21,222 research outputs found
Centrality and Energy Dependence of Proton, Light Fragment and Hyperon Production
Recent results of the NA49 collaboration are discussed. These include the
energy dependence of stopping and the production of the light fragments t and
3He. New data on the system size dependence of hyperon production at 40A and
158AGeV are also presented.Comment: 4 pages, Quark Matter 2006 proceeding
On the Bartnik extension problem for the static vacuum Einstein equations
We develop a framework for understanding the existence of asymptotically flat
solutions to the static vacuum Einstein equations with prescribed boundary data
consisting of the induced metric and mean curvature on a 2-sphere. A partial
existence result is obtained, giving a partial resolution of a conjecture of
Bartnik on such static vacuum extensions. The existence and uniqueness of such
extensions is closely related to Bartnik's definition of quasi-local mass.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure. Minor revision of v2. Final version, to appear in
Class. Quantum Gravit
Outcomes in Trials for Management of Caries Lesions (OuTMaC):protocol
Background
Clinical trials on caries lesion management use an abundance of outcomes, hampering comparison or combination of different study results and their efficient translation into clinical practice. Core outcome sets are an agreed standardized collection of outcomes which should be measured and reported in all trials for a specific clinical area. We aim to develop a core outcome set for trials investigating management of caries lesions in primary or permanent teeth conducted in primary or secondary care encompassing all stages of disease.
Methods
To identify existing outcomes, trials on prevention and trials on management of caries lesions will be screened systematically in four databases. Screening, extraction and deduplication will be performed by two researchers until consensus is reached. The definition of the core outcome set will by based on an e-Delhi consensus process involving key stakeholders namely patients, dentists, clinical researchers, health economists, statisticians, policy-makers and industry representatives. For the first stage of the Delphi process, a patient panel and a separate panel consisting of researchers, clinicians, teachers, industry affiliated researchers, policy-makers, and other interested parties will be held. An inclusive approach will be taken to involve panelists from a wide variety of socio-economic and geographic backgrounds. Results from the first round will be summarized and fed back to individuals for the second round, where panels will be combined and allowed to modify their scoring in light of the full panel’s opinion. Necessity for a third round will be dependent on the outcome of the first two. Agreement will be measured via defined consensus rules; up to a maximum of seven outcomes. If resources allow, we will investigate features that influence decision making for different groups.
Discussion
By using an explicit, transparent and inclusive multi-step consensus process, the planned core outcome set should be justifiable, relevant and comprehensive. The dissemination and application of this core outcome set should improve clinical trials on managing caries lesions and allow comparison, synthesis and implementation of scientific data.
Trial registration
Registered 12 April 2015 at COMET (http://www.comet-initiative.org
Self-Supervised Learning for Cardiac MR Image Segmentation by Anatomical Position Prediction
In the recent years, convolutional neural networks have transformed the field of medical image analysis due to their capacity to learn discriminative image features for a variety of classification and regression tasks. However, successfully learning these features requires a large amount of manually annotated data, which is expensive to acquire and limited by the available resources of expert image analysts. Therefore, unsupervised, weakly-supervised and self-supervised feature learning techniques receive a lot of attention, which aim to utilise the vast amount of available data, while at the same time avoid or substantially reduce the effort of manual annotation. In this paper, we propose a novel way for training a cardiac MR image segmentation network, in which features are learnt in a self-supervised manner by predicting anatomical positions. The anatomical positions serve as a supervisory signal and do not require extra manual annotation. We demonstrate that this seemingly simple task provides a strong signal for feature learning and with self-supervised learning, we achieve a high segmentation accuracy that is better than or comparable to a U-net trained from scratch, especially at a small data setting. When only five annotated subjects are available, the proposed method improves the mean Dice metric from 0.811 to 0.852 for short-axis image segmentation, compared to the baseline U-net
Have you had bleeding from your gums? : Self-report to Identify giNGival inflammation (The SING diagnostic accuracy and diagnostic model development study)
Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge all study participants in IQuaD and INTERVAL for contributing with their information, as well as the trial teams involved in planning, conducting and delivering both trials. Funding information: IQuaD was funded by the NIHR HTA (project 09/01/45). INTERVAL was funded by the NIHR HTA (project 06/35/99). No additional funding was obtained to conduct the diagnostic accuracy and prediction studies presented in this paper. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. The Health Services Research Unit is funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Cellular automata and Lyapunov exponents
In this article we give a new definition of some analog of Lyapunov exponents
for cellular automata . Then for a shift ergodic and cellular automaton
invariant probability measure we establish an inequality between the entropy of
the automaton, the entropy of the shift and the Lyapunov exponent
Single-machine scheduling with stepwise tardiness costs and release times
We study a scheduling problem that belongs to the yard operations component of the railroad planning problems, namely the hump sequencing problem. The scheduling problem is characterized as a single-machine problem with stepwise tardiness cost objectives. This is a new scheduling criterion which is also relevant in the context of traditional machine scheduling problems. We produce complexity results that characterize some cases of the problem as pseudo-polynomially solvable. For the difficult-to-solve cases of the problem, we develop mathematical programming formulations, and propose heuristic algorithms. We test the formulations and heuristic algorithms on randomly generated single-machine scheduling problems and real-life datasets for the hump sequencing problem. Our experiments show promising results for both sets of problems
Fully integrated transport approach to heavy ion reactions with an intermediate hydrodynamic stage
We present a coupled Boltzmann and hydrodynamics approach to relativistic
heavy ion reactions. This hybrid approach is based on the Ultra-relativistic
Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) transport approach with an intermediate
hydrodynamical evolution for the hot and dense stage of the collision.
Event-by-event fluctuations are directly taken into account via the
non-equilibrium initial conditions generated by the initial collisions and
string fragmentations in the microscopic UrQMD model. After a (3+1)-dimensional
ideal hydrodynamic evolution, the hydrodynamical fields are mapped to hadrons
via the Cooper-Frye equation and the subsequent hadronic cascade calculation
within UrQMD proceeds to incorporate the important final state effects for a
realistic freeze-out. This implementation allows to compare pure microscopic
transport calculations with hydrodynamic calculations using exactly the same
initial conditions and freeze-out procedure. The effects of the change in the
underlying dynamics - ideal fluid dynamics vs. non-equilibrium transport theory
- will be explored. The freeze-out and initial state parameter dependences are
investigated for different observables. Furthermore, the time evolution of the
baryon density and particle yields are discussed. We find that the final pion
and proton multiplicities are lower in the hybrid model calculation due to the
isentropic hydrodynamic expansion while the yields for strange particles are
enhanced due to the local equilibrium in the hydrodynamic evolution. The
results of the different calculations for the mean transverse mass excitation
function, rapidity and transverse mass spectra for different particle species
at three different beam energies are discussed in the context of the available
data.Comment: 20 pages, 21 figures, 1 additional figure, minor corrections and
revised figures for clarity, version published in PR
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