Early Detection of Stroke for Ensuring Health and Well-Being Based on Categorical Gradient Boosting Machine

Stroke is believed to be among the leading causes of adult disability worldwide. It is wreaking havoc on African people, families, and governments, with ramifications for the continent’s socio-economic development. On the other hand, stroke research output is insufficient, resulting in a dearth of evidence-based and context-driven guidelines and strategies to combat the region’s expanding stroke burden. Indeed, for African and other developing economies to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3, which aims to guarantee healthy lifestyles and promote well-being for people of all ages, the issue of stroke must be addressed to reduce early death from non-communicable illnesses. This study sought to create a robust predictive model for early stroke diagnosis using an understandable machine learning (ML) technique. We implemented a categorical gradient boosting machine model for early stroke prediction to protect patients’ health and well-being. We compared the effectiveness of our proposed model to existing state-of-the-art machine learning models and previous studies by empirically testing it on a real-world public stroke dataset. The proposed model outperformed the others when compared to the other methods using the research data, achieving the maximum accuracy (96.56%), the area under the curve (AUC) (99.73%), F1-measure (96.68%), recall (99.24%), and precision (93.57%). Functional outcome prediction models based on machine learning for stroke were verified and shown to be adaptable and helpful

Caracterização e obtenção da liga de Ni-Ti

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Adaptation of the Wound Healing Questionnaire universal-reporter outcome measure for use in global surgery trials (TALON-1 study): mixed-methods study and Rasch analysis

BackgroundThe Bluebelle Wound Healing Questionnaire (WHQ) is a universal-reporter outcome measure developed in the UK for remote detection of surgical-site infection after abdominal surgery. This study aimed to explore cross-cultural equivalence, acceptability, and content validity of the WHQ for use across low- and middle-income countries, and to make recommendations for its adaptation.MethodsThis was a mixed-methods study within a trial (SWAT) embedded in an international randomized trial, conducted according to best practice guidelines, and co-produced with community and patient partners (TALON-1). Structured interviews and focus groups were used to gather data regarding cross-cultural, cross-contextual equivalence of the individual items and scale, and conduct a translatability assessment. Translation was completed into five languages in accordance with Mapi recommendations. Next, data from a prospective cohort (SWAT) were interpreted using Rasch analysis to explore scaling and measurement properties of the WHQ. Finally, qualitative and quantitative data were triangulated using a modified, exploratory, instrumental design model.ResultsIn the qualitative phase, 10 structured interviews and six focus groups took place with a total of 47 investigators across six countries. Themes related to comprehension, response mapping, retrieval, and judgement were identified with rich cross-cultural insights. In the quantitative phase, an exploratory Rasch model was fitted to data from 537 patients (369 excluding extremes). Owing to the number of extreme (floor) values, the overall level of power was low. The single WHQ scale satisfied tests of unidimensionality, indicating validity of the ordinal total WHQ score. There was significant overall model misfit of five items (5, 9, 14, 15, 16) and local dependency in 11 item pairs. The person separation index was estimated as 0.48 suggesting weak discrimination between classes, whereas Cronbach's α was high at 0.86. Triangulation of qualitative data with the Rasch analysis supported recommendations for cross-cultural adaptation of the WHQ items 1 (redness), 3 (clear fluid), 7 (deep wound opening), 10 (pain), 11 (fever), 15 (antibiotics), 16 (debridement), 18 (drainage), and 19 (reoperation). Changes to three item response categories (1, not at all; 2, a little; 3, a lot) were adopted for symptom items 1 to 10, and two categories (0, no; 1, yes) for item 11 (fever).ConclusionThis study made recommendations for cross-cultural adaptation of the WHQ for use in global surgical research and practice, using co-produced mixed-methods data from three continents. Translations are now available for implementation into remote wound assessment pathways