Bayesian Analysis of Transition Model for Longitudinal Ordinal Response Data: Application to Insomnia Data

In this paper, we present a Bayesian framework for analyzing longitudinal ordinal response data. In analyzing longitudinal data, the possibility of correlations between responses given by the same individual needs to be taken into account. Various models can be used to handle such correlations such as marginal modeling, random effect modeling and transition (Markov) modeling. Here a transition modeling is used and a Bayesian approach is presented for analyzing longitudinal data. A cumulative logistic regression model and the Bayesian method, using MCMC, are implemented for obtaining the parameters estimates. Our approach is applied on a two-period longitudinal Insomnia data where the Bayesian estimate for measure of association, , between the initial and follow-up ordinal responses is obtained in each level of a treatment variable. Then, the sensitivity of posterior summaries to changes of prior hyperparameters is investigated. We also use Bayes factor criterion for testing some important hypotheses

Evaluation of cranberry juice on bacteriuria and pyuria in spinal cord injured patient with neurogenic bladder

Background & aim: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most common medical complication experienced by individuals living with SCI . Several factors are responsible for the high prevalence of UTIs in individual with SCI. Concerns regarding the overuse of antibiotics in individuals with SCI and emerge multi-drug-resistant bacteria , has prompted consideration for consumer –directed alternatives to improve urinary tract health. This study was designed to evaluation of cranberry juice on bacteriuria and pyuria and in spinal cord injured patients with neurogenic bladder in Shahrekord, Iran. Methods: This study was randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial .60 patients (51 male and 9 female) with creatinine levels below 1.5 mg/dl and in the analysis of their urine white blood cell (WBC) counts were greater than 10 in a high-powered field (pyuria) or with a presence of bacteriuria (>= 104 cc/ml) in their urine culture selected in this study. Urine analysis and culture were carried out at before and after intervention.Samples was divided into two two groups of 30.The case patients were given a dose of 250 to 300 ml of cranberry juice cocktail with 30% concentration, daily with meals.The control group was fed the same amount of a placebo cocktail.After two weeks, first morning urine analysis and culture test were done.Data collected and analyzed using K-squared method using the SPSS software and Paired-T test technique. Results: Urine analysis and culture before and after interventions show , Urinary PH in case and control groups did not any significant statistical difference before and after intervention (P>0.05). A change in pyuria and bacteriuria levels in case patients was observed after the treatment which was statistically significant (P95٪). Conclusion: Consumption of cranberries can be effective in treating SCI patients with UTI under certain conditions. The effectiveness was most profound in patients with normal GFR who did not use urinary catheter for urination. The effectiveness was especially seen in short term reduction of pyuria and bacteriuria levels and in reduction of foul-smelling of patient's urine

Effect of lidocaine on duration of seizure and hemodynamic alterations in electroconvulsive therapy

Background and Objective: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the most common methods in treatment of different types of psychological disorder. The effectiveness of this therapy has a direct relation with the duration of convulsion. This study was conducted to assess the effect of lidocaine on duration of seizure and hemodynamic alterations in electroconvulsive therapy. Materials and Methods: This clinical trial study was conducted on 72 ASA-I, II patients with psychotic disorders in Hajar Medical Center in Shahrekord, Iran during 2010. The patients randomly divided into intervention and control group. The interventional group was received 1.5 mg/kg lidocaine and controls were received normal saline. For induction of anesthesia, all patients were received Sodium Thiopental (2mg/kg), Succinylcholine (1mg/kg) and Atropine (0.5mg) Propofol and Succinylcholine during 72 sessions of ECT. Duration of objective convulsion and hemodynamic alterations including blood pressure and heart rate were recorded (before, immediately and 3, 5 minutes after ECT). Data were analyzed using SPSS-11.5 and t-test. Results: Systolic and diastolic blood pressures and heart rate in 3rd minutes in interventional group following electroconvulsive therapy were 143.38±16 mmHg, 79.86±6.7 mmHg, 91.9±9.9 mmHg, respectively and in controls were 128.88±13.04 mmHg, 87.63±5.79 mmHg and 102.86±13 mmHg, respectively. These difference were significant (P<0.05). The above-mentioned indices for 5th minutes in intervention and controls were as follow: systolic (113.47±9.97 mmHg, 122.36±13 mmHg), diastolic (73.47±4.27 mmHg, 77.63±6.26 mmHg) heart rate (84.41±4.6 in minute, 93.19±12.53 in minute). These differences in above indices were significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study showed that lidocaine administration during electroconvulsive therapy increase the duration of convulsion and reduces heart rate and blood pressur

