Short term traffic congestion forecasting using hybrid metaheuristics and rule based methods a comparative study

In this paper, a comparative study between a hybrid technique that combines a Genetic Algorithm with a Cross Entropy method to optimize Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems, and literature techniques is presented. These techniques are applied to traffic congestion datasets in order to determine their performance in this area. Different types of datasets have been chosen. The used time horizons are 5, 15 and 30 min. Results show that the hybrid technique improves those results obtained by the techniques of the state of the art. In this way, the performed experimentation shows the competitiveness of the proposal in this area of application. Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

The climatic significance of Late Ordovician-early Silurian black

The Ordovician-Silurian transition (455-430 Ma) is characterized by repeated climatic perturbations, concomitant with major changes in the global oceanic redox state best exemplified by the periodic deposition of black shales. The relationship between the climatic evolution and the oceanic redox cycles, however, remains largely debated. Here, using an ocean-atmosphere general circulation model accounting for ocean biogeochemistry (MITgcm), we investigate the mechanisms responsible for the burial of organic carbon immediately before, during and right after the latest Ordovician Hirnantian (445-444 Ma) glacial peak. Our results are compared with recent sedimentological and geochemical data. We show that the late Katian time slice (445 Ma), typified by the deposition of black shales at tropical latitudes, represents an unperturbed oceanic state, with regional organic carbon burial driven by the surface primary productivity. During the Hirnantian, our experiments predict a global oxygenation event, in agreement with the disappearance of the black shales in the sedimentary record. This suggests that deep-water burial of organic matter may not be a tenable triggering factor for the positive carbon excursion reported at that time. Our simulations indicate that the perturbation of the ocean circulation induced by the release of freshwater, in the context of the post-Hirnantian deglaciation, does not sustain over sufficiently long geological periods to cause the Rhuddanian (444 Ma) oceanic anoxic event. Input of nutrients to the ocean, through increased continental weathering and the leaching of newly-exposed glaciogenic sediments, may instead constitute the dominant control on the spread of anoxia in the early Silurian

A systematic review on the effectiveness of physical and rehabilitation interventions for chronic non-specific low back pain

Low back pain (LBP) is a common and disabling disorder in western society. The management of LBP comprises a range of different intervention strategies including surgery, drug therapy, and non-medical interventions. The objective of the present study is to determine the effectiveness of physical and rehabilitation interventions (i.e. exercise therapy, back school, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), low level laser therapy, education, massage, behavioural treatment, traction, multidisciplinary treatment, lumbar supports, and heat/cold therapy) for chronic LBP. The primary search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and PEDro up to 22 December 2008. Existing Cochrane reviews for the individual interventions were screened for studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria. The search strategy outlined by the Cochrane Back Review Groups (CBRG) was followed. The following were included for selection criteria: (1) randomized controlled trials, (2) adult (≥18 years) population with chronic (≥12 weeks) non-specific LBP, and (3) evaluation of at least one of the main clinically relevant outcome measures (pain, functional status, perceived recovery, or return to work). Two reviewers independently selected studies and extracted data on study characteristics, risk of bias, and outcomes at short, intermediate, and long-term follow-up. The GRADE approach was used to determine the quality of evidence. In total 83 randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria: exercise therapy (n = 37), back school (n = 5), TENS (n = 6), low level laser therapy (n = 3), behavioural treatment (n = 21), patient education (n = 1), traction (n = 1), and multidisciplinary treatment (n = 6). Compared to usual care, exercise therapy improved post-treatment pain intensity and disability, and long-term function. Behavioural treatment was found to be effective in reducing pain intensity at short-term follow-up compared to no treatment/waiting list controls. Finally, multidisciplinary treatment was found to reduce pain intensity and disability at short-term follow-up compared to no treatment/waiting list controls. Overall, the level of evidence was low. Evidence from randomized controlled trials demonstrates that there is low quality evidence for the effectiveness of exercise therapy compared to usual care, there is low evidence for the effectiveness of behavioural therapy compared to no treatment and there is moderate evidence for the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary treatment compared to no treatment and other active treatments at reducing pain at short-term in the treatment of chronic low back pain. Based on the heterogeneity of the populations, interventions, and comparison groups, we conclude that there are insufficient data to draw firm conclusion on the clinical effect of back schools, low-level laser therapy, patient education, massage, traction, superficial heat/cold, and lumbar supports for chronic LBP

Inquérito sorológico para a detecção de anticorpos contra o vírus da Imunodeficiência Humana (VIH) em crianças internadas em enfermaria geral

São apresentados os resultados de um inquérito sorológico para a detecção de anticorpos contra o Vírus da Imunodeficiência Humana (VIH), em grupo não selecionado de crianças, internadas numa enfermaria geral de pediatria. Foram testados 441 pacientes pelo método ELISA, com uma positividade de 1,1 %, cujos resultados foram confirmados pelos testes de Western-Blot e/ou ImunoBlot. Nenhum dos cinco pacientes com teste positivo apresentou história de transfusão anterior, enquanto que 4,3% dos pacientes estudados apresentaram história transfusional. Todas as mães apresentaram também testes ELISA positivos. Em quatro casos, pelo menos um dos genitores referiu uso de drogas por via endovenosa. Em todas as crianças, o modo de transmissão foi vertical. A partir desses achados sugere-se a necessidade de a equipe de saúde tomar precauções quando da manipulação de sangue ou secreções. Recomenda-se a realização de inquéritos anônimos em enfermarias de hospitais gerais para auxiliar na determinação da real prevalência das infecções pelo VIH

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries(1,2). However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world(3) and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health(4,5). However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol-which is a marker of cardiovascular riskchanged from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million-4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.Peer reviewe

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe

Impact of common cardio-metabolic risk factors on fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease in Latin America and the Caribbean: an individual-level pooled analysis of 31 cohort studies

Background: Estimates of the burden of cardio-metabolic risk factors in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) rely on relative risks (RRs) from non-LAC countries. Whether these RRs apply to LAC remains un- known. Methods: We pooled LAC cohorts. We estimated RRs per unit of exposure to body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), total cholesterol (TC) and non-HDL cholesterol on fatal (31 cohorts, n = 168,287) and non-fatal (13 cohorts, n = 27,554) cardiovascular diseases, adjusting for regression dilution bias. We used these RRs and national data on mean risk factor levels to estimate the number of cardiovascular deaths attributable to non-optimal levels of each risk factor. Results: Our RRs for SBP, FPG and TC were like those observed in cohorts conducted in high-income countries; however, for BMI, our RRs were consistently smaller in people below 75 years of age. Across risk factors, we observed smaller RRs among older ages. Non-optimal SBP was responsible for the largest number of attributable cardiovascular deaths ranging from 38 per 10 0,0 0 0 women and 54 men in Peru, to 261 (Dominica, women) and 282 (Guyana, men). For non-HDL cholesterol, the lowest attributable rate was for women in Peru (21) and men in Guatemala (25), and the largest in men (158) and women (142) from Guyana. Interpretation: RRs for BMI from studies conducted in high-income countries may overestimate disease burden metrics in LAC; conversely, RRs for SBP, FPG and TC from LAC cohorts are similar to those esti- mated from cohorts in high-income countries