Prediction of default probability in banking industry using CAMELS index: A case study of Iranian banks

This study examines the relationship between CAMELS index and default probability among 20 Iranian banks. The proposed study gathers the necessary information from their financial statements over the period 2005-2011. The study uses logistic regression along with Pearson correlation analysis to consider the relationship between default probability and six independent variables including capital adequacy, asset quality, management quality, earning quality, liquidity quality and sensitivity of market risk. The results indicate that there were no meaningful relationship between default probability and three independent variables including capital adequacy, asset quality and sensitivity of market risk. However, the results of our statistical tests support such relationship between default probability and three other variables including management quality, earning quality and liquidity quality

The correlation between quorum sensing genes (pqsR and lasR) in antibiotic resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from burned patients

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative bacillus, and opportunistic pathogen, is an important microorganism involved with infections in burn patients worldwide. It produces biofilms by Quorum-sensing signals and makes an antibiotic resistance. Materials and Methods: From April to September 2018, 100 samples of burn injuries were collected from the Central Hospital of Shahid Beheshti in Kashan. The samples were identified in terms of biochemical and phenotypic tests and a definitive diagnosis of P.aeruginosa species was examined based on a toxA gene by the PCR method. The positive samples were analyzed for antibiotics of amikacin, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, gentamicin, cefepime, aztreonam, meropenem, ceftazidime, colistin, and piperacillin-tazobactam. Then, samples were analyzed for lasR and pqsR (quorum-sensing genes) by PCR. Results: We verified eighty-five (85%) isolates as P. aeruginosa. According to antibiograms, 92% of the isolates were considered as multidrug-resistant (MDR), of which 85.5% were extensively drug-resistant (XDR) and none of the pan drug resistance (PDR). Also, in MDR isolates, there was one nonsense mutation. In XDR samples, two isolates had a missense mutation and nonsense mutation was seen in one strain.Conclusion: The results of our study show that with increasing resistance rates, more mutations occur in lasR and pqsR genes and the possibly can play a key role in antibiotic resistance. Given the mutations found in the quorum sensing genes, it can be concluded that these genes are mutagenic genes that will be effective in changing bacterial behavior and adaptability to environmental conditions

An investigation into the implementation of clinical guidelines in the general dental services

Background: An evidence-based approach to clinical practice is advocated to improve the quality of patient care. However there is often a gap between research findings and clinical practice. To address this deficiency there is the need to assist clinicians in accessing and adopting research findings. One possible method of facilitating change in practice is clinical guidelines. It has been shown in medicine that a change in clinical practice in favour of published guidelines is dependent on an active implementation strategy. Consistently effective implementation strategies have not been identified in either medicine or dentistry. Aim: to investigate the effectiveness of different implementation strategies for evidence based guidelines, using the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network(SIGN) for appropriate removal of third molar teeth (SIGN 43, 2000).Design: a randomised-controlled trial employing a 2x2 factorial design linked to multidisciplinary evaluation. Subjects: 51 volunteer dental practices across Scotland.Method: Practices were randomly allocated to one of four groups. Pre-intervention data were collected from 49 dental practices. The clinical records of all 16-24 year old patients who attended the practice over a four-month period (August to December 1999) were searched by clinical researchers who were blind to the randomisation. The data extracted included the reason for their attendance and treatment received. This process was repeated following publication of the SIGN Guideline in April 2000. The postintervention phase of the project took place between June and October 2000. Data were collected from 46 practices.Interventions: Mailing of guideline (as control/non-intervention strategy), Audit and feedback (A&F); Computer-aided learning with decision support (CAL-DS), and A&F together with CAL-DS. In addition all practitioners had an opportunity to attend a postgraduate continuation education (PGCE) course on the guideline. Thus the nonintervention/control group mirrored current practice in the dissemination and implementation of the SIGN guideline in primary dental care. Outcome Measurement: The principle outcome was adherence to the guideline as assessed independently by two researchers. Any disagreement between these evaluators was discussed and an agreement reached.Results: The overall recruitment rate of practices was 11 % of those invited to take part(63 of 565) but this decreased to 80/0 following the intervention. Prior to the intervention the percent of patients with a problem with their third molar teeth was 70/0 compared with 220/0 after intervention. This occurred at the same time as a reduction in the overall number of patients seen by the practices (3342 compared with 1935). A statistically significant reduction in the percentage of patients treated with extraction was detected between the pre- (370/0) and post-intervention (270/0) phase of this study,(P=O.02), where this reduction was not significant for different groups (P>0.05).Compliance with the guideline was 74% of patients pre-intervention and this increased to 780/0 post-intervention. However, this difference was not statistically significant(P=0.25). The weighted t-test for audit versus no audit (P=0.62) and CAL-DS versus no CAL-DS was not significant (P=0.76). From the multilevel analysis the odds ratio of compliance with the guideline for dentists who experienced audit versus those who did not was 1.28 (95% CI 0.62 to 2.63) and this compares with an odds ratio of 0.84 (95% CI 0.88 to 1.74) for the CAL-DS dentists versus no CAL-DS. For neither was the difference statistically significant. The study was not sufficiently powered to detect an interaction effect so analyses of the main effects only were undertaken. There was however a weak correlation between pre and post cluster level compliance rates (Product Moment Correlation = -0.125, t = 0.81, n = 43, P>OA). Therefore all analyses were performed on the post intervention compliance rate. All analyses were carried out on an "intention to treat" (ITT) basis.Conclusion: There was no statistically significant effect of either CAL-DC or A&F on implementation of these guidelines. This study was unable to show if the CALDC and A&F independently had any effect in increasing the general dental practitioners compliance with the guideline but it may have acted as a reinforcement of the guideline messages.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

