The Australian Gun Ban did not accomplish what the anti-gun crowd claims

Here is a link to  a Report to the Parliament of Australia concerning the Australian Gun Ban.  It shows that the anti-gun crowd's claims on its efficacy are not true.

Here are some excerpts.
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The impact of Australia’s gun buyback in 1996-97 is a lot less obvious that most might think. The buyback resulted in more than 1 million firearms being handed in and destroyed, reducing gun ownership from 3.2 to 2.2 million guns. But since then there has been a steady increase in the number of privately owned guns. By 2010, the total number of privately owned guns was back to the level in 1996.

While Australia’s population grew by 19 percent between 1997 and 2010, the total number of guns soared by 45 percent. If gun control advocates are correct, gun crimes or suicides should have plunged in 1997 but gradually increased after that. But that is not the pattern that we observe. The pattern from firearm suicides can be seen in Figure A. While it is true that firearm suicides did fall after the buyback, they was falling for an entire decade prior to the buyback. Indeed the rate of firearm suicides was falling at about the same rate after the buyback as they were before hand. After the buyback, there was no sudden drop and then an increase.

But it isn’t just firearm suicides that fell after the buyback -- non-firearm suicides fell by virtually the same about as firearm suicides. That fits in with existing research and implies that something else is driving down suicides. Indeed, if anything, removing guns as a way of committing suicide would likely be associated with an increase in the alternative methods of committing suicide as some of the people who would have used guns to commit suicide use other methods.

Figure B shows how homicides have varied over time. This pattern is again inconsistent with what gun control advocates would predict. There is more variability year to year than for suicides. Nonetheless, we can still make out the trend lines. Prior to 1996, there was already a clear downward in firearm homicides, and this pattern continued after the buyback. It is hence difficult to link the decline to the buyback.

Again, as with suicides, both non-firearm and firearm homicides fell by similar amounts. In fact, the trend in non-firearms homicides shows a much larger decline between the pre- and post-buyback periods. This suggests that crime has been falling for other reasons. Note that the change in homicides doesn’t follow the change in gun ownership – there is no increase in homicides as gun ownership gradually increased. 

The reason that some people who look at this data for firearm suicides and homicides conclude that the buyback was beneficial comes from a simple specification error. They look at the average firearm suicide and homicide rates before and after the buyback, but don’t look carefully at the how these rates were declining before the buyback occurred.

Figure C illustrates the frequency of armed robbery before and after the gun buybacks.4 If armed robberies varied positively with the number of guns per capita, robbery should have fallen and then increased. Yet, the opposite happened: the armed robbery rate right soared right after the buyback and then gradually declined. Indeed, over the next eleven years, there is only one year after the buyback where the armed robbery rate was lower than it was in 1995, the year immediately before the buyback.

But just as we cannot credit the buyback for the lower firearm homicide or suicide rates, it is also hard to blame the increase in armed robberies on the buyback. After all, the armed and unarmed robbery rates move up and down together. The one thing that might point to the buyback having a detrimental impact is that the increase in the armed robbery rate after the buyback was bigger than the increase in the unarmed robbery rate.

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The University of Chicago’s Bill Landes and I have collected data on all the multiple victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1999.15 We examined 13 different gun control policies including: waiting periods and background checks for guns, assault weapon and other gun bans, gun registration, the death penalty, and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun. But the only one that reduced both the number and severity of these attacks was allowing victims to be able to defend themselves with permitted concealed handguns.

With just two exceptions, all the mass public shootings in the United States since at least 1950 have taken place in areas where guns are banned. All the mass public shootings in Europe, including the Norway attack that left 69 people shot to death and 110 wounded, have also taken place where guns are banned.

New Zealand provides a useful comparison to Australia.17 Both are isolated island nations, and they are socioeconomically and demographically similar. Their mass murder rate before Australia's gun buyback was nearly identical: From 1980 to 1996, Australia's mass murder rate was 0.0042 incidents per 100,000 people and New Zealand's was 0.0050 incidents per 100,000 people. The principal difference is that, post-1997, New Zealand experienced the drop over the same period of time without altering its gun control laws.

It would be just as inappropriate for gun control critics to cite New Zealand as it is for gun control advocates to cite Australia. There is a tendency to cherry-pick data. There are limits to picking one country or one state in the United States to infer what policies work to reduce public shootings. 

It is very hard to look at the raw data on firearm suicides and homicides and see any benefits from the gun buyback. In 2004, the US National Research Council released a report reaching this same conclusion (p. 95): “It is the committee’s view that the theory underlying gun buy-back programs is badly flawed and the empirical evidence demonstrates the ineffectiveness of these programs.”

It is very difficult to use Australian data to evaluate the impact of a law because you only have one experiment and it is difficult to disentangle other factors that might be coming into play. When there is only one experiment it is not even possible to disentangle two different factors that might have changed at the same time. The solution is then to look across many different countries or to look at a jurisdiction such as the United States where you have 50 different states passing different laws in different years.

Using US data it is clear that laws restrict gun ownership or require that guns be locked and inaccessible adversely affect people’s safety. Police are extremely important in reducing crime – my research indicates that they are the single most important factor. But police themselves understand that they almost always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has occurred. Telling people to behave passively is definitely not the safest course of action for people to take. 

  

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

From Science Daily.

This alarming news needs to be put in perspective.

