Fast and flexible selection with a single switch

Selection methods that require only a single-switch input, such as a button click or blink, are potentially useful for individuals with motor impairments, mobile technology users, and individuals wishing to transmit information securely. We present a single-switch selection method, "Nomon," that is general and efficient. Existing single-switch selection methods require selectable options to be arranged in ways that limit potential applications. By contrast, traditional operating systems, web browsers, and free-form applications (such as drawing) place options at arbitrary points on the screen. Nomon, however, has the flexibility to select any point on a screen. Nomon adapts automatically to an individual's clicking ability; it allows a person who clicks precisely to make a selection quickly and allows a person who clicks imprecisely more time to make a selection without error. Nomon reaps gains in information rate by allowing the specification of beliefs (priors) about option selection probabilities and by avoiding tree-based selection schemes in favor of direct (posterior) inference. We have developed both a Nomon-based writing application and a drawing application. To evaluate Nomon's performance, we compared the writing application with a popular existing method for single-switch writing (row-column scanning). Novice users wrote 35% faster with the Nomon interface than with the scanning interface. An experienced user (author TB, with > 10 hours practice) wrote at speeds of 9.3 words per minute with Nomon, using 1.2 clicks per character and making no errors in the final text.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, presented at NIPS 2009 Mini-symposi

Development of a best practice statement on the use of ankle-foot orthoses following stroke in Scotland

A National Health Service Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) scoping exercise in 2007 identified the use of ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) following stroke as a clinical improvement priority, leading to the development of a best practice statement (BPS) on AFO use after stroke. This paper outlines the development process of the BPS which is available from NHS QIS. The authors were involved in the development of the BPS as part of a working group that included practitioners from the fields of orthotics, physiotherapy, stroke nursing and bioengineering, and staff of NHS QIS and a patient representative. In consultation with an NHS QIS health services researcher, the authors undertook a systematic literature review to evidence where possible the recommendations made in the BPS. Where evidence was unavailable, consensus was reached by the expert working group. As the BPS was designed for the non-specialist and non-orthotic practitioner the authors also developed educational resources which were included within the BPS to aid the understanding of the principles underpinning orthotic design and prescription. The BPS has been widely distributed throughout the health service in Scotland and is available electronically at no cost via the NHS QIS website. At part of an ongoing evaluation of the impact of the BPS on the quality of orthotic provision, NHS QIS has invited feedback regarding successes and challenges to implementation

Subdivision of the bacterioferritin comigratory protein family of bacterial peroxiredoxins based on catalytic activity.

© American Chemical Society,2010. Post-print version of article deposited in accordance with SHERPA RoMEO guidelinesPeroxiredoxins are ubiquitous proteins that catalyze the reduction of hydroperoxides, thus conferring resistance to oxidative stress. Using high-resolution mass spectrometry, we recently reclassified one such peroxiredoxin, bacterioferritin comigratory protein (BCP) of Escherichia coli, as an atypical 2-Cys peroxiredoxin that functions through the formation of an intramolecular disulfide bond between the active and resolving cysteine. An engineered E. coli BCP, which lacked the resolving cysteine, retained enzyme activity through a novel catalytic pathway. Unlike the active cysteine, the resolving cysteine of BCP peroxiredoxins is not conserved across all members of the family. To clarify the catalytic mechanism of native BCP enzymes that lack the resolving cysteine, we have investigated the BCP homologue of Burkholderia cenocepacia. We demonstrate that the B. cenocepacia BCP (BcBCP) homologue functions through a 1-Cys catalytic pathway. During catalysis, BcBCP can utilize thioredoxin as a reductant for the sulfenic acid intermediate. However, significantly higher peroxidase activity is observed utilizing glutathione as a resolving cysteine and glutaredoxin as a redox partner. Introduction of a resolving cysteine into BcBCP changes the activity from a 1-Cys pathway to an atypical 2-Cys pathway, analogous to the E. coli enzyme. In contrast to the native B. cenocepacia enzyme, thioredoxin is the preferred redox partner for this atypical 2-Cys variant. BCP-deficient B. cenocepacia exhibit a growth-phase-dependent hypersensitivity to oxidative killing. On the basis of sequence alignments, we believe that BcBCP described herein is representative of the major class of bacterial BCP peroxiredoxins. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed characterization of their catalytic activity. These studies support the subdivision of the BCP family of peroxiredoxins into two classes based on their catalytic activity

