Joint disease mapping using six cancers in the Yorkshire region of England

OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to model jointly the incidence rates of six smoking related cancers in the Yorkshire region of England, to explore the patterns of spatial correlation amongst them, and to estimate the relative weight of smoking and other shared risk factors for the relevant disease sites, both before and after adjustment for socioeconomic background (SEB). METHODS: Data on the incidence of oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, lung, kidney, and bladder cancers between 1983 and 2003 were extracted from the Northern & Yorkshire Cancer Registry database for the 532 electoral wards in the Yorkshire region. Using postcode of residence, each case was assigned an area-based measure of SEB using the Townsend index. Standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) were calculated for each cancer site and their correlations investigated. The joint analysis of the spatial variation in incidence used a Bayesian shared-component model. Three components were included to represent differences in smoking (for all six sites), bodyweight/obesity (for oesophagus, pancreas and kidney cancers) and diet/alcohol consumption (for oesophagus and stomach cancers). RESULTS: The incidence of cancers of the oesophagus, pancreas, kidney, and bladder was relatively evenly distributed across the region. The incidence of stomach and lung cancers was more clustered around the urban areas in the south of the region, and these two cancers were significantly associated with higher levels of area deprivation. The incidence of lung cancer was most impacted by adjustment for SEB, with the rural/urban split becoming less apparent. The component representing smoking had a larger effect on cancer incidence in the eastern part of the region. The effects of the other two components were small and disappeared after adjustment for SEB. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the feasibility of joint disease modelling using data from six cancer sites. Incidence estimates are more precise than those obtained without smoothing. This methodology may be an important tool to help authorities evaluate healthcare system performance and the impact of policies

Work function determination of promising electrode materials for thermionic energy converters

The work function determinations of candidate materials for low temperature (1400 K) thermionics through vacuum emission tests are discussed. Two systems, a vacuum emission test vehicle and a thermionic emission microscope are used for emission measurements. Some nickel and cobalt based super alloys were preliminarily examined. High temperature physical properties and corrosion behavior of some super alloy candidates are presented. The corrosion behavior of sodium is of particular interest since topping cycles might use sodium heat transfer loops. A Marchuk tube was designed for plasma discharge studies with the carbide and possibly some super alloy samples. A series of metal carbides and other alloys were fabricated and tested in a special high temperature mass spectrometer. This information coupled with work function determinations was evaluated in an attempt to learn how electron bonding occurs in transition alloys

The poverty impacts of improved cowpea varieties in Nigeria: a counterfactual analysis

Open Access Article; Published online: 12 June 2019Adoption of improved agricultural technologies has long been recognized as critical for reducing poverty through increased productivity, incomes, and asset accumulation. Using a nationally representative survey data from a sample of over 1500 households in Nigeria, this paper evaluates the impacts of adoption of improved cowpea varieties on income and asset poverty reduction using an endogenous switching regression model. The results showed that adoption of improved cowpea varieties increased per capita household income and asset ownership by 17 and 24 percentage points, respectively. The results based on the observed and counterfactual income and asset distributions further showed that adoption reduced both income poverty and asset poverty by 5 percentage points. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy options for increasing adoption and impacts of improved cowpea varieties in Nigeria

Synthesis and characterization of metallocyclic complexes of palladium(II) with monoalkyl (alpha-anilino-N-benzyl)phosphonates

The synthesis, spectroscopic and thermal properties of the novel five-membered [N,O] metallocyclic complexes of palladium(II) with monoethyl (HL1) and monobutyl (HL2) esters of (alpha -amino-N-benzyl)phosphonic acid are reported. Binuclear complexes Pd(2)L(4) (L = L1, L2) were obtained by reaction of sodium salts of monoalkyl phosphonates with PdCl(4)(2-) in aqueous solution. Four organophosphorus ligands bridge two palladium atoms by coordination through the aniline nitrogen and the deprotonated phosphonic acid oxygen. The complexes were identified and characterized by elemental analysis, magnetic and conductance measurements, as well as by spectroscopic (ESI-MS, IR, UV-VIS, (1)H and (31)P NMR) and thermal (TG, DTA) studies. The properties of the complexes are discussed with respect to those of palladium(II) metallocyclic complexes reported for monoalkyl 4-azobenzene-substituted anilinobenzylphosphonates

Simulations of the OzDES AGN Reverberation Mapping Project

As part of the OzDES spectroscopic survey we are carrying out a large scale reverberation mapping study of $\sim$500 quasars over five years in the 30 deg$^2$ area of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova fields. These quasars have redshifts ranging up to 4 and have apparent AB magnitudes between $16.8<r<22.5$ mag. The aim of the survey is to measure time lags between fluctuations in the quasar continuum and broad emission line fluxes of individual objects in order to measure black hole masses for a broad range of AGN and constrain the radius-luminosity ($R-L$) relationship. Here we investigate the expected efficiency of the OzDES reverberation mapping campaign and its possible extensions. We expect to recover lags for $\sim$35-45\% of the quasars. AGN with shorter lags and greater variability are more likely to yield a lag, and objects with lags $\lesssim$6 months or $\sim$1 year are expected be recovered the most accurately. The baseline OzDES reverberation mapping campaign is predicted to produce an unbiased measurement of the $R-L$ relationship parameters for H$\beta$, Mg II $\lambda$2798, and C IV $\lambda$1549. However, extending the baseline survey by either increasing the spectroscopic cadence, extending the survey season, or improving the emission line flux measurement accuracy will significantly improve the $R-L$ parameter constraints for all broad emission lines.Comment: Published online in MNRAS. 28 page

Pemasaran Garam Rakyat di Desa Pangarengan Kecamatan Pangarengan Kabupaten Sampang

Secara geografis Desa Pangarengan berada di daerah pesisir pantai. Hal itu membuat Desa Pangarengan berpotensi untuk menjadi daerah penghasil garam. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui: (1) Bentuk saluran pemasaran garam rakyat (2) Struktur pasar garam rakyat (3) Perilaku pasar garam rakyat dan (4) Keragaan pasar garam rakyat di Desa Pangarengan Kecamatan Pangarengan Kabupaten Sampang. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode kualitatif dan kuantitatif. Metode pengambilan contoh menggunakan Multistage Sampling, dan Snow Ball Sampling. Data penelitian yang digunakan adalah data primer dan data sekunder yang dianalisis dengan menggunakan analisis deskriptif, analisis konsentrasi rasio, analisis integrasi pasar dan analisis marjin pemasaran. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa: (1) Saluran pemasaran garam rakyat di Desa Pangarengan terdiri dari dua bentuk saluran pemasaran yaitu saluran pemasaran yang melalui tengkulak dan saluran pemasaran yang melalui pabrik pengolah garam (PT. Jaya Makmur Utama) di Desa Pangarengan; (2) Struktur pasar garam rakyat di Desa Pangarengan mengarah pada pasar persaingan tidak sempurna; (3) Tidak terjadi keterpaduan pasar secara vertikal antar lembaga pemasaran yang terlibat dalam pemasaran garam rakyat di Desa Pangarengan; (4) Distribusi marjin pemasaran dan share keuntungan yang paling besar dalam sistem pemasaran garam rakyat di Desa Pangarengan terletak di lembaga pemasaran pabrik

Two 'transitions': the political economy of Joyce Banda's rise to power and the related role of civil society organisations in Malawi

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Review of African Political Economy on 21/07/2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2014.90194