The least favorable noise

Suppose that a random variable X of interest is observed perturbed by independent additive noise Y. This paper concerns the “the least favorable perturbation” ˆ Y ε , which maximizes the prediction error E ( X − E ( X | X + Y ) ) 2 in the class of Y with v a r ( Y ) ≤ ε . We find a characterization of the answer to this question, and show by example that it can be surprisingly complicated. However, in the special case where X is infinitely divisible, the solution is complete and simple. We also explore the conjecture that noisier Y makes prediction worse

Trace element variation in carbonaceous chondrite matrix.

Published versio

Constraining volatile abundance in chondritic components

Accepted versio

Establishing the Australian National Endometriosis Clinical and Scientific Trials (NECST) Registry: a protocol paper

Endometriosis is a common yet under-recognised chronic inflammatory disease, affecting 176 million women, trans and gender diverse people globally. The National Endometriosis Clinical and Scientific Trials (NECST) Registry is a new clinical registry collecting and tracking diagnostic and treatment data and patient-reported outcomes on people with endometriosis. The registry is a research priority action item from the 2018 National Action Plan for Endometriosis and aims to provide large-scale, national and longitudinal population-based data on endometriosis. Working groups (consisting of patients with endometriosis, clinicians and researchers) developing the NECST Registry data dictionary and data collection platform started in 2019. Our data dictionary was developed based on existing and validated questionnaires, tools, meta-data and data cubes – World Endometriosis Research Foundation Endometriosis Phenome and Biobanking Harmonisation Project, endometriosis CORE outcomes set, patient-reported outcome measures, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases-10th Revision Australian Modification diagnosis codes and Australian Government datasets: Australian Institute for Health and Welfare (for sociodemographic data), Medicare Benefits Schedule (for medical procedures) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (for medical therapies). The resulting NECST Registry is an online, secure cloud-based database, prospectively collecting minimum core clinical and health data across eight patient and clinician modules and longitudinal data tracking disease life course. The NECST Registry has ethics approval (HREC/62508/ MonH-2020) and is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12622000987763)

The value of foresight

Suppose you have one unit of stock, currently worth 1, which you must sell before time T . The Optional Sampling Theorem tells us that whatever stopping time we choose to sell, the expected discounted value we get when we sell will be 1. Suppose however that we are able to see a units of time into the future, and base our stopping rule on that; we should be able to do better than expected value 1. But how much better can we do? And how would we exploit the additional information? The optimal solution to this problem will never be found, but in this paper we establish remarkably close bounds on the value of the problem, and we derive a fairly simple exercise rule that manages to extract most of the value of foresigh

A lower limit of dz > 0.06 for the duration of the reionization epoch

Observations of the 21-centimetre line of atomic hydrogen in the early Universe directly probe the history of the reionization of the gas between galaxies. The observations are challenging, though, because of the low expected signal strength (~10 mK), and contamination by strong (>100 K) foreground synchrotron emission in the Milky Way and extragalactic continuum sources2. If reionization happened rapidly, there should be a characteristic signature visible against the smooth foreground in an all-sky spectrum. Here we report an all-sky spectrum between 100 and 200 MHz, corresponding to the redshift range 6 < z < 13 for the 21-centimetre line. The data exclude a rapid reionization timescale of dz < 0.06 at the 95% confidence level.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Published in Nature, Volume 468, Issue 7325, pp. 796-798 (2010

Dilated Thin-Walled Blood and Lymphatic Vessels in Human Endometrium: A Potential Role for VEGF-D in Progestin-Induced Break-Through Bleeding

Progestins provide safe, effective and cheap options for contraception as well as the treatment of a variety of gynaecological disorders. Episodes of irregular endometrial bleeding or breakthrough bleeding (BTB) are a major unwanted side effect of progestin treatment, such that BTB is the leading cause for discontinued use of an otherwise effective and popular medication. The cellular mechanisms leading to BTB are poorly understood. In this study, we make the novel finding that the large, dilated, thin walled vessels characteristic of human progestin-treated endometrium include both blood and lymphatic vessels. Increased blood and lymphatic vessel diameter are features of VEGF-D action in other tissues and we show by immunolocalisation and Western blotting that stromal cell decidualisation results in a significant increase in VEGF-D protein production, particularly of the proteolytically processed 21 kD form. Using a NOD/scid mouse model with xenografted human endometrium we were able to show that progestin treatment causes decidualisation, VEGF-D production and endometrial vessel dilation. Our results lead to a novel hypothesis to explain BTB, with stromal cell decidualisation rather than progestin treatment per se being the proposed causative event, and VEGF-D being the proposed effector agent

Institutional strategies for capturing socio-economic impact of academic research

Evaluation of socio-economic impact is an emerging theme for publicly-funded academic research. Within this context the paper suggests that the concept of institutional research capital be expanded to include the capture and evaluation of socio-economic impact. Furthermore, it argues that understanding the typology of impacts and the tracking from research to impact will assist the formulation of institutional strategies for capturing socio-economic impact. A three-stage approach is proposed for capturing and planning activities to enhance the generation of high-quality impact. Stage one outlines the critical role of user engagement that facilitates the tracking of such impact. Stage two employs an analytical framework based on the criteria of ‘depth’ and ‘spread’ to evaluate impacts that have been identified. Stage three utilizes the outcomes of the framework to devise strategies, consisting of either further research (to increase depth) or more engagement (to increase spread) that will improve the generation of higher quality impact