In a retrospective, controlled, follow-up study of 326 women who had a primary preterm caesarean section, the risks of postoperative maternal morbidity and uterine rupture or dehiscence in subsequent ...pregnancies were investigated in relation to the mode of incision (classical compared with low-segment transverse incision). The classical incision was associated with a higher frequency of postpartum fever in the immediate postoperative period (16% compared with 6%, P less than 0.01). Of the 326 patients reviewed 286 (88%) were contacted for information about subsequent pregnancies. Information was obtained for 70 pregnancies subsequent to a classical caesarean section, and 71 pregnancies subsequent to a low-segment transverse caesarean section, which had continued for more than 20 weeks gestation. Of the pregnancies after the classical operation 13% had abnormal scars compared with none of those after the low-segment transverse operation (P = 0.0014). The frequency of scar dehiscence was 6% after a classical scar compared with none after a low-segment transverse scar (P = 0.0581).
Many people have flipped coins but few have stopped to ponder the statistical and physical intricacies of the process. In a preregistered study we collected \(350{,}757\) coin flips to test the ...counterintuitive prediction from a physics model of human coin tossing developed by Diaconis, Holmes, and Montgomery (DHM; 2007). The model asserts that when people flip an ordinary coin, it tends to land on the same side it started -- DHM estimated the probability of a same-side outcome to be about 51%. Our data lend strong support to this precise prediction: the coins landed on the same side more often than not, \(\text{Pr}(\text{same side}) = 0.508\), 95% credible interval (CI) \(0.506\), \(0.509\), \(\text{BF}_{\text{same-side bias}} = 2359\). Furthermore, the data revealed considerable between-people variation in the degree of this same-side bias. Our data also confirmed the generic prediction that when people flip an ordinary coin -- with the initial side-up randomly determined -- it is equally likely to land heads or tails: \(\text{Pr}(\text{heads}) = 0.500\), 95% CI \(0.498\), \(0.502\), \(\text{BF}_{\text{heads-tails bias}} = 0.182\). Furthermore, this lack of heads-tails bias does not appear to vary across coins. Additional exploratory analyses revealed that the within-people same-side bias decreased as more coins were flipped, an effect that is consistent with the possibility that practice makes people flip coins in a less wobbly fashion. Our data therefore provide strong evidence that when some (but not all) people flip a fair coin, it tends to land on the same side it started. Our data provide compelling statistical support for the DHM physics model of coin tossing.
A medium-density linkage map of the ovine genome has been developed. Marker data for 550 new loci were generated and merged with the previous sheep linkage map. The new map comprises 1093 markers ...representing 1062 unique loci (941 anonymous loci, 121 genes) and spans 3500 cM (sex-averaged) for the autosomes and 132 cM (female) on the X chromosome. There is an average spacing of 3.4 cM between autosomal loci and 8.3 cM between highly polymorphic polymorphic information content (PIC) > or = 0.7 autosomal loci. The largest gap between markers is 32.5 cM, and the number of gaps of > 20 cM between loci, or regions where loci are missing from chromosome ends, has been reduced from 40 in the previous map to 6. Five hundred and seventy-three of the loci can be ordered on a framework map with odds of > 1000 : 1. The sheep linkage map contains strong links to both the cattle and goat maps. Five hundred and seventy-two of the loci positioned on the sheep linkage map have also been mapped by linkage analysis in cattle, and 209 of the loci mapped on the sheep linkage map have also been placed on the goat linkage map. Inspection of ruminant linkage maps indicates that the genomic coverage by the current sheep linkage map is comparable to that of the available cattle maps. The sheep map provides a valuable resource to the international sheep, cattle, and goat gene mapping community.
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