54 research outputs found

    A Late Presentation of Spontaneous Bladder Rupture During Labor

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    AbstractSpontaneous bladder rupture is usually due to bladder diseases. Bladder rupture during labor or postpartum is extremely rare. Acute abdomen is the usual presentation of spontaneous bladder rupture. Patients may complain of suprapubic pain, anuria and hematuria. Some patients with intraperitoneal bladder rupture may have no abdominal pain and can pass urine without any symptoms so the diagnosis of intraperitoneal rupture may be difficult in these situations. We report a nulliparous woman with abdominal pain and distension about 20 days after normal vaginal delivery. There was intraperitoneal rupture of bladder in dome of bladder which was sealed by jejunum

    Reproducibility in forecasting research

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    The importance of replication has been recognised across many scientific disciplines. Reproducibility is a necessary condition for replicability, because an inability to reproduce results implies that the methods have not been specified sufficiently, thus precluding replication. This paper describes how two independent teams of researchers attempted to reproduce the empirical findings of an important paper, ‘‘Shrinkage estimators of time series seasonal factors and their effect on forecasting accuracy’’ (Miller & Williams, 2003). The two teams proceeded systematically, reporting results both before and after receiving clarifications from the authors of the original study. The teams were able to approximately reproduce each other’s results, but not those of Miller and Williams. These discrepancies led to differences in the conclusions as to the conditions under which seasonal damping outperforms classical decomposition. The paper specifies the forecasting methods employed using a flowchart. It is argued that this approach to method documentation is complementary to the provision of computer code, as it is accessible to a broader audience of forecasting practitioners and researchers. The significance of this research lies not only in its lessons for seasonal forecasting but also, more generally, in its approach to the reproduction of forecasting research

    Formation of seasonal groups and application of seasonal indices

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    Estimating seasonal variations in demand is a challenging task faced by many organisations. There may be many stock-keeping units (SKUs) to forecast, but often data histories are short, with very few complete seasonal cycles. It has been suggested in the literature that group seasonal indices (GSI) methods should be used to take advantage of information on similar SKUs. This paper addresses two research questions: (1) how should groups be formed in order to use the GSI methods? and (2) when should the GSI methods and the individual seasonal indices (ISI) method be used? Theoretical results are presented, showing that seasonal grouping and forecasting may be unified, based on a Mean Square Error criterion, and K-means clustering. A heuristic K-means method is presented, which is competitive with the Average Linkage method. It offers a viable alternative to a company’s own grouping method or may be used with confidence if a company lacks a grouping method. The paper gives empirical findings that confirm earlier theoretical results that greater accuracy may be obtained by employing a rule that assigns the GSI method to some SKUs and the ISI method to the remainder

    Reproducibility in forecasting research

    Get PDF
    The importance of replication has been recognised across many scientific disciplines. Reproducibility is a necessary condition for replicability, because an inability to reproduce results implies that the methods have not been specified sufficiently, thus precluding replication. This paper describes how two independent teams of researchers attempted to reproduce the empirical findings of an important paper, ‘‘Shrinkage estimators of time series seasonal factors and their effect on forecasting accuracy’’ (Miller & Williams, 2003). The two teams proceeded systematically, reporting results both before and after receiving clarifications from the authors of the original study. The teams were able to approximately reproduce each other’s results, but not those of Miller and Williams. These discrepancies led to differences in the conclusions as to the conditions under which seasonal damping outperforms classical decomposition. The paper specifies the forecasting methods employed using a flowchart. It is argued that this approach to method documentation is complementary to the provision of computer code, as it is accessible to a broader audience of forecasting practitioners and researchers. The significance of this research lies not only in its lessons for seasonal forecasting but also, more generally, in its approach to the reproduction of forecasting research

    Identification of valuable natural factors by the VPS Method from children’s points of view, in order to provide a framework for organizing the school yard space

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    Background and Objective: Addressing the issue of identifying elements of the nature are important to children and increase children's creativity. In such a way that these elements can be presented in a general framework so that designers and architects can rely on them, the most important concepts and items needed in the design, to consider these spaces and apply them. Of course, it should be noted that several environmental factors affect creativity. However, in this study, an attempt is made to identify the factors that have the most impact, so that the needs of children can be met in accordance with their activities and a general framework for designing children's spaces can be proposed. The main difference between this research and other researches is in prioritizing the effective factors in nature from the children's point of view and its effect on creativity and then presenting the results in the form of an overall design framework. Various research has been done on this subject, but in a one-dimensional way and in them only one factor is mentioned, such as the effect of creativity on learning, but none of them presents the effect of nature's role in increasing creativity. The purpose of this research is to determine which natural elements are important from children’s points of view and whether the use and presence of elements are possible in educational locations. This research seeks to find approaches to design school yards based on children’s points of view with regard to the role of nature in their education. Methods: The research method used in this qualitative study is content analysis. Based on the nature of the subject, a questionnaire and the image technique were used as the main method of data collection. The structure of the questionnaire is based on the measures and criteria derived from the subject literature and designed based on Likert scale. In the first stage, 120 questionnaires were provided to children of 7-12 age in the case study. Results of the questionnaires were obtained. To ensure that the results of the questionnaires are expanded, the researcher, in the second phase, provided some pictures relevant to questionnaires, so that the children could respond to questions based on their visual preferences. The researcher then obtained results based on visual content analysis. Findings: It was discovered that these two instruments of measurement are in line with each other and are appropriate to the environmental factors affecting children. Finally, a framework for organizing the school yard is presented. Conclusion: By creating an appropriate, responsive and purposeful framework in design, we can address the main goal of the research, which is to identify the effective factors in nature from the children's point of view by increasing their creativity, and finally, an appropriate framework by considering these factors to organize the space of the school yard. The necessity of presenting the framework can be expressed in such a way that the weakening of children's connection with outside the classroom is harmful for the child, on the other hand, an intellectual movement moves towards learning outdoors. The presence of natural elements or the same nature has a positive effect on children's creativity, discovers and flourishes the latent talent in children and creates a suitable environment for a bright future for children.   ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS  ©2019 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.  ====================================================================================

    Nanoparticle-induced neuronal toxicity across placental barriers is mediated by autophagy and dependent on astrocytes

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    The potential for maternal nanoparticle (NP) exposures to cause developmental toxicity in the fetus without the direct passage of NPs has previously been shown, but the mechanism remained elusive. We now demonstrate that exposure of cobalt and chromium NPs to BeWo cell barriers, an in vitro model of the human placenta, triggers impairment of the autophagic flux and release of interleukin-6. This contributes to the altered differentiation of human neural progenitor cells and DNA damage in the derived neurons and astrocytes. Crucially, neuronal DNA damage is mediated by astrocytes. Inhibiting the autophagic degradation in the BeWo barrier by overexpression of the dominant-negative human ATG4BC74A significantly reduces the levels of DNA damage in astrocytes. In vivo, indirect NP toxicity in mice results in neurodevelopmental abnormalities with reactive astrogliosis and increased DNA damage in the fetal hippocampus. Our results demonstrate the potential importance of autophagy to elicit NP toxicity and the risk of indirect developmental neurotoxicity after maternal NP exposure
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