Cancer complicating systemic lupus erythematosus--a dichotomy emerging from a nested case-control study

We determined whether any individual cancers are increased or decreased in a cohort of 595 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) followed for up to 32 years at the University College London Hospitals Lupus Clinic, looking for any associated clinical or serological factors and the prognosis after cancer diagnosis

Mean field baryon magnetic moments and sumrules

New developments have spurred interest in magnetic moments ($\mu$-s) of baryons. The measurement of some of the decuplet $\mu$-s and the findings of new sumrules from various methods are partly responsible for this renewed interest. Our model, inspired by large colour approximation, is a relativistic self consistent mean field description with a modified Richardson potential and is used to describe the $\mu$-s and masses of all baryons with up (u), down (d) and strange (s) quarks. We have also checked the validity of the Franklin sumrule (referred to as CGSR in the literature) and sumrules of Luty, March-Russell and White. We found that our result for sumrules matches better with experiment than the non-relativistic quark model prediction. We have also seen that quark magnetic moments depend on the baryon in which they belong while the naive quark model expects them to be constant.Comment: 7 pages, no figure, uses epl.cl

Thrice weekly nocturnal in-centre haemodiafiltration: a 2-year experience

Background: Adequate control of plasma phosphate without phosphate binders is difficult to achieve on a thrice-weekly haemodialysis schedule. The use of quotidian nocturnal dialysis is effective but not practical in the in-centre setting. This quality improvement project was set up as an exercise allowing the evaluation of small-solute clearance by combining convection with extended-hour dialysis in a thrice-weekly hospital setting. Methods: A single-centred, prospective analysis of patients' electronic records was performed from August 2012 to July 2014. The duration of haemodiafiltration was increased from a median of 4.5 to 8 h. Dialysis adequacy, biochemical parameters and medications were reviewed on a monthly basis. A reduction in plasma phosphate was anticipated, so all phosphate binders were stopped. Results: Since inception, 14 patients have participated with over 2,000 sessions of dialysis. The pre-dialysis phosphate level fell from a mean of 1.52 ± 0.4 to 1.06 ± 0.1 mmol/l (p < 0.05). The average binder intake of 3.26 ± 2.6 tablets was eliminated. A normal plasma phosphate range has been maintained with increased dietary phosphate intake and no requirement for intradialytic phosphate supplementation. Conclusion: Phosphate control can be achieved without the need for binders or supplementation on a thrice-weekly in-centre haemodiafiltration program

Fake-Acknowledgment Attack on ACK-based Sensor Power Schedule for Remote State Estimation

We consider a class of malicious attacks against remote state estimation. A sensor with limited resources adopts an acknowledgement (ACK)-based online power schedule to improve the remote state estimation performance. A malicious attacker can modify the ACKs from the remote estimator and convey fake information to the sensor. When the capability of the attacker is limited, we propose an attack strategy for the attacker and analyze the corresponding effect on the estimation performance. The possible responses of the sensor are studied and a condition for the sensor to discard ACKs and switch from online schedule to offline schedule is provided.Comment: submitted to IEEE CDC 201

Stability of strange stars (SS) derived from a realistic equation of state

A realistic equation of state (EOS) leads to realistic strange stars (ReSS) which are compact in the mass radius plot, close to the Schwarzchild limiting line (Dey et al 1998). Many of the observed stars fit in with this kind of compactness, irrespective of whether they are X-ray pulsars, bursters or soft $\gamma$ repeaters or even radio pulsars. We point out that a change in the radius of a star can be small or large, when its mass is increasing and this depends on the position of a particular star on the mass radius curve. We carry out a stability analysis against radial oscillations and compare with the EOS of other strange star (SS) models. We find that the ReSS is stable and an M-R region can be identified to that effect.Comment: 16 pages including 5 figures. Accepted for publication in MPL

An Optimal Transmission Strategy for Kalman Filtering over Packet Dropping Links with Imperfect Acknowledgements

This paper presents a novel design methodology for optimal transmission policies at a smart sensor to remotely estimate the state of a stable linear stochastic dynamical system. The sensor makes measurements of the process and forms estimates of the state using a local Kalman filter. The sensor transmits quantized information over a packet dropping link to the remote receiver. The receiver sends packet receipt acknowledgments back to the sensor via an erroneous feedback communication channel which is itself packet dropping. The key novelty of this formulation is that the smart sensor decides, at each discrete time instant, whether to transmit a quantized version of either its local state estimate or its local innovation. The objective is to design optimal transmission policies in order to minimize a long term average cost function as a convex combination of the receiver's expected estimation error covariance and the energy needed to transmit the packets. The optimal transmission policy is obtained by the use of dynamic programming techniques. Using the concept of submodularity, the optimality of a threshold policy in the case of scalar systems with perfect packet receipt acknowledgments is proved. Suboptimal solutions and their structural results are also discussed. Numerical results are presented illustrating the performance of the optimal and suboptimal transmission policies.Comment: Conditionally accepted in IEEE Transactions on Control of Network System

Human computer interaction with a PIM application: Merging activity, location and social setting into context

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2009 Springer VerlagPersonal Information Managers exploit the ubiquitous paradigm in mobile computing technology to integrate services and programs for business and leisure. Recognizing that every situation is constituted by information and events, this context will vary depending on the situation users are in, and the tasks they are about to commit. The value of context as a source of information is highly recognized and for individual dimensions context has been both conceptually described and prototypes implemented. The novelty in this paper is a new implementation of context by integrating three dimensions of context: social information, activity information and geographical position. Based on an application developed for Microsoft Window Mobile these three dimensions of context are explored and implemented in an application for mobile telephone users. Experiment conducted show the viability of tailoring contextual information in three dimensions to provide user with timely and relevant information