Soil moisture is an important prognostic variable within a soil and climate system. Soil moisture is often used in the analysis of soil and crop health, determining the probability of natural hazard ...occurrence, and of the overall climatology. However, obtaining soil moisture measurements that are comprehensive with respect to a study area is often a tedious and costly endeavor. Globally available satellite-based soil moisture retrievals yield a unique solution to this problem. Although globally available, these estimates are typically at too coarse a resolution for use in site-specific analyses. For this reason, this study presents a comparative analysis upon the efficacy of methods used to remotely obtain site-specific moisture estimates from these satellite-based moisture data sets. In the geoscience and remote-sensing communities, downscaling or assimilation methods are traditionally used to obtain desired site-specific moisture estimates. This study investigated Random Forest and Soil Evaporative Efficiency (SEE) downscaling methods as well as an Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF)-based assimilation method to obtain site-specific moisture data. This study also proposes a less intensive approach which was observed to effectively yield site-specific soil moisture estimates from satellite-based moisture datasets. The proposed approach developed a multivariate regression analysis which characterized relationships between site-specific soil texture data and SMAP L4_SM root zone soil moisture correction factors. This approach was conducted over various in-situ sites across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to yield site-specific L4_SM soil moisture estimates. These sites served as control sites, whereas the developed regression approach was able to be validated. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses, it was found that the EnKF and proposed multivariate regression approaches performed strongly when compared to site-specific in-situ measurements. These analyses accounted for both the accuracy of the site-specific products as compared to in-situ data and the efforts required to complete the approach. The study presented herein shows that the proposed multivariate regression approach is far less intensive, yet still yields site-specific moisture estimates comparable to that of downscaling or assimilated approaches.
Data with censoring is common in many areas of science and the associated statistical models are generally estimated with the method of maximum likelihood combined with a model selection criterion ...such as Akaike’s information criterion. This manuscript demonstrates how the information theoretic minimum message length principle can be used to estimate statistical models in the presence of type I random and fixed censoring data. The exponential distribution with fixed and random censoring is used as an example to demonstrate the process where we observe that the minimum message length estimate of mean survival time has some advantages over the standard maximum likelihood estimate.
In this paper, we extend the notion of weakly commuting mappings results in modular metric spaces to setting of modular ωG-metric spaces and prove the existence of unique common fixed point of three ...pairs of weakly commuting self-maps in modular ωG-metric spaces. Moreover, we apply our results in solving certain nonlinear three dimensional integral equations. The results proved in this paper extend, improve and generalize several existing results.
The triple chemotherapy with epirubicin plus cisplatin and fluorouracil is standard for advanced esophagogastric cancer. The fluorouracil must be infused through an ambulatory infusion pump, which ...impairs the quality of life; cisplatin, which is nephrotoxic, requires intravenous hydration. In this randomized trial, capecitabine, an oral fluoropyrimidine, plus oxaliplatin, a platinum compound that does not require hydration, was as effective in prolonging overall survival as was fluorouracil plus cisplatin.
Capecitabine, an oral fluoropyrimidine, plus oxaliplatin, a platinum compound that does not require hydration, was as effective in prolonging overall survival as was fluorouracil plus cisplatin.
Gastric and esophageal cancers are the second and sixth most common causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, respectively.
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Most patients present with advanced, inoperable, or metastatic disease, and 5-year survival rates are approximately 10 to 15%. Palliative chemotherapy for advanced disease improves survival, as compared with the best supportive care.
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There is no single, global standard regimen for the first-line treatment of advanced disease. Of the available regimens, the regimen containing epirubicin, cisplatin, and infused fluorouracil (ECF) is widely used in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, on the basis of the results of two randomized studies
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Background
Maltreatment of older people (elder abuse) includes psychological, physical, sexual abuse, neglect and financial exploitation. Evidence suggests that 10% of older adults experience some ...form of abuse, and only a fraction of cases are actually reported or referred to social services agencies. Elder abuse is associated with significant morbidity and premature mortality. Numerous interventions have been implemented to address the issue of elder maltreatment. It is, however, unclear which interventions best serve to prevent or reduce elder abuse.
Objectives
The objective of this review was to assess the effectiveness of primary, secondary and tertiary intervention programmes used to reduce or prevent abuse of the elderly in their own home, in organisational or institutional and community settings. The secondary objective was to investigate whether intervention effects are modified by types of abuse, types of participants, setting of intervention, or the cognitive status of older people.
