Expected accuracy of proximal and distal temperature estimated by wireless sensors, in relation to their number and position on the skin

A popular method to estimate proximal/distal temperature (TPROX and TDIST) consists in calculating a weighted average of nine wireless sensors placed on pre-defined skin locations. Specifically, TPROX is derived from five sensors placed on the infra-clavicular and mid-thigh area (left and right) and abdomen, and TDIST from four sensors located on the hands and feet. In clinical practice, the loss/removal of one or more sensors is a common occurrence, but limited information is available on how this affects the accuracy of temperature estimates. The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of temperature estimates in relation to number/position of sensors removed. Thirteen healthy subjects wore all nine sensors for 24 hours and reference TPROX and TDIST time-courses were calculated using all sensors. Then, all possible combinations of reduced subsets of sensors were simulated and suitable weights for each sensor calculated. The accuracy of TPROX and TDIST estimates resulting from the reduced subsets of sensors, compared to reference values, was assessed by the mean squared error, the mean absolute error (MAE), the cross-validation error and the 25th and 75th percentiles of the reconstruction error. Tables of the accuracy and sensor weights for all possible combinations of sensors are provided. For instance, in relation to TPROX, a subset of three sensors placed in any combination of three non-homologous areas (abdominal, right or left infra-clavicular, right or left mid-thigh) produced an error of 0.13°C MAE, while the loss/removal of the abdominal sensor resulted in an error of 0.25°C MAE, with the greater impact on the quality of the reconstruction. This information may help researchers/clinicians: i) evaluate the expected goodness of their TPROX and TDIST estimates based on the number of available sensors; ii) select the most appropriate subset of sensors, depending on goals and operational constraints

Benefits and Harms of Lung Cancer Screening by Chest Computed Tomography: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

PURPOSE This meta-analysis aims to combine and analyze randomized clinical trials comparing computed tomography lung screening (CTLS) versus either no screening (NS) or chest x-ray (CXR) in subjects with cigarette smoking history, to provide a precise and reliable estimation of the benefits and harms associated with CTLS. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data from all published randomized trials comparing CTLS versus either NS or CXR in a highly tobacco-exposed population were collected, according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Subgroup analyses by comparator (NS or CXR) were performed. Pooled risk ratio (RR) and relative 95% CIs were calculated for dichotomous outcomes. The certainty of the evidence was assessed using the GRADE approach. RESULTS Nine eligible trials (88,497 patients) were included. Pooled analysis showed that CTLS is associated with: a significant reduction of lung cancer-related mortality (overall RR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.78 to 0.98; NS RR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.69 to 0.92); a significant increase of early-stage tumors diagnosis (overall RR, 2.84; 95% CI 1.76 to 4.58; NS RR, 3.33; 95% CI, 2.27 to 4.89; CXR RR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.04 to 2.23); a significant decrease of late-stage tumors diagnosis (overall RR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.68 to 0.83; NS RR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.56 to 0.80); a significant increase of resectability rate (NS RR, 2.57; 95% CI, 1.76 to 3.74); a nonsignificant reduction of all-cause mortality (overall RR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.94 to 1.05); and a significant increase of overdiagnosis rate (NS, 38%; 95% CI, 14 to 63). The analysis of lung cancer-related mortality by sex revealed nonsignificant differences between men and women (P = .21; I-squared = 33.6%). CONCLUSION Despite there still being uncertainty about overdiagnosis estimate, this meta-analysis suggested that the CTLS benefits outweigh harms, in subjects with cigarette smoking history, ultimately supporting the systematic implementation of lung cancer screening worldwide

An Interoperability Platform Enabling Reuse of Electronic Health Records for Signal Verification Studies

Depending mostly on voluntarily sent spontaneous reports, pharmacovigilance studies are hampered by low quantity and quality of patient data. Our objective is to improve postmarket safety studies by enabling safety analysts to seamlessly access a wide range of EHR sources for collecting deidentified medical data sets of selected patient populations and tracing the reported incidents back to original EHRs. We have developed an ontological framework where EHR sources and target clinical research systems can continue using their own local data models, interfaces, and terminology systems, while structural interoperability and Semantic Interoperability are handled through rule-based reasoning on formal representations of different models and terminology systems maintained in the SALUS Semantic Resource Set. SALUS Common Information Model at the core of this set acts as the common mediator. We demonstrate the capabilities of our framework through one of the SALUS safety analysis tools, namely, the Case Series Characterization Tool, which have been deployed on top of regional EHR Data Warehouse of the Lombardy Region containing about 1 billion records from 16 million patients and validated by several pharmacovigilance researchers with real-life cases. The results confirm significant improvements in signal detection and evaluation compared to traditional methods with the missing background information

GOING TO V vs GOING TO BE V-ing: Two equivalent patterns?

