16 research outputs found

    Cost effectiveness of pediatric pneumococcal conjugate vaccines: a comparative assessment of decision-making tools

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    BACKGROUND: Several decision support tools have been developed to aid policymaking regarding the adoption of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) into national pediatric immunization programs. The lack of critical appraisal of these tools makes it difficult for decision makers to understand and choose between them. With the aim to guide policymakers on their optimal use, we compared publicly available decision-making tools in relation to their methods, influential parameters and results. METHODS: The World Health Organization (WHO) requested access to several publicly available cost-effectiveness (CE) tools for PCV from both public and private provenance. All tools were critically assessed according to the WHO's guide for economic evaluations of immunization programs. Key attributes and characteristics were compared and a series of sensitivity analyses was performed to determine the main drivers of the results. The results were compared based on a standardized set of input parameters and assumptions. RESULTS: Three cost-effectiveness modeling tools were provided, including two cohort-based (Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) ProVac Initiative TriVac, and PneumoADIP) and one population-based model (GlaxoSmithKline's SUPREMES). They all compared the introduction of PCV into national pediatric immunization program with no PCV use. The models were different in terms of model attributes, structure, and data requirement, but captured a similar range of diseases. Herd effects were estimated using different approaches in each model. The main driving parameters were vaccine efficacy against pneumococcal pneumonia, vaccine price, vaccine coverage, serotype coverage and disease burden. With a standardized set of input parameters developed for cohort modeling, TriVac and PneumoADIP produced similar incremental costs and health outcomes, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine cost (dose price and number of doses), vaccine efficacy and epidemiology of critical endpoint (for example, incidence of pneumonia, distribution of serotypes causing pneumonia) were influential parameters in the models we compared. Understanding the differences and similarities of such CE tools through regular comparisons could render decision-making processes in different countries more efficient, as well as providing guiding information for further clinical and epidemiological research. A tool comparison exercise using standardized data sets can help model developers to be more transparent about their model structure and assumptions and provide analysts and decision makers with a more in-depth view behind the disease dynamics. Adherence to the WHO guide of economic evaluations of immunization programs may also facilitate this process. Please see related article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/55

    Universidad de Buenos Aires

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    Polyphase filter and polynomial reproduction conditions for the construction of smooth bidimensional multiwavelet

    Construction of Nonseparable Multiwavelets for Nonlinear Image Compression

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    <p/> <p>A procedure for the construction of balanced orthogonal nonseparable quincunx multiwavelets, having filters with good lowpass properties, is introduced. The matrix filter bank is viewed as the polyphase matrix of other filters, upon which the lowpass condition is imposed. The multiscaling functions obtained are plotted by means of the cascade algorithm. The process of transforming an image with these wavelets is outlined: formulae for analysis and synthesis are given, the first steps are illustrated with images, and the decomposition of the original image into two input images is addressed. Compression is achieved in a nonlinear process. Experimental results show that (i) the constructed multiwavelets having lowpass properties perform better than other nonseparable multiwavelets, (ii) the energy compaction in the fine detail subbands is greater for the multiwavelets than for the one-dimensional wavelets tried.</p

    wavelet

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    Minimization of errors in L4−norm for decodin

    EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing 2001:0, 1–8 © 2001 Hindawi Publishing Corporation Construction of Nonseparable Multiwavelets for Nonlinear Image Compression

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    A procedure for the construction of balanced orthogonal nonseparable quincunx multiwavelets, having filters with good lowpass properties, is introduced. The matrix filter bank is viewed as the polyphase matrix of other filters, upon which the lowpass condition is imposed. The multiscaling functions obtained are plotted by means of the cascade algorithm. The process of transforming an image with these wavelets is outlined: formulae for analysis and synthesis are given, the first steps are illustrated with images, and the decomposition of the original image into two input images is addressed. Compression is achieved in a nonlinear process. Experimental results show that (i) the constructed multiwavelets having lowpass properties perform better than other nonseparable multiwavelets, (ii) the energy compaction in the fine detail subbands is greater for the multiwavelets than for the one-dimensional wavelets tried
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