287 research outputs found
Correlation of Stress Hyperglycemia with Barthel Index in Acute Non-hemorrhagic Stroke Patients at Neurology Ward of RSUD Arifin Achmad Pekanbaru
The raising of blood glucose that occurs due to disruption of the regulation of blood glucose which is part of the non-specific reaction to the occurrence of stress or tissues damage called stress hyperglycemia. Stress hyperglycemia is common in acute diseases such as stroke, which significantly affect patient outcomes that can be assessed with the Barthel Index. The aim of this study was to find out the relationship between stress hyperglycemia with Barthel index in patients with acute non-hemorrhagic stroke. This study using analytic observational method with cross sectional design. The sample are acute non-hemorrhagic stroke patients totaling 38 patients who conform the inclusion criterias. Results of the study of 38 patients, is the prevalence of stress hyperglycemia prevalence cases totaled 23 people (60.52%) in non-acute hemorrhagic stroke. Showed that Barthel Index acute non-hemorrhagic stroke patients are heavy dependence (21-61) of 21 patients (55.26%), followed by 3 patients (7, 89%) with a full dependence (0-20), 13 patients ( 34.21%) with moderate dependence (62-90) and 1 patient (2.63%) with mild dependence (91-99). There is no correlation between stress hyperglycemia with Brthel Index with the value of (r = 0.059) and the value of (p = 0.654). So, based on this research most of the respondents in this study suffered from stress hyperglycemia but there is no correlation between stress hyperglycemia with Barthel Index and most of the patients has a bad interpretation of Barthel Index
The relationship between Modic changes and intervertebral disc degeneration
BACKGROUND: Recent reported results have added to the weight of evidence supporting association between disc degeneration and Modic changes. Endplate or Modic changes are also associated with increased body mass index. The most recent study from Teichtahl et al. titled 'Modic changes in the lumbar spine and their association with body composition, fat distribution and intervertebral disc height - a 3.0 T-MRI study' showed associations of Modic changes with quantitatively measured reduced disc height and fat mass index. However, there were some facts, which we would like to address in this Correspondence to their article. DISCUSSION: The different components of intervertebral disc degeneration such as loss of disc height and disc signal intensity have already been shown associated with endplate changes - but not disc height if it is assessed using newer more precise methods of quantitation of disc height. A possible protective effect of different adiposity distribution in the body to Modic change development would be of interest if observed in a longitudinal study in the future. Modic changes have been associated with different components of intervertebral disc degeneration such as loss of disc height and disc signal intensity previously. The influence of body fat distribution on endplate changes would be interesting to study longitudinally
ПРИМЕНЕНИЕ 1-, 3- И 6-МЕСЯЧНЫХ ЛЕКАРСТВЕННЫХ ДЕПО-ФОРМ ЛЕЙПРОРЕЛИНА АЦЕТАТА В ГОРМОНАЛЬНОЙ ТЕРАПИИ РАКА ПРЕДСТАТЕЛЬНОЙ ЖЕЛЕЗЫ В 9 ЕВРОПЕЙСКИХ СТРАНАХ: ОБЗОР ДОКАЗАТЕЛЬСТВ И ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКАЯ ОЦЕНКА
Применение 1-, 3- и 6-месячных лекарственных депо-форм лейпрорелина ацетата в гормональной терапии рака предстательной железы в 9 европейских странах: обзор доказательств и экономическая оценка.Введение. Лейпрорелин – хорошо известный агонист лютеинизирующего гормона рилизинг-гормона, используемый в терапии рака предстательной железы (РПЖ) первой линии. В связи с тем, что использование различных лекарственных форм и режимов дозирования влечет определенные материальные расходы, целью нашего исследования являлась оценка эффективности, безопасности и стоимости применения различных лекарственных форм и режимов дозирования в 9 европейских странах: Австрии, Бельгии, Чешской Республике, Венгрии, Италии, Латвии, Нидерландах, Польше, Португалии.Материалы и методы. В результате поиска в базах данных было выявлено 13 клинических исследований с применением лейпрорелина, применяемого в формах для введения 1 раз в месяц (1 М), 1 раз в 3 мес (3 М) и 1 раз в 6 мес (6 М). По всем 3 формам сравнивали только те данные о применении лейпрорелина с системой доставки Атригель, которые характеризовались одинаковой эффективностью, безопасностью и соблюдением предписанного режима терапии. Был проведен анализ минимизации затрат с учетом расходов на лечение препаратом Элигард, консультации специалистов, а также диагностику сроком до 12 мес последующего наблюдения. Анализ был проведен для органов государственного здравоохранения.Результаты. В выборке пациентов «все пациенты, начавшие получать лечение», уровень тестостерона которых составил ≤ 50 нг/дл после лечения препаратом Элигард в формах 1 M (93,3 %), 3 М (98,3 %) и 6 М (97,3 %), существенного различия не наблюдалось (p > 0,05). Также сопоставимыми были профили нежелательных явлений этих 3 форм. В целом форма 6 М была наименее дорогостоящей; средние общие годовые затраты составили от 788 евро (Бельгия) до 1839 евро (Португалия). Вариант использования формы 3 M был более дорогостоящим, затраты на него превышали таковые при применении формы 6 М на 2,5 % (Венгрия) – 37,6 % (Бельгия); использование формы 1 М было наиболее дорогостоящим при увеличении расходов на 15,5 и 151,6 % в сравнении с формой 6 М для этих стран соответственно. Форма 3 M была дешевле в сравнении с формой 1 М на 11,2–45,3 %. Общая сумма затрат была связана с частотой визитов для введения препарата и проведения мониторинга. Для лечения с применением формы 1 M потребовалось 12 визитов, формы 3 M – от 4,4 до 4,8 визита и формы 6 М – от 2,1 до 2,3 визита. До 50 % дополнительных визитов может финансироваться из сэкономленных средств, полученных в результате перевода соответствующих пациентов с форм 1 М и 3 М на форму 6 М. Полученные результаты одномерных и вероятностных анализов чувствительности были стабильными.Вывод. Формы препарата Элигард обеспечивают сопоставимую эффективность и безопасность, однако различные режимы дозирования препарата требуют различной частоты посещения лечебного учреждения пациентами. Лекарственная форма 6 М обеспечивает наибольшую экономию средств и должна рассматриваться в качестве препарата выбора для лечения соответствующих пациентов в Европе
Declining incidence of acromioplasty in Finland
Background and purpose — An increased incidence rate of
acromioplasty has been reported; we analyzed data from the
Finnish National Hospital Discharge Register.
