First Digit Distribution of Hadron Full Width

A phenomenological law, called Benford's law, states that the occurrence of the first digit, i.e., $1,2,...,9$, of numbers from many real world sources is not uniformly distributed, but instead favors smaller ones according to a logarithmic distribution. We investigate, for the first time, the first digit distribution of the full widths of mesons and baryons in the well defined science domain of particle physics systematically, and find that they agree excellently with the Benford distribution. We also discuss several general properties of Benford's law, i.e., the law is scale-invariant, base-invariant, and power-invariant. This means that the lifetimes of hadrons follow also Benford's law.Comment: 8 latex pages, 4 figures, final version in journal publicatio

A Latent Class Approach to Understanding Associations between Sports Participation, Substance Use, Dismissive Attitudes, and Sexual Violence Perpetration among High School Athletes

Sexual violence (SV) among adolescents continues to be a major public health concern with numerous consequences. Research, predominantly with male collegiate samples, has suggested an association between sports participation and SV perpetration, and has included other important risk factors such as substance use and attitudes. However, more research is needed in this area among adolescents. The current study uses latent class analysis (LCA) to examine data- driven classes of high school student athletes (N = 665) engaged in three risk factor areas for SV: sport contact level, likelihood of substance use, and attitudes dismissive of SV. Once classes were enumerated and fit separately for male and female samples, pairwise comparisons were conducted on scores on two forms of SV (perpetration of sexual harassment and unwanted sexual contact) as a function of class membership. A 5-class solution was retained for both males and females. In the female sample, regarding SV—harassment, those most likely to perpetrate sexual harassment were those characterized by high likelihood of use of cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, vape products, and those who played any type of sport. Too few females endorsed perpetration of unwanted sexual contact for pairwise comparisons to be conducted. For males, the classes most likely to perpetrate both forms of SV were those who were likely to endorse high likelihood to use of cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, vape products, endorse attitudes dismissive of SV, and play any type of sport but especially high contact sports. These findings implicate high school athletic spaces as important venues for sexual violence prevention efforts

Sports Participation, Social Networks, and Sexual Violence Perpetration

Adolescent sexual violence (SV), which includes non-contact verbal sexual harassment (SH) and forced sexual contact (FSC), is a significant public health problem with long-term impacts on health and well-being. Understanding how sports participation is linked to SV can inform prevention efforts; however, the current literature is unclear about the nature of this association. Using data from 20 high schools, we investigate whether athletes in certain sports are at higher risk of SH and FSC perpetration than either other athletes or sports non-participants, and whether the risk is moderated by gender, dismissiveness of SV, or substance use intentions. We also utilize social network data to explore the role of relationships with peers and trusted adults to attenuate SH and FSC perpetration. Second, we incorporate characteristics of friends to further examine the role and composition of peer groups in the association between sports participation and perpetration of SH and FSC. Findings revealed a bivariate association between sport contact level and SH perpetration, but not FSC, and the association disappeared after adjusting for other covariates. Most prominently, dismissiveness of SV, intentions to use substances, and prior perpetration had the strongest association with perpetration regardless of sport contact level. Results also provided some support for the influence of peers and trusted adults in the sports context. Notably, the percentage of friends who perpetrated FSC and the percentage of friends who play a low-contact sport were positively associated with FSC perpetration, and the percentage of friends who play a high-contact sport was positively associated with SH perpetration. The paper concludes with a discussion of the sports context as an important venue for comprehensive prevention efforts, including a focus on changing norms around adolescent SV and substance use

Accuracy of clinical pallor in the diagnosis of anaemia in children: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Anaemia is highly prevalent in children of developing countries. It is associated with impaired physical growth and mental development. Palmar pallor is recommended at primary level for diagnosing it, on the basis of few studies. The objective of the study was to systematically assess the accuracy of clinical signs in the diagnosis of anaemia in children. METHODS: A systematic review on the accuracy of clinical signs of anaemia in children. We performed an Internet search in various databases and an additional reference tracking. Studies had to be on performance of clinical signs in the diagnosis of anaemia, using haemoglobin as the gold standard. We calculated pooled diagnostic likelihood ratios (LR's) and odds ratios (DOR's) for each clinical sign at different haemoglobin thresholds. RESULTS: Eleven articles met the inclusion criteria. Most studies were performed in Africa, in children underfive. Chi-square test for proportions and Cochran Q for DOR's and for LR's showed heterogeneity. Type of observer and haemoglobin technique influenced the results. Pooling was done using the random effects model. Pooled DOR at haemoglobin <11 g/dL was 4.3 (95% CI 2.6–7.2) for palmar pallor, 3.7 (2.3–5.9) for conjunctival pallor, and 3.4 (1.8–6.3) for nailbed pallor. DOR's and LR's were slightly better for nailbed pallor at all other haemoglobin thresholds. The accuracy did not vary substantially after excluding outliers. CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis did not document a highly accurate clinical sign of anaemia. In view of poor performance of clinical signs, universal iron supplementation may be an adequate control strategy in high prevalence areas. Further well-designed studies are needed in settings other than Africa. They should assess inter-observer variation, performance of combined clinical signs, phenotypic differences, and different degrees of anaemia

Enhancing discrete-event simulation with big data analytics: a review

This article presents a literature review of the use of the OR technique of discrete-event simulation (DES) in conjunction with the big data analytics (BDA) approaches of data mining, machine learning, data farming, visual analytics, and process mining. The two areas are quite distinct. DES represents a mature OR tool using a graphical interface to produce an industry strength process modelling capability. The review reflects this and covers commercial off-the-shelf DES software used in an organisational setting. On the contrary the analytics techniques considered are in the domain of the data scientist and usually involve coding of algorithms to provide outputs derived from big data. Despite this divergence the review identifies a small but emerging literature of use-cases and from this a framework is derived for a DES development methodology that incorporates the use of these analytics techniques. The review finds scope for two new categories of simulation and analytics use: an enhanced capability for DES from the use of BDA at the main stages of the DES methodology as well as the use of DES in a data farming role to drive BDA techniques