Etiology of Diarrhea in Older Children, Adolescents and Adults: A Systematic Review

Diarrhea is an important cause of illness and death around the world and among people of all ages, but unfortunately we often do not know what specific bacterium or virus causes the illness. We conducted a review of the scientific literature with the goal of finding published studies that identified bacteria and viruses among patients with diarrhea in the community and in hospital settings. We initially found nearly 26,000 papers on this topic but narrowed the list to 22 studies that met all of our specific criteria for inclusion in our review. Among patients hospitalized for diarrhea, E coli and Vibrio cholerae were found in more than 49% of people living in middle income and poor countries. Among patients who sought care from their doctor on an outpatient basis, Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., and E. histolytica were most often found. In our review we focused on the differences in the distribution of pathogens between patients in inpatient vs. outpatient settings because these estimates may best approximate what we would expect to see if the distribution were applied to global estimates of diarrhea deaths vs. uncomplicated illnesses

Local model and controller network design for a single-link flexible manipulator

This paper describes a new genetic learning approach to the construction of a local model network (LMN) and design of a local controller network (LCN) with application to a single-link flexible manipulator. A highly nonlinear flexible manipulator system is modelled using an LMN comprising Autoregressive–moving-average model with exogenous inputs (ARMAX) type local models (LMs) whereas linear Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) type local controllers (LCs) are used to design an LCN. In addition to allowing the simultaneous optimisation of the number of LMs and LCs, model parameters and interpolation function parameters, the approach provides a flexible framework for targeting transparency and generalisation. Simulation results confirm the excellent nonlinear modelling properties of an LM network and illustrate the potential benefits of the proposed LM control scheme