Shared component modelling as an alternative to assess geographical variations in medical practice: gender inequalities in hospital admissions for chronic diseases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Small area analysis is the most prevalent methodological approach in the study of unwarranted and systematic variation in medical practice at geographical level. Several of its limitations drive researchers to use disease mapping methods -deemed as a valuable alternative. This work aims at exploring these techniques using - as a case of study- the gender differences in rates of hospitalization in elderly patients with chronic diseases.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Design and study setting: An empirical study of 538,358 hospitalizations affecting individuals aged over 75, who were admitted due to a chronic condition in 2006, were used to compare Small Area Analysis (SAVA), the Besag-York-Mollie (BYM) modelling and the Shared Component Modelling (SCM). Main endpoint: Gender spatial variation was measured, as follows: SAVA estimated gender-specific utilization ratio; BYM estimated the fraction of variance attributable to spatial correlation in each gender; and, SCM estimated the fraction of variance shared by the two genders, and those specific for each one.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Hospitalization rates due to chronic diseases in the elderly were higher in men (median per area 21.4 per 100 inhabitants, interquartile range: 17.6 to 25.0) than in women (median per area 13.7 per 100, interquartile range: 10.8 to 16.6). Whereas Utilization Ratios showed a similar geographical pattern of variation in both genders, BYM found a high fraction of variation attributable to spatial correlation in both men (71%, CI95%: 50 to 94) and women (62%, CI95%: 45 to 77). In turn, SCM showed that the geographical admission pattern was mainly shared, with just 6% (CI95%: 4 to 8) of variation specific to the women component.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Whereas SAVA and BYM focused on the magnitude of variation and on allocating where variability cannot be due to chance, SCM signalled discrepant areas where latent factors would differently affect men and women.</p

The emerging structure of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: where does Evo-Devo fit in?

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) debate is gaining ground in contemporary evolutionary biology. In parallel, a number of philosophical standpoints have emerged in an attempt to clarify what exactly is represented by the EES. For Massimo Pigliucci, we are in the wake of the newest instantiation of a persisting Kuhnian paradigm; in contrast, Telmo Pievani has contended that the transition to an EES could be best represented as a progressive reformation of a prior Lakatosian scientific research program, with the extension of its Neo-Darwinian core and the addition of a brand-new protective belt of assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses. Here, we argue that those philosophical vantage points are not the only ways to interpret what current proposals to ‘extend’ the Modern Synthesis-derived ‘standard evolutionary theory’ (SET) entail in terms of theoretical change in evolutionary biology. We specifically propose the image of the emergent EES as a vast network of models and interweaved representations that, instantiated in diverse practices, are connected and related in multiple ways. Under that assumption, the EES could be articulated around a paraconsistent network of evolutionary theories (including some elements of the SET), as well as models, practices and representation systems of contemporary evolutionary biology, with edges and nodes that change their position and centrality as a consequence of the co-construction and stabilization of facts and historical discussions revolving around the epistemic goals of this area of the life sciences. We then critically examine the purported structure of the EES—published by Laland and collaborators in 2015—in light of our own network-based proposal. Finally, we consider which epistemic units of Evo-Devo are present or still missing from the EES, in preparation for further analyses of the topic of explanatory integration in this conceptual framework

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Search for rare quark-annihilation decays, B --> Ds(*) Phi

We report on searches for B- --> Ds- Phi and B- --> Ds*- Phi. In the context of the Standard Model, these decays are expected to be highly suppressed since they proceed through annihilation of the b and u-bar quarks in the B- meson. Our results are based on 234 million Upsilon(4S) --> B Bbar decays collected with the BABAR detector at SLAC. We find no evidence for these decays, and we set Bayesian 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions BF(B- --> Ds- Phi) Ds*- Phi)<1.2x10^(-5). These results are consistent with Standard Model expectations.Comment: 8 pages, 3 postscript figues, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (Rapid Communications

Lagrangian relaxation bounds for a production-inventory-routing problem

We consider a single item Production-Inventory-Routing problem with a single producer/supplier and multiple retailers. Inventory management constraints are considered both at the producer and at the retailers, following a vendor managed inventory approach, where the supplier monitors the inventory at retailers and decides on the replenishment policy for each retailer. We assume a constant production capacity. Based on the mathematical formulation we discuss a classical Lagrangian relaxation which allows to decompose the problem into four subproblems, and a new Lagrangian decomposition which decomposes the problem into just a production-inventory subproblem and a routing subproblem. The new decomposition is enhanced with valid inequalities. A computational study is reported to compare the bounds from the two approaches

Effect of bio-engineering on size, shape, composition and rigidity of bacterial microcompartments

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are proteinaceous organelles that are found in a broad range of bacteria and are composed of an outer shell that encases an enzyme cargo representing a specific metabolic process. The outer shell is made from a number of different proteins that form hexameric and pentameric tiles, which interact to allow the formation of a polyhedral edifice. We have previously shown that the Citrobacter freundii BMC associated with 1,2-propanediol utilization can be transferred into Escherichia coli to generate a recombinant BMC and that empty BMCs can be formed from just the shell proteins alone. Herein, a detailed structural and proteomic characterization of the wild type BMC is compared to the recombinant BMC and a number of empty BMC variants by 2D-gel electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Specifically, it is shown that the wild type BMC and the recombinant BMC are similar in terms of composition, size, shape and mechanical properties, whereas the empty BMC variants are shown to be smaller, hollow and less malleable

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Crystal structure of nucleotide-free dynamin

Dynamin is a mechanochemical GTPase that oligomerizes around the neck of clathrin-coated pits and catalyses vesicle scission in a GTP-hydrolysis-dependent manner. The molecular details of oligomerization and the mechanism of the mechanochemical coupling are currently unknown. Here we present the crystal structure of human dynamin 1 in the nucleotide-free state with a four-domain architecture comprising the GTPase domain, the bundle signalling element, the stalk and the pleckstrin homology domain. Dynamin 1 oligomerized in the crystals via the stalks, which assemble in a criss-cross fashion. The stalks further interact via conserved surfaces with the pleckstrin homology domain and the bundle signalling element of the neighbouring dynamin molecule. This intricate domain interaction rationalizes a number of disease-related mutations in dynamin 2 and suggests a structural model for the mechanochemical coupling that reconciles previous models of dynamin function

Beyond forcing scenarios: predicting climate change through response operators in a coupled general circulation model

Global Climate Models are key tools for predicting the future response of the climate system to a variety of natural and anthropogenic forcings. Here we show how to use statistical mechanics to construct operators able to flexibly predict climate change for a variety of climatic variables of interest. We perform our study on a fully coupled model - MPI-ESM v.1.2 - and for the first time we prove the effectiveness of response theory in predicting future climate response to CO2 increase on a vast range of temporal scales, from inter-annual to centennial, and for very diverse climatic quantities. We investigate within a unified perspective the transient climate response and the equilibrium climate sensitivity and assess the role of fast and slow processes. The prediction of the ocean heat uptake highlights the very slow relaxation to a newly established steady state. The change in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accurately predicted. The AMOC strength is initially reduced and then undergoes a slow and only partial recovery. The ACC strength initially increases as a result of changes in the wind stress, then undergoes a slowdown, followed by a recovery leading to a overshoot with respect to the initial value. Finally, we are able to predict accurately the temperature change in the Northern Atlantic