Sequential Allocation and Balancing Prognostic Factors in a Psychiatric Clinical Trial

In controlled clinical trials, each of several prognostic factors should be balanced across the trial arms. Traditional restricted randomization may be proved inadequate especially with small sample sizes. In psychiatric disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), small trials prevail. Therefore, procedures to minimize the chance of imbalance between treatment arms are advisable. This paper describes a minimization procedure specifically designed for a clinical trial that evaluates treatment efficacy for OCD patients. Aitchison's compositional distance was used to calculate vectors for each possibility of allocation in a covariate adaptive method. Two different procedures were designed to allocate patients in small blocks or sequentially one-by-one. Partial results of this allocation procedure as well as simulated ones are shown. In the clinical trial for which this procedure was developed, the balancing between treatment arms was achieved successfully. Simulations of results considering different arrival order of patients showed that most of the patients are allocated in a different treatment arm if arrival order is modified. Results show that a random factor is maintained with the random arrival order of patients. This specific procedure allows the use of a large number of prognostic factors for the allocation decision and was proved adequate for a psychiatric trial design

Enhanced Ethanol Dehydration with Hydrostable Inorganic Pervaporation Membranes

Membranes which allow water diffusion in favour of other substances can offer increased efficiency in processes to dehydrate ethanol. Silica membranes can perform this selective diffusion, but have mostly been reported for their gas high gas separating ability. This work investigates the effectiveness of carbonised template molecular sieve (CTMSS) membrane to dehydrate ethanol/water mixtures. The silica derived top layer of the membrane was measured at 20nm thickness by XPS sputtering technique. However, the silica enters the porous structure of -alumina layer in excess of 90nm. After 200 minutes of operation, H2O/EtOH selectivity increased to 5.6 from around 1 due to gradual pore filling by adsorbed water and ethanol which contributed to inhibiting ethanol transport. The smaller water molecules were thus favoured in transporting to the permeate side. Total mass flux using a 10% ethanol feed remained constant at around 1.5 kg.m-2.hr-1. Selectivity of up to 9.5 was achieved when azeotropic feed solutions of 95% were used, displaying the potential for this technology for a wide range of ethanol dehydration applications. Pressurising the feed up to 400 kPa doubled the permeate flux, but enhanced the transport of ethanol over water

Candidatus Bartonella merieuxii, a potential new zoonotic Bartonella species in canids from Iraq.

Bartonellae are emerging vector-borne pathogens infecting erythrocytes and endothelial cells of various domestic and wild mammals. Blood samples were collected from domestic and wild canids in Iraq under the United States Army zoonotic disease surveillance program. Serology was performed using an indirect immunofluorescent antibody test for B. henselae, B. clarridgeiae, B. vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii and B. bovis. Overall seroprevalence was 47.4% in dogs (n = 97), 40.4% in jackals (n = 57) and 12.8% in red foxes (n = 39). Bartonella species DNA was amplified from whole blood and representative strains were sequenced. DNA of a new Bartonella species similar to but distinct from B. bovis, was amplified from 37.1% of the dogs and 12.3% of the jackals. B. vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii was also amplified from one jackal and no Bartonella DNA was amplified from foxes. Adjusting for age, the odds of dogs being Bartonella PCR positive were 11.94 times higher than for wild canids (95% CI: 4.55-31.35), suggesting their role as reservoir for this new Bartonella species. This study reports on the prevalence of Bartonella species in domestic and wild canids of Iraq and provides the first detection of Bartonella in jackals. We propose Candidatus Bartonella merieuxii for this new Bartonella species. Most of the Bartonella species identified in sick dogs are also pathogenic for humans. Therefore, seroprevalence in Iraqi dog owners and bacteremia in Iraqi people with unexplained fever or culture negative endocarditis requires further investigation as well as in United States military personnel who were stationed in Iraq. Finally, it will also be essential to test any dog brought back from Iraq to the USA for presence of Bartonella bacteremia to prevent any accidental introduction of a new Bartonella species to the New World

