Juvenile Delinquency in Switzerland Over 50 Years: Assessing Trends beyond Statistics

The general public seems to be convinced that juvenile delinquency has massively increased over the last decades. However, this assumption is much less popular among academics and some media where doubts about the reality of this trend are often expressed. In the present paper, trends are followed using conviction statistics over 50 years, police and victimization data since the 1980s, and self-report data collected since 1992. All sources consistently point to a massive increase of offending among juveniles, particularly for violent offences during the 1990s. Given that trends were similar in most European countries, explanations should be sought at the European rather than the national level. The available evidence points to possible effects of increased opportunities for property offences since 1950, and although causality remains hard to prove, effects of increased exposure to extreme media violence since 198

FEDSM2008-55143 EULER-EULER LARGE-EDDY SIMULATION APPROACH FOR NON ISOTHERMAL PARTICLE-LADEN TURBULENT JET

ABSTRACT This paper presents an Euler-Euler Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) approach for the numerical modeling of non isothermal dispersed turbulent two-phase flows. The proposed approach is presented and validated by a priori tests from an EulerLagrange database, provided using discrete particle simulation (DPS) of the particle phase coupled with direct numerical simulation (DNS) of the turbulent carrier flow, in a non isothermal particle-laden temporal jet configuration. A statistical approach, the Mesoscopic Eulerian Formalism (MEF) [Février et al., J. Fluid Mech., 2005, vol. 533, pp. 1-46], is used to write local and instantaneous Eulerian equations for the dispersed phase and then, by spatial averaging, to derive the LES equations governing the filtered variables. In this work, the MEF approach is extended to scalar variables transported by the particles in order to develop LES for reactive turbulent dispersed two-phase flows with mass and heat turbulent transport. This approach leads to separate the instantaneous particle temperature distribution in a Mesoscopic Eulerian field, shared by all the particles, and a Random Uncorrelated distribution which may be characterized in terms of Eulerian fields of particle moments such as the uncorrelated temperature variance. In this paper, the DPS-DNS numerical database is presented, LES Eulerian equations for the dispersed phase are derived in the frame of the Mesoscopic approach and models for the unresolved subgrid and random uncorrelated terms are proposed and a priori tested using the DPS-DNS database

Functional Discretization of Space Using Gaussian Processes for Road Intersection

International audienceThis paper propose a new framework to discretize the space within and around a cross intersection. The main purpose of our approach is to capture the manner in which drivers manoeuvre in an intersection in order to facilitate and understand the decision-making tasks. Gaussian processes are used to learn and predict the most likely trajectories taken by multiple drivers in different situations. The merging and crossing areas are found by searching for the overlap between two predicted trajectories, whereas the area approaching the intersection is discretized by using the most probable occupancy. The generated areas are stored in a map. It was possible to show the correlation between this discretization and the drivers’ behaviour by looking at how the proposed framework also discretizes the velocity profile, which can then be applied to decision making

Probabilistic Decision-Making at Road Intersections: Formulation and Quantitative Evaluation

International audienceAs drivers approach a road intersection, they must decide whether to cross it or to come to a stop. For this purpose, drivers make a situation assessment and adapt their behaviour accordingly. When this task is performed by a computer, the available information is partial and uncertain. Any decision requires the system to use this information as well as taking into account the behaviour of other drivers to avoid collisions. However, metrics such as collision rate can remain low in an interactive environment because of other driver’s actions. Consequently, evaluation metrics must depend on other driving aspects. In this paper a decision-making mechanism and metrics to evaluate such a system at road intersection crossing are presented. For the former, a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process is used to model the system with respect to uncertainties in the behaviour of other drivers. For the latter, different key performance indicators are defined to evaluate the resulting behaviour of the system with different configurations and scenarios. The approach is demonstrated within an automotive grade simulator. It has showed at times, that whilst the vehicle can cross safely the intersection, it might not satisfy other key performance indicators related to highway code

