Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness against Hospitalisation with Confirmed Influenza in the 2010-11 Seasons: A Test-negative Observational Study

Immunisation programs are designed to reduce serious morbidity and mortality from influenza, but most evidence supporting the effectiveness of this intervention has focused on disease in the community or in primary care settings. We aimed to examine the effectiveness of influenza vaccination against hospitalisation with confirmed influenza. We compared influenza vaccination status in patients hospitalised with PCR-confirmed influenza with patients hospitalised with influenza-negative respiratory infections in an Australian sentinel surveillance system. Vaccine effectiveness was estimated from the odds ratio of vaccination in cases and controls. We performed both simple multivariate regression and a stratified analysis based on propensity score of vaccination. Vaccination status was ascertained in 333 of 598 patients with confirmed influenza and 785 of 1384 test-negative patients. Overall estimated crude vaccine effectiveness was 57% (41%, 68%). After adjusting for age, chronic comorbidities and pregnancy status, the estimated vaccine effectiveness was 37% (95% CI: 12%, 55%). In an analysis accounting for a propensity score for vaccination, the estimated vaccine effectiveness was 48.3% (95% CI: 30.0, 61.8%). Influenza vaccination was moderately protective against hospitalisation with influenza in the 2010 and 2011 seasons

Influenza epidemiology, vaccine coverage and vaccine effectiveness in sentinel Australian hospitals in 2013: the Influenza Complications Alert Network

The National Influenza Program aims to reduce serious morbidity and mortality from influenza by providing public funding for vaccination to at-risk groups. The Influenza Complications Alert Network (FluCAN) is a sentinel hospital-based surveillance program that operates at 14 sites in all states and territories in Australia. This report summarises the epidemiology of hospitalisations with confirmed influenza, estimates vaccine coverage and influenza vaccine protection against hospitalisation with influenza during the 2013 influenza season. In this observational study, cases were defined as patients admitted to one of the sentinel hospitals, with influenza confirmed by nucleic acid testing. Controls were patients who had acute respiratory illnesses who were test-negative for influenza. Vaccine effectiveness was estimated as 1 minus the odds ratio of vaccination in case patients compared with control patients, after adjusting for known confounders. During the period 5 April to 31 October 2013, 631 patients were admitted with confirmed influenza at the 14 FluCAN sentinel hospitals. Of these, 31% were more than 65 years of age, 9.5% were Indigenous Australians, 4.3% were pregnant and 77% had chronic co-morbidities. Influenza B was detected in 30% of patients. Vaccination coverage was estimated at 81% in patients more than 65 years of age but only 49% in patients aged less than 65 years with chronic comorbidities. Vaccination effectiveness against hospitalisation with influenza was estimated at 50% (95% confidence interval: 33%, 63%,

A Chemistry of Organization: Combinatory Structural Analysis and Design

This paper is a response to the call for models of organization design as a science revealing the inner composition of organization and specifying the laws to be respected when crafting it. It maintains that the needed science is a chemistry of organization, addressing the combination of 'organizational elements' playing a role analogous to that of chemical elements in composing a variety of substances. Drawing both on classic organization design theory and on configurational and complementarity-based approaches, the paper specifies a set of basic organizational elements and a set of combinatory laws regulating their effective combinations. Testable propositions are derived on the necessary and sufficient conditions that the composition of organizations should have respect for achieving high levels of efficiency and innovation. These propositions are tested empirically on a sample of firms, using an innovative application of Boolean algebra

Bringing 'place' back in: regional clusters, project governance, and new product outcomes

We examine new product outcomes in the context of regional clusters. Based on past research on marketing relationships, clusters, and social networks, we propose that the overall configuration of a cluster helps promote particular governance practices among its members. These practices have distinct value-creating properties, and when they are brought to bear on a specific new product development project within a cluster, they promote performance outcomes like product novelty and speed to market. Ultimately, these performance effects are reinforced by the configuration of the cluster itself. In general, we propose that new product outcomes follow from complex interactions between a cluster's macro-level configuration and its micro-level governance processes. More broadly, our framework points to the importance of geographical variables and to the role of “place” in marketing decision-making

The genomic landscape of balanced cytogenetic abnormalities associated with human congenital anomalies

Despite the clinical significance of balanced chromosomal abnormalities (BCAs), their characterization has largely been restricted to cytogenetic resolution. We explored the landscape of BCAs at nucleotide resolution in 273 subjects with a spectrum of congenital anomalies. Whole-genome sequencing revised 93% of karyotypes and demonstrated complexity that was cryptic to karyotyping in 21% of BCAs, highlighting the limitations of conventional cytogenetic approaches. At least 33.9% of BCAs resulted in gene disruption that likely contributed to the developmental phenotype, 5.2% were associated with pathogenic genomic imbalances, and 7.3% disrupted topologically associated domains (TADs) encompassing known syndromic loci. Remarkably, BCA breakpoints in eight subjects altered a single TAD encompassing MEF2C, a known driver of 5q14.3 microdeletion syndrome, resulting in decreased MEF2C expression. We propose that sequence-level resolution dramatically improves prediction of clinical outcomes for balanced rearrangements and provides insight into new pathogenic mechanisms, such as altered regulation due to changes in chromosome topology

Using oral history to investigate police culture

This article focuses upon the use of oral history methodology in relation to studying the work of the police and, particularly, the culture or cultures of the police. An overview of oral history is followed by a discussion of the application of such techniques to investigating police work. This, in turn, is followed by an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of such methodological techniques when used in a piece of research which investigated the culture of the Metropolitan Police Force between the 1930s and 1960s

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe