Cosmology on a Mesh

An adaptive multi grid approach to simulating the formation of structure from collisionless dark matter is described. MLAPM (Multi-Level Adaptive Particle Mesh) is one of the most efficient serial codes available on the cosmological 'market' today. As part of Swinburne University's role in the development of the Square Kilometer Array, we are implementing hydrodynamics, feedback, and radiative transfer within the MLAPM adaptive mesh, in order to simulate baryonic processes relevant to the interstellar and intergalactic media at high redshift. We will outline our progress to date in applying the existing MLAPM to a study of the decay of satellite galaxies within massive host potentials.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "The IGM/Galaxy Connection - The Distribution of Baryons at z=0", ed. M. Putman & J. Rosenber

Pharmacy-led implementation of evidence based medicine in primary care : Evaluating Diuretics in Usual Care study (EVIDENCE)

Introduction Obtaining evidence of comparative effectiveness and safety of widely prescribed drugs in a timely cost-effective way is emerging as a major global challenge for healthcare systems. The Evaluating Drugs in Normal Care (EVIDENCE) programme addresses this challenge through novel methodology. We describe an exemplar pilot study comparing thiazide type diuretics for hypertension. Method Patients prescribed either indapamide or bendroflumethiazide for hypertension were identified in each primary care practice recruited. Random allocation of a prescribing policy for one or other of these drugs was then applied to the whole practice and where required repeat prescriptions were switched to comply with randomised policy. Patients were informed of the potential switch by letter with the option to discuss further with the study team and/or opt-out of the switch. Routinely collected hospitalization and death data in NHS will be used to compare cardiovascular event rates between the two policies. Results We found bendroflumethiazide was prescribed to 78% of patients prescribed either of these drugs despite recent NICE preference for indapamide. 29 primary care practices in 5 Scottish NHS boards were recruited and 14 randomised to indapamide and 15 to bendroflumethiazide creating a study population of 5985 patients. Less than 0.23% of patients opted out. Conclusion This pilot study demonstrated the feasibility and cost efficiency of the EVIDENCE approach. A relatively large study was generated rapidly with negligible disruption to practice workflows. EVIDENCE methodology offers a novel way to compare the effectiveness of a wide range of medicines where there is clinical equipoise.Non peer reviewe

Evaluating Diuretics in Normal Care (EVIDENCE):Protocol of a cluster randomised controlled equivalence trial of prescribing policy to compare the effectiveness of thiazide-type diuretics in hypertension

Abstract Introduction Healthcare systems must use treatments that are effective and safe. Regulators licensed many currently used older medications before introducing the stringent evidential requirements imposed on modern treatments. Also, there has been little encouragement to carry out within-class, head-to-head comparisons of licensed medicines. For commonly prescribed drugs, even small differences in effectiveness or safety could have significant public health implications. However, conventional clinical trials that randomise individual subjects are costly and unwieldy. Such trials are also often criticised as having low external validity. We describe an approach to rapidly generate externally valid evidence of comparative safety and effectiveness using the example of two widely used diuretics for the management of hypertension. Methods and analysis The EVIDENCE (Evaluating Diuretics in Normal Care) study has a prospective, cluster-randomised, open-label, blinded end-point design. By randomising prescribing policy in primary care practices, the study compares the safety and effectiveness of commonly used diuretics in treating hypertension. Participating practices are randomised 1:1 to a policy of prescribing either indapamide or bendroflumethiazide when clinically indicated. Suitable patients who are not already taking the policy diuretic are switched accordingly. All patients taking the study medications are written to explaining the rationale for changing the prescribing policy and notifying them they can opt-out of any switch. The prescribing policies’ effectiveness and safety will be compared using rates of major adverse cardiovascular events (hospitalisation with myocardial infarction, heart failure or stroke or cardiovascular death), routinely collected in national healthcare administrative datasets. The study will seek to recruit 250 practices to provide a study population of approximately 50,000 individuals with a mean follow-up time of two years. A primary intention-to-treat time-to-event analysis will be used to estimate the relative effect of the two policies. Ethics and dissemination EVIDENCE has been approved by the East of Scotland Research Ethics Service (17/ES/0016, current approved protocol version 5, 26 August 2021). The results will be disseminated widely in peer reviewed journals, guideline committees, National Health Service (NHS) organisations and patient groups. Trial registration ISRCTN 46635087 . Registered on 11 August 2017 (pre-recruitment)

Cluster randomised trials of prescribing policy:an ethical approach to generating drug safety evidence? A discussion of the ethical application of a new research method

