129 research outputs found
A revised look at the effects of the Channel Model on molecular communication system
Molecular communications, where information is passed between the Transmitter (TX) and the Receiver (RX) via molecules is a promising area with vast potential applications. However, the infancy of the topic within the overall taxonomy of communications has meant that to date, several channel models are in press, each of which is applied under various constraints and/or assumptions. Amongst them is that the arrival of molecules in different time slots can be, or is, considered as independent events. In practice, this assumption is not accurate, as the molecules arriving in the previous slot reduce the possible number of molecules in the next slot and hence make them correlated. In this letter, we analyze a more realistic performance of a molecular communication assuming correlated events. The key result shown, is that the widely used model assuming independent events significantly overestimates the error rates in the channel. This result is thus critical to researchers who focus on energy use at the nano-scale, as the new analysis provides a more realistic prediction and therefore, less energy will be needed to attain a desired error rate, increasing system feasibility
Age and gender dependence of pre-contrast T1-relaxation times in normal human myocardium at 1.5T using ShMOLLI
Quality of life from cytoreductive surgery in advanced ovarian cancer: Investigating the association between disease burden and surgical complexity in the international, prospective, SOCQER-2 cohort study
Objective:
To investigate quality of life (QoL) and association with surgical complexity and disease burden after surgical resection for advanced ovarian cancer in centres with variation in surgical approach.
Design:
Prospective multicentre observational study.
Setting:
Gynaecological cancer surgery centres in the UK, Kolkata, India, and Melbourne, Australia.
Sample:
Patients undergoing surgical resection (with low, intermediate or high surgical complexity score, SCS) for late-stage ovarian cancer.
Main Outcome Measures:
Primary: change in global score on the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) core quality-of-life questionnaire (QLQ-C30). Secondary: EORTC ovarian cancer module (OV28), progression-free survival.
Results:
Patients’ preoperative disease burden and SCS varied between centres, confirming differences in surgical ethos. QoL response rates were 90% up to 18 months. Mean change from the pre-surgical baseline in the EORTC QLQ-C30 was 3.4 (SD 1.8, n = 88) in the low, 4.0 (SD 2.1, n = 55) in the intermediate and 4.3 (SD 2.1, n = 52) in the high-SCS group after 6 weeks (p = 0.048), and 4.3 (SD 2.1, n = 51), 5.1 (SD 2.2, n = 41) and 5.1 (SD 2.2, n = 35), respectively, after 12 months (p = 0.133). In a repeated-measures model, there were no clinically or statistically meaningful differences in EORTC QLQ-C30 global scores between the three SCS groups (p = 0.840), but there was a small statistically significant improvement in all groups over time (p < 0.001). The high-SCS group experienced small to moderate decreases in physical (p = 0.004), role (p = 0.016) and emotional (p = 0.001) function at 6 weeks post-surgery, which resolved by 6–12 months.
Conclusions:
The global QoL of patients undergoing low-, intermediate- and high-SCS surgery improved at 12 months after surgery and was no worse in patients undergoing extensive surgery
The role of ligand efficiency metrics in drug discovery
The judicious application of ligand or binding efficiencies, which quantify the molecular properties required to gain binding affinity for a drug target, is gaining traction in the selection and optimisation of fragments, hits, and leads. Retrospective analysis of recently marketed oral drugs shows that they frequently have highly optimised ligand efficiency values for their target. Optimising ligand efficiencies based on both molecular size and lipophilicity, when set in the context of the specific target, has the potential to ameliorate the molecular inflation that pervades current practice in medicinal chemistry, and to increase the developability of drug candidates
Evidence and Ideology in Macroeconomics: The Case of Investment Cycles
The paper reports the principal findings of a long term research project on the description and explanation of business cycles. The research strongly confirmed the older view that business cycles have large systematic components that take the form of investment cycles. These quasi-periodic movements can be represented as low order, stochastic, dynamic processes with complex eigenvalues. Specifically, there is a fixed investment cycle of about 8 years and an inventory cycle of about 4 years. Maximum entropy spectral analysis was employed for the description of the cycles and continuous time econometrics for the explanatory models. The central explanatory mechanism is the second order accelerator, which incorporates adjustment costs both in relation to the capital stock and the rate of investment. By means of parametric resonance it was possible to show, both theoretically and empirically how cycles aggregate from the micro to the macro level. The same mathematical tool was also used to explain the international convergence of cycles. I argue that the theory of investment cycles was abandoned for ideological, not for evidential reasons. Methodological issues are also discussed
Setting our sights on infectious diseases
In May 2019, the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research (WCAIR) at the University of Dundee, UK, held an international conference with the aim of discussing some key questions around discovering new medicines for infectious diseases and a particular focus on diseases affecting Low and Middle Income Countries. There is an urgent need for new drugs to treat most infectious diseases. We were keen to see if there were lessons that we could learn across different disease areas and between the preclinical and clinical phases with the aim of exploring how we can improve and speed up the drug discovery, translational, and clinical development processes. We started with an introductory session on the current situation and then worked backward from clinical development to combination therapy, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) studies, drug discovery pathways, and new starting points and targets. This Viewpoint aims to capture some of the learnings
Isometric Exercise Training and Arterial Hypertension: An Updated Review
Hypertension is recognised as a leading attributable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature mortality. Global initiatives towards the prevention and treatment of arterial hypertension are centred around non-pharmacological lifestyle modification. Exercise recommendations differ between professional and scientific organisations, but are generally unanimous on the primary role of traditional aerobic and dynamic resistance exercise. In recent years, isometric exercise training (IET) has emerged as an effective novel exercise intervention with consistent evidence of reductions in blood pressure (BP) superior to that reported from traditional guideline-recommended exercise modes. Despite a wealth of emerging new data and endorsement by select governing bodies, IET remains underutilised and is not widely prescribed in clinical practice. This expert-informed review critically examines the role of IET as a potential adjuvant tool in the future clinical management of BP. We explore the efficacy, prescription protocols, evidence quality and certainty, acute cardiovascular stimulus, and physiological mechanisms underpinning its anti-hypertensive effects. We end the review with take-home suggestions regarding the direction of future IET research
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Diamonds, gold and crime displacement: Hatton Garden, and the evolution of organised crime in the UK
The 2015 Hatton Garden Heist was described as the ‘largest burglary in English legal history’. However, the global attention that this spectacular crime attracted to ‘The Garden’ tended to concentrate upon the value of the stolen goods and the vintage of the burglars. What has been ignored is how the burglary shone a spotlight into Hatton Garden itself, as an area with a unique ‘upperworld’ commercial profile and skills cluster that we identify as an incubator and facilitator for organised crime. The Garden is the UK’s foremost jewellery production and retail centre and this paper seeks to explore how Hatton Garden’s businesses integrated with a fluid criminal population to transition, through hosting lucrative (and bureaucratically complex) VAT gold frauds from 1980 to the early 1990s, to become a major base for sophisticated acquisitive criminal activities. Based on extensive interviews over a thirty year period, evidence from a personal research archive and public records, this paper details a cultural community with a unique criminal profile due to the particularities of its geographical location, ethnic composition, trading culture, skills base and international connections. The processes and structures that facilitate criminal markets are largely under-researched (Antonopoulos et al. 2015: 11), and this paper considers how elements of Hatton Garden’s ‘upperworld’ businesses integrated with project criminals, displaced by policing strategies, to effect this transition
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