Multi-species indices (MSI) are widely used as ecological indicators and instruments to inform environmental policies. Many of these combine species-specific estimates relative population sizes using the geometric mean. Because mean is not defined when values zero occur, usually only commoner species included in MSIs replaced by a small non-zero value. The latter can exhibit an arbitrary influe...

OBJECTIVES This study responds to a request in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance to assess the impact of using alternative sources of utility values, applied to multiple sclerosis (MS). METHODS Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were calculated using utility values based on UK and Dutch values of EQ-5D, two UK mappings and one Dutch mapping of EQ...

This paper presents a master stability function (MSF) approach for analyzing the stability of amplitude death (AD) in networks of delay-coupled oscillators. Unlike the familiar MSFs for instantaneously coupled networks, which typically have a single input encoding for the effects of the eigenvalues of the network Laplacian matrix, for delay-coupled networks we show that such MSFs generally requ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods enable detection and species identification of many pathogens. We assessed the efficacy of a new PCR and microarray-based platform for detection of bacteria in prosthetic joint infections (PJIs). METHODS This prospective study involved 61 suspected PJIs in hip and knee prostheses and 20 negative controls. 142 samples were analyzed...

Data exchange and interoperability between clinical information systems represent a crucial issue in the context of patient record data collection. An XML representation schema adapted to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients was developed and successfully tested against patient data in the dedicated Multi-Source Information System (MSIS) active file (more than 16,000 patient records). The ES...

Background. Mobility limitations are a key feature of MS and 25% will require the use of a walking aid 15 years after diagnosis. Few studies have specifically evaluated the effectiveness of physiotherapy and exercise interventions delivered in the community for those with significant disability. Methods. An assessor blind, block randomised, and controlled study recruited participants who requir...

For objects in the low Earth orbit region, uncertainty atmospheric density estimation is an important source of prediction error, which critical for space traffic management activities such as satellite conjunction analysis. This paper investigates evolution error distribution presence uncertainties, are modeled using probabilistic machine learning techniques. The recently proposed “HASDM-ML,” ...

Confidential Transactions (CT) hide coin amounts even from verifiers without the help of trusted third parties. Aggregable CTs are a scalable category with “spent record trimming”. For example, if Alice sends coins to Bob, who had sent similar Charles, aggregated transaction shows only that Charles by deleting Bob’s records. Since number spent records grows linearly transactions, faster than ac...

background: multiple sclerosis (ms) is a chronic demyelinating disease that can affect cognitive function. the purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of ginkgo biloba (gb) on improvement of memory impairment and quality of life in patients with ms. methods: this study was an 8-week, open study of patients with ms. thirty patients was recruited from a variety of outpatient settings. al...