Decision Making in Drug Development via Confidence Distributions

In clinical drug development a typical phase three power calculation for a Go/No-Go decision is performed by replacing unknown population-level quantities in the power function with what is observed from a literature review or what is observed in phase two. Many authors and practitioners view this as an assumed value of power and offer the Bayesian quantity probability of success or assurance as an alternative. The claim is by averaging over a prior or posterior distribution, probability of success transcends power by capturing the uncertainty around the unknown true treatment effect and any other population-level parameters. We use confidence distributions to frame both the probability of success calculation and the typical power calculation as merely producing two different point estimates of power. We demonstrate that Go/No-Go decisions based on either point estimate of power do not adequately quantify and control the risk involved, and instead we argue for Go/No-Go decisions that utilize inference on power for better risk management and decision making. This inference on power can be derived and displayed using confidence distributions

A Cereal Chemist's Quick Guide to Genetics, Plant Breeding and BioIT

This book is intended as a guide for cereal chemists in quality testing laboratories and grain product development companies, to help them in their understanding of fundamental genetics, functional genomics and other concepts of relevance during their interactions with crop breeding programs. Consequently the emphasis is on quick definitions of terms and concepts, assuming that the expertise of the reader is predominantly in another field.Established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Progra

The Identification of Extreme Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars and Red Supergiants in M33 by 24 {\mu}m Variability

We present the first detection of 24 {\mu}m variability in 24 sources in the Local Group galaxy M33. These results are based on 4 epochs of MIPS observations, which are irregularly spaced over ~750 days. We find that these sources are constrained exclusively to the Holmberg radius of the galaxy, which increases their chances of being members of M33. We have constructed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) ranging from the optical to the sub-mm to investigate the nature of these objects. We find that 23 of our objects are most likely heavily self-obscured, evolved stars; while the remaining source is the Giant HII region, NGC 604. We believe that the observed variability is the intrinsic variability of the central star reprocessed through their circumstellar dust shells. Radiative transfer modeling was carried out to determine their likely chemical composition, luminosity, and dust production rate (DPR). As a sample, our modeling has determined an average luminosity of (3.8 $\pm$ 0.9) x 10$^4$ L$_\odot$ and a total DPR of (2.3 $\pm$ 0.1) x 10$^{-5}$ M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$. Most of the sources, given the high DPRs and short wavelength obscuration, are likely "extreme" AGB (XAGB) stars. Five of the sources are found to have luminosities above the classical AGB limit (M$_{\rm bol}$ 54,000 L$_\odot$), which classifies them as probably red supergiants (RSGs). Almost all of the sources are classified as oxygen rich. As also seen in the LMC, a significant fraction of the dust in M33 is produced by a handful of XAGB and RSG stars.Comment: 36 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables, Accepted for publication in A

Psychotherapy and Counseling with Minorities: A Cognitive Approach to Individual and Cultural Differences, by Manuel Ramirez III

La presente investigación tiene el propósito de demostrar cómo a través de una red social conocida como Facebook, mediante su plataforma de fanpage, puede servir como herramienta táctica de convocatoria para que los movimientos sociales generen grandes marchas multitudinarias en la ciudad de Lima durante el año 2017. Siendo un estudio no experimental con diseño transeccional. La población y muestra está formada por los participantes de la red social Facebook dentro de los fanpage. La técnica fue la observación y la entrevista y como instrumentos la ficha de observación y la guía de entrevista. Los resultados indican que Se hallaron 349 funciones del lenguaje en todos los estados de los fanpages. Siendo la función apelativa y referencial las más utilizadas por estos movimientos en un 87,11 %; mientras que la metalingüística y la fática no se emplearon en ningún momento. Asimismo, y en menor cantidad se usaron la función expresiva y la función poética teniendo un 11.17 % y 1.72 % respectivamente. Cabe resaltar, que en reiteradas ocasiones los estados de los fanpages contenían más de una función del lenguaje, llegando a tener hasta las 4 funciones combinadas en un solo estado. Se concluye que las fanpage son utilizadas como herramienta de convocatoria de movimientos sociales mediante mensajes a través de sus estados, imágenes y videos

A Third Exoplanetary System with Misaligned Orbital and Stellar Spin Axes

We present evidence that the WASP-14 exoplanetary system has misaligned orbital and stellar-rotational axes, with an angle lambda = 33.1 +/- 7.4 deg between their sky projections. The evidence is based on spectroscopic observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect as well as new photometric observations. WASP-14 is now the third system known to have a significant spin-orbit misalignment, and all three systems have "super-Jupiter" planets (M_P > 3 Mjup) and eccentric orbits. This finding suggests that the migration and subsequent orbital evolution of massive, eccentric exoplanets is somehow different from that of less massive close-in Jupiters, the majority of which have well-aligned orbits.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, PASP accepte