A novel induction motor starting method using superconduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silva, F.B.B.; Orlando, M.T.D.; Fardin, J.F.; Simonetti, D.S.; Baldan, C.A.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Alternative method for starting up induction motor. • Based on using a high-temperature superconductor. • A prototype of the limiter was constructed with a 2G-YBCO tape. • Prototype was tested with a 55-kW industrial induction motor in a 440-V/60-Hz. • Offers reduced current waveform distortion compared to the soft starter method. - Abstract: In this paper, an alternative method for starting up induction motors is proposed, taking into account experimental measurements. The new starting current limitation method is based on using a high-temperature superconductor. A prototype of the superconducting starting current limiter was constructed with a commercially available second-generation high-temperature superconductor YBCO tape, and this was tested with a 55-kW industrial induction motor in a 440-V/60-Hz three-phase power grid. Performance evaluations of the superconducting limiter method (applied to startup of the induction motor) were performed and were compared with a direct-on-line starter and an electronic soft starter. In addition, a computational model was developed and used for electromagnetic torque analysis of the system. As significant characteristics, our method offers the ability to limit the starting current of the induction motor with greater electromagnetic torque, reduced current waveform distortion and therefore lower harmonic pollution during startup when compared to the soft starter method

A novel induction motor starting method using superconduction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Silva, F.B.B., E-mail: flaviobarcelos@ifes.edu.br [Ifes – Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, Dept. of Industrial Automation, Serra, ES 29173087 (Brazil); UFES – Federal University of Espírito Santo, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Vitória, ES (Brazil); Orlando, M.T.D. [UFES – Federal University of Espírito Santo, Dept. of Physics, Vitória, ES (Brazil); Fardin, J.F.; Simonetti, D.S. [UFES – Federal University of Espírito Santo, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Vitória, ES (Brazil); Baldan, C.A. [EEL/USP – Engineering School from Lorena/University of São Paulo, SP (Brazil)

2014-12-15

Highlights: • Alternative method for starting up induction motor. • Based on using a high-temperature superconductor. • A prototype of the limiter was constructed with a 2G-YBCO tape. • Prototype was tested with a 55-kW industrial induction motor in a 440-V/60-Hz. • Offers reduced current waveform distortion compared to the soft starter method. - Abstract: In this paper, an alternative method for starting up induction motors is proposed, taking into account experimental measurements. The new starting current limitation method is based on using a high-temperature superconductor. A prototype of the superconducting starting current limiter was constructed with a commercially available second-generation high-temperature superconductor YBCO tape, and this was tested with a 55-kW industrial induction motor in a 440-V/60-Hz three-phase power grid. Performance evaluations of the superconducting limiter method (applied to startup of the induction motor) were performed and were compared with a direct-on-line starter and an electronic soft starter. In addition, a computational model was developed and used for electromagnetic torque analysis of the system. As significant characteristics, our method offers the ability to limit the starting current of the induction motor with greater electromagnetic torque, reduced current waveform distortion and therefore lower harmonic pollution during startup when compared to the soft starter method.

The research on business rules classification and specification methods

OpenAIRE

Baltrušaitis, Egidijus

2005-01-01

The work is based on the research of business rules classification and specification methods. The basics of business rules approach are discussed. The most common business rules classification and modeling methods are analyzed. Business rules modeling techniques and tools for supporting them in the information systems are presented. Basing on the analysis results business rules classification method is proposed. Templates for every business rule type are presented. Business rules structuring ...

Patients' feelings about ward nursing regimes and involvement in rule construction.

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, J

2006-10-01

This study compared two acute psychiatric ward nursing regimes, focusing on ward rules as a means of investigating the relationship between the flexibility/inflexibility of the regimes and patient outcomes. Previous studies identified an association between ward rules and patient aggression. A link between absconding and nurses' attitudes towards rule enforcement has also been explored. However, an in-depth exploration of ward rules from the perspective of nurses and patients had not been undertaken previously. The study aimed to discover the content of rules within acute psychiatric wards; to explore patients' responses to the rules; to evaluate the impact of rules and rule enforcement on nurse-patient relationships and on ward events; and to investigate the relationship between ward rules, ward atmosphere and ward design. The relevance of sociological theory emerged from the data analysis. During this process, the results were moved up to another conceptual level to represent the meaning of lived experience at the level of theory. For example, nurses' descriptions of their feelings in relation to rule enforcement were merged as role ambivalence. This concept was supported by examples from the transcripts. Other possible explanations for the data and the connections between them were checked by returning to each text unit in the cluster and ensuring that it fitted with the emergent theory. The design centred on a comparative interview study of 30 patients and 30 nurses within two acute psychiatric wards in different hospitals. Non-participant observations provided a context for the interview data. Measures of the Ward Atmosphere Scale, the Hospital-Hostel Practices Profile, ward incidents and levels of as required (PRN) medication were obtained. The analysis of the quantitative data was assisted by spss, and the qualitative analysis by QSR *NUDIST. Thematic and interpretative phenomenological methods were used in the analysis of the qualitative data. A series of

Simple and complex rule induction performance in young and older adults: contribution of episodic memory and working memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oosterman, J.M.; Boeschoten, M.S.; Eling, P.A.; Kessels, R.P.C.; Maes, J.H.

2014-01-01

This study tested the hypothesis that part of the age-related decline in performance on executive function tasks is due to a decline in episodic memory. For this, we developed a rule induction task in which we manipulated the involvement of episodic memory and executive control processes; age

Max-out-in pivot rule with Dantzig's safeguarding rule for the simplex method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tipawanna, Monsicha; Sinapiromsaran, Krung

2014-01-01

The simplex method is used to solve linear programming problem by improving the current basic feasible solution. It uses a pivot rule to guide the search in the feasible region. The pivot rule is used to select an entering index in simplex method. Nowadays, many pivot rule have been presented, but no pivot rule shows superior performance than other. Therefore, this is still an active research in linear programming. In this research, we present the max-out-in pivot rule with Dantzig's safeguarding for simplex method. This rule is based on maximum improvement of objective value of the current basic feasible point similar to the Dantzig's rule. We can illustrate by Klee and Minty problems that our rule outperforms that of Dantzig's rule by the number of iterations for solving linear programming problems

Mood induction in depressive patients: a comparative multidimensional approach.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina Falkenberg

