Deciphering the fluctuations of high frequency birth rates

Here the term “high frequency” refers to daily, weekly or monthly birth data. The fluctuations of daily birth numbers show a succession of spikes and dips which, at least at first sight, looks almost as random as white noise. However in recent times several studies were published, including by the present authors, which have given better insight into how birth is affected by exogenous factors. This paper demonstrates how it is possible to examine the adverse effects of catastrophes such as famines, diseases, earthquakes and heat waves on conceptions and link these to subsequent large anomalous troughs in the birth rate. Using both contemporary and historical data we also explore the changes over time which have taken place in birth rate troughs that arise from religious edicts within the Orthodox and Catholic populations in Romania and France respectively. These as well as other effects raise the hope that we will soon be able to “read” and interpret birth rate patterns in the same manner as for example Egyptologists may decipher hieroglyphs

The influence of Lent on marriages and conceptions explored through a new methodology

What is the influence of religion on the actual behavior of people? The present paper introduces a methodology which permits a quantitative assessment. [1] have elsewhere analyzed the impact of Lent (prior to Easter) and Advent (prior to Christmas) on births in Romania. Here we broaden the analysis (i) by studying the effect of Lent on marriages as well as births (ii) by analyzing a number of other countries which allows a comparison with non-Orthodox countries. We also introduce a new methodology (that we call the “overlap probe”) which treats the data in a way that avoids any bias related to seasonal patterns. The comparison between the effects on marriages and conceptions appears of particular interest for it permits to assess the respective weights of social pressure on one hand and personal behavior on the other hand. Our analysis reveals a strong effect of Lent on marriages with a reduction by 80% in Eastern Orthodox countries and 40% in West European Catholic and Protestant countries. Since the influence of Lent on conceptions is independent of any form of direct social control one expects this effect to be much smaller. This is born out by our results which show that the birth effect is about 10 times smaller than the marriage effect. The overlap methodology is so accurate that it allows us to determine the average length of pregnancy (from intercourse to birth) with a precision of 2 or 3 days. This methodology is also used to investigate the impact of the month of Ramadan on birth and suicide rates

AdS(7) black-hole entropy and 5D N=2 Yang-Mills

35 pages; v2 field-theory discussion modified, appendix added and typos correcte

Intravitreal Aflibercept Outcomes in Patients with Persistent Macular Exudate Previously Treated with Bevacizumab and/or Ranibizumab for Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Purpose. To assess whether intravitreal aflibercept (2.0mg) can effectively reduce persistent macular exudate and enhance visual acuity in ranibizumab (0.5mg) and/or bevacizumab (1.25 mg) treatment resistant patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Methods. This retrospective study included 47 treatment resistant eyes from 47 patients switched to intravitreal aflibercept injections after receiving a minimum of 3 injections with either ranibizumab or bevacizumab. Snellen visual acuity and optical coherence tomography were assessed just prior to the first injection (baseline) and prior to the fourth injection (final). Additionally, anatomical regions of persistent macular exudate were tracked to determine if these areas yielded varying responses to aflibercept. Results. At baseline, patients had received an average of 11.3 injections with any prior anti-VEGF drug (SD 5.96). For whole group analysis, baseline and final central retinal thickness were 370.57 mu m and 295.7 mu m (P \u3c =.001), respectively. Baseline and final retinal fluid volumes were 4.81 mm(3) and 4.37 mm(3) (P \u3c =.001), respectively. Baseline and final logMAR were 0.56 and 0.53 (P = 0.301), respectively. Anatomic location of persistent exudate did not appreciably alter treatment outcome. Conclusion. Central retinal thickness and total retinal fluid volume were reduced in ranibizumab and/or bevacizumab treatment resistant patients following three aflibercept injections. No appreciable change in visual acuity was noted

