140 research outputs found
Communitywide Database Designs for Tracking Innovation Impact: COMETS, STARS and Nanobank
Data availability is arguably the greatest impediment to advancing the science of science and innovation policy and practice (SciSIPP). This paper describes the contents, methodology and use of the public online COMETS (Connecting Outcome Measures in Entrepreneurship Technology and Science) database spanning all sciences, technologies, and high-tech industries; its parent COMETSandSTARS database which adds more data at organization and individual scientist-inventor-entrepreneur level restricted by vendor licenses to onsite use at NBER and/or UCLA; and their prototype Nanobank covering only nano-scale sciences and technologies. Some or all of these databases include or will include: US patents (granted and applications); NIH, NSF, SBIR, STTR Grants; Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge; ISI Highly Cited; US doctoral dissertations; IPEDS/HEGIS universities; all firms and other organizations which ever publish in ISI listed journals beginning in 1981, are assigned US patents (from 1975), or are listed on a covered grant; additional nanotechnology firms based on web search. Ticker/CUSIP codes enable linking public firms to the major databases covering them. A major matching/disambiguation effort assigns unique identifiers for an organization or individual so that their appearances are linked within and across the constituent legacy databases. Extensive geographic coding enables analysis at country, region, state, county, or city levels. The databases provide very flexible sources of data for serious research on many issues in the study of organizations in innovation systems in the development and spread of knowledge, and the economics of science. Enabling the study of these topics, among others, COMETS contributes substantially to the science of science and technology.
The SPLASH Survey: A Spectroscopic Analysis of the Metal-Poor, Low-Luminosity M31 dSph Satellite Andromeda X
Andromeda X (And X) is a newly discovered low-luminosity M31 dwarf spheroidal
galaxy (dSph) found by Zucker et al. (2007) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS - York et al. 2000). In this paper, we present the first spectroscopic
study of individual red giant branch stars in And X, as a part of the SPLASH
Survey (Spectroscopic and Photometric Landscape of Andromeda's Stellar Halo).
Using the Keck II telescope and multiobject DEIMOS spectrograph, we target two
spectroscopic masks over the face of the galaxy and measure radial velocities
for ~100 stars with a median accuracy of sigma_v ~ 3 km/s. The velocity
histogram for this field confirms three populations of stars along the sight
line: foreground Milky Way dwarfs at small negative velocities, M31 halo red
giants over a broad range of velocities, and a very cold velocity ``spike''
consisting of 22 stars belonging to And X with v_rad = -163.8 +/- 1.2 km/s. By
carefully considering both the random and systematic velocity errors of these
stars (e.g., through duplicate star measurements), we derive an intrinsic
velocity dispersion of just sigma_v = 3.9 +/- 1.2 km/s for And X, which for its
size, implies a minimum mass-to-light ratio of M/L =37^{+26}_{-19} assuming the
mass traces the light. Based on the clean sample of member stars, we measure
the median metallicity of And X to be [Fe/H] = -1.93 +/- 0.11, with a slight
radial metallicity gradient. The dispersion in metallicity is large,
sigma([Fe/H]) = 0.48, possibly hinting that the galaxy retained much of its
chemical enrichment products. We discuss the potential for better understanding
the formation and evolution mechanisms for M31's system of dSphs through
(current) kinematic and chemical abundance studies, especially in relation to
the Milky Way sample. (abridged version)Comment: Accepted for Publication in Astrophys. J. 14 pages including 7
figures and 2 tables (journal format
Transit Timing Observations from Kepler. VIII Catalog of Transit Timing Measurements of the First Twelve Quarters
Following Ford et al. (2011, 2012) and Steffen et al. (2012) we derived the
transit timing of 1960 Kepler KOIs using the pre-search data conditioning (PDC)
light curves of the first twelve quarters of the Kepler data. For 721 KOIs with
large enough SNRs, we obtained also the duration and depth of each transit. The
results are presented as a catalog for the community to use. We derived a few
statistics of our results that could be used to indicate significant
variations. Including systems found by previous works, we have found 130 KOIs
that showed highly significant TTVs, and 13 that had short-period TTV
modulations with small amplitudes. We consider two effects that could cause
apparent periodic TTV - the finite sampling of the observations and the
interference with the stellar activity, stellar spots in particular. We briefly
discuss some statistical aspects of our detected TTVs. We show that the TTV
period is correlated with the orbital period of the planet and with the TTV
amplitude.Comment: Accepted for publication to ApJ. 57 pages, 23 Figures. Machine
readable catalogs are available at ftp://wise-ftp.tau.ac.il/pub/tauttv/TT
Detection Of KOI-13.01 Using The Photometric Orbit
We use the KOI-13 transiting star-planet system as a test case for the
recently developed BEER algorithm (Faigler & Mazeh 2011), aimed at identifying
non-transiting low-mass companions by detecting the photometric variability
induced by the companion along its orbit. Such photometric variability is
generated by three mechanisms, including the beaming effect, tidal ellipsoidal
