The Learning Agreement Pilot in Lancashire, England: supporting young people in jobs without training

The Learning Agreement Pilot (LAP) began in April 2006 in eight areas in England as part of the Government’s continuing commitment to improving the skills base of young people. Lancashire is one of the LAP areas, and CXL (formerly Connexions Lancashire) is working in partnership with the local Learning and Skills Council to re-engage in learning those 16 and 17-year-olds who are in jobs with no accredited training. CXL commissioned an evaluation of the first year of the Lancashire LAP, focussing on both its delivery and its impact on young people and employers. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) commissioned two separate evaluations of the first year of the LAP nationally, one focussing on delivery and management issues and one focussing on a model of youth re-engagement to test aspects of policy

Assessing Human Error Against a Benchmark of Perfection

An increasing number of domains are providing us with detailed trace data on human decisions in settings where we can evaluate the quality of these decisions via an algorithm. Motivated by this development, an emerging line of work has begun to consider whether we can characterize and predict the kinds of decisions where people are likely to make errors. To investigate what a general framework for human error prediction might look like, we focus on a model system with a rich history in the behavioral sciences: the decisions made by chess players as they select moves in a game. We carry out our analysis at a large scale, employing datasets with several million recorded games, and using chess tablebases to acquire a form of ground truth for a subset of chess positions that have been completely solved by computers but remain challenging even for the best players in the world. We organize our analysis around three categories of features that we argue are present in most settings where the analysis of human error is applicable: the skill of the decision-maker, the time available to make the decision, and the inherent difficulty of the decision. We identify rich structure in all three of these categories of features, and find strong evidence that in our domain, features describing the inherent difficulty of an instance are significantly more powerful than features based on skill or time.Comment: KDD 2016; 10 page

Pancreatic cancer cachexia: a review of mechanisms and therapeutics.

Over the last decade, we have gained new insight into the pathophysiology of cachexia associated with pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, its treatment is complex and remains a challenge. Pancreatic cancer cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome characterized by uncompensated adipose tissue and skeletal muscle loss in the setting of anorexia that leads to progressive functional impairment. This paper will review the current concepts of pancreatic cancer cachexia, its assessment and pathophysiology as well as current and future treatments. The successful management of pancreatic cancer cachexia will likely require a multimodal approach that includes nutritional support and combination pharmaceutical interventions

Multiple marker mapping of quantitative trait loci of Finnish dairy cattle by regression

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3-D density model of the crust of southern and central Finland obtained from joint interpretation of the SVEKALAPKO crustal P-wave velocity models and gravity data

Peer reviewe

Weight Loss Trajectories in Healthy Weight Coaching : Cohort Study

Background: As global obesity prevalence continues to increase, there is a need for accessible and affordable weight management interventions, such as web-based programs. Objective: This paper aims to assess the outcomes of healthy weight coaching (HWC), a web-based obesity management program integrated into standard Finnish clinical care. Methods: HWC is an ongoing, structured digital 12-month program based on acceptance and commitment therapy. It includes weekly training sessions focused on lifestyle, general health, and psychological factors. Participants received remote one-on-one support from a personal coach. In this real-life, single-arm, prospective cohort study, we examined the total weight loss, weight loss profiles, and variables associated with weight loss success and program retention in 1189 adults (963 women) with a BMI >25 kg/m(2) among participants of the program between October 2016 and March 2019. Absolute (kg) and relative (%) weight loss from the baseline were the primary outcomes. We also examined the weight loss profiles, clustered based on the dynamic time-warping distance, and the possible variables associated with greater weight loss success and program retention. We compared different groups using the Mann-Whitney test or Kruskal-Wallis test for continuous variables and the chi-squared test for categorical variables. We analyzed changes in medication using the McNemar test. Results: Among those having reached the 12-month time point (n=173), the mean weight loss was 4.6% (SE 0.5%), with 43% (n=75) achieving clinically relevant weight loss (>= 5%). Baseline BMI >= 40 kg/m(2) was associated with a greater weight loss than a lower BMI (mean 6.6%, SE 0.9%, vs mean 3.2%, SE 0.6%; P=.02). In addition, more frequent weight reporting was associated with greater weight loss. No significant differences in weight loss were observed according to sex, age, baseline disease, or medication use. The total dropout rate was 29.1%. Dropouts were slightly younger than continuers (47.2, SE 0.6 years vs 49.2, SE 0.4 years; P=.01) and reported their weight less frequently (3.0, SE 0.1 entries per month vs 3.3, SE 0.1 entries per month; P Conclusions: A comprehensive web-based program such as HWC is a potential addition to the repertoire of obesity management in a clinical setting. Heavier patients lost more weight, but weight loss success was otherwise independent of baseline characteristics.Peer reviewe

