To estimate, overall and by organism, the incidence of infectious intestinal disease (IID) in the community, presenting to general practice (GP) and reported to national surveillance.
Prospective, ...community cohort study and prospective study of GP presentation conducted between April 2008 and August 2009.
Eighty-eight GPs across the UK recruited from the Medical Research Council General Practice Research Framework and the Primary Care Research Networks.
6836 participants registered with the 88 participating practices in the community study; 991 patients with UK-acquired IID presenting to one of 37 practices taking part in the GP presentation study.
IID rates in the community, presenting to GP and reported to national surveillance, overall and by organism; annual IID cases and GP consultations by organism.
The overall rate of IID in the community was 274 cases per 1000 person-years (95% CI 254 to 296); the rate of GP consultations was 17.7 per 1000 person-years (95% CI 14.4 to 21.8). There were 147 community cases and 10 GP consultations for every case reported to national surveillance. Norovirus was the most common organism, with incidence rates of 47 community cases per 1000 person-years and 2.1 GP consultations per 1000 person-years. Campylobacter was the most common bacterial pathogen, with a rate of 9.3 cases per 1000 person-years in the community, and 1.3 GP consultations per 1000 person-years. We estimate that there are up to 17 million sporadic, community cases of IID and 1 million GP consultations annually in the UK. Of these, norovirus accounts for 3 million cases and 130,000 GP consultations, and Campylobacter is responsible for 500,000 cases and 80,000 GP consultations.
IID poses a substantial community and healthcare burden in the UK. Control efforts must focus particularly on reducing the burden due to Campylobacter and enteric viruses.
We present a model of contagion that unifies and generalizes existing models of the spread of social influences and microorganismal infections. Our model incorporates individual memory of exposure to ...a contagious entity (e.g. a rumor or disease), variable magnitudes of exposure (dose sizes), and heterogeneity in the susceptibility of individuals. Through analysis and simulation, we examine in detail the case where individuals may recover from an infection and then immediately become susceptible again (analogous to the so-called SIS model). We identify three basic classes of contagion models which we call
epidemic threshold,
vanishing critical mass, and
critical mass classes, where each class of models corresponds to different strategies for prevention or facilitation. We find that the conditions for a particular contagion model to belong to one of the these three classes depend only on memory length and the probabilities of being infected by one and two exposures, respectively. These parameters are in principle measurable for real contagious influences or entities, thus yielding empirical implications for our model. We also study the case where individuals attain permanent immunity once recovered, finding that epidemics inevitably die out but may be surprisingly persistent when individuals possess memory.
-measurable operators. Applications are given to the study of relatively weakly compact and relatively compact sets and to compactness properties of operators dominated in the sense of complete ...positivity by compact or by Dunford-Pettis operators.>
Interconnectors reduce the cost of supplying electricity if they are operated efficiently. We show that established metrics which are used to monitor electricity trading inefficiency are inaccurate ...for several typical trading conditions. We propose two new metrics—the Unweighted and Price-Weighted Inefficient Interconnector Utilisation indices—to address these deficiencies. These metrics are substantially more accurate than existing ones and perform equally well whether or not interconnected markets have coupled trading. Our analyses show a substantial decrease in inefficient trading between Great Britain (GB) and both France and the Netherlands after the European Union's market coupling regulations were introduced in 2014.
In view of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, we evaluate how uncoupling GB's market would affect cross-border trade. We find that uncoupling would lead to inefficiencies in trade, with the electricity price differential between GB and France (Netherlands) rising by 2% (0.6%), net imports into GB decreasing by 22% (6%), congestion income decreasing by 6% (1.5%), and infra-marginal surplus decreasing by 25% (9%). Should the EU decide to implement an equivalent carbon tax to GB's Carbon Price Floor, congestion income would decrease. Uncoupling markets would magnify this decrease.
•Measures of electricity trading inefficiency are reviewed and classified.•New measures that are robust to market conditions are devised.•The new measures are quantitatively assessed against existing measures.•EU market coupling regulations have largely reduced trading inefficiency.•The potential economic loss from market uncoupling is substantial.
