Minimal Restrictions Research Articles

Tobacco control policy and adolescent cigarette smoking status in the United States.

Tobacco policies that limit the sale of cigarettes to minors and restrict smoking in public places are important strategies to deter youth from accessing and consuming cigarettes. We examined the relationship of youth cigarette smoking status to state-level youth access and clean indoor air laws, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and cigarette price. Data were analyzed from the 2001 to 2002 U.S. Health Behavior in School-Aged Children survey, a cross-sectional survey conducted with a nationally representative sample of 13,339 students in the United States. Compared with students living in states with strict regulations, those living in states with no or minimal restrictions, particularly high school students, were more likely to be daily smokers. These effects were somewhat reduced when logistic regressions were adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and cigarette price, suggesting that higher cigarette prices may discourage youth to access and consume cigarettes independent of other tobacco control measures. Strict tobacco control legislation could decrease the potential of youth experimenting with cigarettes or becoming daily smokers. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that smoking policies, particularly clean indoor air provisions, reduce smoking prevalence among high school students.

The National Oncologic PET Registry: Lessons Learned for Coverage With Evidence Development

The National Oncologic PET Registry (NOPR) was one of the first attempts of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at coverage with evidence development. Under this coverage policy, the agency will provide payment for a technology only if patients and providers agree to enroll in a prospective study or registry. The NOPR was designed to determine if the results of positron emission tomography scans influence physicians' intended plans of patient management while imposing minimal restrictions on the use of such scans in the clinical setting. The experience of policymakers, methodologists, physicians, and patients with the NOPR provides some useful insights into the utility and challenges of implementing, financing, and creating a robust methodology for coverage with evidence development in the future. Moving to a system of evidence-based medical technology diffusion will require all health care decision makers to become involved in evidence generation and reach an agreement about the type of evidence required to make informed medical decisions.

Error graphs and the reconstruction of elements in groups

Packing and covering problems for metric spaces, and graphs in particular, are of essential interest in combinatorics and coding theory. They are formulated in terms of metric balls of vertices. We consider a new problem in graph theory which is also based on the consideration of metric balls of vertices, but which is distinct from the traditional packing and covering problems. This problem is motivated by applications in information transmission when redundancy of messages is not sufficient for their exact reconstruction, and applications in computational biology when one wishes to restore an evolutionary process. It can be defined as the reconstruction, or identification, of an unknown vertex in a given graph from a minimal number of vertices (erroneous or distorted patterns) in a metric ball of a given radius r around the unknown vertex. For this problem it is required to find minimum restrictions for such a reconstruction to be possible and also to find efficient reconstruction algorithms under such minimal restrictions. In this paper we define error graphs and investigate their basic properties. A particular class of error graphs occurs when the vertices of the graph are the elements of a group, and when the path metric is determined by a suitable set of group elements. These are the undirected Cayley graphs. Of particular interest is the transposition Cayley graph on the symmetric group which occurs in connection with the analysis of transpositional mutations in molecular biology [P.A. Pevzner, Computational Molecular Biology: An Algorithmic Approach, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000; D. Sankoff, N. El-Mabrouk, Genome rearrangement, in: T. Jiang, T. Smith, Y. Xu, M.Q. Zhang (Eds.), Current Topics in Computational Molecular Biology, MIT Press, 2002]. We obtain a complete solution of the above problems for the transposition Cayley graph on the symmetric group.

Bounds on Revenue Distributions in Counterfactual Auctions with Reserve Prices

In first-price auctions with interdependent bidder values, the distributions of private signals and values cannot be uniquely recovered from bids in Bayesian Nash equilibria. Non-identification invalidates structural analyses that rely on the exact knowledge of model primitives. In this paper I introduce tight, informative bounds on the distribution of revenues in counterfactual first-price and second-price auctions with binding reserve prices. These robust bounds are identified from distributions of equilibrium bids in first-price auctions under minimal restrictions where I allow for affiliated signals and both private and common-value paradigms. The bounds can be used to compare auction formats and to select optimal reserve prices. I propose consistent nonparametric estimators of the bounds. I extend the approach to account for observed heterogeneity across auctions, as well as binding reserve prices in the data. I use a recent data of 6,721 first-price auctions of U.S. municipal bonds to estimate bounds on counterfactual revenue distributions. I then bound optimal reserve prices for sellers with various risk attitudes.

