Comparing two survey methods of measuring health-related indicators: Lot Quality Assurance Sampling and Demographic Health Surveys

Objectives Two common methods used to measure indicators for health programme monitoring and evaluation are the demographic and health surveys (DHS) and lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS); each one has different strengths. We report on both methods when utilised in comparable situations. Methods We compared 24 indicators in south-west Uganda, where data for prevalence estimations were collected independently for the two methods in 2011 (LQAS: n = 8876; DHS: n = 1200). Data were stratified (e.g. gender and age) resulting in 37 comparisons. We used a two-sample two-sided Z-test of proportions to compare both methods. Results The average difference between LQAS and DHS for 37 estimates was 0.062 (SD = 0.093; median = 0.039). The average difference among the 21 failures to reject equality of proportions was 0.010 (SD = 0.041; median = 0.009); among the 16 rejections, it was 0.130 (SD = 0.010, median = 0.118). Seven of the 16 rejections exhibited absolute differences of 0.10 and 0.20 (mean = 0.261, SD = 0.083). Conclusion There is 75.7% agreement across the two surveys. Both methods yield regional results, but only LQAS provides information at less granular levels (e.g. the district level) where managerial action is taken. The cost advantage and localisation make LQAS feasible to conduct more frequently, and provides the possibility for real-time health outcomes monitoring

Chronic IL-1β-induced inflammation regulates epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition memory phenotypes via epigenetic modifications in non-small cell lung cancer.

Chronic inflammation facilitates tumor progression. We discovered that a subset of non-small cell lung cancer cells underwent a gradually progressing epithelial-to-mesenchymal (EMT) phenotype following a 21-day exposure to IL-1β, an abundant proinflammatory cytokine in the at-risk for lung cancer pulmonary and the lung tumor microenvironments. Pathway analysis of the gene expression profile and in vitro functional studies revealed that the EMT and EMT-associated phenotypes, including enhanced cell invasion, PD-L1 upregulation, and chemoresistance, were sustained in the absence of continuous IL-1β exposure. We referred to this phenomenon as EMT memory. Utilizing a doxycycline-controlled SLUG expression system, we found that high expression of the transcription factor SLUG was indispensable for the establishment of EMT memory. High SLUG expression in tumors of lung cancer patients was associated with poor survival. Chemical or genetic inhibition of SLUG upregulation prevented EMT following the acute IL-1β exposure but did not reverse EMT memory. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and methylation-specific PCR further revealed a SLUG-mediated temporal regulation of epigenetic modifications, including accumulation of H3K27, H3K9, and DNA methylation, in the CDH1 (E-cadherin) promoter following the chronic IL-1β exposure. Chemical inhibition of DNA methylation not only restored E-cadherin expression in EMT memory, but also primed cells for chemotherapy-induced apoptosis

Comparing two survey methods of measuring health-related indicators: Lot Quality Assurance Sampling and Demographic Health Surveys

ObjectivesTwo common methods used to measure indicators for health programme monitoring and evaluation are the demographic and health surveys (DHS) and lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS); each one has different strengths. We report on both methods when utilised in comparable situations.MethodsWe compared 24 indicators in south-west Uganda, where data for prevalence estimations were collected independently for the two methods in 2011 (LQAS: n = 8876; DHS: n = 1200). Data were stratified (e.g. gender and age) resulting in 37 comparisons. We used a two-sample two-sided Z-test of proportions to compare both methods.ResultsThe average difference between LQAS and DHS for 37 estimates was 0.062 (SD = 0.093; median = 0.039). The average difference among the 21 failures to reject equality of proportions was 0.010 (SD = 0.041; median = 0.009); among the 16 rejections, it was 0.130 (SD = 0.010, median = 0.118). Seven of the 16 rejections exhibited absolute differences of 0.10 and 0.20 (mean = 0.261, SD = 0.083).ConclusionThere is 75.7% agreement across the two surveys. Both methods yield regional results, but only LQAS provides information at less granular levels (e.g. the district level) where managerial action is taken. The cost advantage and localisation make LQAS feasible to conduct more frequently, and provides the possibility for real-time health outcomes monitoring

