Common Basket Research Articles

“Baskets” of Concomitant Adverse Events Post LVAD Implantation

<h3>Purpose</h3> Post-LVAD Adverse Events (AEs) do not always occur in isolation, but concomitant with other AEs. This study employed a pattern mining technique known as <i>Market Basket Analysis</i> to discover <b>(1)</b> what types of AE frequently occurred together following LVAD and <b>(2)</b> specifically AEs coupled with final outcomes such as death and explant. <h3>Methods</h3> Data records of 15,819 patients in INTERMACS who received a continuous-flow LVAD between 2006 and 2016 were mined to identify 8,603 episodes of concomitant events, including 18,883 events corresponding to 5,757 (36%) patients (mean age of 57.9; 23% female and 77% male). This analysis encompassed 15 types of AEs and 5 final outcomes. Collections of concomitant events per episode were assigned to <b>Baskets</b>. (See Fig.1). Then, an <i>apriori</i> algorithm was applied to extract the most frequent baskets of events by computing the fraction of total episodes. <h3>Results</h3> Most baskets of events (85%) included only two concomitant events. The maximum number of concomitant events for one episode was nine. The most frequent types of AEs that were found in baskets of concomitant events were<b>:</b> <i>Other SAE (Serious AE), Infection</i>, and <i>Bleeding</i>. Thus, the most common combinations of these AEs are shown in Fig 2, including: {Bleeding, Other SAE}, {Infection, Other SAE}, and {Bleeding, Infection} with support values of 10%, 9%, and 5%, respectively. The most common types of AEs concomitant with a final outcome were {Death, Other SAE}, {Device Malfunction and/or Pump Thrombosis, Explant: Exchange}, and {Death, Neurological Dysfunction} with support values of 3.6%, 2.9%, and 2.6%, respectively. (See stars in Fig.2). <h3>Conclusion</h3> This analysis revealed a great diversity of combinations of post-LVAD AEs. The most common basket of concomitant events {Bleeding, Other SAE} was only 10% of the 8,603 total baskets (855 count). Unfortunately, <i>Other SAE</i> is very common in the INTERMACS database and not very informative to clinicians. The most common basket that did <i>not</i> include Other SAE, was {Bleeding, Infection} which comprised 5% of the total baskets.

Morphogenesis and histogenesis during the arm regeneration in a basket star Astrocladus dofleini (Euryalida, Ophiuroidea, Echinodermata).

Basket stars, that is, Ophiuroidea in Echinodermata, exhibit distinctive morphological characteristics with their complicatedly branched arms that can regenerate immediately after mutilation. Although, in brittle stars, that is, ophiuroids with nonbranched arms, the arm regeneration process following accidental trauma or autotomy have been morphologically and histologically observed in several species, few studies have so far been carried out on the regeneration of branched arms in basket stars. In this study, the developmental and morphological features of arm regeneration in Astrocladus dofleini (Gorgonocephalidae, Euryalida, Euryophiurida), one of the most common basket star species in Japanese waters, was anatomically and histologically investigated. Results clearly showed the following phases during the arm regeneration: (a) repair phase, (b) early regenerative phase, (c) intermediate regenerative phase, (d) advanced regenerative Phase I, and (e) advanced regenerative Phase II. The morphogenetic process during the arm regeneration in the basket star showed similar patterns to those of nonbranched arms observed in other ophiuroids. However, differences were also seen between the two ophiuroid types, that is, there were some developmental features specific to the basket star. In the early regenerative phase, branching of coelomic cavities was observed prior to the formation of other tissues, probably inducing the later morphogenesis of branched arms. In addition, hard skeletal ossicles form rapidly at the advanced regenerative Phase II. These developmental features may have led the evolution of bizarre morphologies seen in basket stars, probably contributing to the adaptation to shallow waters from deep-sea habitats.