Search methods
We searched 19 databases (AgeLine, CINAHL, Psycinfo, MEDLINE, Embase, Proquest Central, Social Services s, ASSIA, Sociological s, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, Web of Science, LILACS, EPPI, InfoBase, CENTRAL, HMIC, Opengrey and Zetoc) on 12 platforms, including multidisciplinary disciplines covering medical, health, social sciences, social services, legal, finance and education. We also browsed related organisational websites, contacted authors of relevant articles and checked reference lists. Searches of databases were conducted between 30 August 2015 and 16 March 2016 and were not restricted by language.
Selection criteria
We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs), cluster‐randomised trials, and quasi‐RCTs, before‐and‐after studies, and interrupted time series. Only studies with at least 12 weeks of follow‐up investigating the effect of interventions in preventing or reducing abuse of elderly people and those who interact with the elderly were included.
Data collection and analysis
Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed the studies' risk of bias. Studies were categorised as: 1) education on elder abuse, 2) programmes to reduce factors influencing elder abuse, 3) specific policies for elder abuse, 4) legislation on elder abuse, 5) programmes to increase detection rate on elder abuse, 6) programmes targeted to victims of elder abuse, and 7) rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators of elder abuse. All studies were assessed for study methodology, intervention type, setting, targeted audience, intervention components and intervention intensity.
Main results
The search and selection process produced seven eligible studies which included a total of 1924 elderly participants and 740 other people. Four of the above seven categories of interventions were evaluated by included studies that varied in study design. Eligible studies of rehabilitation programmes, specific policies for elder abuse and legislation on elder abuse were not found. All included studies contained a control group, with five of the seven studies describing the method of allocation as randomised. We used the Cochrane 'Risk of bias' tool and EPOC assessment criteria to assess risk of bias. The results suggest that risk of bias across the included body of research was high, with at least 40% of the included studies judged as being at high risk of bias. Only one study was judged as having no domains at high risk of bias, with two studies having two of 11 domains at high risk. One study was judged as being at high risk of bias across eight of 11 domains.
All included studies were set in high‐income countries, as determined by the World Bank economic classification (USA four, Taiwan one, UK two). None of the studies provided specific information or analysis on equity considerations, including by socio‐economic disadvantage, although one study was described as being set in a housing project. One study performed some form of cost‐effectiveness analysis on the implementation of their intervention programmes, although there were few details on the components and analysis of the costing.
We are uncertain whether these interventions reduce the occurrence or recurrence of elder abuse due to variation in settings, measures and effects reported in the included studies, some of which were very small and at a high risk of bias (low‐ and very low‐quality evidence).Two studies measured the occurrence of elder abuse. A high risk of bias study found a difference in the post‐test scores (P value 0.048 and 0.18). In a low risk of bias study there was no difference found (adjusted odds ratio (OR) =0.48, 95% 0.18 to 1.27) (n = 214). For interventions measuring abuse recurrence, one small study (n = 16) reported no difference in post‐test means, whilst another found higher levels of abuse reported for the intervention arms (Cox regression, combined intervention hazard ratio (HR) = 1.78, alpha level = 0.01).
It is uncertain whether targeted educational interventions improve the relevant knowledge of health professionals and caregivers (very low‐quality evidence), although they may improve detection of resident‐to‐resident abuse. The concept of measuring improvement in detection or reporting as opposed to measuring the occurrence or recurrence of abuse is complicated. An intervention of public education and support services aimed at victims may also improve rates of reporting, however it is unclear whether this was due to an increase in abuse recurrence or better reporting of abuse.The effectiveness of service planning interventions at improving the assessment and documentation of related domains is uncertain. Unintended outcomes were not reported in the studies.
Authors' conclusions
There is inadequate trustworthy evidence to assess the effects of elder abuse interventions on occurrence or recurrence of abuse, although there is some evidence to suggest it may change the combined measure of anxiety and depression of caregivers. There is a need for high‐quality trials, including from low‐ or middle‐income countries, with adequate statistical power and appropriate study characteristics to determine whether specific intervention programmes, and which components of these programmes, are effective in preventing or reducing abuse episodes among the elderly. It is uncertain whether the use of educational interventions improves knowledge and attitude of caregivers, and whether such programmes also reduce occurrence of abuse, thus future research is warranted. In addition, all future research should include a component of cost‐effectiveness analysis, implementation assessment and equity considerations of the specific interventions under review.
