Random attractors for degenerate stochastic partial differential equations

We prove the existence of random attractors for a large class of degenerate stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) perturbed by joint additive Wiener noise and real, linear multiplicative Brownian noise, assuming only the standard assumptions of the variational approach to SPDE with compact embeddings in the associated Gelfand triple. This allows spatially much rougher noise than in known results. The approach is based on a construction of strictly stationary solutions to related strongly monotone SPDE. Applications include stochastic generalized porous media equations, stochastic generalized degenerate p-Laplace equations and stochastic reaction diffusion equations. For perturbed, degenerate p-Laplace equations we prove that the deterministic, infinite dimensional attractor collapses to a single random point if enough noise is added.Comment: 34 pages; The final publication is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10884-013-9294-

Vascular clamping in liver surgery: physiology, indications and techniques

This article reviews the historical evolution of hepatic vascular clamping and their indications. The anatomic basis for partial and complete vascular clamping will be discussed, as will the rationales of continuous and intermittent vascular clamping

Surgical strategies for liver cell adenoma

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41589/1/534_2006_Article_BF02350918.pd

Worldwide comparison of survival from childhood leukaemia for 1995–2009, by subtype, age, and sex (CONCORD-2): a population-based study of individual data for 89 828 children from 198 registries in 53 countries

Background Global inequalities in access to health care are reflected in differences in cancer survival. The CONCORD programme was designed to assess worldwide differences and trends in population-based cancer survival. In this population-based study, we aimed to estimate survival inequalities globally for several subtypes of childhood leukaemia. Methods Cancer registries participating in CONCORD were asked to submit tumour registrations for all children aged 0-14 years who were diagnosed with leukaemia between Jan 1, 1995, and Dec 31, 2009, and followed up until Dec 31, 2009. Haematological malignancies were defined by morphology codes in the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, third revision. We excluded data from registries from which the data were judged to be less reliable, or included only lymphomas, and data from countries in which data for fewer than ten children were available for analysis. We also excluded records because of a missing date of birth, diagnosis, or last known vital status. We estimated 5-year net survival (ie, the probability of surviving at least 5 years after diagnosis, after controlling for deaths from other causes [background mortality]) for children by calendar period of diagnosis (1995-99, 2000-04, and 2005-09), sex, and age at diagnosis (< 1, 1-4, 5-9, and 10-14 years, inclusive) using appropriate life tables. We estimated age-standardised net survival for international comparison of survival trends for precursor-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). Findings We analysed data from 89 828 children from 198 registries in 53 countries. During 1995-99, 5-year agestandardised net survival for all lymphoid leukaemias combined ranged from 10.6% (95% CI 3.1-18.2) in the Chinese registries to 86.8% (81.6-92.0) in Austria. International differences in 5-year survival for childhood leukaemia were still large as recently as 2005-09, when age-standardised survival for lymphoid leukaemias ranged from 52.4% (95% CI 42.8-61.9) in Cali, Colombia, to 91.6% (89.5-93.6) in the German registries, and for AML ranged from 33.3% (18.9-47.7) in Bulgaria to 78.2% (72.0-84.3) in German registries. Survival from precursor-cell ALL was very close to that of all lymphoid leukaemias combined, with similar variation. In most countries, survival from AML improved more than survival from ALL between 2000-04 and 2005-09. Survival for each type of leukaemia varied markedly with age: survival was highest for children aged 1-4 and 5-9 years, and lowest for infants (younger than 1 year). There was no systematic difference in survival between boys and girls. Interpretation Global inequalities in survival from childhood leukaemia have narrowed with time but remain very wide for both ALL and AML. These results provide useful information for health policy makers on the effectiveness of health-care systems and for cancer policy makers to reduce inequalities in childhood survival

Nonzero-sum Stochastic Games

This paper treats of stochastic games. We focus on nonzero-sum games and provide a detailed survey of selected recent results. In Section 1, we consider stochastic Markov games. A correlation of strategies of the players, involving ``public signals'', is described, and a correlated equilibrium theorem proved recently by Nowak and Raghavan for discounted stochastic games with general state space is presented. We also report an extension of this result to a class of undiscounted stochastic games, satisfying some uniform ergodicity condition. Stopping games are related to stochastic Markov games. In Section 2, we describe a version of Dynkin's game related to observation of a Markov process with random assignment mechanism of states to the players. Some recent contributions of the second author in this area are reported. The paper also contains a brief overview of the theory of nonzero-sum stochastic games and stopping games which is very far from being complete

Lagrangian intermittency based on an ensemble of Gaussian velocity time series

We show that Lagrangian intermittency in fully developed turbulence can be captured in terms of an ensemble of Gaussian velocity time series. This is achieved by letting the individual ensemble members vary with respect to their correlation function.We briefly discuss howthis can be analytically captured in terms of a suitably defined characteristic functional. Moreover, we present a numerical implementation of the ensemble showing a continuous change from Gaussian to non-Gaussian increment distributions for a decreasing time lag. In an outlook we show first results on the application to data from direct numerical simulatio

Evolution of liver transplantation in Europe: Report of the European liver transplant registry

The European Liver Transplant Registry (ELTR) currently allows for the analysis of 44,286 liver transplantations (LTs) performed on 39,196 patients in a 13-year period. After an exponential increase, the number of Us is plateauing due to a lack of organs. To cope with this, alternatives to cadaveric LT, such as split LT, domino LT, or living-related LT (LRLT) are being used increasingly. They now account for 11% of all procedures. One of the most important findings in the evolution of LT is the considerable improvement of results along time with, for the mean time, a one-year survival of 83%, all indications confounded. The improvement is particularly significant for cancers. This improvement is mainly represented by hepatocellular carcinoma, with a gain of 17% for 5-year survival rate from 1990 to 2000. Increasingly, older donors are used to augment the donor pool and older recipients are transplanted due to improved results and a better selection of patients. More than two thirds of deaths and three quarters of retransplantations occurred within the first year of transplantation. Retransplantation is associated with much less optimal results than first LT. One of the prominent features of recent years is the development of LRLT. LRLT is now performed by almost half of the European centers. As with split LT or domino LT, LRLT aims to provide more patients to be transplanted. Special attention is paid to reducing the risk for the donor, which is now estimated to be 0.5% mortality and 21% postoperative morbidity