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Guidelines for analysis and reporting of clinical trials in oncology.
When analyzing and reporting the results of clinical trials, investigators should follow a simple approach. The purpose of a trial is to estimate an effect or treatment difference, which if present would have clinical utility when treating new patients. Procedures or methods that do not facilitate precisely and impartially estimating and reporting the treatment effect are likely to mislead investigators. Most often in clinical trials, investigators are interested in estimates of risk ratios (specifically odds or hazard ratios) between the treatment groups or levels of a prognostic factor. These simple ideas suggest that the most useful results from clinical trials will be estimated risk ratios and their confidence limits. Especially in cancer, where disease progression, recurrence, and death are common events following treatment, estimates of risk difference are very relevant. Hypothesis tests and associated P-values, although often (or exclusively) reported, are of lesser utility because they do not fully summarize the data. These recommendations may be seen by some investigators to be contrary to accepted practice. It is true that they are somewhat contrary to common practice but their general acceptance is evident in many journals and presentations by clinical trial methodologists. Despite some disagreement among statisticians regarding the need for adjustment of analyses for imbalanced prognostic factors, it is helpful to see if treatment effects change after accounting for imbalances. When this occurs, it may be of clinical interest. Although we discourage analyses that exclude any patients who meet the eligibility criteria, some circumstances will require that this be done (e.g., when a patient refuses to participate after randomization). Investigators should report, and emphasize as primary, those analyses that include all eligible patients. It is our hope and belief that analysis and reporting of trial results along the guidelines suggested here will result in impartial and useful information for journal readers
Quantum Phonon Optics: Coherent and Squeezed Atomic Displacements
In this paper we investigate coherent and squeezed quantum states of phonons.
The latter allow the possibility of modulating the quantum fluctuations of
atomic displacements below the zero-point quantum noise level of coherent
states. The expectation values and quantum fluctuations of both the atomic
displacement and the lattice amplitude operators are calculated in these
states---in some cases analytically. We also study the possibility of squeezing
quantum noise in the atomic displacement using a polariton-based approach.Comment: 6 pages, RevTe
Optical Spatial integration methods for ambiguity function generation
A coherent optical spatial integration approach to ambiguity function generation is described. It uses one dimensional acousto-optic Bragg cells as input tranducers in conjunction with a space variant linear phase shifter, a passive optical element, to generate the two dimensional ambiguity function in one exposure. Results of a real time implementation of this system are shown
Two-dimensional mapping of triaxial strain fields in a multiferroic BiFeO3 thin film using scanning x-ray microdiffraction
The dramatically enhanced polarizations and saturation magnetizations observed in the epitaxially constrained BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films with their pronounced grain-orientation dependence have attracted much attention and are attributed largely to the constrained in-plane strain. Thus, it is highly desirable to directly obtain information on the two-dimensional (2D) distribution of the in-plane strain and its correlation with the grain orientation of each corresponding microregion. Here the authors report a 2D quantitative mapping of the grain orientation and the local triaxial strain field in a 250 nm thick multiferroic BFO film using a synchrotron x-ray microdiffraction technique. This direct scanning measurement demonstrates that the deviatoric component of the in-plane strain tensor is between 5x10(-3) and 6x10(-3) and that the local triaxial strain is fairly well correlated with the grain orientation in that particular region. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.X1145Nsciescopu
Phonon Universal Transmission Fluctuations and Localization in Semiconductor Superlattices with a Controlled Degree of Order
We study both analytically and numerically phonon transmission fluctuations
and localization in partially ordered superlattices with correlations among
neighboring layers. In order to generate a sequence of layers with a varying
degree of order we employ a model proposed by Hendricks and Teller as well as
partially ordered versions of deterministic aperiodic superlattices. By
changing a parameter measuring the correlation among adjacent layers, the
Hendricks- Teller superlattice exhibits a transition from periodic ordering,
with alterna- ting layers, to the phase separated opposite limit; including
many intermediate arrangements and the completely random case. In the partially
ordered versions of deterministic superlattices, there is short-range order
(among any conse- cutive layers) and long range disorder, as in the N-state
Markov chains. The average and fluctuations in the transmission, the
backscattering rate, and the localization length in these multilayered systems
are calculated based on the superlattice structure factors we derive
analytically. The standard deviation of the transmission versus the average
transmission lies on a {\it universal\/} curve irrespective of the specific
type of disorder of the SL. We illustrate these general results by applying
them to several GaAs-AlAs superlattices for the proposed experimental
observation of phonon universal transmission fluctuations.Comment: 16-pages, Revte
Spin-dependent observables in surrogate reactions
Observables emitted from various spin states in compound U nuclei are
investigated to validate usefulness of the surrogate reaction method. It was
found that energy spectrum of cascading -rays and their multiplicities,
spectrum of evaporated neutrons, and mass-distribution of fission fragments
show clear dependence on the spin of decaying nuclei. The present results
indicate that they can be used to infer populated spin distributions which
significantly affect the decay branching ratio of the compound system produced
by the surrogate reactions
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