Hydrogen refinement during solid phase epitaxy of buried amorphous silicon layers

The effect of hydrogen on the kinetics of solid phase epitaxy (SPE) have been studied in buried amorphous Si layers. The crystallization rate of the front amorphous/crystalline (a/c) interface is monitored with time resolved reflectivity.Secondary ion mass spectrometry(SIMS) is used to examine H implanted profiles at selected stages of the anneals. The H retardation of the SPE rate is determined up to a H concentration of 2.3×10²⁰ cm¯³ where the SPE rate decreases by 80%. Numerical simulations are performed to model the H diffusion, the moving a/c interfaces and the refinement of the H profile at these interfaces. Despite the high H concentration involved, a simple Fickian diffusion model results in good agreement with the SIMS data. The segregation coefficient is estimated to be 0.07 at 575 °C. A significant fraction of the H escapes from the a-Si layer during SPE especially once the two a/c interfaces meet which is signified by the lack of H-related voids after a subsequent high temperature anneal.This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council

An Investigation into the Use of a Movement Assessment Protocol for Under-14 Rugby League Players in a Talent Development Environment

This study investigated the use of a movement assessment protocol for under-14 rugby league players by evaluating the relationships between chronological age, maturation, and anthropometry, and fitness and qualitative movement assessments (QMA) of 84 rugby league players within a talent development environment. A one-way ANOVA showed Quartile 1 players were more mature, taller (173.0±7.4 vs 165.0±8.0 cm) and heavier (72.5 vs 58.7 kg) than Quartile 4 players, with no difference evident for fitness or QMA measures. Earlier maturing players had significantly greater upper body power (5.39±0.46 vs 4.42±0.68 m), 20m speed (3.48±0.14 vs 3.65±0.19s) and power pass QMA (13.88±2.18 vs 12.00±1.98) than later maturing players. Body mass was positively related to power pass fitness (r=0.50) and QMA (r=0.22) scores, with negative relationships found for vertical jump performance (r=-0.24), sprint QMA (r=-.29) and turn off either foot QMA (r=-0.26). There is a need to educate coaches about the use of both fitness testing and qualitative movement assessments to identify talented U14 rugby league players, which potentially reduces relative age and maturational biases

Costs and cost effectiveness of cardiovascular screening and intervention: The British family heart study

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund and is available from the specified link - Copyright @ 1996 BMJ Publishing Group.Objective-To measure costs and cost effectiveness of the British family heart study cardiovascular screening and intervention programme.Design-Cost effectiveness analysis of randomised controlled trial. Clinical and resource use data taken from trial and unit cost data from external estimates.Setting-13 general practices across Britain.Subjects-4185 men aged 40-59 and their 2827 partners.Intervention-Nurse led programme using a family centred approach, with follow up according to degree of risk.Main outcome measures-Cost of the programme itself; overall short term cost to NHS; cost per 1% reduction in coronary risk at one year.Results-Estimated cost of putting the programme into practice for one year was pound 63 per person (95% confidence interval pound 60 to pound 65). The overall short term cost to the health service was pound 77 per man (pound 29 to pound 124) but only pound 13 per woman (-pound 48 to pound 74), owing to differences in utilisation of other health service resources. The cost per 1% reduction in risk was pound 5.08 per man (pound 5.92 including broader health service costs) and pound 5.78 per woman (pound 1.28 taking into account wider health service savings).Conclusions-The direct cost of the programme to a four partner practice of 7500 patients would be approximately pound 58 000. Annually, pound 8300 would currently be paid to a practice of this size working to the ma target on the health promotion bands, plus any additional reimbursement of practice staff salaries for which the practice qualified. The broader short term costs to the NHS may augment these costs for men but offset them considerably for women

Computational KIR copy number discovery reveals interaction between inhibitory receptor burden and survival.

Natural killer (NK) cells have increasingly become a target of interest for immunotherapies. NK cells express killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs), which play a vital role in immune response to tumors by detecting cellular abnormalities. The genomic region encoding the 16 KIR genes displays high polymorphic variability in human populations, making it difficult to resolve individual genotypes based on next generation sequencing data. As a result, the impact of polymorphic KIR variation on cancer phenotypes has been understudied. Currently, labor-intensive, experimental techniques are used to determine an individual's KIR gene copy number profile. Here, we develop an algorithm to determine the germline copy number of KIR genes from whole exome sequencing data and apply it to a cohort of nearly 5000 cancer patients. We use a k-mer based approach to capture sequences unique to specific genes, count their occurrences in the set of reads derived from an individual and compare the individual's k-mer distribution to that of the population. Copy number results demonstrate high concordance with population copy number expectations. Our method reveals that the burden of inhibitory KIR genes is associated with survival in two tumor types, highlighting the potential importance of KIR variation in understanding tumor development and response to immunotherapy

