Sharp Bounds on the Entropy of the Poisson Law and Related Quantities

One of the difficulties in calculating the capacity of certain Poisson channels is that H(lambda), the entropy of the Poisson distribution with mean lambda, is not available in a simple form. In this work we derive upper and lower bounds for H(lambda) that are asymptotically tight and easy to compute. The derivation of such bounds involves only simple probabilistic and analytic tools. This complements the asymptotic expansions of Knessl (1998), Jacquet and Szpankowski (1999), and Flajolet (1999). The same method yields tight bounds on the relative entropy D(n, p) between a binomial and a Poisson, thus refining the work of Harremoes and Ruzankin (2004). Bounds on the entropy of the binomial also follow easily.Comment: To appear, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theor

Al·lèrgies i intoleràncies alimentàries als centres escolars del Tarragonès durant el curs 2010-11 [cartell]

Al·lèrgies alimentàries; Intolerància alimentària; Menjador escolar; Malaltia celíacaAlergias alimentarias; Intolerancia alimentaria; Comedor escolar; Enfermedad celíacaFood allergies; Food intolerance; School dinning room; Celiac DiseasePòster que parla sobre les al·lèrgies i intoleràncies alimentàries que pateixen els escolars que dinen als menjadors escolars del Tarragonès durant el curs 2010-11

Chronicle of an early demise, surname extinction in the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries

This is the Author’s Original Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History on 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01615440.2018.1462747It has been amply demonstrated that individuals' reproductive capability is the key explanatory phenomenon for understanding onomastic disappearance during the early modern period. This article analyzes the evolution and consequences of surname extinction in a specific population: Catalonia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this article two aspects are examined. First, the observed disappearance of surnames is estimated through historical data collected in the Llibres d'Esposalles (Marriage Books) from 1481 to 1600 at Barcelona Cathedral. Second, the estimated natural extinction of those surnames registered in 1481 is forecast by applying a statistical branching processResearch has been funded by Projects MTM2016-76969-P (Spanish State Research Agency, AEI) and MTM2013-41383-P (Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness), both co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), IAP network from Belgian Science Policy. Work of J. Ameijeiras-Alonso has been supported by the Ph.D. Grant BES-2014-071006 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and CompetitivenessNO

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Clustering COVID-19 ARDS patients through the first days of ICU admission. An analysis of the CIBERESUCICOVID Cohort

Background Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) can be classified into sub-phenotypes according to different inflammatory/clinical status. Prognostic enrichment was achieved by grouping patients into hypoinflammatory or hyperinflammatory sub-phenotypes, even though the time of analysis may change the classification according to treatment response or disease evolution. We aimed to evaluate when patients can be clustered in more than 1 group, and how they may change the clustering of patients using data of baseline or day 3, and the prognosis of patients according to their evolution by changing or not the cluster.Methods Multicenter, observational prospective, and retrospective study of patients admitted due to ARDS related to COVID-19 infection in Spain. Patients were grouped according to a clustering mixed-type data algorithm (k-prototypes) using continuous and categorical readily available variables at baseline and day 3.Results Of 6205 patients, 3743 (60%) were included in the study. According to silhouette analysis, patients were grouped in two clusters. At baseline, 1402 (37%) patients were included in cluster 1 and 2341(63%) in cluster 2. On day 3, 1557(42%) patients were included in cluster 1 and 2086 (57%) in cluster 2. The patients included in cluster 2 were older and more frequently hypertensive and had a higher prevalence of shock, organ dysfunction, inflammatory biomarkers, and worst respiratory indexes at both time points. The 90-day mortality was higher in cluster 2 at both clustering processes (43.8% [n = 1025] versus 27.3% [n = 383] at baseline, and 49% [n = 1023] versus 20.6% [n = 321] on day 3). Four hundred and fifty-eight (33%) patients clustered in the first group were clustered in the second group on day 3. In contrast, 638 (27%) patients clustered in the second group were clustered in the first group on day 3.Conclusions During the first days, patients can be clustered into two groups and the process of clustering patients may change as they continue to evolve. This means that despite a vast majority of patients remaining in the same cluster, a minority reaching 33% of patients analyzed may be re-categorized into different clusters based on their progress. Such changes can significantly impact their prognosis

Improved Methods for Processing Optical Mapping Signals From Human Left Ventricular Tissues at Baseline and Following Adrenergic Stimulation

Optical mapping (OM) allows ex vivo measurement of electrophysiological signals at high spatio-temporal resolution, but the signal-to-roise ratio is commonly low. A variety of software options have been proposed to extract relevant information from OM recordings, being ElectroMap the most advanced tool currently available. In this study, improved methods are presented for processing OM signals of cardiac transmembrane voltage. A software called OMap is developed that incorporates novel techniques into ElectroMap for improved baseline drift removal, spatiotemporal filtering and characterization of action potential duration (APD) maps. In synthetically generated signals contaminated with baseline wander, white noise and the combination of both, the errors in APD maps between noisy and clean signals are remarkably lower for OMap than for ElectroMap, particularly for high noise levels. In OM signals recorded from human ventricular tissue specimens, OMap allows to clearly characterize the APD shortening effect induced by ß-adrenergic stimulation, whereas ElectroMap renders highly overlapped APD distributions for baseline and ß-adrenergic stimulation. In conclusion, improved methods are proposed and tested to characterize human ventricular electrophysiology from noisy OM recordings.Fil: Perez Zabalza, Maria. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Diez, Emiliano Raúl. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Medicina y Biología Experimental de Cuyo; ArgentinaFil: Rhyins, Julia. Northeastern University; Estados UnidosFil: Mountris, Kostantinos A.. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Vallejo Gil, Jose M.. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Fresneda Roldan, Pedro C.. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Fananas-Mastral, Javier. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Matamal Adell, Marta. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Sorribas Berjon, Fernando. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Vazquez Sancho, Manuel. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Ballester Cuenca, Carlos. Hospital Miguel Servet; EspañaFil: Segovia Roldan, Margarita. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Olivan Viguera, Aida. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Pueyo, Esther. Universidad de Zaragoza; Españ