Three-fold way to extinction in populations of cyclically competing species

Species extinction occurs regularly and unavoidably in ecological systems. The time scales for extinction can broadly vary and inform on the ecosystem's stability. We study the spatio-temporal extinction dynamics of a paradigmatic population model where three species exhibit cyclic competition. The cyclic dynamics reflects the non-equilibrium nature of the species interactions. While previous work focusses on the coarsening process as a mechanism that drives the system to extinction, we found that unexpectedly the dynamics to extinction is much richer. We observed three different types of dynamics. In addition to coarsening, in the evolutionary relevant limit of large times, oscillating traveling waves and heteroclinic orbits play a dominant role. The weight of the different processes depends on the degree of mixing and the system size. By analytical arguments and extensive numerical simulations we provide the full characteristics of scenarios leading to extinction in one of the most surprising models of ecology

Gating of high-mobility two-dimensional electron gases in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures

We investigate high-mobility two-dimensional electron gases in AlGaAs heterostructures by employing Schottky-gate-dependent measurements of the samples' electron density and mobility. Surprisingly, we find that two different sample configurations can be set in situ with mobilities diering by a factor of more than two in a wide range of densities. This observation is discussed in view of charge redistributions between the doping layers and is relevant for the design of future gateable high-mobility electron gases

The Distribution of the Burden of US Health Care Financing

The complex financing system that supports health care spending in the US makes estimation of the incidence of financing both daunting and important. A significant portion of financing is embedded in the tax system at all levels of government, while tax expenditures that subsidize private purchases implicitly transfer a large share of financing from private to public revenue sources. We compute and describe the final incidence of financing health care by major component and in total. We use the Kakwani measure of progressivity and find the overall incidence of US health care financing to be regressive although less so than in earlier years. This change is due in part to an increased federal role. We provide detail as to our methods and assumptions for benchmarking and assessment of the equity implications of financing health care in the future

Influence Of Nanopolymers With Different End‐Functionalities On Platelets And Coagulation. An Ex‐Vivo Study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106058/1/jth03252.pd

Encoding dynamics for multiscale community detection: Markov time sweeping for the Map equation

The detection of community structure in networks is intimately related to finding a concise description of the network in terms of its modules. This notion has been recently exploited by the Map equation formalism (M. Rosvall and C.T. Bergstrom, PNAS, 105(4), pp.1118--1123, 2008) through an information-theoretic description of the process of coding inter- and intra-community transitions of a random walker in the network at stationarity. However, a thorough study of the relationship between the full Markov dynamics and the coding mechanism is still lacking. We show here that the original Map coding scheme, which is both block-averaged and one-step, neglects the internal structure of the communities and introduces an upper scale, the `field-of-view' limit, in the communities it can detect. As a consequence, Map is well tuned to detect clique-like communities but can lead to undesirable overpartitioning when communities are far from clique-like. We show that a signature of this behavior is a large compression gap: the Map description length is far from its ideal limit. To address this issue, we propose a simple dynamic approach that introduces time explicitly into the Map coding through the analysis of the weighted adjacency matrix of the time-dependent multistep transition matrix of the Markov process. The resulting Markov time sweeping induces a dynamical zooming across scales that can reveal (potentially multiscale) community structure above the field-of-view limit, with the relevant partitions indicated by a small compression gap.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

IMPACT OF CONTINUOUS PATIENT COUNSELLING ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND PRACTICES AND MEDICATION ADHERENCE OF DIABETIC PATIENTS ATTENDING OUTPATIENT PHARMACY SERVICES

ABSTRACTObjective: The morbidity and morbidity associated with diabetes can be drastically reduced by the knowledge about diabetes mellitus and appropriateattitude toward the disease. A study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) and medication adherence patternsof diabetic patients and effect of pharmacist‑led patient education on KAP and medication adherence patterns in these patients.Methods: 400 diabetic patients of either sex, aged above 18 years were divided randomly into two groups of 200 each as control and the interventiongroups. At the baseline, patients in both the groups were assessed for KAP using KAP Questionnaire and medication adherence using MoriskyAdherence Questionnaire. Patients in the intervention group were counseled both verbally and by distribution of a patient education leaflets at baselineand at three consecutive follow‑ups (1st, 2nd, and 3 months), and patients in the control group were counseled both verbally and by distribution ofpatient education leaflets at the baseline and then on the follow‑up after 3 months. Both the groups were assessed repeatedly for KAP and medicationadherence using same questionnaires after each counseling sessions. The mean scores of KAP and medication adherence, and the fasting blood sugarlevels (FBS) at the baseline and on the follow‑up for control and the intervention groups were analyzed statistically using independent sample t‑testand Mann–Whitney U‑test.rdResults: Of 200 patients in each group, 178 females and 22 males in the intervention group (mean age 57.80±9.878 years) and 179 females and21 males in the control group (mean age 57.57±9.438 years). A statistically significant improvement in the mean KAP and adherence scores wasobserved from the baseline to the final follow‑up in both groups (p≤0.001). The increase in the KAP and medication adherence scores from baselineto the follow‑up in the intervention group was found to be significantly higher than the control group. There was a reduction in the mean FBS frombaseline to the follow‑up in both the groups but a statistically significant higher reduction in the mean FBS was found in the intervention group frombaseline to the final follow‑up when compared to the control group (p < 0.001).Conclusion: A better KAP of diabetic patients about their disease can improve the medication adherence behavior which in turn can improve clinicaloutcomes. The patient education should be a continuous process, and patients should be assessed at every subsequent visit for medication adherenceto achieve better health outcome.Keywords: Diabetes, Adherence, Knowledge, attitude and practices, Patient education