Application of Frequent Itemsets Mining to Analyze Patterns of One-Stop Visits in Taiwan

BACKGROUND: The free choice of health care facilities without limitations on frequency of visits within the National Health Insurance in Taiwan gives rise to not only a high number of annual ambulatory visits per capita but also a unique "one-stop shopping"phenomenon, which refers to a patient' visits to several specialties of the same healthcare facility in one day. The visits to multiple physicians would increase the potential risk of polypharmacy. The aim of this study was to analyze the frequency and patterns of one-stop visits in Taiwan. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The claims datasets of 1 million nationally representative people within Taiwan's National Health Insurance in 2005 were used to calculate the number of patients with one-stop visits. The frequent itemsets mining was applied to compute the combination patterns of specialties in the one-stop visits. Among the total 13,682,469 ambulatory care visits in 2005, one-stop visits occurred 144,132 times and involved 296,822 visits (2.2% of all visits) by 66,294 (6.6%) persons. People tended to have this behavior with age and the percentage reached 27.5% (5,662 in 20,579) in the age group ≥80 years. In general, women were more likely to have one-stop visits than men (7.2% vs. 6.0%). Internal medicine plus ophthalmology was the most frequent combination with a visited frequency of 3,552 times (2.5%), followed by cardiology plus neurology with 3,183 times (2.2%). The most frequent three-specialty combination, cardiology plus neurology and gastroenterology, occurred only 111 times. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Without the novel computational technique, it would be hardly possible to analyze the extremely diverse combination patterns of specialties in one-stop visits. The results of the study could provide useful information either for the hospital manager to set up integrated services or for the policymaker to rebuild the health care system

FIB-FESEM and EMPA results on Antoninianus silver coins for manufacturing and corrosion processes

