Discovering Fuzzy Association Rules from Patient's Daily Text Messages to Diagnose Melancholia

With the constant stress from work load and daily life people may show symptoms of melancholia. However, most people are reluctant to describe it or may not know that they already have it. In this paper a novel system is proposed to discover clues from patient’s interaction with psychologist or from self-recorded voice or text messages. A user friendly interface is provided for patients to input text messages or record a voice file by mobile phones or other input devices. A speech-totext conversion software is used to convert voice mails to simple text files in advance. Based on the text files, a data mining model is used to discover frequent keywords mentioned in the text or speech files. The association rules can be used to help psychologists diagnose patients’ degree of melancholia. Experimental results show that the proposed system can effectively discover melancholia keywords

A Collaborative Model for Calculus Reform-A Preliminary Report

Abstract For the past two decades, both pros and cons of calculus reform have been discussed. A question often asked is, "Has the calculus reform project improved students' understanding of mathematics?" The advocates of the reform movement claim that reform-based calculus may help students gain an intuitive understanding of mathematical propositions and have a better grasp of the real-world applications. Nonetheless, many still question its effect and argue that calculus reform purges calculus of its mathematical rigor and poorly prepares students for advanced mathematical training. East Asian students often rank in the top 10 of TIMSS and PISA. However, out-performing others in an international comparison may not guarantee their success in the learning of calculus. Taiwanese college students usually have a high failure rate in calculus. The National Science Council of Taiwan therefore initiated several projects in 2008 for improving students' learning in calculus. This paper provides a preliminary report on one of the projects, PLEASE, and discusses how it was planned to respond to the tenets of calculus reform movement

INTEGRATING PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES TO MEASURE AND IMPROVE USABILITY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON KINECT APPLYING OF HEALTH MANAGEMENT SPORT

This research aimed to develop an approach for measuring, monitoring and auditing the usability of a motion-related health management product. Based on an ergonomic perspective and principles, the interactions between test participants and a motion sports device were studied using physiological data gathered from a heart rate sensor. Based on our literature review, we customized a psychological usability questionnaire which considered effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, error, learnability, sociability, and mental workload, generating a tool meant to reveal the subjective cognition of product usability. This research analyzed the objective (physiological) and subjective (psychological) data simultaneously to gain greater insight about the product users. In addition, heart rate data, mental workload data and the questionnaire data were synthesized to generate a comprehensive, detailed approach for evaluating usability in order to provide suggestions for improving the usability of an actual health care product

Discovering Fuzzy Association Rules from Patient's Daily Text Messages to Diagnose Melancholia

With the constant stress from work load and daily life people may show symptoms of melancholia. However, most people are reluctant to describe it or may not know that they already have it. In this paper a novel system is proposed to discover clues from patient’s interaction with psychologist or from self-recorded voice or text messages. A user friendly interface is provided for patients to input text messages or record a voice file by mobile phones or other input devices. A speech-totext conversion software is used to convert voice mails to simple text files in advance. Based on the text files, a data mining model is used to discover frequent keywords mentioned in the text or speech files. The association rules can be used to help psychologists diagnose patients’ degree of melancholia. Experimental results show that the proposed system can effectively discover melancholia keywords

Discovering Fuzzy Association Rules from Patient's Daily Text Messages to Diagnose Melancholia

With the constant stress from work load and daily life people may show symptoms of melancholia. However, most people are reluctant to describe it or may not know that they already have it. In this paper a novel system is proposed to discover clues from patient’s interaction with psychologist or from self-recorded voice or text messages. A user friendly interface is provided for patients to input text messages or record a voice file by mobile phones or other input devices. A speech-totext conversion software is used to convert voice mails to simple text files in advance. Based on the text files, a data mining model is used to discover frequent keywords mentioned in the text or speech files. The association rules can be used to help psychologists diagnose patients’ degree of melancholia. Experimental results show that the proposed system can effectively discover melancholia keywords

Impaired Brain-Heart Relation in Patients With Methamphetamine Use Disorder During VR Induction of Drug Cue Reactivity

Methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) is an illness associated with severe health consequences. Virtual reality (VR) is used to induce the drug-cue reactivity and significant EEG and ECG abnormalities were found in MUD patients. However, whether a link exists between EEG and ECG abnormalities in patients with MUD during exposure to drug cues remains unknown. This is important from the therapeutic viewpoint because different treatment strategies may be applied when EEG abnormalities and ECG irregularities are complications of MUD. We designed a VR system with drug cues and EEG and ECG were recorded during VR exposure. Sixteen patients with MUD and sixteen healthy subjects were recruited. Statistical tests and Pearson correlation were employed to analyze the EEG and ECG. The results showed that, during VR induction, the patients with MUD but not healthy controls showed significant $\alpha$ and $\beta$ power increases when the stimulus materials were most intense. This finding indicated that the stimuli are indiscriminate to healthy controls but meaningful to patients with MUD. Five heart rate variability (HRV) indexes significantly differed between patients and controls, suggesting abnormalities in the reaction of patient’s autonomic nervous system. Importantly, significant relations between EEG and HRV indexes changes were only identified in the controls, but not in MUD patients, signifying a disruption of brain-heart relations in patients. Our findings of stimulus-specific EEG changes and the impaired brain-heart relations in patients with MUD shed light on the understanding of drug-cue reactivity and may be used to design diagnostic and/or therapeutic strategies for MUD

Weekend effect in upper gastrointestinal bleeding: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Aim To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of the weekend effect on the mortality of patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding(UGIB). Methods The review protocol has been registered in the PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (registration number: CRD42017073313) and was written according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. We conducted a search of the PUBMED, COCHRANE, EMBASE and CINAHL databases from inception to August 2017. All observational studies comparing mortality between UGIB patients with weekend versus weekday admissions were included. Articles that were published only in abstract form or not published in a peer-reviewed journal were excluded. The quality of articles was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. We pooled results from the articles using random-effect models. Heterogeneity was evaluated by the chi-square-based Q-test and I2test. To address heterogeneity, we performed sensitivity and subgroup analyses. Potential publication bias was assessed via funnel plot. Results Eighteen observational cohort studies involving 1,232,083 study patients were included. Weekend admission was associated with significantly higher 30-day or in-hospital mortality in all studies (OR = 1.12, 95% CI [1.07–1.17], P < 0.00001). Increased in-hospital mortality was also associated with weekend admission (OR = 1.12, 95% CI [1.08–1.17], P < 0.00001). No significant difference in in-hospital mortality was observed between patients admitted with variceal bleeding during the weekend or on weekdays (OR = 0.99, 95% CI [0.91–1.08], P = 0.82); however, weekend admission was associated with a 15% increase in in-hospital mortality for patients with non-variceal bleeding (OR = 1.15, 95% CI [1.09–1.21], P < 0.00001). The time to endoscopy for weekday admission was significantly less than that obtained for weekend admission (MD = −2.50, 95% CI [−4.08–−0.92], P = 0.002). Conclusions The weekend effect is associated with increased mortality of UGIB patients, particularly in non-variceal bleeding. The timing of endoscopic intervention might be a factor that influences mortality of UGIB patients