An investigation into the implementation of clinical guidelines in the general dental services

Background: An evidence-based approach to clinical practice is advocated to improve the quality of patient care. However there is often a gap between research findings and clinical practice. To address this deficiency there is the need to assist clinicians in accessing and adopting research findings. One possible method of facilitating change in practice is clinical guidelines. It has been shown in medicine that a change in clinical practice in favour of published guidelines is dependent on an active implementation strategy. Consistently effective implementation strategies have not been identified in either medicine or dentistry. Aim: to investigate the effectiveness of different implementation strategies for evidence based guidelines, using the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network(SIGN) for appropriate removal of third molar teeth (SIGN 43, 2000).Design: a randomised-controlled trial employing a 2x2 factorial design linked to multidisciplinary evaluation. Subjects: 51 volunteer dental practices across Scotland.Method: Practices were randomly allocated to one of four groups. Pre-intervention data were collected from 49 dental practices. The clinical records of all 16-24 year old patients who attended the practice over a four-month period (August to December 1999) were searched by clinical researchers who were blind to the randomisation. The data extracted included the reason for their attendance and treatment received. This process was repeated following publication of the SIGN Guideline in April 2000. The postintervention phase of the project took place between June and October 2000. Data were collected from 46 practices.Interventions: Mailing of guideline (as control/non-intervention strategy), Audit and feedback (A&F); Computer-aided learning with decision support (CAL-DS), and A&F together with CAL-DS. In addition all practitioners had an opportunity to attend a postgraduate continuation education (PGCE) course on the guideline. Thus the nonintervention/control group mirrored current practice in the dissemination and implementation of the SIGN guideline in primary dental care. Outcome Measurement: The principle outcome was adherence to the guideline as assessed independently by two researchers. Any disagreement between these evaluators was discussed and an agreement reached.Results: The overall recruitment rate of practices was 11 % of those invited to take part(63 of 565) but this decreased to 80/0 following the intervention. Prior to the intervention the percent of patients with a problem with their third molar teeth was 70/0 compared with 220/0 after intervention. This occurred at the same time as a reduction in the overall number of patients seen by the practices (3342 compared with 1935). A statistically significant reduction in the percentage of patients treated with extraction was detected between the pre- (370/0) and post-intervention (270/0) phase of this study,(P=O.02), where this reduction was not significant for different groups (P>0.05).Compliance with the guideline was 74% of patients pre-intervention and this increased to 780/0 post-intervention. However, this difference was not statistically significant(P=0.25). The weighted t-test for audit versus no audit (P=0.62) and CAL-DS versus no CAL-DS was not significant (P=0.76). From the multilevel analysis the odds ratio of compliance with the guideline for dentists who experienced audit versus those who did not was 1.28 (95% CI 0.62 to 2.63) and this compares with an odds ratio of 0.84 (95% CI 0.88 to 1.74) for the CAL-DS dentists versus no CAL-DS. For neither was the difference statistically significant. The study was not sufficiently powered to detect an interaction effect so analyses of the main effects only were undertaken. There was however a weak correlation between pre and post cluster level compliance rates (Product Moment Correlation = -0.125, t = 0.81, n = 43, P>OA). Therefore all analyses were performed on the post intervention compliance rate. All analyses were carried out on an "intention to treat" (ITT) basis.Conclusion: There was no statistically significant effect of either CAL-DC or A&F on implementation of these guidelines. This study was unable to show if the CALDC and A&F independently had any effect in increasing the general dental practitioners compliance with the guideline but it may have acted as a reinforcement of the guideline messages.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Brain-Inspired Spatio-Temporal Associative Memories for Neuroimaging Data Classification: EEG and fMRI

