Getting Around When You’re Just Getting By: The Travel Behavior and Transportation Expenditures of Low-Income Adults, MTI Report 10-02

How much do people with limited resources pay for cars, public transit, and other means of travel? How does their transportation behavior change during periods of falling employment and rising fuel prices? This research uses in-depth interviews with 73 adults to examine how rising transportation costs impact low-income families. The interviews examine four general areas of interest: travel behavior and transportation spending patterns; the costs and benefits of alternative modes of travel; cost management strategies; and opinions about the effect of changing transportation prices on travel behavior. Key findings include: Most low-income household are concerned about their transportation costs. Low-income individuals actively and strategically manage their household resources in order to survive on very limited means and to respond to changes in income or transportation costs. In making mode-choice decisions, low-income travelers—like higher-income travelers—carefully evaluate the costs of travel (time and out-of-pocket expenses) against the benefits of each of the modes. Some low-income individuals in our sample were willing to endure higher transportation expenditures—such as the costs of auto ownership or congestion tolls—if they believed that they currently benefit or would potentially benefit from these increased expenses. Although low-income households find ways to cover their transportation expenditures, many of these strategies had negative effects on households. The report concludes with recommendations on how to increase transportation affordability, minimize the impact that new transportation taxes or fees have on low-income people, and develop new research and data collection to support the previous two efforts

An excursion set model of the cosmic web: The abundance of sheets, filaments and halos

We discuss an analytic approach for modeling structure formation in sheets, filaments and knots. This is accomplished by combining models of triaxial collapse with the excursion set approach: sheets are defined as objects which have collapsed along only one axis, filaments have collapsed along two axes, and halos are objects in which triaxial collapse is complete. In the simplest version of this approach, which we develop here, large scale structure shows a clear hierarchy of morphologies: the mass in large-scale sheets is partitioned up among lower mass filaments, which themselves are made-up of still lower mass halos. Our approach provides analytic estimates of the mass fraction in sheets, filaments and halos, and its evolution, for any background cosmological model and any initial fluctuation spectrum. In the currently popular $\Lambda$CDM model, our analysis suggests that more than 99% of the cosmic mass is in sheets, and 72% in filaments, with mass larger than $10^{10} M_{\odot}$ at the present time. For halos, this number is only 46%. Our approach also provides analytic estimates of how halo abundances at any given time correlate with the morphology of the surrounding large-scale structure, and how halo evolution correlates with the morphology of large scale structure.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Primary care blood tests before cancer diagnosis: National Cancer Diagnosis Audit data

Background: Blood tests can support the diagnostic process but how often they are used in cancer patients is unclear. Aim: To explore use of common blood tests before cancer diagnosis in primary care. Design and setting: English National Cancer Diagnosis Audit data on 39,752 cancer patients diagnosed in 2018. Methods: We assessed common blood test use (full blood count (FBC), urea and electrolytes (U&Es), and liver function tests (LFTs)), related variation by patient and symptom group, and associations with the primary care and the diagnostic intervals (PCI, DI). Results: At least one common blood test was used in 41% of cancer patients. Among tested patients, FBC was used in 95%, U&Es in 88% and LFTs in 74%) Blood testing was less common in women (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) vs men: 0.92, 95%CI: 0.87-0.98) and non-white patients (0.89, 0.82-0.97 vs white) and more common in older patients (1.12, 1.06-1.18 for 70+ vs 50-69 years). Test use varied greatly by cancer-site, (melanoma: 2%, leukaemia 84%). Fewer patients presenting with alarm symptoms alone were tested (24%) than those with non-alarm symptoms alone (50%). Median PCI and DI were longer in tested than non-tested patients (PCI: 10 vs 0; DI: 49 vs 32 days, respectively, p<0.001 for both), including among tested patients with alarm symptoms (PCI: 4 vs 0; DI: 41 vs 22). Conclusions: Two-fifths of patients subsequently diagnosed with cancer have primary care blood tests. Given variable test use, research is needed on the clinical context in which blood tests are ordered

Referrals for suspected hematologic malignancy: A survey of primary care physicians

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91356/1/23172_ftp.pd

Development of a bovine X chromosome linkage group and painting probes to assess cattle, sheep, and goat X chromosome segment homologies

