Top 100 Urology Influences on Twitter: Is Social Media Influence Associated with Academic Impact?

Introduction: The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to identify and describe the top 100 urology influencers on the social media platform Twitter. Furthermore, we aim to correlate each individual\u27s Twitter influence with academic impact in urology. Materials and Methods: Twitter influence scores for the topic search “urology” were collected in April 2022 using the Right Relevance software, which accounts for the individual\u27s connections (followers/following) to other influencers in urology as well as engagement (likes, retweets, and views) on the platform. The top 100 personal accounts with the highest computed scores were linked to individuals’ names, all-time h-index, geographic location, specialty, sex, and board certification. We examined the Pearson correlation coefficient between influence rank and h-index. Results: We identified the top 100 Twitter influencers on the topic of “urology.” The majority are from the United States (63%), male (85%), and are practicing urologists (93%). Ninety-three percent (93%) of U.S. urology influencers are board certified. Only 22 out of the 50 states are represented. The second most common country is the United Kingdom with 11 urology influencers. The median all-time h-index is 41.5 (IQR: 27 – 55.5). There is a weak positive coefficient (r=0.26) between the influence rank and h-index (p=0.021). Conclusions: The top Twitter influencers in urology are mostly Board-certified U.S. urologists. Collectively, influencers have a relatively greater academic impact compared to the average urologist, although there is a weak positive correlation between Twitter influence and h-index among top Twitter influencers

Evaluating the Role of LVI as an Indicator for Adverse Outcomes in Patients with Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma and its Histological Subtypes

Lymphvascular invasion (LVI) is recognized as an adverse prognostic factor in many cancers. Our aim is to assess the prognostic ability of LVI in UTUC urothelial carcinoma (UC) and micropapillary urothelial carcinoma (MPUC) subtypes as a predictor of overall survival (OS) using a large North American cohort. Our cohort included 9750 cM0 UTUC patients who underwent a radical nephroureterectomy (RNU), between 2004 and 2015, within the National Cancer Database (NCDB). The main variable of interest was LVI status, and its interaction with pathological nodal (pN) status. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to estimate the OS. Cox regression analysis tested the impact of LVI status on OS after accounting for covariates. In patients with UC at 5-years post-RNU, the OS rates were 60.2%, 29.9%, 28.9%, and 20.8% in patient with pN0 without LVI, pN0 with LVI, pN+ without LVI, and pN+ with LVI, respectively (p Our report is the first to examine the impact of LVI on OS in a large North American nationwide cohort. It indicates that LVI is associated with reduced OS in patients with UTUC treated surgically

Superluminal motion of a relativistic jet in the neutron star merger GW170817

The binary neutron star merger GW170817 was accompanied by radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum and localized to the galaxy NGC 4993 at a distance of 41+/-3 Mpc. The radio and X-ray afterglows of GW170817 exhibited delayed onset, a gradual rise in the emission with time as t^0.8, a peak at about 150 days post-merger, followed by a relatively rapid decline. To date, various models have been proposed to explain the afterglow emission, including a choked-jet cocoon and a successful-jet cocoon (a.k.a. structured jet). However, the observational data have remained inconclusive as to whether GW170817 launched a successful relativistic jet. Here we show, through Very Long Baseline Interferometry, that the compact radio source associated with GW170817 exhibits superluminal motion between two epochs at 75 and 230 days post-merger. This measurement breaks the degeneracy between the models and indicates that, while the early-time radio emission was powered by a wider-angle outflow (cocoon), the late-time emission was most likely dominated by an energetic and narrowly-collimated jet, with an opening angle of <5 degrees, and observed from a viewing angle of about 20 degrees. The imaging of a collimated relativistic outflow emerging from GW170817 adds substantial weight to the growing evidence linking binary neutron star mergers and short gamma-ray bursts.Comment: 42 pages, 4 figures (main text), 2 figures (supplementary text), 2 tables. Referee and editor comments incorporate

