The role of patriotism in explaining the TV audience of national team games - Evidence from four international tournaments

In the literature addressing the determinants of TV audiences in sports, both the absolute and relative playing strength of the opponents play a prominent role. Regarding national team competitions, however, this study conjectures that patriotism matters as well. Analyzing the Swiss TV audience at 2 World Cups and 2 European Football Championships, this study finds strong evidence that TV ratings are highly affected by the sizes of the groups of foreign residents affiliated with the teams playing on the field

The liquidity advantage of the quote-driven market: Evidence from the betting industry

Even though betting exchanges are considered to be the superior business model in the betting industry due to less operational risk and lower information costs, bookmakers continue to be successful.We explain the puzzling coexistence of these two market structures with the advantage of guaranteed liquidity in the bookmaker market. Using matched panel data of over 1.8 million bookmaker and bettingexchange odds for 17,410 soccer matches played worldwide, we find that the bookmaker offers higherodds and bettor returns than the betting exchange when liquidity at the betting exchange is low

Human infections with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Switzerland, 2010-2014

Objectives: The aim of this study was to characterize a collection of 95 Shigatoxin-producing E.coli (STEC) isolated from human patients in Switzerland during 2010-2014. Methods: We performed O and H serotyping and molecular subtyping. Results: The five most common serogroups were O157, O145, O26, O103, and O146. Of the 95 strains, 35 (36.8%) carried stx1 genes only, 43 strains (45.2%) carried stx2 and 17 (17.9%) harbored combinations of stx1 and stx2 genes. Stx1a (42 strains) and stx2a (32 strains) were the most frequently detected stx subtypes. Genes for intimin (eae), hemolysin (hly), iron-regulated adhesion (iha), and the subtilase cytotoxin subtypes subAB1, subAB2-1, subAB2-2, or subAB2-3 were detected in 70.5, 83.2, 74.7, and 20% of the strains, respectively. Multilocus sequence typing assigned the majority (58.9%) of the isolates to five different clonal complexes (CC), 11, 32, 29, 20, and 165, respectively. CC11 included all O157:[H7] and O55:[H7] isolates. CC32 comprised O145:[H28] isolates, and O145:[H25] belonged to sequence type (ST) 342. CC29 contained isolates of the O26:[H11], O111:[H8] and O118:[Hnt] serogroups, and CC20 encompassed isolates of O51:H49/[Hnt] and O103:[H2]. CC165 included isolates typed O80:[H2]-ST301, all harboring stx2d, eae-ξ, hly, and 66.7% additionally harboring iha. All O80:[H2]-ST301 strains harbored at least 7 genes carried by pS88, a plasmid associated with extraintestinal virulence. Compared to data from Switzerland from the years 2000-2009, an increase of the proportion of non-O157 STEC infections was observed as well as an increase of infections due to STEC O146. By contrast, the prevalence of the highly virulent German clone STEC O26:[H11]-ST29 decreased from 11.3% during 2000-2009 to 1.1% for the time span 2010-2014. The detection of O80:[H2]-ST301 harboring stx2d, eae-ξ, hly, iha, and pS88 related genes suggests an ongoing emergence in Switzerland of an unusual, highly pathogenic STEC serotype. Conclusions: Serotyping and molecular subtyping of clinical STEC demonstrate that although STEC O157 predominates among STEC isolated from diseased humans, non-O157 STEC infections are increasing in Switzerland, including those due to STEC O146:[H2/H21/H28]-ST442/ST738 harboring subAB variants, and the recently emerged STEC O80:[H2]-ST301 harboring eae-ξ and pS88 associated extraintestinal pathogenic virulence genes

All cause and disease specific mortality in patients with knee or hip osteoarthritis: Population based cohort study

Copyright © 2011 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. This articles was first published in: BMJ, 2011, Vol. 342, Issue 7798, pp. 638 - 638To examine all cause and disease specific mortality in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee or hip

Rapid method of obtaining area under curve for any compartment of any linear pharmacokinetic model in terms of rate constants

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45066/1/10928_2005_Article_BF01063618.pd

Ultrafast charge transfer in solid-state films of pristine cyanine borate and blends with fullerene

