Inhaled corticosteroids are currently considered first-line agents for the treatment of asthma. Medium- to long-term administration of inhaled steroids may be associated with bone loss. Various studies have evaluated their effect on bone mineral density (BMD); some have shown loss of BMD with steroid treatment, but others have failed to do so. The present meta-analysis was undertaken to determine the possible effect of inhaled steroids on bone density. Literature was collected using computerized (MEDLINE) and manual searches using index medicus and checking cross-references of the published articles. The studies identified were screened for inclusion/exclusion criteria. Grouped means (XT/XC) and pooled standard deviations (SDT/SDC) for the treatment group (XT[95% CI] = 1.144 [1.019-1.269]; SDT = 0.163, g/cm2) and control group (XC [95% CI] = 1.193 [1.073-1.313]; SDC = 0.157, g/cm2) were worked out respectively for the selected studies. Finally, a comparison between grouped means of steroid-treated and control groups was done by two-sample t-test at the 5% level of significance. The results of the meta-analysis showed that although the mean BMD of the steroid-treated group was reduced by 4.1% as compared to the control group, this failed to achieve statistical significance (p = 0.8; 95% CI for the mean difference between two groups = 0.028-0.070 g/cm2). It is concluded that inhaled steroids for the treatment of asthma can be considered safe with respect to their effect on bone loss.

Two types of modeled rockfill materials were collected from Renuka dam site, Himachal Pradesh, India and Salma dam site, Afghanistan. The rockfill material collected from Renuka dam site is rounded to sub-rounded in shape and the rockfill material collected from Salma dam site is angular to sub-angular in shape. The prototype gradation rockfill material consists maximum particle size larger than 1,000 mm. Therefore, for carrying out laboratory testing and modeling the bahaviour, the prototype rockfill material is scaled down to the maximum particle size (d max) of 25, 50 and 80 mm for both projects material using parallel gradation technique. Triaxial compression and Index properties tests were conducted on both project rockfill materials and are presented. From the triaxial behaviour, it is observed that the stress-strain behaviour is non-linear, inelastic and stress dependent for both the materials. The material compresses during the initial shearing and shows dilation effect with further shearing. It is observed that the /-value for alluvial rockfill material increases with increase in d max and reverse trend is observed for blasted quarried rockfill material which shows the importance of the type of material. The stress-strain-volume change behaviour of both projects modeled rockfill material was predicted by using hierarchical single surface (HISS) model based on elasto plasticity and compared with the laboratory test results. From the comparison, it is observed that both results match closely. It is, therefore, suggested that the behaviour of both types of rockfill materials can be characterized successfully using HISS model.

The paper introduces a general class of nonparametric tests for the two-sample location problem based on medians of sub-samples. This class includes, as a special case, the test proposed by Shetty and Govindarajulu (1988). The asymptotic relative efficiency of the proposed class of tests is compared with several other tests, with interesting results.

A new class of distribution-free tests for the two-sample location problem is proposed. The tests are based on two-sample U-statistics. This class basically generalizes the tests proposed by Deshpande, J.V.; Kochar, S.C. Some competitors of Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test for location alternatives. Journal of Indian Statistical Association 1982, 19, 9-18. The proposed class of tests is also extended to the k (! 2)-sample problem for testing homogeneity of location parameters against ordered alternatives. This extension is based on linear combinations of two-sample U-statistics. Pitman asymptotic relative efficiencies (AREs) of the members of the proposed class(es) of tests relative to some of the existing tests are computed for a number of underlying distributions. It is shown that the proposed class of tests performs as good as or better than its competitors in literature.

Let π1, ... , πk be k independent populations and let Fi ( x)= F( x - θi) be the absolutely continuous cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the i-th population indexed by the location parameter θi; i=1,,.... k. A class of subset selection procedures based on sub-sample extrema for unequal sample sizes is proposed for the problem of selecting a subset from ( π1, .... πk) which contains the population with largest location parameter. The proposed subset selection procedures are then compared with the subset selection procedures of Hsu (1981) in the sense of Pitman ARE (asymptotic relative efficiency). It is shown that these procedures can approximately be implemented with the help of existing tables and sample size sufficient for their implementation, based on simulation results, is discussed. AMS (1980) Subject Classification: Primary 62F07; Secondary 62H10