11,052 research outputs found
A bi-dimensional finite mixture model for longitudinal data subject to dropout
In longitudinal studies, subjects may be lost to follow-up, or miss some of
the planned visits, leading to incomplete response sequences. When the
probability of non-response, conditional on the available covariates and the
observed responses, still depends on unobserved outcomes, the dropout mechanism
is said to be non ignorable. A common objective is to build a reliable
association structure to account for dependence between the longitudinal and
the dropout processes. Starting from the existing literature, we introduce a
random coefficient based dropout model where the association between outcomes
is modeled through discrete latent effects. These effects are outcome-specific
and account for heterogeneity in the univariate profiles. Dependence between
profiles is introduced by using a bi-dimensional representation for the
corresponding distribution. In this way, we define a flexible latent class
structure which allows to efficiently describe both dependence within the two
margins of interest and dependence between them. By using this representation
we show that, unlike standard (unidimensional) finite mixture models, the non
ignorable dropout model properly nests its ignorable counterpart. We detail the
proposed modeling approach by analyzing data from a longitudinal study on the
dynamics of cognitive functioning in the elderly. Further, the effects of
assumptions about non ignorability of the dropout process on model parameter
estimates are (locally) investigated using the index of (local) sensitivity to
non-ignorability
Nucleotide sequence of beet cryptic virus 3 dsRNA2 which encodes a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase
Intermediate-statistics spin waves
In this paper, we show that spin waves, the elementary excitation of the
Heisenberg magnetic system, obey a kind of intermediate statistics with a
finite maximum occupation number n. We construct an operator realization for
the intermediate statistics obeyed by magnons, the quantized spin waves, and
then construct a corresponding intermediate-statistics realization for the
angular momentum algebra in terms of the creation and annihilation operators of
the magnons. In other words, instead of the Holstein-Primakoff representation,
a bosonic representation subject to a constraint on the occupation number, we
present an intermediate-statistics representation with no constraints. In this
realization, the maximum occupation number is naturally embodied in the
commutation relation of creation and annihilation operators, while the
Holstein-Primakoff representation is a bosonic operator relation with an
additional putting-in-by-hand restriction on the occupation number. We deduce
the intermediate-statistics distribution function for magnons. On the basis of
these results, we calculate the dispersion relations for ferromagnetic and
antiferromagnetic spin waves. The relations between the intermediate statistics
that magnons obey and the other two important kinds of intermediate statistics,
Haldane-Wu statistics and the fractional statistics of anyons, are discussed.
We also compare the spectrum of the intermediate-statistics spin wave with the
exact solution of the one-dimensional s = 1/2 Heisenberg model, which is
obtained by the Bethe ansatz method. For ferromagnets, we take the
contributions from the interaction between magnons (the quartic contribution),
the next-to-nearest neighbor interaction, and the dipolar interaction into
account for comparison with the experiment.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure
Initial growth of interfacial oxide during deposition of HfO2 on silicon
doi:10.1063/1.1771457Interfacial chemistry of HfâSi, HfO2âSiO2âSi, and HfO2âSi is investigated by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy in order to understand the interfacial layer formation mechanism. Deposition of Hf and HfO2 films was carried out on Si wafers by electron-beam evaporation with oxygen backfill. We show that the interfacial layer formation takes place predominantly at the initial stage of the HfO2 film deposition. Temporary direct bonding between Hf metal and Si is proposed to be the source of the catalytic reaction resulting in formation of interfacial layer. Formation of interfacial layer was suppressed by chemically grown thin oxide blocking the direct Si-Hf bonding. We also demonstrate reduced interfacial layer after modified Shiraki surface etch, compared to the Radio Corporation of America clean. This indicates that a more complete hydrogen termination and atomically smoother surface can delay the onset of interfacial layer formation
Bis(5,6-dicarboxyÂbenzimidazolium) sulfate monohydrate
In the title compound, 2C9H7N2O4
+·SO4
2â·H2O, the sulfate S atom and the water O atom reside on a crystallographic twofold axis. In the crystal, the component species are linked by NâHâŻO, OâHâŻO and CâHâŻO hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional network structure. An intramolÂecular OâHâŻO link is seen in the cation
Ultra-Low Cost High-Density Two-Dimensional Visible-Light Optical Interconnects
© 2019 IEEE. Visible light communications have attracted considerable interest in recent years owing to the ability of low-cost light emitting diodes (LEDs) to act both as illumination sources and data transmitters with moderate data transmission rates. In this paper, we propose the formation of ultra-low cost visible-light integrated optical links by interfacing dense micro-pixelated LED arrays with matching multi-layered multimode polymer waveguide arrays. The combination of these two optical technologies can offer relatively high aggregate data densities â„ 0.5 Tb/s/mm2 using very low cost components that can be directly interfaced with CMOS electronics and integrated onto standard printed circuit boards. Here, we present the basic system design and report the first proof-of-principle demonstration of such a visible light system employing 4Ă4 ÎŒLED arrays on a pitch matching four-layered waveguide array samples. Different interconnection topologies and light coupling schemes are investigated and their performance in terms of loss and crosstalk is compared. Data transmission of 2.5 Gb/s with a bit error rate within the forward-error correction threshold of 3.8Ă10-3 is achieved over a single ÎŒLED-waveguide channel using PAM-4 modulation and equalization. The results presented here demonstrate the potential of such ultra-low cost visible-light optical interconnects.UK EPSRC via the Ultra Parallel Visible Light Communications Project (EP/K00042X/1