Cost-effectiveness analysis alongside the inter-B-NHL ritux 2010 trial:rituximab in children and adolescents with B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Objectives: The randomized controlled trial Inter-B-NHL ritux 2010 showed overall survival (OS) benefit and event-free survival (EFS) benefit with the addition of rituximab to standard Lymphomes Malins B (LMB) chemotherapy in children and adolescents with high-risk, mature B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Our aim was to assess the cost-effectiveness of rituximab-chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone in the French setting.Methods: We used a decision-analytic semi-Markov model with four health states and 1-month cycles. Resource use was prospectively collected in the Inter-B-NHL ritux 2010 trial (NCT01516580). Transition probabilities were assessed from patient-level data from the trial (n = 328). In the base case analysis, direct medical costs from the French National Insurance Scheme and life-years (LYs) were computed in both arms over a 3-year time horizon. Incremental net monetary benefit and cost-effectiveness acceptability curve were computed through a probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Deterministic sensitivity analysis and several sensitivity analyses on key assumptions were also conducted, including one exploratory analysis with quality-adjusted life years as the health outcome.Results: OS and EFS benefits shown in the Inter-B-NHL ritux 2010 trial translated into the model by rituximab-chemotherapy being the most effective and also the least expensive strategy over the chemotherapy strategy. The mean difference in LYs between arms was 0.13 [95% CI 0.02; 0.25], and the mean cost difference € − 3 710 [95% CI € − 17,877; € 10,525] in favor of rituximab-chemotherapy group. For a € 50,000 per LY willingness-to-pay threshold, the probability of the rituximab-chemotherapy strategy being cost-effective was 91.1%. All sensitivity analyses confirmed these findings.Conclusion: Adding rituximab to LMB chemotherapy in children and adolescents with high-risk mature B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is highly cost-effective in France.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01516580

Título: Arte de la montea

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Illuminating hydrological processes at the soil-vegetation-atmosphere interface with water stable isotopes

Funded by DFG research project “From Catchments as Organised Systems to Models based on Functional Units” (FOR 1Peer reviewedPublisher PDFPublisher PD

RUNX1-dependent RAG1 deposition instigates human TCR-δ locus rearrangement

V(D)J recombination of TCR loci is regulated by chromatin accessibility to RAG1/2 proteins, rendering RAG1/2 targeting a potentially important regulator of lymphoid differentiation. We show that within the human TCR-α/δ locus

Identification of genetic variants associated with Huntington's disease progression: a genome-wide association study

Background Huntington's disease is caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene, HTT. Age at onset has been used as a quantitative phenotype in genetic analysis looking for Huntington's disease modifiers, but is hard to define and not always available. Therefore, we aimed to generate a novel measure of disease progression and to identify genetic markers associated with this progression measure. Methods We generated a progression score on the basis of principal component analysis of prospectively acquired longitudinal changes in motor, cognitive, and imaging measures in the 218 indivduals in the TRACK-HD cohort of Huntington's disease gene mutation carriers (data collected 2008–11). We generated a parallel progression score using data from 1773 previously genotyped participants from the European Huntington's Disease Network REGISTRY study of Huntington's disease mutation carriers (data collected 2003–13). We did a genome-wide association analyses in terms of progression for 216 TRACK-HD participants and 1773 REGISTRY participants, then a meta-analysis of these results was undertaken. Findings Longitudinal motor, cognitive, and imaging scores were correlated with each other in TRACK-HD participants, justifying use of a single, cross-domain measure of disease progression in both studies. The TRACK-HD and REGISTRY progression measures were correlated with each other (r=0·674), and with age at onset (TRACK-HD, r=0·315; REGISTRY, r=0·234). The meta-analysis of progression in TRACK-HD and REGISTRY gave a genome-wide significant signal (p=1·12 × 10−10) on chromosome 5 spanning three genes: MSH3, DHFR, and MTRNR2L2. The genes in this locus were associated with progression in TRACK-HD (MSH3 p=2·94 × 10−8 DHFR p=8·37 × 10−7 MTRNR2L2 p=2·15 × 10−9) and to a lesser extent in REGISTRY (MSH3 p=9·36 × 10−4 DHFR p=8·45 × 10−4 MTRNR2L2 p=1·20 × 10−3). The lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRACK-HD (rs557874766) was genome-wide significant in the meta-analysis (p=1·58 × 10−8), and encodes an aminoacid change (Pro67Ala) in MSH3. In TRACK-HD, each copy of the minor allele at this SNP was associated with a 0·4 units per year (95% CI 0·16–0·66) reduction in the rate of change of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Total Motor Score, and a reduction of 0·12 units per year (95% CI 0·06–0·18) in the rate of change of UHDRS Total Functional Capacity score. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age of onset. Interpretation The multidomain progression measure in TRACK-HD was associated with a functional variant that was genome-wide significant in our meta-analysis. The association in only 216 participants implies that the progression measure is a sensitive reflection of disease burden, that the effect size at this locus is large, or both. Knockout of Msh3 reduces somatic expansion in Huntington's disease mouse models, suggesting this mechanism as an area for future therapeutic investigation