Alcohol expenditure in grocery stores and their associations with tobacco and food expenditures

BackgroundAlcohol consumption is a significant cause of disease, death and social harm, and it clusters with smoking tobacco and an unhealthy diet. Using automatically registered retail data for research purposes is a novel approach, which is not subject to underreporting bias. Based on loyalty card data (LoCard) obtained by a major Finnish retailer holding a market share of 47%, we examined alcohol expenditure and their associations with food and tobacco expenditures.MethodsThe data consisted of 1,527,217 shopping events in 2016 among 13,274 loyalty card holders from southern Finland. A K-means cluster analysis was applied to group the shopping baskets according to their content of alcoholic beverages. The differences in the absolute and relative means of food and tobacco between the clusters were tested by linear mixed models with the loyalty card holder as the random factor.ResultsBy far, the most common basket type contained no alcoholic beverages, followed by baskets containing a small number of beers or ciders. The expenditure on food increased along with the expenditure on alcoholic beverages. The foods most consistently associated with alcohol purchases were sausages, soft drinks and snacks. The expenditure on cigarettes relative to total basket price peaked in the mid-price alcohol baskets.ConclusionClustering of unhealthy choices occurred on the level of individual shopping events. People who bought many alcoholic beverages did not trim their food budget. Automatically registered purchase data provide valuable insight into the health behaviours of individuals and the population.

What Really Is “Harávola”—Solving the Mystery of the Most Common Basket Material in Madagascar

What Really Is “Harávola”—Solving the Mystery of the Most Common Basket Material in Madagascar

Austerity and the “sector-wide approach” to health: The Mozambique experience

Fiscal austerity policies imposed by the IMF have reduced investments in social services, leaving post-independence nations like Mozambique struggling to recover from civil war and high disease burden. By 2000, a sector-wide approach (SWAp) was promoted to maximize aid effectiveness. ‘Like-minded’ bilateral donors, from Europe and Canada, promoted a unified approach to health sector support focusing on joint planning, common basket funding, and streamlined monitoring and evaluation to improve sector coordination, amplify country ownership, and build sustainable health systems. Notable donors – including US government and the Global Fund – did not participate in the SWAp, and increased vertical funding weakened the SWAp in favor of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In spite of some success in harmonizing aid to the health sector, the SWAp experience in Mozambique demonstrates how continued austerity regimes that severely constrain public spending will continue to undermine health system strengthening in Africa, even in the midst of high levels of foreign aid with the ostensible purpose of strengthening those systems. The SWAp story provides a poignant illustration of how continued austerity will impede progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3); “Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all”. However, the SWAp continues to offer an alternative model to health system support that can provide a foundation for resistance to renewed austerity measures.

Classifying GABAergic interneurons with semi-supervised projected model-based clustering

A recently introduced pragmatic scheme promises to be a useful catalog of interneuron names. We sought to automatically classify digitally reconstructed interneuronal morphologies according to this scheme. Simultaneously, we sought to discover possible subtypes of these types that might emerge during automatic classification (clustering). We also investigated which morphometric properties were most relevant for this classification. A set of 118 digitally reconstructed interneuronal morphologies classified into the common basket (CB), horse-tail (HT), large basket (LB), and Martinotti (MA) interneuron types by 42 of the world's leading neuroscientists, quantified by five simple morphometric properties of the axon and four of the dendrites. We labeled each neuron with the type most commonly assigned to it by the experts. We then removed this class information for each type separately, and applied semi-supervised clustering to those cells (keeping the others' cluster membership fixed), to assess separation from other types and look for the formation of new groups (subtypes). We performed this same experiment unlabeling the cells of two types at a time, and of half the cells of a single type at a time. The clustering model is a finite mixture of Gaussians which we adapted for the estimation of local (per-cluster) feature relevance. We performed the described experiments on three different subsets of the data, formed according to how many experts agreed on type membership: at least 18 experts (the full data set), at least 21 (73 neurons), and at least 26 (47 neurons). Interneurons with more reliable type labels were classified more accurately. We classified HT cells with 100% accuracy, MA cells with 73% accuracy, and CB and LB cells with 56% and 58% accuracy, respectively. We identified three subtypes of the MA type, one subtype of CB and LB types each, and no subtypes of HT (it was a single, homogeneous type). We got maximum (adapted) Silhouette width and ARI values of 1, 0.83, 0.79, and 0.42, when unlabeling the HT, CB, LB, and MA types, respectively, confirming the quality of the formed cluster solutions. The subtypes identified when unlabeling a single type also emerged when unlabeling two types at a time, confirming their validity. Axonal morphometric properties were more relevant that dendritic ones, with the axonal polar histogram length in the [π, 2π) angle interval being particularly useful. The applied semi-supervised clustering method can accurately discriminate among CB, HT, LB, and MA interneuron types while discovering potential subtypes, and is therefore useful for neuronal classification. The discovery of potential subtypes suggests that some of these types are more heterogeneous that previously thought. Finally, axonal variables seem to be more relevant than dendritic ones for distinguishing among the CB, HT, LB, and MA interneuron types.

