Veterinary Medicines in Britain: Output and Industry Organisation since 19001

The historical development and economic impact of pharmaceuticals in the UK are nowadays reasonably well documented. That industry has become the most profitable and fast growing of the country's high-tech industries. Its member firms undertake more than one-fifth of the national research and development (R&amp;D) activities, one half being carried out in Britain, and currently achieve a £2.4 billion favourable trade balance with the rest of the world.</jats:p

The Influence of Caregivers' Gender Attitudes on Adolescents' Health and Well-Being in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Gender norms are social constructs held by communities that dictate the acceptable range of behaviors and roles for men and women. Inequitable gender norms have a negative impact on the health and well-being of adults and children alike. In early adolescence, children become more attuned to their communities’ gender norms. Exposure to humanitarian emergencies, such as armed conflict, exacerbate the health threats of inequitable gender norms by disrupting the social supports necessary for safe and healthy adolescent development. Caregivers are key in socializing children to their communities prevailing gender norms and in buffering against the mental health risks associated with growing up in a humanitarian setting. Limited research has been conducted into the role that caregiver gender attitudes play in the health of adolescents living in a humanitarian setting. This study employs mixed-methods to explore how caregiver gender attitudes are associated with adolescent psychosocial health, nutrition, and school attendance in a sample of adolescent/caregiver dyads (n=375) living in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Adolescents of caregivers with moderately gender equitable attitudes were found to have greater food security than children of caregivers with the least equitable gender attitudes. After stratifying by sex, girls of caregivers with moderately gender equitable attitudes had better food security and girls with caregivers endorsing moderately or the most gender equitable attitudes were found to have better scores on a measure of anxiety and depression than as compared to girls of caregivers with the least equitable gender attitudes. There was an overall trend for adolescents with caregivers classified as moderately gender equitable to have better outcomes across all four measures than adolescents with caregivers classified as having the least or most gender equitable attitudes. Focus group discussions suggested that differences in girls’ mental health outcomes might differ due to caregivers’ use of control techniques that limit girls’ autonomy and in the frequency that girls witness intimate partner violence. Researchers should examine how the different dimensions of individuals’ gender attitudes affect adolescent health and explore how to prevent families who challenge restrictive gender norms from experiencing the social sanctions resulting from endorsing more gender equitable attitudes. Advisor: Nancy E. Glass, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN [email protected]

Have hierarchical three-body mergers been detected by LIGO/Virgo?

One of the proposed channels of binary black hole mergers involves dynamical interactions of three black holes. In such scenarios, it is possible that all three black holes merge in a so-called hierarchical merger chain, where two of the black holes merge first and then their remnant subsequently merges with the remaining single black hole. Depending on the dynamical environment, it is possible that both mergers will appear within the observable time window. Here we perform a search for such merger pairs in the public available LIGO and Virgo data from the O1/O2 runs. Using a frequentist p-value assignment statistics we do not find any significant merger pair candidates, the most significant being GW170809-GW151012 pair. Assuming no observed candidates in O3/O4, we derive upper limits on merger pairs to be $\sim11-110\ {\rm year^{-1}Gpc^{-3}}$, corresponding to a rate that relative to the total merger rate is $\sim 0.1-1.0$. From this we argue that both a detection and a non-detection within the next few years can be used to put useful constraints on some dynamical progenitor models.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Localization of Binary Black-Hole Mergers with Known Inclination

The localization of stellar-mass binary black hole mergers using gravitational waves is critical in understanding the properties of the binaries' host galaxies, observing possible electromagnetic emission from the mergers, or using them as a cosmological distance ladder. The precision of this localization can be substantially increased with prior astrophysical information about the binary system. In particular, constraining the inclination of the binary can reduce the distance uncertainty of the source. Here we present the first realistic set of localizations for binary black hole mergers, including different prior constraints on the binaries' inclinations. We find that prior information on the inclination can reduce the localization volume by a factor of 3. We discuss two astrophysical scenarios of interest: (i) follow-up searches for beamed electromagnetic/neutrino counterparts and (ii) mergers in the accretion disks of active galactic nuclei.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 5 pages, 2 figure

Approaches for classifying the indications for colonoscopy using detailed clinical data

BACKGROUND: Accurate indication classification is critical for obtaining unbiased estimates of colonoscopy effectiveness and quality improvement efforts, but there is a dearth of published systematic classification approaches. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of data-source and adjudication on indication classification and on estimates of the effectiveness of screening colonoscopy on late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis risk. METHODS: This was an observational study in members of four U.S. health plans. Eligible persons (n = 1039) were age 55-85 and had been enrolled for 5 years or longer in their health plans during 2006-2008. Patients were selected based on late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis in a case-control design; each case patient was matched to 1-2 controls by study site, age, sex, and health plan enrollment duration. Reasons for colonoscopies received in the 10-year period before the reference date were collected from three medical records sources (progress notes; referral notes; procedure reports) and categorized using an algorithm, with committee adjudication of some tests. We evaluated indication classification concordance before and after adjudication and used logistic regressions with the Wald Chi-square test to compare estimates of the effects of screening colonoscopy on late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis risk for each of our data sources to the adjudicated indication. RESULTS: Classification agreement between each data-source and adjudication was 78.8-94.0% (weighted kappa = 0.53-0.72); the highest agreement (weighted kappa = 0.86-0.88) was when information from all data sources was considered together. The choice of data-source influenced the association between screening colonoscopy and late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis; estimates based on progress notes were closest to those based on the adjudicated indication (% difference in regression coefficients = 2.4%, p-value = 0.98), as compared to estimates from only referral notes (% difference in coefficients = 34.9%, p-value = 0.12) or procedure reports (% difference in coefficients = 27.4%, p-value = 0.23). CONCLUSION: There was no single gold-standard source of information in medical records. The estimates of colonoscopy effectiveness from progress notes alone were the closest to estimates using adjudicated indications. Thus, the details in the medical records are necessary for accurate indication classification