Humans learn from a lot of information sources to make decisions. Once this information is learned in the brain, spatio-temporal associations are made, connecting all these sources (variables) in space and time represented as brain connectivity. In reality, to make a decision, we usually have only part of the information, either as a limited number of variables, limited time to make the decision, or both. The brain functions as a spatio-temporal associative memory. Inspired by the ability of the human brain, a brain-inspired spatio-temporal associative memory was proposed earlier that utilized the NeuCube brain-inspired spiking neural network framework. Here we applied the STAM framework to develop STAM for neuroimaging data, on the cases of EEG and fMRI, resulting in STAM-EEG and STAM-fMRI. This paper showed that once a NeuCube STAM classification model was trained on a complete spatio-temporal EEG or fMRI data, it could be recalled using only part of the time series, or/and only part of the used variables. We evaluated both temporal and spatial association and generalization accuracy accordingly. This was a pilot study that opens the field for the development of classification systems on other neuroimaging data, such as longitudinal MRI data, trained on complete data but recalled on partial data. Future research includes STAM that will work on data, collected across different settings, in different labs and clinics, that may vary in terms of the variables and time of data collection, along with other parameters. The proposed STAM will be further investigated for early diagnosis and prognosis of brain conditions and for diagnostic/prognostic marker discovery

Preparation and Characterization of Chitosan/Feldspar Biohybrid as an Adsorbent: Optimization of Adsorption Process via Response Surface Modeling

Chitosan/feldspar biobased beads were synthesized, characterized, and tested for the removal of Acid Black 1 dye from aquatic phases. A four-factor central composite design (CCD) accompanied by response surface modeling (RSM) and optimization was used to optimize the dye adsorption by the adsorbent (chitosan/feldspar composite) in 31 different batch experiments. Independent variables of temperature, pH, initial dye concentration, and adsorbent dose were used to change to coded values. To anticipate the responses, a quadratic model was applied. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tested the significance of the process factors and their interactions. The adequacy of the model was investigated by the correlation between experimental and predicted data of the adsorption and the calculation of prediction errors. The results showed that the predicted maximum adsorption amount of 21.63 mg/g under the optimum conditions (pH 3, temperature 15°C, initial dye concentration 125 mg/L, and dose 0.2 g/50 mL) was close to the experimental value of 19.85 mg/g. In addition, the results of adsorption behaviors of the dye illustrated that the adsorption process followed the Langmuir isotherm model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Langmuir sorption capacity was found to be 17.86 mg/g. Besides, thermodynamic parameters were evaluated and revealed that the adsorption process was exothermic and favourable

Omics Multi-Layers Networks Provide Novel Mechanistic and Functional Insights Into Fat Storage and Lipid Metabolism in Poultry

Fatty acid metabolism in poultry has a major impact on production and disease resistance traits. According to the high rate of interactions between lipid metabolism and its regulating properties, a holistic approach is necessary. To study omics multilayers of adipose tissue and identification of genes and miRNAs involved in fat metabolism, storage and endocrine signaling pathways in two groups of broiler chickens with high and low abdominal fat, as well as high-throughput techniques, were used. The gene–miRNA interacting bipartite and metabolic-signaling networks were reconstructed using their interactions. In the analysis of microarray and RNA-Seq data, 1,835 genes were detected by comparing the identified genes with significant expression differences (p.adjust < 0.01, fold change ≥ 2 and ≤ −2). Then, by comparing between different data sets, 34 genes and 19 miRNAs were detected as common and main nodes. A literature mining approach was used, and seven genes were identified and added to the common gene set. Module finding revealed three important and functional modules, which were involved in the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) signaling pathway, biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids, Alzheimer’s disease metabolic pathway, adipocytokine, insulin, PI3K–Akt, mTOR, and AMPK signaling pathway. This approach revealed a new insight to better understand the biological processes associated with adipose tissue