Bayesian network classifiers for categorizing cortical GABAergic interneurons.

An accepted classification of GABAergic interneurons of the cerebral cortex is a major goal in neuroscience. A recently proposed taxonomy based on patterns of axonal arborization promises to be a pragmatic method for achieving this goal. It involves characterizing interneurons according to five axonal arborization features, called F1-F5, and classifying them into a set of predefined types, most of which are established in the literature. Unfortunately, there is little consensus among expert neuroscientists regarding the morphological definitions of some of the proposed types. While supervised classifiers were able to categorize the interneurons in accordance with experts' assignments, their accuracy was limited because they were trained with disputed labels. Thus, here we automatically classify interneuron subsets with different label reliability thresholds (i.e., such that every cell's label is backed by at least a certain (threshold) number of experts). We quantify the cells with parameters of axonal and dendritic morphologies and, in order to predict the type, also with axonal features F1-F4 provided by the experts. Using Bayesian network classifiers, we accurately characterize and classify the interneurons and identify useful predictor variables. In particular, we discriminate among reliable examples of common basket, horse-tail, large basket, and Martinotti cells with up to 89.52% accuracy, and single out the number of branches at 180 μm from the soma, the convex hull 2D area, and the axonal features F1-F4 as especially useful predictors for distinguishing among these types. These results open up new possibilities for an objective and pragmatic classification of interneurons.

Recovering Comparable Poverty Estimates in Côte d'Ivoire

Recent studies on Côte d'Ivoire show a four-fold increase in poverty rates between 1985 and 2008. However, multiple revisions in the survey design questions the validity of the Ivorian poverty trend. In this paper, we follow two simple steps to recover the comparable poverty trend. First, we construct a common consumption basket over time. Second, we follow a two-stage method of moments framework (Tarozzi, 2007) to re-estimate poverty headcounts. On average, the adjusted trend shows a two percentage point difference in poverty rates from 1985 to 2008. A number of robustness checks provide robust support to this revised poverty trend.

English

&nbsp; This paper assesses plans of the East African Community (EAC) to create a single currency for the five countries making up the region, and considers how best to achieve it. While the benefits of lower transactions costs from a common currency may be significant, countries will also lose the ability to use monetary policy to respond to different shocks. Evidence presented shows that the countries differ in a number of respects, facing asymmetric shocks and different production structures. Countries have had difficulty meeting convergence criteria, most seriously as concerns fiscal deficits. Preparation for monetary union will require effective institutions for macroeconomic surveillance and enforcing fiscal discipline, and euro zone experience indicates that these institutions will be difficult to design and take a considerable time to become effective. This suggests that a timetable for monetary union in the EAC should allow for a substantial initial period of institution building. In order to have some visible evidence of the commitment to monetary union, in the meantime the EAC may want to consider introducing a common basket currency in the form of notes and coin, to circulate in parallel with national currencies. &nbsp; Key words:&nbsp;EAC monetary union, fiscal surveillance, optimum currency areas, parallel currencies, regional integration.