Evaluating human cancer cell metastasis in zebrafish
BACKGROUND: In vivo metastasis assays have traditionally been performed in mice, but the process is inefficient and costly. However, since zebrafish do not develop an adaptive immune system until 14Â days post-fertilization, human cancer cells can survive and metastasize when transplanted into zebrafish larvae. Despite isolated reports, there has been no systematic evaluation of the robustness of this system to date. METHODS: Individual cell lines were stained with CM-Dil and injected into the perivitelline space of 2-day old zebrafish larvae. After 2-4 days fish were imaged using confocal microscopy and the number of metastatic cells was determined using Fiji software. RESULTS: To determine whether zebrafish can faithfully report metastatic potential in human cancer cells, we injected a series of cells with different metastatic potential into the perivitelline space of 2Â day old embryos. Using cells from breast, prostate, colon and pancreas we demonstrated that the degree of cell metastasis in fish is proportional to their invasion potential in vitro. Highly metastatic cells such as MDA231, DU145, SW620 and ASPC-1 are seen in the vasculature and throughout the body of the fish after only 24â48Â hours. Importantly, cells that are not invasive in vitro such as T47D, LNCaP and HT29 do not metastasize in fish. Inactivation of JAK1/2 in fibrosarcoma cells leads to loss of invasion in vitro and metastasis in vivo, and in zebrafish these cells show limited spread throughout the zebrafish body compared with the highly metastatic parental cells. Further, knockdown of WASF3 in DU145 cells which leads to loss of invasion in vitro and metastasis in vivo also results in suppression of metastasis in zebrafish. In a cancer progression model involving normal MCF10A breast epithelial cells, the degree of invasion/metastasis in vitro and in mice is mirrored in zebrafish. Using a modified version of Fiji software, it is possible to quantify individual metastatic cells in the transparent larvae to correlate with invasion potential. We also demonstrate, using lung cancers, that the zebrafish model can evaluate the metastatic ability of cancer cells isolated from primary tumors. CONCLUSIONS: The zebrafish model described here offers a rapid, robust, and inexpensive means of evaluating the metastatic potential of human cancer cells. Using this model it is possible to critically evaluate whether genetic manipulation of signaling pathways affects metastasis and whether primary tumors contain metastatic cells
Biomimetic Mussel Adhesive Inspired Clickable Anchors Applied to the Functionalization of Fe3O4 Nanoparticles
On design of quantized fault detection filters with randomly occurring nonlinearities and mixed time-delays
This paper is concerned with the fault detection problem for a class of discrete-time systems with randomly occurring nonlinearities, mixed stochastic time-delays as well as measurement quantizations. The nonlinearities are assumed to occur in a random way. The mixed time-delays comprise both the multiple discrete time-delays and the infinite distributed delays that occur in a random way as well. A sequence of stochastic variables is introduced to govern the random occurrences of the nonlinearities, discrete time-delays and distributed time-delays, where all the stochastic variables are mutually independent but obey the Bernoulli distribution. The main purpose of this paper is to design a fault detection filter such that, in the presence of measurement quantization, the overall fault detection dynamics is exponentially stable in the mean square and, at the same time, the error between the residual signal and the fault signal is made as small as possible. Sufficient conditions are first established via intensive stochastic analysis for the existence of the desired fault detection filters, and then the explicit expression of the desired filter gains is derived by means of the feasibility of certain matrix inequalities. Also, the optimal performance index for the addressed fault detection problem can be obtained by solving an auxiliary convex optimization problem. A practical example is provided to show the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed design method
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Gatekeeping Twitter: Message diffusion in political hashtags
This article explores the structure of gatekeeping in Twitter by means of a statistical analysis of the political hashtags #FreeIran, #FreeVenezuela and #Jan25, each of which reached the top position in Twitter Trending Topics. We performed a statistical correlation analysis on nine variables of the dataset to evaluate if message replication in Twitter political hashtags was correlated with network topology. Our results suggest an alternative scenario to the dominant view regarding gatekeeping in Twitter political hashtags. Instead of depending on hubs that act as gatekeepers, we found that the intense activity of individuals with relatively few connections is capable of generating highly replicated messages that contributed to Trending Topics without relying on the activity of user hubs. The results support the thesis of social consensus through the influence of committed minorities, which states that a prevailing majority opinion in a population can be rapidly reversed by a small fraction of randomly distributed committed agents
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