The impact of poor asthma control among asthma patients treated with inhaled corticosteroids plus long-acting β2-agonists in the United Kingdom : a cross-sectional analysis

This study was sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd UK, which was involved in all stages of the study conduct and analysis and also funded all costs associated with the development of the manuscript. The authors acknowledge Kantar Health and Errol J Philip for providing medical writing support. Editorial assistance and medical writing support was also provided by Michelle Rebello, PhD, and Suchita Nath-Sain, PhD, of Cactus Communications. This study was sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd., UK, which also funded all costs associated with the development of the manuscript. Author Correction, npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine 27, Article number: 65 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41533-017-0063-5, 05 December 2017 Correction to:npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine (2017); doi:10.1038/s41533-017-0014-1; Published 09 March 2017Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Physical Acoustics

Contains reports on two research projects.U.S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) under Contract N00014-67-A-0204-001

Sparse Bayesian mass-mapping with uncertainties: hypothesis testing of structure

A crucial aspect of mass-mapping, via weak lensing, is quantification of the uncertainty introduced during the reconstruction process. Properly accounting for these errors has been largely ignored to date. We present results from a new method that reconstructs maximum a posteriori (MAP) convergence maps by formulating an unconstrained Bayesian inference problem with Laplace-type $\ell_1$-norm sparsity-promoting priors, which we solve via convex optimization. Approaching mass-mapping in this manner allows us to exploit recent developments in probability concentration theory to infer theoretically conservative uncertainties for our MAP reconstructions, without relying on assumptions of Gaussianity. For the first time these methods allow us to perform hypothesis testing of structure, from which it is possible to distinguish between physical objects and artifacts of the reconstruction. Here we present this new formalism, demonstrate the method on illustrative examples, before applying the developed formalism to two observational datasets of the Abel-520 cluster. In our Bayesian framework it is found that neither Abel-520 dataset can conclusively determine the physicality of individual local massive substructure at significant confidence. However, in both cases the recovered MAP estimators are consistent with both sets of data

Archeological Testing within the Right-of-Way of FM 1929, at Site 41CN218, Coleman County, and in the Vicinity of Site Complex 41CC48/49/50/51 and Site 41CC52, and Site 41CC246, Concho County, Texas

The State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (SDHPT) conducted archaeological testing within the right-of-way of FM 1929 at site 41CN218 in Coleman County, and in the vicinity of site complex 41CC48/49/50/51 and 41CC52 in Concho County. Intensive surface survey and mapping was also undertaken at site 41CC246 in Concho County. This report details the work undertaken, and summarizes the cultural sequence of the area. Excavations at site 41CN218 did not reveal any evidence of discrete cultural stratigraphy. Rather it appeared that artifacts were scattered throughout an upper brownish soil horizon, which in places reached depths of about 2 meters. The only feature tentatively recognized consisted of a limestone hearth. This was not associated with any diagnostic artifacts, identifiable cultural living surface, or any ash or charcoal. None of the artifacts recovered from the excavations were temporally or culturally diagnostic. For the most part, artifacts consisted of lithic debitage, with a few utilized flakes, one uniface, and two very small biface fragments. The nature of the debitage suggests that lithic activities were largely confined to final tool manufacture, at least within that part of the site tested. The utilized flakes suggest that scraping, cutting, and perhaps graving or piercing activities took place on the site. Fauhal remains consisted of a few small fragments of fossilized bone which could not be directly associated with cultural remains, and highly weathered fragments of mussel shell. The nature of the recovered remains is not conducive to the identification of specific activity areas, or other horizontal cultural patterning. Gross artifact counts indicate a higher density of artifacts along the western margin of the right-of-way. However, it was obvious from surface inspection of the area that the right-of-way crossed the eastern margin of the site, and that artifacts appeared with considerably greater frequency to the west of the right-of-way. On the basis of the excavations conducted, it is believed that those portions of the site within the highway right-of-way are not worthy of designation as a State Archeological Landmark. Excavations within the FM 1929 right-of-way in the vicinity of site complex 41CC48/49/50/51 and site 41CC52 failed to reveal any buried cultural materials, cultural features, or other evidence of buried cultural strata. Surface examination revealed a few scattered non-diagnostic cultural artifacts, but all were in plow-disturbed deposits. It is, therefore, believed that those portions of the sites within the highway right-of-way are not worthy of designation as a State Archeological Landmark. Survey within the FM 1929 right-of-way at site 41CC246 revealed that the area was extremely eroded. Although the investigations were primarily concerned with the historic component, scattered prehistoric lithic debitage, none diagnostic, was observed on the surface. This sparse scatter extended into site 41CC52, with no apparent discontinuity. Site mapping indicated that the concentration of rock and rubble associated with a house foundation was essentially outside the right-of- way, as was the accompanying sheet scatter of historic artifacts. Given the eroded nature of the area, the lack of intact features within the right-of-way, and previous impacts, it is believed that those portions of the site within the highway right-of-way are not worthy of designation as a State Archeological Landmark