Compare the effectiveness of face-to-face educationwithleaflet on preoperative knowledge of patients undergoing elective surgery- A randomized clinical trial

زمینه و هدف: طبق شواهد موجود بیماران از عدم دریافت اطلاعات لازم جهت آمادگی قبل از عمل و مراقبتهای پس از عمل رنج می برند. این مطالعه به مقایسه تأثیر دو روش آموزش کلامی چهره به چهره و آموزش از طریق پمفلت بر میزان دانش بیماران کاندیدای عمل جراحی غیراورژانس پرداخته است. روش بررسی: در این مطالعه کارآزمایی بالینی، 90 نفر بیمار کاندیدای عمل جراحی غیراورژانس با روش نمونه گیری تدریجی آسان وارد مطالعه گردیدند و به طور تصادفی و تدریجی دریک گروه کنترل و دو گروه آزمون (گروه آموزش کلامی چهره به چهره و گروه آموزش از طریق پمفلت) توزیع شدند. متغیر وابسته پژوهش را سطح دانش بیمار در مورد آمادگی های قبل، حین و پس از جراحی تشکیل می داد که با استفاده از آزمون دانش چند گزینه ای قبل و پس از مداخله مورد سنجش قرار گرفت.. یافته ها: دانش قبل از عمل بیماران پس از انجام مداخله در گروه های آزمون بطور معنی داری بالاتر از گروه شاهد بود (05/0>(P ولی بین دو گروه آزمون تفاوت معنی داری بدست نیامد (05/

Impact of early admission in labor on maternal and neonatal outcomes in Hajar health-care center of Shahr-e-Kord, Iran.

Background and Aim: Time of hospitalization of women for delivery can have an important impact on the outcome of labor and attention to it could prevent many complications affecting mother and fetus. The aim of this study was to detect the impact of early admission of women in labor and maternal and neonatal outcomes. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive and analytical study , 463 women with low risk Pregnancy ; single fetus and vertex presentation, that had been admitted in their latent phase (group 1) and 287 women who had similar characteristics and had been admitted in their active phase (group 2) were assessed in Hajar hospital from February to November 2004. Information recording forms and check lists were used for data collection. SPSS software, t-test, chi -square and logistic regression tests were used to analize the obtained data. P<0.05 was considered as the significant level. Results: 463 (61.7%) of women admitted were in their latent phase and 287 (38.3%) cases were in their active phase of labor. Mean age of mother, gestational age based on left mentoposterior (LMP) and sonography, mean birth weight and Apgar score of neonates were not significant in the two groups. Although the number of women who were augmentated with oxytocin due to dystocia were similar in the two groups (79.9% ,76.5%), the incidence of cesarean section in women who received oxytocin was more in group 1 than in group 2 (57.2% versus 25.8% , P<0.001). Total rate of cesarean section was more in group 1 than in group 2 (363 versus 118, P<0.001).The main Cause of cesarean section in group 1 was dystocia and in group 2 it was fetal distress. There was no difference in the rates of forceps delivery, vacuum extraction, neonatal intubation and postpartum hemorrhage in two groups. Conclusion: It is suggested that pregnant women should be sufficiently instructed about prenatal care regarding the signs of the beginning of active labor and they had better refer to the hospital when in the active phase of labor in order to prevent complications which could be resulted from early admission

gramEvol: Grammatical Evolution in R

We describe an R package which implements grammatical evolution (GE) for automatic program generation. By performing an unconstrained optimization over a population of R expressions generated via a user-defined grammar, programs which achieve a desired goal can be discovered. The package facilitates the coding and execution of GE programs, and supports parallel execution. In addition, three applications of GE in statistics and machine learning, including hyper-parameter optimization, classification and feature generation are studied

