Rising Educational Levels Contribute to Compression of Morbidity. A Multi-State Life Table Analysis of the Netherlands 1995-2015

Objective: This paper assesses whether the future rise in educational levels of theelderly may not only increase life expectancy (LE) but also at the same timecontribute to a reduction in life expectancy with disability (LED).Methods: For each educational level, LE and LED were estimated from multi-statelife tables with a disabled and non-disabled state. Basic transition rates wereestimated from regression analysis of data of a Dutch longitudinal study. The resultsper educational level were aggregated to the total population for the years 1995,2005 and 2015.Results: In 1995, men in the highest educational level had a 0.9 years longerLE and a 5.4 years shorter LED than men in the lowest level. Differences amongwomen were larger (2.0 and 8.3 years). Due to rising educational levels between1995 and 2015, LE for the total male population would increase by 0.2 years whileLED would decrease by 0.5 years. A larger effect was observed for women(0.2 and 1.5 years).Conclusion: Rising educational levels of the elderly are likely to contribute to acompression of morbidity over the next decades, especially among women

Single Top Quark Production as a Probe for Anomalous Moments at Hadron Colliders

Single production of top quarks at hadron colliders via $gW$ fusion is examined as a probe of possible anomalous chromomagnetic and/or chromoelectric moment type couplings between the top and gluons. We find that this channel is far less sensitive to the existence of anomalous couplings of this kind than is the usual production of top pairs by $gg$ or $q\bar q$ fusion. This result is found to hold at both the Tevatron as well as the LHC although somewhat greater sensitivity for anomalous couplings in this channel is found at the higher energy machine.Comment: New discussion and 10 new figures added. uuencoded postscript fil

Fluoroquinolones and isoniazid-resistant tuberculosis: implications for the 2018 WHO guidance.

INTRODUCTION: 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for the treatment of isoniazid (H)-resistant (Hr) tuberculosis recommend a four-drug regimen: rifampicin (R), ethambutol (E), pyrazinamide (Z) and levofloxacin (Lfx), with or without H ([H]RZE-Lfx). This is used once Hr is known, such that patients complete 6 months of Lfx (≥6[H]RZE-6Lfx). This cohort study assessed the impact of fluoroquinolones (Fq) on treatment effectiveness, accounting for Hr mutations and degree of phenotypic resistance. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of 626 Hr tuberculosis patients notified in London, 2009-2013. Regimens were described and logistic regression undertaken of the association between regimen and negative regimen-specific outcomes (broadly, death due to tuberculosis, treatment failure or disease recurrence). RESULTS: Of 594 individuals with regimen information, 330 (55.6%) were treated with (H)RfZE (Rf=rifamycins) and 211 (35.5%) with (H)RfZE-Fq. The median overall treatment period was 11.9 months and median Z duration 2.1 months. In a univariable logistic regression model comparing (H)RfZE with and without Fqs, there was no difference in the odds of a negative regimen-specific outcome (baseline (H)RfZE, cluster-specific odds ratio 1.05 (95% CI 0.60-1.82), p=0.87; cluster NHS trust). Results varied minimally in a multivariable model. This odds ratio dropped (0.57, 95% CI 0.14-2.28) when Hr genotype was included, but this analysis lacked power (p=0.42). CONCLUSIONS: In a high-income setting, we found a 12-month (H)RfZE regimen with a short Z duration to be similarly effective for Hr tuberculosis with or without a Fq. This regimen may result in fewer adverse events than the WHO recommendations

Evaluation of the modified Pittsburgh classification for predicting the disease-free survival outcome of squamous cell carcinoma of the external auditory canal