The influence of service brand equity on the strength of brand relationships in the fast food industry

The South African fast food industry is growing fast and rivals are competing fiercely, providing customers with an array of different choices. Given this situation, it has become increasingly important for fast food organisations to focus on elevating and sustaining a competitive advantage. One way of doing this is by maximising brand equity. In doing so, organisations can differentiate themselves in the minds of customers by encouraging a relationship with their brand. The aim of this study is to determine the influence of service brand equity on customers’ relationships with their fast food brand. The population comprised fast food customers residing in the North West Province of South Africa. A cross-sectional descriptive design was followed, and a convenience sample was used to select respondents. Data were obtained by means of a self-administered questionnaire, realising 379 responses. A multiple regression analysis indicates that three brand equity dimensions, namely brand awareness, brand association and brand trust, significantly and positively influence the strength of the relationships that respondents have with their favourite fast food brand (with brand trust being the most influential dimension). Fast food outlets can, therefore, strengthen their customers’ brand relationships by focusing specifically on improving these three dimensions.Key words: service brand equity, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand differentiation, brand associations, brand trust, brand relationships, fast food industry, fast food outlet

Predicting Fluid Intelligence of Children using T1-weighted MR Images and a StackNet

In this work, we utilize T1-weighted MR images and StackNet to predict fluid intelligence in adolescents. Our framework includes feature extraction, feature normalization, feature denoising, feature selection, training a StackNet, and predicting fluid intelligence. The extracted feature is the distribution of different brain tissues in different brain parcellation regions. The proposed StackNet consists of three layers and 11 models. Each layer uses the predictions from all previous layers including the input layer. The proposed StackNet is tested on a public benchmark Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Neurocognitive Prediction Challenge 2019 and achieves a mean squared error of 82.42 on the combined training and validation set with 10-fold cross-validation. In addition, the proposed StackNet also achieves a mean squared error of 94.25 on the testing data. The source code is available on GitHub.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables, Accepted by MICCAI ABCD-NP Challenge 2019; Added ND

Logistic early warning scores to predict death, cardiac arrest or unplanned intensive care unit re-admission after cardiac surgery.

NHS England recently mandated that the National Early Warning Score of vital signs be used in all acute hospital trusts in the UK despite limited validation in the postoperative setting. We undertook a multicentre UK study of 13,631 patients discharged from intensive care after risk-stratified cardiac surgery in four centres, all of which used VitalPACTM to electronically collect postoperative National Early Warning Score vital signs. We analysed 540,127 sets of vital signs to generate a logistic score, the discrimination of which we compared with the national additive score for the composite outcome of: in-hospital death; cardiac arrest; or unplanned intensive care admission. There were 578 patients (4.2%) with an outcome that followed 4300 sets of observations (0.8%) in the preceding 24 h: 499 out of 578 (86%) patients had unplanned re-admissions to intensive care. Discrimination by the logistic score was significantly better than the additive score. Respective areas (95%CI) under the receiver-operating characteristic curve with 24-h and 6-h vital signs were: 0.779 (0.771-0.786) vs. 0.754 (0.746-0.761), p < 0.001; and 0.841 (0.829-0.853) vs. 0.813 (0.800-0.825), p < 0.001, respectively. Our proposed logistic Early Warning Score was better than the current National Early Warning Score at discriminating patients who had an event after cardiac surgery from those who did not

Quantum gravitational contributions to quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics describes the interactions of electrons and photons. Electric charge (the gauge coupling constant) is energy dependent, and there is a previous claim that charge is affected by gravity (described by general relativity) with the implication that the charge is reduced at high energies. But that claim has been very controversial with the situation inconclusive. Here I report an analysis (free from earlier controversies) demonstrating that that quantum gravity corrections to quantum electrodynamics have a quadratic energy dependence that result in the reduction of the electric charge at high energies, a result known as asymptotic freedom.Comment: To be published in Nature. 19 pages LaTeX, no figure