Full Text Available Anhedonia, reduced positive affect and enhanced negative affect are integral characteristics of major depressive disorder (MDD. Emotion dysregulation, e.g. in terms of different emotion processing deficits, has consistently been reported. The aim of the present study was to investigate mood changes in depressive patients using a multidimensional approach for the measurement of emotional reactivity to mood induction procedures. Experimentally, mood states can be altered using various mood induction procedures. The present study aimed at validating two different positive mood induction procedures in patients with MDD and investigating which procedure is more effective and applicable in detecting dysfunctions in MDD. The first procedure relied on the presentation of happy vs. neutral faces, while the second used funny vs. neutral cartoons. Emotional reactivity was assessed in 16 depressed and 16 healthy subjects using self-report measures, measurements of electrodermal activity and standardized analyses of facial responses. Positive mood induction was successful in both procedures according to subjective ratings in patients and controls. In the cartoon condition, however, a discrepancy between reduced facial activity and concurrently enhanced autonomous reactivity was found in patients. Relying on a multidimensional assessment technique, a more comprehensive estimate of dysfunctions in emotional reactivity in MDD was available than by self-report measures alone and this was unsheathed especially by the mood induction procedure relying on cartoons. The divergent facial and autonomic responses in the presence of unaffected subjective reactivity suggest an underlying deficit in the patients' ability to express the felt arousal to funny cartoons. Our results encourage the application of both procedures in functional imaging studies for investigating the neural substrates of emotion dysregulation in MDD patients. Mood induction via cartoons appears to

Connecting clinical and actuarial prediction with rule-based methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Fokkema, Marjolein; Smits, Niels; Kelderman, Henk; Penninx, Brenda W J H

2015-06-01

Meta-analyses comparing the accuracy of clinical versus actuarial prediction have shown actuarial methods to outperform clinical methods, on average. However, actuarial methods are still not widely used in clinical practice, and there has been a call for the development of actuarial prediction methods for clinical practice. We argue that rule-based methods may be more useful than the linear main effect models usually employed in prediction studies, from a data and decision analytic as well as a practical perspective. In addition, decision rules derived with rule-based methods can be represented as fast and frugal trees, which, unlike main effects models, can be used in a sequential fashion, reducing the number of cues that have to be evaluated before making a prediction. We illustrate the usability of rule-based methods by applying RuleFit, an algorithm for deriving decision rules for classification and regression problems, to a dataset on prediction of the course of depressive and anxiety disorders from Penninx et al. (2011). The RuleFit algorithm provided a model consisting of 2 simple decision rules, requiring evaluation of only 2 to 4 cues. Predictive accuracy of the 2-rule model was very similar to that of a logistic regression model incorporating 20 predictor variables, originally applied to the dataset. In addition, the 2-rule model required, on average, evaluation of only 3 cues. Therefore, the RuleFit algorithm appears to be a promising method for creating decision tools that are less time consuming and easier to apply in psychological practice, and with accuracy comparable to traditional actuarial methods. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Induction-related cost of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia in France.

Science.gov (United States)

Nerich, Virginie; Lioure, Bruno; Rave, Maryline; Recher, Christian; Pigneux, Arnaud; Witz, Brigitte; Escoffre-Barbe, Martine; Moles, Marie-Pierre; Jourdan, Eric; Cahn, Jean Yves; Woronoff-Lemsi, Marie-Christine

2011-04-01

The economic profile of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is badly known. The few studies published on this disease are now relatively old and include small numbers of patients. The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the induction-related cost of 500 patients included in the AML 2001 trial, and to determine the explanatory factors of cost. "Induction" patient's hospital stay from admission for "induction" to discharge after induction. The study was performed from the French Public Health insurance perspective, restrictive to hospital institution costs. The average management of a hospital stay for "induction" was evaluated according to the analytical accounting of Besançon University Teaching Hospital and the French public Diagnosis-Related Group database. Multiple linear regression was used to search for explanatory factors. Only direct medical costs were included: treatment and hospitalisation. Mean induction-related direct medical cost was estimated at €41,852 ± 6,037, with a mean length of hospital stay estimated at 36.2 ± 10.7 days. After adjustment for age, sex and performance status, only two explanatory factors were found: an additional induction course and salvage course increased induction-related cost by 38% (± 4) and 15% (± 1) respectively, in comparison to one induction. These explanatory factors were associated with a significant increase in the mean length of hospital stay: 45.8 ± 11.6 days for 2 inductions and 38.5 ± 15.5 if the patient had a salvage course, in comparison to 32.9 ± 7.7 for one induction (P cost for patients with AML.

The Inductive Method of Teaching Visual Art Criticism.

Science.gov (United States)

Clements, Robert D.

1979-01-01

The author describes how the true principles of the scientific inductive method are not opposed to the principles of teaching visual art criticism, and suggests that the inductive method of teaching visual art criticism strips it of its mystique in order to make clear its vital role in intellectual development. (KC)

Sum rules in the response function method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takayanagi, Kazuo

1990-01-01

Sum rules in the response function method are studied in detail. A sum rule can be obtained theoretically by integrating the imaginary part of the response function over the excitation energy with a corresponding energy weight. Generally, the response function is calculated perturbatively in terms of the residual interaction, and the expansion can be described by diagrammatic methods. In this paper, we present a classification of the diagrams so as to clarify which diagram has what contribution to which sum rule. This will allow us to get insight into the contributions to the sum rules of all the processes expressed by Goldstone diagrams. (orig.)

Digital inductive teaching method of strabismus

OpenAIRE

Zhao-Jiang Du; Peng Li; Li Wang

2015-01-01

AIM: To reform the traditional teaching modes of strabismus by using digital induction to enhance logic in teaching process.METHODS: The study was performed in the group of 20 eight-year program clinical undergraduates from the class of 2009 and 198 five-year program clinical undergraduates from the class of 2010. These students were divided into two groups receiving traditional and digital induction teaching over the same period respectively. After classes, questionnaire survey and classroom...

Sevoflurane-Based Inhalation Induction in High-Risk Elderly Patients During Noncardiac Surgery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O. A. Grebenchikov

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: to study the hemodynamic effects of sevoflurane during the induction of anesthesia in elderly patients at high risk for cardiac events. Subjects and methods. This study enrolled 32 patients who had a left ventricular ejection fraction of <30% during preoperative examination. According to the presumptive type of anesthesia, the patients were randomized to one of the study groups: In the sevoflurane group receiving infusion of fentanyl (1 ig^kg”‘^hr”‘, anesthesia was induced by sevoflurane at the maximum concentration of 8 vol% at first inspiration, without the respiratory circuit being prefilled. After loss of consciousness, further saturation was carried out using Fianesth, 5 vol%. Combination anesthesia (CA was that which was induced by successive administration of dormicum, ketamine, propo-fol, and fentanyl. The trachea was intubated during total myoplegia under the control of TOF (TOF-Watch, Organon, the Netherlands. Results. In all the patients under CA, its induction was made during infusion of dopamine (5 lg^kg”‘^min”‘, the dose of which had to be increased up to 10 ig • kg-1 • min-1 in 6 (75% patients. Nevertheless, there were decreases in mean blood pressure (BPmean to 46±6 mm Hg and in cardiac index (CI to 1.5±0.3 fig • kg-1 • min-1 (by 32% of the outcome value. In the sevoflurane inhalation induction group, only 3 (12.5% patients needed dopamine. Its dose producing a cardiotonic effect was near-minimal; its average maintenance infusion rate was 5.3±0.3 ig^kg”‘^min”‘. The reduction in CI was statistically insignificant; despite a 9% decrease in BPmean, this indicator in the sevoflurane group remained within acceptable ranges. Conclusion. The use of a sevoflurane-based inhalation induction technique permits higher hemodynamic stability in patients at high risk for cardiac events. Key words: inhalation induction, sevoflurane, ketamine, elderly patients.

