Median time to failure

The required degree of understanding of the physical properties of metal thin films used for interconnects on chips is illustrated by the following example. It was found that the performance of conductors on chips, A1 or Cu, depends on the structure of the conductor metal. For example, Vaidya and Sinha (10) reported that the measured median time to failure (MTF) of Al-0.5% Cu thin films is a function of three microstructural variables (attributes) median grain size, statistical variance (cr ) of the grain size distribution, and degree of [111] fiber texture in the film. 

Figure 109 uses the median time-to-failure to illustrate the effect of stress but it should be realized that the distribution of failure times is... 

The effect of adding finasteride 5 mg/day to high-dose bicalutamide 150 mg/ day has been studied in 41 men with advanced prostate cancer treated over a mean of 3.9 years (21). The serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) concentration was measured every 2 weeks until disease progression. At the first nadir of PSA, the median fall from baseline was 96.5% a second nadir occurred in 30 of 41 patients, with a median fall of 98.5% from baseline. The median times to each nadir were 3.7 and 5.8 weeks respectively. The median time to treatment failure was 21 months. Adverse effects were minor, including gynecomastia. Sex drive was normal in 17 of 29 men at baseline and in 12 of 24 men at the second PSA nadir, but one-third of the men had spontaneous erections at both times. The authors concluded that finasteride provided additional intracellular androgen blockade when added to bicalutamide. The duration of control was comparable to that achieved with castration, with preserved sexual function in some patients. 

The efficacy and toxicity of Caelyx in combination with paclitaxel (Taxol) were investigated as a first-line therapy in 34 patients with advanced breast cancer in a multicentric phase II study [428], Paclitaxel at a dose of 175 mg/m2 and Caelyx (30 mg/m2) were administered intravenously every 3 weeks. It was shown that the response rates of the combination were over 70% while the median time to treatment failure was 45 weeks. No significant clinical cardiotoxicity was observed and the usual side effects (mucositis, stomatitis, hand-foot syndrome) were treated accordingly. 

Problem A set of time to failure data is given in Table A-1. What is the median of this data ... 

Can failures occur from time to time. The release of fission products from them depends on the temperature and type of fuel. If the fuel is uranium metal, as in the Windscale and Magnox reactors, and the can fails, the uranium will oxidise in air or C02. In laboratory experiments, the mass median aerodynamic equivalent diameter (MMAD) of the particles produced by oxidation of uranium increased from about 40 ptm when the temperature of oxidation was 600°C to 500 jum at 1000°C (Megaw et al., 1961). At high temperature, a coherent sintered oxide layer formed on the uranium and this hindered the formation of particles. 

As noted previously, cardiac dysfunction and heart failure are potentially common late effects of oncologic therapy (Lenihan and Cardinale 2012). The authors emphasized the importance of the latter category precisely because of the benefits of early identification and appropriate intervention. Cardinale and colleagues (2015) conducted a prospective study addressing the early detection of anthracycline cardiotoxicity and improvement with heart failure therapy. In the study, including 2,625 participants initially, individuals were followed up after the last dose of anthracy-cline-containing therapy the median follow-up period was 5.2 years (range 4 months to 19 years). Two hundred and twenty-five (9 %) participants were lost to follow-up. Of the rest, cardiotoxicity occurred in 226 (9 %). The median time between cessation of treatment and the development of cardiotoxicity was 3.5 months. 

Some indicators that generally indicate a log-normal distribution are (a) data values that physically cannot be negative, (b) nonnal standard deviations that are proportional to arithmetic means, (c) arithmetic means that are consistently greater than median values, and (d) dependent parameters whose logarithms are proportional to the values of independent parameters. Some t5fpes of corrosion data that are likely to be log-normally distributed are (a) mass loss, (b) thickness loss, (c) time to initial stress corrosion cracks, (d) time to stress-corrosion cracking failures, and (e) polarization currents in the Tafel slope range. 

Cynthia has also discovered that heart failure is the most common hospital discharge diagnosis in individuals over age 65. Median survival rate from the time of diagnosis is 1.7 years in men and 3.2 years in women (Ho et al., 1993). Cynthia knows that she will have to collect some demographic variables as well as the variables that directly address her objectives. Pertinent demographic variables may include age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, income level, and mental status. 

A series of 11 spontaneously reported cases in which renal impairment was associated with the use of nimesulide has been described (17). The adverse events were represented by acute renal insufficiency n — 2), acute deterioration of chronic renal insufficiency n — 3), fluid retention n = 4), and oliguria and macro hematuria n = 1 each). The patients had a median age of 57 (range 17-81) years and six had some predisposing condition (chronic renal insufficiency, heart failure, diabetes, use of diuretics) to NSAID-induced functional renal impairment. Apart from one patient, nimesulide was taken for a very short time (less than 8 days). A favorable outcome ensued after withdrawal of therapy in aU patients. The acute deterioration of renal function described in these patients pointed to hemodynamically mediated renal impairment in all cases, with the exception of one man in whom interstitial nephritis was suspected. 

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