Patients and methods — During the 14-year study period
(1998–2011), 68,877 acromioplasties without rotator cuff repair
were performed on subjects aged 18 years or older.
Results — The incidence of acromioplasty increased by 117%
from 75 to 163 per 105 person years between 1998 and 2007. The
highest incidence was observed in 2007, after which the incidence
rate decreased by 20% to 131 per 105 person years in 2011. The
incidence declined even more at non-profit public hospitals from
2007 to 2011. In contrast, it continued to rise at profit-based private
orthopedic clinics.
Interpretation — We propose that this change in clinical practice
is due to accumulating high-quality scientific evidence that
shows no difference in outcome between acromioplasty and nonsurgical
interventions for rotator cuff disease with subacromial
impingement syndrome. However, the exact cause of the declining
incidence cannot be defined based solely on a registry study. Interestingly,
this change was not observed at private clinics, where the
number of operations increased steadily from 2007 to 2011
Efficient isogeometric shell element with through-thickness stretch: application to incremental sheet forming
An isogeometric shell element with through-thickness stretch is applied to a two-point incremental forming problem. The shell element supports full three-dimensional constitutive laws and therefore does not make the plane stress assumption. An anisotropic material model is implemented to account for the sheet rolling direction. Automatically adjusting penalty stiffness is proposed for modeling the contact between the stylus tool and the sheet, whereas the die contact algorithm uses traditional constant penalty stiffness. A comparison is made between experimental results as well as results from a conventional shell formulation
Search Engine Similarity Analysis: A Combined Content and Rankings Approach
How different are search engines? The search engine wars are a favorite topic
of on-line analysts, as two of the biggest companies in the world, Google and
Microsoft, battle for prevalence of the web search space. Differences in search
engine popularity can be explained by their effectiveness or other factors,
such as familiarity with the most popular first engine, peer imitation, or
force of habit. In this work we present a thorough analysis of the affinity of
the two major search engines, Google and Bing, along with DuckDuckGo, which
goes to great lengths to emphasize its privacy-friendly credentials. To do so,
we collected search results using a comprehensive set of 300 unique queries for
two time periods in 2016 and 2019, and developed a new similarity metric that
leverages both the content and the ranking of search responses. We evaluated
the characteristics of the metric against other metrics and approaches that
have been proposed in the literature, and used it to (1) investigate the
similarities of search engine results, (2) the evolution of their affinity over
time, (3) what aspects of the results influence similarity, and (4) how the
metric differs over different kinds of search services. We found that Google
stands apart, but Bing and DuckDuckGo are largely indistinguishable from each
other.Comment: Shorter version of this paper was accepted in the 21st International
Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering (WISE 2020). The final
authenticated version is available online at
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62008-0_
Machine learning innovations in address matching: A practical comparison of word2vec and CRFs
© 2019 The Authors. Transactions in GIS published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Record linkage is a frequent obstacle to unlocking the benefits of integrated (spatial) data sources. In the absence of unique identifiers to directly join records, practitioners often rely on text-based approaches for resolving candidate pairs of records to a match. In geographic information science, spatial record linkage is a form of geocoding that pertains to the resolution of text-based linkage between pairs of addresses into matches and non-matches. These approaches link text-based address sequences, integrating sources of data that would otherwise remain in isolation. While recent innovations in machine learning have been introduced in the wider record linkage literature, there is significant potential to apply machine learning to the address matching sub-field of geographic information science. As a response, this paper introduces two recent developments in text-based machine learning—conditional random fields and word2vec—that have not been applied to address matching, evaluating their comparative strengths and drawbacks
Medical record linkage in health information systems by approximate string matching and clustering
BACKGROUND: Multiplication of data sources within heterogeneous healthcare information systems always results in redundant information, split among multiple databases. Our objective is to detect exact and approximate duplicates within identity records, in order to attain a better quality of information and to permit cross-linkage among stand-alone and clustered databases. Furthermore, we need to assist human decision making, by computing a value reflecting identity proximity. METHODS: The proposed method is in three steps. The first step is to standardise and to index elementary identity fields, using blocking variables, in order to speed up information analysis. The second is to match similar pair records, relying on a global similarity value taken from the Porter-Jaro-Winkler algorithm. And the third is to create clusters of coherent related records, using graph drawing, agglomerative clustering methods and partitioning methods. RESULTS: The batch analysis of 300,000 "supposedly" distinct identities isolates 240,000 true unique records, 24,000 duplicates (clusters composed of 2 records) and 3,000 clusters whose size is greater than or equal to 3 records. CONCLUSION: Duplicate-free databases, used in conjunction with relevant indexes and similarity values, allow immediate (i.e.: real-time) proximity detection when inserting a new identity
