A prediction method for plasma concentration by using a nonlinear grey Bernoulli combined model based on a self-memory algorithm

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The goal of this work is to present and explore the application of a novel nonlinear grey Bernoulli combined model based on a self-memory algorithm, abbreviated as SA-NGBM, for modeling single-peaked sequences of time samples of acetylsalicylate plasma concentration following oral dosing. The self-memorization SA-NGBM routine reduces the dependence on a solitary initial value, as the initial state of the model utilizes multiple time samples. To test its forecasting performance, the SA-NGBM was used to extrapolate the plasma concentration predicted data, in comparison with the later time samples. The results were contrasted with those of the traditional optimized NGBM (ONGBM), exponential smoothing (ES) and simple moving average (SMA) using four popular accuracy and significance tests. That comparison showed that the SA-NGBM was much more accurate and efficient for matching the individual, nonlinear-system stochastic fluctuations than the existing ONGBM, ES and SMA models. The findings have potential applications for signal matching to similar small sample size, single-peaked, plasma concentration series

Forecasting Schizophrenia Incidence Frequencies Using Time Series Approach

Introduction: Understanding the prevalence of schizophrenia has important implications for both health service planning and risk factor epidemiology. The aims of this study are to systematically identify and collate studies describing the prevalence of schizophrenia, to summarize the findings of these studies, and to explore selected factors that may influence prevalence estimates.Methods: This historical cohort study was done on schizophrenia patients in Farshchian psychiatric hospital from April 2008 to April 2016. To analyze the data, the Holt-Winters Exponential Smoothing (HWES) method was applied. All the analyses were done by R.3.2.3. Software using the packages “forecast” and “tseries”. The statistical significant level was assumed as 0.05.Results: Our investigation show that a constant frequency of Schizophrenia incidence happens every month from August 2008 to February 2015 while a considerable increase occurs in March 2015. The high frequency of Schizophrenia incidence remains constant to the end of 2015 and a decrease is shown in 2016. Also, data demonstrate the development of Schizophrenia in the next 24 months with 95% confidence interval.Conclusion: Our study showed that a significant increase happens in the frequency of Schizophrenia from 2016. Although the development is not constant and the same for all months, the amount of increase is considerably high comparing to before 2016.

Performance Evaluation of Smart Decision Support Systems on Healthcare

Medical activity requires responsibility not only from clinical knowledge and skill but also on the management of an enormous amount of information related to patient care. It is through proper treatment of information that experts can consistently build a healthy wellness policy. The primary objective for the development of decision support systems (DSSs) is to provide information to specialists when and where they are needed. These systems provide information, models, and data manipulation tools to help experts make better decisions in a variety of situations. Most of the challenges that smart DSSs face come from the great difficulty of dealing with large volumes of information, which is continuously generated by the most diverse types of devices and equipment, requiring high computational resources. This situation makes this type of system susceptible to not recovering information quickly for the decision making. As a result of this adversity, the information quality and the provision of an infrastructure capable of promoting the integration and articulation among different health information systems (HIS) become promising research topics in the field of electronic health (e-health) and that, for this same reason, are addressed in this research. The work described in this thesis is motivated by the need to propose novel approaches to deal with problems inherent to the acquisition, cleaning, integration, and aggregation of data obtained from different sources in e-health environments, as well as their analysis. To ensure the success of data integration and analysis in e-health environments, it is essential that machine-learning (ML) algorithms ensure system reliability. However, in this type of environment, it is not possible to guarantee a reliable scenario. This scenario makes intelligent SAD susceptible to predictive failures, which severely compromise overall system performance. On the other hand, systems can have their performance compromised due to the overload of information they can support. To solve some of these problems, this thesis presents several proposals and studies on the impact of ML algorithms in the monitoring and management of hypertensive disorders related to pregnancy of risk. The primary goals of the proposals presented in this thesis are to improve the overall performance of health information systems. In particular, ML-based methods are exploited to improve the prediction accuracy and optimize the use of monitoring device resources. It was demonstrated that the use of this type of strategy and methodology contributes to a significant increase in the performance of smart DSSs, not only concerning precision but also in the computational cost reduction used in the classification process. The observed results seek to contribute to the advance of state of the art in methods and strategies based on AI that aim to surpass some challenges that emerge from the integration and performance of the smart DSSs. With the use of algorithms based on AI, it is possible to quickly and automatically analyze a larger volume of complex data and focus on more accurate results, providing high-value predictions for a better decision making in real time and without human intervention.A atividade médica requer responsabilidade não apenas com base no conhecimento e na habilidade clínica, mas também na gestão de uma enorme quantidade de informações relacionadas ao atendimento ao paciente. É através do tratamento adequado das informações que os especialistas podem consistentemente construir uma política saudável de bem-estar. O principal objetivo para o desenvolvimento de sistemas de apoio à decisão (SAD) é fornecer informações aos especialistas onde e quando são necessárias. Esses sistemas fornecem informações, modelos e ferramentas de manipulação de dados para ajudar os especialistas a tomar melhores decisões em diversas situações. A maioria dos desafios que os SAD inteligentes enfrentam advêm da grande dificuldade de lidar com grandes volumes de dados, que é gerada constantemente pelos mais diversos tipos de dispositivos e equipamentos, exigindo elevados recursos computacionais. Essa situação torna este tipo de sistemas suscetível a não recuperar a informação rapidamente para a tomada de decisão. Como resultado dessa adversidade, a qualidade da informação e a provisão de uma infraestrutura capaz de promover a integração e a articulação entre diferentes sistemas de informação em saúde (SIS) tornam-se promissores tópicos de pesquisa no campo da saúde eletrônica (e-saúde) e que, por essa mesma razão, são abordadas nesta investigação. O trabalho descrito nesta tese é motivado pela necessidade de propor novas abordagens para lidar com os problemas inerentes à aquisição, limpeza, integração e agregação de dados obtidos de diferentes fontes em ambientes de e-saúde, bem como sua análise. Para garantir o sucesso da integração e análise de dados em ambientes e-saúde é importante que os algoritmos baseados em aprendizagem de máquina (AM) garantam a confiabilidade do sistema. No entanto, neste tipo de ambiente, não é possível garantir um cenário totalmente confiável. Esse cenário torna os SAD inteligentes suscetíveis à presença de falhas de predição que comprometem seriamente o desempenho geral do sistema. Por outro lado, os sistemas podem ter seu desempenho comprometido devido à sobrecarga de informações que podem suportar. Para tentar resolver alguns destes problemas, esta tese apresenta várias propostas e estudos sobre o impacto de algoritmos de AM na monitoria e gestão de transtornos hipertensivos relacionados com a gravidez (gestação) de risco. O objetivo das propostas apresentadas nesta tese é melhorar o desempenho global de sistemas de informação em saúde. Em particular, os métodos baseados em AM são explorados para melhorar a precisão da predição e otimizar o uso dos recursos dos dispositivos de monitorização. Ficou demonstrado que o uso deste tipo de estratégia e metodologia contribui para um aumento significativo do desempenho dos SAD inteligentes, não só em termos de precisão, mas também na diminuição do custo computacional utilizado no processo de classificação. Os resultados observados buscam contribuir para o avanço do estado da arte em métodos e estratégias baseadas em inteligência artificial que visam ultrapassar alguns desafios que advêm da integração e desempenho dos SAD inteligentes. Como o uso de algoritmos baseados em inteligência artificial é possível analisar de forma rápida e automática um volume maior de dados complexos e focar em resultados mais precisos, fornecendo previsões de alto valor para uma melhor tomada de decisão em tempo real e sem intervenção humana