Masculine generic pronouns as a gender cue in generic statements

An eye-tracking experiment was conducted with speakers of Dutch (N = 84, 36 male), a language that falls between grammatical and natural-gender languages. We tested whether a masculine generic pronoun causes a male bias when used in generic statements—that is, in the absence of a specific referent. We tested two types of generic statements by varying conceptual number, hypothesizing that the pronoun zijn “his” was more likely to cause a male bias with a conceptually singular than a conceptually plural ante-cedent (e.g., Someone (conceptually singular)/Everyone (conceptually plural) with perfect pitch can tune his instrument quickly). We found male participants to exhibit a male bias but with the conceptually singular antecedent only. Female participants showed no signs of a male bias. The results show that the generically intended masculine pronoun zijn “his” leads to a male bias in conceptually singular generic contexts but that this further depends on participant gender

Improving evidence on women’s groups: a proposed typology and common reporting indicators

Women’s groups are a widely implemented and researched development intervention, particularly in South Asia and Africa. Groups encompass many models and aim to address a range of objectives. However, there is no consistent approach to describing their varied implementation models, which hinders the accurate interpretation of evidence and construct validity. Drawing from three recent evidence reviews and research experience with groups, we propose a typology and common reporting indicators to describe women’s groups. As large-scale investments in women’s groups grow, these tools can support the interpretation and transferability of evidence across models and settings

A global Carleman estimate in a transmission wave equation and application to a one-measurement inverse problem

We consider a transmission wave equation in two embedded domains in $R^2$, where the speed is $a1 > 0$ in the inner domain and $a2 > 0$ in the outer domain. We prove a global Carleman inequality for this problem under the hypothesis that the inner domain is strictly convex and $a1 > a2$ . As a consequence of this inequality, uniqueness and Lip- schitz stability are obtained for the inverse problem of retrieving a stationary potential for the wave equation with Dirichlet data and discontinuous principal coefficient from a single time-dependent Neumann boundary measurement

Anisotropic mass density by two-dimensional acoustic metamaterials

We show that specially designed two-dimensional arrangements of full elastic cylinders embedded in a nonviscous fluid or gas define ( in the homogenization limit) a new class of acoustic metamaterials characterized by a dynamical effective mass density that is anisotropic. Here, analytic expressions for the dynamical mass density and the effective sound velocity tensors are derived in the long wavelength limit. Both show an explicit dependence on the lattice filling fraction, the elastic properties of cylinders relative to the background, their positions in the unit cell, and their multiple scattering interactions. Several examples of these metamaterials are reported and discussed.Torrent Martí, D.; Sánchez-Dehesa Moreno-Cid, J. (2008). Anisotropic mass density by two-dimensional acoustic metamaterials. New Journal of Physics. 10. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/10/2/023004S10Sánchez-Pérez, J. V., Caballero, D., Mártinez-Sala, R., Rubio, C., Sánchez-Dehesa, J., Meseguer, F., … Gálvez, F. (1998). Sound Attenuation by a Two-Dimensional Array of Rigid Cylinders. Physical Review Letters, 80(24), 5325-5328. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.80.5325Cervera, F., Sanchis, L., Sánchez-Pérez, J. V., Martínez-Sala, R., Rubio, C., Meseguer, F., … Sánchez-Dehesa, J. (2001). Refractive Acoustic Devices for Airborne Sound. Physical Review Letters, 88(2). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.88.023902Krokhin, A. A., Arriaga, J., & Gumen, L. N. (2003). Speed of Sound in Periodic Elastic Composites. Physical Review Letters, 91(26). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.91.264302Sanchis, L., Håkansson, A., Cervera, F., & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. (2003). Acoustic interferometers based on two-dimensional arrays of rigid cylinders in air. Physical Review B, 67(3). doi:10.1103/physrevb.67.035422Gupta, B. C., & Ye, Z. (2003). Theoretical analysis of the focusing of acoustic waves by two-dimensional sonic crystals. Physical Review E, 67(3). doi:10.1103/physreve.67.036603Garcia, N., Nieto-Vesperinas, M., Ponizovskaya, E. V., & Torres, M. (2003). Theory for tailoring sonic devices: Diffraction dominates over refraction. Physical Review E, 67(4). doi:10.1103/physreve.67.046606Li, J., & Chan, C. T. (2004). Double-negative acoustic metamaterial. Physical Review E, 70(5). doi:10.1103/physreve.70.055602Håkansson, A., Sánchez-Dehesa, J., Cervera, F., Meseguer, F., Sanchis, L., & Llinares, J. (2005). Comment on «Theory of tailoring sonic devices: Diffraction dominates over refraction». Physical Review E, 71(1). doi:10.1103/physreve.71.018601Hou, Z., Wu, F., Fu, X., & Liu, Y. (2005). Effective elastic parameters of the two-dimensional phononic crystal. Physical Review E, 71(3). doi:10.1103/physreve.71.037604Mei, J., Liu, Z., Wen, W., & Sheng, P. (2006). Effective Mass Density of Fluid-Solid Composites. Physical Review Letters, 96(2). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.024301Torrent, D., Håkansson, A., Cervera, F., & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. (2006). Homogenization of Two-Dimensional Clusters of Rigid Rods in Air. Physical Review Letters, 96(20). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.204302Torrent, D., & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. (2006). Effective parameters of clusters of cylinders embedded in a nonviscous fluid or gas. Physical Review B, 74(22). doi:10.1103/physrevb.74.224305Li, S., George, T. F., Chen, L.-S., Sun, X., & Kuo, C.-H. (2006). Disorder effect on the focus image of sonic crystals in air. Physical Review E, 73(5). doi:10.1103/physreve.73.056615Torrent, D., Sánchez-Dehesa, J., & Cervera, F. (2007). Evidence of two-dimensional magic clusters in the scattering of sound. Physical Review B, 75(24). doi:10.1103/physrevb.75.241404Torrent, D., & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. (2007). Acoustic metamaterials for new two-dimensional sonic devices. New Journal of Physics, 9(9), 323-323. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/9/9/323Berryman, J. G. (1992). Single‐scattering approximations for coefficients in Biot’s equations of poroelasticity. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 91(2), 551-571. doi:10.1121/1.402518Cummer, S. A., & Schurig, D. (2007). One path to acoustic cloaking. New Journal of Physics, 9(3), 45-45. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/9/3/045Leonhardt, U. (2006). Optical Conformal Mapping. Science, 312(5781), 1777-1780. doi:10.1126/science.1126493Pendry, J. B. (2006). Controlling Electromagnetic Fields. Science, 312(5781), 1780-1782. doi:10.1126/science.1125907Twersky, V. (1952). Multiple Scattering of Radiation by an Arbitrary Configuration of Parallel Cylinders. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 24(1), 42-46. doi:10.1121/1.1906845Chen, Y.-Y., & Ye, Z. (2001). Acoustic Attenuation by Two-Dimensional Arrays of Rigid Cylinders. Physical Review Letters, 87(18). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.87.184301Waterman, P. C. (1969). New Formulation of Acoustic Scattering. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 45(6), 1417-1429. doi:10.1121/1.1911619Faran, J. J. (1951). Sound Scattering by Solid Cylinders and Spheres. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 23(4), 405-418. doi:10.1121/1.1906780Chin, S. K., Nicorovici, N. A., & McPhedran, R. C. (1994). Green’s function and lattice sums for electromagnetic scattering by a square array of cylinders. Physical Review E, 49(5), 4590-4602. doi:10.1103/physreve.49.4590Monzon, J., & Damaskos, N. (1986). Two-dimensional scattering by a homogeneous anisotropic rod. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 34(10), 1243-1249. doi:10.1109/tap.1986.114373