Rectangle Tongue Template for Reconstruction of the Hemiglossectomy Defect

To determine if a rectangular template free tissue transfer is effective for the reconstruction of the hemiglossectomy defect. Prospective case series. Tertiary care academic medical center. A total of 13 patients (male to female ratio, 8:5; mean age, 55 years) presenting with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue from May 2000 to December 2002. Of the 13 patients, 7 received postoperative radiotherapy and 2 received prior radiotherapy. The radial forearm was the donor site in 11 patients and the lateral arm and anterolateral thigh in 1 patient each. The mean flap area was 50 cm(2) (range, 24-80 cm(2)). Major and minor complications, speech and swallowing assessment, oral cavity obliteration, premaxillary contact, tongue elevation, and tongue protrusion. There were no major complications, and 2 of the 13 patients experienced minor complications. Of the 13 patients, 12 achieved the goals of oral cavity obliteration and premaxillary contact and resumed solid oral intake. One patient remained G-tube dependent owing to toxic effects from previous chemoradiation treatment. The mean tongue tip protrusion was 0.7 cm (range, 0-1.7 cm), and the mean elevation was 1.7 cm (range, 1-3 cm). Patients with protrusion greater than 0.8 cm had better swallowing scores for "range of solids" (5.8 of 6 vs 3.9 of 6; P = .045) and "eating in public" (4.6 of 5 vs 3.5 of 5; P = .10). The average patient resumed a full range of liquid and solid intake with minimal restrictions and believed that their speech was mostly understandable with occasional repetition. The template-based rectangle tongue flap effectively restored speech and swallowing function in this group of patients. Tongue protrusion greater than 0.8 cm is associated with better swallowing results.

Occurrence of seizures in association with work‐related stress in young male army recruits

To examine the risk of undergoing an epileptic seizure as a function of differing levels of occupational stress (physical and mental) in new military recruits with no previous history of epilepsy or with epilepsy in remission for over 2 years. The medical records of over 300,000 18-year-old men recruited to the Israeli army between mid-eighties and mid-nineties were used to assemble a cohort, which was followed for a period of 30 months. The severity of epilepsy at recruitment was determined according to four categories, 0 (no history of seizures) and 1-3 (history of seizures with different relapse-free periods, with or without treatment). The soldiers were subdivided according to their occupational categories to: combat units (CU), maintenance units (MU), and administrative units (AU). The annual incidence rates per 100,000 in category 0 were 317, 298, and 401 in AU, MU, and CU, respectively. The incidence of seizures in category 0 was higher (relative risk [RR]= 1.29, CI = 1.03-1.62) in CU compared to AU and MU. No differences were found for seizure recurrence among various occupational groups. The increased risk of seizures in CU compared to AU and MU may indicate contribution of service conditions in CU, like physical and mental stress. The equivalent rates of seizure relapse, regardless of the type of occupation, suggests the need for minimal occupational restrictions for epilepsy patients who have been free of seizures for long periods.

WARFIELD INVARIANTS IN COMMUTATIVE GROUP ALGEBRAS

Let F be a field and G an Abelian group. For every prime number q and every ordinal number α we compute only in terms of F and G the Warfield q-invariants Wα, q(VF[G]) of the group VF[G] of all normed units in the group algebra F[G] under some minimal restrictions on F and G. This expands own recent results from (Extracta Mathematicae, 2005) and (Collectanea Mathematicae, 2008).

