Post-menopausal vaginal bleeding caused by carcinoma of the appendix: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Post-menopausal blood loss is a common complaint of patients seen in gynecological practice. The most frequent malignancy found in cases of post-menopausal bleeding is endometrial cancer. Other causes can be malignancies of the rest of a woman's genital tract or metastases from other tumors. To the best of our knowledge, it appears that this is the first published case of a post-menopausal primary appendiceal carcinoma presenting with vaginal blood loss.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 75-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of vaginal hysterectomy presented with a 10-month history of post-menopausal blood loss. After extensive examination and discussion, ovarian carcinoma was suggested. Microscopic examination of the tissue removed at laparotomy revealed an adenocarcinoma of the appendix. She was treated with adjuvant radiotherapy and with palliative chemotherapy after 14 months because of intra-abdominal metastatic disease.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Post-menopausal blood loss in a patient with a history of hysterectomy is uncommon and always needs further investigation.</p

Measuring volatility with the realized range

Realized variance, being the summation of squared intra-day returns, has quickly gained popularity as a measure of daily volatility. Following Parkinson (1980) we replace each squared intra-day return by the high-low range for that period to create a novel and more efficient estimator called the realized range. In addition we suggest a bias-correction procedure to account for the effects of microstructure frictions based upon scaling the realized range with the average level of the daily range. Simulation experiments demonstrate that for plausible levels of non-trading and bid-ask bounce the realized range has a lower mean squared error than the realized variance, including variants thereof that are robust to microstructure noise. Empirical analysis of the S&P500 index-futures and the S&P100 constituents confirm the potential of the realized range

Robust Optimization of the Equity Momentum Strategy

Quadratic optimization for asset portfolios often leads to error maximization, with optimizers zooming in on large errors in the predicted inputs, that is, expected returns and risks. The consequence in most cases is a poor real-time performance. In this paper we show how to improve real-time performance of the popular equity momentum strategy with robust optimization in an empirical application involving 1500-2500 US stocks over the period 1963-2006. We also show that popular procedures like Bayes-Stein estimated expected returns, shrinking the covariance matrix and adding weight constraints fail in such a practical case

High-Frequency Technical Trading: The Importance of Speed

This paper investigates the importance of speed for technical trading rule performance for three highly liquid ETFs listed on NASDAQ over the period January 6, 2009 up to September 30, 2009. In addition we examine the characteristics of market activity over the day and within subperiods corresponding to hours, minutes, and seconds. Speed has a clear impact on the return of technical trading rules. For strategies that yield a positive return when they experience no delay, a delay of 200 milliseconds is enough to lower performance significantly. On low volatility days this is already the case for delays larger than 50 milliseconds. In addition, the importance of speed for trading rule performance increases over time. Market activity follows a U-shape over the day with a spike at 10:00AM due to macroeconomic announcements and is characterized by periodic activity within the day, hour, minute, and second

Childhood neighborhoods and health in adulthood: A life-course and nearest neighbor approach for Sweden 1939-2015

This study analyzes the association between neighborhood social class in childhood and later-life health trajectories, controlling for both class origin and class attainment in adulthood. We study the association between socio-spatial neighborhood conditions throughout childhood and a range of health outcomes in adulthood. To measure childhood conditions, we utilize unique longitudinal micro-data that contains economic and demographic information of the full population of the Swedish industrial town Landskrona, 1939-1967, which are geocoded at the address level. We measure continuous neighborhood social class using a k-nearest neighbor approach and spatial regression models. Preliminary results point to clear associations between neighborhood class and adult health, relatively independently from both class origin and adulthood class attainment. Notable gender differences are also found. The final version of the paper will include a range of other health outcomes including diagnoses, cause of death, women’s health at childbirth and birthweight of their children

Robust Optimization of the Equity Momentum Strategy

Quadratic optimization for asset portfolios often leads to error maximization, with optimizers zooming in on large errors in the predicted inputs, that is, expected returns and risks. The consequence in most cases is a poor real-time performance. In this paper we show how to improve real-time performance of the popular equity momentum strategy with robust optimization in an empirical application involving 1500-2500 US stocks over the period 1963-2006. We also show that popular procedures like Bayes-Stein estimated expected returns, shrinking the covariance matrix and adding weight constraints fail in such a practical cas