Sex steroid hormones and risk of breast cancer:a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer (BC) has the highest cancer incidence and mortality in women worldwide. Observational epidemiological studies suggest a positive association between testosterone, estradiol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS) and other sex steroid hormones with postmenopausal BC. We used a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis to investigate this association. METHODS: Genetic instruments for nine sex steroid hormones and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) were obtained from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of UK Biobank (total testosterone (TT) N: 230,454, bioavailable testosterone (BT) N: 188,507 and SHBG N: 189,473), The United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (DHEAS N: 9722), the LIFE-Adult and LIFE-Heart cohorts (estradiol N: 2607, androstenedione N: 711, aldosterone N: 685, progesterone N: 1259 and 17-hydroxyprogesterone N: 711) and the CORtisol NETwork (CORNET) consortium (cortisol N: 25,314). Outcome GWAS summary statistics were obtained from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) for overall BC risk (N: 122,977 cases and 105,974 controls) and subtype-specific analyses. RESULTS: We found that a standard deviation (SD) increase in TT, BT and estradiol increased the risk of overall BC (OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.09–1.21, OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.07–1.33 and OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01–1.06, respectively) and ER + BC (OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.12–1.27, OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.11–1.40 and OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.03–1.09, respectively). An SD increase in DHEAS also increased ER + BC risk (OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.03–1.16). Subtype-specific analyses showed similar associations with ER+ expressing subtypes: luminal A-like BC, luminal B-like BC and luminal B/HER2-negative-like BC. CONCLUSIONS: TT, BT, DHEAS and estradiol increase the risk of ER+ type BCs similar to observational studies. Understanding the role of sex steroid hormones in BC risk, particularly subtype-specific risks, highlights the potential importance of attempts to modify and/or monitor hormone levels in order to prevent BC. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13058-022-01553-9

An attempt to observe economy globalization: the cross correlation distance evolution of the top 19 GDP's

Economy correlations between the 19 richest countries are investigated through their Gross Domestic Product increments. A distance is defined between increment correlation matrix elements and their evolution studied as a function of time and time window size. Unidirectional and Bidirectional Minimal Length Paths are generated and analyzed for different time windows. A sort of critical correlation time window is found indicating a transition for best observations. The mean length path decreases with time, indicating stronger correlations. A new method for estimating a realistic minimal time window to observe correlations and deduce macroeconomy conclusions from such features is thus suggested.Comment: to be published in the Dyses05 proceedings, in Int. J. Mod Phys C 15 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

The Core Collapse Supernova Rate from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II Supernova Survey (SDSS-II SNS) data to measure the volumetric core collapse supernova (CCSN) rate in the redshift range (0.03<z<0.09). Using a sample of 89 CCSN we find a volume-averaged rate of (1.06 +/- 0.19) x 10**(-4)/(yr Mpc**3) at a mean redshift of 0.072 +/- 0.009. We measure the CCSN luminosity function from the data and consider the implications on the star formation history.Comment: Minor corrections to references and affiliations to conform with published versio

Effects of Differential Pine Vole Populations on Growth and Yield of McIntosh Apple Trees

Pine voles (Microtus pinetorum LeConte) were maintained as known populations (0, 269, 538 and 1075/ha) in wire mesh-enclosed blocks of \u27McIntosh\u27/M26 apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh.) for 2 years. There was little measurable effect of the voles on growth and production the 1st year, but during the 2nd year the highest population was associated with the death of one tree; severe reductions in growth, yield, and fruit size; a 78% reduction in crown bark weight, 56% loss of fibrous roots, and a dramatic reduction in the value of the crop. Although the low and the medium populations showed little effect on yield, there was a reduction in vegetative growth in the medium population plot that was associated with extensive root girdling, fibrous root reduction and substantial bark loss by the end of the 2nd year

Infrastructural Speculations: Tactics for Designing and Interrogating Lifeworlds

This paper introduces “infrastructural speculations,” an orientation toward speculative design that considers the complex and long-lived relationships of technologies with broader systems, beyond moments of immediate invention and design. As modes of speculation are increasingly used to interrogate questions of broad societal concern, it is pertinent to develop an orientation that foregrounds the “lifeworld” of artifacts—the social, perceptual, and political environment in which they exist. While speculative designs often imply a lifeworld, infrastructural speculations place lifeworlds at the center of design concern, calling attention to the cultural, regulatory, environmental, and repair conditions that enable and surround particular future visions. By articulating connections and affinities between speculative design and infrastructure studies research, we contribute a set of design tactics for producing infrastructural speculations. These tactics help design researchers interrogate the complex and ongoing entanglements among technologies, institutions, practices, and systems of power when gauging the stakes of alternate lifeworlds

Filtering of complex systems using overlapping tree networks

We introduce a technique that is capable to filter out information from complex systems, by mapping them to networks, and extracting a subgraph with the strongest links. This idea is based on the Minimum Spanning Tree, and it can be applied to sets of graphs that have as links different sets of interactions among the system's elements, which are described as network nodes. It can also be applied to correlation-based graphs, where the links are weighted and represent the correlation strength between all pairs of nodes. We applied this method to the European scientific collaboration network, which is composed of all the projects supported by the European Framework Program FP6, and also to the correlation-based network of the 100 highest capitalized stocks traded in the NYSE. For both cases we identified meaningful structures, such as a strongly interconnected community of countries that play important role in the collaboration network, and clusters of stocks belonging to different sectors of economic activity, which gives significant information about the investigated systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure