Joint mortality modelling and forecasting: a new joint model based on the Wang transform

Mortality models are mathematical approaches used to facilitate understanding and analysis of mortality patterns and trends, and to provide a basis for mortality forecasting. In an environment in which mortality is continuing to decline, there is considerable interest in developing mortality models that are flexible enough to capture variations in mortality by age, time and various other factors, and robust enough to produce reliable forecasts. Over recent years, there has been growing interest in the development of joint mortality models. Joint models aggregate similar populations to jointly fit and forecast mortality. Such models are able to incorporate the relationships among multiple populations and to ensure that forecast relationships remain reasonable over the long-term. However, existing models – both individual and joint – do suffer from shortcomings. This research develops a new model of mortality forecasting - the joint Wang transform (JWT) model - which aims to address shortcomings and improve upon existing models. As a joint model, the JWT model is able to capitalise on information from similar populations and to ensure that sensible relationships are maintained in the forecasts for such populations The JWT model allows for a flexible rate of mortality decline over time, which is more realistic than the fixed rate of mortality decline assumed in other widely-used methods. The JWT model has a simple form, reducing the risk of over-parameterization and of unreliable forecasts. The JWT model has flexibility yet builds in constraints, such as ensuring non-divergence of forecasts and hence appears to be appropriate for modelling and forecasting across multiple populations. This research applies the JWT model and seven existing individual and joint models to fit and forecast the mortality of 13 countries. The joint models are applied by pooling both "across country" separately for each sex, and "across sex" separately for each individual country. Model performance is evaluated by considering goodness of fit, forecasting accuracy, and ability to ensure a sensible relationship between forecasts of similar countries in the long-term (primarily avoiding forecast divergence). In the analyses of both data sets, the JWT model produces the best forecast accuracy of all eight models according to the evaluation measures. While the evaluation has been conducted only for a selection of developed countries and has compared only a selection of models, the strong performance of the JWT model suggests its potential for further use and evaluation

sj-docx-1-mcr-10.1177_10775587231153003 – Supplemental material for Comparing Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare Prices for Hospital Outpatient Services With Hospital Price Transparency Data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-mcr-10.1177_10775587231153003 for Comparing Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare Prices for Hospital Outpatient Services With Hospital Price Transparency Data by Jianhui Xu and Daniel Polsky in Medical Care Research and Review</p

Appendix – Supplemental material for Incorporating Prescription Drug Utilization Information Into the Marketplace Risk Adjustment Model Improves Payment Accuracy and Reduces Adverse Selection Incentives

Supplemental material, Appendix for Incorporating Prescription Drug Utilization Information Into the Marketplace Risk Adjustment Model Improves Payment Accuracy and Reduces Adverse Selection Incentives by Jianhui Xu, Erin Trish and Geoffrey Joyce in Medical Care Research and Review</p

Point-of-Care Immunoassay Based on a Multipixel Dual-Channel Pressure Sensor Array with Visual Sensing Capability of Full-Color Switching and Reliable Electrical Signals

The point-of-care (POC) method with affordability and portability for the sensitive detection of biological substances is an emerging topic in rapid disease screening and personalized medicine. In this work, we demonstrated a diverse responsive platform based on a dual-channel pressure sensor (DCPS). The DCPS had a multilayer flexible architecture consisting of a photonic hydrogel with chromatic transitions and a piezoresistive pressure sensor as the electrical data transmission unit, both of which had the property of pressure-induced mechanical stimulus feedback. By incorporating a platinum nanoparticles-labeled detection antibody (PtNPs-dAb) into the sandwich-type immunoreaction for the target carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA, as a model analyte), gas decomposition could be triggered by the addition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to induce a significant increase under pressure in a closed chamber. Meanwhile, the DCPS enabled an accurate electrical signal output, and the photonic hydrogel converted spatiotemporal stimuli into eye-readable colorations with string brilliance. In this way, the target concentration could be quantificationally related to the electrical response and intuitively perceived through visible color alterations. Under optimal conditions, a sensitive determination of CEA was performed in a detectable range of 0.3–60 ng/mL with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.13 ng/mL. In addition, the proposed protocol had satisfactory selectivity, accuracy, and reproducibility. Furthermore, an array-based immunoassay device was fabricated to conceptually validate its application potential in high-throughput biomedical detection and inspire a dual-signal POC diagnostic platform in a friendly way for resource-limited settings

Point-of-Care Immunoassay Based on a Multipixel Dual-Channel Pressure Sensor Array with Visual Sensing Capability of Full-Color Switching and Reliable Electrical Signals

The point-of-care (POC) method with affordability and portability for the sensitive detection of biological substances is an emerging topic in rapid disease screening and personalized medicine. In this work, we demonstrated a diverse responsive platform based on a dual-channel pressure sensor (DCPS). The DCPS had a multilayer flexible architecture consisting of a photonic hydrogel with chromatic transitions and a piezoresistive pressure sensor as the electrical data transmission unit, both of which had the property of pressure-induced mechanical stimulus feedback. By incorporating a platinum nanoparticles-labeled detection antibody (PtNPs-dAb) into the sandwich-type immunoreaction for the target carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA, as a model analyte), gas decomposition could be triggered by the addition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to induce a significant increase under pressure in a closed chamber. Meanwhile, the DCPS enabled an accurate electrical signal output, and the photonic hydrogel converted spatiotemporal stimuli into eye-readable colorations with string brilliance. In this way, the target concentration could be quantificationally related to the electrical response and intuitively perceived through visible color alterations. Under optimal conditions, a sensitive determination of CEA was performed in a detectable range of 0.3–60 ng/mL with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.13 ng/mL. In addition, the proposed protocol had satisfactory selectivity, accuracy, and reproducibility. Furthermore, an array-based immunoassay device was fabricated to conceptually validate its application potential in high-throughput biomedical detection and inspire a dual-signal POC diagnostic platform in a friendly way for resource-limited settings

Point-of-Care Immunoassay Based on a Multipixel Dual-Channel Pressure Sensor Array with Visual Sensing Capability of Full-Color Switching and Reliable Electrical Signals

The point-of-care (POC) method with affordability and portability for the sensitive detection of biological substances is an emerging topic in rapid disease screening and personalized medicine. In this work, we demonstrated a diverse responsive platform based on a dual-channel pressure sensor (DCPS). The DCPS had a multilayer flexible architecture consisting of a photonic hydrogel with chromatic transitions and a piezoresistive pressure sensor as the electrical data transmission unit, both of which had the property of pressure-induced mechanical stimulus feedback. By incorporating a platinum nanoparticles-labeled detection antibody (PtNPs-dAb) into the sandwich-type immunoreaction for the target carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA, as a model analyte), gas decomposition could be triggered by the addition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to induce a significant increase under pressure in a closed chamber. Meanwhile, the DCPS enabled an accurate electrical signal output, and the photonic hydrogel converted spatiotemporal stimuli into eye-readable colorations with string brilliance. In this way, the target concentration could be quantificationally related to the electrical response and intuitively perceived through visible color alterations. Under optimal conditions, a sensitive determination of CEA was performed in a detectable range of 0.3–60 ng/mL with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.13 ng/mL. In addition, the proposed protocol had satisfactory selectivity, accuracy, and reproducibility. Furthermore, an array-based immunoassay device was fabricated to conceptually validate its application potential in high-throughput biomedical detection and inspire a dual-signal POC diagnostic platform in a friendly way for resource-limited settings

Dual-Signaling Photoelectrochemical Biosensor Based on Biocatalysis-Induced Vulcanization of Bi₂MoO₆ Nanosheets