Knee Pain in a Young Wake Boarder

HISTORY: 19 year old healthy male, seen in Family Medicine Clinic for left knee pain and swelling after a wake boarding injury one week prior. The patient was initially evaluated at the ER 5 hours after the acute event and placed in a hinged knee brace and prescribed Vicodin 5/500 for severe pain and OTC Ibuprofen for inflammation. He complained of persistent left knee discomfort with minimal response to treatment of NSAID's and rest. He also continued to have restricted left knee extension and an inability to bear weight. He denied previous knee trauma or concomitant medical conditions. PHYSICAL EXAMINATION: Wt: 77.1 kg BP: 118/70 P: 68 General: Alert, pleasant male without distress Left knee: scant effusion and tenderness noted inferior to lateral patella, equivocal McMurray, negative anterior & posterior drawer, and negative Lachman's. He lacked full extension. Patient unable to bear weight without crutches. Neurological exam intact. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: Knee sprain Femoral condyle contusion Meniscal Tear ACL/PCL Tear Tibial Plateau Fracture TESTS AND RESULTS: 4 view Knee X-Ray: Negative for fracture dislocation or joint effusion (In ER) MR Left Knee: Minimal depression 3 mm impaction fracture along anterior articular surface of lateral tibial plateau with edema like signal at both femoral condyles. No meniscal tears. Ligaments intact. Small effusion. (Two weeks after injury) Knee X-Ray Patella+Flexion views: Negative for dislocation or fracture. No definite interval change. Minimal medial joint compartment narrowing. (6 weeks after injury) FINAL DIAGNOSIS: Impaction Tibial Plateau Fracture with Femoral Condyle Contusions TREATMENT: Sports Medicine Consultation: Non-weight bearing activities advised for initial 6 weeks post event. No surgical intervention warranted. Slow introduction of weight bearing exercises advised; i.e., bicycling, elliptical track, etc. No contact sports advised at this time. Patient recovering with minimal restrictions or pain.

The effects of NCPB marketing policies on maize market prices in Kenya

AbstractThe Government of Kenya pursues maize marketing policy objectives through the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB), which procures and sells maize at administratively determined prices, and stores maize as a contingency against future shortages. A private sector marketing channel competes with the NCPB. This article estimates the effects of NCPB activities on the historical path of private sector prices in Kenyan maize markets between 1989 and 2004. The analysis is carried out using a reduced form vector autoregression model (VAR) estimated with sparse data and imposing only minimal identification restrictions. Results show that NCPB activities have stabilized maize market prices in Kenya, reduced price levels in the early 1990s, and raised average price levels by roughly 20% between 1995 and 2004. Over the past decade, the price‐raising activities of the NCPB have transferred income from urban consumers and a majority of small‐scale farm households that are net buyers of maize to a relatively small number of large‐ and small‐scale farmers who are sellers of maize.

Real-time rendering of textures with feature curves

The standard bilinear interpolation on normal maps results in visual artifacts along sharp features, which are common for surfaces with creases, wrinkles, and dents. In many cases, spatially varying features, like the normals near discontinuity curves, are best represented as functions of the distance to the curve and the position along the curve. For high-quality interactive rendering at arbitrary magnifications, one needs to interpolate the distance field preserving discontinuity curves exactly. We present a real-time, GPU-based method for distance function and distance gradient interpolation which preserves discontinuity feature curves. The feature curves are represented by a set of quadratic Bezier curves, with minimal restrictions on their intersections. We demonstrate how this technique can be used for real-time rendering of complex feature patterns and blending normal maps with procedurally defined profiles near normal discontinuities.

Democracy and Globalisation

The relationship between democracy and globalisation has been the focus of substantial policy and academic debate. Some argue that democracy and globalisation go hand in hand suggesting that unrestricted international transactions leads to increased political accountability and transparency. And, politically free societies are likely to have minimal restrictions on the mobility of goods and services across national borders. Others argue that the causal relationship should be reversed: democracies are more likely to have closed markets and vice versa. We examine these relationships between political democracy and trade and financial globalisation over the period 1870-2000 and treat both democracy and globalisation as both cause and effect. Our empirical strategy uses instrumental variables and estimates relationships using the Generalised Method of Moments framework. Our general findings support the hypothesis of a positive two-way relationship between democracy and globalisation.