Background: Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the external auditory canal (EAC) is a rare disease, which is commonly classified with the modified Pittsburgh classification. Our aim was to evaluate the predictive performance of this classification in relation to disease-free survival (DFS). Methods: We examined retrospective data from a nationwide Dutch cohort study including patients with primary EAC SCC. These data were combined with individual patient data from the literature. Using the combined data, the predictive performances were calculated using the c-index. Results: A total of 381 patients were included, 294 for clinical and 281 for the pathological classification analyses. The c-indices of the clinical and the pathological modified Pittsburgh classification predicting DFS were 0.725 (0.668-0.782) and 0.729 (0.672-0.786), respectively. Conclusion: The predictive performance of the modified Pittsburgh classification system as such appears to be acceptable to predict the DFS of EAC SCC. Other factors need to be added to a future model to improve the predicted performance

Continuity of care for patients with de novo metastatic cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic:A population-based observational study

During the COVID-19 pandemic recommendations were made to adapt cancer care. This population-based study aimed to investigate possible differences between the treatment of patients with metastatic cancer before and during the pandemic by comparing the initial treatments in five COVID-19 periods (weeks 1–12 2020: pre-COVID-19, weeks 12–20 2020: 1st peak, weeks 21–41 2020: recovery, weeks 42–53 2020: 2nd peak, weeks 1–20 2021: prolonged 2nd peak) with reference data from 2017 to 2019. The proportion of patients receiving different treatment modalities (chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, immunotherapy or targeted therapy, radiotherapy primary tumor, resection primary tumor, resection metastases) within 6 weeks of diagnosis and the time between diagnosis and first treatment were compared by period. In total, 74,208 patients were included. Overall, patients were more likely to receive treatments in the COVID-19 periods than in previous years. This mainly holds for hormone therapy, immunotherapy or targeted therapy and resection of metastases. Lower odds were observed for resection of the primary tumor during the recovery period (OR 0.87; 95% CI 0.77–0.99) and for radiotherapy on the primary tumor during the prolonged 2nd peak (OR 0.84; 95% CI 0.72–0.98). The time from diagnosis to the start of first treatment was shorter, mainly during the 1st peak (average 5 days, p &lt;.001). These findings show that during the first 1.5 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were only minor changes in the initial treatment of metastatic cancer. Remarkably, time from diagnosis to first treatment was shorter. Overall, the results suggest continuity of care for patients with metastatic cancer during the pandemic.</p

Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6 . By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe

Housing metadata for the common physicist using a relational database

SAM was developed as a data handling system for Run II at Fermilab. SAM is a collection of services, each described by metadata. The metadata are modeled on a relational database, and implemented in ORACLE. SAM, originally deployed in production for the D0 Run II experiment, has now been also deployed at CDF and is being commissioned at MINOS. This illustrates that the metadata decomposition of its services has a broader applicability than just one experiment. A joint working group on metadata with representatives from ATLAS, BaBar, CDF, CMS, D0, and LHCB in cooperation with EGEE has examined this metadata decomposition in the light of general HEP user requirements. Greater understanding of the required services of a performant data handling system has emerged from Run II experience. This experience is being merged with the understanding being developed in the course of LHC experience with data challenges and user case discussions. We describe the SAM schema and the commonalities of function and service support between this schema and proposals for the LHC experiments. We describe the support structure required for SAM schema updates, the use of development, integration, and production instances. We are also looking at the LHC proposals for the evolution of schema using keyword-value pairs that are then transformed into a normalized, performant database schema

Cause-of-Death Contributions to Educational Inequalities in Mortality in Austria between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992: Les contributions des causes de décès aux inégalités de mortalité par niveau d’éducation en Autriche entre 1981/1982 et 1991/1992

This article uses census records and deaths records to analyze trends in educational inequalities in mortality for Austrian women and men aged 35–64 years between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992. We find an increasing gradient in mortality by education for circulatory diseases and especially ischaemic heart disease. Respiratory diseases and, in addition for women, cancers showed the opposite trend. Using decomposition analysis, we give evidence that in many cases changes in the age-structure within the 10-year interval had a bigger effect than direct improvements in mortality on the analyzed subpopulations