Candidate Choice Research Articles

Assessment of Aeolian Desertification Near Vedavathi River Cannel in Central Part of Andhra Pradesh: Remote Sensing Approach

Desertification is one of the foremost environmental and social-economic problems facing the world. Thus, the observation and early detection of desertification is primary objective for scientific and policy organizations, with geospatial techniques as similar as Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) being a candidate choice for the enlargement of monitoring systems. The present study purposes to assess the desertification caused by Aeolian sand deposits near Vedavathi River in a semi-arid region of Anantapur district, aided by temporal data of satellite imageries of past 28 years (1990 to 2018), were collected and processed. The extent of desertified land for the years 1990, 2000, 2010 and, 2018 is assessed, respectively about 28.22 Km2, 33.86 Km2, 46.30 Km2 and, 58.62 Km2. For the past 28 years, the Aeolian sand desertification is increased into the alarming rates with the land extent of 30.4 Km2.

Haploidentical donor is preferred over matched sibling donor for pre-transplantation MRD positive ALL: a phase 3 genetically randomized study

BackgroundPrevious reports suggest a benefit associated with haploidentical donor transplantation (HIDT) compared to matched sibling donor transplantation (MSDT) in certain contexts, and the choice of optimal candidates warrants further investigation.MethodsWe designed a prospective genetically randomized study to evaluate donor options between acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients positive for measurable residual disease (MRD) pre-transplantation who underwent HIDT (n = 169) or MSDT (n = 39).ResultsThe cumulative incidence of positive MRD post-transplantation was 26% (95% CI, 19–33%) and 44% (95% CI, 28–60%) for HIDT and MSDT, respectively (P = 0.043). Compared to the HIDT cohort, the MSDT cohort had a higher 3-year cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR; 47%, 95% CI, 31–63% vs. 23%, 95% CI, 17–29%; P = 0.006) and lower 3-year probability of leukemia-free survival (LFS; 43%, 95% CI, 27–59% vs. 65%, 95% CI, 58–72%; P = 0.023) and overall survival (OS; 46%, 95% CI, 30–62% vs. 68%, 95% CI, 61–75%; P = 0.039), without a difference in non-relapse-mortality (10%, 95% CI, 1–19% vs. 11%, 95% CI, 6–16%; P = 0.845). Multivariate analysis showed that HIDT is associated with a low CIR (HR = 0.364; 95% CI, 0.202–0.655; P = 0.001) and better LFS (HR = 0.414; 95% CI, 0.246–0.695; P = 0.001) and OS (HR = 0.380; 95% CI, 0.220–0.656; P = 0.001).ConclusionsHIDT is better than MSDT in view of favorable anti-leukemia activity for patients with pre-transplantation MRD positive ALL. The current study paves the way to determine that haploidentical donors are the preferred choice regardless of available matched sibling donors in a subgroup population.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02185261. Registered July 9, 2014. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02185261?term=NCT02185261&draw=2&rank=1.

Use of Telehealth to Expand Living Kidney Donation and Living Kidney Donor Transplantation

Living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) remains the treatment of choice for suitable candidates with advanced kidney disease. Despite excellent outcomes for living kidney donors, the rate of living kidney donation has remained relatively stable over the past decade despite the growing number of those in need of kidney transplants. Telehealth may represent an opportunity to increase access to evaluation and donation for living donor candidates and improve care and follow-up of living donors. This review discusses current and potential opportunities in the utilization of telehealth throughout the donation process. There are numerous computer-based and mobile application (app) resources for living kidney donor candidates and patients with advanced kidney disease listed for kidney transplantation which provide education on LDKT. Many of these apps allow for home education and interactions to occur without the need for travel. Donor advocacy is being seen increasingly on social media campaigns via apps. Additionally, donor candidates are often able to go online and refer themselves directly to transplant centers which can be done at any time. Finally, the use of mobile apps and telehealth videoconferencing may improve transplant center compliance with postdonation regulatory requirements for living kidney donors. Although regulatory, reimbursement, and privacy requirements will need to be addressed, telehealth appears to be an important opportunity to engage living kidney donor candidates and donors. By increasing living donor recruitment and LDKT, the widening chasm of organ supply and demand may narrow.

