BACKGROUND Previous reviews have focussed on the rationale for employing the stepped wedge design (SWD), the areas of research to which the design has been applied and the general characteristics of the design. However these did not focus on the statistical methods nor addressed the appropriateness of sample size methods used.This was a review of the literature of the statistical methodology us...

For an irreducible, crystallographic root system Φ in a Euclidean space V and a positive integer m, the arrangement of hyperplanes in V given by the affine equations (α, x)= k, for α∈Φ and k=0, 1, . . . ,m, is denoted here by AΦ . The characteristic polynomial of AΦ is related in the paper to that of the Coxeter arrangement AΦ (corresponding to m=0), and the number of regions into which the fun...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial design has received substantial attention in recent years. Although various extensions to the original design have been proposed, no guidance is available on the design of stepped-wedge cluster randomised trials with interim analyses. In an individually randomised trial setting, group sequential methods can provide notable efficiency ga...

Cuttlebone, the sophisticated buoyancy device of cuttlefish, is made of extensive superposed chambers that have a complex internal arrangement of calcified pillars and organic membranes. It has not been clear how this structure is assembled. We find that the membranes result from a myriad of minor membranes initially filling the whole chamber, made of nanofibres evenly oriented within each memb...

Nicotianamine (NA), a small molecule ubiquitous in plants, is an important divalent metal chelator and the main precursor of phytosiderophores. Nicotianamine synthase (NAS) is the enzyme catalyzing NA synthesis by the condensation of three aminopropyl moieties of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and the cyclization of one of them to form an azetidine ring. Here we report five crystal structures of an...

BACKGROUND In stepped care models patients typically start with a low-intensity evidence-based treatment. Progress is monitored systematically and those patients who do not respond adequately step up to a subsequent treatment of higher intensity. Despite the fact that many guidelines have endorsed this stepped care principle it is not clear if stepped care really delivers similar or better pati...

This paper reported the investigation of the performance of floor-supply displacement ventilation with swirl diffusers or perforated panels under a high cooling load (nearly 90W/m). The experiment was carried out in a full-scale environmental chamber to obtain reliable data on the floor-supply displacement ventilation for the validation of a computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) program. Numerical...

Sustainability in agriculture is the primary need of the country, especially for farmers in the society. Sustainable agriculture depends on, a. the quality and quantity of irrigational water used, b. Status of soil in the Land and c. the dimatic conditions of the environment. In most of the locations and for particularly in coastal regions such a ideal conditions could not be possible. Developi...

Many teleosts actively regulate buoyancy by adjusting gas volume in the swimbladder. In physostomous fishes such as the zebrafish, a connection is maintained between the swimbladder and the oesophagus via the pneumatic duct for the inflation and deflation of this organ. Here we investigated the role of adrenergic stimulation of swimbladder wall musculature in deflation of the swimbladder. Norad...