Knowledge discovery for pancreatic cancer using inductive logic programming.

Science.gov (United States)

Qiu, Yushan; Shimada, Kazuaki; Hiraoka, Nobuyoshi; Maeshiro, Kensei; Ching, Wai-Ki; Aoki-Kinoshita, Kiyoko F; Furuta, Koh

2014-08-01

Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease and predicting the status of the patients becomes an important and urgent issue. The authors explore the applicability of inductive logic programming (ILP) method in the disease and show that the accumulated clinical laboratory data can be used to predict disease characteristics, and this will contribute to the selection of therapeutic modalities of pancreatic cancer. The availability of a large amount of clinical laboratory data provides clues to aid in the knowledge discovery of diseases. In predicting the differentiation of tumour and the status of lymph node metastasis in pancreatic cancer, using the ILP model, three rules are developed that are consistent with descriptions in the literature. The rules that are identified are useful to detect the differentiation of tumour and the status of lymph node metastasis in pancreatic cancer and therefore contributed significantly to the decision of therapeutic strategies. In addition, the proposed method is compared with the other typical classification techniques and the results further confirm the superiority and merit of the proposed method.

Horizontal and Vertical Rule Bases Method in Fuzzy Controllers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sadegh Aminifar

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Concept of horizontal and vertical rule bases is introduced. Using this method enables the designers to look for main behaviors of system and describes them with greater approximations. The rules which describe the system in first stage are called horizontal rule base. In the second stage, the designer modulates the obtained surface by describing needed changes on first surface for handling real behaviors of system. The rules used in the second stage are called vertical rule base. Horizontal and vertical rule bases method has a great roll in easing of extracting the optimum control surface by using too lesser rules than traditional fuzzy systems. This research involves with control of a system with high nonlinearity and in difficulty to model it with classical methods. As a case study for testing proposed method in real condition, the designed controller is applied to steaming room with uncertain data and variable parameters. A comparison between PID and traditional fuzzy counterpart and our proposed system shows that our proposed system outperforms PID and traditional fuzzy systems in point of view of number of valve switching and better surface following. The evaluations have done both with model simulation and DSP implementation.

A rule-based automatic sleep staging method.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Sheng-Fu; Kuo, Chin-En; Hu, Yu-Han; Cheng, Yu-Shian

2012-03-30

In this paper, a rule-based automatic sleep staging method was proposed. Twelve features including temporal and spectrum analyses of the EEG, EOG, and EMG signals were utilized. Normalization was applied to each feature to eliminating individual differences. A hierarchical decision tree with fourteen rules was constructed for sleep stage classification. Finally, a smoothing process considering the temporal contextual information was applied for the continuity. The overall agreement and kappa coefficient of the proposed method applied to the all night polysomnography (PSG) of seventeen healthy subjects compared with the manual scorings by R&K rules can reach 86.68% and 0.79, respectively. This method can integrate with portable PSG system for sleep evaluation at-home in the near future. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

TEMPTING system: a hybrid method of rule and machine learning for temporal relation extraction in patient discharge summaries.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Yung-Chun; Dai, Hong-Jie; Wu, Johnny Chi-Yang; Chen, Jian-Ming; Tsai, Richard Tzong-Han; Hsu, Wen-Lian

2013-12-01

Patient discharge summaries provide detailed medical information about individuals who have been hospitalized. To make a precise and legitimate assessment of the abundant data, a proper time layout of the sequence of relevant events should be compiled and used to drive a patient-specific timeline, which could further assist medical personnel in making clinical decisions. The process of identifying the chronological order of entities is called temporal relation extraction. In this paper, we propose a hybrid method to identify appropriate temporal links between a pair of entities. The method combines two approaches: one is rule-based and the other is based on the maximum entropy model. We develop an integration algorithm to fuse the results of the two approaches. All rules and the integration algorithm are formally stated so that one can easily reproduce the system and results. To optimize the system's configuration, we used the 2012 i2b2 challenge TLINK track dataset and applied threefold cross validation to the training set. Then, we evaluated its performance on the training and test datasets. The experiment results show that the proposed TEMPTING (TEMPoral relaTion extractING) system (ranked seventh) achieved an F-score of 0.563, which was at least 30% better than that of the baseline system, which randomly selects TLINK candidates from all pairs and assigns the TLINK types. The TEMPTING system using the hybrid method also outperformed the stage-based TEMPTING system. Its F-scores were 3.51% and 0.97% better than those of the stage-based system on the training set and test set, respectively. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effectiveness of Inductive and Deductive Methods in Teaching Grammar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Akram Alzu’bi

2015-04-01

• What is the effect of inductive method on grammar achievement compared with deductive method at elementary stage? To answer the questions of the study, the researcher prepares two programs based on inductive and deductive methods for each level based on its syllabus. The sample consists 180 students; eighty at the 1st year level in English departments at university level and one hundred at the elementary stage. The participants of the study consisted of four assigned sections. Firstly, at the university level, two colleges are randomly selected out of the eighteen faculties of Albalqa' Applied University; two sections are randomly selected; one group is randomly assigned as the 1st experimental group (by using inductive method and the second experimental group (by using deductive method. Similar process is adopted in the case of school students at the elementary stage.  The relevant pre-tests are administered to the students of both groups at each stage (university and school to make sure that the groups are equivalent at the time of starting the experiment. The researcher designs two grammar achievement tests as the instruments of this study (one for the elementary stage and one for university level. The instrument of each stage consists of two achievement tests (pre- test and post-test. At the end of the treatment period, relevant post-tests are administered to the students of both the groups. The results of the study revealed that there were significant statistical differences at (α≤0.09 among the grammar performance means of both groups at both levels due to inductive method. Keywords: Inductive method, Deductive method, Elementary stage, University level, Academic achievement

Taxane-containing induction chemotherapy followed by definitive chemoradiotherapy. Outcome in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Broemme, J.O.; Schmuecking, M.; Leiser, D.; Geretschlaeger, A.; Ghadjar, P.; Aebersold, D.M. [Bern Univ. Hospital and Bern Univ. (Switzerland). Dept. of Radiation Oncology; Arnold, A.; Giger, R. [Bern Univ. (Switzerland). Head and Neck Surgery; Rauch, D. [Bern Univ. (Switzerland). Medical Oncology; Plasswilm, L. [Kantonsspital, St. Gallen (Switzerland). Radiation Oncology

2013-08-15

Background: Induction chemotherapy followed by definitive chemoradiotherapy is an intensified treatment approach for locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC) that might be associated with high rates of toxicity. Materials and methods: The data of 40 consecutive patients who underwent induction chemotherapy with docetaxel-containing regimens followed by intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and concomitant systemic therapy for unresectable locally advanced HNSCC were retrospectively analyzed. Primary objectives were RT-related acute and late toxicity. Secondary objectives were response to induction chemotherapy, locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRRFS), overall survival (OS), and influencing factors for LRRFS and OS. Results: The median follow-up for surviving patients was 21 months (range, 2-53 months). Patients received a median of three cycles of induction chemotherapy followed by IMRT to 72 Gy. Three patients died during induction chemotherapy and one during chemoradiotherapy. Acute RT-related toxicity was of grade 3 and 4 in 72 and 3 % of patients, respectively, mainly dysphagia and dermatitis. Late RT-related toxicity was mainly xerostomia and bone/cartilage necrosis and was of grade 3 and 4 in 15 % of patients. One- and 2-year LRRFS and OS were 72 and 49 % and 77 and 71 %, respectively. Conclusion: Induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy using IMRT was associated with a high rate of severe acute and late RT-related toxicities in this selected patient cohort. Four patients were lost because of fatal complications. Induction chemotherapy did not compromise the delivery of full-dose RT; however, the use of three cycles of concomitant cisplatin was impaired. (orig.)