Quantum error correction : an introductory guide

Quantum error correction protocols will play a central role in the realisation of quantum computing; the choice of error correction code will influence the full quantum computing stack, from the layout of qubits at the physical level to gate compilation strategies at the software level. As such, familiarity with quantum coding is an essential prerequisite for the understanding of current and future quantum computing architectures. In this review, we provide an introductory guide to the theory and implementation of quantum error correction codes. Where possible, fundamental concepts are described using the simplest examples of detection and correction codes, the working of which can be verified by hand. We outline the construction and operation of the surface code, the most widely pursued error correction protocol for experiment. Finally, we discuss issues that arise in the practical implementation of the surface code and other quantum error correction codes

Use of Advanced Flexible Modeling Approaches for Survival Extrapolation from Early Follow-up Data in two Nivolumab Trials in Advanced NSCLC with Extended Follow-up

Objectives: Immuno-oncology (IO) therapies are often associated with delayed responses that are deep and durable, manifesting as long-term survival benefits in patients with metastatic cancer. Complex hazard functions arising from IO treatments may limit the accuracy of extrapolations from standard parametric models (SPMs). We evaluated the ability of flexible parametric models (FPMs) to improve survival extrapolations using data from 2 trials involving patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Our analyses used consecutive database locks (DBLs) at 2-, 3-, and 5-y minimum follow-up from trials evaluating nivolumab versus docetaxel in patients with pretreated metastatic squamous (CheckMate-017) and nonsquamous (CheckMate-057) NSCLC. For each DBL, SPMs, as well as 3 FPMs—landmark response models (LRMs), mixture cure models (MCMs), and Bayesian multiparameter evidence synthesis (B-MPES)—were estimated on nivolumab overall survival (OS). The performance of each parametric model was assessed by comparing milestone restricted mean survival times (RMSTs) and survival probabilities with results obtained from externally validated SPMs. Results: For the 2- and 3-y DBLs of both trials, all models tended to underestimate 5-y OS. Predictions from nonvalidated SPMs fitted to the 2-y DBLs were highly unreliable, whereas extrapolations from FPMs were much more consistent between models fitted to successive DBLs. For CheckMate-017, in which an apparent survival plateau emerges in the 3-y DBL, MCMs fitted to this DBL estimated 5-y OS most accurately (11.6% v. 12.3% observed), and long-term predictions were similar to those from the 5-y validated SPM (20-y RMST: 30.2 v. 30.5 mo). For CheckMate-057, where there is no clear evidence of a survival plateau in the early DBLs, only B-MPES was able to accurately predict 5-y OS (14.1% v. 14.0% observed [3-y DBL]). Conclusions: We demonstrate that the use of FPMs for modeling OS in NSCLC patients from early follow-up data can yield accurate estimates for RMST observed with longer follow-up and provide similar long-term extrapolations to externally validated SPMs based on later data cuts. B-MPES generated reasonable predictions even when fitted to the 2-y DBLs of the studies, whereas MCMs were more reliant on longer-term data to estimate a plateau and therefore performed better from 3 y. Generally, LRM extrapolations were less reliable than those from alternative FPMs and validated SPMs but remained superior to nonvalidated SPMs. Our work demonstrates the potential benefits of using advanced parametric models that incorporate external data sources, such as B-MPES and MCMs, to allow for accurate evaluation of treatment clinical and cost-effectiveness from trial data with limited follow-up. Flexible advanced parametric modeling methods can provide improved survival extrapolations for immuno-oncology cost-effectiveness in health technology assessments from early clinical trial data that better anticipate extended follow-up. Advantages include leveraging additional observable trial data, the systematic integration of external data, and more detailed modeling of underlying processes. Bayesian multiparameter evidence synthesis performed particularly well, with well-matched external data. Mixture cure models also performed well but may require relatively longer follow-up to identify an emergent plateau, depending on the specific setting. Landmark response models offered marginal benefits in this scenario and may require greater numbers in each response group and/or increased follow-up to support improved extrapolation within each subgroup