Coulomb drag as a measure of trigonal warping in doped graphene

I suggest to use the effect of Coulomb drag between two closely positioned graphite monolayers (graphene sheets) for experimental measurement of the strength of weak non-linearities of the spectrum in graphene. I consider trigonal warping as a representative mechanism responsible for the drag effect. Since graphene is relatively defect-free, I evaluate the drag conductivity in the ballistic regime and find that it is proportional to the fourth power of the warping strength.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Long period polytype boundaries in silicon carbide

A significant gap in our understanding of polytypism exists, caused partly by the lack of experimental data on the spatial distribution of polytype coalescence and knowledge of the regions between adjoining polytypes. Few observations, Takei & Francombe (1967) apart, of the relative location of different polytypes have been reported. A phenomenological description of the boundaries, exact position of one-dimensional disorder (1DD) and long period polytypes (LPP’s) has been made possible by synchrotron X-ray diffraction topography (XRDT)

Design of a large span-distributed load flying-wing cargo airplane with laminar flow control

A design study was conducted to add laminar flow control to a previously design span-distributed load airplane while maintaining constant range and payload. With laminar flow control applied to 100 percent of the wing and vertical tail chords, the empty weight increased by 4.2 percent, the drag decreased by 27.4 percent, the required engine thrust decreased by 14.8 percent, and the fuel consumption decreased by 21.8 percent. When laminar flow control was applied to a lesser extent of the chord (approximately 80 percent), the empty weight increased by 3.4 percent, the drag decreased by 20.0 percent, the required engine thrust decreased by 13.0 percent, and the fuel consumption decreased by 16.2 percent. In both cases the required take-off gross weight of the aircraft was less than the original turbulent aircraft

Preliminary design characteristics of a subsonic business jet concept employing laminar flow control

Aircraft configurations were developed with laminar flow control (LFC) and without LFC. The LFC configuration had approximately eleven percent less parasite drag and a seven percent increase in the maximum lift-to drag ratio. Although these aerodynamic advantages were partially offset by the additional weight of the LFC system, the LFC aircraft burned from six to eight percent less fuel for comparable missions. For the trans-atlantic design mission with the gross weight fixed, the LFC configuration would carry a greater payload for ten percent fuel per passenger mile

Attitude Determination from Single-Antenna Carrier-Phase Measurements

A model of carrier phase measurement (as carried out by a satellite navigation receiver) is formulated based on electromagnetic theory. The model shows that the phase of the open-circuit voltage induced in the receiver antenna with respect to a local oscillator (in the receiver) depends on the relative orientation of the receiving and transmitting antennas. The model shows that using a {\it single} receiving antenna, and making carrier phase measurements to seven satellites, the 3-axis attitude of a user platform (in addition to its position and time) can be computed relative to an initial point. This measurement model can also be used to create high-fidelity satellite signal simulators that take into account the effect of platform rotation as well as translation.Comment: 12 pages, and one figure. Published in J. Appl. Phys. vol. 91, No. 7, April 1, 200

Evidence for a Molecular Cloud Origin for Gamma-Ray Bursts: Implications for the Nature of Star Formation in the Universe

It appears that the majority of rapidly-, well-localized gamma-ray bursts with undetected, or dark, optical afterglows, or `dark bursts' for short, occur in clouds of size R > 10L_{49}^{1/2} pc and mass M > 3x10^5L_{49} M_{sun}, where L is the isotropic-equivalent peak luminosity of the optical flash. We show that clouds of this size and mass cannot be modeled as a gas that is bound by pressure equilibrium with a warm or hot phase of the interstellar medium (i.e., a diffuse cloud): Such a cloud would be unstable to gravitational collapse, resulting in the collapse and fragmentation of the cloud until a burst of star formation re-establishes pressure equilibrium within the fragments, and the fragments are bound by self-gravity (i.e., a molecular cloud). Consequently, dark bursts probably occur in molecular clouds, in which case dark bursts are probably a byproduct of this burst of star formation if the molecular cloud formed recently, and/or the result of lingering or latter generation star formation if the molecular cloud formed some time ago. We then show that if bursts occur in Galactic-like molecular clouds, the column densities of which might be universal, the number of dark bursts can be comparable to the number of bursts with detected optical afterglows: This is what is observed, which suggests that the bursts with detected optical afterglows might also occur in molecular clouds. We confirm this by modeling and constraining the distribution of column densities, measured from absorption of the X-ray afterglow, of the bursts with detected optical afterglows: We find that this distribution is consistent with the expectation for bursts that occur in molecular clouds, and is not consistent with the expectation for bursts that occur in diffuse clouds. More...Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal, 22 pages, 6 figures, LaTe