Time-to-birth prediction models and the influence of expert opinions

Preterm birth is the leading cause of death among children under five years old. The pathophysiology and etiology of preterm labor are not yet fully understood. This causes a large number of unnecessary hospitalizations due to high--sensitivity clinical policies, which has a significant psychological and economic impact. In this study, we present a predictive model, based on a new dataset containing information of 1,243 admissions, that predicts whether a patient will give birth within a given time after admission. Such a model could provide support in the clinical decision-making process. Predictions for birth within 48 h or 7 days after admission yield an Area Under the Curve of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUC) of 0.72 for both tasks. Furthermore, we show that by incorporating predictions made by experts at admission, which introduces a potential bias, the prediction effectiveness increases to an AUC score of 0.83 and 0.81 for these respective tasks

Position Sensitive Single Wire Proportional Counter with Electrodes for Increasing Electric Field Strength

A position sensitive single wire proportional counter (PS-SWPC) with supplemental electrodes is studied for developing a focal plane detector of a magnetic spectrograph. These electrodes increase the electric field at the position away from the anode wire in the counter in order to accelerate the drift velocity of electrons generated by the incident radiation. Characteristics of electron drift and detection efficiency for filling gas mixtures (Ar-CH4 and Ne-CH4) are investigated. As a result, we obtained sufficient time characteristics for PS-SWPC