Making tourist guidance systems more intelligent, adaptive and personalised using crowd sourced movement data

Ambient intelligence (AmI) provides adaptive, personalized, intelligent, ubiquitous and interactive services to wide range of users. AmI can have a variety of applications, including smart shops, health care, smart home, assisted living, and location-based services. Tourist guidance is one of the applications where AmI can have a great contribution to the quality of the service, as the tourists, who may not be very familiar with the visiting site, need a location-aware, ubiquitous, personalised and informative service. Such services should be able to understand the preferences of the users without requiring the users to specify them, predict their interests, and provide relevant and tailored services in the most appropriate way, including audio, visual, and haptic. This paper shows the use of crowd sourced trajectory data in the detection of points of interests and providing ambient tourist guidance based on the patterns recognised over such data

Laparoscopic v open donor nephrectomy for pediatric kidney recipients: Preliminary report of a randomized controlled trial

Background and Purpose: Laparoscopic surgery is widely accepted for nephrectomy in adult renal transplantation. The success of this technique has not been compared with open donor nephrectomy (ODN) in children. Patients and Methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 40 adult kidney donors were randomly divided into two groups: 20 cases of laparoscopic donor nephrectomy (LDN) and 20 of ODN. Recipients had an age of <15 years. Our exclusion criteria were previous renal transplantation, hemolytic uremic syndrome, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, oxalosis in the recipients, and multiple renal arteries bilaterally in donors. Results: All donor nephrectomies were completed as scheduled, and no patients undergoing LDN required conversion to open nephrectomy. No patients in either the ODN or the LDN group required reoperation. Acute rejection was diagnosed in six patients receiving kidneys procured by ODN (30) and 4 patients (20) receiving kidneys obtained by LDN (P = 0.3). No recipients or donors died. At 1 year, the graft survival times in the ODN and LDN groups were 310.8 ± 28.8 and 302.7 ± 28.2 days, respectively (P = 0.8). Conclusion: At our medical center, pediatric LDN recipients had graft outcomes similar to those of ODN recipients. We recommend LDN for harvest of kidneys for pediatric recipients at experienced centers. © 2007 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc

The predictivity of QSARs for toxicity: Recommendations for improving model performance

Quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSARs) are invaluable computational tools for the prediction of the biological effects and physico-chemical properties of molecules. For chemical safety assessment they are used frequently to make predictions of toxic or adverse effects, as well as other activities related to toxicokinetics. QSARs and their predictions can be assessed against a number of criteria for their potential use as surrogates for animal, or other, tests. A recent exercise by the Division of Genetics and Mutagenesis, National Institute of Health Sciences, Japan, assessed QSARs to predict the outcome of the Ames test. The predictive performance of models was scrutinised with full disclosure of results. The authors of this publication developed one such model, which had disappointing performance in this predictive exercise. In order to understand why the QSAR had poor performance metrics, this paper reflects on factors that affect a QSAR model. There is no one reason for poor performance of a QSAR model, rather it is likely to be a combination of factors. Reasons for poor performance included inadequate consideration of the underlying data quality, consistency and relevance; lack of appropriate descriptors relating to the endpoint and mechanism of action; not selecting a model correctly in terms of its structure (i.e., complexity) and number of descriptors; not addressing metabolism adequately in the modelling process; ill-defined assessing of the uncertainties within a model; and not ensuring predictions are within the applicability domain of the model. Whilst this paper draws on examples for the prediction of mutagenicity, the findings are applicable to all toxicological effects

Concomitant pulmonary tuberculosis and tuberculous appendicitis in a recipient of a renal transplant: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Tuberculosis is still a serious infection among recipients of renal transplants. Although the ileocecal region is the most affected part in intestinal tuberculosis, acute tuberculous appendicitis is quite a rare entity. We report a case of concomitant pulmonary tuberculosis and tuberculous appendicitis in a recipient of a renal transplant.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 27-year-old Iranian woman, who had been the recipient of a renal transplant five years earlier, presented with a two-week history of coughing, fever and weight loss. The cause of her end-stage renal disease was chronic pyelonephritis. There were fine crackles noted during a chest examination, and a plain chest radiography showed fine miliary nodules throughout her entire lung fields. Sputum and bronchial aspirate examination was positive for acid-fast bacilli, suggestive of <it>Mycobacterium tuberculosis </it>infection. A chest computed tomography scan revealed widespread miliary nodules, compatible with miliary tuberculosis. She developed severe abdominal pain and abdominal surgery disclosed a perforated appendicitis. Histopathological examination of the resected appendix revealed widespread caseating epithelioid granulomas, suggestive of tuberculosis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our case report highlights a rare presentation of tuberculosis in a patient who has undergone renal transplant. Such unusual presentation of tuberculosis, particularly among patients receiving potent immunosuppressive protocols, should be considered by clinicians.</p

Learning from data with structured missingness

Missing data are an unavoidable complication in many machine learning tasks. When data are ‘missing at random’ there exist a range of tools and techniques to deal with the issue. However, as machine learning studies become more ambitious, and seek to learn from ever-larger volumes of heterogeneous data, an increasingly encountered problem arises in which missing values exhibit an association or structure, either explicitly or implicitly. Such ‘structured missingness’ raises a range of challenges that have not yet been systematically addressed, and presents a fundamental hindrance to machine learning at scale. Here we outline the current literature and propose a set of grand challenges in learning from data with structured missingness

Correction to: Clopidogrel Pharmacogenetics in Iranian Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (Cardiovascular Toxicology, (2018), 10.1007/s12012-018-9459-x)

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a typo in the co-author name. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

