD, which followed the journey of a RAD project manager as he drove and refined the RAD Methodology in real-time on an actual RAD project. These practitioners, and those like them, helped RAD gain popularity as an alternative to traditional systems project life cycle approaches. The RAD approach also matured during the period of peak interest in business re-engineering. The idea of business process re-engineering was to radically rethink core business processes such as sales and customer support with the new capabilities of Information Technology in mind. RAD was often an essential part of larger business re engineering programs. The rapid prototyping approach of RAD was a key tool to help users and analysts "think out of the box" about innovative ways that technology might radically reinvent a core business process. Much of James Martin's comfort with RAD stemmed from Dupont's Information Engineering division and its leader Scott Schultz and their respective relationships with John Underwood who headed up a bespoke RAD development company that pioneered many successful RAD projects in Australia and Hong Kong. Successful projects that included ANZ Bank, Lendlease, BHP, Coca-Cola Amatil, Alcan, Hong Kong Jockey Club and numerous others. Success that led to both Scott Shultz and James Martin both spending time in Australia with John Underwood to understand the methods and details of why Australia was disproportionately successful in implementing significant mission critical RAD projects. == James Martin approach == The James Martin approach to RAD divides the process into four distinct phases: Requirements planning phase – combines elements of the system planning and systems analysis phases of the systems development life cycle (SDLC). Users, managers, and IT staff members discuss and agree on business needs, project scope, constraints, and system requirements. It ends when the team agrees on the key issues and obtains management authorization to continue. User design phase – during this phase, users interact with systems analysts and develop models and prototypes that represent all system processes, inputs, and outputs. The RAD groups or subgroups typically use a combination of joint application design (JAD) techniques and CASE tools to translate user needs into working models. User design is a continuous interactive process that allows users to understand, modify, and eventually approve a working model of the system that meets their needs. Construction phase – focuses on program and application development task similar to the SDLC. In RAD, however, users continue to participate and can still suggest changes or improvements as actual screens or reports are developed. Its tasks are programming and application development, coding, unit-integration and system testing. Cutover phase – resembles the final tasks in the SDLC implementation phase, including data conversion, testing, changeover to the new system, and user training. Compared with traditional methods, the entire process is compressed. As a result, the new system is built, delivered, and placed in operation much sooner. == Advantages == In modern Information Technology environments, many systems are now built using some degree of Rapid Application Development (not necessarily the James Martin approach). In addition to Martin's method, agile methods and the Rational Unified Process are often used for RAD development. The purported advantages of RAD include: Better quality. By having users interact with evolving prototypes the business functionality from a RAD project can often be much higher than that achieved via a waterfall model. The software can be more usable and has a better chance to focus on business problems that are critical to end users rather than technical problems of interest to developers. However, this excludes other categories of what are usually known as Non-functional requirements (AKA constraints or quality attributes) including security and portability. Risk control. Although much of the literature on RAD focuses on speed and user involvement a critical feature of RAD done correctly is risk mitigation. It's worth remembering that Boehm initially characterized the spiral model as a risk based approach. A RAD approach can focus in early on the key risk factors and adjust to them based on empirical evidence collected in the early part of the process. E.g., the complexity of prototyping some of the most complex parts of the system. More projects completed on time and within budget. By focusing on the development of incremental units the chances for catastrophic failures that have dogged large waterfall projects is reduced. In the Waterfall model it was common to come to a realization after six months or more of analysis and development that required a radical rethinking of the entire system. With RAD this kind of information can be discovered and acted upon earlier in the proces
Alec Radford
Alec Radford is an American artificial intelligence researcher. == Biography == Radford grew up in Texas. He graduated from Cistercian Preparatory School in 2011, where he became an Eagle Scout, and dropped out of Olin College in August 2014, where he and fellow students Slater Victoroff, Diana Yuan, and Madison May had formed the startup Indico in their dorm room. In 2015, the quartet were joined by Luke Metz and the firm and the Facebook AI research lab in New York used generative adversarial networks to create realistic low pixel images. A demonstration of Indico's technology was used without proper attribution in an April 2016 demonstration by Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. Radford joined OpenAI around 2016, where he worked on natural-language processing. The following year, Radford trained a neural network on Amazon reviews. The model was fairly basic, with layers which allowed for human understanding. Upon exploring it, he saw that it had a special neuron linked to the sentiment of the reviews, which it had created on its own. This was a drastic improvement from previous neural networks that had analysed sentiment, because they had to be told to do so and specially trained on data that was explicitly labeled according to sentiment. This development made OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever consider that a future model, using more diverse language data, could map far more structures of meaning, eventually becoming a "learned core module" for superintelligence. In 2018, Radford was the lead author on OpenAI's seminal research paper on generative pre-trained transformers, which form the foundation of ChatGPT. At OpenAI, he worked on early GPT models, Whisper, a speech recognition model, and the image generator DALL-E. He left OpenAI in December 2024 to pursue independent research. Around March 2025, Radford joined Thinking Machines Lab as an advisor. He joined along with Bob McGrew who was previously the chief research officer of OpenAI. In April 2026, Radford, Nick Levine, and David Duvenaud released Talkie, an AI model trained on books, newspapers, scientific journals, patents, and case law published before December 31, 1930. When asked about the state of the world in 2026, it stated that one billion people would live in Europe, that London and New York would be connected by steamships that transit between the two in ten days, and "winter will be passed in Paris, and the summer in London."