80,000 metric tons is about 176,400,000 pounds.  Divide this by 1.6 million km squared and you get 110.25 lbs per square kilometer.  This is about as garbage free as you can get - much more clean than your own property.

Alarmists cannot be trusted.
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), located halfway between Hawaii and California, is the largest accumulation zone for ocean plastics on Earth. Conventionally, researchers have used single, fine-meshed nets, typically less than a meter in size, in an attempt to quantify the problem. However, this method yields high uncertainty because of the small surface area that is covered. Additionally, these methods could not measure the magnitude of the problem to its fullest extent, because all sampling nets -- small and large -- were unable to capture objects greater than the size of the net.

In order to analyze the full extent of the GPGP, the team conducted the most comprehensive sampling effort of the GPGP to date by crossing the debris field with 30 vessels simultaneously, supplemented by two aircraft surveys. Although most vessels were equipped with standard surface sampling nets, the fleet's mothership RV Ocean Starr also trawled two six-meter-wide devices, which allowed the team to sample medium to large-sized objects.

To increase the surface area surveyed, and quantify the largest pieces of plastic -- objects that include discarded fishing nets several meters in size -- a C-130 Hercules aircraft was fitted with advanced sensors to collect multispectral imagery and 3D scans of the ocean garbage. The fleet collected a total of 1.2 million plastic samples, while the aerial sensors scanned more than 300 km2 of ocean surface.

The results, published today in Scientific Reports, reveal that the GPGP, defined as the area with more than 10 kg of plastic per km2, measures 1.6 million square kilometers, three times the size of continental France. Accumulated in this area are 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing 80,000 metric tons, the equivalent of 500 Jumbo Jets. These figures are four to sixteen times higher than previous estimates. 92% of the mass is represented by larger objects; while only 8% of the mass is contained in microplastics, defined as pieces smaller than 5 mm in size.

"We were surprised by the amount of large plastic objects we encountered," said Dr. Julia Reisser, Chief Scientist of the expeditions. "We used to think most of the debris consists of small fragments, but this new analysis shines a new light on the scope of the debris."

By comparing the amount of microplastics with historical measurements of the GPGP, the team found that plastic pollution levels within the GPGP have been growing exponentially since measurements began in the 1970s. Laurent Lebreton, lead author of the study, explains: "Although it is not possible to draw any firm conclusions on the persistency of plastic pollution in the GPGP yet, this plastic accumulation rate inside the GPGP, which was greater than in the surrounding waters, indicates that the inflow of plastic into the patch continues to exceed the outflow."

Boyan Slat, Founder of The Ocean Cleanup and co-author of the study, elaborated on the relevance of the findings for his organisation's cleanup plans: "To be able to solve a problem, we believe it is essential to first understand it. These results provide us with key data to develop and test our cleanup technology, but it also underlines the urgency of dealing with the plastic pollution problem. Since the results indicate that the amount of hazardous microplastics is set to increase more than tenfold if left to fragment, the time to start is now."

Magnetically Levitated Cardiac Pump Effective in Heart Failure

From Practice Update.
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Background

In an early analysis of this trial, use of a magnetically levitated centrifugal continuous-flow circulatory pump was found to improve clinical outcomes, as compared with a mechanical-bearing axial continuous-flow pump, at 6 months in patients with advanced heart failure.

Methods

In a randomized noninferiority and superiority trial, we compared the centrifugal-flow pump with the axial-flow pump in patients with advanced heart failure, irrespective of the intended goal of support (bridge to transplantation or destination therapy). The composite primary end point was survival at 2 years free of disabling stroke (with disabling stroke indicated by a modified Rankin score of >3; scores range from 0 to 6, with higher scores indicating more severe disability) or survival free of reoperation to replace or remove a malfunctioning device. The noninferiority margin for the risk difference (centrifugal-flow pump group minus axial-flow pump group) was -10 percentage points.

Results

Of 366 patients, 190 were assigned to the centrifugal-flow pump group and 176 to the axial-flow pump group. In the intention-to-treat population, the primary end point occurred in 151 patients (79.5%) in the centrifugal-flow pump group, as compared with 106 (60.2%) in the axial-flow pump group (absolute difference, 19.2 percentage points; 95% lower confidence boundary, 9.8 percentage points [P<0.001 for noninferiority]; hazard ratio, 0.46; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.31 to 0.69 [P<0.001 for superiority]). Reoperation for pump malfunction was less frequent in the centrifugal-flow pump group than in the axial-flow pump group (3 patients [1.6%] vs. 30 patients [17.0%]; hazard ratio, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.03 to 0.27; P<0.001). The rates of death and disabling stroke were similar in the two groups, but the overall rate of stroke was lower in the centrifugal-flow pump group than in the axial-flow pump group (10.1% vs. 19.2%; hazard ratio, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.27 to 0.84, P=0.02).

Conclusions

In patients with advanced heart failure, a fully magnetically levitated centrifugal-flow pump was superior to a mechanical-bearing axial-flow pump with regard to survival free of disabling stroke or reoperation to replace or remove a malfunctioning device.

Statins Protect Against Kidney Stones?

From Practice Update
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OBJECTIVES

To determine whether statin intake affects nephrolithiasis risk, and whether higher lipid levels correlate with stone risk. Dyslipidemia is a known independent risk factor for urolithiasis, and emerging evidence suggests common biological pathways. Previous work has suggested that statins protect against new stone formation, but these findings have not been verified by other investigators.