Appropriate medication use in Dutch terminal care:study protocol of a multicentre stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial (the AMUSE study)

Background: Polypharmacy is common among patients with a limited life expectancy, even shortly before death. This is partly inevitable, because these patients often have multiple symptoms which need to be alleviated. However, the use of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in these patients is also common. Although patients and relatives are often willing to deprescribe medication, physicians are sometimes reluctant due to the lack of evidence on appropriate medication management for patients in the last phase of life. The aim of the AMUSE study is to investigate whether the use of CDSS-OPTIMED, a software program that gives weekly personalized medication recommendations to attending physicians of patients with a limited life expectancy, improves patients’ quality of life. Methods: A multicentre stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial will be conducted among patients with a life expectancy of three months or less. The stepped-wedge cluster design, where the clusters are the different study sites, involves sequential crossover of clusters from control to intervention until all clusters are exposed. In total, seven sites (4 hospitals, 2 general practices and 1 hospice from the Netherlands) will participate in this study. During the control period, patients will receive ‘care as usual’. During the intervention period, CDSS-OPTIMED will be activated. CDSS-OPTIMED is a validated software program that analyses the use of medication based on a specific set of clinical rules for patients with a limited life expectancy. The software program will provide the attending physicians with weekly personalized medication recommendations. The primary outcome of this study is patients’ quality of life two weeks after baseline assessment as measured by the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL questionnaire, quality of life question.Discussion: This will be the first study investigating the effect of weekly personalized medication recommendations to attending physicians on the quality of life of patients with a limited life expectancy. We hypothesize that the CDSS-OPTIMED intervention could lead to improved quality of life in patients with a life expectancy of three months or less. Trial registration: This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05351281, Registration Date: April 11, 2022).</p

Influence of green tea consumption on endoxifen steady-state concentration in breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen

Background: Many cancer patients use additional herbs or supplements in combination with their anti-cancer therapy. Green tea—active ingredient epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG)—is one of the most commonly used dietary supplements among breast cancer patients. EGCG may alter the metabolism of tamoxifen. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of green tea supplements on the pharmacokinetics of endoxifen; the most relevant active metabolite of tamoxifen. Methods: In this single-center, randomized cross-over trial, effects of green tea capsules on endoxifen levels were evaluated. Patients treated with tamoxifen for at least 3 months were eligible for this study. After inclusion, patients were consecutively treated with tamoxifen monotherapy for 28 days and in combination with green tea supplements (1 g twice daily; containing 300 mg EGCG) for 14 days (or vice versa). Blood samples were collected on the last day of monotherapy or combination therapy. Area under the curve (AUC0–24h), maximum concentration (Cmax) and minimum concentration (Ctrough) were obtained from individual plasma concentration–time curves. Results: No difference was found in geometric mean endoxifen AUC0–24h in the period with green tea versus tamoxifen monotherapy (− 0.4%; 95% CI − 8.6 to 8.5%; p = 0.92). Furthermore, no differences in Cmax (− 2.8%; − 10.6 to 5.6%; p = 0.47) nor Ctrough (1.2%; − 7.3 to 10.5%; p = 0.77) were found. Moreover, no severe toxicity was reported during the whole study period. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the absence of a pharmacokinetic interaction between green tea supplements and tamoxifen. Therefore, the use of green tea by patients with tamoxifen does not have to be discouraged

The scattering of SH waves by a finite crack with a superposition based diffraction technique

The problem of diffraction of cylindrical and plane SH waves by a finite crack is revisited -- We construct an approximate solution by the addition of independent diffracted terms -- We start with the derivation of the fundamental case of a semi-infinite crack obtained as a degenerate case of generalized wedge -- This building block is then used to compute the diffraction of the main incident waves -- The interaction between the opposite edges of the crack is then considered one term at a time until a desired tolerance is reached -- We propose a recipe to determine the number of required interactions as a function of frequency -- The solution derived with the superposition technique can be applied at low and high frequencie