Rhythm and meaning: "Rhythmical deviations" as italics

English iambic pentameter allows rhythmical deviations that occupy three (seldom four, more often two) adjacent metrical positions. These deviations, though metrical, are noticed by the listener or reader. Starting from the first quarter of the 16th century, poets (Surrey) have used rhythmical deviations to emphasize ("italicize") semantically important segments in the line. Such rhythmical deviations have become part of the English poetic traditions. It has turned out that rhythmical deviations used to italicize meaning are filled with recurring rhythmical and grammatical structures and repeated lexicon. M. L. Gasparov used a special term to denote the recurring rhythmicalgrammatical structures: "clichés"; while calling clichés incorporating recurrent lexicon "formulas". I have discovered that formulas are part of the English poetic tradition: the same formulas recur in poetic texts of the 16th–20th cc. They are not plagiarisms, allusions or reminiscences; they are a common basket of goods that belong to all English poets, used by all and owned by none. The recurrent deviations usually occur on metrical positions "weak-strong-weak-strong" and as a rule contain a monosyllabic (rarely – disyllabic) verbpredicate followed by a monosyllabic grammatical word (e.g. an article), an adjectiveattribute and a noun – a direct object to the verb. The recurring lexicon includes verbs of motion, particularly verbs of fast, aggressive motion, an action directed downwards or causing an injury or death, and recurring nouns referring to moving objects or agents (hands, arms, wings; spear, sword). I term such recurring formulas "rhythmical italics".

SYNCHRONIZATION OF ECONOMIC SHOCKS BETWEEN GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL AND UNITED STATES, EUROPE, JAPAN, AND OIL MARKET: CHOICE OF EXCHANGE RATE REGIME†

Using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) with block exogeneity, this study examines the impacts of external shocks originating from the United States, the European Union, Japan, and the oil market as well as those of the regional shocks, on the oil‐rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), viewed as a prospective monetary union. It takes into account the implications of the shock impacts for selecting an appropriate common exchange rate arrangement. The SVAR variance decomposition and impulse response analyses strongly underscore the relative impacts of the global shocks over the regional ones. The findings imply that the world's two major currencies, the U.S. dollar and the euro, should figure highly in a GCC's common basket of currencies. Accordingly, a transitional movement to a more flexible exchange rate arrangement such as a basket peg may be desirable for these trade‐dependent economies in the long run, as is argued in the optimal currency literature for developing countries. (JEL E52, O52, C22)

ASIAN MONETARY UNIT (AMU) AS A SURVEILLANCE INDICATORS FOR REGIONAL MONETARY COOPERATION

Ogawa and Shimizu (2005) proposed an Asian Monetary Unit (AMU), which is a common currency basket composed of ASEAN plus three Asian currencies, and AMU Deviation Indicators (AMU DIs), which indicates deviations of each Asian currency in terms of the AMU compared to the benchmark rate. In this paper, we use daily and monthly data of AMU and AMU DIs to examine their usefulness as a surveillance indicator for monetary cooperation in Asia. We find that an AMU peg system stabilizes the trade-weighted exchange rates within Asia and that AMU DIs warn of misalignments of and between Asia currencies.

Comment on “International and Regional Cooperation: Asia's Role and Responsibilities”

Comment on “International and Regional Cooperation: Asia's Role and Responsibilities”

Purchasing power parity puzzle: evidence from Ghana

This paper tests the validity of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) doctrine for Ghana using the conventional relative PPP equation. We conducted a univariate Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test on the model variables. Exchange rate and CPI data for Ghana and the USA were collected on annual basis for the period between 1970 and 2005 inclusive. The result of the PPP test shows non-rejection of the null hypothesis of the failure of PPP. The result of the unit root test suggests that Ghana's exchange rates are mean reverting. Exchange rates and inflation differentials were found to be stationary at the same order of integration. Consequently, cointegration is suspected between GHANEX and GHANINF, though this paper did not investigate the presence of cointegration because even if it exists, we conclude that there is a long-run relationship between the two variables. Based on the result, it is concluded that a common basket of goods, when quoted in either cedi or dollar is not expected to cost the same in both countries. From the policy point of view, we established that PPP can be used to assess the level of exchange rates.

