Penile Cancer in Cali, Colombia: 10 Years of Casuistry in a Tertiary Referral Center of a Middle-Income Country

Background: Penile cancer is a rare disease in Colombia; in Cali, it represents 0.7% of all cancers. Penile cancer has been associated with old age, bad hygiene, smoking and lack of circumcision. This study aimed to describe the sociodemographic and clinica  characteristics of patients with penile cancer who consulted to a tertiary referral hospital. Methods: A case series of all penile cance cases at a reference institution in Cali during 2001-2010. Socioeconomic, demographic and clinical features of patients were described, and bivariate analyses were carried out. Results: There were 46 penile cancer cases. The average age was 60 ± 16.9 years. The main reason for consultation was an exophytic mass on the penis (75.0%). The most common location was the glans (69.6%), and the more frequent histology type was the squamous cell carcinoma (95.7%). With regard to risk factors, 65.5% of the patients had history of smoking and90.9% did not have circumcision. Patients who underwent radical amputation had higher rates of positive nodes (55% vs. 13.5%, p=0.015) and ulcerative lesions (77.8% vs. 29.7%, p=0.018) than those who did not have the procedure done. Recurrence was associated with the presence of lymphadenopathy (p=0.02) and history of circumcision (p=0.015). Conclusion: Most of the patients with penile cancer found in this study had old age, history of tobacco use and lack of circumcision. Patients who presented with lymph node metastasis had to undergo more radical procedures and suffered a greater rate of recurrence compared with those without lymph node involvement. Robust ..

A Statistical Comparative Study of Different Similarity Measures of Consensus in Group Decision Making

Research conducted in collaboration between DMU and University of Granada (Spain). DIGITS, Department of Informatics, Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK; Department of Quantitative Methods in Economic and Business, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain; Department of Statistics and Operational Research, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain; Department of Computer Science and A.I., University of Granada, 18071 Granada, SpainNOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in . Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Information Sciences. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2012.09.014An essential aim in group decision making (GDM) problems is to achieve a high level of consensus among experts. Consensus is defined as general or widespread agreement, and it is usually modelled mathematically via a similarity function measuring how close experts’ opinions or preferences are. Similarity functions are defined based on the use of a metric describing the distance between experts’ opinions or preferences. In the literature, different metrics or distance functions have been proposed to implement in consensus models, but no study has been carried out to analyse the influence the use of different distance functions can have in the GDM process. This paper presents a comparative study of the effect of the application of some different distance functions for measuring consensus in GDM. By using the nonparametric Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test, it is concluded that different distance functions can produce significantly different results. Moreover, it is also shown that their application also has a significant effect on the speed of achieving consensus. Finally, these results are analysed and used to derive decision support rules, based on a convergent criterion, that can be used to control the convergence speed of the consensus process using the compared distance functions.The authors would like to acknowledge FEDER financial support from the Project FUZZYLING-II Project TIN2010-17876; the financial support from the Andalusian Excellence Projects TIC-05299 and TIC-05991, and also from the research Project MTM2009-08886. Prof. Francisco Chiclana would like to acknowledge the financial support from the University of Granada 2012 GENIL Strengthening through Short-Visits research program (Ref. GENIL-SSV)

KEEL 3.0: an open source software for multi-stage analysis in data mining

This paper introduces the 3rd major release of the KEEL Software. KEEL is an open source Java framework (GPLv3 license) that provides a number of modules to perform a wide variety of data mining tasks. It includes tools to performdata management, design of multiple kind of experiments, statistical analyses, etc. This framework also contains KEEL-dataset, a data repository for multiple learning tasks featuring data partitions and algorithms’ results over these problems. In this work, we describe the most recent components added to KEEL 3.0, including new modules for semi-supervised learning, multi-instance learning, imbalanced classification and subgroup discovery. In addition, a new interface in R has been incorporated to execute algorithms included in KEEL. These new features greatly improve the versatility of KEEL to deal with more modern data mining problems

Clinical validation of a novel postural support device for hospitalized sub-acute post stroke wheelchair users

