956 research outputs found
Success Factors of European Syndromic Surveillance Systems: A Worked Example of Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Introduction: Syndromic surveillance aims at augmenting traditional public health surveillance with timely information. To gain a head start, it mainly analyses existing data such as from web searches or patient records. Despite the setup of many syndromic surveillance systems, there is still much doubt about the benefit of the approach. There are diverse interactions between performance indicators such as timeliness and various system characteristics. This makes the performance assessment of syndromic surveillance systems a complex endeavour. We assessed if the comparison of several syndromic surveillance systems through Qualitative Comparative Analysis helps to evaluate performance and identify key success factors.
Materials and Methods: We compiled case-based, mixed data on performance and characteristics of 19 syndromic surveillance systems in Europe from scientific and grey literature and from site visits. We identified success factors by applying crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. We focused on two main areas of syndromic surveillance application: seasonal influenza surveillance and situational awareness during different types of potentially health threatening events.
Results: We found that syndromic surveillance systems might detect the onset or peak of seasonal influenza earlier if they analyse non-clinical data sources. Timely situational awareness during different types of events is supported by an automated syndromic surveillance system capable of analysing multiple syndromes. To our surprise, the analysis of multiple data sources was no key success factor for situational awareness.
Conclusions: We suggest to consider these key success factors when designing or further developing syndromic surveillance systems. Qualitative Comparative Analysis helped interpreting complex, mixed data on small-N cases and resulted in concrete and practically relevant findings
Prospective memory functioning among ecstasy/polydrug users: evidence from the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CAMPROMPT)
Rationale:
Prospective memory (PM) deficits in recreational drug users have been documented in recent years. However, the assessment of PM has largely been restricted to self-reported measures that fail to capture the distinction between event-based and time-based PM. The aim of the present study is to address this limitation.
Objectives:
Extending our previous research, we augmented the range laboratory measures of PM by employing the CAMPROMPT test battery to investigate the impact of illicit drug use on prospective remembering in a sample of cannabis only, ecstasy/polydrug and non-users of illicit drugs, separating event and time-based PM performance. We also administered measures of executive function and retrospective memory in order to establish whether ecstasy/polydrug deficits in PM were mediated by group differences in these processes.
Results:
Ecstasy/polydrug users performed significantly worse on both event and time-based prospective memory tasks in comparison to both cannabis only and non-user groups. Furthermore, it was found that across the whole sample, better retrospective memory and executive functioning was associated with superior PM performance. Nevertheless, this association did not mediate the drug-related effects that were observed. Consistent with our previous study, recreational use of cocaine was linked to PM deficits.
Conclusions:
PM deficits have again been found among ecstasy/polydrug users, which appear to be unrelated to group differences in executive function and retrospective memory. However, the possibility that these are attributable to cocaine use cannot be excluded
Search for the h_c meson in B^+- ->h_c K^+-
We report a search for the meson via the decay chain , \etac \gamma with and
. No significant signals are observed. We obtain upper limits on the
branching fractions for in bins of the
invariant mass. The results are based on an analysis of 253
fb of data collected by the Belle detector at the KEKB
collider.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Pedagogical Agents for Fostering Question-Asking Skills in Children
Question asking is an important tool for constructing academic knowledge, and
a self-reinforcing driver of curiosity. However, research has found that
question asking is infrequent in the classroom and children's questions are
often superficial, lacking deep reasoning. In this work, we developed a
pedagogical agent that encourages children to ask divergent-thinking questions,
a more complex form of questions that is associated with curiosity. We
conducted a study with 95 fifth grade students, who interacted with an agent
that encourages either convergent-thinking or divergent-thinking questions.
Results showed that both interventions increased the number of
divergent-thinking questions and the fluency of question asking, while they did
not significantly alter children's perception of curiosity despite their high
intrinsic motivation scores. In addition, children's curiosity trait has a
mediating effect on question asking under the divergent-thinking agent,
suggesting that question-asking interventions must be personalized to each
student based on their tendency to be curious.Comment: Accepted at CHI 202
Moments of the Hadronic Invariant Mass Spectrum in B --> X_c l nu Decays at Belle
We present a measurement of the hadronic invariant mass squared (M^2_X)
spectrum in charmed semileptonic B meson decays B --> X_c l nu based on 140
fb^-1 of Belle data collected near the Y(4S) resonance. We determine the first,
the second central and the second non-central moments of this spectrum for
lepton energy thresholds ranging between 0.7 and 1.9 GeV. Full correlations
between these measurements are evaluated.Comment: published version of the paper (one figure added, minor changes in
the text); 16 pages, 3 figures, 10 table
Study of J/psi to p pbar, Lambda Lambdabar and observation of eta_c to Lambda Lambdabar at Belle
We study the baryonic charmonium decays of B mesons, B+ to etac K+ and B+ to
J/psi K+, where the etac and J/psi subsequently decay into a p pbar or Lambda
Lambdabar pair. We measure the J/psi to p pbar, Lambda Lambdabar anisotropy
parameters, alpha_B = -0.60 +- 0.13 +-0.14 (p pbar), -0.44 +- 0.51 +- 0.31
(Lambda Lambdabar) and compare to results from e+e- to J/psi formation
experiments. We also report the first observation of etac to Lambda Lambdabar.
