236 research outputs found
Note on islands in path-length sequences of binary trees
An earlier characterization of topologically ordered (lexicographic)
path-length sequences of binary trees is reformulated in terms of an
integrality condition on a scaled Kraft sum of certain subsequences (full
segments, or islands). The scaled Kraft sum is seen to count the set of
ancestors at a certain level of a set of topologically consecutive leaves is a
binary tree.Comment: 4 page
Embedding the affine complement of three intersecting lines in a finite projective plane
An (r, 1)âdesign is a pair (V, F) where V is a Îœâset and F is a family of non-null subsets of V (b in number) which satisfy the following. (1) Every pair of distinct members of V is contained in precisely one member of F. (2) Every member of V occurs in precisely r members of F. A pseudo parallel complement PPC(n, α) is an (n+1, 1)âdesign with Îœ=n2âαn and bâŠn2+nâα in which there are at least nâα a blocks of size n. A pseudo intersecting complement PIC(n, α) is an (n+1, 1)âdesign with Îœ=n2âαn+αâ1 and bâŠn2+nâα in which there are at least nâα+1 blocks of size nâ1. It has previously been shown that for αâŠ4, every PIC(n, α) can be embedded in a PPC(n, αâ1) and that for n>(α4â2α3+2α2+αâ2)/2, every PPC(n, α) can be embedded in a finite projective plane of order n. In this paper we investigate the case of α=3 and show that any PIC(n, 3) is embeddable in a PPC(n,2) provided nâ§14
High rate, fast timing Glass RPC for the high {\eta} CMS muon detectors
The HL-LHC phase is designed to increase by an order of magnitude the amount
of data to be collected by the LHC experiments. To achieve this goal in a
reasonable time scale the instantaneous luminosity would also increase by an
order of magnitude up to . The region of the forward
muon spectrometer () is not equipped with RPC stations. The
increase of the expected particles rate up to (including a
safety factor 3) motivates the installation of RPC chambers to guarantee
redundancy with the CSC chambers already present. The actual RPC technology of
CMS cannot sustain the expected background level. The new technology that will
be chosen should have a high rate capability and provides a good spatial and
timing resolution. A new generation of Glass-RPC (GRPC) using low-resistivity
(LR) glass is proposed to equip at least the two most far away of the four high
muon stations of CMS. First the design of small size prototypes and
studies of their performance in high-rate particles flux is presented. Then the
proposed designs for large size chambers and their fast-timing electronic
readout are examined and preliminary results are provided.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, Conference proceeding for the 2016 Resistive
Plate Chambers and Related Detector
External validation of the RISC, RISC-Malawi, and PERCH clinical prediction rules to identify risk of death in children hospitalized with pneumonia
BACKGROUND: Existing scores to identify children at risk of hospitalized pneumonia-related mortality lack broad external validation. Our objective was to externally validate three such risk scores. METHODS: We applied the Respiratory Index of Severity in Children (RISC) for HIV-negative children, the RISC-Malawi, and the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) scores to hospitalized children in the Pneumonia REsearch Partnerships to Assess WHO REcommendations (PREPARE) data set. The PREPARE data set includes pooled data from 41 studies on pediatric pneumonia from across the world. We calculated test characteristics and the area under the curve (AUC) for each of these clinical prediction rules. RESULTS: The RISC score for HIV-negative children was applied to 3574 children 0-24 months and demonstrated poor discriminatory ability (AUCâ=â0.66, 95% confidence interval (CI)â=â0.58-0.73) in the identification of children at risk of hospitalized pneumonia-related mortality. The RISC-Malawi score had fair discriminatory value (AUCâ=â0.75, 95% CIâ=â0.74-0.77) among 17â864 children 2-59 months. The PERCH score was applied to 732 children 1-59 months and also demonstrated poor discriminatory value (AUCâ=â0.55, 95% CIâ=â0.37-0.73). CONCLUSIONS: In a large external application of the RISC, RISC-Malawi, and PERCH scores, a substantial number of children were misclassified for their risk of hospitalized pneumonia-related mortality. Although pneumonia risk scores have performed well among the cohorts in which they were derived, their performance diminished when externally applied. A generalizable risk assessment tool with higher sensitivity and specificity to identify children at risk of hospitalized pneumonia-related mortality may be needed. Such a generalizable risk assessment tool would need context-specific validation prior to implementation in that setting
Invasive fungal disease in PICU: epidemiology and risk factors