Phase-Inductance-Based Position Estimation Method for Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xin Qiu

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a phase-inductance-based position estimation method for interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSMs. According to the characteristics of phase induction of IPMSMs, the corresponding relationship of the rotor position and the phase inductance is obtained. In order to eliminate the effect of the zero-sequence component of phase inductance and reduce the rotor position estimation error, the phase inductance difference is employed. With the iterative computation of inductance vectors, the position plane is further subdivided, and the rotor position is extracted by comparing the amplitudes of inductance vectors. To decrease the consumption of computer resources and increase the practicability, a simplified implementation is also investigated. In this method, the rotor position information is achieved easily, with several basic math operations and logical comparisons of phase inductances, without any coordinate transformation or trigonometric function calculation. Based on this position estimation method, the field orientated control (FOC strategy is established, and the detailed implementation is also provided. A series of experiment results from a prototype demonstrate the correctness and feasibility of the proposed method.

Ammonia synthesis using magnetic induction method (MIM)

Science.gov (United States)

Puspitasari, P.; Razak, J. Abd; Yahya, N.

2012-09-01

The most challenging issues for ammonia synthesis is to get the high yield. New approach of ammonia synthesis by using Magnetic Induction Method (MIM) and the Helmholtz Coils has been proposed. The ammonia detection was done by using Kjeldahl Method and FTIR. The system was designed by using Autocad software. The magnetic field of MIM was vary from 100mT-200mT and the magnetic field for the Helmholtz coils was 14mT. The FTIR result shows that ammonia has been successfully formed at stretching peaks 1097,1119,1162,1236, 1377, and 1464 cm-1. UV-VIS result shows the ammonia bond at 195nm of wavelength. The ammonia yield was increase to 244.72μmole/g.h by using the MIM and six pairs of Helmholtz coils. Therefore this new method will be a new promising method to achieve the high yield ammonia at ambient condition (at 25δC and 1atm), under the Magnetic Induction Method (MIM).

Dynamic association rules for gene expression data analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Shu-Chuan; Tsai, Tsung-Hsien; Chung, Cheng-Han; Li, Wen-Hsiung

2015-10-14

The purpose of gene expression analysis is to look for the association between regulation of gene expression levels and phenotypic variations. This association based on gene expression profile has been used to determine whether the induction/repression of genes correspond to phenotypic variations including cell regulations, clinical diagnoses and drug development. Statistical analyses on microarray data have been developed to resolve gene selection issue. However, these methods do not inform us of causality between genes and phenotypes. In this paper, we propose the dynamic association rule algorithm (DAR algorithm) which helps ones to efficiently select a subset of significant genes for subsequent analysis. The DAR algorithm is based on association rules from market basket analysis in marketing. We first propose a statistical way, based on constructing a one-sided confidence interval and hypothesis testing, to determine if an association rule is meaningful. Based on the proposed statistical method, we then developed the DAR algorithm for gene expression data analysis. The method was applied to analyze four microarray datasets and one Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) dataset: the Mice Apo A1 dataset, the whole genome expression dataset of mouse embryonic stem cells, expression profiling of the bone marrow of Leukemia patients, Microarray Quality Control (MAQC) data set and the RNA-seq dataset of a mouse genomic imprinting study. A comparison of the proposed method with the t-test on the expression profiling of the bone marrow of Leukemia patients was conducted. We developed a statistical way, based on the concept of confidence interval, to determine the minimum support and minimum confidence for mining association relationships among items. With the minimum support and minimum confidence, one can find significant rules in one single step. The DAR algorithm was then developed for gene expression data analysis. Four gene expression datasets showed that the proposed

Rules of thumb and simplified methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lahti, G.P.

1985-01-01

The author points out the value of a thorough grounding in fundamental physics combined with experience of applied practice when using simplified methods and rules of thumb in shield engineering. Present-day quality assurance procedures and good engineering practices require careful documentation of all calculations. The aforementioned knowledge of rules of thumb and back-of-the-envelope calculations can assure both the preparer and the reviewer that the results in the quality assurance documentation are the physically correct ones

The Effect of Flutamide on Ovulation Induction in PCOS Patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tahereh Madani

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS is a disorder that affects various bodyorgans and requires comprehensive long term evaluation and management. The aim ofthis study was to evaluate effect of Flutamide on ovulation induction in PCOS patients.Materials and Methods: This prospective study applied triple blind method, a simpleconvenience sampling method, to induce ovulations of the ninety six PCOS patients.Patients were divided into two groups; group A included 53 subjects (received Flutamide+ Clomiphene Citrate and group B included 43 subjects (received placebo + ClomipheneCitrate. Ultrasound was carried to determine the size of follicles and growth rate of themduring follicular phase of the menstrual cycle. Also, progesterone levels were measuredon days 19 and 21 of the menstrual cycle.Results: In this study, ninety six PCOS patients, in two treatment and control groups,were evaluated regarding to body mass index (BMI, cycle irregularity, age and numberof dominant follicles, duration of stimulation, endocrine profile and score of hirsutism.The obtained results revealed no significant differences between two groups.Conclusion: Flutamide does not affect ovulation improvement in PCOS patients undergoinginduction (Registration Number: IRCT 201105081141N10.

Horizontal and Vertical Rule Bases Method in Fuzzy Controllers

OpenAIRE

Aminifar, Sadegh; bin Marzuki, Arjuna

2013-01-01

Concept of horizontal and vertical rule bases is introduced. Using this method enables the designers to look for main behaviors of system and describes them with greater approximations. The rules which describe the system in first stage are called horizontal rule base. In the second stage, the designer modulates the obtained surface by describing needed changes on first surface for handling real behaviors of system. The rules used in the second stage are called vertical rule base. Horizontal...

[Popper and the problem of induction in epidemiology].

