875 research outputs found
Linear Categorical Marginal Modeling of solicited symptoms in vaccine clinical trials
Analysis of the occurrence of adverse events, and in particular of solicited symptoms, following vaccination is often needed for the safety and benefit-risk evaluation of any candidate vaccine, and typically involves taking repeated measurements. In this article, it is shown that Linear Categorical Marginal Models (LCMMs) are well suited to take into account the dependencies in the data arising from the repeated measurements and provide detailed and useful information for comparing safety profiles of different products while remaining relatively easy to interpret. LCMMs are presented and applied to a Phase III clinical trial of a candidate meningococcal pediatric vaccine
Taylor dispersion with absorbing boundaries: A Stochastic Approach
We describe how to solve the problem of Taylor dispersion in the presence of
absorbing boundaries using an exact stochastic formulation. In addition to
providing a clear stochastic picture of Taylor dispersion, our method leads to
closed-form expressions for all the moments of the convective displacement of
the dispersing particles in terms of the transverse diffusion eigenmodes. We
also find that the cumulants grow asymptotically linearly with time, ensuring a
Gaussian distribution in the long-time limit. As a demonstration of the
technique, the first two longitudinal cumulants (yielding respectively the
effective velocity and the Taylor diffusion constant) as well as the skewness
(a measure of the deviation from normality) are calculated for fluid flow in
the parallel plate geometry. We find that the effective velocity and the
skewness (which is negative in this case) are enhanced while Taylor dispersion
is suppressed due to absorption at the boundary.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
A prospective study of stroke sub-type from within an incident population in Tanzania
Objectives. We aimed to establish the pathological types of stroke in two incident populations in Tanzania, one rural and one urban, and to examine the clinical utility of the Siriraj and Allen scores in identifying stroke sub-types. Design. This prospective community-based study identified cases as part of a stroke incidence study. Each patient underwent a full assessment including recording demographic information, taking a medical and drug history, and physical examination. A computed tomography (CT) head scan was used to classify strokes as resulting from a cerebral haemorrhage or ischaemia. The results were compared with the Siriraj and Allen scores, obtained from clinical findings. Results. One hundred and thirty-two incident stroke cases were identified in the rural Hai demographic surveillance site (DSS) and 69 in the urban Dar-es-Salaam DSS; 63 patients with stroke due to ischaemia or cerebral haemorrhage from Hai and 17 from Dar-es-Salaam had a CT scan within 15 days of the stroke. Stroke was identified as due to ischaemia in 52 cases (82.5%) and to cerebral haemorrhage in 11 (17.5%) in Hai, and as due to ischaemia in 14 cases (82.4%) and to cerebral haemorrhage in 3 (17.6%) in Dar-es-Salaam. In both sites Siriraj and Allen scores were found to be of little value in predicting stroke sub-type. Conclusions. The ratio of ischaemic to haemorrhagic stroke is much higher in our cohort than previously reported in sub-Saharan Africa, and is closer to that in high-income countries
Dynamics of filaments and membranes in a viscous fluid
Motivated by the motion of biopolymers and membranes in solution, this
article presents a formulation of the equations of motion for curves and
surfaces in a viscous fluid. We focus on geometrical aspects and simple
variational methods for calculating internal stresses and forces, and we derive
the full nonlinear equations of motion. In the case of membranes, we pay
particular attention to the formulation of the equations of hydrodynamics on a
curved, deforming surface. The formalism is illustrated by two simple case
studies: (1) the twirling instability of straight elastic rod rotating in a
viscous fluid, and (2) the pearling and buckling instabilities of a tubular
liposome or polymersome.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures, to be published in Reviews of Modern Physic
Effects of Bulk Viscosity in Non-linear Bubble Dynamics
The non-linear bubble dynamics equations in a compressible liquid have been
modified considering the effects of compressibility of both the liquid and the
gas at the bubble interface. A new bubble boundary equation has been derived,
which includes a new term resulted from the liquid bulk viscosity effects. The
influence of this term has been numerically investigated considering the
effects of water vapor and chemical reactions on the bubble evolution. The
results clearly indicate that the new term has an important damping role at the
collapse, so that its consideration decreases the amplitude of the bubble
rebounds after the collapse. This damping feature is more remarkable for higher
deriving pressures.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure
International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG) - the propagation of knowledge in ultrasound for the improvement of OB/GYN care worldwide: experience of basic ultrasound training in Oman.
BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to evaluate effectiveness of a new ISUOG (International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology) Outreach Teaching and Training Program delivered in Muscat, Oman. METHODS: Quantitative assessments to evaluate knowledge and practical skills were administered before and after an ultrasound course for sonologists attending the ISUOG Outreach Course, which took place in November, 2017, in Oman. Trainees were selected from each region of the country following a national vetting process conducted by the Oman Ministry of Health. Twenty-eight of the participants were included in the analysis. Pre- and post-training practical and theoretical scores were evaluated and compared. RESULTS: Participants achieved statistically significant improvements, on average by 47% (p < 0.001), in both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Specifically, the mean score in the theoretical knowledge test significantly increased from 55.6% (± 14.0%) to 81.6% (± 8.2%), while in the practical test, the mean score increased from 44.6% (± 19.5%) to 65.7% (± 23.0%) (p < 0.001). Performance was improved post-course among 27/28 participants (96.4%) in the theoretical test (range: 14 to 200%) and among 24/28 (85.7%) trainees in the practical skills test (range: 5 to 217%). CONCLUSION: Application of the ISUOG Basic Training Curriculum and Outreach Teaching and Training Course improved the theoretical knowledge and practical skills of local health personnel. Long-term re-evaluation is, however, considered imperative to ascertain and ensure knowledge retention
Delays in Leniency Application: Is There Really a Race to the Enforcer's Door?
This paper studies cartels’ strategic behavior in delaying leniency applications, a take-up decision that has been ignored in the previous literature. Using European Commission decisions issued over a 16-year span, we show, contrary to common beliefs and the existing literature, that conspirators
often apply for leniency long after a cartel collapses. We estimate hazard and probit models to study the determinants of leniency-application delays. Statistical tests find that delays are symmetrically affected by antitrust policies and macroeconomic fluctuations. Our results shed light on the design of
enforcement programs against cartels and other forms of conspiracy
Radiative corrections to the Higgs boson decay rate in the minimal supersymmetric model
We consider radiative corrections to the decay rate
of the heavy {\it CP}-even Higgs boson of the minimal supersymmetric model to
two bosons. We perform a one loop Feynman diagram calculation in the
on-mass-shell renormalization scheme, and include the third generation of
quarks and squarks. The tree level rate is suppressed by a mixing angle factor
and decreases as for large . The corrected rate overcomes this
suppression and increases with for ~GeV. The corrections can
be very large and depend in detail on the top squark masses and -term, as
well as the supersymmetric Higgs mass parameter .Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures available from authors, UCB-PTH-92/23 and
LBL-3249
Two-Channel Kondo Physics from Tunnelling Impurities with Triangular Symmetry
Tunnelling impurities in metals have been known for some time to have the
potential for exhibiting Kondo-like physics. However previous models based on
an impurity hopping between two equivalent positions have run into trouble due
to the existence of relevant operators that drive the system away from the
non-Fermi-liquid Kondo fixed point. In the case of an impurity hopping among
positions with higher symmetry, such as triangular symmetry, it is shown here
that the non-Fermi-liquid behavior at low temperatures can be generic. Using
various bosonization techniques, the fixed point is shown to be {\em stable}.
However, unlike the conventional two-channel Kondo (2CK) model, it has {\em
four} leading irrelevant operators, implying that while the form of the
singular temperature dependence of physical quantities is similar to the 2CK
model, there will not be simple universal amplitude ratios. The phase diagram
of this system is analyzed and a critical manifold is found to separate the
non-Fermi-liquid from a conventional Fermi liquid fixed point. Generalization
to higher symmetries, such as cubic, and the possibility of physical
realizations with dynamic Jahn-Teller impurities is discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, RevTex format, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Three-dimensional streaming flows driven by oscillatory boundary layers
Three-dimensional (3D) oscillatory boundary layers attached to deformable solid walls and free boundaries of general form are analyzed via matched asymptotic expansions, to obtain the time-averaged tangential velocities and tangential stresses, respectively, at the edge of the layers. These provide the appropriate boundary conditions that are to be used to calculate the streaming flow in the bulk, outside the boundary layers. The resulting formulae generalize to 3D the well-known expressions due to Schlichting (Phys. Z. 33 (1932) 327) and Longuet-Higgins (Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 245 (1953) 535)
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