Methods This randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind, incomplete crossover study (NCT01122680) evaluated the efficacy and safety of 5, 2.5 and 1.25 μg once-daily (evening) tiotropium (via Respimat Soft MistTM Inhaler) versus placebo in three 4-week treatment periods in adolescents (aged 12-17 years) with symptomatic asthma despite medium-dose ICS. The primary efficacy end point was change ...

We show that professional soccer players and their coaches exhibit reference-dependent behavior during matches. Controlling for the state of the match and for unobserved heterogeneity, we show on a minute-by-minute basis that players breach the rules of the game, measured by the referee’s assignment of cards, significantly more often if their teams are behind the expected match outcome, measure...

Let S be a nonempty bounded set in R2. Then S is staxshaped if and only if every 3 or fewer boundary points of S are clearly visible via S from a common point of S. The number 3 is best possible.

Let Γ be a topological semigroup acting on a topological space X, and let Γ0 be a subsemigroup of Γ. We give general conditions ensuring that Γ and Γ0 have the same transitive points.

The transfer of council estates into housing association (HA) ownership has transformed the structure of social housing provision across Britain; in half of English local authorities council housing is a thing of the past. From 1997, stock transfer extended beyond rural shire districts, with urban estates accounting for the majority of properties being handed to new social landlords. This study...

PURPOSE To assess the impact of an episcleral exoplant on transscleral delivery. METHODS New Zealand White rabbits were given a periocular injection of sodium fluorescein (fluorescein, 376 Da) or an episcleral exoplant loaded with fluorescein. Two types of exoplants were tested: (1) a rigid polyethylene device, impermeable on one side and open to the sclera on the other, that contained compre...

This paper investigates the discrete-time per-sample model of the zero-dispersion optical fiber. It is shown that the capacityachieving input distribution is unique, has (continuous) uniform phase and discrete amplitude with a finite number of mass points. The optimality of this multi-ring input holds when the channel is subject to general input cost constraints that include peak power constrai...

Climate change due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of precipitation events, which is likely to affect the probability of flooding into the future. In this paper we use river flow simulations from nine global hydrology and land surface models to explore uncertainties in the potential impacts of climate change on flood hazard at global...

Speaker transitions in conversation are often brief, with minimal vocal overlap. Signed languages appear to defy this pattern with frequent, long spans of simultaneous signing. But recent evidence suggests that turn boundaries in signed language may only include the content-bearing parts of the turn (from the first stroke to the last), and not all turn-related movement (from first preparation t...