BACKGROUND In May 2011, the Food and Drug Administration approved fidaxomicin for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). It has been found to be noninferior to vancomycin; however, its cost-effectiveness for the treatment of CDI remains undetermined. METHODS We developed a decision analytic simulation model to determine the economic value of fidaxomicin for CDI treatment from...

We present quasiparticle self-consistent GW (QSGW ) calculations of semimetallic bulk Bi. We go beyond the conventional QSGW method by including the spin-orbit coupling throughout the self-consistency cycle. This approach improves the description of the electron and the hole pockets considerably with respect to standard density functional theory (DFT), leading to excellent agreement with experi...

We discuss Bayesian inference (BI) for the probabilistic identification of material parameters. This contribution aims to shed light on the use of BI for the identification of elastoplastic material parameters. For this purpose a single spring is considered, for which the stress-strain curves are artificially created. Besides offering a didactic introduction to BI, this paper proposes an approa...

Direct observations using scanning transmission electron microscopy unveil an intriguing interfacial bi-layer that enables epitaxial growth of a strain-free, monoclinic, bronze-phase VO2(B) thin film on a perovskite SrTiO3 (STO) substrate. We observe an ultrathin (2-3 unit cells) interlayer best described as highly strained VO2(B) nanodomains combined with an extra (Ti,V)O2 layer on the TiO2 te...

We have investigated topological electronic properties of freestanding bilayers of group IV (C, Si, Ge, Sn, and, Pb) and V (As, Sb, and, Bi) elements of the periodic table in the buckled and planar honeycomb structures under isotropic strain using first-principles calculations. Our focus is on mapping strain driven phase diagrams and identifying topological phase transitions therein as a pathwa...

The strain and morphology of Si/Ge films grown by surfactant mediated molecular beam epitaxy on Si~001! with Bi as the surfactant were studied with grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction, x-ray reflectivity, low-energy electron diffraction, and Auger electron spectroscopy. Bi is observed to prevent the intermixing of Ge and Si layers by inhibiting Ge segregation in Si. Without a surfactant the cri...