MANAGING EXCHANGE RATE VOLATILITY: A COMPARATIVE COUNTERFACTUAL ANALYSIS OF SINGAPORE, 1994–2003

This paper looks at how Singapore's exchange rate regime has coped with exchange rate volatility, by comparing the performance of Singapore's actual regime in minimizing the volatility of the nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) and the bilateral rate against the US dollar with some counterfactual regimes and the corresponding performance of eight other East Asian countries. In contrast to previous counterfactual exercises, we apply a more disaggregated methodology for the trade weights, a larger number of trade partners and ARCH/GARCH techniques to capture the time-varying characteristics of volatility. Our findings confirm that Singapore's managed floating exchange rate system has delivered relatively low currency volatility. Although there are gains in volatility reduction for all countries in the sample from the adoption of either a unilateral or a common basket peg, particularly post-Asian crisis, these gains are relatively low for Singapore, largely because of low actual volatility. There are additional gains for non-dollar peggers from stabilizing intra-east Asian exchange rates against the dollar if they were to adopt a basket peg, especially post-crisis, but the gains for Singapore are again relatively modest. Finally, the conclusion from previous counterfactual studies that there is little difference between a unilateral basket peg and a common basket peg in terms of stability reduction is confirmed.

Biliary and pancreatic stone extraction devices

Biliary and pancreatic stone extraction devices

Optimal common currency basket in East Asia

This article employs the currency invariant index due to Hovanov et al. (2004) to construct an optimal or stable common G-3 currency basket across different groups of countries in East Asia. Calculated optimal weights show a larger weight for the US dollar but a nonnegligible role for the Japanese yen. The volatility of the optimal common G-3 currency basket is several times smaller than that of a similarly proposed common G-3 currency basket in East Asia.

China and Monetary Integration in East Asia

The Asian currency crisis of 1997 eroded the credibility of unilateral fixed exchange rates and renewed calls for greater monetary integration and regional exchange rate stability. China is dominating the regional economy. Creation of a single Asian currency will take time. The first step should be expansion of the Chiang Mai Swap Agreement to deal with emergency situations. The next steps might be a common basket peg followed by establishment of an Asian monetary unit currency basket.

The Norway-Tanzania partnership initiative

On 29 November 2007, Norway and the United Republic of Tanzania signed a bilateral agreement to support Tanzania’s efforts to reduce child mortality and maternal mortality. The modality for support is to channel funds through a common financing basket for the health sector, together with a number of bilateral and multilateral partners, with no earmarking of the Norwegian funds. This marks the end of a one-year planning process, whereby we have attempted to bridge one of the major divides in the current development practices—namely, between global initiatives mobilizing additional finances for specific themes (in this case, the reduction of child and maternal mortality) and country- led processes of harmonizing and streamlining donor financing— by incorporating assistance into the development budgets, preferably in the form of general, alternatively sectorial, budget support.

THE CHOICE OF EXCHANGE RATE REGIME AND THE VOLATILITY OF EXCHANGE RATES BEFORE AND AFTER THE ASIAN CRISIS: A COUNTERFACTUAL ANALYSIS

This paper carries out a counterfactual analysis of the impact of alternative exchange rate regimes on the volatility of the nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) and the bilateral rate against the US dollar for nine East Asian countries, both before and after the Asian financial crisis. Our hypothetical regimes include a unilateral basket peg (UBP), a common basket peg (CBP) and a hard peg against the $US, but in contrast to previous counterfactual exercises which compute the weights for effective exchange rates on the basis of simple bloc aggregates, we apply a more disaggregated methodology using a larger number of trade partners and utilise ARCH/GARCH techniques to better capture the time-varying characteristics of volatility. Our results suggest that a UBP would minimise effective exchange rate volatility for all countries both before and after the crisis and provides the highest regime gains compared to actual. Although the gains for a CBP are always less than those for a UBP the absolute differences between the two regimes appear to be small. In terms of bilateral exchange rates against the dollar the gains from a UBP or CBP could also be quite significant for the non-dollar peggers, especially post-crisis, since a fall in effective instability would be accompanied by a fall in bilateral instability.