Pharmaco-economic evaluation of antibiotic therapy strategies in DRG-based healthcare systems - a new approach

The cost of treatments especially in conditions where multiresistant bacteria are involved are a major issue in times where in most developed countries in the world payment systems based on diagnoses-related-groups (DRG) are in place. There is great evidence that especially the length of stay in hospital (LOS), the time in the intensive care unit (ICU-days) and the hours of mechanical ventilation (HMV) are major cost drivers

Electrical conductivity and phase diagram of binary alloys. 21: The system palladium-chromium

Pd-Cr alloys were investigated by thermal analysis, hardness measurements, X-ray analysis, microscopic examination of etched pieces, and temperature-resistance curves of the solid alloys. Only one compound, Pd2Cr3, m, 1389 deg, is formed. It possesses a cubic face centered lattice and forms with excess Pd a series of solid solutions with a minimum m.p. at 45 atoms% Pd. Hardness maximum appears at the Pd2Cr3 point. Pd2Cr3 forms no solid solutions with Cr but eutectic point appears at 25 atoms% Pd, m. 1320 deg. The sp. resistance of pure Cr in an atom of H, indicates no allotropic forms. Cr2O3 is solid in molten Cr. Pure Cr melts at 1890 plus or minus 10 deg but Cr contg. Cr2O3 starts to melt at 1770 to 1790 deg

An information theoretic characterisation of auditory encoding.

The entropy metric derived from information theory provides a means to quantify the amount of information transmitted in acoustic streams like speech or music. By systematically varying the entropy of pitch sequences, we sought brain areas where neural activity and energetic demands increase as a function of entropy. Such a relationship is predicted to occur in an efficient encoding mechanism that uses less computational resource when less information is present in the signal: we specifically tested the hypothesis that such a relationship is present in the planum temporale (PT). In two convergent functional MRI studies, we demonstrated this relationship in PT for encoding, while furthermore showing that a distributed fronto-parietal network for retrieval of acoustic information is independent of entropy. The results establish PT as an efficient neural engine that demands less computational resource to encode redundant signals than those with high information content

Observation of Buried Phosphorus Dopants near Clean Si(100)-(2x1) with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

We have used scanning tunneling microscopy to identify individual phosphorus dopant atoms near the clean silicon (100)-(2x1) reconstructed surface. The charge-induced band bending signature associated with the dopants shows up as an enhancement in both filled and empty states and is consistent with the appearance of n-type dopants on compound semiconductor surfaces and passivated Si(100)-(2x1). We observe dopants at different depths and see a strong dependence of the signature on the magnitude of the sample voltage. Our results suggest that, on this clean surface, the antibonding surface state band acts as an extension of the bulk conduction band into the gap. The positively charged dimer vacancies that have been observed previously appear as depressions in the filled states, as opposed to enhancements, because they disrupt these surface bands.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. TeX for OSX from Wierde

On Excess Compensation Earned by Underwriters in Firm Commitment Initial Public Offerings of Common Stock: An Empirical Analysis

This paper examines compensation for the underwriting activity in firm commitment initial public offerings (IPOs) of common stock in the U.S. When compensation for origination, management and marketing efforts are excluded from total underwriter compensation, we find that the portion of the total compensation assigned for the underwriting activity itself exceeds theoretical compensation only for issues that sell out very quickly. We interpret this finding as empirical evidence supporting the incentive for underwriters to underprice IPOs. Finally, we find excess compensation to underwriters is positively related to the riskiness of the IPO and negatively related to the degree of competition among investment bankers and the size of the IPO