Photoinduced electron transfer in light-absorbing materials is the first step towards charge separation and extraction in small molecule-based organic solar cells. The excited state dynamics of the cyanine dye cation Cy3 paired with a tetraphenylborate counter-anion (Cy3-B) was studied in pristine solid-state films of the dye and in blends with the electron acceptor material PCBM. Here we show that photoexcited Cy3-B in pure films undergoes intra-ion pair reductive quenching on the picosecond time scale, while in blends with PCBM sub-picosecond formation of the Cy3 oxidized species is observed upon electron injection from the dye excited state into the fullerene. Kinetic competition between light-induced electron- and hole transfer processes strongly depends on the PCBM content in the blends. A high PCBM loading produces a fully intermixed phase, where the cyanine oxidized states appear on ultrashort (<160 fs) time scales. Lower PCBM contents, in contrast, lead to a Cy3-B segregated phase on top of the intermixed phase and slower excited state quenching. These findings show that the phase morphology indeed controls to a large extent the efficiency of primary photoinduced charge separation, on which small molecule-based organic photovoltaic cells rely

Integrating fragmented evidence by network meta-analysis: relative effectiveness of psychological interventions for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder

Background. To summarize the available evidence on the effectiveness of psychological interventions for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Method. We searched bibliographic databases and reference lists of relevant systematic reviews and meta-analyses for randomized controlled trials that compared specific psychological interventions for adults with PTSD symptoms either head-to-head or against control interventions using non-specific intervention components, or against wait-list control. Two investigators independently extracted the data and assessed trial characteristics. Results. The analyses included 4190 patients in 66 trials. An initial network meta-analysis showed large effect sizes (ESs) for all specific psychological interventions (ESs between −1.10 and −1.37) and moderate effects of psychological interventions that were used to control for non-specific intervention effects (ESs −0.58 and −0.62). ES differences between various types of specific psychological interventions were absent to small (ES differences between 0.00 and 0.27). Considerable between-trial heterogeneity occurred (τ 2=0.30). Stratified analyses revealed that trials that adhered to DSM-III/IV criteria for PTSD were associated with larger ESs. However, considerable heterogeneity remained. Heterogeneity was reduced in trials with adequate concealment of allocation and in large-sized trials. We found evidence for small-study bias. Conclusions. Our findings show that patients with a formal diagnosis of PTSD and those with subclinical PTSD symptoms benefit from different psychological interventions. We did not identify any intervention that was consistently superior to other specific psychological interventions. However, the robustness of evidence varies considerably between different psychological interventions for PTSD, with most robust evidence for cognitive behavioral and exposure therapie

Suppression of HBV by Tenofovir in HBV/HIV coinfected patients : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Hepatitis B coinfection is common in HIV-positive individuals and as antiretroviral therapy has made death due to AIDS less common, hepatitis has become increasingly important. Several drugs are available to treat hepatitis B. The most potent and the one with the lowest risk of resistance appears to be tenofovir (TDF). However there are several questions that remain unanswered regarding the use of TDF, including the proportion of patients that achieves suppression of HBV viral load and over what time, whether suppression is durable and whether prior treatment with other HBV-active drugs such as lamivudine, compromises the efficacy of TDF due to possible selection of resistant HBV strains. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis following PRISMA guidelines and using multilevel mixed effects logistic regression, stratified by prior and/or concomitant use of lamivudine and/or emtricitabine. Results: Data was available from 23 studies including 550 HBV/HIV coinfected patients treated with TDF. Follow up was for up to seven years but to ensure sufficient power the data analyses were limited to three years. The overall proportion achieving suppression of HBV replication was 57.4%, 79.0% and 85.6% at one, two and three years, respectively. No effect of prior or concomitant 3TC/FTC was shown. Virological rebound on TDF treatment was rare. Interpretation: TDF suppresses HBV to undetectable levels in the majority of HBV/HIV coinfected patients with the proportion fully suppressed continuing to increase during continuous treatment. Prior treatment with 3TC/FTC does not compromise efficacy of TDF treatment. The use of combination treatment with 3TC/FTC offers no significant benefit over TDF alone

Dissociation of charge transfer states and carriers separation in bilayer organic solar cells - A time-resolved electroabsorption spectroscopy study

Ultrafast optical probing of the electric field by means of Stark effect in planar heterojunction cyanine dye / fullerene organic solar cells enables to directly monitor the dynamics of free electron formation during the dissociation of interfacial charge transfer (CT) states. Motions of electrons and holes is scrutinized separately by selectively probing the Stark shift dynamics at selected wavelengths. It is shown that only charge pairs with an effective electron-hole separation distance of less than 4 nm are created during the dissociation of Frenkel excitons. Dissociation of the Coulombically bound charge pairs is identified as the major rate-limiting step for charge carriers’ generation. Interfacial CT states split into free charges on the time-scale of tens to hundreds of picoseconds, mainly by electron escape from the Coulomb potential over a barrier that is lowered by the electric field. The motion of holes in the small molecule donor material during the charge separation time is found to be insignificant