Percutaneous device closure for secundum-type atrial septal defect: Short and intermediate-term results

BACKGROUND: Device closure of an isolated secundum type atrial septal defect (ASD) has been used as an alternative method for open surgical closure with comparable success and lower morbidity. In this study we evaluated the procedural success and mid-term follow-up results of percutaneous closure of secundum ASD with an Amplatzer�Septal Occluder(ASO) device or a Figula ASD occluder device. METHODS: From June 2001 to January 2009, 74 consecutive patients were scheduled for percutaneous device closure in two centers in Tehran, Iran. All patients had a stretched defect diameter of 30mm or less. After using a sizing balloon to measure the stop-flow diameter, device implantation was performed under the guidance of a trans-esophageal echocardiography (TEE).The size was generally 1 - 2 mm larger than the stretched diameter. Patients were followed for an average of 11 ±4 months. RESULTS: The median stretched diameter of the defect was 20.7±4.8 mm (range: 8 - 30 mm).A total of 73 devices were used in this study. Device closure was successful in 72 (97.2) out of 74 patients. Repositioning of the device was required in one patient. Major complications(including significant residual shunt and device embolization) occurred in 3 (4) patients.There was no procedure-related mortality in our patients. Mild-to-moderate residual shunt was detectable in 10 (13.7) patients immediately following the procedure and in 5 (6.7) patients 24 hours after the procedure. None had residual flow across the device at the end of the follow-up period. CONCLUSION: Device closure of ASD has a safety profile comparable to open surgical repair and can effectively close the defect with excellent procedural and mid-term results

An ancestral 10-bp repeat expansion in VWA1 causes recessive hereditary motor neuropathy

The extracellular matrix comprises a network of macromolecules such as collagens, proteoglycans and glycoproteins. VWA1 (von Willebrand factor A domain containing 1) encodes a component of the extracellular matrix that interacts with perlecan/collagen VI, appears to be involved in stabilizing extracellular matrix structures, and demonstrates high expression levels in tibial nerve. Vwa1-deficient mice manifest with abnormal peripheral nerve structure/function; however, VWA1 variants have not previously been associated with human disease. By interrogating the genome sequences of 74 180 individuals from the 100K Genomes Project in combination with international gene-matching efforts and targeted sequencing, we identified 17 individuals from 15 families with an autosomal-recessive, non-length dependent, hereditary motor neuropathy and rare biallelic variants in VWA1. A single disease-associated allele p.(G25Rfs*74), a 10-bp repeat expansion, was observed in 14/15 families and was homozygous in 10/15. Given an allele frequency in European populations approaching 1/1000, the seven unrelated homozygote individuals ascertained from the 100K Genomes Project represents a substantial enrichment above expected. Haplotype analysis identified a shared 220 kb region suggesting that this founder mutation arose >7000 years ago. A wide age-range of patients (6–83 years) helped delineate the clinical phenotype over time. The commonest disease presentation in the cohort was an early-onset (mean 2.0 ± 1.4 years) non-length-dependent axonal hereditary motor neuropathy, confirmed on electrophysiology, which will have to be differentiated from other predominantly or pure motor neuropathies and neuronopathies. Because of slow disease progression, ambulation was largely preserved. Neurophysiology, muscle histopathology, and muscle MRI findings typically revealed clear neurogenic changes with single isolated cases displaying additional myopathic process. We speculate that a few findings of myopathic changes might be secondary to chronic denervation rather than indicating an additional myopathic disease process. Duplex reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunoblotting using patient fibroblasts revealed that the founder allele results in partial nonsense mediated decay and an absence of detectable protein. CRISPR and morpholino vwa1 modelling in zebrafish demonstrated reductions in motor neuron axonal growth, synaptic formation in the skeletal muscles and locomotive behaviour. In summary, we estimate that biallelic variants in VWA1 may be responsible for up to 1% of unexplained hereditary motor neuropathy cases in Europeans. The detailed clinical characterization provided here will facilitate targeted testing on suitable patient cohorts. This novel disease gene may have previously evaded detection because of high GC content, consequential low coverage and computational difficulties associated with robustly detecting repeat-expansions. Reviewing previously unsolved exomes using lower QC filters may generate further diagnoses

Preliminary report of a nationwide case-control study for identifying risk factors of tuberculosis following renal transplantation

Background. Tuberculosis (TB) is an important infection encountered posttransplantation, especially among patients in developing countries, where there are high incidences of morbidity and mortality. Materials and Methods. One hundred and twenty subjects (1) from 15 major kidney transplantation centers in Iran from 1984 to 2003 were compared with 440 controls who were matched for operative time, treatment center, and surgical team. Results. Mean ages of research subjects and controls were 38.6 and 36.6 years (P = .04), respectively. The mean duration of pretransplantation hemodialysis was 29 months (range, 2 to 192 months) in research subjects and 20 months (range, 1 to 180 months) in controls (P = .003). Positive past history of tuberculosis was detected in 4 (3.3) research subjects and in 7 (1.5) controls (P = .2). Fifty-two research subjects (43.3) and 241 controls (54.8) had pretransplantation purified protein derivative of tuberculin less than 5 mm (P = .02). Mean dosages of initial and maintenance immunosuppressive drugs in research subjects and in controls were not significantly different. Sixty research subjects (50) and 152 controls (34.5) had rejection prior to diagnosis of TB (P = .03). Conclusion. To our knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrates an increased risk of posttransplant TB by prolonged duration of pretransplant hemodialysis and number of posttransplant rejection episodes. Further study is needed to clarify these findings specifically with respect to various immunosuppressive regimens. © 2005 by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved