BACKGROUND There is increasing awareness that meta-analyses require a sufficiently large information size to detect or reject an anticipated intervention effect. The required information size in a meta-analysis may be calculated from an anticipated a priori intervention effect or from an intervention effect suggested by trials with low-risk of bias. METHODS Information size calculations need ...

The nonequilibrium dynamics of BCS superconductors after excitation with short THz pulses slightly above the superconducting gap is studied theoretically. Calculated pumpprobe spectra show how the gap is influenced by this optical excitation. For ultrashort pump pulses a nonadiabatic regime emerges, in which the BCS order parameter exhibits oscillations. These oscillations do not show up in pum...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of socioeconomic support on tuberculosis preventive therapy initiation in household contacts of tuberculosis patients and on treatment success in patients. METHODS A non-blinded, household-randomized, controlled study was performed between February 2014 and June 2015 in 32 shanty towns in Peru. It included patients being treated for tuberculosis and their hous...

Abstract: This paper proposes an optimal gait generation framework based on a property of Hamiltonian systems. A key technique is a unified method of learning control and parameter tuning. The proposed method allows one to simultaneously obtain an optimal feedforward input and an optimal tuning parameter for a plant system, which (at least locally) minimize a cost function. It is a repetitive c...

This paper is concerned with state-space realizations of the adjoints of the variationals of Hamiltonian control systems. It will be shown that the variational systems of a class of Hamiltonian systems have self-adjoint state-space realizations, that is, the variational system and its adjoint have the same state-space realizations. This implies that the inputoutput mapping of the adjoint of the...

background: ninety-five percent of low birth weight infants are born in developing countries. this study was aimed to assess the predictors of low birth in east azerbaijan, north-west province of iran. materials and methods: the study was conducted through a hospital based case–control design involving 49 women delivering low birth weight infants and 98 delivering normal weight infants. the dat...

background: the prevalence of colorectal cancer (crc) is rapidly increasing in iran. it holds the most prevalent cancer after skin, breast, and gastric cancers among the iranian population. the current study was designed to investigate the effects of leisure time, occupational and household physical activity as well as exercise on the risk of crc in the iranian population. methods: in this popu...