Science.gov (United States)

Banegas, J R; Rodríguez Artalejo, F; del Rey Calero, J

2000-01-01

In this article we are discussing a few of the contributions by the Austro-British philosopher Karl R. Popper, one of our most influential contemporary thinkers, whose epistemological and socio-political theories have also penetrated the sphere of epidemiology. We are focusing mainly on the so-called problem of induction. We sustain, in line with Popper, that the scientific method does not use inductive reasoning, but rather hypothetical-deductive reasoning. Although the movement from the data evaluating a hypothesis to a conclusion on the latter goes from the specific to the general, that is, in an inductive direction, the induction does not exist as a reasoning process or inference. That is, there is no method that enables us to infer or to verify hypotheses or theories (we cannot explore all of the possible situations to see whether the theory stands up), or even to render them very probable. Besides, scientists look for highly informative theories, not highly probable ones. What we actually do is to propose a hypothesis as a tentative solution to a problem, to confront the prediction deduced from the hypothesis with actual experience, and evaluate whether the hypothesis is rejected or not by the facts. As theories cannot be verified, we can only accept them if they withstand an attempt to reject them. Consequently, the test of a theory consists of criticism or a serious attempt at falsification, that is, the elimination of error within a theory, in order to reject it if it is false. The objective is, thus, the search for true theories. For this purpose, the scientific method uses a systematic set of methodological (not logical) rules, that is, decisions. These methodological rules or principles can be summed up in two: [symbol: see text]be inventive and critical!, that is, propose bold hypotheses and subject them to severe tests of experience. Logic plays its role mainly by allowing us to deduce from a hypothesis the predictions to be confronted with the facts

An Induction Heating Method with Traveling Magnetic Field for Long Structure Metal

Science.gov (United States)

Sekine, Takamitsu; Tomita, Hideo; Obata, Shuji; Saito, Yukio

A novel dismantlable adhesion method for recycling operation of interior materials is proposed. This method is applied a high frequency induction heating and a thermoplastic adhesive. For an adhesion of interior material to long steel stud, a conventional spiral coil as like IH cooking heater gives inadequateness for uniform heating to the stud. Therefore, we have proposed an induction heating method with traveling magnetic field for perfect long structures bonding. In this paper, we describe on the new adhesion method using the 20kHz, three-phase 200V inverter and linear induction coil. From induction heating characteristics to thin steel plates and long studs, the method is cleared the usefulness for uniform heating to long structures.

Inductive classification of operating data from a fluidized bed calciner

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

O'Brien, B.H.

1990-01-01

A process flowsheet expert system for a fluidized bed calciner which solidifies high-level radioactive liquid waste was developed from pilot-plant data using a commercial, inductive classification program. After initial classification of the data, the resulting rules were inspected and adjusted to match existing knowledge of process chemistry. The final expert system predicts performance of process flowsheets based upon the chemical composition of the calciner feed and has been successfully used to identify potential operational problems prior to calciner pilot-plant testing of new flowsheets and to provide starting parameters for pilot-plant tests. By using inductive classification techniques to develop the initial rules from the calciner pilot-plant data and using existing process knowledge to verify the accuracy of these rules, an effective expert system was developed with a minimum amount of effort. This method may be applied for developing expert systems for other processes where numerous operating data are available and only general process chemistry effects are known

Artificial Inductance Concept to Compensate Nonlinear Inductance Effects in the Back EMF-Based Sensorless Control Method for PMSM

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lu, Kaiyuan; Lei, Xiao; Blaabjerg, Frede

2013-01-01

The back EMF-based sensorless control method is very popular for permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) in the medium- to high-speed operation range due to its simple structure. In this speed range, the accuracy of the estimated position is mainly affected by the inductance, which varies...... at different loading conditions due to saturation effects. In this paper, a new concept of using a constant artificial inductance to replace the actual varying machine inductance for position estimation is introduced. This facilitates greatly the analysis of the influence of inductance variation...

ABOUT CLINICAL EXPERT SYSTEM BASED ON RULES USING DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. P. Martsenyuk

2015-05-01

Full Text Available In the work the topics of software implementation of rule induction method based on sequential covering algorithm are considered. Such approach allows us to develop clinical decision support system. The project is implemented within Netbeans IDE based on Java-classes.

Intubation conditions after rocuronium or succinylcholine for rapid sequence induction with alfentanil and propofol in the emergency patient

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, P B; Hansen, E G; Jacobsen, L S

2005-01-01

Background and objective: Previous studies mainly conducted on elective patients recommend doses of 0.9-1.2 mg kg[-1] rocuronium to obtain comparable intubation conditions with succinylcholine 1.0 mg kg[-1] after 60 s during a rapid-sequence induction. We decided to compare the overall intubating...... conditions of standard doses of rocuronium 0.6 mg kg[-1] and succinylcholine 1.0 mg kg[-1] during a strict rapid-sequence induction regimen including propofol and alfentanil. Methods: Male and female patients (ASA I-III) older than 17 yr scheduled for emergency abdominal or gynaecological surgery...... and with increased risk of pulmonary aspiration of gastric content were randomized to a rapid-sequence induction with succinylcholine 1.0 mg kg[-1] or rocuronium 0.6 mg kg[-1]. Patients with a predicted difficult airway were excluded. A senior anaesthesiologist 'blinded' for the randomization performed...

Considering induction factor using BEM method in wind farm layout optimization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ghadirian, Amin; Dehghan, M.; Torabi, F.

2014-01-01

For wind farm layout optimization process, a simple linear model has been mostly used for considering the wake effect of a wind turbine on its downstream turbines. In this model, the wind velocity in the wake behind a turbine is obtained as a function of turbine induction factor which...... was considered to be 0.324 almost in all the previous studies. However, it is obviously evident that this factor is a strong function of turbine blade geometry and operational conditions. In the present study, a new method is introduced by which the induction factor for wind turbines can be calculated based...... on the method of Blade Element Momentum theory. By this method, the effect of blade profile, wind speed and angular velocity of wind turbine on the induction factor can be easily taken into account. The results show that for different blade profiles and operational conditions, the induction factor differs from...

The continual reassessment method: comparison of Bayesian stopping rules for dose-ranging studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Zohar, S; Chevret, S

2001-10-15

The continual reassessment method (CRM) provides a Bayesian estimation of the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) in phase I clinical trials and is also used to estimate the minimal efficacy dose (MED) in phase II clinical trials. In this paper we propose Bayesian stopping rules for the CRM, based on either posterior or predictive probability distributions that can be applied sequentially during the trial. These rules aim at early detection of either the mis-choice of dose range or a prefixed gain in the point estimate or accuracy of estimated probability of response associated with the MTD (or MED). They were compared through a simulation study under six situations that could represent the underlying unknown dose-response (either toxicity or failure) relationship, in terms of sample size, probability of correct selection and bias of the response probability associated to the MTD (or MED). Our results show that the stopping rules act correctly, with early stopping by using the two first rules based on the posterior distribution when the actual underlying dose-response relationship is far from that initially supposed, while the rules based on predictive gain functions provide a discontinuation of inclusions whatever the actual dose-response curve after 20 patients on average, that is, depending mostly on the accumulated data. The stopping rules were then applied to a data set from a dose-ranging phase II clinical trial aiming at estimating the MED dose of midazolam in the sedation of infants during cardiac catheterization. All these findings suggest the early use of the two first rules to detect a mis-choice of dose range, while they confirm the requirement of including at least 20 patients at the same dose to reach an accurate estimate of MTD (MED). A two-stage design is under study. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An Efficient Inductive Genetic Learning Algorithm for Fuzzy Relational Rules

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Fuzzy modelling research has traditionally focused on certain types of fuzzy rules. However, the use of alternative rule models could improve the ability of fuzzy systems to represent a specific problem. In this proposal, an extended fuzzy rule model, that can include relations between variables in the antecedent of rules is presented. Furthermore, a learning algorithm based on the iterative genetic approach which is able to represent the knowledge using this model is proposed as well. On the other hand, potential relations among initial variables imply an exponential growth in the feasible rule search space. Consequently, two filters for detecting relevant potential relations are added to the learning algorithm. These filters allows to decrease the search space complexity and increase the algorithm efficiency. Finally, we also present an experimental study to demonstrate the benefits of using fuzzy relational rules.

