Subject: CryoNet #29390 - #29391

From: CryoNet <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Apr 2007 09:00:03 -0000

CryoNet - Fri 6 Apr 2007

    #29390: Lessons on Internet Surveys [David Stodolsky]
    #29391: Quantities of resveratrol required for efficacy, LEF article ... [RudiHoffman]

Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29390%2D29391

Administrivia

To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to:
    [email-masked]
with the subject line (not message _body_):
    subscribe
To unsubscribe, use the subject line:
    unsubscribe

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #29390
References: <[email-masked]>
From: David Stodolsky <[email-masked]>
Subject: Lessons on Internet Surveys
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 14:02:20 +0200

Begin forwarded message:

Lessons on Internet Surveys
   by Adam C. Engst <[email-masked]>
   article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8894>

   We've been watching the results of our reader survey roll in, with
   over 2,800 responses so far. You can still vote, but I can likely
   predict how you'll vote, based on current responses. In fact, the
   percentages of certain answers have been stable since the first few
   hours of the survey.

<http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx/?displaySurvey@@.3c8dc29b>

   This fact - that not much data is necessary to draw accurate
   conclusions - goes against the strongly held belief among many
   survey professionals that a high response rate is necessary. In
   fact, for a proposed survey to win a federally funded grant, one of
   the most important criteria is a predicted high response rate, and
   media pollsters performing quick surveys seldom report their
   response rates because they're so low. But according to Dr. Jon
   Krosnick of Stanford University, that belief turns out to be wrong,
   something that researchers are just coming to realize.

<http://communication.stanford.edu/faculty/krosnick.html>

   Dr. Krosnick spoke last week as part of a speaker series organized
   by the Cornell University Survey Research Institute, and although
   Tonya and I felt somewhat out of place in a room of academics, we
   were pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Krosnick's talk engaging and
   accessible even to those of us who have no formal training in
   surveying or statistics. If you're extremely interested in the
   topic, I encourage you to listen to the talk (26.6 MB MP3); for the
   rest of us, I thought I'd offer a quick summary of the non-intuitive
   lessons Dr. Krosnick imparted and a few other facts of interest to
   anyone who has been asked to complete a survey in person, over the
   telephone, or on the Internet.

<http://www.sri.cornell.edu/>
<http://www.sri.cornell.edu/sri/files/Krosnick_Lecture.mp3>

   1. Telephone interviews are not good substitutes for face-to-face
   interviews. They've become commonplace because their lower cost -
   between $1.50 and $6 per minute per respondent, compared with up to
   $1,000 for an hour-long face-to-face interview, once you factor in
   hiring and training interviewers, travel time, and so on. However,
   when examined on a number of scales, telephone interviews turn out
   to be significantly less accurate than face-to-face interviews.

   2. As much as telephone interviews aren't great, mailed paper
   questionnaires suffer from even worse accuracy. The thought is that
   people tend to whip through questionnaires too quickly, thus
   reducing their accuracy (in one telephone versus questionnaire
   survey comparison that asked pilots about dangerous experiences,
   those pilots who completed the paper survey rated their answers as
   less accurate than those who were interviewed on the phone, and
   remembered fewer dangerous incidents). The attraction of paper
   surveys is that they're cheap, but it turns out that once "the
   Dillman method" of sending reminders and multiple copies is
   employed, the cost savings over telephone interviews are minimal.

   3. I've already noted the third lesson - that low response rates
   aren't nearly as much of a problem as previously thought. That's a
   good thing, because Dr. Krosnick noted that telephone survey
   response rates are dropping precipitously; one ongoing survey that
   has traditionally had high response rates is seeing them drop by a
   half of a percent per month.

   4. Computer-based surveys turn out to be significantly more accurate
   than telephone surveys, perhaps because people subconsciously
   consider computers to be more human than a stranger on the phone.
   Plus, with computer-based surveys, if questions are asked one at a
   time, respondents can think about their answers without having the
   social awkwardness of telephone silence. There's also some thought
   that people are more honest when not speaking directly to another
   person. The lesson here is that computer-based surveying over the
   Internet is big business already, and will only get bigger as it
   takes over for telephone and questionnaire surveys.

   5. The problem faced by most Internet surveys is that they seldom
   rely on a random sampling of respondents. Most Internet survey firms
   recruit users in a way that can easily lead to non-random groups
   providing results that are less accurate than those from a truly
   random sample. Apparently, there's only one Internet surveying firm
   employing true random sampling - a company called Knowledge
   Networks, and in a test of a number of Internet survey firms and a
   well-regarded telephone survey firm, Knowledge Networks's results
   were overall more accurate than any others. In fact, Knowledge
   Networks goes so far as to provide panelists with an MSN TV Web
   browser and Internet connection if necessary. In contrast, many
   other firms rely on people who want to earn money taking surveys,
   and as with so many other things on the Internet, it's easy for
   these people to misrepresent themselves in order to participate in
   more lucrative surveys. Unfortunately, properly done Internet
   surveys end up being roughly comparable in cost to telephone
   surveys, though it would seem that costs could drop.