A magnetic-assisted photoelectrochemical (PEC) and colorimetric (CL) dual-modal biosensing platform with high precision was established to monitor prostate-specific antigen (PSA) based on Bi2MoO6 nanosheets (BMO) by coupling the aptamer-guided hybridization chain reaction (HCR) with the hydrolysate-induced vulcanization reaction of Bi2MoO6 nanosheets. Upon addition of PSA, trigger DNA (tDNA) was released by the interaction between the target analyte and the aptamer and then further hybridized with anchor DNA (aDNA) conjugated on magnetic beads (MBs). The as-released tDNA initiated the target-assisted HCR in the presence of two alternating hairpin sequences (Bio-H1 and Bio-H2) to produce nicked long double-stranded DNA on the surface of MBs, where numerous alkaline phosphatase (ALP) enzymes could assemble with MBs through the biotin–avidin reaction, resulting in the hydrolysis of sodium thiophosphate (TP) to H2S. The as-produced H2S reacted with BMO to form vulcanized BMO (BMO-S), thus leading to obvious enhanced PEC performance under visible light with the color change from light yellow to brown. Having optimized the test conditions, the magnetic-assisted biosensing system holds a good quantitative diagnosis sensitivity area in a range of 5.0 pg mL–1–100 ng mL–1 with a calculated detection limit down to 3.5 pg mL–1. Meanwhile, a visual colorimetric assay on basis of the change in the color of the materials was also realized. Given the exceptional performance of the constructed biosensor, it may possess great promise as an advanced bioanalytical tool for practical applications

Photocurrent-Polarity-Switching Photoelectrochemical Biosensor for Switching Spatial Distance Electroactive Tags

This work presents a photocurrent-polarity-switching-based photoelectrochemical (PEC) biosensing platform for ultrasensitive detection of microRNA-21 (miR-21) through target-triggered catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) for modulation of methylene blue (MB) and ferrocene (Fc) positional configurations using double-shelled Cu-doped ZnS nanocages (NCs)–Au nanoparticles (NPs) as photoactive materials. In the presence of miR-21, the assembly of MB-labeled HP1 and Fc-labeled HP2 leads to the generation of a large amount of double-stranded DNA (HP1–HP2), which pushes MB away from the electrode surface and brings Fc close to the electrode surface, resulting in effectively quenching the enhanced PEC signal to activate the photocurrent-polarity-switching system. Benefiting from the distance-controllable strategy, the designed PEC bioanalysis can effectively eliminate false-positive and false-negative signals due to the change of different signal expression patterns (from traditional the “signal-on” mode to the photocurrent-polarity-switching mode), thereby significantly improving the sensing specificity and sensitivity. The proposed PEC sensing system exhibited satisfying photocurrent responses toward target miR-21 within the working range from 1.0 fM to 1 nM at a low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.58 fM. More importantly, we demonstrated the successful integration of the proposed PEC biosensor with a handheld wireless device for instant detection of miR-21 concentrations in practical samples

sj-docx-1-mcr-10.1177_10775587231193475 – Supplemental material for Do Insurers With Greater Market Power Negotiate Consistently Lower Prices for Hospital Care? Evidence From Hospital Price Transparency Data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-mcr-10.1177_10775587231193475 for Do Insurers With Greater Market Power Negotiate Consistently Lower Prices for Hospital Care? Evidence From Hospital Price Transparency Data by Yang Wang, Mark K. Meiselbach, Jianhui Xu, Ge Bai and Gerard Anderson in Medical Care Research and Review</p

Au Nanoparticle-Decorated ZnO Microflower-Based Immunoassay for Photoelectrochemical Detection of Human Prostate-Specific Antigen

Herein, an in situ amplified photoelectrochemical (PEC) immunoassay with ZnO microflowers (ZnO MFs) decorated with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) was developed to determine human prostate-specific antigen (PSA) using l-cysteine-loaded liposomes for signal amplification. Initially, ZnO MFs with smooth and well-defined morphology were synthesized under hydrothermal conditions. The heterostructured microflowers were formed by depositing Au NPs on ZnO microflowers using trisodium citrate. l-Cysteine (l-Cys)-encapsulated liposomes conjugated with detection antibodies were used to fabricate a sandwiched immunocomplex on a capture antibody-modified microtiter plate in the presence of target PSA. The liposomes were lysed using Triton X-100 to release the encapsulated l-Cys, thereby increasing the photocurrent on Au NP-decorated ZnO MFs. Results indicated that the photoelectrochemical immunoassay displayed good photocurrents to response PSA concentrations from 0.01 to 20 ng mL–1, and the detection PSA concentration was as low as 0.79 pg mL–1. Furthermore, the photoelectrochemical immunoassay had good precision, high selectivity, and well-matched accuracy toward target PSA in human serum specimens using the commercialized human PSA ELISA kit as a reference