[EN] A set of ancient Antoninianus silver coins, dating back between 249 and 274¿A.D. and minted in Rome, Galliae, Orient and Ticinum, have been characterized. We use, for the first time, a combination of nano-invasive (focused ion beam-field emission scanning electron microscopy-X-ray microanalysis (FIB-FESEM-EDX), voltammetry of microparticles (VIMP)) and destructive techniques (scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX) and electron microprobe analysis (EMPA)) along with non-invasive, i.e., micro-Raman spectroscopy. The results revealed that, contrary to the extended belief, a complex Ag-Cu-Pb-Sn alloy was used. The use of alloys was common in the flourishing years of the Roman Empire. In the prosperous periods, Romans produced Ag-Cu alloys with relatively high silver content for the manufacture of both the external layers and inner nucleus of coins. This study also revealed that, although surface silvering processes were applied in different periods of crisis under the reign of Antoninii, even during crisis, Romans produced Antoninianus of high quality. Moreover, a first attempt to improve the silvering procedure using Hg-Ag amalgam has been identified.Financial support was provided by Sapienza University of Rome (Ateneo funding, 2014 15) and Spanish projects CTQ2014-53736-C3-1-P and CTQ2014-53736-C3-2-P, which are supported with Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (ERDF) funds, as well as project CTQ2017-85317-C2-1-P supported with funds from, MINECO, ERDF and Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI). PhD grants of the Department of Earth Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, are gratefully acknowledgedDomenech Carbo, MT.; Di Turo, F.; Montoya, N.; Catalli, F.; Doménech Carbó, A.; De Vito, C. (2018). FIB-FESEM and EMPA results on Antoninianus silver coins for manufacturing and corrosion processes. Scientific Reports. 8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28990-xS8Doménech-Carbó, A., del Hoyo-Meléndez, J. M., Doménech-Carbó, M. T. & Piquero-Cilla, J. Electrochemical analysis of the first Polish coins using voltammetry of immobilized particles. Microchem. J. 130, 47–55 (2017).Di Turo, F. et al. Archaeometric analysis of Roman bronze coins from the Magna Mater temple using solid-state voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Anal. Chim. Acta 955, 36–47 (2017).Doménech-Carbó, A., Doménech-Carbó, M. T. & Peiró-Ronda, M. A. Dating Archeological Lead Artifacts from Measurement of the Corrosion Content Using the Voltammetry of Microparticles. Anal. Chem. 83, 5639–5644 (2011).Giumlia-Mair, A. et al. Surface characterisation techniques in the study and conservation of art and archaeological artefacts: a review. Materials Technology 25(5), 245–261 (2010).Robbiola, L. & Portier, R. A global approach to the authentication of ancient bronzes based on the characterization of the alloy–patina–environment system. Journal of Cultural Heritage 7, 1–12 (2006).Campbell, W. Greek and Roman plated coins, Numismatics Notes and Monographs 57, American Numismatic Society, New York (1933).Kallithrakas-Kontos, N., Katsanos, A. A. & Touratsoglou, J. Trace element analysis of Alexander the Great’s silver tetradrachms minted in Macedonia, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics. Research B 171, 342–349 (2000).Catalli, F. Numismatica greca e romana. (Libreria dello Stato, 2003).Cope, L. H. The Metallurgical development of the Roman Imperial Coinage during the first five centuries. (Liverpool, 1974).Scriptores Historiae Augustae. Historia Augusta. (The Perfect Library, 2014).Vlachou-Mogire, C., Stern, B. & McDonnell, J. G. The application of LA-ICP-MS in the examination of the thin plating layers found in late Roman coins. Nucl. Instruments Methods Phys. Res. Sect. B Beam Interact. with Mater. Atoms 265, 558–568 (2007).Keturakis, C. J. et al. Analysis of corrosion layers in ancient Roman silver coins with high resolution surface spectroscopic techniques. Appl. Surf. Sci. 376, 241–251 (2016).Ingo, G. M. et al. Roman sophisticated surface modification methods to manufacture silver counterfeited coins. Appl. Surf. Sci. 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2017.01.101 (2017).La Niece, S. In: La Niece S. & Craddock, P. (Eds), Metal, Plating and Platination, Butterworth–Heinemann, London, 1993, p. 201.Anheuser, K. & France, P. Silver plating technology of the late 3rd century Roman coinage. Historical Metallurgy 36(1), 17–23 (2002).Anheuser, K. & Northover, P. Silver plating on Roman and Celtic coins from Britain– A technical study. The British Numismatic Journal 64, 22–32 (1994).Anheuser, K. Where is all the amalgam silvering? Materials Issues1996 in Art and Archaeology - V proceedings, Boston.Beck, L. et al. In NIM 269, 2011 and in Counterfeit coinage of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century: silvering process and archaeometallurgical replications, Archaeometallurgy in Europe III.Deraisme, A., Beck, L., Pilon, F. & Barrandon, J. N. A study of the silvering process of the Gallo-Roman coins forged during the third century AD. Archaeometry 48, 469–480 (2006).Giumlia-Mair, A. On surface analysis and archaeometallurgy. Nucl. Instruments Methods Phys. Res. Sect. B Beam Interact. with Mater. Atoms 239, 35–43 (2005).Tate, J. Some problems in analysing museum material by nondestructive surface sensitive techniques. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, B, 14 (1), pp. 20–23 (1986).Beck, L., Bosonnet, S., Réveillon, S., Eliot, D. & Pilon, F. Silver surface enrichment of silver-copper alloys: A limitation for the analysis of ancient silver coins by surface techniques. Nucl. Instruments Methods Phys. Res. Sect. B Beam Interact. with Mater. Atoms 226, 153–162 (2004).Pardini, L. et al. X-ray fluorescence and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy analysis of Roman silver denarii. Spectrochim. Acta - Part B At. Spectrosc. 74–75, 156–161 (2012).Klockenkämper, R., Bubert, H. & Hasler, K. Detection of near-surface silver enrichment on Roman imperial silver coins by x-ray spectral analysis. Archaeometry 41, 311–320 (1999).Ponting, M., Evans, J. A. & Pashley, V. Fingerprinting of roman mints using laser-amblation MC-ICP-MS lead isotope analysis.Del Hoyo-Meléndez, J. M. et al. Micro-XRF analysis of silver coins from medieval Poland. Nucl. Instruments Methods Phys. Res. Sect. B Beam Interact. with Mater. Atoms 349, 6–16 (2015).Cesare Brandi. Il restauro. Teoria e pratica (1939–1986). (Editori Riuniti, 2009).Barberio, M., Veltri, S., Scisciò, M. & Antici, P. Laser-Accelerated Proton Beams as Diagnostics for Cultural Heritage. Sci. Rep. 7, 40415 (2017).Linke, R., Sehreiner, M., Demortier, G., Alram, M. & Winter, H. Non-Destructive Microanalysis of Cultural Heritage Materials. Comprehensive Analytical Chemistry 42, (Elsevier, 2004).Łojewska, J. et al. Recognizing ancient papyri by a combination of spectroscopic, diffractional and chromatographic analytical tools. Sci. Rep. 7, 46236 (2017).Meulebroeck, W., Wouters, H., Nys, K. & Thienpont, H. Authenticity screening of stained glass windows using optical spectroscopy. Nat. Sci. Reports 6 37726, 1–10 (2016).Martina, I., Wiesinger, R. & Schreiner, M. Micro-Raman Characterisation of Silver Corrosion Products: Instrumental Set Up and Reference. e-Preservation. Sci. Rep 9, 1–8 (2012).Rizzo, F. et al. Non-destructive determination of the silver content in Roman coins (nummi), dated to 308–311 A. D., by the combined use of PIXE-alpha, XRF and DPAA techniques. Microchem. J. 97, 286–290 (2011).Carl, M. & Young, M. L. Complementary analytical methods for analysis of Ag-plated cultural heritage objects. Microchem. J. 126, 307–315 (2016).Cepriá, G., Abadías, O., Pérez-Arantegui, J. & Castillo, J. R. Electrochemical Behavior of Silver-Copper Alloys in Voltammetry of Microparticles: A Simple Method for Screening Purposes. Electroanalysis 13, 477–483 (2001).Capelo, S., Homem, P. M., Cavalheiro, J. & Fonseca, I. T. E. Linear sweep voltammetry: a cheap and powerful technique for the identification of the silver tarnish layer constituents. J. Solid State Electrochem. 17, 223–234 (2013).Doménech-Carbó, A. et al. Detection of archaeological forgeries of Iberian lead plates using nanoelectrochemical techniques. The lot of fake plates from Bugarra (Spain). Forensic Sci. Int. 247, 79–88 (2015).Doménech-Carbó, A., Doménech-Carbó, M. T. & Peiró-Ronda, M. A. ‘One-Touch’ Voltammetry of Microparticles for the Identification of Corrosion Products in Archaeological Lead. Electroanalysis 23, 1391–1400 (2011).Doménech-Carbó, A., Doménech-Carbó, M. T., Montagna, E., Álvarez-Romero, C. & Lee, Y. Electrochemical discrimination of mints: The last Chinese emperors Kuang Hsü and Hsüan T’ung monetary unification. Talanta1 69, 50–56 (2017).Ager, F. J. et al. Combining XRF and GRT for the analysis of ancient silver coins. Microchem. J. 126, 149–154 (2016).Fawcett, T., Blanton, J., Blanton, T., Arias, L. & Suscavage, T. Non-destructive evaluation of Roman coin patinas from the 3rd and 4th century. Powder Diffraction, 1–10.Salvemini, F. et al. Neutron tomographic analysis: Material characterization of silver and electrum coins from the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Mater. Charact. 118, 175–185 (2016).Ashkenazi, D., Gitler, H., Stern, A. & Tal, O. Metallurgical investigation on fourth century BCE silver jewellery of two hoards from Samaria. Sci. Rep. 7, 40659 (2017).Romano, F. P., Garraffo, S., Pappalardo, L. & Rizzo, F. In situ investigation of the surface silvering of late Roman coins by combined use of high energy broad-beam and low energy micro-beam X-ray fluorescence techniques. Spectrochim. Acta - Part B At. Spectrosc. 73, 13–19 (2012).Ingo, G. M. et al. Ancient Mercury-Based Plating Methods: Combined Use of Surface Analytical Techniques for the Study of Manufacturing Process and Degradation Phenomena. Accounts of Chemical Research 46(11), 2365–2375.Pouchou, J. L. & Pichoir, F.¨PAP¨ (ϕ–ρ–Z) procedure for improved quantitative microanalysis, in: Armstrong, J. T. (Ed.), Microbeam Analysis, San Francisco Press, San Francisco, pp. 104–106 (1985)