METHODS

We queried our Institution's Electronic Data Warehouse for all patients who were newly diagnosed with hyperlipidemia between 2009 and 2011, and had never taken a statin drug. These patients' clinical outcomes were followed until 2015, to assess whether they had been newly prescribed statins and whether they had developed symptomatic urolithiasis. Patient demographics, stone risk factors, prescription data, and serum lipid values were collected.

RESULTS

101,259 patients met inclusion criteria, 47.8% of whom received a statin prescription during the study period. Patients prescribed statins were significantly older, had a greater likelihood of osteoporosis, hemiplegia, immobility, and more likely to take a thiazide diuretic. Patients without a history of urolithiasis who were started on statin therapy were significantly less likely to develop new stones than patients not taking statins. This protective effect was even greater in patients with a history of stone disease. Lipid parameters (LDL, TG, cholesterol) were lower in the statin-treated group, suggesting overall compliance with these medications.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data confirms previous work that statins protect against urinary stone formation, however the underlying mechanism seems to be distinct from statins' lipid-lowering effect.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy - some good and bad

From practice update.
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OBJECTIVES

To assess the association of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) with thromboembolism, cardiovascular disease (stroke, coronary artery disease and heart failure) and obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA).

METHODS

A cohort of 3 422 male US military service members, retirees and their dependents, aged 40-64 years, was identified, who were prescribed TRT between 2006 and 2010 for low testosterone levels. The men in this cohort were matched on a 1:1 basis for age and comorbidities to men without a prescription for TRT. Event-free survival and rates of thromboembolism, cardiovascular events and OSA were compared between men using TRT and the control group, with a median follow-up of 17 months.

RESULTS

There was no difference in event-free survival with regard to thromboembolism (P = 0.239). Relative to controls, men using TRT had improved cardiovascular event-free survival (P = 0.004), mainly as a result of lower incidence of coronary artery disease (P = 0.008). The risk of OSA was higher in TRT users (2-year risk 16.5% [95% confidence interval 15.1-18.1] in the TRT group vs 12.7% [11.4-14.1] in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

This study adds to growing evidence that the cardiovascular risk associated with TRT may be lower than once feared. The elevated risk of OSA in men using TRT is noteworthy.

So much for those misguided activists who think teachers and other school staff don't want to be armed

From the Center for Crime Prevention Research.
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Three or four teachers and staff carrying at schools would probably be enough to protect most schools. Time after time comments are made that teachers are just unwilling to carry. Yet, every time free classes are offered for teachers, more want to take the classes than there is available space.

The latest example is from Michigan.

“When the idea of arming teachers was floated by the President, I saw so many people coming out against it, saying teachers did not want it,” Barbour told The Daily Caller. “I thought I’d do my part and just offer some free classes.”

From Ohio:

Hundreds of teachers and school employees in an Ohio county have signed up for a concealed weapons class their sheriff offered in response to last week’s deadly shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones announced the free training on social media on Sunday evening and said there were 50 requests in 20 minutes.

He closed sign-ups on Tuesday morning after receiving 300 requests. . . .
Even in Illinois:

A suburban Chicago gun range is offering free concealed-carry classes for teachers and reports that training slots are filling up quickly.

On Target Range & Tactical Training Center in Crystal Lake announced Tuesday that it is offering free instruction to up to six teachers or other school personnel at each of its concealed carry classes, which it offers about four times a month.

About 30 school employees quickly signed up for the class, and another 50 people called to inquire about it, a sales clerk said. It covers the two-day, 16-hour course required by state law for a license to secretly carry a gun in public.

State law prohibits concealed-carry license holders from bringing guns into schools. But On Target director of operations Tom Dorsch said the classes would prepare school workers in case the law changes. . . .

In Utah from earlier this year (emphasis added):

There has been a huge response from educators who are being offered a free concealed weapon course by a Sandy business called Utah Gun Exchange.com.

“The demand is off the charts,” owner Bryan Melchior said about those who have signed up to take the course on March 3. “We’ve got almost 600 right now.” . . . Melchior believes he may have at least a thousand showing up by the time the next class takes place.

Here is a news story for Utah from 2012.

About 200 Utah educators spent part of their holiday vacation in class themselves — learning how to handle a gun. . . .
Aposhian told CNN that, since this law took effect, there have been no accidents or incidents involving educators’ firearms in Utah schools, nor have there been school shootings in the state.

The aim of Thursday’s six-hour training sessions isn’t to make educators into commandos roaming the halls to engage in shootouts with school shooters, he said. Rather, it’s to give them one more option — should the lockdown policies fail, law enforcement officers don’t arrive on time, and a gunman makes his way into their room.

“When that shooter gets into the classroom, the teacher doesn’t need to do a lot of tactical training to access and engage a firearm,” said Aposhian, who is an instructor at Thursday’s session. . . .

Here is a story about one teacher who talks about carrying every day.

In the middle of a national debate over whether it’s a good idea to arm teachers in order to stop mass shootings in schools, a Utah teacher went on Fox News on Thursday to say she already carries a gun to class every day.

Special Education teacher Kasey Hansen said she took a concealed firearms class after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut killed 20 six and seven year olds.

After the attack at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel had a useful quote:

“When you make a school a gun-free school zone, the only person that you’re stopping is the law-abiding gun owner that doesn’t want to get in trouble.”