Multi-strategic community wide interventions for physical activity are increasingly popular but their ability to achieve population level improvements is unknown.
To evaluate the effects of community ...wide, multi-strategic interventions upon population levels of physical activity.
We searched the Cochrane Public Health Group Specialised Register, The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, MEDLINE in Process, EMBASE, CINAHL, LILACS, PsycINFO, ASSIA, The British Nursing Index, Chinese CNKI databases, EPPI Centre (DoPHER, TRoPHI), ERIC, HMIC, Sociological Abstracts, SPORTDiscus, Transport Database and Web of Science (Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index). We also scanned websites of the EU Platform on Diet, Physical Activity and Health; Health-Evidence.ca; the International Union for Health Promotion and Education; the NIHR Coordinating Centre for Health Technology (NCCHTA) and NICE and SIGN guidelines. Reference lists of all relevant systematic reviews, guidelines and primary studies were followed up. We contacted experts in the field from the National Obesity Observatory Oxford, Oxford University; Queensland Health, Queensland University of Technology, the University of Central Queensland; the University of Tennessee and Washington University; and handsearched six relevant journals. The searches were last updated to the end of November 2009 and were not restricted by language or publication status.
Cluster randomised controlled trials, randomised controlled trials (RCT), quasi-experimental designs which used a control population for comparison, interrupted time-series (ITS) studies, and prospective controlled cohort studies (PCCS) were included. Only studies with a minimum six-month follow up from the start of the intervention to measurement of outcomes were included. Community wide interventions had to comprise at least two broad strategies aimed at physical activity for the whole population. Studies which randomised individuals from the same community were excluded.
At least two review authors independently extracted the data and assessed the risk of bias of each included study. Non-English language papers were reviewed with the assistance of an epidemiologist interpreter. Each study was assessed for the setting, the number of included components and their intensity. Outcome measures were grouped according to whether they were dichotomous (physically active, physically active during leisure time and sedentary or physically inactive) or continuous (leisure time physical activity, walking, energy expenditure). For dichotomous measures we calculated the unadjusted and adjusted risk difference, and the unadjusted and adjusted relative risk. For continuous measures we calculated net percentage change from baseline, unadjusted and adjusted risk difference, and the unadjusted and adjusted relative risk.
After the selection process had been completed 25 studies were included in the review. Of the included studies, 19 were set in high income countries, using the World Bank economic classification, and the remaining six were in low income countries. The interventions varied by the number of strategies included and their intensity. Almost all of the interventions included a component of building partnerships with local governments or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (22 studies). None of the studies provided results by socio-economic disadvantage or other markers of equity consideration. However of those included studies undertaken in high income countries, 11 studies were described by the authors as being provided to deprived, disadvantaged, or low socio-economic communities.Fifteen studies were identified as having a high risk of bias, 10 studies were unclear, and no studies had a low risk of bias. Selection bias was a major concern with these studies, with only one study using randomisation to allocate communities (Simon 2008). No studies were judged as being at low risk of selection bias although 16 studies were considered to have an unclear risk of bias. Eleven studies had a high risk of detection bias, 10 with an unclear risk and four with no risk. Assessment of detection bias included an assessment of the validity of the measurement tools and quality of outcome measures. The effects reported were inconsistent across the studies and the measures. Some of the better designed studies showed no improvement in measures of physical activity. Publication bias was evident.
Although numerous studies have been undertaken, there is a noticeable inconsistency of the findings of the available studies and this is confounded by serious methodological issues within the included studies. The body of evidence in this review does not support the hypothesis that multi-component community wide interventions effectively increase population levels of physical activity. There is a clear need for well-designed intervention studies and such studies should focus on the quality of the measurement of physical activity, the frequency of measurement and the allocation to intervention and control communities.
Record DC power has been demonstrated in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors fabricated using a substrate replacement process in which a thick diamond substrate is grown by chemical vapor ...deposition following removal of the original Si substrate. Crucial to the process is a ~30 nm thick SiN interlayer that has been optimized for thermal resistance. The reductions obtained in self-heating have been quantified by transient thermoreflectance imaging and interpreted using 3D numerical simulation. With a DC power dissipation level of 56 W/mm, the measured average and maximum temperatures in the gate-drain access region were 176 °C and 205 °C, respectively.
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