Probabilistic Model Checking for Energy Analysis in Software Product Lines

In a software product line (SPL), a collection of software products is defined by their commonalities in terms of features rather than explicitly specifying all products one-by-one. Several verification techniques were adapted to establish temporal properties of SPLs. Symbolic and family-based model checking have been proven to be successful for tackling the combinatorial blow-up arising when reasoning about several feature combinations. However, most formal verification approaches for SPLs presented in the literature focus on the static SPLs, where the features of a product are fixed and cannot be changed during runtime. This is in contrast to dynamic SPLs, allowing to adapt feature combinations of a product dynamically after deployment. The main contribution of the paper is a compositional modeling framework for dynamic SPLs, which supports probabilistic and nondeterministic choices and allows for quantitative analysis. We specify the feature changes during runtime within an automata-based coordination component, enabling to reason over strategies how to trigger dynamic feature changes for optimizing various quantitative objectives, e.g., energy or monetary costs and reliability. For our framework there is a natural and conceptually simple translation into the input language of the prominent probabilistic model checker PRISM. This facilitates the application of PRISM's powerful symbolic engine to the operational behavior of dynamic SPLs and their family-based analysis against various quantitative queries. We demonstrate feasibility of our approach by a case study issuing an energy-aware bonding network device.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure

Adaptation to an amoeba host drives selection of virulence-associated traits in Vibrio cholerae.

Predation by heterotrophic protists drives the emergence of adaptive traits in bacteria, and often these traits lead to altered interactions with hosts and persistence in the environment. Here we studied adaptation of the cholera pathogen, Vibrio cholerae during long-term co-incubation with the protist host, Acanthamoeba castellanii. We determined phenotypic and genotypic changes associated with long-term intra-amoebal host adaptation and how this impacts pathogen survival and fitness. We showed that adaptation to the amoeba host leads to temporal changes in multiple phenotypic traits in V. cholerae that facilitate increased survival and competitive fitness in amoeba. Genome sequencing and mutational analysis revealed that these altered lifestyles were linked to non-synonymous mutations in conserved regions of the flagellar transcriptional regulator, flrA. Additionally, the mutations resulted in enhanced colonisation in zebrafish, establishing a link between adaptation of V. cholerae to amoeba predation and enhanced environmental persistence. Our results show that pressure imposed by amoeba on V. cholerae selects for flrA mutations that serves as a key driver for adaptation. Importantly, this study provides evidence that adaptive traits that evolve in pathogens in response to environmental predatory pressure impact the colonisation of eukaryotic organisms by these pathogens

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation of BCc1 nanomedicine effect on survival and quality of life in metastatic and non-metastatic gastric cancer patients

Background: Currently, the main goal of cancer research is to increase longevity of patients suffering malignant cancers. The promising results of BCc1 in vitro and vivo experiments made us look into the effect of BCc1 nanomedicine on patients with cancer in a clinical trial. Methods: The present investigation was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel, and multicenter study in which 123 patients (30-to-85-year-old men and women) with metastatic and non-metastatic gastric cancer, in two separate groups of BCc1 nanomedicine or placebo, were selected using a permuted block randomization method. For metastatic and non-metastatic patients, a daily dose of 3000 and 1500 mg was prescribed, respectively. Overall survival (OS) as the primary endpoint and quality of life (measured using QLQ-STO22) and adverse effects as the secondary endpoints were studied. Results: In metastatic patients, the median OS was significantly higher in BCc1 nanomedicine (174 days 95% confidence interval (CI) 82.37-265.62) than in placebo (62 days 95% CI 0-153.42); hazard ratio (HR): 0.5 95% CI 0.25-0.98; p = 0.046. In non-metastatic patients, the median OS was significantly higher in BCc1 nanomedicine (529 days 95% CI 393.245-664.75) than in placebo (345 days 95% CI 134.85-555.14); HR: 0.324 95% CI 0.97-1.07; p = 0.066. The QLQ-STO22 assessment showed a mean difference improvement of 3.25 and 2.29 (p value > 0.05) in BCc1 nanomedicine and a mean difference deterioration of - 4.42 and - 3 (p-value < 0.05) in placebo with metastatic and non-metastatic patients, respectively. No adverse effects were observed. Conclusion: The findings of this trial has provided evidence for the potential capacity of BCc1 nanomedicine for treatment of cancer. Trial registration IRCTID, IRCT2017101935423N1. Registered on 19 October 2017, http://www.irct.ir/ IRCT2017101935423N1 © 2019 The Author(s)