EAU 2018: Smart Software Can Diagnose Prostate Cancer As Well As a Pathologist

From practice update.
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March 20, 2018—Copenhagen, Denmark—A learning artificial intelligence system has been developed that can diagnose and identify cancerous prostate samples as accurately as a pathologist.

The system holds the possibility of streamlining and eliminating variation in cancer diagnosis. It may also help overcome local shortages of trained pathologists. In the longer term, it may lead to automated or partially automated prostate cancer diagnoses.

This outcome of an evaluation of the system was reported at the 33rd Annual Congress of the European Association of Urology, from March 16 – 20.

Hongqian Guo, MD, of Nanjing University, China, explained that prostate cancer is the most common male cancer, with approximately 1.1 million annual diagnoses worldwide (about 4 times the male population of Copenhagen). Confirmation of the diagnosis normally requires a biopsy sample, which is then examined by a pathologist.

An artificial intelligence learning system has shown similar levels of accuracy to a pathologist. In addition, the software may classify the level of malignancy of cancer accurately, eliminating the variability of human diagnosis.

According to Dr. Guo, the software will not replace a human pathologist because an experienced pathologist is still needed to take responsibility for the final diagnosis. The software will help pathologists make faster and better diagnoses, and eliminate judgment variation that may enter human evaluations.

Dr. Guo’s group took 918 prostate whole mount pathology section samples from 283 patients and ran them through the analysis system, with the software gradually learning and improving diagnosis. These pathology images were subdivided into 40,000 smaller samples; 30,000 samples were used to “train” the software, and the remaining 10,000 to test accuracy.

Results showed an accurate diagnosis in 99.38% of cases (using a human pathologist as a gold standard), which is as accurate as a human pathologist. AI was then able to identify different Gleason grades in pathology sections.

To date, 10 whole mount prostate pathology sections have been tested, with similar Gleason grade in the AI and human pathologists’ diagnoses. The group has not begun testing the system with human patients.

Dr. Guo noted that the system was designed to gradually learn and improve sample interpretation, with results demonstrating that AI-reported diagnoses were comparable with that of a pathologist.

Dr. Guo also noted that the system could accurately classify malignant prostate cancer. He believes this is the first automated work that can provide accurate reporting and diagnosis of prostate cancer, which may offer quicker processing and increased diagnosis consistency across pathologists, hospitals, and countries.

Dr. Guo added that with the advancement of artificial intelligence as evidenced by facial recognition in smartphones and driverless cars, it is important for cancer detection and diagnosis to use this technology as well.

Rodolfo Montironi, MD, of the Polytechnic University of the Marche, Ancona, Italy, noted that this study demonstrates how artificial intelligence can be incorporated into clinical practice, which may be very useful in areas lacking trained pathologists.

He also noted that although use of the system will lead to decreased reliance on human expertise, it is critical for final decisions on treatment to remain with a trained pathologist. Most importantly, he continued, the highest standard of patient care must be ensured. Dr. Montironi predicted that the future will be interesting.

The software was developed in conjunction with Nanjing Innovative Data Technologies, Inc., which was not involved in funding. The system is so new that no information is available on cost or implementation.

Dr. Guo noted limitations to the work. More samples were Gleason grade 3 and 4 than other grades, possibly influencing AI calculation. The team is seeking suitably objective standards to allow for direct comparison of Gleason grade with AI.

Sustained Physical Activity, Not Weight Loss, Associated With Improved Survival in Coronary Heart Disease

From practice update.
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BACKGROUND

Individuals with coronary heart disease (CHD) are recommended to be physically active and to maintain a healthy weight. There is a lack of data on how long-term changes in body mass index (BMI) and physical activity (PA) relate to mortality in this population.

OBJECTIVES

This study sought to determine the associations among changes in BMI, PA, and mortality in individuals with CHD.

METHODS

The authors studied 3,307 individuals (1,038 women) with CHD from the HUNT (Nord-Trøndelag Health Study) with examinations in 1985, 1996, and 2007, followed until the end of 2014. They calculated the hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality according to changes in BMI and PA, and estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression models adjusted for age, smoking, blood pressure, diabetes, alcohol, and self-reported health.

RESULTS

There were 1,493 deaths during 30 years of follow-up (55% from CVD, median 15.7 years). Weight loss, classified as change in BMI <-0.10 kg/m2/year, associated with increased all-cause mortality (adjusted HR: 1.30; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.12 to 1.50). Weight gain, classified as change in BMI ≥0.10 kg/m2/year, was not associated with increased mortality (adjusted HR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.87 to 1.09). Weight loss only associated with increased risk in those who were normal weight at baseline (adjusted HR: 1.38; 95% CI: 1.11 to 1.72). There was a lower risk for all-cause mortality in participants who maintained low PA (adjusted HR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.67 to 0.97) or high PA (adjusted HR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.50 to 0.83), compared with participants who were inactive over time. CVD mortality associations were similar as for all-cause mortality.

CONCLUSIONS

The study observed no mortality risk reductions associated with weight loss in individuals with CHD, and reduced mortality risk associated with weight gain in individuals who were normal weight at baseline. Sustained PA, however, was associated with substantial risk reduction.

A drug for early Amyotrophic latera sclerosis

From www.uptodate.com
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Edaravone for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

●For patients with ALS who have a disease duration of two years or less, are living independently, and have an FVC ≥80 percent, we suggest treatment with edaravone (Grade 2B). We also suggest edaravone for patients with more advanced ALS (Grade 2C).