Impact of HPV-associated p16-expression on radiotherapy outcome in advanced oropharynx and non-oropharynx cancer

AbstractBackground and purposeHPV is found in head and neck cancer from all sites with a higher prevalence in oropharynx cancer (OPC) compared to non-OPC. HPV/p16-status has a significant impact on radiotherapy (RT) outcome in advanced OPC, but less is known about the influence in non-OPC. We analyzed HPV-associated p16-expression in a cohort of patients with stage III–IV pharynx and larynx cancer treated with primary, curatively intended (chemo-)RT, aiming to test the hypothesis that the impact of HPV/p16 also extends to tumors of non-oropharyngeal origin.Material and methods1294 patients enrolled in previously conducted DAHANCA-trials between 1992 and 2012 were identified. Tumors were evaluated by p16-immunohistochemistry and classified as positive in case of staining in >70% of tumors cells.ResultsThirty-eight percent (490/1294) of the tumors were p16-positive with a significantly higher frequency in OPC (425/815) than in non-OPC (65/479), p<.0001. In OPC p16-positivity significantly improved loco-regional control (LRC) (adjusted HR [95% CI]: 0.43 [0.32–0.57]), event-free survival (EFS) (HR 0.44 [0.35–0.56]), and overall survival (OS) (HR: 0.38 [0.29–0.49]), respectively, compared with p16-negativity. In non-OPC no prognostic impact of p16-status was found for either endpoint: LRC (HR: 1.13 [0.75–1.70]), EFS (HR: 1.06 [0.76–1.47]), and OS (HR: 0.82 [0.59–1.16]).ConclusionsThe independent influence of HPV-associated p16-expression in advanced OPC treated with primary RT was confirmed. However, RT-outcome in the group of non-OPC did not differ by tumor p16-status, indicating that the prognostic impact may be restricted to OPC only

Cryogenic vacuum pumping at the LBL 88-inch cyclotron

A cryogenic vacuum pumping panel has been in operation at the 88-inch cyclotron since 1974. The nude pumping panel is located in the acceleration chamber. The pumping surface consists of tubing cooled to 20/sup 0/K by a closed loop helium refrigeration system. The pumping surfaces are shielded from radiation heat loads and water vapors by liquid nitrogen cooled baffles. The panel was designed for an average pumping speed of 14,000 liters/sec. for air. This approximately tripled the total effective pumping on the acceleration chamber from the existing diffusion pumped system, significantly reducing charge exchange losses of heavy ions during acceleration. Design, installation and performance characteristics are described

A Match in Time Saves Nine: Deterministic Online Matching With Delays

We consider the problem of online Min-cost Perfect Matching with Delays (MPMD) introduced by Emek et al. (STOC 2016). In this problem, an even number of requests appear in a metric space at different times and the goal of an online algorithm is to match them in pairs. In contrast to traditional online matching problems, in MPMD all requests appear online and an algorithm can match any pair of requests, but such decision may be delayed (e.g., to find a better match). The cost is the sum of matching distances and the introduced delays. We present the first deterministic online algorithm for this problem. Its competitive ratio is $O(m^{\log_2 5.5})$ $= O(m^{2.46})$, where $2 m$ is the number of requests. This is polynomial in the number of metric space points if all requests are given at different points. In particular, the bound does not depend on other parameters of the metric, such as its aspect ratio. Unlike previous (randomized) solutions for the MPMD problem, our algorithm does not need to know the metric space in advance