Stuck in a corner: Anthropogenic noise threatens narwhals in their once pristine Arctic habitat.

Niche-conservative species are especially susceptible to changes in their environment, and detecting the negative effects of new stressors in their habitats is vital for safeguarding of these species. In the Arctic, human disturbance including marine traffic and exploration of resources is increasing rapidly due to climate change-induced reduction of sea ice. Here, we show that the narwhal, , is extremely sensitive to human-made noise.

Remote Monitoring of Positive Airway Pressure Data: Challenges, Pitfalls, and Strategies to Consider for Optimal Data Science Applications.

Over recent years, positive airway pressure (PAP) remote monitoring has transformed the management of OSA and produced a large amount of data. Accumulated PAP data provide valuable and objective information regarding patient treatment adherence and efficiency. However, the majority of studies that have analyzed longitudinal PAP remote monitoring have summarized data trajectories in static and simplistic metrics for PAP adherence and the residual apnea-hypopnea index by the use of mean or median values.

Dataset of numerically-generated interfaces of Newtonian jets in CIJ regime.

The so-called Rayleigh-Plateau instability of fluid jets has been widely studied and is extensively used in the Continuous InkJet (CIJ) printing process. The present dataset contains the numerically-generated interfaces of Newtonian fluids jets in CIJ jetting conditions for low to moderately high stimulation amplitudes. We used Basilisk, an open-source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software specialized in multiphase flow to compute thousands of jets of fluids for Reynolds numbers ranging from 100 to 1000.

Narwhals react to ship noise and airgun pulses embedded in background noise.

Anthropogenic activities are increasing in the Arctic, posing a threat to niche-conservative species with high seasonal site fidelity, such as the narwhal . In this controlled sound exposure study, six narwhals were live-captured and instrumented with animal-borne tags providing movement and behavioural data, and exposed to concurrent ship noise and airgun pulses. All narwhals reacted to sound exposure with reduced buzzing rates, where the response was dependent on the magnitude of exposure defined as 1/distance to ship.

Continuous positive airway pressure adherence trajectories in sleep apnea: Clustering with summed discrete Fréchet and dynamic time warping dissimilarities.

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a chronic disease characterized by recurrent pharyngeal collapses during sleep. In most severe cases, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) consists in keeping the airways open by administering mild air pressure. This treatment faces adherence issues.

Parameter estimation and treatment optimization in a stochastic model for immunotherapy of cancer.

Adoptive Cell Transfer therapy of cancer is currently in full development and mathematical modeling is playing a critical role in this area. We study a stochastic model developed by Baar et al. (2015) for modeling immunotherapy against melanoma skin cancer.

Long-term effects of cochlear implantation on the intelligibility of speech in French-speaking children.

Our study compares the intelligibility of French-speaking children with a cochlear implant (N = 13) and age-matched children with typical hearing (N = 13) in a narrative task. This contrasts with previous studies in which speech intelligibility of children with cochlear implants is most often tested using repetition or reading tasks. Languages other than English are seldom considered.

Statistical Methodology for the Analysis of Repeated Duration Data in Behavioral Studies.

Purpose: Repeated duration data are frequently used in behavioral studies. Classical linear or log-linear mixed models are often inadequate to analyze such data, because they usually consist of nonnegative and skew-distributed variables. Therefore, we recommend use of a statistical methodology specific to duration data.

A Comparative Study of the Precision of Carstens and Northern Digital Instruments Electromagnetic Articulographs.

Purpose: This study compares the precision of the electromagnetic articulographs used in speech research: Northern Digital Instruments' Wave and Carstens' AG200, AG500, and AG501 systems.

Method: The fluctuation of distances between 3 pairs of sensors attached to a manually rotated device that can position them inside the measurement volumes was determined. For each device, 2 precision estimates made on the basis of the 95% quantile range of these distances (QR95) were defined: The local QR95 was computed for bins around specific rotation angles, and the global QR95 was computed for all angles pooled.

Analysis of temozolomide resistance in low-grade gliomas using a mechanistic mathematical model.

Understanding how tumors develop resistance to chemotherapy is a major issue in oncology. When treated with temozolomide (TMZ), an oral alkylating chemotherapy drug, most low-grade gliomas (LGG) show an initial volume decrease but this effect is rarely long lasting. In addition, it has been suggested that TMZ may drive tumor progression in a subset of patients as a result of acquired resistance.

Unified approach for extrapolation and bridging of adult information in early-phase dose-finding paediatric studies.

The number of trials conducted and the number of patients per trial are typically small in paediatric clinical studies. This is due to ethical constraints and the complexity of the medical process for treating children. While incorporating prior knowledge from adults may be extremely valuable, this must be done carefully.

Physiological and acoustic characteristics of the male music theatre voice.

Six male music theatre singers were recorded in three different voice qualities: legit and two types of belt ("chesty" and "twangy"), on two vowels ([e] and [ɔ]), at four increasing pitches in the upper limit of each singer's belt range (∼250-440 Hz). The audio signal, the electroglottographic (EGG) signal, and the vocal tract impedance were all measured simultaneously. Voice samples were analyzed and then evaluated perceptually by 16 expert listeners.

Incidence of venous thromboembolism in France: a retrospective analysis of a national insurance claims database.

Background: Data estimating the annual incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in France, taking into account both hospital and community settings, are very lacking. This study aimed to estimate the annual incidence of VTE (pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT)) in France in 2011 in "real world" population.

Methods: This was a longitudinal insurance claims study of the incidence of VTE in France over 2 years (2010 and 2011).

Burden of stroke and other cardiovascular complications in patients with atrial fibrillation hospitalized in France.

Aims: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with numerous cardiovascular complications. We sought to estimate the annual burden of cardiovascular complications in AF patients in French hospitals.

Methods And Results: All AF patients hospitalized in France in 2012 were identified from the national public/private hospital database.

Designing a Pediatric Study for an Antimalarial Drug by Using Information from Adults.

The objectives of this study were to design a pharmacokinetic (PK) study by using information about adults and evaluate the robustness of the recommended design through a case study of mefloquine. PK data about adults and children were available from two different randomized studies of the treatment of malaria with the same artesunate-mefloquine combination regimen. A recommended design for pediatric studies of mefloquine was optimized on the basis of an extrapolated model built from adult data through the following approach.

Cause of death in patients with atrial fibrillation admitted to French hospitals in 2012: a nationwide database study.

Objective: Most patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) have risk factors and coexisting conditions that increase their mortality risk. We performed a cause-of-death analysis to identify predictors of mortality in hospitalised patients with AF in France.

Methods And Results: In this retrospective, population-based cross-sectional study, the Programme de médicalisation des systèmes d'information was used to identify 533 044 adults with a diagnosis of AF or atrial flutter hospitalised for any reason in France from January through December 2012.

Routine OGTT: a robust model including incretin effect for precise identification of insulin sensitivity and secretion in a single individual.

In order to provide a method for precise identification of insulin sensitivity from clinical Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) observations, a relatively simple mathematical model (Simple Interdependent glucose/insulin MOdel SIMO) for the OGTT, which coherently incorporates commonly accepted physiological assumptions (incretin effect and saturating glucose-driven insulin secretion) has been developed. OGTT data from 78 patients in five different glucose tolerance groups were analyzed: normal glucose tolerance (NGT), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), impaired fasting glucose (IFG), IFG+IGT, and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). A comparison with the 2011 Salinari (COntinuos GI tract MOdel, COMO) and the 2002 Dalla Man (Dalla Man MOdel, DMMO) models was made with particular attention to insulin sensitivity indices ISCOMO, ISDMMO and kxgi (the insulin sensitivity index for SIMO).

A review on estimation of stochastic differential equations for pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic models.

This paper is a survey of existing estimation methods for pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) models based on stochastic differential equations (SDEs). Most parametric estimation methods proposed for SDEs require high frequency data and are often poorly suited for PK/PD data which are usually sparse. Moreover, PK/PD experiments generally include not a single individual but a group of subjects, leading to a population estimation approach.

Day-specific probabilities of conception in fertile cycles resulting in spontaneous pregnancies.

Study Question: When, within the female cycle, does conception occur in spontaneously fertile cycles?

Summary Answer: This study provides reference values of day-specific probabilities of date of conception in ongoing pregnancies. The maximum probability of being within a 5-day fertile window was reached on Day 12 following the last menstrual period (LMP).

What Is Known Already: The true date of conception is not observable and may only be estimated.

Multiple treatment comparisons in a series of anti-malarial trials with an ordinal primary outcome and repeated treatment evaluations.

Background: Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT) are widely used in African countries, including Cameroon. Between 2005 and 2007, five randomized studies comparing different treatment arms among artesunate-amodiaquine and other ACT were conducted in Cameroonian children aged two to 60 months who had uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria. In these studies, the categorical criterion proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to assess the relative effectiveness of anti-malarial drugs was repeatedly evaluated on Days 14, 21 and 28 after treatment initiation.

Parameter estimation and change-point detection from Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI data using stochastic differential equations.

Dynamic Contrast Enhanced imaging (DCE-imaging) following a contrast agent bolus allows the extraction of information on tissue micro-vascularization. The dynamic signals obtained from DCE-imaging are modeled by pharmacokinetic compartmental models which integrate the Arterial Input Function. These models use ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to describe the exchanges between the arterial and capillary plasma and the extravascular-extracellular space.

Maximum likelihood estimation of long-term HIV dynamic models and antiviral response.

HIV dynamics studies, based on differential equations, have significantly improved the knowledge on HIV infection. While first studies used simplified short-term dynamic models, recent works considered more complex long-term models combined with a global analysis of whole patient data based on nonlinear mixed models, increasing the accuracy of the HIV dynamic analysis. However statistical issues remain, given the complexity of the problem.

Bayesian analysis of growth curves using mixed models defined by stochastic differential equations.

Growth curve data consist of repeated measurements of a continuous growth process over time in a population of individuals. These data are classically analyzed by nonlinear mixed models. However, the standard growth functions used in this context prescribe monotone increasing growth and can fail to model unexpected changes in growth rates.

Extension of the SAEM algorithm for nonlinear mixed models with 2 levels of random effects.

This article focuses on parameter estimation of multilevel nonlinear mixed-effects models (MNLMEMs). These models are used to analyze data presenting multiple hierarchical levels of grouping (cluster data, clinical trials with several observation periods, ..

Missing data in randomized controlled trials of rheumatoid arthritis with radiographic outcomes: a simulation study.

Objective: To assess the impact, in terms of statistical power and bias of treatment effect, of approaches to dealing with missing data in randomized controlled trials of rheumatoid arthritis with radiographic outcomes.

Methods: We performed a simulation study. The missingness mechanisms we investigated copied the process of withdrawal from trials due to lack of efficacy.