Explaining temporal trends in annualized relapse rates in placebo groups of randomized controlled trials in relapsing multiple sclerosis: systematic review and meta-regression

Background: Recent studies have shown a decrease in annualised relapse rates (ARRs) in placebo groups of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS). Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search of RCTs in RMS. Data on eligibility criteria and baseline characteristics were extracted and tested for significant trends over time. A meta-regression was conducted to estimate their contribution to the decrease of trial ARRs over time. Results: We identified 56 studies. Patient age at baseline (p < 0.001), mean duration of multiple sclerosis (MS) at baseline (p = 0.048), size of treatment groups (p = 0.003), Oxford Quality Scale scores (p = 0.021), and the number of eligibility criteria (p<0.001) increased significantly, whereas pre-trial ARR (p = 0.001), the time span over which pre-trial ARR was calculated (p < 0.001), and the duration of placebo-controlled follow-up (p = 0.006) decreased significantly over time. In meta-regression of trial placebo ARR, the temporal trend was found to be insignificant, with major factors explaining the variation: pre-trial ARR, the number of years used to calculate pre-trial ARR and study duration. Conclusion: The observed decline in trial ARRs may result from decreasing pre-trial ARRs and a shorter time period over which pre-trial ARRs were calculated. Increasing patient age and duration of illness may also contribute.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures (main article) + 13 pages (web appendix

After Dark:temporal matter in the nighttime city

Cities are often understood as complex meshes of people, technologies and ‘animated spaces’ (Amin, 2015). However, the atmosphere of cities can change distinctly at night. For in the nocturnal hours identities become slippery, motives less easily defined, and architecture itself may appear far less assured of its role. Structures, rules and regulations that engender ‘tactile sterility’ (Sennett, 1994) in the urban realm quickly break down at night. The city at night may evolve into the ‘terrain vague’ (Levesque, 2002) with places undergoing transformation through conspicuous absence or cultures of darkness. This paper will seek to examine an underrepresented perspective on the nighttime urban landscape, and offer a new dialogue with the city. The processes of change that occur when walking in the city and urban hinterlands at night may be understood as ‘inscriptive practice’ enriched with the potentialities that Bergson (1913) describes. Freed from the spaces of everyday life, the vectors (Gatt, 2013) of nighttime walking enable us to reconnect with the city and give things our undivided attention, which affords the ‘divining’ (De Boeck, 2015) of a different experience of place, providing a welcome respite from the ongoing erosion and subdivision of our time and sense of belonging in the world. This paper will draw on extensive empirical data and personal experience in order to elucidate on the on-going entanglement that occurs at the boundaries of body and urban landscape; day and night; space and materiality

Long Term Prognosis after Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) - What is the Role of Baseline Kidney Function and Recovery? A Systematic Review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Equilibria Under the Probabilistic Serial Rule

The probabilistic serial (PS) rule is a prominent randomized rule for assigning indivisible goods to agents. Although it is well known for its good fairness and welfare properties, it is not strategyproof. In view of this, we address several fundamental questions regarding equilibria under PS. Firstly, we show that Nash deviations under the PS rule can cycle. Despite the possibilities of cycles, we prove that a pure Nash equilibrium is guaranteed to exist under the PS rule. We then show that verifying whether a given profile is a pure Nash equilibrium is coNP-complete, and computing a pure Nash equilibrium is NP-hard. For two agents, we present a linear-time algorithm to compute a pure Nash equilibrium which yields the same assignment as the truthful profile. Finally, we conduct experiments to evaluate the quality of the equilibria that exist under the PS rule, finding that the vast majority of pure Nash equilibria yield social welfare that is at least that of the truthful profile.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1401.6523, this paper supersedes the equilibria section in our previous report arXiv:1401.652

Endogenous growth, convexity of damage and climate risk: how Nordhaus’ framework supports deep cuts in carbon emissions

‘To slow or not to slow’ (Nordhaus, 1991) was the first economic appraisal of greenhouse gas emissions abatement and founded a large literature on a topic of worldwide importance. We offer our assessment of the original article and trace its legacy, in particular Nordhaus's later series of ‘DICE’ models. From this work, many have drawn the conclusion that an efficient global emissions abatement policy comprises modest and modestly increasing controls. We use DICE itself to provide an initial illustration that, if the analysis is extended to take more strongly into account three essential elements of the climate problem – the endogeneity of growth, the convexity of damage and climate risk – optimal policy comprises strong controls. Nordhaus, W.D. (1991). ‘To slow or not to slow: the economics of the greenhouse effect’, Economic Journal, vol. 101(407), pp. 920–37