La pratique d’une spirométrie systématique au cabinet de médecine générale chez des fumeurs sans projet de sevrage tabagique permet-elle de faire progresser leur motivation ?

Introduction: Our aim was to explore whether performing a spirometry at GP’s office changes non motivated smokers’attitude toward smoking cessation.Method: In our interventional, prospective, before-after single-center study, allowed by ethics committee, we included 74 smokers older than 18, with no-intention to quit smoking, whatever they were visiting GP for. We gave them their spirometric results – FEV1/CV, lung age- and commented it. Nine months later, we called them for another assessment.Results: 56% were women with an average-age of 46,55, who smoked 26,26 pack-years. 82% of them had normal FEV1/VC but lung age was pathological among 38% of them. Nine months later, 61,11% increased their motivation to quit smoking. They smoked 10,94 cigarettes per day versus 13,33 at the inclusion (p=0,0254). Motivation increase was not statistically related to age, gender, previous smoking cessations, daily smoking, nicotine dependence or normal FEV1/VC (p>0,75) but significantly related to normal or abnormal lung age status (p0,75) mais significativement liée à la normalité - ou non- de l'âge pulmonaire (p<0,03).Conclusion : Cette étude, la première à s'intéresser à l'impact motivationnel de la spirométrie réalisée au cabinet de médecine générale chez des fumeurs non-motivés, valorise notre mission de prévention, élargit notre champ de compétences, apporte potentiellement un nouvel outil à la lutte anti-tabac et, dans tous les cas, constitue un travail exploratoire avant des études de plus grande envergure

A convolutional neural-network model of human cochlear mechanics and filter tuning for real-time applications

Auditory models are commonly used as feature extractors for automatic speech-recognition systems or as front-ends for robotics, machine-hearing and hearing-aid applications. Although auditory models can capture the biophysical and nonlinear properties of human hearing in great detail, these biophysical models are computationally expensive and cannot be used in real-time applications. We present a hybrid approach where convolutional neural networks are combined with computational neuroscience to yield a real-time end-to-end model for human cochlear mechanics, including level-dependent filter tuning (CoNNear). The CoNNear model was trained on acoustic speech material and its performance and applicability were evaluated using (unseen) sound stimuli commonly employed in cochlear mechanics research. The CoNNear model accurately simulates human cochlear frequency selectivity and its dependence on sound intensity, an essential quality for robust speech intelligibility at negative speech-to-background-noise ratios. The CoNNear architecture is based on parallel and differentiable computations and has the power to achieve real-time human performance. These unique CoNNear features will enable the next generation of human-like machine-hearing applications

And at the end, the Germans always win, don’t they? An evaluation of country-specific scoring behaviour in the dying seconds of international club soccer games

This article contributes to the literature on performance determinants in soccer by investigating country differences in goal scoring in the dying seconds of international soccer games (i.e. in the 90th minute or later). We analyse this goal-scoring behaviour in 1,008 recent soccer games played in the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League and Europa League. In contrast to Gary Lineker's well-known quote that "at the end, the Germans always win", no significant evidence is found for German teams scoring a goal in the dying seconds more often than other teams. Our results indicate, however, that European clubs do have an interest in learning from the end-of-game tactics used by French and Spanish clubs in recent international games as these teams were less likely to concede a goal during the dying seconds. English teams were also in this situation but only if they had an English coach

Anti-alignments in conformance checking: the dark side of process models

Conformance checking techniques asses the suitability of a process model in representing an underlying process, observed through a collection of real executions. These techniques suffer from the wellknown state space explosion problem, hence handling process models exhibiting large or even infinite state spaces remains a challenge. One important metric in conformance checking is to asses the precision of the model with respect to the observed executions, i.e., characterize the ability of the model to produce behavior unrelated to the one observed. By avoiding the computation of the full state space of a model, current techniques only provide estimations of the precision metric, which in some situations tend to be very optimistic, thus hiding real problems a process model may have. In this paper we present the notion of antialignment as a concept to help unveiling traces in the model that may deviate significantly from the observed behavior. Using anti-alignments, current estimations can be improved, e.g., in precision checking. We show how to express the problem of finding anti-alignments as the satisfiability of a Boolean formula, and provide a tool which can deal with large models efficiently.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Hearing-impaired bio-inspired cochlear models for real-time auditory applications

Biophysically realistic models of the cochlea are based on cascaded transmission-line (TL) models which capture longitudinal coupling, cochlear nonlinearities, as well as the human frequency selectivity. However, these models are slow to compute (order of seconds/minutes) while machine-hearing and hearing-aid applications require a real-time solution. Consequently, real-time applications often adopt more basic and less time-consuming descriptions of cochlear processing (gamma-tone, dual resonance nonlinear) even though there are clear advantages in using more biophysically correct models. To overcome this, we recently combined nonlinear Deep Neural Networks (DNN) with analytical TL cochlear model descriptions to build a real-time model of cochlear processing which captures the biophysical properties associated with the TL model. In this work, we aim to extend the normal-hearing DNN-based cochlear model (CoNNear) to simulate frequency-specific patterns of hearing sensitivity loss, yielding a set of normal and hearing-impaired auditory models which can be computed in real-time and are differentiable. They can hence be used in backpropagation networks to develop the next generation of hearing-aid and machine hearing applications

Cysticercosis and taeniasis cases diagnosed at two referral medical institutions, Belgium, 1990 to 2015

Background: Few case reports on human infections with the beef tapeworm Taenia saginata and the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, diagnosed in Belgium have been published, yet the grey literature suggests a higher number of cases. Aim: To identify and describe cases of taeniasis and cysticercosis diagnosed at two Belgian referral medical institutions from 1990 to 2015. Methods: In this observational study we retrospectively gathered data on taeniasis and cysticercosis cases by screening laboratory, medical record databases as well a uniform hospital discharge dataset. Results: A total of 221 confirmed taeniasis cases were identified. All cases for whom the causative species could be determined (170/221, 76.9%) were found to be T. saginata infections. Of those with available information, 40.0% were asymptomatic (26/65), 15.4% reported diarrhoea (10/65), 9.2% reported anal discomfort (6/65) and 15.7% acquired the infection in Belgium (11/70). Five definitive and six probable cases of neurocysticercosis (NCC), and two cases of non-central nervous system cysticercosis (non-CNS CC) were identified. Common symptoms and signs in five of the definitive and probable NCC cases were epilepsy, headaches and/or other neurological disorders. Travel information was available for of the 13 NCC and non-CNS CC cases; two were Belgians travelling to and eight were immigrants or visitors travelling from endemic areas. Conclusions: The current study indicates that a non-negligible number of taeniasis cases visit Belgian medical facilities, and that cysticercosis is occasionally diagnosed in international travellers

Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO) : I. A prospective multicenter study of 167 patients with FUO, using fixed epidemiologic entry criteria

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