Disentangling the near infrared continuum spectral components of the inner 500 pc of Mrk 573: two-dimensional maps

We present a near infrared study of the spectral components of the continuum in the inner 500$\times$500 pc$^2$ of the nearby Seyfert galaxy Mrk573 using adaptive optics near-infrared integral field spectroscopy with the instrument NIFS of the Gemini North Telescope at a spatial resolution of $\sim$50 pc. We performed spectral synthesis using the {\sc starlight} code and constructed maps for the contributions of different age components of the stellar population: young ($age\leq100$ Myr), young-intermediate ($100<age\leq700$ Myr), intermediate-old ($700$ Myr $2$ Gyr) to the near-IR K-band continuum, as well as their contribution to the total stellar mass. We found that the old stellar population is dominant within the inner 250 pc, while the intermediate age components dominate the continuum at larger distances. A young stellar component contributes up to $\sim$20% within the inner $\sim$70 pc, while hot dust emission and featureless continuum components are also necessary to fit the nuclear spectrum, contributing up to 20% of the K-band flux there. The radial distribution of the different age components in the inner kiloparsec of Mrk573 is similar to those obtained by our group for the Seyfert galaxies Mrk1066, Mrk1157 and NGC1068 in previous works using a similar methodology. Young stellar populations ($\leq$100 Myr) are seen in the inner 200-300 pc for all galaxies contributing with $\ge$20% of the K-band flux, while the near-IR continuum is dominated by the contribution of intermediate-age stars ($t=$100 Myr-2 Gyr) at larger distances. Older stellar populations dominate in the inner 250 pc

Sample size for family evaluation in potato breeding programs.

Clonal families from a broad genetic base population in the Potato Breeding Program at the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA), Brazil, were used in this trials. Twenty-five families were assessed in a 5 x 5 triple lattice design. Each plot consisted of 30 clones distributed in three rows of ten plants. Tuber yield per plant, percentage of large tubers, mean weight of large tubers, mean medium-sized tuber weight and tuber specific gravity were measured. Three hundred experiments were simulated varying the family sizes from three to 90 clones. The coefficients of experimental variation (CVe), the coefficients of genetic variation (CVg), heritabilities for family mean and the CVg/CVe ratio were estimated. Genetic parameters were stabilized with family sizes as small as six clones, depending on the trait. This indicates that the families can be adequately represented by a small sample of clones. Using the maximum curvature method it is possible to conclude that approximately 30 clones would be sufficient to represent each family, even for traits with the highest CVe. The genetic variance within family was greater than the genetic variance among families for all traits, indicating a favorable potential for within family selection. The correlation coefficients of the family means with the 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% best clones from each family, considering the five traits assessed, were always high, meaning that within the best families generally are the best clones

Estudo do impacto no meio ambiente pelo processamento da farinha de mandioca no Município de São Felipe, Bahia.

O município de São Felipe localiza-se a uma latitude 12º50'50" sul e a uma longitude 39º05'22" oeste estando a uma altitude de 195 metros. Possui uma área de 198,71 km² uma população de aproximadamente 21.000 habitantes. Das atividades agrícolas destaca-se o cultivo da mandioca com técnicas ainda rudimentares. O Brasil é o segundo produtor de mandioca do mundo, sendo a planta resistente nas diferentes condições de cultivo, encontrada em todos os estados brasileiros. As utilizações culinárias caseiras da mandioca não acumulam resíduo significativo, pela pequena quantidade processada. Contudo, quando o processamento é maior, os subprodutos podem vir a apresentar problemas de disposição e soluções deverão ser encontradas. O processamento industrial da mandioca causa sérios problemas ambientais na disposição de resíduos, como poluição de rios, do solo, lençol freático e mortandade de peixes. Apesar dos agricultores serem familiarizados com a mandioca, desconhecem as variedades, os impactos que seus resíduos causam ao meio ambiente e o aproveitamento dos resíduos como uma fonte de sustentabilidade.PDF.035