10,313 research outputs found
Feasibility Test of the MedaCube
Poor adherence is a significant barrier to achieve better patient outcomes. Rates of non-adherence approach 40% resulting in 10% of all emergency department visits and 23% of admissions into skilled nursing facilities. Many factors contribute to medication non-adherence including psychological and memory disorders, aging and pill burden. The MedaCube is a medication management system intended to help solve unintentional medication non-adherence. The device is designed to dispense scheduled and as-needed oral medications. The MedaCube provides audio and visual prompts alerting subjects to administer their medications. Caregivers receive notification of missed doses, late doses and refill requests. The null hypothesis is that use of the MedaCube results in no difference in medication adherence when compared with six month prior adherence in individual subjects
Multistate Estimates of Survival and Movement in Relation to Colony Size in the Sociable Weaver
We estimated survival and movement probabilities in relation to breeding-colony size in the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius) by using multistate statistical methods, in which survival and movement to time t + 1 is conditional on an individual’s colony size at time t. The sociable weaver is a colonial, cooperatively breeding species that builds a massive communal nest, with colony size ranging from fewer than 20 to more than 500 individuals in some areas. We conducted an 8-year capture/mark/re-capture study of sociable weavers near Kimberley, South Africa. By comparing the fit of different multistate models to our data, we found evidence that annual survival probability of adults was lower in small colonies (less than 30 individuals) and medium-sized colonies (30–60 individuals) than in large colonies (more than 60 individuals). First-year survival of birds banded as juveniles also increased with natal colony size. Statistically, however, these effects were weak, and models without an effect of colony size were equally well supported by our data. Movement probabilities illustrated that individuals seldom moved between colonies of different size classes, and showed a preference to use colonies of size classes similar to what they had occupied the preceding year, even when changing colony sites between years. The potential survival differences among birds in different colonies, if real, translated into differences of 39–45% in average lifespan. First-year survival is probably enhanced through antipredator advantages of being in larger groups during the fledgling period. Adult survival in larger groups may be increased by thermal advantages of a large nest during cold winter weather. The fidelity of weavers to a particular colony-size class between years may reflect phenotypic specialization for certain group sizes
Simulations and cosmological inference: A statistical model for power spectra means and covariances
We describe an approximate statistical model for the sample variance
distribution of the non-linear matter power spectrum that can be calibrated
from limited numbers of simulations. Our model retains the common assumption of
a multivariate Normal distribution for the power spectrum band powers, but
takes full account of the (parameter dependent) power spectrum covariance. The
model is calibrated using an extension of the framework in Habib et al. (2007)
to train Gaussian processes for the power spectrum mean and covariance given a
set of simulation runs over a hypercube in parameter space. We demonstrate the
performance of this machinery by estimating the parameters of a power-law model
for the power spectrum. Within this framework, our calibrated sample variance
distribution is robust to errors in the estimated covariance and shows rapid
convergence of the posterior parameter constraints with the number of training
simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, matches final version published in PR
Nonsupersymmetric brane vacua in stabilized compactifications
We derive the equations for the nonsupersymmetric vacua of D3-branes in the
presence of nonperturbative moduli stabilization in type IIB flux
compactifications, and solve and analyze them in the case of two particular
7-brane embeddings at the bottom of the warped deformed conifold. In the limit
of large volume and long throat, we obtain vacua by imposing a constraint on
the 7-brane embedding. These vacua fill out continuous spaces of higher
dimension than the corresponding supersymmetric vacua, and have negative
effective cosmological constant. Perturbative stability of these vacua is
possible but not generic. Finally, we argue that anti-D3-branes at the tip of
the conifold share the same vacua as D3-branes.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX. v2: references added, typo fixed. v3:
version appearing in JHE
Mesoscopic Effects in Quantum Phases of Ultracold Quantum Gases in Optical Lattices
We present a wide array of quantum measures on numerical solutions of 1D
Bose- and Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonians for finite-size systems with open boundary
conditions. Finite size effects are highly relevant to ultracold quantum gases
in optical lattices, where an external trap creates smaller effective regions
in the form of the celebrated "wedding cake" structure and the local density
approximation is often not applicable. Specifically, for the Bose-Hubbard
Hamiltonian we calculate number, quantum depletion, local von-Neumann entropy,
generalized entanglement or Q-measure, fidelity, and fidelity susceptibility;
for the Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian we also calculate the pairing correlations,
magnetization, charge-density correlations, and antiferromagnetic structure
factor. Our numerical method is imaginary time propagation via time-evolving
block decimation. As part of our study we provide a careful comparison of
canonical vs. grand canonical ensembles and Gutzwiller vs. entangled
simulations. The most striking effect of finite size occurs for bosons: we
observe a strong blurring of the tips of the Mott lobes accompanied by higher
depletion, and show how the location of the first Mott lobe tip approaches the
thermodynamic value as a function of system size.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Nonparametric Estimation of Natural Selection on a Quantitative Trait using Mark-Recapture Data
Assessing natural selection on a phenotypic trait in wild populations is of primary importance for evolutionary ecologists. To cope with the imperfect detection of individuals inherent to monitoring in the wild, we develop a nonparametric method for evaluating the form of natural selection on a quantitative trait using mark-recapture data. Our approach uses penalized splines to achieve flexibility in exploring the form of natural selection by avoiding the need to specify an a priori parametric function. If needed, it can help in suggesting a new parametric model. We employ Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling in a Bayesian framework to estimate model parameters. We illustrate our approach using data for a wild population of sociable weavers (Philetairus socius) to investigate survival in relation to body mass. In agreement with previous parametric analyses, we found that lighter individuals showed a reduction in survival. However, the survival function was not symmetric, indicating that body mass might not be under stabilizing selection as suggested previously
Correlation of Photon and Neutrino Fluxes in Blazars and Gamma Ray Bursts
Relativistic black-hole jet sources are leading candidates for high energy
(>> TeV) neutrino production. The relations defining (a) efficient photopion
losses of cosmic-ray protons on target photons and (b) gamma-gamma opacity of
gamma rays through that same target photon field imply clear multiwavelength
predictions for when and at what energies blazars and GRBs should be most
neutrino bright and gamma-ray dim. The use of multiwavelength observations to
test the standard relativistic jet model for these source is illustrated.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, ApJ Letters, in pres
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