Estimates of influenza vaccine effectiveness in primary care in Scotland vary with clinical or laboratory endpoint and method : experience across the 2010/11 season

Aim: This study examines estimation of seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) for a cohort of patients attending general practice in Scotland in 2010/11. The study focuses on the variation in estimation of VE for both virological and clinical consultation outcomes and understanding the dependency on date of analysis during the season, methodological approach and the effect of use of a propensity score model. Methods: For the clinical outcomes, three methodological approaches were considered; adjusted Poissonmulti-level modelling splitting consultations in vaccinated individuals into those before and after vaccination, adjusted Cox proportional hazards modelling and finally the screening method. For the virological outcome, the test-negative case–control study design was employed. Results: VE was highest for the most specific outcomes of ILI (Poisson end-of-season VE = 47% (95% CI:−69%, 83%); Cox VE = 34% (95% CI: −64%, 73.2%); Screening VE = 52.8% (95% CI: 3.8%, 76.8%)) and a viro-logical diagnosis (VE = 54% (95% CI: −37%, 85%)). Using the Cox approach, adjusted for propensity scoreonly gave VE = 46.5% (95% CI: −30.4%, 78.0%). Conclusion: Our approach illustrated the ability to achieve relatively consistent estimates of seasonalinfluenza VE using both specific and less specific outcomes. Construction of a propensity score and usefor bias adjustment increased the estimate of ILI VE estimated from the Cox model and made estimatesmore similar to the Poisson approach, which models differences in consultation behaviour of vacci-nated individuals more inherently in its structure. VE estimation for the same data was found to vary bymethodology which should be noted when comparing results from different studies and countries

Expert system verification concerns in an operations environment

The Space Shuttle community is currently developing a number of knowledge-based tools, primarily expert systems, to support Space Shuttle operations. It is proposed that anticipating and responding to the requirements of the operations environment will contribute to a rapid and smooth transition of expert systems from development to operations, and that the requirements for verification are critical to this transition. The paper identifies the requirements of expert systems to be used for flight planning and support and compares them to those of existing procedural software used for flight planning and support. It then explores software engineering concepts and methodology that can be used to satisfy these requirements, to aid the transition from development to operations and to support the operations environment during the lifetime of expert systems. Many of these are similar to those used for procedural hardware

African wealth will double every decade for generations to come

Charles Robertson says that there will be no stopping Africa’s economic boom for decades to come

Comparison of various methods for adjusting weaning weights of calves to an age-constant basis

​​Weaning records of 18,393 calves from 395 Angus and Hereford herds participating in The Tennessee Beef Cattle Improvement Program were analyzed statistically to estimate the effects of age and sex of calf, age of dam, season of birth, management, breed and year of birth on preweaning rate of gain and weaning type score. Four methods of adjusting weaning weight to an age-constant basis were compared. The statistical analyses revealed that including unadjusted average daily gain alone in an equation predicting 205-day weight did not effectively remove the dependency of this weight on age. Weights of calves in the extreme age groups were overadjusted when 205-day weights were calculated as the product of unadjusted average daily gain multiplied by 205 plus birth weight. Adjustment of calculated 205-day weight using the coefficient of regression of this weight on weaning age and the calculation of 205-day weight by the intraclass regression or age-intercept methods reduce the dependency of this weight on weaning age. Adjustment of age-constant weights of calves within each management group with constants estimated within the groups was more effective in removing environmental variation than a single set of factors. Bull calves were heavier at weaning than heifer calves and steer calves were intermediate. Creep-fed calves born in March, April and May and non-creep-fed calves born between December and May weaned heavier than calves of the two groups, respectively, born in other months. Probably the most practical procedure for adjusting weaning weight for environmental effects was to use separate adjustment factors for creep- and non-creep-fed calves and to adjust the calculated 205-day weight using the coefficient of regression of that weight on weaning age

Effects of season of birth, breed and age of dam on litter and pig performance traits

In Tennessee there is wide variation in the practices followed by swine producers with reference to the breed and age of the breeding animals used in their herds. Some swine producers use gilts almost exclusively, whereas others depend largely on mature sows. On most Tennessee farms, both gilts and mature sows are used to produce pigs, but the number of gilts or sows a farmer keeps varies from farm to farm. There is no definite plan used by many swine raisers in maintaining their herds of breeding sows, and there may be wide variation in the breeding of sows and gilts on the same farm from year to year. It is the practice of some farmers to use only one breed of gilts, breeding them to farrow their first and only litter when they are about 1 year old. When the litters are weaned, the gilts are marketed. To produce next year\u27s pigs, gilts are selected in the fall from the spring pigs on hand. Many sows are sold for slaughter before they reach their peak performance. One of the major elements contributing to profits in the swine enterprise is the size of litters sows and gilts produce. It requires on the average the gross returns from about six pigs to pay the cost of carrying the sow. The total cost of carrying a sow in the breeding herd remains practically constant whether she produces 2 or 10 pigs. With larger litters less feed is required to produce 100 pounds of marketable pork. A sow\u27s value in the herd is determined largely by the number and quality of pigs farrowed and raised. Performance in these traits is influenced by age and breeding of the sow and other genetic and environmental factors. Therefore, the swine producer who does not take advantage of all means available to maximize litter size, growth rate and efficiency may be robbing himself of extra profit

Augustinian themes in Lumen Gentium, 8

Pope Benedict XVI, since his election to the papacy, has urged Catholic clergy and theologians to interpret the documents of the second Vatican Council using a "hermeneutic of continuity." This thesis seeks to answer whether such a hermeneutic is possible by focusing on one aspect of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. The methodology here employed is a critical analysis of one of the major patristic sources of Lumen Gentium’s teaching, St. Augustine of Hippo. In claiming St. Augustine’s support for its doctrine, Lumen Gentium also offers an interpretation of his thought. For Lumen Gentium’s teaching to be plausible, we must be able to conclude that Augustine’s teaching is essentially identical to it. In that connection, Lumen Gentium’s claim that the Church is both a spiritual and visible reality forces us to consider a controverted topic in Augustinian studies: can Augustine’s “city of God” be identified with the hierarchical Church? In order to resolve that question, we will examine both the historical and eschatological aspects of the Church in Augustine’s thought, with some reference (treated in an appendix) to the compatibility between his theory of predestination and his ecclesiology. Further, what the Council meant when it said that the Church of Christ “subsists in” the Catholic Church, and whether this change in terminology, along with its implications in the field of ecumenism, can be reconciled with St. Augustine’s ecclesiology must be determined with a view to establishing the continuity between pre and post conciliar Catholic ecclesiology. St. Augustine developed his understanding of the nature of the Church in the early years of his ecclesiastical career through his polemical battles with the Donatist schismatics, and so the history of that schism is related in an appendix