Equity weights in the allocation of health care: the rank-dependent QALY model

This paper introduces the rank-dependent quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) model, a new method to aggregate QALYs in economic evaluations of health care. The rank-dependent QALY model permits the formalization of influential concepts of equity in the allocation of health care, such as the fair innings approach, and it includes as special cases many of the social welfare functions that have been proposed in the literature. An important advantage of the rank-dependent QALY model is that it offers a straightforward procedure to estimate equity weights for QALYs. We characterize the rank-dependent QALY model and argue that its central condition has normative appeal. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Comparison of the R-70 self-heating rate of New Zealand and Australian coals to Suggate rank parameter

Samples from New Zealand and Australia have been tested in an adiabatic oven to assess the effect of rank on the R-70 selfheating rate of coal. A non-linear relationship can be defined for coals from both countries using the revised Suggate rank (S-r) parameter. Subbituminous coals have the highest R-70 self-heating rate values, which are 20 times that of high volatile A bituminous coals on a dry mineral matter free basis (similar to 1 cf. 20 degrees C h(-1)). However, the moderating effects of moisture and mineral matter can reduce this difference to only 2-3 times for coal in-situ. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.

Entanglement measure for rank-2 mixed states

We provide an easily computable formula for a bipartite mixed-state entanglement measure. Our formula can be applied to readily calculate the entanglement for any rank-2 mixed state of a bipartite system. We use this formula to provide a tight upper bound for the entanglement of formation for rank-2 states of a qubit and a qudit. We also outline situations where our formula could be applied to study the entanglement properties of complex quantum systems.

Rank test of location optimal for hyperbolic secant distribution

There are at least two reasons for a symmetric, unimodal, diffuse tailed hyperbolic secant distribution to be interesting in real-life applications. It displays one of the common types of non normality in natural data and is closely related to the logistic and Cauchy distributions that often arise in practice. To test the difference in location between two hyperbolic secant distributions, we develop a simple linear rank test with trigonometric scores. We investigate the small-sample and asymptotic properties of the test statistic and provide tables of the exact null distribution for small sample sizes. We compare the test to the Wilcoxon two-sample test and show that, although the asymptotic powers of the tests are comparable, the present test has certain practical advantages over the Wilcoxon test.

Hydroxyl functionalities of middle rank british coals

Most of the new processes involving the utilisation of coal are based on hydroliquefaction, and in order to assess the suitability of the various coals for this purpose and to characterise coals in general, it is desirable to have a detailed and accurate knowledge of their chemical constitution and reactivity. Also, in the consumption of coals as chemical feed stocks, as in hydroliquefaction, it is advantageous to classify the coals in terms of chemical parameters as opposed to, or in addition to, carbonisation parameters. In view of this it is important to realise the functional groups on the coal hydrocarbon skeleton. In this research it was attempted to characterise coals of various rank (and subsequently their macerals) via methods involving both microwave-driven and bench top derivatisation of the hydroxyl functionalities present in coal. These hydroxyl groups are predominantly in the form of hindered phenolic groups, with other alcoholic groupings being less important, in the coals studied here. Four different techniques were employed, three of which - stannylation, silylation and methylation - were based on in situ analysis. The fourth technique - acetylation - involved derivatisation followed by analysis of a leaving group. The four different techniques were critically compared and it is concluded that silylation is the most promising technique for the evaluation of the hydroxyl content of middle rank coals and coal macerals. Derivatisation via stannylation using TBTO was impeded due to the large steric demand of the reagent and acetylation did not successfully derivatise the more hindered phenolic groups. Three novel methylation techniques were investigated and two of these show great potential. The information obtained from the techniques was correlated together to give a comprehensive insight into the coals and coal macerals studied.