Monitoring temporal change in riparian vegetation of Great Basin National Park

Disturbance in riparian areas of semiarid ecosystems involves complex interactions of pulsed hydrologic flows, herbivory, fire, climatic effects, and anthropogenic influences. We resampled riparian vegetation within ten 10-m × 100-m plots that were initially sampled in 1992 in 4 watersheds of the Snake Range, east central Nevada. Our finding of significantly lower coverage of grasses, forbs, and shrubs within plots in 2001 compared with 1992 was not consistent with the management decision to remove livestock grazing from the watersheds in 1999. Change over time in cover of life-forms or bare ground was not predicted by scat counts within plots in 2001. Cover results were also not well explained by variability between the 2 sampling periods in either density of native herbivores or annual precipitation. In contrast, Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) exhibited reduced abundance at all but the highest-elevation plot in which it occurred in 1992, and the magnitude of change in abundance was strongly predicted by plot elevation. Abundance of white fir (Abies concolor) individuals increased while aspen (Populus tremuloides) individuals decreased at 4 of 5 sites where they were sympatric, and changes in abundance in the 2 species were negatively correlated across those sites. Utility of monitoring data to detect change over time and contribute to adaptive management will vary with sample size, observer bias, use of repeatable or published methods, and precision of measurements, among other factors

Transcriptional regulation of the urokinase receptor (u-PAR) - A central molecule of invasion and metastasis

The phenomenon of tumor-associated proteolysis has been acknowledged as a decisive step in the progression of cancer. This short review focuses on the urokinase receptor (u-PAR), a central molecule involved in tumor-associated invasion and metastasis, and summarizes the transcriptional regulation of u-PAR. The urokinase receptor (u-PAR) is a heavily glycosylated cell surface protein and binds the serine protease urokinase specifically and with high affinity. It consists of three similar cysteine-rich repeats and is anchored to the cell membrane via a GPI-anchor. The u-PAR gene comprises 7 exons and is located on chromosome 19q13. Transcriptional activation of the u-PAR promoter region can be induced by binding of transcription factors (Sp1, AP-1, AP-2, NF-kappaB). One current study gives an example for transcriptional downregulation of u-PAR through a PEA3/ets transcriptional silencing element. Knowledge of the molecular regulation of this molecule in tumor cells could be very important for diagnosis and therapy in the near future

Linear Estimation of Location and Scale Parameters Using Partial Maxima

Consider an i.i.d. sample X^*_1,X^*_2,...,X^*_n from a location-scale family, and assume that the only available observations consist of the partial maxima (or minima)sequence, X^*_{1:1},X^*_{2:2},...,X^*_{n:n}, where X^*_{j:j}=max{X^*_1,...,X^*_j}. This kind of truncation appears in several circumstances, including best performances in athletics events. In the case of partial maxima, the form of the BLUEs (best linear unbiased estimators) is quite similar to the form of the well-known Lloyd's (1952, Least-squares estimation of location and scale parameters using order statistics, Biometrika, vol. 39, pp. 88-95) BLUEs, based on (the sufficient sample of) order statistics, but, in contrast to the classical case, their consistency is no longer obvious. The present paper is mainly concerned with the scale parameter, showing that the variance of the partial maxima BLUE is at most of order O(1/log n), for a wide class of distributions.Comment: This article is devoted to the memory of my six-years-old, little daughter, Dionyssia, who leaved us on August 25, 2010, at Cephalonia isl. (26 pages, to appear in Metrika

Generalized Solutions of Parrondo's Games

In game theory, Parrondo's paradox describes the possibility of achieving winning outcomes by alternating between losing strategies. The framework had been conceptualized from a physical phenomenon termed flashing Brownian ratchets, but has since been useful in understanding a broad range of phenomena in the physical and life sciences, including the behavior of ecological systems and evolutionary trends. A minimal representation of the paradox is that of a pair of games played in random order; unfortunately, closed‐form solutions general in all parameters remain elusive. Here, we present explicit solutions for capital statistics and outcome conditions for a generalized game pair. The methodology is general and can be applied to the development of analytical methods across ratchet‐type models, and of Parrondo's paradox in general, which have wide‐ranging applications across physical and biological systems

The impact of rurality and disadvantage on the diagnostic interval for breast cancer in a large population-based study of 3202 women in Queensland, Australia

Delays in diagnosing breast cancer (BC) can lead to poorer outcomes. We investigated factors related to the diagnostic interval in a population-based cohort of 3202 women diagnosed with BC in Queensland,Australia. Interviews ascertained method of detection and dates of medical/procedural appointments,and clinical information was obtained from medical records. Time intervals were calculated from self-recognition of symptoms (symptom-detected) or mammogram (screen-detected) to diagnosis (diagnostic interval (DI)). The cohort included 1560 women with symptom-detected and 1642 with screen-detected BC. Symptom-detected women had higher odds of DI of >60 days if they were Indigenous (OR = 3.12,95% CI = 1.40,6.98); lived in outer regional (OR = 1.50,95% CI = 1.09,2.06) or remote locations (OR = 2.46,95% CI = 1.39,4.38); or presented with a “non-lump” symptom (OR = 1.84,95% CI = 1.43,2.36). For screen-detected BC,women who were Indigenous (OR = 2.36,95% CI = 1.03,5.80); lived in remote locations (OR = 2.35,95% CI = 1.24,4.44); or disadvantaged areas (OR = 1.69,95% CI = 1.17,2.43) and attended a public screening facility (OR = 2.10,95% CI = 1.40,3.17) had higher odds of DI > 30 days. Our study indicates a disadvantage in terms of DI for rural,disadvantaged and Indigenous women. Difficulties in accessing primary care and diagnostic services are evident. There is a need to identify and implement an efficient and effective model of care to minimize avoidable longer diagnostic intervals