A catalog of Nearby Poor Clusters of Galaxies

A catalog of 732 optically selected, nearby poor clusters of galaxies covering the entire sky north of $\rm -3^{\circ}$ declination is presented. The poor clusters, called WBL clusters, were identified as concentrations of 3 or more galaxies with photographic magnitudes brighter than 15.7, possessing a galaxy surface overdensity of $10^{4/3}$. These criteria are consistent with those used in the identification of the original Yerkes poor clusters, and this new catalog substantially increases the sample size of such objects. These poor clusters cover the entire range of galaxy associations up to and including Abell clusters, systematically including poor and rich galaxy systems spanning over three orders of magnitude in the cluster mass function. As a result, this new catalog contains a greater diversity of richness and structures than other group catalogs, such as the Hickson or Yerkes catalogs. The information on individual galaxies includes redshifts and cross-references to other galaxy catalogs. The entries for the clusters include redshift (where available) and cross-references to other group and cluster catalogs.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, + one 20-page landscape table, accepted for publication in A

Extreme Value Theory and the Solar Cycle

We investigate the statistical properties of the extreme events of the solar cycle as measured by the sunspot number. The recent advances in the methodology of the theory of extreme values is applied to the maximal extremes of the time series of sunspots. We focus on the extreme events that exceed a carefully chosen threshold and a generalized Pareto distribution is fitted to the tail of the empirical cumulative distribution. A maximum likelihood method is used to estimate the parameters of the generalized Pareto distribution and confidence levels are also given to the parameters. Due to the lack of an automatic procedure for selecting the threshold, we analyze the sensitivity of the fitted generalized Pareto distribution to the exact value of the threshold. According to the available data, that only spans the previous ~250 years, the cumulative distribution of the time series is bounded, yielding an upper limit of 324 for the sunspot number. We also estimate that the return value for each solar cycle is ~188, while the return value for a century increases to ~228. Finally, the results also indicate that the most probable return time for a large event like the maximum at solar cycle 19 happens once every ~700 years and that the probability of finding such a large event with a frequency smaller than ~50 years is very small. In spite of the essentially extrapolative character of these results, their statistical significance is very large.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Predicting Stock Market using Regression Technique

We use two and half year data set of 50 companies of Nifty along with Nifty from 1st Jan 2009 to 28th June 2011 and apply multivariate technique for data reduction, namely Factor Analysis. Using Factor analysis we reduce these 50 companies’ data (50 variables) into the most significant 4 FACTORS. These four significant factors are then used to predict the Nifty using Multiple linear regression. We observed that the model is good fitted and it explained 90 % of the total variance. Keywords: Nifty, Factor Analysis, Multiple Linear Regression, Data reduction

Maryland Chartbook of Minority Health And Minority Health Disparities Data With Sections on Gender-specific Health And Jurisdiction-specific Health

The Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities (MHHD) was established in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in 2004 by legislation passed in the Maryland General Assembly session of that same year. One of the charges to MHHD is the compilation and distribution of minority health and health disparities data. This Chartbook is one response to that charge. Adequate and accurate data are essential to any effort to identify and address health problems in general, and health disparities in particular. With regard to health disparities, whether defined by ethnicity/race or other factors (geography, gender, income, education, etc.), data are required to complete three essential tasks: 1. Identify and measure disparities 2. Determine the causes of the disparity and plan interventions 3. Track progress toward eliminating health disparities The compilation of Maryland health disparities data in this Chartbook is intended to enable each of these three critical functions.https://health.maryland.gov/hd/mdchartbook.ht

A comparative study of oral tapentadol with thoracic epidural analgesia versus intravenous tramadol and paracetamol combination for postoperative analgesia in off pump CABG

Background: Accurate management of post operative pain is quite impossible with single drug therapy approach. For this, our aim was to combine use of tapentadol tablet orally along with thoracic epidural in comparison with intravenous combined use of tramadol, paracetamol and diclofenac for postoperative analgesia in case CABG patients.Methods: 60 patients of CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery) randomly and equally divided into two groups. Group TTE (Tab. Tapentadol -Thoracic Epidural, n=30) were given oral Tablet Tapentadol through NG (Nasogastric) tube at the time of shifting the patient from Operation Theatre to postoperative ward along with Tramadol through Thoracic epidural catheter. In Group TPD (Tramadol -Paracetamol -Diclofenac, n=30) were given Inj. Tramadol, Inj. Paracetamol IV at time of shifting of patient. If pain score is too high (>4) then additional analgesia were given with Diclofenac only if preoperative renal and hepatic profile were normal. Patients were monitored for duration of rescue analgesia, total no. of doses of analgesics in first 72 hours, total consumption of analgesics and response to physiotherapy.Results: Duration of need of rescue analgesia was significantly longer in TTE group (p<0.05) while total no. of rescue doses were significantly more in group TPD (p<0.001). We also observed that patients of TTE group were recovered earlier, response to chest physiotherapy was significantly better and thus reduces their total length of ICU stay (p<0.05).Conclusions: Our study concludes that Tapentadol with Thoracic epidural is very much effective as a multimodal analgesia approach in controlling acute postoperative pain after CABG. Tapentadol is quite a newer drug so its usefulness for other patients and different surgeries is still to be debated

Physical assault in the previous year and total and cause-specific mortality in Russia: a case-control study of men aged 25-54 years.

Background: Violence has important health effects. The results of exposure to physical violence include, but may not be limited to, death from suicide and homicide. The connection between the experience of assault and risk of death from causes other than homicide and suicide has rarely been examined. Methods: We analysed data from the first Izhevsk Family Study (IFS-1), a population-based case-control study of premature mortality in Russian men. Structural equation models were used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) for the association between the proxy report of physical attack in the previous year and mortality. Results: The estimate of the all-cause mortality OR for assault, after adjusting for alcohol use and socio-demographic confounders, was 1.96 (95% confidence interval: 1.71, 3.31). Strong cause-specific associations were found for external causes, but associations were also found for deaths from cardiovascular and alcohol-related deaths. Conclusions: We found that, in our population of working-aged Russian men, there was a strong association between physical assault and mortality from a wide range of causes. Other than direct effects of physical assault on mortality, residual confounding is an important possibility. The association between assault and mortality, particularly from cardiovascular and alcohol-related causes requires replication and further investigation