Collateral consequences of COVID-19 for people on probation and parole

BACKGROUND: While the severe detrimental impact of COVID-19 on incarcerated people is well known, little is known about the experience of COVID-19 on those on community supervision. Our objective was to better understand the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and its collateral consequences for those on community supervision (e.g., probation, parole). Beginning in December 2020, we conducted 185 phone surveys about COVID-19 with participants in The Southern Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Study across its three sites - Florida, Kentucky, and North Carolina. We conducted rapid assessment interviews with both closed- and open-ended questions. We calculated descriptive statistics for close-ended questions and conducted a content analysis for open-ended questions. RESULTS: The COVID-19 pandemic affected those on community supervision through their experiences in the community and while incarcerated with over one-quarter of participants being reincarcerated during this time. In addition to many (128/185) experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, about half (85/185) of participants reported a diagnosis in their network with 16 of those participants losing loved ones to the pandemic. Participants experienced disruptions to their social network, healthcare, and livelihoods. Though many maintained their support systems, others felt isolated and depressed. Experiences during COVID-19 exacerbated difficulties already faced by those with criminal involvement. CONCLUSIONS: The public health community must recognize those experiencing probation and parole, not only those housed in carceral facilities, as disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We must tailor programs and services to meet their needs

An International Comparison of Implied, Realized and GARCH Volatility Forecasts

We compare the predictive ability and economic value of implied, realized, and GARCH volatility models for 13 equity indices from 10 countries. Model ranking is similar across countries, but varies with the forecast horizon. At the daily horizon, the Heterogeneous Autoregressive model offers the most accurate predictions, whereas an implied volatility model that corrects for the volatility risk premium is superior at the monthly horizon. Widely used GARCH models have inferior performance in almost all cases considered. All methods perform significantly worse over the 2008–09 crisis period. Finally, implied volatility offers significant improvements against historical methods for international portfolio diversification. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mar

Value at Risk models with long memory features and their economic performance

We study alternative dynamics for Value at Risk (VaR) that incorporate a slow moving component and information on recent aggregate returns in established quantile (auto) regression models. These models are compared on their economic performance, and also on metrics of first-order importance such as violation ratios. By better economic performance, we mean that changes in the VaR forecasts should have a lower variance to reduce transaction costs and should lead to lower exceedance sizes without raising the average level of the VaR. We find that, in combination with a targeted estimation strategy, our proposed models lead to improved performance in both statistical and economic terms

Transcriptional Regulation of Proteoglycans and Glycosaminoglycan Chain-synthesizing Glycosyltransferases by UV Irradiation in Cultured Human Dermal Fibroblasts

Various kinds of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) and proteoglycans (PGs) have been known to be involved in structural and space-filling functions, as well as many physiological regulations in skin. To investigate ultraviolet (UV) radiation-mediated regulation of GAGs and PGs in cultured human dermal fibroblasts, transcriptional changes of many types of PGs and GAG chain-synthesizing enzymes at 18 hr after 75 mJ/cm2 of UV irradiation were examined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction methods. Hyaluronic acid synthase (HAS)-1, -2, and -3 and hyaluronidase-2 mRNA expressions were significantly increased by UV irradiation. Expressions of lumican, fibromodulin, osteoglycin, syndecan-2, perlecan, agrin, versican, decorin, and biglycan were significantly decreased by UV irradiation, while syndecan-1 was increased. Expressions of GAG chain-synthesizing glycosyltransferases, xylosyltransferase-1, β1,3-glucuronyltransferase-1, β1,4-galactosyltransferase-2, -4, exostosin-1, chondroitin polymerizing factor, and chondroitin sulfate synthase-3 were significantly reduced, whereas those of β1,3-galactosyltransferase-6, β1,4-galactosyltransferase-3, -7, β-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltran sferase-2, and -7 were increased by UV irradiation. Heparanase-1 mRNA expression was increased, but that of heparanase-2 was reduced by UV irradiation. Time-course investigation of representative genes showed consistent results. In conclusion, UV irradiation may increase hyaluronic acid production through HAS induction, and decrease other GAG productions through downregulation of PG core proteins and GAG chain-synthesizing glycosyltransferases in cultured human dermal fibroblasts

Modeling and predicting the CBOE market volatility index

The authors are very grateful to financial support from the ESRC under the Grant RES-062-23-0311 (Fernandes) and from CNPq-Brazil (Medeiros), respectively