Political activism and polarization

AbstractI develop a model of activism and polarization in the context of electoral competition. Two candidates simultaneously announce policy platforms and seek the support of ideologically inclined activists. Activists compete to influence electoral outcomes by expending costly support for their respective candidates. The presence of activists always moderates the platform choice of candidates, compared to the case of no activism. The central finding of the paper is that the relationship between partisanship of activists and polarization is ambiguous. As activists become increasingly partisan, polarization of candidate platforms reduces or widens depending on the costs of activism. I present normative conditions under which the presence of activism and increased partisanship among activists are both welfare‐improving for voters. Finally, introducing a public funding option for candidates increases polarization in the political process.

Media Bias and Elections — An Experimental Study

We construct an election game to study the electoral impacts of biased candidate endorsements. We derive a set of testable predictions. We test these in a laboratory experiment and find that observed election outcomes and vote shares are well predicted. We find no support, however, for our prediction that the relationship between election outcome and the endorser’s bias is nonmonotonic; i.e., ex ante, a candidate’s winning probability will first increase and then decrease as the endorser becomes more biased towards her. Voter turnout is much less responsive to the bias than predicted. We argue that observed voting behavior can be explained, to a substantial extent, by three behavioral mechanisms: (a) distinct levels of rationality for candidate choice and turnout decisions, (b) conservative belief updating, and (c) ’partial competition neglect’, where voters underestimate the correlation between the information released by an endorsement and the closeness of elections.

A Theoretical Study on Laser Cooling Feasibility of Group IVA Hydrides XH (X = Si, Ge, Sn, and Pb): The Role of Electronic State Crossing.

The feasibility of direct laser cooling of SiH, GeH, SnH, and PbH is investigated and assessed based upon first principles. The internally contracted multi-reference configuration interaction method with the Davidson correction is applied. Very good agreement is obtained between our computed spectroscopic constants and the available experimental data. We find that the locations of crossing point between the B2Σ− and A2Δ states have the tendency of moving downwards from CH to SnH relative to the bottom of the corresponding A2Δ potential, which precludes the laser cooling of GeH, SnH, and PbH. By including the spin-orbit coupling effects and on the basis of the transition, we propose a feasible laser cooling scheme for SiH using three lasers with wavelengths varying from 400 to 500 nm, which features a very large vibrational branching ratio (0.9954) and a very short radiative lifetime (575 ns). Moreover, similar studies are extended to carbon monosulfide (CS) with a feasible laser cooling scheme proposed. The importance of electronic state crossing in molecular laser cooling is underscored, and our work suggests useful caveats to the choice of promising candidates for producing ultracold molecules.

A human mission to Mars: Predicting the bone mineral density loss of astronauts.

A round-trip human mission to Mars is anticipated to last roughly three years. Spaceflight conditions are known to cause loss of bone mineral density (BMD) in astronauts, increasing bone fracture risk. There is an urgent need to understand BMD progression as a function of spaceflight time to minimize associated health implications and ensure mission success. Here we introduce a nonlinear mathematical model of BMD loss for candidate human missions to Mars: (i) Opposition class trajectory (400–600 days), and (ii) Conjunction class trajectory (1000–1200 days). Using femoral neck BMD data (N = 69) from astronauts after 132-day and 228-day spaceflight and the World Health Organization’s fracture risk recommendation, we predicted post-mission risk and associated osteopathology. Our model predicts 62% opposition class astronauts and 100% conjunction class astronauts will develop osteopenia, with 33% being at risk for osteoporosis. This model can help in implementing countermeasure strategies and inform space agencies’ choice of crew candidates.

