An exploratory assessment of willingness to pay for health care in Hong Kong

Key Messages: 1. Focus groups are useful in eliciting information on willingness to pay for health care. 2. Conjoint analysis is a valuable technique to evaluate health economic data. 3. Information derived from these techniques is useful to both policy makers and health service providers for reference and to researchers for future hypothesis generation studies.published_or_final_versio

Predicting the emergence of drug-resistant HSV-2: new predictions

BACKGROUND: Mathematical models can be used to predict the emergence and transmission of antiviral resistance. Previously it has been predicted that high usage of antivirals (in immunocompetent populations) to treat Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 (HSV-2) would only lead to fairly low levels of antiviral resistance. The HSV-2 predictions were based upon the assumption that drug-resistant strains of HSV-2 would be less infectious than drug-sensitive strains but that the drug-resistant strains would not be impaired in their ability to reactivate. Recent data suggest that some drug-resistant strains of HSV-2 are likely to be impaired in their ability to reactivate. Objectives: (1) To predict the effect of a high usage of antivirals on the prevalence of drug-resistant HSV-2 under the assumption that drug-resistant strains will be less infectious than drug-sensitive strains of HSV-2 and also have an impaired ability to reactivate. (2) To compare predictions with previous published predictions. METHODS: We generated theoretical drug-resistant HSV-2 strains that were attenuated (in comparison with drug-sensitive strains) in both infectivity and ability to reactivate. We then used a transmission model to predict the emergence and transmission of drug-resistant HSV-2 in the immunocompetent population assuming a high usage of antivirals. RESULTS: Our predictions are an order of magnitude lower than previous predictions; we predict that even after 25 years of high antiviral usage only 5 out of 10,000 immunocompetent individuals will be shedding drug-resistant virus. Furthermore, after 25 years, 52 cases of HSV-2 would have been prevented for each prevalent case of drug-resistant HSV-2. CONCLUSIONS: The predicted levels of drug-resistant HSV-2 for the immunocompetent population are so low that it seems unlikely that cases of drug-resistant HSV-2 will be detected

The Virtual Palaeosciences (ViPs) project: resources for online learning in or out of a pandemic

The Virtual Palaeosciences (ViPs) project is a collaborative initiative bringing palaeoscientists together to locate, access and share online educational resources (OERs). It began as a response to the 2020 shift to online learning when the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed field and lab work. We outline the development and initial outcomes of the project and consider future directions post-pandemic. Our initial focus was to create a searchable list of OERs (now numbers 600+). The project has also promoted co-operation across institutions and created new collaborations. It became clear that even experienced and teaching-focused educators were anxious about how to incorporate virtual materials and develop alternatives to field and laboratory work and deliver their intended learning outcomes. ViPs aim to become a “hub” for palaeoscience teaching resources. While some face-to-face teaching has returned in Higher Education, the benefits of online elements have become clear to students and educators alike. Therefore, following the pandemic, an increasing shift towards a blended delivery with greater use of OERs in palaeoscience and other disciplines is likely. Longer term, the ViPs project also seeks to increase inclusive, accessible education in the palaeosciences through the digital enhancement of provision, by supporting both users and creators of virtual teaching materials

A high-performance matrix-matrix multiplication methodology for CPU and GPU architectures

Current compilers cannot generate code that can compete with hand-tuned code in efficiency, even for a simple kernel like matrix–matrix multiplication (MMM). A key step in program optimization is the estimation of optimal values for parameters such as tile sizes and number of levels of tiling. The scheduling parameter values selection is a very difficult and time-consuming task, since parameter values depend on each other; this is why they are found by using searching methods and empirical techniques. To overcome this problem, the scheduling sub-problems must be optimized together, as one problem and not separately. In this paper, an MMM methodology is presented where the optimum scheduling parameters are found by decreasing the search space theoretically, while the major scheduling sub-problems are addressed together as one problem and not separately according to the hardware architecture parameters and input size; for different hardware architecture parameters and/or input sizes, a different implementation is produced. This is achieved by fully exploiting the software characteristics (e.g., data reuse) and hardware architecture parameters (e.g., data caches sizes and associativities), giving high-quality solutions and a smaller search space. This methodology refers to a wide range of CPU and GPU architectures

Living biointerfaces based on non-pathogenic bacteria to direct cell differentiation