Block Crossings in Storyline Visualizations

Storyline visualizations help visualize encounters of the characters in a story over time. Each character is represented by an x-monotone curve that goes from left to right. A meeting is represented by having the characters that participate in the meeting run close together for some time. In order to keep the visual complexity low, rather than just minimizing pairwise crossings of curves, we propose to count block crossings, that is, pairs of intersecting bundles of lines. Our main results are as follows. We show that minimizing the number of block crossings is NP-hard, and we develop, for meetings of bounded size, a constant-factor approximation. We also present two fixed-parameter algorithms and, for meetings of size 2, a greedy heuristic that we evaluate experimentally.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2016

Cohort Profile of The GOALS Study: A Large-scale Research of Physical Activity in Dutch Students

The GOALS study (Grootschalig Onderzoek naar Activiteiten van Limburgse Scholieren [Large-scale Research of Activities in Dutch Students]) was set up to investigate possible associations between different forms of physical activity and inactivity with cognitive performance, academic achievement and mental wellbeing. It was conducted at a secondary school in the south of the Netherlands. Data collection took place during normal school weeks from October 2011 to March 2012 and one year later from October 2012 to May 2013. The study was approved by the local Ethical Committee of the Open University of the Netherlands. All students in grades 7 and 9 of senior general secondary education and university preparatory education were invited to participate (N = 526). At baseline a sample of 440 Dutch-speaking adolescents was willing to participate (83.7%). Of these, 344 participated in the follow-up. Physical activity was measured objectively by an ActivPal3TM accelerometer. Cognitive performance was measured by the D2 test of attention and the Symbol Digit Modalities Test. Academic achievement was determined using the mean of school grades in Dutch, English, and Mathematics. Several well-validated instruments were used to determine mood/depressive symptoms, self-esteem and goal orientation. Information on several covariates such as sex, academic year, school level, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, BMI, pubertal status, smoking, drinking, viewing television, computer use etc. are available

Associatie tussen fysieke activiteit en schoolprestaties van adolescenten

Van Dijk, M. L., De Groot, R. H. M., & Kirschner, P. A. (2011, 1 December). Associatie tussen fysieke activiteit en schoolprestaties van adolescenten. Posterpresentatie gegeven tijdens het Congres ‘Hersenen en Cognitie: Maatschappelijke Innovatie’, Nationaal Initiatief Hersenen en Cognitie, Utrecht, Nederland.Onderzoek bij ouderen heeft aangetoond dat lichamelijke activiteit een positief effect heeft op cognitieve prestaties. Bij adolescenten is weinig (objectief) onderzoek uitgevoerd. Middels deze studie wordt op een objectieve manier onderzocht welke associatie er is tussen oa. sporten, fietsen naar school en slapen en de schoolprestaties van adolescenten

Cohort Profile of The GOALS Study: A Large-scale Research of Physical Activity in Dutch Students

The GOALS study (Grootschalig Onderzoek naar Activiteiten van Limburgse Scholieren [Large-scale Research of Activities in Dutch Students]) was set up to investigate possible associations between different forms of physical activity and inactivity with cognitive performance, academic achievement and mental wellbeing. It was conducted at a secondary school in the south of the Netherlands. Data collection took place during normal school weeks from October 2011 to March 2012 and one year later from October 2012 to May 2013. The study was approved by the local Ethical Committee of the Open University of the Netherlands. All students in grades 7 and 9 of senior general secondary education and university preparatory education were invited to participate (N = 526). At baseline a sample of 440 Dutch-speaking adolescents was willing to participate (83.7%). Of these, 344 participated in the follow-up. Physical activity was measured objectively by an ActivPal3TM accelerometer. Cognitive performance was measured by the D2 test of attention and the Symbol Digit Modalities Test. Academic achievement was determined using the mean of school grades in Dutch, English, and Mathematics. Several well-validated instruments were used to determine mood/depressive symptoms, self-esteem and goal orientation. Information on several covariates such as sex, academic year, school level, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, BMI, pubertal status, smoking, drinking, viewing television, computer use etc. are available