Direct combustion of waste oil in domestic stove by an internal heat re-circulation atomization technology: Emission and performance analysis

Direct use of waste oil as fuel to meet the residential energy demands, is very attractive due to its potentials to decrease fossil fuel consumption, reduce pollution and increase sustainability. This paper uses a domestic stove with an internal heat re-circulation and self-atomization technology to burn yellow waste cooking oil (WCO-1), brown waste cooking oil (WCO-2) and waste lubricant oil (WLO). Emission factors (EFs), energy efficiency and modified combustion efficiency (MCE) of this combined fuel/stove system were determined under space-heating and cooking modes. The results showed that EFs of CO, PM2.5, total 16 PAHs and corresponding toxic equivalent quantity (TEQ) values ranged from 2.18 × 103 to 4.90 × 103 mg/MJnet, 16.36–69.40 mg/MJnet, 2.39–12.93 μg/MJnet and 0.16–0.92 μg of TEQ/MJnet. WCO-1 was verified to be the cleanest fuel with the highest energy efficiency (85.3 ± 3.3% and 90.4 ± 2.2%) and lowest emission levels, such as NO (53.75 ± 2.62 and 37.09 ± 5.41 mg/MJnet), NO2 (82.40 ± 3.96 and 56.87 ± 8.29 mg/MJnet) and PM2.5 (20.94 ± 6.55 and 16.35 ± 5.06 mg/MJnet) compared to WCO-2 and WLO. The estimated total cost of using waste oil for each household in winter was much cheaper than some current available clean energy means, including only USD$ 400 of stove price and USD$ 250/ton of fuel per year. It is a promising candidate choice for replacing low-quality solid fuels in rural China and 2.62 million rural households would achieve environmental and economic benefits if promoting direct combustion of waste oil for daily heating and cooking.

Disentangling the Effects of Ad Tone on Voter Turnout and Candidate Choice in Presidential Elections

We study the effects of positive and negative advertising in presidential elections. We develop a model to disentangle these effects on voter turnout and candidate choice. The central empirical challenges are highly correlated and endogenous advertising quantities that are measured with error. To address these challenges, we construct a large set of potential instruments, including interactions with incumbency that we demonstrate provide the critical identifying variation, and apply machine learning causal inference methods. Using data from the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections, we find that positive and negative ads play fundamentally different roles. Negative ads are more effective at driving relative candidate shares, whereas positive ads stimulate turnout. These results indicate that a candidate geographically targeting tone trades off local relative share gains and local increases in turnout for localities with a strong base. Counterfactual simulations indicate that ad tone alone can impact the outcome of close elections. Our analysis also provides potential explanations as to why past studies have produced mixed findings on both ad tone and turnout effects.

As Eleições legislativas de 1925 no Alentejo

This study focuses on the 1925 legislative elections that took place in the six electoral district of the Alentejo (Portugal). It addresses topics related to political contextualization, the choice of candidates for deputies, the electoral campaign, clientelism, electoral fraud and agreements. It also presents a review of the electoral results of the Alentejo, moving away from the numbers followed by Portuguese historiography.

Exploring alternative assessments for signing deaf candidates

AbstractAttitudes to sign languages or language policies are often not overtly discussed or recorded but they influence deaf young people's educational opportunities and outcomes. Two qualitative studies from Scotland investigate the provision of British Sign Language as accommodation in public examinations. The first explores the views of deaf pupils and staff about the official system for face‐to‐face interpretation of exam papers. The second investigates a centrally translated digital paper with embedded video questions. Discussion focuses on contrasts between the USA and UK approaches to accommodations, raising issues of standardized technical terms in signed languages, the right to respond in sign, and candidate choice.

SISTEM PENUNJANG KEPUTUSAN PEMILIHAN PENGURUS INTI DAN ANGGOTA BARU MENGGUNAKAN METODE SIMPLE ADDITIVE WEIGHTING (SAW) BERBASIS WEBSITE (STUDI KASUS: HIMPUNAN MAHASISWA TEKNIK INFORMATIKA UNIVERSITAS PALANGKA RAYA)