Climbing Robot for Steel Bridge Inspection: Design Challenges

Inspection of bridges often requires high risk operations such as working at heights, in confined spaces, in hazardous environments; or sites inaccessible by humans. There is significant motivation for robotic solutions which can carry out these inspection tasks. When inspection robots are deployed in real world inspection scenarios, it is inevitable that unforeseen challenges will be encountered. Since 2011, the New South Wales Roads & Maritime Services and the Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems at the University of Technology, Sydney, have been working together to develop an innovative climbing robot to inspect high risk locations on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Many engineering challenges have been faced throughout the development of several prototype climbing robots, and through field trials in the archways of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This paper will highlight some of the key challenges faced in designing a climbing robot for inspection, and then present an inchworm inspired robot which addresses many of these challenges

Limiting distributions for explosive PAR(1) time series with strongly mixing innovation

This work deals with the limiting distribution of the least squares estimators of the coefficients a r of an explosive periodic autoregressive of order 1 (PAR(1)) time series X r = a r X r--1 +u r when the innovation {u k } is strongly mixing. More precisely {a r } is a periodic sequence of real numbers with period P \textgreater{} 0 and such that P r=1 |a r | \textgreater{} 1. The time series {u r } is periodically distributed with the same period P and satisfies the strong mixing property, so the random variables u r can be correlated

Author Correction: Chronic IL-1β-induced inflammation regulates epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition memory phenotypes via epigenetic modifications in non-small cell lung cancer.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper

INFN What Next: Ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

This document was prepared by the community that is active in Italy, within INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), in the field of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The experimental study of the phase diagram of strongly-interacting matter and of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) deconfined state will proceed, in the next 10-15 years, along two directions: the high-energy regime at RHIC and at the LHC, and the low-energy regime at FAIR, NICA, SPS and RHIC. The Italian community is strongly involved in the present and future programme of the ALICE experiment, the upgrade of which will open, in the 2020s, a new phase of high-precision characterisation of the QGP properties at the LHC. As a complement of this main activity, there is a growing interest in a possible future experiment at the SPS, which would target the search for the onset of deconfinement using dimuon measurements. On a longer timescale, the community looks with interest at the ongoing studies and discussions on a possible fixed-target programme using the LHC ion beams and on the Future Circular Collider.Comment: 99 pages, 56 figure

Fast Photon Detection for Particle Identification with COMPASS RICH-1

Particle identification at high rates is an important challenge for many current and future high-energy physics experiments. The upgrade of the COMPASS RICH-1 detector requires a new technique for Cherenkov photon detection at count rates of several $10^6$ per channel in the central detector region, and a read-out system allowing for trigger rates of up to 100 kHz. To cope with these requirements, the photon detectors in the central region have been replaced with the detection system described in this paper. In the peripheral regions, the existing multi-wire proportional chambers with CsI photocathode are now read out via a new system employing APV pre-amplifiers and flash ADC chips. The new detection system consists of multi-anode photomultiplier tubes (MAPMT) and fast read-out electronics based on the MAD4 discriminator and the F1-TDC chip. The RICH-1 is in operation in its upgraded version for the 2006 CERN SPS run. We present the photon detection design, constructive aspects and the first Cherenkov light in the detector.Comment: Proceedings of the Imaging 2006 conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 27-30 June 2006, 5 pages, 6 figures, to appear in NIM A; corrected typo in caption of Fig.

Fast photon detection for the COMPASS RICH detector

The COMPASS experiment at the SPS accelerator at CERN uses a large scale Ring Imaging CHerenkov detector (RICH) to identify pions, kaons and protons in a wide momentum range. For the data taking in 2006, the COMPASS RICH has been upgraded in the central photon detection area (25% of the surface) with a new technology to detect Cherenkov photons at very high count rates of several 10^6 per second and channel and a new dead-time free read-out system, which allows trigger rates up to 100 kHz. The Cherenkov photons are detected by an array of 576 visible and ultra-violet sensitive multi-anode photomultipliers with 16 channels each. The upgraded detector showed an excellent performance during the 2006 data taking.Comment: Proceeding of the IPRD06 conference (Siena, Okt. 06

Tracking with heavily irradiated silicon detectors operated at cryogenic temperatures

In this work we show that a heavily irradiated double-sided silicon microstrip detector recovers its performance when operated at cryogenic temperatures. A DELPHI microstrip detector, irradiated to a fluence of $\sim\,4\times 10^{14}$ p/cm$^2$, no longer operational at room temperature, cannot be distinguished from a non-irradiated one when operated at $T<120$~K. Besides confirming the previously observed `Lazarus effect' in single diodes, these results establish for the first time, the possibility of using standard silicon detectors for tracking applications in extremely demanding radiation environments