Corruption in migration management: a network perspective

This paper explores the relation between networks as an emerging mode of public governance and corruption. Adopting the theoretical lens of actor-network theory (ANT), the paper investigates an Italian episode of corruption related to the awarding of government contracts for the management of the Mineo’s CARA, the Europe's largest reception centre for migrants. The analysis shows that a governance network may turn corruption itself into a network where abuse of power can proliferate thanks to the opacity resulting from the multiplicity of actors, interactions, and fragmentation characterizing the governance system

A randomized control trial of intensive aphasia therapy after acute stroke: The Very Early Rehabilitation for SpEech (VERSE) study.

BACKGROUND:Effectiveness of early intensive aphasia rehabilitation after stroke is unknown. The Very Early Rehabilitation for SpEech trial (VERSE) aimed to determine whether intensive aphasia therapy, beginning within 14 days after stroke, improved communication recovery compared to usual care. METHODS:Prospective, randomized, single-blinded trial conducted at 17 acute-care hospitals across Australia/New Zealand from 2014 to 2018. Participants with aphasia following acute stroke were randomized to receive usual care (direct usual care aphasia therapy), or one of two higher intensity regimens (20 sessions of either non-prescribed (usual care-plus or prescribed (VERSE) direct aphasia therapy). The primary outcome was improvement of communication on the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised Aphasia Quotient (AQ) at 12 weeks after stroke. Our pre-planned intention to treat analysis combined high intensity groups for the primary outcome. FINDINGS:Among 13,654 acute stroke patients screened, 25% (3477) had aphasia, of whom 25% (866) were eligible and 246 randomized to usual care (n = 81; 33%), usual care-plus (n = 82; 33%) or VERSE (n = 83; 34%). At 12 weeks after stroke, the primary outcome was assessed in 217 participants (88%); 14 had died, 9 had withdrawn, and 6 were too unwell for assessment. Communication recovery was 50.3% (95% CI 45.7-54.8) in the high intensity group (n = 147) and 52.1% (95% CI 46.1-58.1) in the usual care group (n = 70; difference -1.8, 95% CI -8.7-5.0). There was no difference between groups in non-fatal or fatal adverse events (p = 0.72). INTERPRETATION:Early, intensive aphasia therapy did not improve communication recovery within 12 weeks post stroke compared to usual care

Evaluation of Various Interface Layer Models for Ultrasonic Inspection of Weak Bonds

Adhesively joined structures are increasingly used in industry. Effective nondestructive test techniques are therefore necessary for quality control and in service inspection of bonding conditions. Commonly encountered bonding problems can be classified into three types: debonding, cohesive weakness and adhesive weakness. The former two types can be detected by such traditional ultrasonic techniques as pulse echo, through transmission, C-scan, resonance etc. The last type is the most difficult due to physically ‘perfect ’ contact between adhesive and adherent. Several ultrasonic techniques using longitudinal, shear, plate and interface waves etc. have been considered for finding the most sensitive wave type and corresponding experimental parameters [1–8]. High sensitivity was obtained in several cases. To understand the characteristics of wave reflection and refraction on the bond line for evaluating the bonding quality, various boundary conditions and different physical models have been created [9–18]:</p

5D gravity and the discrepant G measurements

It is shown that 5D Kaluza-Klein theory stabilized by an external bulk scalar field may solve the discrepant laboratory G measurements. This is achieved by an effective coupling between gravitation and the geomagnetic field. Experimental considerations are also addressed.Comment: 13 pages, to be published in: Proceedings of the 18th Course of the School on Cosmology and Gravitation: The gravitational Constant. Generalized gravitational theories and experiments (30 April-10 May 2003, Erice). Ed. by G. T. Gillies, V. N. Melnikov and V. de Sabbata, (Kluwer), 13pp. (in print) (2003

Comparison of SPECT bone scintigraphy with MRI for diagnosis of meniscal tears

BACKGROUND: Scintigraphy has been considered as competitive to MRI, but limited data are available on the accuracy of single photon emission tomography (SPECT) compared with MRI for the assessment of meniscal tears. Our objective was to assess the value of SPECT in comparison to MRI. METHODS: Between January 2003 and March 2004, sixteen patients were studied with both modalities and the accuracy rates of SPECT scan results, and MRI findings in the diagnosis of meniscal tears were compared. Arthroscopy was the gold standard. RESULTS: The respective sensitivity rate, specificity rate, and positive and negative predictive accuracies of MRI were 89%, 94%, 93%, and 79% and for SPECT those were 78%, 94%, 94%, and 88%. There was good agreement on the presence or absence of tears between two modalities (κ statistic = 0.699). CONCLUSION: SPECT and MRI are both valuable imaging techniques. SPECT is a useful alternative when MRI is unavailable or unsuitable and it is beneficial when more possible accuracy is desired (such as when MRI results are either inconclusive or conflict with other clinical data)