Background Zip codes classified by the Food Insecurity Index with moderate and high food insecurity (FI) risk can be a threat to the health and well-being of children during the first 1,000 days ...(from pregnancy to 2 years). The presence of nurturing care assets (i.e., stable environments that promote health and nutrition, learning opportunities, security and safety, and responsive relationships) can contribute to supporting families and their communities, and ultimately reduce systemic barriers to food security. We aimed to identify and characterize nurturing care assets in under-resourced communities with moderate and high FI risk. Methods Four steps were used to conduct a Community Asset Mapping (CAM): (1) review of community documents across five zip codes in Clark County, Nevada (2), engagement of community members in identifying community assets (3), definition of the assets providing nurturing care services, and (4) classification of assets to nurturing care components, i.e., good health, adequate nutrition, safety and security, opportunities for early learning, and responsive caregiving. The Food Insecurity Index was used to determine FI risk in each zip code. Analyses explored whether disparities in nurturing care assets across zip codes with moderate and high FI exist. Results We identified 353 nurturing care assets across zip codes. A more significant number of nurturing care assets were present in zip codes with high FI risk. The adequate nutrition component had the most assets overall (n = 218, 61.8%), while the responsive caregiving category had the least (n = 26, 7.4%). Most of the adequate nutrition resources consisted of convenience stores (n = 96), food pantries (n = 33), and grocery stores (n = 33). Disparities in the number and type of good health, early learning, and security and safety assets were identified within zip codes with high FI risk compared to moderate FI risk. Conclusions The quantity and type of nurturing care assets can exacerbate existing demographic disparities across zip codes, which are tied to barriers to access to food in under-resourced communities in Clark County, Nevada. Co-creating a nurturing care asset-based zip code strategy to address high FI risk will require strengthening systems across existing nurturing care assets. Keywords: Community asset mapping, Food security, Maternal-child health, Nutrition
The paper establishes arithmetic–geometric mean and related submajorisation and norm inequalities for
τ
-measurable operators affiliated with a semi-finite von Neumann algebra acting in a separable ...Hilbert space as an application of the theory of double operator integration.
Transits and starspots in the WASP-6 planetary system Tregloan-Reed, Jeremy; Southworth, John; Burgdorf, M ...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
06/2015, Letnik:
450, Številka:
2
Journal Article, Web Resource
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We present updates to prism, a photometric transit-starspot model, and gemc, a hybrid optimization code combining MCMC and a genetic algorithm. We then present high-precision photometry of four ...transits in the WASP-6 planetary system, two of which contain a starspot anomaly. All four transits were modelled using prism and gemc, and the physical properties of the system calculated. We find the mass and radius of the host star to be 0.836 ± 0.063 M⊙ and 0.864 ± 0.024 R⊙, respectively. For the planet, we find a mass of 0.485 ± 0.027 M
Jup, a radius of 1.230 ± 0.035 R
Jup and a density of 0.244 ± 0.014 ρJup. These values are consistent with those found in the literature. In the likely hypothesis that the two spot anomalies are caused by the same starspot or starspot complex, we measure the stars rotation period and velocity to be 23.80 ± 0.15 d and 1.78 ± 0.20 km s−1, respectively, at a colatitude of 75.8°. We find that the sky-projected angle between the stellar spin axis and the planetary orbital axis is λ = 7.2° ± 3.7°, indicating axial alignment. Our results are consistent with and more precise than published spectroscopic measurements of the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect. These results suggest that WASP-6 b formed at a much greater distance from its host star and suffered orbital decay through tidal interactions with the protoplanetary disc.
The paper establishes arithmetic-geometric mean and related submajorisation and norm inequalities in the general setting of
τ
-measurable operators affiliated with a semi-finite von Neumann algebra.
We examine the scaling law B∝Mαwhich connects organismal resting metabolic rate B with organismal mass M, where α is commonly held to be 3/4. Since simple dimensional analysis suggests α=2/3, we ...consider this to be a null hypothesis testable by empirical studies. We re-analyse data sets for mammals and birds compiled by Heusner, Bennett and Harvey, Bartels, Hemmingsen, Brody, and Kleiber, and find little evidence for rejecting α=2/3 in favor ofα =3/4. For mammals, we find a possible breakdown in scaling for larger masses reflected in a systematic increase in α. We also review theoretical justifications of α=3/4 based on dimensional analysis, nutrient-supply networks, and four-dimensional biology. We find that present theories for α=3/4 require assumptions that render them unconvincing for rejecting the null hypothesis that α=2/3.
Using 1996 as the baseline, there was a significant increase in the reporting of unprotected anal intercourse after adjusting for age and place of recruitment (1997 odds ratio 1.17 (1.03 to 1.33); ...1998 odds ratio 1.23 (1.12 to 1.45)) (table). The adjusted odds of having had unprotected anal intercourse with partners whose HIV status was unknown or discordant also increased.
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