A comparison of methods for treatment selection in seamless phase II/III clinical trials incorporating information on short-term endpoints

In an adaptive seamless phase II/III clinical trial interim analysis, data are used for treatment selection, enabling resources to be focused on comparison of more effective treatment(s) with a control. In this paper, we compare two methods recently proposed to enable use of short-term endpoint data for decision-making at the interim analysis. The comparison focuses on the power and the probability of correctly identifying the most promising treatment. We show that the choice of method depends on how well short-term data predict the best treatment, which may be measured by the correlation between treatment effects on short- and long-term endpoints.

Describing individual incidents of sexual abuse: a review of research on the effects of multiple sources of information on children's reports

Objective: For successful prosecution of child sexual abuse, children are often required to provide reports about individual, alleged incidents. Although verbally or mentally rehearsing memory of an incident can strengthen memories, children’s report of individual incidents can also be contaminated when they experience other events related to the individual incidents (e.g., informal interviews, dreams of the incident) and/or when they have similar, repeated experiences of an incident, as in cases of multiple abuse.

Method: Research is reviewed on the positive and negative effects of these related experiences on the length, accuracy, and structure of children’s reports of a particular incident.

Results: Children’s memories of a particular incident can be strengthened when exposed to information that does not contradict what they have experienced, thus promoting accurate recall and resistance to false, suggestive influences. When the encountered information differs from children’s experiences of the target incident, however, children can become confused between their experiences—they may remember the content but not the source of their experiences.

Conclusions: We discuss the implications of this research for interviewing children in sexual abuse investigations and provide a set of research-based recommendations for investigative interviewers.

Security and privacy of users' personal Information on smartphones

 This research investigated the proliferation of malicious applications on smartphones and a framework that can efficiently detect and classify such applications based on behavioural patterns was proposed. Additionally the causes and impact of unauthorised disclosure of personal information by clean applications were examined and countermeasures to protect smartphone users’ privacy were proposed.

Conditional treatment and its effect on recidivism

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of the 1985 ”Employment Services for Ex-Offenders” (ESEO) program on recidivism. Initially, the sample has been split randomly in a control group and a treatment group. However, the actual treatment (mainly being job related counseling) only takes place conditional on finding a job, and not having been arrested, for those selected in the treatment group. We use a multiple proportional hazard model with unobserved heterogeneity for job seach and recidivism time which incorporates the conditional treatment effect. We find that the program helps to reduce criminal activity, contrary to the result of the previous analysis of this data set. This finding is important for crime prevention policy.

NEW PHYTOSEIIDAE (ACARI: MESOSTIGMATA) FROM COSTA RICA, WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION on OTHER SPECIES

This paper reports on a study of phytoseiids collected from the La Selva Biological Field Station, the ALAS (Arthropods of La Selva) Project, made available to us by the Canadian National Collection via Dr. E. E. Lindquist. This material includes two new species, Proprioseiopsis versus n. sp. and Transeius costarricensis n. sp., three new records for Central America, and additional information for nine species previously reported from La Selva.

Information on Brazilian palms for ornamental use

Fully developed specimens of Brazilian species belonging to the palm collection of the FCAV-UNESP, Jaboticabal, state of São Paulo, Brazil, were evaluated with view to their use in landscape projects. Data of interest were taken: maximum plant height, canopy diameter, leaf length, leaf type, trunk height and diameter, trunk type, time of flowering and fruiting, local adaptation, main ornamental values, and limitations to use. The evaluation lead to recommendations for the use of these species for specific situations in landscape planting.

SISTAX - An intelligent tool for recovering information on natural products chemistry

This work describes the development of a new program, named SISTAX, for the expert system SISTEMAT. This program allows anyone interested in chemotaxonomy to carry out an intelligent search for organic compounds in databases through chemical structures. When coupled with can efficient encoding system, the program recognizes skeletal types and can find any substructural constraints demanded by the user. An example of an application of the program to the diterpene class found in plants is described.

Information on Brazilian ornamental species of the genus Tillandsia L. (Bromeliaceae)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Adult mortality estimate based on information on age structure of deaths, and application to data for San Felipe around 1787

Includes bibliography