Genetically modified Lactococcus lactis, non-pathogenic bacteria expressing the FNIII7-10 fibronectin fragment as a protein membrane have been used to create a living biointerface between synthetic materials and mammalian cells. This FNIII7-10 fragment comprises the RGD and PHSRN sequences of fibronectin to bind α5β1 integrins and triggers signalling for cell adhesion, spreading and differentiation. We used L. lactis strain to colonize material surfaces and produce stable biofilms presenting the FNIII7-10 fragment readily available to cells. Biofilm density is easily tunable and remains stable for several days. Murine C2C12 myoblasts seeded over mature biofilms undergo bipolar alignment and form differentiated myotubes, a process triggered by the FNIII7-10 fragment. This biointerface based on living bacteria can be further modified to express any desired biochemical signal, establishing a new paradigm in biomaterial surface functionalisation for biomedical applications

Immunoblot analysis of the seroreactivity to recombinant Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato antigens, including VlsE, in the long-term course of treated patients with Erythema migrans

Objective: We evaluated whether immunoblotting is capable of substantiating the posttreatment clinical assessment of patients with erythema migrans ( EM), the hallmark of early Lyme borreliosis. Methods: In 50 patients, seroreactivity to different antigens of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato was analyzed by a recombinant immunoblot test (IB) in consecutive serum samples from a minimum follow-up period of 1 year. Antigens in the IgG test were decorin- binding protein A, internal fragment of p41 (p41i), outer surface protein C (OspC), p39, variable major protein-like sequence expressed (VlsE), p58 and p100; those in the IgM test were p41i, OspC and p39. Immune responses were correlated with clinical and treatment-related parameters. Results: Positive IB results were found in 50% before, in 57% directly after therapy and in 44% by the end of the follow-up for the IgG class, and in 36, 43 and 12% for the IgM class. In acute and convalescence phase sera, VlsE was most immunogenic on IgG testing 60 and 70%), and p41i (46 and 57%) and OspC (40 and 57%) for the IgM class. By the end of the follow-up, only the anti-p41i lgM response was significantly decreased to 24%. Conclusions: No correlation was found between IB results and treatment-related parameters. Thus, immunoblotting does not add to the clinical assessment of EM patients after treatment. Copyright (c) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel

All-sky search for short gravitational-wave bursts in the second Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo run

We present the results of a search for short-duration gravitational-wave transients in the data from the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We search for gravitational-wave transients with a duration of milliseconds to approximately one second in the 32-4096 Hz frequency band with minimal assumptions about the signal properties, thus targeting a wide variety of sources. We also perform a matched-filter search for gravitational-wave transients from cosmic string cusps for which the waveform is well modeled. The unmodeled search detected gravitational waves from several binary black hole mergers which have been identified by previous analyses. No other significant events have been found by either the unmodeled search or the cosmic string search. We thus present the search sensitivities for a variety of signal waveforms and report upper limits on the source rate density as a function of the characteristic frequency of the signal. These upper limits are a factor of 3 lower than the first observing run, with a 50% detection probability for gravitational-wave emissions with energies of ∼10-9 Mc2 at 153 Hz. For the search dedicated to cosmic string cusps we consider several loop distribution models, and present updated constraints from the same search done in the first observing run

Search for Eccentric Binary Black Hole Mergers with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo during Their First and Second Observing Runs

When formed through dynamical interactions, stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) may retain eccentric orbits (e > 0.1 at 10 Hz) detectable by ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. Eccentricity can therefore be used to differentiate dynamically formed binaries from isolated BBH mergers. Current template-based gravitational-wave searches do not use waveform models associated with eccentric orbits, rendering the search less efficient for eccentric binary systems. Here we present the results of a search for BBH mergers that inspiral in eccentric orbits using data from the first and second observing runs (O1 and O2) of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We carried out the search with the coherent WaveBurst algorithm, which uses minimal assumptions on the signal morphology and does not rely on binary waveform templates. We show that it is sensitive to binary mergers with a detection range that is weakly dependent on eccentricity for all bound systems. Our search did not identify any new binary merger candidates. We interpret these results in light of eccentric binary formation models. We rule out formation channels with rates ⪆100 Gpc-3 yr-1 for e > 0.1, assuming a black hole mass spectrum with a power-law index ≲2