Informatics Engineering of Palangka Raya University have an organization that called Himpunan Mahasiswa Teknik Informatika (HMTI). Problems that are often encountered in a set one of them is in taking the best choice for candidates for core management and membership in each new management period. Another obstacle faced is in making decisions not using methods that can handle these problems with many criteria. The number of considerations certainly has the hope of obtaining good human resources for the set, it's just that sometimes it becomes a difficulty for the old management to take the best choice for the right successor candidate and in accordance with the position and division in the set so that a container is needed to bridge these activities so that they can run well and effectively. 
 The methodology used in the development is by simple additive weighting method and Waterfall According to Sommerville. simple additive weighting method has 4 steps that is determine the criteria, determine the suitability assessment, make a decision matrix based on criteria (Ci) then normalize the matrix, then summarize the multiplication of the R atomized matrix with the increase vector, get the large value chosen as the best (Ai) as a solution.From the test results it can be concluded that the decision support system website for the selection of core managers and new members using the simple additive weighting method at the Collection Informatics Engineering Students of Palangka Raya University is going well

A Cancer Spheroid Array Chip for Selecting Effective Drug.

A cancer spheroid array chip was developed by modifying a micropillar and microwell structure to improve the evaluation of drugs targeting specific mutations such as phosphor-epidermal growth factor receptor (p-EGFR). The chip encapsulated cells in alginate and allowed cancer cells to grow for over seven days to form cancer spheroids. However, reagents or media used to screen drugs in a high-density spheroid array had to be replaced very carefully, and this was a tedious task. Particularly, the immunostaining of cancer spheroids required numerous steps to replace many of the reagents used for drug evaluation. To solve this problem, we adapted a micropillar and microwell structure to a spheroid array. Thus, culturing cancer spheroids in alginate spots attached to the micropillar allowed us to replace the reagents in the microwell chip with a single fill of fresh medium, without damaging the cancer spheroids. In this study, a cancer spheroid array was made from a p-EGFR-overexpressing cell line (A549 lung cancer cell line). In a 12 by 36 column array chip (25 mm by 75 mm), the spheroid over 100 µm in diameter started to form at day seven and p-EGFR was also considerably overexpressed. The array was used for p-EGFR inhibition and cell viability measurement against seventy drugs, including ten EGFR-targeting drugs. By comparing drug response in the spheroid array (spheroid model) with that in the single-cell model, we demonstrated that the two models showed different responses and that the spheroid model might be more resistant to some drugs, thus narrowing the choice of drug candidates.

5164New risk prediction score for life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias in laminopathies

Abstract Background An accurate estimation of the risk of life-threatening (LT) ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VTA) in patients with LMNA mutations is crucial to select candidates for implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) implantation. Methods We included 839 adult patients with LMNA mutations, including 660 from a French nationwide registry in the development sample, and 179 from other countries, referred to 5 tertiary centers for cardiomyopathies, in the validation sample. LTVTA was defined as a) sudden cardiac death or b) ICD-treated or hemodynamically unstable VTA. The prognostic model was derived using Fine-Gray's regression model. The net reclassification was compared with current clinical practice guidelines. The results are presented as means (standard deviation) or medians [interquartile range]. Results We included 444 patients 40.6 (14.1) years of age in the derivation sample and 145 patients 38.2 (15.0) years in the validation sample, of whom 86 (19.3%) and 34 (23.4%) suffered LTVTA over 3.6 [1.0–7.2] and 5.1 [2.0–9.3] years of follow-up, respectively. Predictors of LTVTA in the derivation sample were: male sex, non-missense LMNA mutation, 1st degree and higher atrioventricular block, non-sustained ventricular tachycardia, and left ventricular ejection fraction. In the derivation sample, C-index (95% CI) of the model was 0.776 (0.711–0.842). In the external validation sample, the C-index was 0.800 (0.642–0.959) and calibration slope 1.082 (95% CI, 0.643–1.522). A 5-year estimated risk threshold ≥7% predicted 96.2% of LTVTA and net reclassified 28.8% of patients with LTVTA compared with the guidelines-based approach. Conclusions Compared to the current standard of care, this risk prediction model for LTVTA in laminopathies facilitated significantly the choice of ICD candidates. Acknowledgement/Funding AFM Téléthon