Lessons learnt from a discontinued randomised controlled trial:Adalimumab injection compared with placebo for patients receiving physiotherapy treatment for sciatica (Subcutaneous Injection of Adalimumab Trial compared with Control: SCIATiC)
Background
Adalimumab, a biological treatment targeting tumour necrosis factor α, might be useful in sciatica. This paper describes the challenges faced when developing a new treatment pathway for a randomised controlled trial of adalimumab for people with sciatica, as well as the reasons why the trial discussed was stopped early.
Methods
A pragmatic, parallel group, randomised controlled trial with blinded (masked) participants, clinicians, outcome assessment and statistical analysis was conducted in six UK sites. Participants were identified and recruited from general practices, musculoskeletal services and outpatient physiotherapy clinics. They were adults with persistent symptoms of sciatica of 1 to 6 months’ duration with moderate to high level of disability. Eligibility was assessed by research physiotherapists according to clinical criteria, and participants were randomised to receive two doses of adalimumab (80 mg then 40 mg 2 weeks later) or saline placebo subcutaneous injections in the posterior lateral thigh. Both groups were referred for a course of physiotherapy. Outcomes were measured at baseline, 6-week, 6-month and 12-month follow-up. The main outcome measure was disability measured using the Oswestry Disability Index. The planned sample size was 332, with the first 50 in an internal pilot phase.
Results
The internal pilot phase was discontinued after 10 months from opening owing to low recruitment (two of the six sites active, eight participants recruited). There were several challenges: contractual delays; one site did not complete contract negotiations, and two sites signed contracts shortly before trial closure; site withdrawal owing to patient safety concerns; difficulties obtaining excess treatment costs; and in the two sites that did recruit, recruitment was slower than planned because of operational issues and low uptake by potential participants.
Conclusions
Improved patient care requires robust clinical research within contexts in which treatments can realistically be provided. Step changes in treatment, such as the introduction of biologic treatments for severe sciatica, raise complex issues that can delay trial initiation and retard recruitment. Additional preparatory work might be required before testing novel treatments. A randomised controlled trial of tumour necrosis factor-α blockade is still needed to determine its cost-effectiveness in severe sciatica
Estimating parameters for probabilistic linkage of privacy-preserved datasets.
Background: Probabilistic record linkage is a process used to bring together person-based records from within the same dataset (de-duplication) or from disparate datasets using pairwise comparisons and matching probabilities. The linkage strategy and associated match probabilities are often estimated through investigations into data quality and manual inspection. However, as privacy-preserved datasets comprise encrypted data, such methods are not possible. In this paper, we present a method for estimating the probabilities and threshold values for probabilistic privacy-preserved record linkage using Bloom filters. Methods: Our method was tested through a simulation study using synthetic data, followed by an application using real-world administrative data. Synthetic datasets were generated with error rates from zero to 20% error. Our method was used to estimate parameters (probabilities and thresholds) for de-duplication linkages. Linkage quality was determined by F-measure. Each dataset was privacy-preserved using separate Bloom filters for each field. Match probabilities were estimated using the expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm on the privacy-preserved data. Threshold cut-off values were determined by an extension to the EM algorithm allowing linkage quality to be estimated for each possible threshold. De-duplication linkages of each privacy-preserved dataset were performed using both estimated and calculated probabilities. Linkage quality using the F-measure at the estimated threshold values was also compared to the highest F-measure. Three large administrative datasets were used to demonstrate the applicability of the probability and threshold estimation technique on real-world data. Results: Linkage of the synthetic datasets using the estimated probabilities produced an F-measure that was comparable to the F-measure using calculated probabilities, even with up to 20% error. Linkage of the administrative datasets using estimated probabilities produced an F-measure that was higher than the F-measure using calculated probabilities. Further, the threshold estimation yielded results for F-measure that were only slightly below the highest possible for those probabilities. Conclusions: The method appears highly accurate across a spectrum of datasets with varying degrees of error. As there are few alternatives for parameter estimation, the approach is a major step towards providing a complete operational approach for probabilistic linkage of privacy-preserved datasets
- …