Edaravone is a free radical scavenger that is thought to reduce oxidative stress, which has been implicated in the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Edaravone may slow functional deterioration in some patients with ALS. An earlier trial found no benefit for edaravone compared with placebo, but a post-hoc analysis showed a possible treatment effect in a subgroup of individuals with early-stage ALS. A subsequent trial enrolled 137 Japanese patients within two years of ALS diagnosis who were living independently and had a forced vital capacity (FVC) of ≥80 percent [39]. Compared with placebo, functional decline at 24 weeks was smaller in the edaravone group, and the difference was considered clinically meaningful. Edaravone was approved in 2015 for the treatment of ALS in Japan and Korea and has now received regulatory approval to treat patients with ALS in the United States [40]. We now suggest edaravone for patients with early-stage disease as well as for those with more advanced disease, although the data are less compelling for the latter group. (See "Disease modifying treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis", section on 'Edaravone'.)

Climate change alarmists may be just that

Here is a link to a paper titled "On the Existence of a Tropical Hot Spot & The Validity of EPA's C02 Endangerment Finding.

It appears that the alarmists view that climate change is a settled science is somewhat exaggerated.

Here are the abstract and conclusion from the paper.
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ABSTRACT

The objective of this research was to determine whether or not a straightforward application of the “proper mathematical methods” would support EPA’s basic claim that CO2 is a pollutant. These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot (THS), caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 14 temperature data sets that were analyzed. The temperature data measurements that were analyzed were taken by many different entities using balloons, satellites, buoys and various land based techniques. Needless to say, if regardless of data source, the structural analysis results are the same, the analysis findings should be considered highly credible. Thus, the analysis results invalidate each of the Three Lines of Evidence in its CO2 Endangerment Finding. Once EPA’s THS assumption is invalidated, it is obvious why the climate models EPA claims can be relied upon for policy analysis purposes, are also invalid. And, these results clearly demonstrate—14 separate and distinct times in fact--that once just the Natural Factor impacts on temperature data are accounted for, there is no “record setting” warming to be concerned about. In fact, there is no Natural Factor Adjusted Warming at all. Moreover, over the time period analyzed, these natural factors have involved historically quite normal solar, volcanic and ENSO activity. At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have caused the officially reported rising, even claimed record setting temperatures.

BOTTOM-LINE: On the Existence of a "Tropical Hot Spot" & The Validity of EPA's CO2 Endangerment Finding.

Given the potential significance of this research, it is appropriate to question everything about it. Questioning everything is fair game from 1) the selection, by one of the authors, of the particular 14 temperature time series for this structural analysis process to 2) the particular econometric parameter estimation/structural analysis methods utilized to 3) the actual models estimated. On all three issues, the authors have attempted to be completely open.

Regarding the model used for Natural Factor Impact Adjustment, recall that the exact same linear functional form and 5 Natural Factor explanatory variables were used in all 14 structural analyses, except that the 1977 Pacific Shift variable is dropped for the Satellite data modeling since its data history begins in 1979. Also, the two NINO Buoy data time series required less analysis because neither had statistical significant time trends to begin with. So that counting the UAH tropical ocean discussed in Section XXIV immediately above, a detailed structural analysis was performed on 12 (13+1-2) temperature data sets.

The econometric modeling/structural analysis process output turned out to be remarkable in that, for all 12 temperature time series so analyzed, the results were invariably the same:

The identical (5 or 4 Natural Factor variables as appropriate for the data window) model worked very well for all 12 temperature data time series:

1.) Excluding (not surprisingly) the 150 mb stratosphere data model, literally all parameter estimates had the correct signs and very nearly all had quite high t Statistics easily confirming statistical significance. (The Durban-Watson statistics confirmed that all the reported t Statistics were reliable.) One exception involved the MEI variable outside the tropics -which was expected.

2.) The Natural Factor Adjustment Model Adjusted R Squares were all higher than relevant Naive forecasting models and very high (i.e., 0.70 -0.88) for such empirical work. Only the stratospheric and NOAA Contiguous U.S. temperature data models had lower Adjusted R Squares for the reasons discussed in Sections VIII and XVIII.

3.) The 14 time series analyzed constituted a robust test set in that they were produced by many different entities using different technologies involving Surface, Buoy, Balloon and Satellite temperature measurement.

These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot, caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 14 temperature time series that were analyzed.

Thus, the analysis results invalidate each of the Three Lines of Evidence in its CO2 Endangerment Finding. Once EPA’s THS assumption is invalidated, it is obvious why the climate models they claim can be relied upon, are also invalid. And, these results clearly demonstrate—14 separate and distinct times in fact--that once just the Natural Factor impacts on temperature data are accounted for, there is no “record setting” warming to be concerned about. In fact, there is no Natural Factor Adjusted Warming at all. Moreover, over the time period analyzed, these natural factors have involved historically quite normal solar, volcanic and ENSO activity.

At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have caused the officially reported rising, even claimed record setting temperatures. To validate such a claim will require mathematically credible, publically available structural analyses involving simultaneous equation parameter estimation techniques.

