Response‐adaptive designs for binary responses: How to offer patient benefit while being robust to time trends?

Response‐adaptive randomisation (RAR) can considerably improve the chances of a successful treatment outcome for patients in a clinical trial by skewing the allocation probability towards better performing treatments as data accumulates. There is considerable interest in using RAR designs in drug development for rare diseases, where traditional designs are not either feasible or ethically questionable. In this paper, we discuss and address a major criticism levelled at RAR: namely, type I error inflation due to an unknown time trend over the course of the trial. The most common cause of this phenomenon is changes in the characteristics of recruited patients—referred to as patient drift. This is a realistic concern for clinical trials in rare diseases due to their lengthly accrual rate. We compute the type I error inflation as a function of the time trend magnitude to determine in which contexts the problem is most exacerbated. We then assess the ability of different correction methods to preserve type I error in these contexts and their performance in terms of other operating characteristics, including patient benefit and power. We make recommendations as to which correction methods are most suitable in the rare disease context for several RAR rules, differentiating between the 2‐armed and the multi‐armed case. We further propose a RAR design for multi‐armed clinical trials, which is computationally efficient and robust to several time trends considered.     

Internal Migration in Spain: Dealing with Multilateral Resistance and Nonlinearites

This article investigates the determinants of internal mobility of both foreigners and natives across Spanish provinces over the decade 2004‐14. Building on an extended gravity model, our econometric strategy controls for multilateral resistance to migration by including different fixed effects structures. Additionally, the article allows for some nonlinearities in the key economic determinants of migration, wages and unemployment. The main finding is that the impact of economic factors on internal migration is higher for foreigners than for natives; furthermore, the effect of these factors on internal migration is clearly nonlinear for the group of natives, while this only happens for foreigners when dyadic fixed effects of origin‐destination are considered. Finally, the article shows that the nature of the amenities with the greatest impact on internal movements differs between the two groups: foreigners look for social services and cultural amenities, whereas natives are more attracted by good climate conditions.     

老龄人的"颓败"与年轻人的"重生":论羽田圭介的《颓败与重生》

随着日本人口老龄化的加速,老年人的护理日渐成为社会的一个关注点。羽田圭介的《颓败与重生》就是以老人护理以及由此引起的家庭内部纠葛为题材的小说。小说标题中的"颓败"体现在以主人公的外祖父为代表的老年人身体的衰老、病痛的侵袭以及所面临的尴尬的社会与家庭处境。而"重生"则表现在主人公对事业的追求、自我肉体的改造、帮助外祖父实现"尊严死"等方面。这部作品表征了日本社会所面临的老龄化的严峻形势及社会现实。     

基于fused惩罚的稀疏主成分分析

本文旨在研究基于fused惩罚的稀疏主成分分析方法，以适用于相邻变量之间高度相关甚至完全相等的数据情形。首先，从回归分析角度出发，提出一种求解稀疏主成分的简便思路，给出一种广义的稀疏主成分模型—— GSPCA模型及其求解算法，并证明在惩罚函数取1-范数时，该模型与现有的稀疏主成分模型——SPC模型的求解结果一致。其次，本文提出将fused惩罚与主成分分析相结合，得到一种fused稀疏主成分分析方法，并从惩罚性矩阵分解和回归分析两个角度，给出两种模型形式。在理论上证明了两种模型的求解结果是一致的，故将其统称为FSPCA模型。模拟实验显示，FSPCA模型在处理相邻变量之间高度相关甚至完全相等的数据集上的表现良好。最后，将FSPCA模型应用于手写数字识别，发现与SPC模型相比，FSPCA模型所提取的主成分具备更好的解释性，这使得该模型更具实用价值。     