Purpose: We present a novel wheelchair posture support device (WPSD) and its clinical validation. The device was developed in order to assure correct sitting posture and to reduce the time spent by caregivers for re-positioning of hospitalized, wheelchair-bound, post-acute stroke patients. Method: The device was validated with 16 subjects during a period of 5 days in which use of the device was compared with regular care practice. Results: The device was used for the five consecutive days in 69% of patients, while for 6% it was not suitable; 25% did not complete the 5 days for reasons unrelated to the device. Caregivers needed to re-position the patients that used the device for the full 5 days (n=11) on an average 52% less often when using the device, as compared to regular practice. Furthermore, the device was rated as usable and functional by the caregivers while significantly reducing perception of trunk and shoulder pain in patients during its use. Conclusions: The newly designed WPSD is a valuable system for the improvement of medical assistance to wheelchair-bound post-stroke patients by reducing pain and number of re-positioning manoeuvres. The WPSD might be applicable to any group of patients who need posture control in either wheelchair or common chair with arms support.The FIK initiative; funding the development of the Varstiff material technology. Fundaci on Bot ın’s ‘‘Mind the Gap’’ program co-funding the design process of the WPSD. Spherium Biomed co-funding the study with the WPSD

Estrategia de aprendizaje interactivo para la mejora de la aplicación de la competencia matemática en el entorno de la Farmacia Galénica: Impacto de las primeras acciones de mejora sobre el rendimiento de los alumnos

Projecte: 2015PID-UB/039Se presentan los avances del Grupo de Innovación Docente de Tecnología Farmacéutica (GIDTF) en su línea de actuación relativa a la implementación de una estrategia de aprendizaje interactivo en los seminarios de problemas de Farmacia Galénica para el desarrollo de la competencia matemática en este ámbito por los estudiantes del grado de Farmacia. Las acciones realizadas incluyen actividades individuales de autoevaluación para detectar el nivel de capacidad resolutiva a modo de diagnóstico y otras grupales para fomentar un aprendizaje entre iguales. Se confirma que las acciones de mejora en la estrategia de enseñanza-aprendizaje implantada en curso 2015-16, respecto al desarrollo de la competencia matemática en Farmacia Galénica, han dado los resultados benéficos esperados.Universidad de Barcelon

Capacidad de aprendizaje y responsabilidad: validación del proceso de evaluación en una asignatura del grado de farmacia y percepción de los estudiantes sobre su capacidad de aprender a aprender

Se exponen los resultados de la validación del proceso de evaluación mediante rúbrica de las Prácticas de una asignatura del Grado de Farmacia para desarrollar la competencia Capacidad de Aprendizaje y Responsabilidad, demostrándose la cohesión entre las puntuaciones de profesores y la autoevaluación de alumnos. La percepción de estos estudiantes respecto al desarrollo de su capacidad de Aprender a Aprender se recoge mediante un cuestionario cerrado. La mayoría piensa que se aprende de los errores

Frequency of Fabry disease in male and female haemodialysis patients in Spain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fabry disease (FD), an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder, is caused by a reduced activity of the lysosomal enzyme α-galactosidase A. The disorder ultimately leads to organ damage (including renal failure) in males and females. However, heterozygous females usually present a milder phenotype with a later onset and a slower progression.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A combined enzymatic and genetic strategy was used, measuring the activity of α-galactosidase A and genotyping the α-galactosidase A gene (<it>GLA</it>) in dried blood samples (DBS) of 911 patients undergoing haemodialysis in centers across Spain.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>GLA </it>alterations were found in seven unrelated patients (4 males and 3 females). Two novel mutations (p.Gly346AlafsX347 and p.Val199GlyfsX203) were identified as well as a previously described mutation, R118C. The R118C mutation was present in 60% of unrelated patients with <it>GLA </it>causal mutations. The D313Y alteration, considered by some authors as a pseudo-deficiency allele, was also found in two out of seven patients.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Excluding the controversial D313Y alteration, FD presents a frequency of one in 182 individuals (0.55%) within this population of males and females undergoing haemodialysis. Moreover, our findings suggest that a number of patients with unexplained and atypical symptoms of renal disease may have FD. Screening programmes for FD in populations of individuals presenting severe kidney dysfunction, cardiac alterations or cerebrovascular disease may lead to the diagnosis of FD in those patients, the study of their families and eventually the implementation of a specific therapy.</p