Cost-effective Screening and Treatment of Hepatitis C

In just five years, hepatitis C has changed from a difficult-to-treat chronic condition to one that is readily cured by a short course of medication. Medical breakthroughs have now created the possibility of eliminating the transmission of HCV, but also bring a new challenge for the health system—how to identify individuals carrying the hepatitis C virus (HCV), and how to pay for life-saving treatments. This Issue Brief reviews recent evidence on the cost-effectiveness of screening and treatment strategies, and makes the case for universal, one-time HCV screening for all US adults

Spreading dynamics on spatially constrained complex brain networks

The study of dynamical systems defined on complex networks provides a natural framework with which to investigate myriad features of neural dynamics and has been widely undertaken. Typically, however, networks employed in theoretical studies bear little relation to the spatial embedding or connectivity of the neural networks that they attempt to replicate. Here, we employ detailed neuroimaging data to define a network whose spatial embedding represents accurately the folded structure of the cortical surface of a rat brain and investigate the propagation of activity over this network under simple spreading and connectivity rules. By comparison with standard network models with the same coarse statistics, we show that the cortical geometry influences profoundly the speed of propagation of activation through the network. Our conclusions are of high relevance to the theoretical modelling of epileptic seizure events and indicate that such studies which omit physiological network structure risk simplifying the dynamics in a potentially significant way

On inversions and Doob hh-transforms of linear diffusions

Let $X$ be a regular linear diffusion whose state space is an open interval $E\subseteq\mathbb{R}$. We consider a diffusion $X^*$ which probability law is obtained as a Doob $h$-transform of the law of $X$, where $h$ is a positive harmonic function for the infinitesimal generator of $X$ on $E$. This is the dual of $X$ with respect to $h(x)m(dx)$ where $m(dx)$ is the speed measure of $X$. Examples include the case where $X^*$ is $X$ conditioned to stay above some fixed level. We provide a construction of $X^*$ as a deterministic inversion of $X$, time changed with some random clock. The study involves the construction of some inversions which generalize the Euclidean inversions. Brownian motion with drift and Bessel processes are considered in details.Comment: 19 page

Predicting Punitive Attitudes: Racial-Animus towards New Immigrant and Aboriginal Minority Groups as a Mediating Agent upon Public Crime Concerns

In English-speaking Western society’s punitive attitudes towards the sentencing of criminal offenders is a well-established phenomenon. Two theoretical models; the Crime-distrust model and Racial-animus model are demonstrated predictors of punitive attitudes. However, little is known about how racial prejudice impacts the association between the public’s crime concerns and their demand for harsher sentencing outcomes. The present study utilises online survey data obtained from a convenience sample of 566 Australian residents to examine the Racial-animus model as a mediating agent upon the Crime-distrust model and its relationship with punitive attitudes. A significant indirect effect of racial animus is demonstrated upon the perception of increasing crime rates and public confidence in the court system and punitive attitudes, regardless of whether animus is towards new-immigrants or Indigenous Australians. A significant indirect relationship between fear of crime and the demand for harsher sentencing is only demonstrated through negative perceptions of new immigrants. Results lend support for a mediation model whereby the indirect effect of fear of crime is significant when mediated by negative sentiment towards new-immigrants but not towards Indigenous Australians. Future research using a representative sample of the Australian population is indicated to increase the confidence with which findings are interpreted

Wiener algebra for the quaternions

We define and study the counterpart of the Wiener algebra in the quaternionic setting, both for the discrete and continuous case. We prove a Wiener-L\'evy type theorem and a factorization theorem. We give applications to Toeplitz and Wiener-Hopf operators

Transfer Entropy as a Log-likelihood Ratio

Transfer entropy, an information-theoretic measure of time-directed information transfer between joint processes, has steadily gained popularity in the analysis of complex stochastic dynamics in diverse fields, including the neurosciences, ecology, climatology and econometrics. We show that for a broad class of predictive models, the log-likelihood ratio test statistic for the null hypothesis of zero transfer entropy is a consistent estimator for the transfer entropy itself. For finite Markov chains, furthermore, no explicit model is required. In the general case, an asymptotic chi-squared distribution is established for the transfer entropy estimator. The result generalises the equivalence in the Gaussian case of transfer entropy and Granger causality, a statistical notion of causal influence based on prediction via vector autoregression, and establishes a fundamental connection between directed information transfer and causality in the Wiener-Granger sense

Product structure of heat phase space and branching Brownian motion

A generical formalism for the discussion of Brownian processes with non-constant particle number is developed, based on the observation that the phase space of heat possesses a product structure that can be encoded in a commutative unit ring. A single Brownian particle is discussed in a Hilbert module theory, with the underlying ring structure seen to be intimately linked to the non-differentiability of Brownian paths. Multi-particle systems with interactions are explicitly constructed using a Fock space approach. The resulting ring-valued quantum field theory is applied to binary branching Brownian motion, whose Dyson-Schwinger equations can be exactly solved. The presented formalism permits the application of the full machinery of quantum field theory to Brownian processes.Comment: 32 pages, journal version. Annals of Physics, N.Y. (to appear

Karhunen-Loeve representation of stochastic ocean waves

A new stochastic representation of a seastate is developed based on the Karhunen–Loeve spectral decomposition of stochastic signals and the use of Slepian prolate spheroidal wave functions with a tunable bandwidth parameter. The new representation allows the description of stochastic ocean waves in terms of a few independent sources of uncertainty when the traditional representation of a seastate in terms of Fourier series requires an order of magnitude more independent components. The new representation leads to parsimonious stochastic models of the ambient wave kinematics and of the nonlinear loads and responses of ships and offshore platforms. The use of the new representation is discussed for the derivation of critical wave episodes, the derivation of up-crossing rates of nonlinear loads and responses and the joint stochastic representation of correlated wave and wind profiles for use in the design of fixed or floating offshore wind turbines. The forecasting is also discussed of wave elevation records and vessel responses for use in energy yield enhancement of compliant floating wind turbines.ALSTOM (Firm)Ente nazionale per l'energia elettricab_TE

Conceptualizing cultures of violence and cultural change

The historiography of violence has undergone a distinct cultural turn as attention has shifted from examining violence as a clearly defined (and countable) social problem to analysing its historically defined 'social meaning'. Nevertheless, the precise nature of the relationship between 'violence' and 'culture' is still being established. How are 'cultures of violence' formed? What impact do they have on violent behaviour? How do they change? This essay examines some of the conceptual aspects of the relationship between culture and violence. It brings together empirical research into nineteenth-century England with recent research results from other European contexts to examine three aspects of the relationship between culture and violence. These are organised under the labels 'seeing violence', 'identifying the violent' and 'changing violence'. Within a particular society, narratives regarding particular kinds of behaviour shape cultural attitudes. The notion 'violence' is thus defined in relation to physically aggressive acts as well as by being connected to other kinds of attitudes and contexts. As a result, the boundaries between physical aggression which is legitimate and that which is illegitimate (and thus 'violence') are set. Once 'violence' is defined, particular cultures form ideas about who is responsible for it: reactions to violence become associated with social arrangements such as class and gender as well as to attitudes toward the self. Finally, cultures of violence make efforts to tame or eradicate illegitimate forms of physical aggression. This process is not only connected to the development of new forms of power (e.g., new policing or punishment strategies) but also to less tangible cultural influences which aim at changing the behaviour defined as violence (in particular among the social groups identified as violent). Even if successful, this three-tiered process of seeing violence, identifying the violent and changing violence continues anew, emphasising the ways that cultures of violence develop through a continuous process of reevaluation and reinvention