The measured branching fraction is B(etac to Lambda Lambdabar) = (0.87 +0.24
-0.21(stat) +0.09 -0.14(syst) +- 0.27 (PDG)) x 10^-3. This study is based on a
357 fb^-1 data sample recorded on the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the Belle
detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider.Comment: 8 pages, two figures (4 figure files), an update of hep-ex/0509020
for journal submissio
Intermediate Tail Dependence: A Review and Some New Results
The concept of intermediate tail dependence is useful if one wants to
quantify the degree of positive dependence in the tails when there is no strong
evidence of presence of the usual tail dependence. We first review existing
studies on intermediate tail dependence, and then we report new results to
supplement the review. Intermediate tail dependence for elliptical, extreme
value and Archimedean copulas are reviewed and further studied, respectively.
For Archimedean copulas, we not only consider the frailty model but also the
recently studied scale mixture model; for the latter, conditions leading to
upper intermediate tail dependence are presented, and it provides a useful way
to simulate copulas with desirable intermediate tail dependence structures.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figur
Observation of B Decays to Two Kaons
Using 449 million BBbar pairs collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB
asymmetric-energy e^+e^- collider, we observe clear signals for B^+-> \bar{K}^0
K^+ and B^0-> \bar{K}^0 K^0 decays with 5.3 sigma and 6.0 sigma significance,
respectively. We measure the branching fractions Br(B^+-> \bar{K}^0 K^+ =
(1.22^{+0.32+0.13}_{-0.28-0.16})x10^{-6} and Br(B^0-> \bar{K}^0 K^0) =
(0.87^{+0.25}_{-0.20} +- 0.09)x10^{-6}, and partial-rate asymmetries
A_{CP}(B^+-> \bar{K}^0 K^+) = 0.13^{+0.23}_{-0.24}+- 0.02 and A_{CP}(B^0->
\bar{K}^0 K^0) = -0.58^{+0.73}_{-0.66}+- 0.04. From a simultaneous fit we also
obtain Br(B^+-> K^0\pi^+)= (22.8^{+0.8}_{-0.7} +- 1.3)x 10^{-6} and
A_{CP}(B^+-> K^0 \pi^+) = 0.03 +- 0.03 +- 0.01. The first and second error in
the branching fractions and the partial-rate asymmetries are statistical and
systematic, respectively. No signal is observed for B^0-> K^+ K^- decays, and
for this branching fraction we set an upper limit of 4.1x10^{-7} at the 90%
confidence level.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Time-Dependent CP Asymmetries in B0 -> Ks pi0 gamma transitions
We report measurements of CP violation parameters in B0->Ks pi0 gamma
transitions based on a data sample of 535x10^6 BB pairs collected with the
Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+ e- collider. One neutral B
meson is fully reconstructed in the B0->Ks pi0 gamma mode. The flavor of the
accompanying B meson is identified from its decay products. For a Ks pi0
invariant mass up to 1.8 GeV/c^2, we obtain S = -0.10 +- 0.31 +- 0.07 and A =
-0.20 +- 0.20 +- 0.06. For a Ks pi0 invariant mass near the K*0(892) resonance,
we obtain S = -0.32 +0.36-0.33 +-0.05 and A=-0.20 +-0.24 +-0.05.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted by PR
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Angular velocimetry for fluid flows: an optical sensor using structured light and machine learning
Most velocimetry approaches for fluid flows measure linear components of the velocity vector; yet, the angular velocity components, particularly at small scales in turbulent flows, also need to be resolved to study energy transfer and other important flow characteristics. Here, we detail an optical sensor approach to determine a component of the angular velocity vector. This approach uses beams of structured light and a machine learning-based analysis. We discuss the methodology to train the machine learning model and test it in experimentally validated simulations. This approach represents an interesting new direction for fluid flow velocimetry which may be extended to sense other flow parameters by selecting different light structures.
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