A Retrospective Observational Study of Anesthetic Induction Dosing Practices in Female Elderly Surgical Patients: Are We Overdosing Older Patients?

Science.gov (United States)

Akhtar, Shamsuddin; Heng, Joseph; Dai, Feng; Schonberger, Robert B; Burg, Mathew M

2016-10-01

Despite guidelines suggesting a 25-50 % reduction in induction doses of intravenous anesthetic agents in the elderly (≥65 years), we hypothesized that practitioners were not sufficiently correcting drug administration for age, contributing to an increased incidence of hypotension in older patients undergoing general anesthesia. We conducted a retrospective, observational study in a tertiary-care academic hospital. The study included 768 female patients undergoing gynecologic surgeries who received propofol-based induction of general anesthesia. Weight-adjusted anesthetic induction dosing, age-associated differences in dosing by ASA-PS (American Society of Anesthesiology-Physical Status), and hemodynamic outcomes between younger (18-64 years, n = 537) and older (≥65 years, n = 231) female patients were analyzed. Older patients received lower doses of propofol and midazolam than younger patients (propofol: 2.037 ± 0.783 vs 2.322 ± 0.834 mg/kg, p < 0.001; midazolam: 0.013 ± 0.014 vs 0.023 ± 0.042 mg/kg, p < 0.001). However, practitioners still consistently exceeded the FDA recommended dose (1-1.5 mg/kg) of propofol for elderly patients. There was no significant difference in the doses of fentanyl administered between the two age groups (1.343 ± 0.744 vs 1.363 ± 0.763 μg/kg, p = 0.744), and doses of fentanyl in older patients exceeded the recommended dose (0.5-1.0 μg/kg). Corresponding to observed overdosing of induction agents, older patients experienced larger decreases in post-induction blood pressure and were more likely to receive vasopressor therapy. Anesthetic induction doses of fentanyl and propofol were not sufficiently corrected in older patients in accordance with recommendations. Significantly greater frequency of post-induction hypotension occurred amongst older patients. Quality improvement efforts may lead to improved outcomes in this vulnerable population.

Two Undergraduate Process Modeling Courses Taught Using Inductive Learning Methods

Science.gov (United States)

Soroush, Masoud; Weinberger, Charles B.

2010-01-01

This manuscript presents a successful application of inductive learning in process modeling. It describes two process modeling courses that use inductive learning methods such as inquiry learning and problem-based learning, among others. The courses include a novel collection of multi-disciplinary complementary process modeling examples. They were…

Reliability of the CARE rule and the HEART score to rule out an acute coronary syndrome in non-traumatic chest pain patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Moumneh, Thomas; Richard-Jourjon, Vanessa; Friou, Emilie; Prunier, Fabrice; Soulie-Chavignon, Caroline; Choukroun, Jacques; Mazet-Guilaumé, Betty; Riou, Jérémie; Penaloza, Andréa; Roy, Pierre-Marie

2018-03-02

In patients consulting in the Emergency Department for chest pain, a HEART score ≤ 3 has been shown to rule out an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) with a low risk of major adverse cardiac event (MACE) occurrence. A negative CARE rule (≤ 1) that stands for the first four elements of the HEART score may have similar rule-out reliability without troponin assay requirement. We aim to prospectively assess the performance of the CARE rule and of the HEART score to predict MACE in a chest pain population. Prospective two-center non-interventional study. Patients admitted to the ED for non-traumatic chest pain were included, and followed-up at 6 weeks. The main study endpoint was the 6-week rate of MACE (myocardial infarction, coronary angioplasty, coronary bypass, and sudden unexplained death). 641 patients were included, of whom 9.5% presented a MACE at 6 weeks. The CARE rule was negative for 31.2% of patients, and none presented a MACE during follow-up [0, 95% confidence interval: (0.0-1.9)]. The HEART score was ≤ 3 for 63.0% of patients, and none presented a MACE during follow-up [0% (0.0-0.9)]. With an incidence below 2% in the negative group, the CARE rule seemed able to safely rule out a MACE without any biological test for one-third of patients with chest pain and the HEART score for another third with a single troponin assay.

Economic implications of labor induction.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia-Simon, Raquel; Montañes, Antonio; Clemente, Jesús; Del Pino, María D; Romero, Manuel A; Fabre, Ernesto; Oros, Daniel

2016-04-01

To assess health service costs associated with labor induction according to different clinical situations in a tertiary-level hospital. In a prospective study, individual patient cost data were assessed for women admitted for induction of labor at a tertiary hospital in Spain between November 1, 2012, and August 31, 2013. The costs of labor induction were estimated according to maternal and neonatal outcomes, method of delivery, cervical condition at admission, and obstetric indication. Direct costs including professional fees, epidural, maternal stay, consumables, and drugs were calculated. Overall, 412 women were included in the final cost analysis. The mean total cost of labor induction was €3589.87 (95% confidence interval [CI] 3475.13-3704.61). Cesarean delivery after labor induction (€4830.45, 95% CI 4623.13-5037.58) was significantly more expensive than spontaneous delivery (€3037.45, 95% CI 2966.91-3179.99) and instrumental vaginal delivery (€3344.31, 95%CI 3151.69-3536.93). The total cost for patients with a very unfavorable cervix (Bishop score Labor induction for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy was the most expensive obstetric indication for induction of labor (€4347.32, 95% CI 3890.45-4804.18). Following the induction of labor, a number of patient- and treatment-related factors influence costs associated with delivery. Copyright © 2015 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Inductance and resistance measurement method for vessel detection and coil powering in all-surface inductive heating systems composed of outer squircle coils

Science.gov (United States)

Kilic, Veli Tayfun; Unal, Emre; Demir, Hilmi Volkan

2017-05-01

In this work, we investigate a method proposed for vessel detection and coil powering in an all-surface inductive heating system composed of outer squircle coils. Besides conventional circular coils, coils with different shapes such as outer squircle coils are used for and enable efficient all-surface inductive heating. Validity of the method, which relies on measuring inductance and resistance values of a loaded coil at different frequencies, is experimentally demonstrated for a coil with shape different from conventional circular coil. Simple setup was constructed with a small coil to model an all-surface inductive heating system. Inductance and resistance maps were generated by measuring coil's inductance and resistance values at different frequencies loaded by a plate made of different materials and located at various positions. Results show that in an induction hob for various coil geometries it is possible to detect a vessel's presence, to identify its material type and to specify its position on the hob surface by considering inductance and resistance of the coil measured on at least two different frequencies. The studied method is important in terms of enabling safe, efficient and user flexible heating in an all-surface inductive heating system by automatically detecting the vessel's presence and powering on only the coils that are loaded by the vessel with predetermined current levels.