Discovering the preferences of physicians with regards to rank-ordered medical documents

The practice of evidence-based medicine involves consulting documents from repositories such as Scopus, PubMed, or the Cochrane Library. The most common approach for presenting retrieved documents is in the form of a list, with the assumption that the higher a document is on a list, the more relevant it is. Despite this list-based presentation, it is seldom studied how physicians perceive the importance of the order of documents presented in a list. This paper describes an empirical study that elicited and modeled physicians' preferences with regard to list-based results. Preferences were analyzed using a GRIP method that relies on pairwise comparisons of selected subsets of possible rank-ordered lists composed of 3 documents. The results allow us to draw conclusions regarding physicians' attitudes towards the importance of having documents ranked correctly on a result list, versus the importance of retrieving relevant but misplaced documents. Our findings should help developers of clinical information retrieval applications when deciding how retrieved documents should be presented and how performance of the application should be assessed. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

The Automorphism Group of the Free Algebra of Rank Two

The theorem of Czerniakiewicz and Makar-Limanov, that all the automorphisms of a free algebra of rank two are tame is proved here by showing that the group of these automorphisms is the free product of two groups (amalgamating their intersection), the group of all affine automorphisms and the group of all triangular automorphisms. The method consists in finding a bipolar structure. As a consequence every finite subgroup of automorphisms (in characteristic zero) is shown to be conjugate to a group of linear automorphisms.

Factorizations of some Groups of Lie Type of Lie Rank 4

Еленка Генчева, Цанко Генчев В настоящата работа се разглеждат крайни прости групи G , които могат да се представят като произведение на две свои собствени неабелеви прости подгрупи A и B. Всяко такова представяне G = AB е прието да се нарича факторизация на G, а тъй като множителите A и B са избрани да бъдат прости подгрупи на G, то разглежданите факторизации са известни още като прости факторизации на G. Тук се предполага, че G е проста група от лиев тип и лиев ранг 4 над крайно поле GF (q). Ключови думи: крайни прости групи, групи от лиев тип, факторизации на групи.

Rank and k-nullity of contact manifolds

We prove that the dimension of the 1-nullity distribution N(1) on a closed Sasakian manifold M of rankl is at least equal to 2l−1 provided that M has an isolated closed characteristic. The result is then used to provide some examples of k-contact manifolds which are not Sasakian. On a closed, 2n+1-dimensional Sasakian manifold of positive bisectional curvature, we show that either the dimension of N(1) is less than or equal to n+1 or N(1) is the entire tangent bundle TM. In the latter case, the Sasakian manifold Mis isometric to a quotient of the Euclidean sphere under a finite group of isometries. We also point out some interactions between k-nullity, Weinstein conjecture, and minimal unit vector fields.

Estudo da associação dos genes RANk, RANKL e OPG com a osteopatia diabética

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES

Análise imuno-histoquímica das proteínas RANK, RANKL e OPG em dentes de ratos reimplantados

The RANK / RANKL / OPG sy stem plays an important role in bone formation and resorption . This finding has been regarded as one of the m ost important advances in the understanding of bone biology with respect to osteoclastogenesis. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of RANKL / RANK / OPG markers in reimplanted t eeth of rats, and to observe the relationship between the expression of these markers and to oth and bone resorption. Thirty male Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus albinos) had their maxillary right incisors extrac ted , and were divided into 2 groups according to the period that the extracted teeth were kept in dry air before reimplantation : G1 (n = 15) - 5 minutes , and G2 (n = 15) - 60 minutes . After reimplantation, teeth were analyzed at intervals of 1, 3 and 7 da ys. After these experimental periods, the animals were euthanized. Longitudinal sections with 5μm thick were obtained and stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin for histological analysis , while 3μm thick sections were subjected to immunohistochemical analysis of OPG , RANK and RANKL. The results showed that the RANK / RANKL / OPG system actively participates in both the repair process, as well as tooth and bone resorption . Extr a - alveolar time of 60 minutes before replantation caused minor expressions of RANKL a nd OPG, not influencing the expression of RANK; RANKL immunostaining showed higher in both groups when compared to other biomarkers, participating in all phases of bone and tooth resorption; RANKL was associated to both osteoclastogenesis and c ell ular proliferation , and was expressed in both groups.