Attention distribution as a measure of issue salience

In spatial theory a central concept is salience, or the relative importance of issues in a voter’s mind in evaluating candidates’ platforms. Traditional, self-reported measures of salience have either been national in breadth (“which issues are most important to the nation as a whole?”) or personal (“which issues do you care most about personally?”). In the former case, the subjects are being asked to guess what issues other voters think are important; in the latter case, subjects are likely to report issues that are “socially” important to avoid seeming selfish or superficial. Unsurprisingly, such self-reported measures have not been found to explain actual candidate choices by individual voters very well. We introduce a simple process-tracing measure of salience, using mouse-tracking. Experimental participants were asked to rate three hypothetical candidates, using information accessed in a setting where the distribution of attention represents salience in the decision process. Four models were tested: standard city block distance and then the addition of each of the two measures of traditional salience—national and personal—and, finally, the attention distribution measure. Attention distribution improves model fit over the standard distance model and improves classification compared to the traditional salience measures.

Is Adjuvant Chemotherapy Worthwhile After Radical Resection for Single Lung Metastasis From Colorectal Cancer? A Multicentric Analysis Evaluating the Risk of Recurrence.

Background: Adjuvant chemotherapy after resection of colorectal cancer (CRC) lung metastases may reduce recurrences and improve survival. The choice of best candidates for adjuvant chemotherapy in this setting is controversial, especially when a single lung metastases (SLM) is resected. The aim of this study is to evaluate the risk of recurrence after radical resection for single lung metastasis from CRC.Patients and methods: Demographic, clinical, and pathological data were retrospectively collected for patients radically operated on for single pulmonary metastasis from CRC in 4 centers. Survival was computed by Kaplan-Meyer methods. Chi-square, log-rank test, and for multivariate analysis, Cox-regression and binary logistic regression were used when indicated.Results: The sample consisted of 344 patients, mean age 65 yrs. Overall 5 yrs survival was 61.9%. Recurrence occurred in 113 pts (32.8%). At univariate analysis, age > 70 (p = 0.046) and tumor size > 2 cm (p = 0.038) were predictive of the worst survival chance, while synchronous lung metastasis (p = 0.039), previous resection of extrathoracic metastasis (p = 0.017), uptake at FDG-PET scan (p = 0.006) and short (<12 months) disease-free interval (DFI) prior to lung metastasectomy (p = 0.048) were risk factors for recurrence. At multivariate analysis, only high CEA (>4 ng/mL) was associated with worst survival (HR: 4.3, p = 0.014), while prior abdominal surgery (HR: 3, p = 0.033), PET positivity (HR: 2.7, p = 0.041), and DFI > 12 months (HR: 0.14, p < 0.001) confirmed to predict recurrence of disease.Conclusions: Surgical resection of solitary lung metastases from CRC is associated with prolonged survival. High value of CEA, PET positivity, previous extrathoracic resected metastasis, and short (<12 months) DFI were found to be predictive of death or disease recurrence and might identify in this scenario patients at higher risk which could potential benefit of chemotherapy.

Exploiting Sentence Embedding for Medical Question Answering

Despite the great success of word embedding, sentence embedding remains a not-well-solved problem. In this paper, we present a supervised learning framework to exploit sentence embedding for the medical question answering task. The learning framework consists of two main parts: 1) a sentence embedding producing module, and 2) a scoring module. The former is developed with contextual self-attention and multi-scale techniques to encode a sentence into an embedding tensor. This module is shortly called Contextual self-Attention Multi-scale Sentence Embedding (CAMSE). The latter employs two scoring strategies: Semantic Matching Scoring (SMS) and Semantic Association Scoring (SAS). SMS measures similarity while SAS captures association between sentence pairs: a medical question concatenated with a candidate choice, and a piece of corresponding supportive evidence. The proposed framework is examined by two Medical Question Answering(MedicalQA) datasets which are collected from real-world applications: medical exam and clinical diagnosis based on electronic medical records (EMR). The comparison results show that our proposed framework achieved significant improvements compared to competitive baseline approaches. Additionally, a series of controlled experiments are also conducted to illustrate that the multi-scale strategy and the contextual self-attention layer play important roles for producing effective sentence embedding, and the two kinds of scoring strategies are highly complementary to each other for question answering problems.