<http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/>

**A Novice's Conclusion** -- We found Dr. Krosnick's talk utterly
   fascinating, and although we didn't have time to chat with him
   beyond the Q&A session at the end, it would seem that some
   conclusions could be drawn from his lessons about the kind of
   Internet polls and surveys we see so frequently.

   First, although there is absolutely no disagreement that a random
   sample is ideal, the difference in accuracy was not huge. When
   applied to a question that is likely to have relatively divergent
   answers (such as the age of TidBITS readers), useful conclusions can
   easily be drawn without worrying that a self-selected sample would
   be horribly biased in one direction. Attempting to distinguish
   between answers separated only by a percentage point or two wouldn't
   be possible, though.

   Second, even if the response rate isn't huge, that wouldn't seem to
   make much of a difference. We might end up with a response rate of
   less than 10 percent in our survey, but the added accuracy gained by
   a larger response rate certainly wouldn't be worth harassing you all
   multiple times to answer our questions. Just how small that rate can
   be isn't entirely clear, but single digits don't appear to be a
   major problem.

   Third and finally, unlike a survey gauging national voting plans,
   most Internet polls don't attempt to use the results to predict the
   future, nor are the results likely to affect the future actions of
   other people. I can't quite put in words why this seems like a
   relevant difference, but it's related to the goal of the survey. If
   I learn what percentage of TidBITS readers regularly play computer
   games (28 percent), I can use that information when considering what
   articles to write, but I can't see the publication of this fact
   causing people either to start or stop playing games. However,
   compare that to surveys that ask who you plan to vote for in the
   next election; your answer has the power to help sway the opinions
   of other voters.

   And in that thought is where I think the answer to decreasing
   response rates lies. Surveys can be intrusive and badly timed, but
   if it's reasonable to complete them, they should be seen as a way of
   spreading your opinions to the rest of the world. It's the same
   reason I don't mind using grocery store shopper cards; I know
   they're tracking my purchases, and I want the fact that I'm buying
   more organic and less processed food to be recorded prominently. So
   the next time you're polled, consider it a chance not just to be
   counted, but also perhaps to nudge the world in the direction you
   want.

David Stodolsky  [email-masked]  Skype: davidstodolsky

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29390

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #29391
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 11:19:09 EDT
Subject: Quantities of resveratrol required for efficacy, LEF article ...

In a message dated 4/5/2007 4:00:50 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
[email-masked] writes:

Message #29388
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 15:51:29 -0400
From:  "bruce waugh" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Resveratrol  Dosage

A study by Biomarker Pharmaceuticals completed while the Harvard  study
was underway showed that mice demonstrated favorable  anti-aging
expression changes in response to receiving the human equivalent  of
20mg of resveratrol a day.  This amount is equivalent to  the
resveratrol contained in 41 glasses of wine and is much less  than
amount used in the Harvard.

For details,  see
http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=5034&query=resve
ratrol&hiword=RESVERATROLA%20RESVERATROLS%20resveratrol%20

Bruce

Rate  This Message:  http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29388

Hello, fellow Cryoneters...
 
Thanks to Bruce for above referenced article.
 
Having viewed the Charlie Rose video referenced some days ago on  Cryonet, 
and being a long time (12 years plus) LEF member, I have been  interested in 
resveratrol for some time.  Like many on this list, however,  I am ..or would at 
least like to think of myself as being...a "hard nosed,  evidenced based 
skeptic" especially when it comes to the latest "snake oil de  jour" alleged to cut 
to the heart of the aging problem.
 
So, while I have occasionally taken sublingual resveratrol, I have been  
waiting for LEF to do their usual thorough and scientific job of providing some  
analysis and references to published peer reviewed, double blind, placebo  
controlled studies.
 
The bottom line is that the above reference article from the March issue of  
Life Extension Magazine is EXACTLY what I had hoped.  The bottom line is  that 
the equivalent of 20 mgs of resveratrol has indeed shown gene expression  
similar to caloric restriction in mice.
 
Unless I am misreading the data...and I constantly have to watch myself  
because anti-aging is almost a "religion" to me, and I believe in taking exactly  
ZERO on faith.  And I am wary of my human tendency towards "magical  thinking" 
and having a misimpression based on what I would LIKE to be  true.
 
But, caveats in above paragraph aside, I will be ordering resveratrol from  
LEF, based on the above referenced article.
 
And I will indeed try to keep  quantified records of results.

For Centuries,
 
Rudi 

Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP  CLU ChFC

Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.org
Board  Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org
Member Alcor Life Extension  Foundation alcor.org
Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards  
Member Libertarian Party libertarianparty.org
Member National Rifle  Association nra.org
Member World Transhumanist Association  http://transhumanism.org/
World's Leading Cryonics Insurance Provider  rudihoffman.com

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29391

----------------------------------------------------------------------

End of CryoNet Digest
*********************