A principal stratification approach to assess the differences in prognosis between cancers caused by hormone replacement therapy and by other factors

Several recent studies have reported that women who have used hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and developed breast cancer, tend to have a better prognosis than women with breast cancer who have not used HRT. One possible explanation is that tumors caused by HRT are more benign than tumors caused by other factors. Although it is relevant to quantify differences in prognostic factors across subtypes of breast cancer, it is not obvious how to do this correctly. This is because the tumors which occur among women who are treated with HRT are a mixture of HRT-induced and other tumors. We propose a framework based on principal stratification to distinguish women with HRT-induced tumors from women with tumors caused by other factors. To estimate the difference in prognosis for these two groups, we propose two estimation methods, which can be used under both cohort and case-control sampling schemes

Middle-class Offenders as Employees – Assessing the Risk:A 35-year Follow-up

A 35-year follow-up of a series of 317 middle-class offenders in England and Wales suggests that the dangers of employing offenders may be more limited than expected. Although 40% were subsequently convicted, only 8% were subsequently convicted of offenses that directly and adversely affected an employer. This work should challenge the “exaggerated fears” of employers. Interestingly, variables which normally predict subsequent criminal activity made no impact in trying to predict offenses against an employer

The economics and development of the British independent airlines since 1945.

Since the end of the Second World War the privately-owned airlines, the so-called Independents, have gradually established for themselves a position of major importance within the UK air transport industry. Initially restricted solely to charter operations, they have been successful in obtaining from successive Governments, especially, but not only, Conservative Governments, a relaxation of legislative restrictions on scheduled services, until today they operate an extensive scheduled service network. Similarly, they have been responsible for pioneering vehicle air-ferries, air trooping and, more recently, packaged holidays by air in the UK. But despite a fairly impressive history of achievements, the fact remains that since the war the private sector as a whole has been characterised by an apparently high degree of economic instability. This thesis examines the Independents' post-war record and concludes by tentatively advancing several possible explanations for their lack of stability, in particular the political environment within which they have been forced to operate, an absence of sufficient financial backing and the ease of entry into the air transport industr

Developing Measures of Severity and Frequency of Reconviction

This report examines the scope for focusing on the seriousness and frequency of recidivism and presents methodology for determining how to measure offence seriousness, and how to measure frequency of offending. It also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of combining these two measures into a combined seriousness/frequency score. However, one needs to recognise that the task of providing alternative measures of recidivism is not simply a technical exercise, for there are both philosophical and practical issues to confront. Hence, while the main body of the report focuses largely on the feasibility of producing the alternative measures and provides some solid evidence of developing these approaches (sections 3-5), the philosophical issues – which embrace definitional, conceptual and moral concerns – are not overlooked (see section 2). Furthermore, some of the practical issues of introducing these measures are recognised in the final section (section 6). First, however, what are the stated aims and objectives of the work

Fine-scale mapping in case-control samples using locus scoring and haplotype-sharing methods

Both haplotype-based and locus-based methods have been proposed as the most powerful methods to employ when fine mapping by association. Although haplotype-based methods utilize more information, they may lose power as a result of overparameterization, given the large number of haplotypes possible over even a few loci. Recently methods have been developed that cluster haplotypes with similar structure in the hope that this reflects shared genealogical ancestry. The aim is to reduce the number of parameters while retaining the genotype information relating to disease susceptibility. We have compared several haplotype-based methods with locus-based methods. We utilized 2 regions (D2 and D4) simulated to be in linkage disequilibrium and to be associated with disease susceptibility, combining 5 replicates at a time to produce 4 datasets that were analyzed. We found little difference in the performance of the haplotype-based methods and the locus-based methods in this dataset

The Political Economy of the Opioid Epidemic

Public health problems have a political economy rooted largely in public and private laws that both reflect the distribution of power in society and shape its policy responses. In this Article, we apply this perspective to the U.S. opioid crisis, which was triggered by a quadrupling of opioid prescribing beginning in the mid-1990s. Such staggering increases in opioid use are impossible to understand without unpacking the incentives and institutional pressures associated with the distribution and use of addictive legal drugs, particularly how those pressures can dilute the substantive goals and efficacy of regulatory governance

Analysis of binary traits: testing association in the presence of linkage

Most methods for testing association in the presence of linkage, using family-based studies, have been developed for continuous traits. FBAT (family-based association tests) is one of few methods appropriate for discrete outcomes. In this article we describe a new test of association in the presence of linkage for binary traits. We use a gamma random effects model in which association and linkage are modelled as fixed effects and random effects, respectively. We have compared the gamma random effects model to an FBAT and a generalized estimating equation-based alternative, using two regions in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 14 simulated data. One of these regions contained haplotypes associated with disease, and the other did not

Marijuana Legalization: Beyond Yes or No.

This paper will first go over some basic terms and concepts, then discuss what’s going on in the world around cannabis with a focus on the United States. I will then offer some policy options to consider if New York chooses to legalize recreational cannabis

Using the UK general offender database as a means to measure and analyse Organised Crime.

Purpose Organised Crime is notoriously difficult to define and measure, resulting in limited empirical evidence to inform policy makers and practitioners. This study explores the feasibility of identifying a greater number of organized crime offenders, currently captured (but invisible), within an existing national general crime database. Methodology All 2.1 million recorded offenders, captured over a four year period on the UK Police National Computer (PNC), were filtered across three criteria associated with organized crime (co-offending, commission of specific offences, three years imprisonment or more). The 4109 ‘organized crime’ offenders, identified by the process, were compared with ‘general’ and ‘serious’ offender control groups across a variety of personal and demographic variables. Findings Organized crime prosecutions are not random but concentrate in specific geographic areas and constitute 0.2% of the offender population. Offenders can be differentiated from general crime offenders on such measures as: criminal onset age, offence type and criminal recidivism. Research implications Using an offence based methodology, rather than relying on offenders identified through police proactive investigations, can provide empirical information from existing data sets, across a diverse range of legislative areas and cultures. This allows academics to enhance their analysis of organized crime, generating richer evidence on which policy makers and practitioners can more effectively deliver preventative and disruptive tactics. Originality This is the first time an ‘offence based’ methodology has been used in differentiating organised crime from other offenders in a general crime database