distortion, and reflection/heating. We use data from three Kepler quarters,
from the first year of the mission, while ignoring measurements within the
transit and occultation, and show that the planet's ephemeris is clearly
detected. We fit for the amplitude of each of the three effects and use the
beaming effect amplitude to estimate the planet's minimum mass, which results
in M_p sin i = 9.2 +/- 1.1 M_J (assuming the host star parameters derived by
Szabo et al. 2011). Our results show that non-transiting star-planet systems
similar to KOI-13.01 can be detected in Kepler data, including a measurement of
the orbital ephemeris and the planet's minimum mass. Moreover, we derive a
realistic estimate of the amplitudes uncertainties, and use it to show that
data obtained during the entire lifetime of the Kepler mission, of 3.5 years,
will allow detecting non-transiting close-in low-mass companions orbiting
bright stars, down to the few Jupiter mass level. Data from the Kepler Extended
Mission, if funded by NASA, will further improve the detection capabilities.Comment: Accepted to AJ on October 4, 2011. Kepler Q5 Long Cadence data will
become publicly available on MAST by October 23. Comments welcome (V2: minor
changes, to reflect proof corrections
A Comparison of U. S. and European University-Industry Relations in the Life Sciences
We draw on diverse data sets to compare the institutional organization of upstream life science research across the United States and Europe. Understanding cross-national differences in the organization of innovative labor in the life sciences requires attention to the structure and evolution of biomedical networks involving public research organizations (universities, government laboratories, nonprofit research institutes, and research hospitals), science-based biotechnology firms, and multinational pharmaceutical corporations. We use network visualization methods and correspondence analyses to demonstrate that innovative research in biomedicine has its origins in regional clusters in the United States and in European nations. But the scientific and organizational composition of these regions varies in consequential ways. In the United States, public research organizations and small firms conduct R&D across multiple therapeutic areas and stages of the development process. Ties within and across these regions link small firms and diverse public institutions, contributing to the development of a robust national network. In contrast, the European story is one of regional specialization with a less diverse group of public research organizations working in a smaller number of therapeutic areas. European institutes develop local connections to small firms working on similar scientific problems, while cross-national linkages of European regional clusters typically involve large pharmaceutical corporations. We show that the roles of large and small firms differ in the United States and Europe, arguing that the greater heterogeneity of the U. S. system is based on much closer integration of basic science and clinical development
Changes in SARS-CoV-2 viral load and mortality during the initial wave of the pandemic in New York City
Funding: This work was partially supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (UL1 TR0023484 to Julianne Imperato-McGinley) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (UM1 AI069470 to M.E.S).Public health interventions such as social distancing and mask wearing decrease the incidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, but it is unclear whether they decrease the viral load of infected patients and whether changes in viral load impact mortality from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We evaluated 6923 patients with COVID-19 at six New York City hospitals from March 15-May 14, 2020, corresponding with the implementation of public health interventions in March. We assessed changes in cycle threshold (CT) values from reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests and in-hospital mortality and modeled the impact of viral load on mortality. Mean CT values increased between March and May, with the proportion of patients with high viral load decreasing from 47.7% to 7.8%. In-hospital mortality increased from 14.9% in March to 28.4% in early April, and then decreased to 8.7% by May. Patients with high viral loads had increased mortality compared to those with low viral loads (adjusted odds ratio 2.34). If viral load had not declined, an estimated 69 additional deaths would have occurred (5.8% higher mortality). SARS-CoV-2 viral load steadily declined among hospitalized patients in the setting of public health interventions, and this correlated with decreases in mortality.Peer reviewe
The Star Formation History and Extended Structure of the Hercules Milky Way Satellite
We present imaging of the recently discovered Hercules Milky Way satellite
and its surrounding regions to study its structure, star formation history and
to thoroughly search for signs of disruption. We robustly determine the
distance, luminosity, size and morphology of Hercules utilizing a bootstrap
approach to characterize our uncertainties. We derive a distance to Hercules of
kpc via a comparison to empirical and theoretical isochrones. As
previous studies have found, Hercules is very elongated, with
and a half light radius of pc. Using
the color magnitude fitting package StarFISH, we determine that Hercules is old
( Gyr) and metal poor (), with a spread in metallicity, in
agreement with previous spectroscopic work. We infer a total absolute magnitude