The X chromosome linkage group is conserved in placental mammals. However, X chromosome morphological differences, due to internal chromosome rearrangements, exist among mammalian species. We have developed bovine chromosome painting probes for Xp and Xq to assess segment homologies between the submetacentric bovine X chromosome and the acrocentric sheep and goat X chromosomes. These painting probes and their corresponding DNA libraries were developed by chromosome micromanipulation, DNA micropurification, microcloning, and PCR amplification. The bovine Xp painting probe identified an interstitially located homologous segment in the sheep and goat Xq region, most probably resulting from chromosome inversion. Ten type II (microsatellite) markers obtained from the bovine Xq library and five other X chromosome assigned, but unlinked, markers were used to generate a linkage map for Xq spanning 89.4 centimorgans. The chromosome painting probes and molecular markers generated in this study would be useful for comparative mapping and tracing of internal X chromosome rearrangements in all ruminant species and would contribute to the understanding of mammalian sex chromosome evolution

Cosmological Creation of D-branes and anti-D-branes

We argue that the early universe may be described by an initial state of space-filling branes and anti-branes. At high temperature this system is stable. At low temperature tachyons appear and lead to a phase transition, dynamics, and the creation of D-branes. These branes are cosmologically produced in a generic fashion by the Kibble mechanism. From an entropic point of view, the formation of lower dimensional branes is preferred and $D3$ brane-worlds are exponentially more likely to form than higher dimensional branes. Virtually any brane configuration can be created from such phase transitions by adjusting the tachyon profile. A lower bound on the number defects produced is: one D-brane per Hubble volume.Comment: 30 pages, 5 eps figures; v2 more references added; v3 section 4 slightly improve

Metabolomic profiling of amines in sepsis predicts changes in NOS canonical pathways

Rationale Nitric oxide synthase (NOS) is a biomarker/target in sepsis. NOS activity is driven by amino acids, which cycle to regulate the substrate L-arginine in parallel with cycles which regulate the endogenous inhibitors ADMA and L-NMMA. The relationship between amines and the consequence of plasma changes on iNOS activity in early sepsis is not known. Objective Our objective was to apply a metabolomics approach to determine the influence of sepsis on a full array of amines and what consequence these changes may have on predicted iNOS activity. Methods and measurements 34 amino acids were measured using ultra purification mass spectrometry in the plasma of septic patients (n = 38) taken at the time of diagnosis and 24–72 hours post diagnosis and of healthy volunteers (n = 21). L-arginine and methylarginines were measured using liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry and ELISA. A top down approach was also taken to examine the most changed metabolic pathways by Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. The iNOS supporting capacity of plasma was determined using a mouse macrophage cell-based bioassay. Main results Of all the amines measured 22, including L-arginine and ADMA, displayed significant differences in samples from patients with sepsis. The functional consequence of increased ADMA and decreased L-arginine in context of all cumulative metabolic changes in plasma resulted in reduced iNOS supporting activity associated with sepsis. Conclusions In early sepsis profound changes in amine levels were defined by dominant changes in the iNOS canonical pathway resulting in functionally meaningful changes in the ability of plasma to regulate iNOS activity ex vivo

Meaningful changes in end-of-life care among patients with myeloma

Patients with advanced myeloma experience a high symptom burden particularly near the end of life, making timely hospice use crucial. Little is known about the quality and determinants of end-of-life care for this population, including whether potential increases in hospice use are also accompanied by “late” enrollment (≤ 3 days before death). Using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results-Medicare database, we identified patients ≥ 65 years diagnosed with myeloma between 2000 and 2013 who died by December 31, 2013. We assessed prevalence and trends in hospice use, including late enrollment. We also examined six established measures of potentially aggressive medical care at the end of life. Independent predictors of late hospice enrollment and aggressive end-of-life care were assessed using multivariable logistic regression analyses. Of 12,686 myeloma decedents, 48.2% enrolled in hospice. Among the 6111 who enrolled, 17.2% spent ≤ 3 days there. There was a significant trend in increasing hospice use, from 28.5% in 2000 to 56.5% by 2013 (Ptren

Transformed non‐Hodgkin lymphoma in the rituximab era: analysis of the NCCN outcomes database

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100290/1/bjh12570.pd