Candida and Aspergillus spp. are the most common agents responsible for invasive fungal infections in children. They are associated with a high mortality and morbidity rate as well as high health care costs. An important increase in their incidence has been observed during the past two decades. In infants and children, invasive candidiasis is five times more frequent than invasive aspergillosis. Candida sp. represents the third most common agent found in healthcare-associated bloodstream infections in children. Invasive aspergillosis is more often associated with hematological malignancies and solid tumors. Recommendations concerning prophylactic treatment for invasive aspergillosis have been recently published by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Candida albicans is the main Candida sp. associated with invasive candidiasis in children, even if a strong trend toward the emergence of Candida non-albicans has been observed. The epidemiology and the risk factors for invasive fungal infections are quite different if considering previously healthy children hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit, or children with a malignancy or a severe hematological disease (leukemia). In children, the mortality rate for invasive aspergillosis is 2.5 to 3.5 higher than for invasive candidiasis (respectively 70% vs. 20% and 30%)
Assembling a global database of child pneumonia studies to inform WHO pneumonia management algorithm: methodology and applications
BACKGROUND: The existing World Health Organization (WHO) pneumonia case management guidelines rely on clinical symptoms and signs for identifying, classifying, and treating pneumonia in children up to 5 years old. We aimed to collate an individual patient-level data set from large, high-quality pre-existing studies on pneumonia in children to identify a set of signs and symptoms with greater validity in the diagnosis, prognosis, and possible treatment of childhood pneumonia for the improvement of current pneumonia case management guidelines. METHODS: Using data from a published systematic review and expert knowledge, we identified studies meeting our eligibility criteria and invited investigators to share individual-level patient data. We collected data on demographic information, general medical history, and current illness episode, including history, clinical presentation, chest radiograph findings when available, treatment, and outcome. Data were gathered separately from hospital-based and community-based cases. We performed a narrative synthesis to describe the final data set. RESULTS: Forty-one separate data sets were included in the Pneumonia Research Partnership to Assess WHO Recommendations (PREPARE) database, 26 of which were hospital-based and 15 were community-based. The PREPARE database includes 285 839 children with pneumonia (244 323 in the hospital and 41 516 in the community), with detailed descriptions of clinical presentation, clinical progression, and outcome. Of 9185 pneumonia-related deaths, 6836 (74%) occurred in children <1 year of age and 1317 (14%) in children aged 1-2 years. Of the 285 839 episodes, 280 998 occurred in children 0-59 months old, of which 129 584 (46%) were 2-11 months of age and 152 730 (54%) were males. CONCLUSIONS: This data set could identify an improved specific, sensitive set of criteria for diagnosing clinical pneumonia and help identify sick children in need of referral to a higher level of care or a change of therapy. Field studies could be designed based on insights from PREPARE analyses to validate a potential revised pneumonia algorithm. The PREPARE methodology can also act as a model for disease database assembly
Covert Genetic Selections to Optimize Phenotypes
In many high complexity systems (cells, organisms, institutions, societies, economies, etc.), it is unclear which components should be regulated to affect overall performance. To identify and prioritize molecular targets which impact cellular phenotypes, we have developed a selection procedure (âSPIââsingle promoting/inhibiting target identification) which monitors the abundance of ectopic cDNAs. We have used this approach to identify growth regulators. For this purpose, complex pools of S. cerevisiae cDNA transformants were established and we quantitated the evolution of the spectrum of cDNAs which was initially present. These data emphasized the importance of translation initiation and ER-Golgi traffic for growth. SPI provides functional insight into the stability of cellular phenotypes under circumstances in which established genetic approaches cannot be implemented. It provides a functional âsynthetic genetic signatureâ for each state of the cell (i.e. genotype and environment) by surveying complex genetic libraries, and does not require specialized arrays of cDNAs/shRNAs, deletion strains, direct assessment of clonal growth or even a conditional phenotype. Moreover, it establishes a hierarchy of importance of those targets which can contribute, either positively or negatively, to modify the prevailing phenotype. Extensions of these proof-of-principle experiments to other cell types should provide a novel and powerful approach to analyze multiple aspects of the basic biology of yeast and animal cells as well as clinically-relevant issues
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