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Background: Several countries have increased patients' abilities to choose their health care providers, frequently under the assumption that patients are themselves the best agents to make such decisions. In parallel, national and regional health authorities have enhanced access to Internet based information sources (IBIS) to assist patients in making an informed choice. Relatively little, however
Diabetic nephropathy represents a condition frequently detected in current clinical practice characterized by a very high cardiovascular risk profile. Blood pressure reduction via antihypertension drug treatment represents a therapeutic approach capable of exerting favorable effects on renal and cardiovascular outcomes. The purpose of this article is to review the current literature and results of
We study the use of the System Optimum (SO) Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) problem to design optimal traffic flow controls for freeway networks as modeled by the Cell Transmission Model, using variable speed limit, ramp metering, and routing. We consider two optimal control problems: the DTA problem, where turning ratios are part of the control inputs, and the Freeway Network Control (FNC), wher
Distributed averaging is one of the simplest and most widely studied network dynamics. Its applications range from cooperative inference in sensor networks, to robot formation, to opinion dynamics. A number of fundamental results and examples scattered through the literature are gathered here and some original approaches and generalizations are presented, emphasizing the deep interplay between the
We study System Optimum Dynamic Traffic Assignment (SO-DTA) for realistic traffic dynamics controlled by variable speed limits, ramp metering, and routing controls. We consider continuous-time cell-based Dynamic Network Loading models that include as special cases the Cell Transmission Model (CTM) with FIFO rule at the diverge junctions as well as non-FIFO diverge rules. While a straightforward co
Many notions of network centrality can be formulated in terms of invariant probability vectors of suitably defined stochastic matrices encoding the network structure. Analogously, invariant probability vectors of stochastic matrices allow one to characterize the asymptotic behavior of many linear network dynamics, e.g., arising in opinion dynamics in social networks as well as in distributed avera
Several strategic interactions over social networks display both negative and positive externalities at the same time. E.g., participation to a social media website with limited resources is more appealing the more of your friends participate, while a large total number of participants may slow down the website (because of congestion effects) thus making it less appealing. Similarly, while there a
Many linear dynamics over networks can be related by duality to the evolution of a Markov chain with state space coinciding with the node set of the network. Examples include opinion dynamics over social networks as well as distributed averaging algorithms for estimation or control. When the transition probability matrix P associated to the Markov chain is irreducible, a key quantity is its invari
This paper designs distributed dynamic traffic signal control policies for urban traffic networks. Vehicles at the end of an approach to an intersection queue up in separate lanes corresponding to different possible turn maneuvers at the upcoming intersection, according to fixed turn ratios. The departure rate of vehicles from the queue is governed by traffic signal control at the intersections. W
We propose a dynamical model for cascading failures in single-commodity network flows. In the proposed model, the network state consists of flows and activation status of the links. Network dynamics is determined by a, possibly state-dependent and adversarial, disturbance process that reduces flow capacity on the links, and routing policies at the nodes that have access to the network state, but a
Governments increasingly rely on the use of market instruments to tackle climate change and help decarbonize a deeply fossil fuel-dependent economy. This dissertation examines this trend as one instance of the ‘commodification of carbon’, or the process through which emission reductions are made into commodities and then traded on the market. It engages the commodification framework and related th
Many Arctic regions are currently experiencing substantial summer and winter climate changes. Litter decomposition is a fundamental component of ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycles, with fungi being among the primary decomposers. To assess the impacts of seasonal climatic changes on litter fungal communities and their functioning, Betula glandulosa leaf litter was surface-incubated in two adjacen
It is widely believed that deciduous tundra-shrub dominance is increasing in the pan-Arctic region, mainly due to rising temperature. We sampled dwarf birch (Betula nana L.) at a northeastern Siberian tundra site and used dendrochronological methods to explore the relationship between climatic variables and local shrub dominance. We found that establishment of shrub ramets was positively related t
We present experimental data on the time and radius-dependent length distributions of Au-catalyzed InAs nanowires grown by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. We show that these distributions are not as sharp as commonly believed. Rather, they appear to be much broader than Poissonian from the very beginning and spread quickly as the nanowires grow. We develop a model that attributes the observed b
Locally induced, magnetic order on the surface of a topological insulator nanowire could enable room-temperature topological quantum devices. Here we report on the realization of selective magnetic control over topological surface states on a single facet of a rectangular Bi2Te3 nanowire via a magnetic insulating Fe3O4 substrate. Low-temperature magnetotransport studies provide evidence for local
This study investigated if mental reinstatement of an encoding context during retrieval increases memory accessibility. Participants performed a cued-recall memory task where the overlap between encoding and retrieval context and the nature of context reinstatement (mental versus physical) were manipulated. Memory performance improved when the encoding-retrieval context overlapped in a comparable
The Arctic climate is projected to change during the coming century, with expected higher air temperatures and increased winter snowfall. These climatic changes might alter litter decomposition rates, which in turn could affect carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling rates in tundra ecosystems. However, little is known of seasonal climate change effects on plant litter decomposition rates and N dynami
