We present a general method for extracting the Gell Mann-Low logarithmic derivative of an e ective charge of an observable directly from data as a mean for empirically verifying the universal terms of the QCD -function. Our method avoids the biases implicit in tting to QCD-motivated forms as well as the interpolation errors introduced by constructing derivatives from discrete data. We also deri...

BACKGROUND Selenium is an essential trace element, but critically ill patients using total parenteral nutrition (PN) do not receive selenium because this mineral is not commonly offered. Threfore, the eval uation of plasma selenium levels is very important for treating or preventing this deficiency. Recent studies have shown that transthyretin may reflect the selenium intake and could be consid...

ity a nonlocal potential which could fit neutron elastic scattering data in the energy range from 0.4 to 24 MeV and where the optical-model parameters were energy independent. This is, of course, a remarkable result since we know that the absorption, for instance, is changing quite dramatically by going from 0.4 to 24 MeV incident projectile energy. We believe that these findings of Perey and B...

BACKGROUND Norovirus causes a majority of outbreaks of gastrointestinal (GI) illness on cruise ships calling on the United States. Control measures include patient isolation, hand washing, and facility closure. Little is known about the behaviors and practices of people who have become ill with norovirus GI illness compared to those who remained well during an outbreak. METHODS Passenger surv...

The present study tested the hypothesis that the exercise protocol (continuous vs. intermittent) would affect the physiological response and the perception of effort during aquatic cycling. Each protocol was divided on four stages. Heart rate, arterial blood pressure, blood lactate concentration, central and peripheral rate of perceived exertion were collected in both protocols in aquatic cycli...

The nonlinear magneto-optical Kerr-effect (NOLIMOKE) is determined for freestanding Fe monolayers with several in-plane structures from first principles. Based on the theory of nonlinear magneto-optics by Hübner and Benne-mann [Phys. Rev. B, 40, 5973 (1989)] we calculate the nonlinear susceptibil-ities of the monolayers using the ab initio FLAPW-method WIEN95 with the additional implementation ...

BACKGROUND This study examined the relationships between a newly developed older person-specific non-preference-based quality of life (QoL) instrument (Older People's Quality of Life brief questionnaire (OPQoL-brief)) and two generic preference-based instruments (the EQ-5D-3L Level (EQ-5D-3 L) and the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) in a community-dwelling population of Australian ol...

The Mann-Whitney U test is frequently used to evaluate treatment effects in randomized experiments with skewed outcome distributions or small sample sizes. It may lack power, however, because it ignores the auxiliary baseline covariate information that is routinely collected. Wald and score tests in so-called probabilistic index models generalize the Mann-Whitney U test to enable adjustment for...

The authors present an improved ranked set two-sample Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test for a location shift between samples from two distributions F and G. They define a function that measures the amount of information provided by each observation from the two samples, given the actual joint ranking of all the units in a set. This information function is used as a guide for improving the Pitman effic...