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Complete Genome Viral Phylogenies Suggests the Concerted Evolution of Regulatory Cores and Accessory Satellites

We consider the concerted evolution of viral genomes in four families of DNA viruses. Given the high rate of horizontal gene transfer among viruses and their hosts, it is an open question as to how representative particular genes are of the evolutionary history of the complete genome. To address the concerted evolution of viral genes, we compared genomic evolution across four distinct, extant viral families. For all four viral families we constructed DNA-dependent DNA polymerase-based (DdDp) phylogenies and in addition, whole genome sequence, as quantitative descriptions of inter-genome relationships. We found that the history of the polymerase gene was highly predictive of the history of the genome as a whole, which we explain in terms of repeated, co-divergence events of the core DdDp gene accompanied by a number of satellite, accessory genetic loci. We also found that the rate of gene gain in baculovirus and poxviruses proceeds significantly more quickly than the rate of gene loss and that there is convergent acquisition of satellite functions promoting contextual adaptation when distinct viral families infect related hosts. The congruence of the genome and polymerase trees suggests that a large set of viral genes, including polymerase, derive from a phylogenetically conserved core of genes of host origin, secondarily reinforced by gene acquisition from common hosts or co-infecting viruses within the host. A single viral genome can be thought of as a mutualistic network, with the core genes acting as an effective host and the satellite genes as effective symbionts. Larger virus genomes show a greater departure from linkage equilibrium between core and satellites functions

Introduction to the "Scoliosis" Journal Brace Technology Thematic Series: increasing existing knowledge and promoting future developments

Bracing is the main non-surgical intervention in the treatment of idiopathic scoliosis during growth, in hyperkyphosis (and Scheuermann disease) and occasionally for spondylolisthesis; it can be used in adult scoliosis, in the elderly when pathological curves lead to a forward leaning posture or in adults after traumatic injuries. Bracing can be defined as the application of external corrective forces to the trunk; rigid supports or elastic bands can be used and braces can be custom-made or prefabricated. The state of research in the field of conservative treatment is insufficient and while it can be stated that there is some evidence to support bracing, we must also acknowledge that today we do not have a common and generally accepted knowledge base, and that instead, individual expertise still prevails, giving rise to different schools of thought on brace construction and principles of correction. The only way to improve the knowledge and understanding of brace type and brace function is to establish a single and comprehensive source of information about bracing. This is what the Scoliosis Journal is going to do through the "Brace Technology" Thematic Series, where technical papers coming from the different schools will be published

Sugarcane (Saccharum X officinarum): A Reference Study for the Regulation of Genetically Modified Cultivars in Brazil

Global interest in sugarcane has increased significantly in recent years due to its economic impact on sustainable energy production. Sugarcane breeding and better agronomic practices have contributed to a huge increase in sugarcane yield in the last 30 years. Additional increases in sugarcane yield are expected to result from the use of biotechnology tools in the near future. Genetically modified (GM) sugarcane that incorporates genes to increase resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses could play a major role in achieving this goal. However, to bring GM sugarcane to the market, it is necessary to follow a regulatory process that will evaluate the environmental and health impacts of this crop. The regulatory review process is usually accomplished through a comparison of the biology and composition of the GM cultivar and a non-GM counterpart. This review intends to provide information on non-GM sugarcane biology, genetics, breeding, agronomic management, processing, products and byproducts, as well as the current technologies used to develop GM sugarcane, with the aim of assisting regulators in the decision-making process regarding the commercial release of GM sugarcane cultivars