Background As part of the Dutch National Care for the Elderly Programme, The Older Persons and Informal Caregivers Survey Minimum Data Set (TOPICS-MDS) was developed to gather uniform information on outcome measures. Furthermore, to combine the outcome measures into one single index and to promote comparability between studies, a preference-weighted Composite End Point (called: TOPICS-CEP) was ...

The agricultural informatization contribution rate is the proportion of the contribution of agricultural informatization to the algebraic summation of agricultural economy growth accounting for the agricultural economy growth. It is a comprehensive index which reflects the function of agricultural informatization in enhancing agricultural productivity and agricultural economy development. This ...

The concept of gazing into crystal balls to view the future is not something immunologists are particularly prone to do; it is better left to psychics, quacks and astrologers. We are more likely to spend our time looking back, scouring the literature for precedents or clues to explain our latest findings. Yet the 50th Anniversary of the British Society for Immunology (BSI) offers an opportunity...

We propose a multidimensional approach to regional inequality as an alternative allocation mechanism for EU Structural Funds remittances based on per capita GDP, particularly after EU enlargement. The indicators of regional inequality are combined to a composite index by means of Maasoumi’s aggregator function. We propose Partial Common Principal Component Aanalysis as the estimator of the weig...

This paper uses the smooth transition regression (STR) model to study the nonlinear relation between the consumer price index (CPI) and the composite index of Shanghai Stock Market in China from 1999 to 2011. The results show that there exists one way Granger causality relation from CPI to stock market in China; the internal relation between the CPI and stock market’s composite index appears as...

The response of an ecosystem to external drivers may not always be gradual and reversible. Discontinuous and sometimes irreversible changes, called ‘regime shifts’ or ‘critical transitions’, can occur. The likelihood of such shifts is expected to increase for a variety of ecosystems, and it is difficult to predict how close an ecosystem is to a critical transition. Recent modelling studies iden...

Cele Oasis on the southern edge of Tarim Basin was used to investigate the impact of human activity on the soil environment of the oasis–desert ecotone during the oasis expansion process. Since farmland is extending into the oasis–desert ecotone during oasis expansion, reclaimed farmland and control plots within the ecotone were investigated. The variations in soil moisture, soil nutrients and ...

Neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation has been associated with health behaviors and outcomes. However, neighborhood socioeconomic status has been measured inconsistently across studies. It remains unclear whether appropriate socioeconomic indicators vary over geographic areas and geographic levels. The aim of this study is to compare the composite socioeconomic index to six socioeconomic indic...