Non-finality and weight-sensitivity

This article presents a non-finality approach to weight-sensitivity, using constraints that prohibit stress on domain-final moras to account for phenomena where stress avoids light syllables. The issues addressed by the proposal include weight-sensitivity in unbounded stress systems, weight-sensitivity in generalised trochee systems, iambic lengthening, trochaic lengthening and minimal word restrictions. A non-finality approach improves the typological predictions for each of these phenomena and provides them with a general and uniform account, lending additional support for non-finality's central position in the theory.

Reduction and Maintenance of a White‐Tailed Deer Herd in Central Massachusetts

Abstract: Controlled public hunts have been used in a variety of settings to reduce overabundant white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) herds. We present the results of a large‐scale (160 km2) controlled hunt at Quabbin Reservation (QR) in central Massachusetts, USA. The QR was divided into 5 hunt zones. Hunting was initiated in each zone from 1991 to 1994 and continued through 2004. The management goal was to achieve posthunt deer densities of4 deer/km2. Initial estimated deer densities in each zone ranged from 11.4 deer/km2 to 27.6 deer/km2. The management goals were reached in each zone after 2‐4 years of hunting. Posthunt populations were maintained at or below the goal even though total hunter effort was reduced. Hunters were not required to harvest antlerless deer, but antlerless deer comprised 55‐83% of the harvest each year. We simulated the effects of 5 years without hunting on deer populations. The simulated deer population exceeded management goals after 2 years. Our results demonstrate that controlled public deer hunts can effectively reduce deer populations and maintain them at desired levels over large areas with minimal hunter restrictions. Managers should prepare stakeholders during the hunt planning process for the need to continue overall harvest rates of >30% during the maintenance phase of a deer management program.

Restrictions on Antidepressant Medications for Children: A Review of Medicaid Policy

This study evaluated Medicaid's prior-authorization policies restricting the prescribing of antidepressant medications for children. Medicaid program prior-authorization policies for antidepressant medications were obtained for all available states. All criteria needed for authorization were recorded, with a focus on policies that applied specifically to children. Data from 49 states and the District of Columbia revealed that 30 states (60%) required prior authorization for antidepressants, of which eight (27%) made specific provisions for children. These provisions varied across states. In most states fluoxetine could be prescribed for children with minimal restrictions, and two states had prior-authorization policies that strongly encouraged pediatric patients to use fluoxetine. State policies regarding other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors varied widely. Although relatively few states included provisions for children in prior-authorization requirements for antidepressants, in states that did, the policies implemented varied widely. These findings raise important questions about the rational development of prescription drug reimbursement policy.

ISOLATED SCAPHOTRAPEZIOTRAPEZOID OSTEOARTHRITIS: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF TREATMENT USING A PYROCARBON IMPLANT

The scaphotrapeziotrapezoid (STT) joint is the second most common site in the wrist affected by degenerative arthritis. STT fusion has been the traditional treatment for patients with isolated STT arthritis but there are concerns about the complication rate and loss of wrist movement post-surgery. The current study presents the results of an interposition arthroplasty using a scaphoid trapezium pyrocarbon implant (STPI, BIOProfile). Ten STPI's were implanted in nine patients (mean age 66, 58-76 years) with isolated STT arthritis. The mean follow-up was 16.4 (3-35) months. Following surgery, VAS pain scores improved significantly and most patients had minimal restrictions in function, with a mean DASH score of 21. The mean wrist flexion-extension arc was 126 degrees and radioulnar deviation was 43 degrees. Mean grip strength was 82% and pinch strength 85% compared to the non-operated side. Patients were highly satisfied with the results of their surgery (mean VAS score 9.1). No surgical complications were encountered and no significant changes in carpal alignment were noted on radiographs. The results of this study suggest that STPI interposition arthroplasty may be a good alternative to STT fusion for isolated STT arthritis.

P17 Bedside Practice of Blood Transfusion ‐ Where is the Evidence?