Finally, regarding the merits of the methodology used herein versus that used in developing the Climate Models relied upon in EPA’s Endangerment Finding, a quote from Congressional testimony seems is order here:

“The advantage of the simple statistical treatment {used herein} is that the complicated processes such as clouds, ocean-atmosphere interaction, aerosols, etc., are implicitly incorporated by the statistical relationships discovered from the actual data. Climate models attempt to calculate these highly non-linear processes from imperfect parameterizations (estimates) whereas the statistical model directly accounts for them since the bulk atmospheric temperature is the response-variable these processes impact. It is true that the statistical model does not know what each sub-process is or how each might interact with other processes. But it also must be made clear: it is an understatement to say that no IPCC climate model accurately incorporates all of the nonlinear processes that affect the system. I simply point out that because the model is constrained by the ultimate response variable (bulk temperature), these highly complex processes are included.

The fact that this statistical model {typically} explains 75-90 percent of the real annual temperature variability, depending on dataset, using these influences (ENSO, volcanoes, solar) is an indication the statistical model is useful. - - - - This result promotes the conclusion that this approach achieves greater scientific (and policy) utility than results from elaborate climate models which on average fail to reproduce the real world’s global average bulk temperature trend since 1979."

Disease Progression and Mortality in Patients With Gleason Score 9–10 Prostate Cancer

From www.practiceupdate.com
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Importance

The optimal treatment for Gleason score 9-10 prostate cancer is unknown.

Objective

To compare clinical outcomes of patients with Gleason score 9-10 prostate cancer after definitive treatment.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Retrospective cohort study in 12 tertiary centers (11 in the United States, 1 in Norway), with 1809 patients treated between 2000 and 2013.

Exposures

Radical prostatectomy (RP), external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) with androgen deprivation therapy, or EBRT plus brachytherapy boost (EBRT+BT) with androgen deprivation therapy.

Main Outcomes and Measures

The primary outcome was prostate cancer-specific mortality; distant metastasis-free survival and overall survival were secondary outcomes.

Results

Of 1809 men, 639 underwent RP, 734 EBRT, and 436 EBRT+BT. Median ages were 61, 67.7, and 67.5 years; median follow-up was 4.2, 5.1, and 6.3 years, respectively. By 10 years, 91 RP, 186 EBRT, and 90 EBRT+BT patients had died. Adjusted 5-year prostate cancer-specific mortality rates were RP, 12% (95% CI, 8%-17%); EBRT, 13% (95% CI, 8%-19%); and EBRT+BT, 3% (95% CI, 1%-5%). EBRT+BT was associated with significantly lower prostate cancer-specific mortality than either RP or EBRT (cause-specific HRs of 0.38 [95% CI, 0.21-0.68] and 0.41 [95% CI, 0.24-0.71]). Adjusted 5-year incidence rates of distant metastasis were RP, 24% (95% CI, 19%-30%); EBRT, 24% (95% CI, 20%-28%); and EBRT+BT, 8% (95% CI, 5%-11%). EBRT+BT was associated with a significantly lower rate of distant metastasis (propensity-score-adjusted cause-specific HRs of 0.27 [95% CI, 0.17-0.43] for RP and 0.30 [95% CI, 0.19-0.47] for EBRT). Adjusted 7.5-year all-cause mortality rates were RP, 17% (95% CI, 11%-23%); EBRT, 18% (95% CI, 14%-24%); and EBRT+BT, 10% (95% CI, 7%-13%). Within the first 7.5 years of follow-up, EBRT+BT was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality (cause-specific HRs of 0.66 [95% CI, 0.46-0.96] for RP and 0.61 [95% CI, 0.45-0.84] for EBRT). After the first 7.5 years, the corresponding HRs were 1.16 (95% CI, 0.70-1.92) and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.57-1.32). No significant differences in prostate cancer-specific mortality, distant metastasis, or all-cause mortality (≤7.5 and >7.5 years) were found between men treated with EBRT or RP (cause-specific HRs of 0.92 [95% CI, 0.67-1.26], 0.90 [95% CI, 0.70-1.14], 1.07 [95% CI, 0.80-1.44], and 1.34 [95% CI, 0.85-2.11]).

Conclusions and Relevance

Among patients with Gleason score 9-10 prostate cancer, treatment with EBRT+BT with androgen deprivation therapy was associated with significantly better prostate cancer-specific mortality and longer time to distant metastasis compared with EBRT with androgen deprivation therapy or with RP.

The Armed Citizen

Blue Angels

Here is the link to the Blue Angels flight team.

Flying at its best.

Your local government at work

From Steve Landsburg's blog.

Another example of intelligent government.

Here is the link.

Government is not the answer.

Good intentions; bad policy

From Steve Landsburg.  A nice example of economic reasoning.
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I learn from Scott Sumner’s blog that in many California cities, residents with past marijuana convictions will jump to the head of the line for licenses to sell the drug legally — this by way of compensating them for past persecution.

Scott approves. I don’t, for two reasons:

First, if you want to compensate people for past persecution, the right way to do it is with cash, not by misallocating productive resources. If there must be licenses, they should be allocated to those who can use them most efficiently, regardless of any past history.

Second, drug dealers have never been the primary victims of anti-drug laws. They can’t be, because there is free entry and exit from that industry. Anti-drug enforcement leads to exit, which in turn leads to higher profits for those who remain — and the exit continues until the profits are high enough to compensate for the risks. One way to think about this: All those “persecuted” drug dealers were, in effect, employing the government to stifle their competition, and paying a fair price for that privilege in the form of occasionally being convicted and punished themselves.

