When I Give, I Own: Building Literacy Through READ Community Libraries in Nepal

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/88102/1/RT.61.7.1.pd

Point and interval estimation in two-stage adaptive designs with time to event data and biomarker-driven subpopulation selection

In personalized medicine, it is often desired to determine if all patients or only a subset of them benefit from a treatment. We consider estimation in two‐stage adaptive designs that in stage 1 recruit patients from the full population. In stage 2, patient recruitment is restricted to the part of the population, which, based on stage 1 data, benefits from the experimental treatment. Existing estimators, which adjust for using stage 1 data for selecting the part of the population from which stage 2 patients are recruited, as well as for the confirmatory analysis after stage 2, do not consider time to event patient outcomes. In this work, for time to event data, we have derived a new asymptotically unbiased estimator for the log hazard ratio and a new interval estimator with good coverage probabilities and probabilities that the upper bounds are below the true values. The estimators are appropriate for several selection rules that are based on a single or multiple biomarkers, which can be categorical or continuous

Reply to Response by FBI Laboratory Filed in Illinois v. Winfield and Affidavit by Biederman et al. (2022) Filed in US v. Kaevon Sutton (2018 CF1 009709)

1 Preliminaries 1.1 Scope The aim of this document is to respond to issues raised in Federal Bureau of Investigation1 and Alex Biedermann, Bruce Budowle & Christophe Champod.2 1.2 Conflict of Interest We are statisticians employed at public institutions of higher education (Iowa State University and University of Nebraska, Lincoln) and have not been paid for our time or expertise when preparing either this response or the original affidavit.3 We provide this information as a public service and as scientists and researchers in this area. 1.3 Organization The rest of the document precedes as follows: we begin by outlining our main points of agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation4 (hereafter, FBI) and Biedermann, Budowle, and Champod5 (hereafter, BBC) in Section 2. As a threshold issue, we consider the concept of a general discipline-wide error rate in Section 3 in order to correct statistical misconceptions in Biedermann, Budowle, and Champod.6 We then describe the statistical concepts underlying our assessment of the discipline of firearms and toolmark examiners in Section 4. Finally, we address specific issues with participant and material sampling (Section 5), study design (Section 6), and the use of inconclusives (Section 7). 1 FBI Laboratory Response to the Declaration Regarding Firearms and Toolmark Error Rates Filed in Illinois v. Winfield (Aff. filed in US v Kaevon Sutton dated May 3, 2022). 2 Forensic feature-comparison as applied to firearms examinations: evidential value of findings and expert performance characteristics (Aff. filed in US v Kaevon Sutton dated April 28, 2022). 3 Susan Vanderplas et al., Firearms and Toolmark Error Rates (Aff. filed in Illinois v Winfield, January 2022). 4 Supra note 1. 5 Supra note 2. 6 Supra note 2

Firearms and Toolmark Error Rates

We have outlined several problems with the state of error rate studies on firearm and toolmark examination. Fundamentally, we do not know what the error rate is for these types of comparisons. This is a failure of the scientific study of toolmarks, rather than the examiners themselves, but until this is corrected with multiple studies that meet the criteria described in Section 3, we cannot support the use of this evidence in criminal proceedings

First-Pass Meconium Samples from Healthy Term Vaginally-Delivered Neonates : An Analysis of the Microbiota

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the parents who consented to provide samples with limited notice at an emotional and stressful time. This work was supported entirely from personal donations to the neonatal endowments fund at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital and we thank families for their continued generosity, year-on-year. The Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health receives funding from the Scottish Government (SG-RESAS). Funding: This work was funded from NHS Grampian Neonatal Endowments. The Rowett Institute receives funding from the Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Services programme of the Scottish Government. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Critical Care Follow-up Clinics: A Scoping Review of Interventions and Outcomes

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this scoping review is to identify evidence describing benefits of interventions provided in intensive care unit (ICU) survivor follow-up clinics. BACKGROUND: Advances in ICU treatments have increased the number of survivors who require specialized care for ICU-related sequelae. Intensive care unit survivor follow-up clinics exist, yet little is known about the nature and impact of interventions provided in such clinics. A scoping review of publications about in-person post-ICU follow-up care was undertaken. METHOD: Ten databases were searched yielding 111 relevant unique publication titles and abstracts. Sample heterogeneity supported using a scoping review method. After excluding nonrelated publications, 33 reports were fully reviewed. Twenty international publications were included that described ICU follow-up clinic interventions and/or outcomes. RESULTS: Authors discussed very diverse interventions in 15 publications, and 9 reported some level of intervention effectiveness. Evidence was strongest that supported the use of prospective diaries as an intervention to prevent or improve psychological symptoms, whereas evidence to support implementation of other interventions was weak. CONCLUSIONS: Although ICU follow-up clinics exist, evidence for interventions and effectiveness of treatments in these clinics remains underexplored. IMPLICATIONS: Intensive care unit survivor follow-up clinics provide a venue for further interdisciplinary intervention research that could lead to better health outcomes for ICU survivors

Costs and benefits of improving water and sanitation in slums and non-slum neighborhoods in Dhaka, a fast-growing mega-city

Mega-cities like Dhaka in Bangladesh face urban planning challenges to provide residents access to safe water and sanitation. This paper presents the results of a large-scale survey focusing on slum and non-slum residents' experiences with urban water supply, water pollution and flood risks and associated costs of illness (COI). The latter are compared to residents' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved water services. We test differences in public health risks between slum and non-slum residents and the value of improved water and sanitation in a discrete choice experiment closing the loop between water supply, wastewater and stormwater. We find that a substantial share of a Dhaka household's disposable income is spent on water, varying between 3 and 21% across neighborhoods. Over 10% of the residents link poor health to poor water quality and face higher COI. Higher income non-slum residents appear to have a higher absolute WTP, but slum residents are willing to contribute a higher share of their income to the improvement of urban water management. These results provide important value cues to support large-scale investments in improved water and sanitation infrastructure and their cost recovery

Biomimetic Optical Sensor for Real-Time Aircraft Wing Deflection Measurement

Reducing the environmental impact of aviation is a primary goal of NASA aeronautics research. One approach to achieve this goal is to build lighter weight aircraft, which presents complex challenges due to a corresponding increase in structural flexibility. Wing flexibility can adversely affect aircraft performance from the perspective of aerodynamic efficiency and safety. Knowledge of the wing position during flight can aid active control methods designed to mitigate problems due to increased wing flexibility. Current approaches to measuring wing deflection, including strain measurement devices, accelerometers, or GPS solutions, and new technologies such as fiber optic strain sensors, have limitations for their practical application to flexible aircraft control. Hence, it was proposed to use a bio-mimetic optical sensor based on the fly-eye to track wing deflection in real-time. The fly-eye sensor has several advantages over conventional sensors used for this application, including light weight, low power requirements, fast computation, and a small form factor. This paper reports on the fly-eye sensor development and its application to real-time wing deflection measurement

Optical and Hybrid Imaging and Processing for Big Data Problems

(First paragraph) The scientific community has been dealing with big data for a long time. Due to advancement in sensing, networking, and storage technology, other domains such as business, health, and social media followed. Data are considered the gold of the 21st century and are being collected, stored, and analyzed at a rapid pace. The amount of data being collected creates a compelling case for investing in hardware and software research to support generating even more data from new sensors and with better quality. It also creates a compelling case for investing in research and development of new hardware and software for data analytics. This special section of Optical Engineering explores the optical and hybrid imaging and processing technology that will enable capturing and analyzing large amounts of data or help stream the data for further exploration and analysis