Background There have been no systematic reviews of the routine ‘bedside practice’ of blood transfusion. There are national guidelines, but local practice varies. Nursing staff are increasingly requesting details of the evidence that underpins the guidelines. Transfusion practitioners from the four UK blood transfusion services working with the NBS Systematic Review Initiative have systematically reviewed the evidence for practice in four key areas of bedside blood transfusion.Methods Relevant evidence was identified through comprehensive searches of electronic databases: Medline; Embase; Cinahl; The Cochrane Library; websites of international blood transfusion societies and the websites of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, English National Patients Safety Agency and the NHS Serious Hazards of Transfusion Scheme. Reference lists of relevant papers were scanned and contact was made with transfusion medicine clinicians and scientists to identify additional evidence. All identified papers were assessed for project eligibility: eligible papers were quality assessed and data extracted by two members of the project team, working independently of each other.Results The searches yielded approx. 6000 hits. Relevant evidence was identified for one area: co‐administration of drugs with blood (approx. 50 papers). Indirectly relevant evidence was identified for the maximum time that a unit of blood can be safely left out of refridgeration (approx. six papers). No relevant published information was identified for the frequency of change of blood administration or for the relative safety of 1 versus 2 person checking blood prior to infusion.Conclusions For three of the four areas despite minimal restrictions on study design there was little relevant published evidence to underpin practice. Where evidence does exist, it is not necessarily directly related to bedside blood transfusion practice or is ‘out‐of‐date’. The principal recommendation from this project is the need to undertake directly relevant primary research, including assessing the bacterial contamination of blood during the transfusion process and a national randomised controlled trial of the safety of 1 versus 2 person checking.

Optimization of repulsive passive magnetic bearings

Passive magnetic bearings are an attractive alternative to conventional ball bearings in applications where wear and tear must be minimal and cost or construction restrictions ban the use of active magnetic bearings. They also find applications as miniaturized high-speed bearings where no other low-friction solutions are available. We show that, for a given cylindrical construction volume, an optimized repulsive bearing design with respect to a maximal radial stiffness can be found. This optimal configuration is independent of the aspect ratio of the bearing, but is determined by the width of the air gap between rotor and stator. Our method can determine the optimal configuration for any bearing geometry. We develop a design for a miniaturized high-speed bearing as an example.

Curvature Effects in Ocean Surface Scattering

Curvature effects in EM scattering from ocean surface are described using a generalized curvature expansion of the fields at an elevated nonperfect conducting surface. The new expansion formalism allows us to describe analytically and in general, without separating into different scales, the scattering of EM waves from an undulated ocean surface. The model is exact to first order in curvature for nonshadowing imaging geometry, and obeys the law of reciprocity and tilt invariance. Explicit expressions for EM fields at the surface, including both the projection and the self induced fields, are derived up to first order in surface curvature. Analytic closed form expressions for the scattered fields are derived from the surface field solutions, and applied to the case of backscattering, providing a general expression for the normalized radar cross section. The analytic expression for the normalized radar cross section is implemented for a linear surface model using both the Eulerian and the Lagrangian frame of reference. The results show that the model is capable of describing the expected dependency on polarization, incidence angle, and wind field with minimal restrictions in terms of range of validity. Comparison of polarization ratio shows good agreement between the model and measurements from the Envisat ASAR instrument

Independence of linear forms with random coefficients

We extend the classical Darmois–Skitovich theorem to the case where the linear forms L r 1 = U 1 X 1+ · · · +U n X n and L r 2 = U n +1 X 1+· · · +U 2 n X n have random coefficients U 1, . . . ,U 2 n . Under minimal restrictions on the random coefficients we completely describe the distributions of the independent random variables X 1, . . . ,X n and U 1, . . . ,U 2 n such that the linear forms L r 1 and L r 2 are independent.

On the Local Limit Theorem for a Critical Galton–Watson Process

The proof of the local limit theorem for a critical Galton–Watson process is given under minimal moment restrictions, i.e., under the condition that there exists the second moment of the number of direct offspring of one particle.