of . Our innovative search for external Hercules structure both
in the plane of the sky and along the line of sight yields some evidence that
Hercules is embedded in a larger stream of stars. A clear stellar extension is
seen to the Northwest with several additional candidate stellar overdensities
along the position angle of Hercules out to 35' (1.3 kpc). While
the association of any of the individual stellar overdensities with Hercules is
difficult to determine, we do show that the summed color magnitude diagram of
all three is consistent with Hercules' stellar population. Finally, we estimate
that any change in the distance to Hercules across its face is at most 6
kpc; and the data are consistent with Hercules being at the same distance
throughout.Comment: 50 pages, 15 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa
Clinical Utilization of the FilmArray Meningitis/Encephalitis (ME) Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Assay
Objective: To assess the clinical utilization and performance of the FilmArray® Meningitis/Encephalitis (ME) multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) panel in a hospital setting.Background: Rapid diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system (CNS) infections are critical to reduce morbidity and mortality. The ME panel is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rapid multiplex PCR assay that targets 14 bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Previous studies show an overall agreement of 93–99% between the ME panel and conventional diagnostic testing. However, few studies have evaluated the clinical implementation of the ME assay, which is available for routine use at our institution.Methods: We performed a single center retrospective chart review of inpatients who underwent ME panel testing from August 2016 to May 2017. Clinical, radiologic, and laboratory data were reviewed to determine the clinical significance of results. Indication for lumbar puncture (LP), time to results of the ME panel, and duration of antimicrobial therapy were evaluated.Results: Seven hundred and five inpatients underwent ME testing, of whom 480 (68.1%) had clinical suspicion for CNS infection with 416 (59.0%) receiving empiric antimicrobial treatment for CNS infection. The median time-to-result of the ME panel was 1.5 h (IQR, 1.4–1.7). Overall agreement between the ME panel results and clinico-laboratory assessment was 98.2%. Forty-five patients tested positive by ME, of which 12 (26.6%) were determined likely to be clinically insignificant.Conclusions: Routine availability of the ME panel led to overutilization of diagnostic test ordering, as demonstrated by the fact that over one-third of ME panel tests performed were ordered for patients with little or no suspicion for CNS infection. The median time from LP to ME panel result was 1.5 h (IQR, 1.4–1.7). The ME panel's rapid turn-around time contributed to the overuse of the test. Approximately one-quarter of positive ME results were deemed clinically insignificant, though the impact of these positive results requires additional evaluation. Twenty-four and forty-eight hours after the ME panel resulted, 68 and 25% of patients started on empiric therapy remained on antibiotics, respectively. The median time from diagnosis to discontinuation and/or narrowing of antibiotic coverage was 25.6 h (IQR, 3.6–42.5). Further consideration of the appropriate indications for use of the ME panel in clinical settings is required
Management of congestive heart failure: a gender gap may still exist. Observations from a contemporary cohort
BACKGROUND: Unlike other cardiovascular diseases the incidence and prevalence of congestive heart failure (CHF) continues to increase. While gender differences in coronary artery disease have been well described, to date, there has been a relative paucity of similar data in patients with CHF. We conducted a pilot study to evaluate the profile and management of patients with CHF at a tertiary care centre to determine if a gender difference exists. METHODS: A chart review was performed at a tertiary care centre on consecutive patients admitted with a primary diagnosis of CHF between June 1997 and 1998. Co-morbidity, diagnostic investigations, and management of CHF were recorded. Comparisons between male and female patients were conducted. RESULTS: One hundred and forty five patients were reviewed. There were 80 male (M) and 65 female (F) patients of similar age [71.6 vs. 71.3 (M vs. F), p = NS]. Male patients were more likely to have had a previous myocardial infarction (66% vs. 35%, p < 0.01) and revascularization (41% vs. 20%, p < 0.05), and had worse left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) than women, [median LVEF 3 vs. 2 (M vs. F), p < 0.01]. Male patients were more likely to have a non-invasive assessment of left ventricular (LV) function [85% vs. 69%, (M vs. F), p < 0.05]. A logistic regression analysis suggests that amongst those without coronary disease, males were more likely to receive non-invasive testing. There were no differences in the use of prescribed medications, in this cohort. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study demonstrated that there seem to be important gender differences in the profile and management of patients with CHF. Importantly women were less likely to have an evaluation of LV function. As assessment of LV function has significant implications on patient management, this data justifies the need for larger studies to assess gender differences in CHF profile and treatment
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