Weblog patterns and human dynamics with decreasing interest

Weblog is the fourth way of network exchange after Email, BBS and MSN. Most bloggers begin to write blogs with great interest, and then their interests gradually achieve a balance with the passage of time. In order to describe the phenomenon that people's interest in something gradually decreases until it reaches a balance, we first propose the model that describes the attenuation of interest and reflects the fact that people's interest becomes more stable after a long time. We give a rigorous analysis on this model by non-homogeneous Poisson processes. Our analysis indicates that the interval distribution of arrival-time is a mixed distribution with exponential and power-law feature, that is, it is a power law with an exponential cutoff. Second, we collect blogs in ScienceNet.cn and carry on empirical studies on the interarrival time distribution. The empirical results agree well with the analytical result, obeying a special power law with the exponential cutoff, that is, a special kind of Gamma distribution. These empirical results verify the model, providing an evidence for a new class of phenomena in human dynamics. In human dynamics there are other distributions, besides power-law distributions. These findings demonstrate the variety of human behavior dynamics.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

Limits to the muon flux from WIMP annihilation in the center of the Earth with the AMANDA detector

A search for nearly vertical up-going muon-neutrinos from neutralino annihilations in the center of the Earth has been performed with the AMANDA-B10 neutrino detector. The data sample collected in 130.1 days of live-time in 1997, ~10^9 events, has been analyzed for this search. No excess over the expected atmospheric neutrino background is oberved. An upper limit at 90% confidence level on the annihilation rate of neutralinos in the center of the Earth is obtained as a function of the neutralino mass in the range 100 GeV-5000 GeV, as well as the corresponding muon flux limit.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review

Outcome in patients perceived as receiving excessive care across different ethical climates: a prospective study in 68 intensive care units in Europe and the USA

Purpose: Whether the quality of the ethical climate in the intensive care unit (ICU) improves the identification of patients receiving excessive care and affects patient outcomes is unknown. Methods: In this prospective observational study, perceptions of excessive care (PECs) by clinicians working in 68 ICUs in Europe and the USA were collected daily during a 28-day period. The quality of the ethical climate in the ICUs was assessed via a validated questionnaire. We compared the combined endpoint (death, not at home or poor quality of life at 1 year) of patients with PECs and the time from PECs until written treatment-limitation decisions (TLDs) and death across the four climates defined via cluster analysis. Results: Of the 4747 eligible clinicians, 2992 (63%) evaluated the ethical climate in their ICU. Of the 321 and 623 patients not admitted for monitoring only in ICUs with a good (n = 12, 18%) and poor (n = 24, 35%) climate, 36 (11%) and 74 (12%), respectively were identified with PECs by at least two clinicians. Of the 35 and 71 identified patients with an available combined endpoint, 100% (95% CI 90.0–1.00) and 85.9% (75.4–92.0) (P = 0.02) attained that endpoint. The risk of death (HR 1.88, 95% CI 1.20–2.92) or receiving a written TLD (HR 2.32, CI 1.11–4.85) in patients with PECs by at least two clinicians was higher in ICUs with a good climate than in those with a poor one. The differences between ICUs with an average climate, with (n = 12, 18%) or without (n = 20, 29%) nursing involvement at the end of life, and ICUs with a poor climate were less obvious but still in favour of the former. Conclusion: Enhancing the quality of the ethical climate in the ICU may improve both the identification of patients receiving excessive care and the decision-making process at the end of life

Ethical climate and intention to leave among critical care clinicians: an observational study in 68 intensive care units across Europe and the United States

Purpose: Apart from organizational issues, quality of inter-professional collaboration during ethical decision-making may affect the intention to leave one’s job. To determine whether ethical climate is associated with the intention to leave after adjustment for country, ICU and clinicians characteristics. Methods: Perceptions of the ethical climate among clinicians working in 68 adult ICUs in 12 European countries and the US were measured using a self-assessment questionnaire, together with job characteristics and intent to leave as a sub-analysis of the Dispropricus study. The validated ethical decision-making climate questionnaire included seven factors: not avoiding decision-making at end-of-life (EOL), mutual respect within the interdisciplinary team, open interdisciplinary reflection, ethical awareness, self-reflective physician leadership, active decision-making at end-of-life by physicians, and involvement of nurses in EOL. Hierarchical mixed effect models were used to assess associations between these factors, and the intent to leave in clinicians within I

From Tags to Trends: A First Glance at Social Media Content Dynamics

Part 7: First Mining Humanistic Data Workshop (MHDW 2012)International audienceCurrent uncontrolled growth of online, digital multimedia content emphasizes research work on identifying trends on how this content popularity may grow over time wrt identifiable user events and interests. In this paper we analyze user-generated photos uploaded to Flickr in order to extract meaningful semantic trends covering specific geographical areas of interest. Initially, we cluster photos based on their geo-tagging metadata information and divide large areas into smaller “first level geo-clusters” of fixed size, allowing them to overlap if necessary. Within these first level geo-clusters, we identify semantically meaningful “places” of user interest, by analyzing additional textual metadata, i.e. user selected tags that characterize each place’s photos. By post-processing them, we select the most appropriate tags that are able to describe landmarks and events occurring within these places of interest and examine their temporal dynamics over a long period of time

Papel do Pept?deo Natriur?tico NT pro-BNP no diagn?stico da insufici?ncia card?aca em idosos

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-14T13:54:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 464804.pdf: 1590458 bytes, checksum: e5fa70202dba1d1fd2d06ce2fd978999 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-25Introduction: Heart failure (HF) is the final pathway of most diseases affecting the heart. It is estimated that this syndrome, with high mortality rate, affects 80% of the elderly people in the world within five years of disease evolution. Objective:The objective was to evaluate the role of natriuretic peptide NT - proBNP in the diagnosis of HF in the elderly. Method: Cross-sectional study of diagnosis to determine the accuracy (sensitivity, specificity and predictive value) in serum BNP level, checking if there is a correlation between the serum BNP level and severity of heart failure. While testing patients, in the NT-proBNP study, the NT-proBNP serum level was determinedby the blood. Chest X-rays, transthoracic echocardiography and clinical examination were used to define groups with and without HF. A total of 74 elderly were researched in this group, 46 had HF and 28 had noHF. Results: Female gender was more prevalent 92,9% (p = 0.001), the age range was 60-69 years old (with/HF=37%) (without/HF=57.1%) (p=0.025). They had no active physical activities (95.7% w/HF) (p 50% (average 363.2) and 50% (m?dia de 363,2) e <50% (m?dia de 678,2). Classificados usando a NYHA I(20-344,2 m?dia), IV(12-664,9 m?dia) (p=0,412) com sensibilidade 58,7% e especificidade de 82,1%, regress?o linear (r= -0,291 e p=0,05) entre BNP e FE. Conclus?o: O n?vel s?rico de NT-proBNP se mostrou ?til no aux?lio ao diagn?stico de IC em idosos, com capacidade de predi??o de aproximadamente 74%, segundo a ?rea sob a curva ROC. Foi observada uma correla??o fraca entre o n?vel s?rico de NT-proBNP e a fra??o de eje??o nos pacientes com IC. Estudos cl?nicos adicionais s?o necess?rios para definir o papel do NT-proBNP na pr?tica cl?nica em pacientes idoso