The primary victims of anti-drug legislation are potential consumers who were deterred by artificially high prices. How do you compensate those victims? You can’t. In a population of 1000 people who have never used drugs, it’s quite impossible to identify the 200 or 300 or 400 who would have happily indulged if only the price had been lower.

This is one more reason to be diligent against bad legislation generally. Even if you believe the legislation will eventually be repealed, attempts to compensate the victims are likely to be misdirected, misguided, and socially harmful.

So much for gun free zones

From the Crime Prevention Research Center

10 questions about school safety

From the Hill, by Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Finally, some thought instead of emotion.
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On April 20, 1999, two students attacked Columbine High School, killing 13 and wounding 21 more. Two weeks ago, a former student did the same thing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, killing 17 and wounding 16 more. Nearly two decades separate these tragedies. Yet, our grieving nation is still searching for a solution.

My children never experienced such horror, thank God. They are now beyond school age, but my grandchildren aren’t. So like mothers and grandmothers across America, I lie awake at night, worrying about the next tragedy and wondering what our society needs to do to prevent it.

The knee-jerk answer by many is “ban guns.” But the questions we face are too complex to be resolved by just two words. Here are 10 that keep me awake.

Public places of all kinds are protected. Why aren’t schools?

Unlike government buildings, stadiums, and shopping malls, schools are known as “soft targets” because they are so unprotected. Isn’t it time for states and localities to seriously consider security solutions such as armed guards, improved locks and cameras, magnetometers, concealed carry, or on-site police substations?

Does the threat facing students only come from the muzzle of a gun?

Since Columbine, the total number of primary and secondary school homicides, including beatings and stabbings, is estimated to be more than three times the number of lives that have been tragically lost to mass shootings on school grounds. All lives are precious, so shouldn’t we be focusing on all threats to school safety?

What if we banned all gun sales in America?

It’s tempting to believe banning gun sales will protect our students, but guns are merely one of many possible tools of destruction. The Columbine attackers brought powerful bombs to school, and a Maryland girl was recently arrested with plans to blow up her school. How would a gun ban have protected their classmates?

What if we severely restricted gun ownership everywhere?

Some say if gun ownership is restricted, peace will be restored. But take a look at Baltimore. It has some of the most restrictive policies in America. Yet, it was just named the nation’s most dangerous city. Criminals clearly aren’t abiding by Baltimore’s rules. Is there any basis for thinking it would be any different elsewhere?

Why is the background check system so full of holes?

America supposedly has a national database containing the information needed to keep criminals from buying a gun. But many state and federal agencies don’t regularly submit data to it, and what it does contain is often incorrect. In this high-technology era, how hard is it to have a background check system that works?

The FBI and police received tips about the Parkland shooter dozens of times. Why didn’t they do something?
I think Andrew Pollack, father of a slain Parkland student, spoke for us all when he expressed fury that his daughter and her school were so unprotected. It would be one thing if the shooter had been unknown. But he made frequent threats and was reported to authorities many times. Why didn’t they take the necessary action?

The Parkland shooter said, “Hi, I’m Nick. I’m a school shooter.” Why wasn’t he institutionalized?

I believe mental health should be treated with the same intensity as physical health. Yet, we see so many instances, like Columbine and Parkland, in which mentally ill individuals are able to commit heinous acts on innocent people. What breakdowns are preventing them from getting the care they obviously need?

He was bullied and ostracized at school. Why was nothing done to address that?

We now know the Parkland shooter was bullied and ostracized by his classmates. So, too, were the Columbine attackers. The U.S. Secret Service has documented that bullying played a major role in two-thirds of America’s premeditated school shootings. Yet, school officials do too little to prevent bullying. Why?

He played violent video games. How many virtual “kills” did he log before he committed real ones?

The Parkland shooter is said to have played violent games 12 or more hours a day. And the Columbine attackers were reportedly obsessed with “Doom”, a violent video game. Some commentators say the violence kids see in movies, on television, and in video games isn’t relevant. But doesn’t this striking coincidence warrant a closer look?

Is America finally ready to get serious about school safety and not just talk in bumper sticker soundbites?

The political debate raging today is so disappointing. If our nation really wants to make schools safer, we have to have a broader and more caring conversation. It must be one that includes mental health, family breakdown, culture, media and more. But instead, some insist on sticking with two-word slogans like “ban guns!” Can’t we do better?

Our children and grandchildren deserve to be safe at school. That means we need to set aside two-word bromides and address these questions in Washington, in state houses, in city halls, and most importantly, in our communities, churches and homes. We can’t allow another tragedy to occur. That’s why it’s time to get serious about school safety.

So much for socialism and entitlements

From yahoo.com

By Anggy Polanco and Isaac Urrutia
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SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela imposed electricity rationing this week in six western states, as the crisis-hit country's creaky power grid suffered from a drought that has reduced water levels in key reservoirs needed to run hydroelectric power generators.

The four-hour formal outages began on Thursday. But many residents scoffed at the announcement, wryly noting that they have been suffering far more extended blackouts during the last week.

"We have spent 14 hours without electricity today. And yesterday electricity came and went: for six hours we had no power," said Ligthia Marrero, 50, in the western state of San Cristobal, noting that her fridge had been damaged by the frequent interruptions.

Crumbling infrastructure and lack of investments have hit Venezuela's power supply for years. Now, the situation has been exacerbated by dwindling rains.

