7,800 research outputs found
Threshold effects for two pathogens spreading on a network
Diseases spread through host populations over the networks of contacts
between individuals, and a number of results about this process have been
derived in recent years by exploiting connections between epidemic processes
and bond percolation on networks. Here we investigate the case of two pathogens
in a single population, which has been the subject of recent interest among
epidemiologists. We demonstrate that two pathogens competing for the same hosts
can both spread through a population only for intermediate values of the bond
occupation probability that lie above the classic epidemic threshold and below
a second higher value, which we call the coexistence threshold, corresponding
to a distinct topological phase transition in networked systems.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Third rank Killing tensors in general relativity. The (1+1)-dimensional case
Third rank Killing tensors in (1+1)-dimensional geometries are investigated
and classified. It is found that a necessary and sufficient condition for such
a geometry to admit a third rank Killing tensor can always be formulated as a
quadratic PDE, of order three or lower, in a Kahler type potential for the
metric. This is in contrast to the case of first and second rank Killing
tensors for which the integrability condition is a linear PDE. The motivation
for studying higher rank Killing tensors in (1+1)-geometries, is the fact that
exact solutions of the Einstein equations are often associated with a first or
second rank Killing tensor symmetry in the geodesic flow formulation of the
dynamics. This is in particular true for the many models of interest for which
this formulation is (1+1)-dimensional, where just one additional constant of
motion suffices for complete integrability. We show that new exact solutions
can be found by classifying geometries admitting higher rank Killing tensors.Comment: 16 pages, LaTe
Nonperiodic echoes from mushroom billiard hats
Mushroom billiards have the remarkable property to show one or more clear cut
integrable islands in one or several chaotic seas, without any fractal
boundaries. The islands correspond to orbits confined to the hats of the
mushrooms, which they share with the chaotic orbits. It is thus interesting to
ask how long a chaotic orbit will remain in the hat before returning to the
stem. This question is equivalent to the inquiry about delay times for
scattering from the hat of the mushroom into an opening where the stem should
be. For fixed angular momentum we find that no more than three different delay
times are possible. This induces striking nonperiodic structures in the delay
times that may be of importance for mesoscopic devices and should be accessible
to microwave experiments.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. E without the appendi
The skill paradox: Explaining and reducing employment discrimination against skilled immigrants
Using a social identity theory approach, we theorized that recruiters might be particularly biased against skilled immigrant applicants. We refer to this phenomenon as a skill paradox, according to which immigrants are more likely to be targets of employment discrimination the more skilled they are. Furthermore, building on the common ingroup identity model, we proposed that this paradox can be resolved through human resource management (HRM) strategies that promote inclusive hiring practices (e.g., by emphasizing fit with a diverse clientele). The results from a laboratory experiment were consistent with our predictions: Local recruiters preferred skilled local applicants over skilled immigrant applicants, but only when these applicants were qualified for a specific job. This bias against qualified and skilled immigrant applicants was attenuated when fit with a diverse clientele was emphasized, but not when fit with a homogeneous clientele was emphasized or when the hiring strategy was not explained. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on employment discrimination against skilled immigrants, including the role of inclusiveness for reducing discriminatory biases
The EuroHeart Failure Survey programmeâa survey on the quality of care among patients with heart failure in Europe Part 2: treatment
National surveys suggest that treatment of heart failure in daily practice differs from guidelines and is characterized by underuse of recommended medications. Accordingly, the Euro, Heart Failure Survey was conducted to ascertain how patients hospitalized for heart failure are managed in Europe and if national variations occur in the treatment of this condition.
Methods The survey screened discharge summaries of 11 304 patients over a 6-week period in 115 hospitals from 24 countries belonging to the ESC to study their medical treatment.
Results Diuretics (mainly loop diuretics) were prescribed in 86.9% followed by ACE inhibitors (61.8%), beta-blockers (36.9%), cardiac glycosides (35.7%), nitrates (32.1%), calcium. channel blockers (21.2%) and spironolactone (20.5%). 44.6% of the population used four or more different drugs. Only 17.2% were under the combination of diuretic, ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers. Important local variations were found in the rate of prescription of ACE inhibitors and particularly beta-blockers. Daily dosage of ACE inhibitors and particularly of beta-blockers was on average below the recommended target dose. Modelling-analysis of the prescription of treatments indicated that the aetiology of heart failure, age, co-morbid factors and type of hospital ward influenced the rate of prescription. Age 70 years, in patients with respiratory disease and increased in cardiology wards, in ischaemic heart failure and in mate subjects. Prescription of cardiac glycosides was significantly increased in patients with supraventricular tachycardia/atrial fibrillation. Finally, the rate of prescription of antithrombotic agents was increased in the presence of supraventricular arrhythmia, ischaemic heart disease, mate subjects but was decreased in patients over 70.
Conclusion Our results suggest that the prescription of recommended medications including ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers remains limited and that the daily dosage remains tow, particularly for beta-blockers. The survey also identifies several important factors including age, gender, type of hospital ward, co morbid factors which influence the prescription of heart failure medication at discharge
Document Filtering for Long-tail Entities
Filtering relevant documents with respect to entities is an essential task in
the context of knowledge base construction and maintenance. It entails
processing a time-ordered stream of documents that might be relevant to an
entity in order to select only those that contain vital information.
State-of-the-art approaches to document filtering for popular entities are
entity-dependent: they rely on and are also trained on the specifics of
differentiating features for each specific entity. Moreover, these approaches
tend to use so-called extrinsic information such as Wikipedia page views and
related entities which is typically only available only for popular head
entities. Entity-dependent approaches based on such signals are therefore
ill-suited as filtering methods for long-tail entities. In this paper we
propose a document filtering method for long-tail entities that is
entity-independent and thus also generalizes to unseen or rarely seen entities.
It is based on intrinsic features, i.e., features that are derived from the
documents in which the entities are mentioned. We propose a set of features
that capture informativeness, entity-saliency, and timeliness. In particular,
we introduce features based on entity aspect similarities, relation patterns,
and temporal expressions and combine these with standard features for document
filtering. Experiments following the TREC KBA 2014 setup on a publicly
available dataset show that our model is able to improve the filtering
performance for long-tail entities over several baselines. Results of applying
the model to unseen entities are promising, indicating that the model is able
to learn the general characteristics of a vital document. The overall
performance across all entities---i.e., not just long-tail entities---improves
upon the state-of-the-art without depending on any entity-specific training
data.Comment: CIKM2016, Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on
Information and Knowledge Management. 201
Automated Delineation of Supraglacial Debris Cover Using Deep Learning and Multisource Remote Sensing Data
Funding: S.K. acknowledges funding from the DST-India via INSPIRE fellowship scheme (DST/INSPIRE Fellowship/2017/IF170680). S.K. acknowledges funding from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) funding ID 2021/22 (57552338).Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Edge-Based Compartmental Modeling for Infectious Disease Spread Part III: Disease and Population Structure
We consider the edge-based compartmental models for infectious disease spread
introduced in Part I. These models allow us to consider standard SIR diseases
spreading in random populations. In this paper we show how to handle deviations
of the disease or population from the simplistic assumptions of Part I. We
allow the population to have structure due to effects such as demographic
detail or multiple types of risk behavior the disease to have more complicated
natural history. We introduce these modifications in the static network
context, though it is straightforward to incorporate them into dynamic
networks. We also consider serosorting, which requires using the dynamic
network models. The basic methods we use to derive these generalizations are
widely applicable, and so it is straightforward to introduce many other
generalizations not considered here
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