Evolving rule-based systems in two medical domains using genetic programming.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsakonas, Athanasios; Dounias, Georgios; Jantzen, Jan; Axer, Hubertus; Bjerregaard, Beth; von Keyserlingk, Diedrich Graf

2004-11-01

To demonstrate and compare the application of different genetic programming (GP) based intelligent methodologies for the construction of rule-based systems in two medical domains: the diagnosis of aphasia's subtypes and the classification of pap-smear examinations. Past data representing (a) successful diagnosis of aphasia's subtypes from collaborating medical experts through a free interview per patient, and (b) correctly classified smears (images of cells) by cyto-technologists, previously stained using the Papanicolaou method. Initially a hybrid approach is proposed, which combines standard genetic programming and heuristic hierarchical crisp rule-base construction. Then, genetic programming for the production of crisp rule based systems is attempted. Finally, another hybrid intelligent model is composed by a grammar driven genetic programming system for the generation of fuzzy rule-based systems. Results denote the effectiveness of the proposed systems, while they are also compared for their efficiency, accuracy and comprehensibility, to those of an inductive machine learning approach as well as to those of a standard genetic programming symbolic expression approach. The proposed GP-based intelligent methodologies are able to produce accurate and comprehensible results for medical experts performing competitive to other intelligent approaches. The aim of the authors was the production of accurate but also sensible decision rules that could potentially help medical doctors to extract conclusions, even at the expense of a higher classification score achievement.

Concurrent approach for evolving compact decision rule sets

Science.gov (United States)

Marmelstein, Robert E.; Hammack, Lonnie P.; Lamont, Gary B.

1999-02-01

The induction of decision rules from data is important to many disciplines, including artificial intelligence and pattern recognition. To improve the state of the art in this area, we introduced the genetic rule and classifier construction environment (GRaCCE). It was previously shown that GRaCCE consistently evolved decision rule sets from data, which were significantly more compact than those produced by other methods (such as decision tree algorithms). The primary disadvantage of GRaCCe, however, is its relatively poor run-time execution performance. In this paper, a concurrent version of the GRaCCE architecture is introduced, which improves the efficiency of the original algorithm. A prototype of the algorithm is tested on an in- house parallel processor configuration and the results are discussed.

Defining collaborative business rules management solutions : framework and method

NARCIS (Netherlands)

dr. Martijn Zoet; Johan Versendaal

2014-01-01

From the publishers' website: The goal of this research is to define a method for configuring a collaborative business rules management solution from a value proposition perspective. In an earlier published study (Business rules management solutions: added value by means of business

Inductive Reasoning in Patients with Paranoid Type Schizophrenia

OpenAIRE

Mehmet Emrah Karadere; Yasir Safak; Halime Seyma Ozcelik; Emre Demir; Mehmet Hakan Turkcapar

2017-01-01

The goal of our study is to evaluate the decision making and reasoning of the paranoid type schizophrenic patients, and their confidence in reasoning and perseverance in keeping to their decisions via using Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test (RIAT). Thirty-two delusional patients and 30 healthy volunteers were included in the study. After the diagnostic interview was conducted by SCID-I to the patients who were asked to participate in the study, RIAT test was applied by the interviewe...

Research on deep electromagnetic induction methods (Fy 1985)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Murakami, Hiroshi; Uchida, Toshihiro; Tanaka, Shin' ichi

1987-06-01

Geological Survey of Japan started from FY 1984 a research of deep electomagnetic induction methods as a part of the research on deep geothermal resources prospecting technology, the Sunshine Project. This article is the report of its second fiscal year. These methods are a generic term of the methods to survey specific resistance structure in the deep part of the earth by utilizing the technique of the electromagnetic induction method and the time domain CSMT method aiming to survey about estimated depth of 5Km as well as the CA method to estimate the general structure of the earth of the depth of 5Km or more are now being developed. This article reports the respective methods separately. Concerning the former, the reception of useful signals were successfully made during the FY 1984 field experiment and based on this, field experiments in a geothermal area were conducted in FY 1985 verifying its effectivenss. With regard to the latter, following FY 1984, CA observations were conducted in the northern part of Tohoku Region and the deep specific resistance structure in a wide area was surveyed. (43 figs, 1 tab, 11 refs)

New Method for Solving Inductive Electric Fields in the Ionosphere

Science.gov (United States)

Vanhamäki, H.

2005-12-01

We present a new method for calculating inductive electric fields in the ionosphere. It is well established that on large scales the ionospheric electric field is a potential field. This is understandable, since the temporal variations of large scale current systems are generally quite slow, in the timescales of several minutes, so inductive effects should be small. However, studies of Alfven wave reflection have indicated that in some situations inductive phenomena could well play a significant role in the reflection process, and thus modify the nature of ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling. The input to our calculation method are the time series of the potential part of the ionospheric electric field together with the Hall and Pedersen conductances. The output is the time series of the induced rotational part of the ionospheric electric field. The calculation method works in the time-domain and can be used with non-uniform, time-dependent conductances. In addition no particular symmetry requirements are imposed on the input potential electric field. The presented method makes use of special non-local vector basis functions called Cartesian Elementary Current Systems (CECS). This vector basis offers a convenient way of representing curl-free and divergence-free parts of 2-dimensional vector fields and makes it possible to solve the induction problem using simple linear algebra. The new calculation method is validated by comparing it with previously published results for Alfven wave reflection from uniformly conducting ionosphere.

Logic Learning Machine creates explicit and stable rules stratifying neuroblastoma patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Cangelosi, Davide; Blengio, Fabiola; Versteeg, Rogier; Eggert, Angelika; Garaventa, Alberto; Gambini, Claudio; Conte, Massimo; Eva, Alessandra; Muselli, Marco; Varesio, Luigi

2013-01-01

Neuroblastoma is the most common pediatric solid tumor. About fifty percent of high risk patients die despite treatment making the exploration of new and more effective strategies for improving stratification mandatory. Hypoxia is a condition of low oxygen tension occurring in poorly vascularized areas of the tumor associated with poor prognosis. We had previously defined a robust gene expression signature measuring the hypoxic component of neuroblastoma tumors (NB-hypo) which is a molecular risk factor. We wanted to develop a prognostic classifier of neuroblastoma patients' outcome blending existing knowledge on clinical and molecular risk factors with the prognostic NB-hypo signature. Furthermore, we were interested in classifiers outputting explicit rules that could be easily translated into the clinical setting. Shadow Clustering (SC) technique, which leads to final models called Logic Learning Machine (LLM), exhibits a good accuracy and promises to fulfill the aims of the work. We utilized this algorithm to classify NB-patients on the bases of the following risk factors: Age at diagnosis, INSS stage, MYCN amplification and NB-hypo. The algorithm generated explicit classification rules in good agreement with existing clinical knowledge. Through an iterative procedure we identified and removed from the dataset those examples which caused instability in the rules. This workflow generated a stable classifier very accurate in predicting good and poor outcome patients. The good performance of the classifier was validated in an independent dataset. NB-hypo was an important component of the rules with a strength similar to that of tumor staging. The novelty of our work is to identify stability, explicit rules and blending of molecular and clinical risk factors as the key features to generate classification rules for NB patients to be conveyed to the clinic and to be used to design new therapies. We derived, through LLM, a set of four stable rules identifying a new