Outcome of ATP-based tumor chemosensitivity assay directed chemotherapy in heavily pre-treated recurrent ovarian carcinoma

BACKGROUND: We wished to evaluate the clinical response following ATP-Tumor Chemosensitivity Assay (ATP-TCA) directed salvage chemotherapy in a series of UK patients with advanced ovarian cancer. The results are compared with that of a similar assay used in a different country in terms of evaluability and clinical endpoints. METHODS: From November 1998 to November 2001, 46 patients with pre-treated, advanced ovarian cancer were given a total of 56 courses of chemotherapy based on in-vitro ATP-TCA responses obtained from fresh tumor samples or ascites. Forty-four patients were evaluable for results. Of these, 18 patients had clinically platinum resistant disease (relapse < 6 months after first course of chemotherapy). There was evidence of cisplatin resistance in 31 patients from their first ATP-TCA. Response to treatment was assessed by radiology, clinical assessment and tumor marker level (CA 125). RESULTS: The overall response rate was 59% (33/56) per course of chemotherapy, including 12 complete responses, 21 partial responses, 6 with stable disease, and 15 with progressive disease. Two patients were not evaluable for response having received just one cycle of chemotherapy: if these were excluded the response rate is 61%. Fifteen patients are still alive. Median progression free survival (PFS) was 6.6 months per course of chemotherapy; median overall survival (OAS) for each patient following the start of TCA-directed therapy was 10.4 months (95% confidence interval 7.9-12.8 months). CONCLUSION: The results show similar response rates to previous studies using ATP-TCA directed therapy in recurrent ovarian cancer. The assay shows high evaluability and this study adds weight to the reproducibility of results from different centre

Using ordinal logistic regression to evaluate the performance of laser-Doppler predictions of burn-healing time

Background Laser-Doppler imaging (LDI) of cutaneous blood flow is beginning to be used by burn surgeons to predict the healing time of burn wounds; predicted healing time is used to determine wound treatment as either dressings or surgery. In this paper, we do a statistical analysis of the performance of the technique. Methods We used data from a study carried out by five burn centers: LDI was done once between days 2 to 5 post burn, and healing was assessed at both 14 days and 21 days post burn. Random-effects ordinal logistic regression and other models such as the continuation ratio model were used to model healing-time as a function of the LDI data, and of demographic and wound history variables. Statistical methods were also used to study the false-color palette, which enables the laser-Doppler imager to be used by clinicians as a decision-support tool. Results Overall performance is that diagnoses are over 90% correct. Related questions addressed were what was the best blood flow summary statistic and whether, given the blood flow measurements, demographic and observational variables had any additional predictive power (age, sex, race, % total body surface area burned (%TBSA), site and cause of burn, day of LDI scan, burn center). It was found that mean laser-Doppler flux over a wound area was the best statistic, and that, given the same mean flux, women recover slightly more slowly than men. Further, the likely degradation in predictive performance on moving to a patient group with larger %TBSA than those in the data sample was studied, and shown to be small. Conclusion Modeling healing time is a complex statistical problem, with random effects due to multiple burn areas per individual, and censoring caused by patients missing hospital visits and undergoing surgery. This analysis applies state-of-the art statistical methods such as the bootstrap and permutation tests to a medical problem of topical interest. New medical findings are that age and %TBSA are not important predictors of healing time when the LDI results are known, whereas gender does influence recovery time, even when blood flow is controlled for. The conclusion regarding the palette is that an optimum three-color palette can be chosen 'automatically', but the optimum choice of a 5-color palette cannot be made solely by optimizing the percentage of correct diagnoses

Coverage, Continuity and Visual Cortical Architecture

The primary visual cortex of many mammals contains a continuous representation of visual space, with a roughly repetitive aperiodic map of orientation preferences superimposed. It was recently found that orientation preference maps (OPMs) obey statistical laws which are apparently invariant among species widely separated in eutherian evolution. Here, we examine whether one of the most prominent models for the optimization of cortical maps, the elastic net (EN) model, can reproduce this common design. The EN model generates representations which optimally trade of stimulus space coverage and map continuity. While this model has been used in numerous studies, no analytical results about the precise layout of the predicted OPMs have been obtained so far. We present a mathematical approach to analytically calculate the cortical representations predicted by the EN model for the joint mapping of stimulus position and orientation. We find that in all previously studied regimes, predicted OPM layouts are perfectly periodic. An unbiased search through the EN parameter space identifies a novel regime of aperiodic OPMs with pinwheel densities lower than found in experiments. In an extreme limit, aperiodic OPMs quantitatively resembling experimental observations emerge. Stabilization of these layouts results from strong nonlocal interactions rather than from a coverage-continuity-compromise. Our results demonstrate that optimization models for stimulus representations dominated by nonlocal suppressive interactions are in principle capable of correctly predicting the common OPM design. They question that visual cortical feature representations can be explained by a coverage-continuity-compromise.Comment: 100 pages, including an Appendix, 21 + 7 figure