This study focuses on a set of "be going to V" and "be going to be V-ing" concordances from a large corpus of general English reflecting present-day usage. Our first goal is to determine whether "be going to V" and "be going to be V-ing" can be considered variants of the same construction, by comparing some of their morpho-syntactic patterns of use. Our second goal is to examine whether the assignment of the interpretative semantic labels \u2018intentionality\u2019 and \u2018predictability\u2019 to instances of "be going to V" correlates with semantic-syntactic features of their immediate co-text, the underlying motivation being that the locus of a unit of meaning is often an extended phraseology

GOING TO V vs GOING TO BE V-ing: Two equivalent patterns?

On the basis of data collected from a large-scale corpus of English, this paper examines the lexical, syntactic and semantic co-text of use of instances of the "going to V" and "going to be V-ing" constructions, as well as their distribution across text types, and then it investigates the semantic-syntactic factors that may determine the activation of the meanings of 'intentionality' vs 'predictability'. The findings show (a) that "going to V" and "going to be V" convey the same range of meanings (intentionality, predictability and, infrequently, either); (b) that the activation of these meanings depends on the interplay of several factors (e.g. the degree of humanness and agentivity of the subject, the declarative vs interrogative function of the clause); (c) that "be going to be V-ing" is infrequent compared to \u201cbe going to V\u201d and mainly typical of oral, dialogic, spontaneous communication (this suggests it is an emerging construction, part of the larger phenomenon of the increase of the progressive in English); (d) that "be going to be V-ing" occasionally conveys the progressive meaning of on-goingness, which can be also be evoked and exploited for pragmatic purposes (i.e. the expression of lack of intention)

The Research-Practice Interface in ESP and the Challenges for Linguists in the Digital Era: The Case of the InterDiplo Corpus

Research on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has undoubtedly benefited from the new advances brought by digitalization and by the use of corpus linguistics tools (Nesi 2013). As a consequence, the role of the linguist has changed considerably in the last decades to embrace new research methodologies emerging from the IT field. Linguistic data can now be combined, annotated, mined and visualized using high-powered computing; moreover, technologization and digitalization have made it possible to make large amount of textual data accessible through various channels in a variety of fields, some of which are still largely unexplored. Bearing this in mind, the present paper illustrates a project currently under development at the University of Verona (Italy) which focusses on the language of diplomats in interviews; so far, this field has received little attention, also on account of the limited number of spoken data focussing on such topic. To overcome this issue, we have developed the InterDiplo Corpus, an ESP corpus including broadcast interviews and debates, where diplomats and international operators are interviewed in English by journalists who do not share the same lingua-cultural background. In the development and analysis of the corpus special attention is dedicated to the fundamental definition of structural mark-up and part of speech annotation. Indeed, as the examples provided by our case study will illustrate, to develop a tagset allowing linguistic analysis from different perspectives, current linguists need to adequately combine computational competence and linguistic knowhow, as well as to be aware of the evolving face of English.  Overall, the balance between technological potentialities and the experience of ESP researchers will allow for specialized corpora that may produce significant linguistic results for their compilers though leaving ample room for free initiative in further analyses from the wider research community

Sustainable Access to π-Conjugated Molecular Materials via Direct (Hetero)Arylation Reactions in Water and under Air

Direct (hetero)arylation (DHA) is playing a key role in improving the efficiency and atom economy of C–C cross coupling reactions, so has impacts in pharmaceutical and materials chemistry. Current research focuses on further improving the generality, efficiency and selectivity of the method through careful tuning of the reaction conditions and the catalytic system. Comparatively fewer studies are dedicated to the replacement of the high-boiling-point organic solvents dominating the field and affecting the overall sustainability of the method. We show herein that the use of a 9:1 v/v emulsion of an aqueous Kolliphor 2 wt% solution while having toluene as the reaction medium enables the preparation of relevant examples of thiophene-containing π-conjugated building blocks in high yield and purity

Large Aeroelastic Model of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine: Mechanical and Mechatronics Design

A program was conducted to develop and instrumentation system to be used for obtaining accurate measurements of the interference fringe spacing in scattered light photoelasticity. To circumvent difficulties in modulating the light source, a stable D. C. intensity measuring system was developed along with the necessary optics. In support of this effort, a comprehensive study of materials to be used in scattered light photoelasticity was carried out. Other support efforts are described and results of a brief test of a sphere in diameter compression are given

Large Aeroelastic Model of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine: Mechanical and Mechatronics Design

This paper deals with the mechatronic design of a large-scale wind turbine model (outdoor scaled prototype) based on the DTU 10MW. This is going to be integrated in the model of a multi-purpose floating structure to be deployed at the Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory (NOEL) in Reggio Calabria (Italy). The floating wind turbine model is the downscaling of the full-scale structure designed within the EU H2020 Blue Growth Farm project. The structural design of the scaled wind turbine is presented, starting from the aeroelastic and aerodynamic design carried out in a previous work