5,287 research outputs found
On the Hardness of SAT with Community Structure
Recent attempts to explain the effectiveness of Boolean satisfiability (SAT)
solvers based on conflict-driven clause learning (CDCL) on large industrial
benchmarks have focused on the concept of community structure. Specifically,
industrial benchmarks have been empirically found to have good community
structure, and experiments seem to show a correlation between such structure
and the efficiency of CDCL. However, in this paper we establish hardness
results suggesting that community structure is not sufficient to explain the
success of CDCL in practice. First, we formally characterize a property shared
by a wide class of metrics capturing community structure, including
"modularity". Next, we show that the SAT instances with good community
structure according to any metric with this property are still NP-hard.
Finally, we study a class of random instances generated from the
"pseudo-industrial" community attachment model of Gir\'aldez-Cru and Levy. We
prove that, with high probability, instances from this model that have
relatively few communities but are still highly modular require exponentially
long resolution proofs and so are hard for CDCL. We also present experimental
evidence that our result continues to hold for instances with many more
communities. This indicates that actual industrial instances easily solved by
CDCL may have some other relevant structure not captured by the community
attachment model.Comment: 23 pages. Full version of a SAT 2016 pape
Prevalence of asthma and its association with rhinitis in the elderly
BACKGROUND:
Asthma and rhinitis are frequent respiratory diseases in children and adults. Despite the increase in the aging population, there are few epidemiologic data on both diseases in the elderly. So far, no population-based study has analyzed the association between asthma and rhinitis symptoms and severity in this age group. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma in the population aged ≥65 years in mainland Portugal and to evaluate its association with the presence and classification of rhinitis according to ARIA recommendations, in this age group.
METHODS:
A cross-sectional, nationwide, population-based survey of individuals aged ≥65 years, living in mainland Portugal was performed.
RESULTS:
Data were obtained from 3678 respondents. The prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma was 10.9% (95% confidence interval (95%CI) 9.9-11.9). The frequency of asthma diagnosis increased with the number of nasal symptoms (p < 0.001). A strong association between asthma and rhinitis was found (odds ratio (OR) 13.86 (95%CI 10.66-18.02)). The strength of this association increased with the persistence and severity of rhinitis, being particularly high in elderly subjects with moderate-severe persistent rhinitis (OR 39.9 (95%CI 27.5-58.0)).
CONCLUSIONS:
Asthma is common in the elderly and strongly associated with rhinitis. The OR for asthma is especially high in persistent and severe ARIA classification rhinitis types. This study strengthens the need for an integrated assessment of asthma together with rhinitis in the elderl
Development Process and Cognitive Testing of CARATkids - Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test for Children
Background: Allergic rhinitis and asthma (ARA) are chronic inflammatory diseases of the airways that often coexist in children. The only tool to assess the ARA control, the Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT) is to be used by adults. We aimed to develop the Pediatric version of Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test
(CARATkids) and to test its comprehensibility in children with 4 to 12 years of age.
Methods: The questionnaire development included a literature review of pediatric questionnaires on asthma and/or rhinitis control and two consensus meetings of a multidisciplinary group. Cognitive testing was carried out in a cross-sectional qualitative study using cognitive interviews.
Results: Four questionnaires to assess asthma and none to assess rhinitis control in children were identified. The
multidisciplinary group produced a questionnaire version for children with 17 questions with illustrations and
dichotomous (yes/no) response format. The version for caregivers had 4-points and dichotomous scales. Twenty-nine
children, 4 to 12 years old, and their caregivers were interviewed. Only children over 6 years old could adequately
answer the questionnaire. A few words/expressions were not fully understood by children of 6 to 8 years old. The
drawings illustrating the questions were considered helpful by children and caregivers. Caregivers considered the
questionnaire complete and clear and preferred dichotomous over the 4-points scales. The proportion of agreement between children and their caregivers was 61%. The words/expressions that were difficult to understand were amended.
Conclusion: CARATkids, the first questionnaire to assess a child’s asthma and rhinitis control was developed and its
content validity was assured. Cognitive testing showed that CARATKids is well-understood by children 6 to 12 years
old. The questionnaire’s measurement properties can now be assessed in a validation study
Fractional variational calculus of variable order
We study the fundamental problem of the calculus of variations with variable
order fractional operators. Fractional integrals are considered in the sense of
Riemann-Liouville while derivatives are of Caputo type.Comment: Submitted 26-Sept-2011; accepted 18-Oct-2011; withdrawn by the
authors 21-Dec-2011; resubmitted 27-Dec-2011; revised 20-March-2012; accepted
13-April-2012; to 'Advances in Harmonic Analysis and Operator Theory', The
Stefan Samko Anniversary Volume (Eds: A. Almeida, L. Castro, F.-O. Speck),
Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, Birkh\"auser Verlag
(http://www.springer.com/series/4850
Prevalence and classification of rhinitis in the elderly: a nationwide survey in Portugal
BACKGROUND:
Nationwide epidemiologic data on rhinitis in the elderly do not exist. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of rhinitis in the population aged 65 years or above in mainland Portugal and to characterize and classify rhinitis in this age group.
METHODS:
Cross-sectional, nationwide, population-based survey of citizens aged 65 years or above, living in mainland Portugal. Current rhinitis (CR) was defined as the presence of at least two symptoms: 'repeated sneezing and itchy nose', 'blocked nose for more than one whole hour', or 'runny nose when not having a cold or flu', either usually or in the last 12 months. Rhinitis severity was assessed using a visual analogue scale; rhinitis was classified according to ARIA.
RESULTS:
Data were obtained from 3678 responders (92.5% response rate). The prevalence of CR was 29.8% (95% confidence interval (CI): 28.4%-31.3%): 49.1% had mild intermittent, 7.0% mild persistent, 27.5% moderate-severe intermittent, and 16.4% moderate-severe persistent rhinitis. Only 38.6% of patients with CR had been physician diagnosed and 38.7% were under treatment for this disease in the previous year. Allergic conjunctivitis symptoms were referred by 68.6% of subjects with CR (rhinoconjunctivitis population prevalence, 20.5% (95% CI: 19.2%-21.8%)).
CONCLUSIONS:
Rhinitis and rhinoconjunctivitis are common but underdiagnosed and undertreated diseases in the geriatric population. This was the first nationwide epidemiological survey classifying rhinitis according to ARIA guidelines in this age group. More than 40% of old-age patients presented moderate-severe disease
Patient Experience in Home Respiratory Therapies: Where We Are and Where to Go
The increasing number of patients receiving home respiratory therapy (HRT) is imposing a major impact on routine clinical care and healthcare system sustainability. The current challenge is to continue to guarantee access to HRT while maintaining the quality of care. The patient experience is a cornerstone of high-quality healthcare and an emergent area of clinical research. This review approaches the assessment of the patient experience in the context of HRT while highlighting the European contribution to this body of knowledge. This review demonstrates that research in this area is still limited, with no example of a prescription model that incorporates the patient experience as an outcome and no specific patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) available. This work also shows that Europe is leading the research on HRT provision. The development of a specific PREM and the integration of PREMs into the assessment of prescription models should be clinical research priorities in the next several years.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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