For most chronic medical conditions, multiple medications are available and prescribers often have limited evidence about which therapy is likely to be the most effective and safe for an individual patient. As many patients are exposed every day to medicines that may be less effective than available alternatives, this is of public health importance. Cluster randomised trials of prescribing policy offer an opportunity to rapidly obtain evidence of comparative effectiveness and safety. These trials can pose a low risk to patients and cause minimal disruption to usual care. Despite the potential scientific value of this approach, there remain valid concerns about consent, medication switching and the use of routinely collected data in research. We discuss these concerns with reference to an ongoing pilot study (Evaluating Diuretics in Normal Care (EVIDENCE) - a cluster randomised evaluation of hypertension prescribing policy, ISRCTN 46635087, registered 11 August 2017)

Physics-Informed Machine Learning for the Inverse Design of Wave Scattering Clusters

Clusters of wave-scattering oscillators offer the ability to passively control wave energy in elastic continua. However, designing such clusters to achieve a desired wave energy pattern is a highly nontrivial task. While the forward scattering problem may be readily analyzed, the inverse problem is very challenging as it is ill-posed, high-dimensional, and known to admit non-unique solutions. Therefore, the inverse design of multiple scattering fields and remote sensing of scattering elements remains a topic of great interest. Motivated by recent advances in physics-informed machine learning, we develop a deep neural network that is capable of predicting the locations of scatterers by evaluating the patterns of a target wavefield. We present a modeling and training formulation to optimize the multi-functional nature of our network in the context of inverse design, remote sensing, and wavefield engineering. Namely, we develop a multi-stage training routine with customized physics-based loss functions to optimize models to detect the locations of scatterers and predict cluster configurations that are physically consistent with the target wavefield. We demonstrate the efficacy of our model as a remote sensing and inverse design tool for three scattering problem types, and we subsequently applicability for designing clusters that direct waves along preferred paths or localize wave energy. Hence, we present an effective model for multiple scattering inverse design which may have diverse applications such as wavefield imaging or passive wave energy control.Comment: 27 pages of main text; 41 pages tota

Knowledge-driven stock trend prediction and explanation via temporal convolutional network

The authors would like to acknowledge that this work is funded by NSFC 61473260/91846204, national key research program YS2018YFB140004 as well as Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (LQ19F030001), and supported by Alibaba-Zhejiang University Joint Institute of Frontier Technologies.Publisher PD

The Use of a Large, Extensive Green Roof for Multiple Research Objectives

The Green Roof on the Onondaga County Convention Center in Syracuse, NY is planted with several varieties of sedum over an area of 0.56 hectares. The roof was constructed in 2011, and has been instrumented with sensors to enable research and education over an extended period. The purpose of the current work on this roof is to quantify its performance with respect to water storage and energy transfer, and to identify chemical constituents in the runoff that might be contributed by the growth medium. The scope of the project also includes a number of measurements on traditional roofs in the vicinity of the Convention Center as controls. Experimental methods include measurements with temperature probes installed in different layers of the green roof, a meteorological station, soil moisture sensors positioned around the roof, and an electromagnetic flowmeter connected to the roof drains. Chemical analysis of incoming precipitation and stormwater runoff is conducted by ion chromatography. Besides the research underway, an educational website is under construction that shows realtime data from many of the instruments. The website includes explanations of the energy flow through the roof layers, water flow and water storage in the growth medium, and runoff through the roof drains. The website is designed for use by teachers of K-12 and undergraduate courses to enable students to learn about green roofs as a tool for managing urban stormwater. Results of the research show that heat flow through the roof is largely controlled by extruded polystyrene insulation below the growth medium, and that the growth medium is not a major barrier to heat flow. Substantial amounts of stormwater can be stored by the roof, as long as the growth medium is able to dry somewhat between storms. Precipitation events in close succession may cause the growth medium to stay saturated, preventing the roof from storing additional stormwater. The results of this work are important for assisting designers and engineers to improve the performance of green roofs

Teorizando a dobradiça cartonera: pesquisa trans-formal para uma prática transformadora

Trata-se de uma tradução do capítulo “Methods: Trans-Formal Research for Transformational Practice”, parte do livro Taking Form, Making Worlds: Cartonera Publishers in Latin America (2022). Ao longo do artigo, os autores acompanham as atividades das cartoneras mexicanas La Rueda Cartonera e Viento Cartonero para teorizar sobre o fazer cartonero e, ao mesmo tempo, elaborar uma reflexão sobre a metodologia para fazê-lo, partindo de uma visão interdisciplinar. Nesse processo, Bell, Flynn e O’Hare defendem o conceito de “dobradiça” para nomear um duplo caminho desse tipo de projeto social e editorial: a presença da estrutura sociopolítica nas práticas cartoneras e, por sua vez, o impacto das cartoneras nas práticas sociopolíticas