Attitudes of social work students towards older people

Demographic ageing is a challenge for many countries. Even though Turkey has a relatively younger demographic composition, the proportion of the older people (65+) within the population is rapidly increasing. Within this framework, older people are becoming more important clients for both social work students and social workers in Turkey. This study aims to reveal the attitudes of social work students towards older people and determine the various factors that affect their views on older persons. In the scope of the project, Kogan's Attitude Towards Old People Scale was applied to 419 social work undergraduate students at a university located in Central Anatolia. The findings showed that social work students scored a mean of 130.96 and they generally had positive attitudes towards older people. The correlation between year of study, gender and age was not statistically significant. However, having lived mostly in urban areas was positively correlated with the mean Kogan scores and this finding was found to be statistically significant. Exposure to personal contact with older people at both the personal and professional levels was influential in shaping attitudes about the older people.     

关于增强高职教师执教能力的研究

教师执教能力是教师业务素质的核心问题,是保证教学质量的重要一环。在全面推进素质教育的今天,教师执教能力提高势在必行。镇江市高等专科学校通过开展课堂教学质量月、说课、优秀教师示范课活动和学生评教,来增强教师执教能力。     

基于目的论的汉英翻译中的省略法

省略虽然是常见的翻译方法,但是在翻译实践中,译者——特别是翻译学习者——往往会低估省略法的效用,甚至尽量避而不用。为了帮助译者合理使用省略法,将选择省略法在汉英翻译中的典型实例,从德国功能理论学派的目的论角度对其加以深入分析,概括省略法应用的多重目的——或是为了使译文更符合英语文化背景和英语表达习惯、或是为了更好地满足英语读者的期待和双方交际的需求。借此分析,帮助译者或翻译初学者获取"合适的"译文;以此为译者寻求省略应用的理论支持。     

高含有机硫炼油废碱液的治理研究

提出的废碱液酸化O空气汽提治理工艺流程,将部分硫磺回收装置用压缩空气(9. 5 %) 引入废碱液汽提塔,作为汽提空气,汽提出来的H2S、RSH 又随空气去回收硫磺,不仅解决了装置汽提能耗,而且完全回收了硫资源,消除了高含有机硫炼油废碱液对环境的污染。对我国炼油厂加工中东高含硫原油,治理含硫废碱液具有重要意义。最佳试验条件为:98 %硫酸用量84 ml/ L ,酸化pH = 4. 5～5. 5 ,汽提温度90 ℃,汽提时间2. 5 h。汽提处理后废碱液用于生产硫酸钠或去工程车间稀释排放,排放水总硫< 1 mg/ L 、pH = 7 ,达到GB8987 - 1996 一级排放标准。     

An Ecological Model for Quantitative Risk Assessment for Schistosomiasis: The Case of a Patchy Environment in the Coastal Tropical Area of Northeastern Brazil

We developed a stochastic model for quantitative risk assessment for the Schistosoma mansoni (SM) parasite, which causes an endemic disease of public concern. The model provides answers in a useful format for public health decisions, uses data and expert opinion, and can be applied to any landscape where the snail Biomphalaria glabrata is the main intermediate host (South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa). It incorporates several realistic and case‐specific features: stage‐structured parasite populations, periodic praziquantel (PZQ) drug treatment for humans, density dependence, extreme events (prolonged rainfall), site‐specific sanitation quality, environmental stochasticity, monthly rainfall variation, uncertainty in parameters, and spatial dynamics. We parameterize the model through a real‐world application in the district of Porto de Galinhas (PG), one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil, where previous studies identified four parasite populations within the metapopulation. The results provide a good approximation of the dynamics of the system and are in agreement with our field observations, i.e., the lack of basic infrastructure (sanitation level and health programs) makes PG a suitable habitat for the persistence and growth of a parasite metapopulation. We quantify the risk of SM metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction and the time to metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction. We evaluate the sensitivity of the results under varying scenarios of future periodic PZQ treatment (based on the Brazilian Ministry of Health's plan) and sanitation quality. We conclude that the plan might be useful to slow SM metapopulation growth but not to control it. Additional investments in better sanitation are necessary.