Voting for the lesser evil: evidence from a conjoint experiment in Romania

AbstractIn many elections around the world, voters choose between politicians who differ not only in personal background and policy promises, but also in their history of dishonest electoral conduct. While recent literature has begun to investigate the conditions under which voters punish electoral malfeasance, we know relatively little about whether they penalize different forms of illicit activities carried out by politicians differently. In this paper, we present the results of a candidate choice experiment embedded in a survey fielded prior to the 2016 Romanian local election. We asked voters to choose between two hypothetical candidates, randomly varying several attributes, including different illicit electoral activities. We find that citizens tolerate some forms of political malfeasance less than others depending on how much that malfeasance infringes on voters' autonomy. Informational campaigns carried out by prosecutorial agencies also affect how much voters punish different illicit exchanges.

Development and Validation of a New Risk Prediction Score for Life-Threatening Ventricular Tachyarrhythmias in Laminopathies.

An accurate estimation of the risk of life-threatening (LT) ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VTA) in patients with LMNA mutations is crucial to select candidates for implantable cardioverter-defibrillator implantation. We included 839 adult patients with LMNA mutations, including 660 from a French nationwide registry in the development sample, and 179 from other countries, referred to 5 tertiary centers for cardiomyopathies, in the validation sample. LTVTA was defined as (1) sudden cardiac death or (2) implantable cardioverter defibrillator-treated or hemodynamically unstable VTA. The prognostic model was derived using the Fine-Gray regression model. The net reclassification was compared with current clinical practice guidelines. The results are presented as means (SD) or medians [interquartile range]. We included 444 patients, 40.6 (14.1) years of age, in the derivation sample and 145 patients, 38.2 (15.0) years, in the validation sample, of whom 86 (19.3%) and 34 (23.4%) experienced LTVTA over 3.6 [1.0-7.2] and 5.1 [2.0-9.3] years of follow-up, respectively. Predictors of LTVTA in the derivation sample were: male sex, nonmissense LMNA mutation, first degree and higher atrioventricular block, nonsustained ventricular tachycardia, and left ventricular ejection fraction (https://lmna-risk-vta.fr). In the derivation sample, C-index (95% CI) of the model was 0.776 (0.711-0.842), and the calibration slope 0.827. In the external validation sample, the C-index was 0.800 (0.642-0.959), and the calibration slope was 1.082 (95% CI, 0.643-1.522). A 5-year estimated risk threshold ≥7% predicted 96.2% of LTVTA and net reclassified 28.8% of patients with LTVTA in comparison with the guidelines-based approach. In comparison with the current standard of care, this risk prediction model for LTVTA in laminopathies significantly facilitated the choice of candidates for implantable cardioverter defibrillators. URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT03058185.

Screening of enhanced oil recovery techniques for Iranian oil reservoirs using TOPSIS algorithm

In recent decades, parallel to amazing advances in the development of data mining methods, screening, as the first step of any enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project, has become an interesting subject of data mining methods. Screening of EOR methods is a multi-criteria decision making process, and the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method as a systematic statistical method, can be applied in this regard. In this paper, the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) as one of the methods under the MCDM category was used to screen 65 Iranian oil reservoirs. The screening method was employed for 10 different EOR techniques using a wide range of properties and conditions. The analysis used a database including more than 800 successful EOR projects across the world and for 9 ideal reservoir parameter values. The relative importance of the reservoir parameters was determined based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) at nine importance levels. The findings showed that among the considered screening parameters, to determine the best EOR technique, lithology of the reservoir is the most influencing parameter. Additionally, almost 74% of the oil reservoirs under study, as a first priority, were eligible for CO2 injection, either miscible or immiscible. Thermal methods were in the second stage of ranking. The first and second candidate choice for onshore oil reservoirs was immiscible CO2 and hydrocarbon gas injection, respectively. For offshore reservoirs, CO2 injection and steam flooding were the best choices. Also, miscible N2 injection was the least important technique, due to the huge difference of considered reservoir pressure with minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) of N2 injection. The proposed technique is computationally fast and less expensive than field simulation studies for ranking EOR projects for any oil reservoir in the world.