In the worst-hit western cities, business has all but ground to a halt at a time when the OPEC nation of 30 million is already suffering hyperinflation and a profound recession. Many Venezuelans are unable to eat properly on salaries of just a couple of dollars per month at the black market rate, sparking malnutrition, emigration and frequent sights of Venezuelans digging through trash or begging in front of supermarkets.

Maybelin Mendoza, a cashier at a bakery in Tachira state, said business has been further hit because points of sale stop working during blackouts - just as Venezuelans are chronically short of cash due to hyperinflation.

In the most dramatic cases, the opposition governor of Tachira state said three people, including a four-month-old, died this week because they failed to receive assistance during a power outage.

"Because of electrical failures, the machines weren't able to revive the people and they died," said Laidy Gomez.

Reuters was unable to confirm the report.

Authorities have acknowledged that interruptions will continue for at least two weeks, but they have not said whether they will spread to other states.

"Of a possible 1,100 megawatts, we are only generating 150 right now," Energy Minister Luis Motta told reporters referring to the Fabricio Ojeda dam, in the western Andean state of Merida.

Capital city Caracas and other major cities have not been hit by rationing yet. Two years ago, rationing there lasted five months when a drought hit the Guri dam, the country's largest hydroelectric dam.

But because of the economic crisis, Venezuela has reduced electricity consumption to about 14,000 megawatts at peak hours, according to engineer and former electricity executive Miguel Lara. Two years ago, state-run Corpoelec put the figure at 16,000 megawatts.

The Conquest of Climate

Here is an interesting take on climate change.

What everyone seems to be ignoring is the possible ease of modifying climate to make it cooler, thereby offsetting the impact of greenhouse gases, and the fact that, at least in principle, population size can be matched to environmental resources.

Here is a link to the article.

Here are a few excerpts.
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How bad will climate change be? Not very.

No, this isn’t a denialist screed. Human greenhouse emissions will warm the planet, raise the seas and derange the weather, and the resulting heat, flood and drought will be cataclysmic.

Cataclysmic—but not apocalyptic. While the climate upheaval will be large, the consequences for human well-being will be small. Looked at in the broader context of economic development, climate change will barely slow our progress in the effort to raise living standards.

We have come to think of climate change as the canonical “extinction-level event,” a catastrophe so multifaceted and all-encompassing that it puts human survival in doubt. But when we think harder about the specific problems global warming poses—problems of water management, agricultural productivity, cooling and construction—the threat becomes less daunting. Our logistic and technical capacities are burgeoning, and they give us ample means of addressing these problems.

Moreover, the scope of warming issues, even under worst-case scenarios, is modest compared to the task of feeding and housing several billion extra people over the next few decades and accommodating the higher living standards that impoverished countries demand. That “development crisis” dwarfs the climate crisis, yet we don’t think of it as a crisis because we are steadily (though too slowly) resolving it and will continue to do so in the future. Along the way, we will resolve the climate crisis, which is fundamentally the same thing as the development crisis. Pre-modern Europe endured many climate crises—famines caused by inclement weather lasting a season or a century—that subsided with modern development; our contemporary warming issues are also symptoms of lingering underdevelopment. The faster we develop, the faster we resolve the climate crisis by decoupling our well-being from the weather.

Global warming will have serious consequences that need to be reckoned with. Cleaning up the energy supply is an important—and accelerating—aspect of development that should be nurtured, but it must be balanced against more pressing needs that sometimes conflict with it. To get the balance right greens need to give up their anxiety over development and over technologies like nuclear power that can make development both faster and cleaner. Like the man said, freedom from fear is the greatest liberation of all.

Prostate Cancer Survival Differences at 9 Years Between Aggressive vs Conservative Therapy

From practiceupdate.com.

The message:  If you have prostate cancer, seek aggressive therapy for nonmetastatic disease.

Here is a summary of the study.
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BACKGROUND

To the authors' knowledge, the survival benefit of local therapy in the setting of advanced prostate cancer remains unknown. The authors investigated whether prostate-directed treatment with either surgery or radiotherapy versus conservative treatment in the setting of locally advanced or metastatic disease was associated with improved survival within a cohort of men from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Breast and Prostate Cancer Data Quality and Patterns of Care Study (CDC POC-BP).

METHODS

Men diagnosed with locally advanced (cT3-T4 or N+ and M0) or metastatic prostate cancer were identified. The authors compared survival by treatment type, categorized as conservative (androgen deprivation therapy only) versus aggressive (radical prostatectomy or any type of radiotherapy). Nine-year overall survival and prostate cancer-specific survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine factors independently associated with 9-year prostate cancer-specific survival.

RESULTS

For men with advanced, nonmetastatic prostate cancer, conservative treatment alone was associated with a 4 times higher likelihood of prostate cancer mortality compared with men treated with surgery (hazard ratio, 4.18; 95% confidence interval, 1.44-12.14). In contrast, no difference was found between conservative versus aggressive treatment after adjusting for covariates for men with metastatic disease. The 9-year prostate cancer-specific survival rate was 27% for those receiving aggressive treatment versus 24% for men undergoing conservative treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

The authors did not observe a survival advantage with local therapy in addition to standard androgen deprivation therapy for men with metastatic prostate cancer. However, the results of the current study did affirm advantages in the setting of locally advanced disease. Aggressive local therapy in the setting of metastatic disease needs to be studied carefully before clinical adoption.