Logic Learning Machine creates explicit and stable rules stratifying neuroblastoma patients

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background Neuroblastoma is the most common pediatric solid tumor. About fifty percent of high risk patients die despite treatment making the exploration of new and more effective strategies for improving stratification mandatory. Hypoxia is a condition of low oxygen tension occurring in poorly vascularized areas of the tumor associated with poor prognosis. We had previously defined a robust gene expression signature measuring the hypoxic component of neuroblastoma tumors (NB-hypo) which is a molecular risk factor. We wanted to develop a prognostic classifier of neuroblastoma patients' outcome blending existing knowledge on clinical and molecular risk factors with the prognostic NB-hypo signature. Furthermore, we were interested in classifiers outputting explicit rules that could be easily translated into the clinical setting. Results Shadow Clustering (SC) technique, which leads to final models called Logic Learning Machine (LLM), exhibits a good accuracy and promises to fulfill the aims of the work. We utilized this algorithm to classify NB-patients on the bases of the following risk factors: Age at diagnosis, INSS stage, MYCN amplification and NB-hypo. The algorithm generated explicit classification rules in good agreement with existing clinical knowledge. Through an iterative procedure we identified and removed from the dataset those examples which caused instability in the rules. This workflow generated a stable classifier very accurate in predicting good and poor outcome patients. The good performance of the classifier was validated in an independent dataset. NB-hypo was an important component of the rules with a strength similar to that of tumor staging. Conclusions The novelty of our work is to identify stability, explicit rules and blending of molecular and clinical risk factors as the key features to generate classification rules for NB patients to be conveyed to the clinic and to be used to design new therapies. We derived, through LLM, a set of four

26 CFR 1.446-1 - General rule for methods of accounting.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

.... Although a method of accounting may exist under this definition without the necessity of a pattern of... 26 Internal Revenue 6 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false General rule for methods of accounting. 1.446-1... TAX (CONTINUED) INCOME TAXES Methods of Accounting § 1.446-1 General rule for methods of accounting...

Automatic inference of indexing rules for MEDLINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shooshan Sonya E

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background: Indexing is a crucial step in any information retrieval system. In MEDLINE, a widely used database of the biomedical literature, the indexing process involves the selection of Medical Subject Headings in order to describe the subject matter of articles. The need for automatic tools to assist MEDLINE indexers in this task is growing with the increasing number of publications being added to MEDLINE. Methods: In this paper, we describe the use and the customization of Inductive Logic Programming (ILP to infer indexing rules that may be used to produce automatic indexing recommendations for MEDLINE indexers. Results: Our results show that this original ILP-based approach outperforms manual rules when they exist. In addition, the use of ILP rules also improves the overall performance of the Medical Text Indexer (MTI, a system producing automatic indexing recommendations for MEDLINE. Conclusion: We expect the sets of ILP rules obtained in this experiment to be integrated into MTI.

Business judgement rule in Czech Corporations Act

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaromír KOŽIAK

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Czech private law is currently undergoing a thorough transformation. This inclundes adoption of a brand new Corporations Act, which is to supersede the current Commercial Code. The new legislation introduces several new rules governing liability of company executive officers. One of these is business judgment rule. It should provide company executive officers with a certain level of protection against litigantion – if specific terms are met, it is presumed, that they carried out their responsibilities with proper care. I intend to demonstrate, that the czech business judgment rule is flawed, despite the fact that it draws from foreign examples and that this regulation, although seemingly groundbreaking, in fact changes nothing in examination of the decisions of the company executive officers in Czech Republic. The main goal of this article is therefore to analyze and criticize the business judgment rule in the new Czech legislation and to compare it to notable foreign legal systems. The methods used are inductive and deductive reasoning, author‘s own analysis of legal text, comparative method and compilation of available resources relating to the topic of the article.

AWARENESS UNDER GENERAL ANAESTHESIA IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING ELECTIVE CAESAREAN SECTION USING THIOPENTONE AND KETAMINE AS INDUCTION AGENTS- A RANDOMISED PROSPECTIVE STUDY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Somashekharappa Basavanneppa Kadur

2016-12-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND Awareness during general anaesthesia for caesarean section is a big concern because of its serious adverse consequences. It has been reported that ketamine used as induction agent reduces awareness. This study was conducted to compare awareness under general anaesthesia when thiopentone and ketamine are used as induction agents for caesarean section. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty healthy mothers scheduled for elective caesarean section were randomly divided into two groups to receive thiopentone (4 mg/kg -1 or ketamine (1.5 mg/kg -1 for induction of anaesthesia. Mothers were examined for intraoperative awareness using isolated forearm technique until the delivery of the baby. Postoperatively, they were spoken about recall and any hallucination by using a set of questionnaire. RESULTS 15% patients who received thiopentone were able to follow the commands compared to 8% patients who received ketamine. 65% patients who received thiopentone made reaching movements of the isolated forearm towards the stimulus compared to 20% patients of ketamine group. None of the patients in thiopentone group experienced any hallucinations compared to 1 patient (4% in ketamine group who exhibited hallucinations. None of fifty patients could recall the intraoperative events like squeezing of hands or the pain of operation. CONCLUSION Ketamine can be used as substitute for thiopentone as an induction agent in a dose equal to 1.5 mg/kg -1 . Having profound analgesic effect, property to maintain foetoplacental exchange better than any other induction agents, ketamine can be used routinely as an induction agent for mothers undergoing caesarean section under general anaesthesia.

Neutron methods for the direct determination of the magnetic induction in thick films

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kozhevnikov, S.V., E-mail: kozhevn@nf.jinr.ru [Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna (Russian Federation); Ott, F. [CEA, IRAMIS, Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette (France); CNRS, IRAMIS, Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette (France); Radu, F. [Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Albert-Einstein Strasse 15, D-12489 Berlin (Germany)

2016-03-15

We review different neutron methods which allow extracting directly the value of the magnetic induction in thick films: Larmor precession, Zeeman spatial beam-splitting and neutron spin resonance. Resulting parameters obtained by the neutron methods and standard magnetometry technique are presented and compared. The possibilities and specificities of the neutron methods are discussed. - Highlights: • We present neutron methods for investigations of the thick magnetic films. • It is the methods for the direct determination of the magnetic induction. • Magnetic induction in bulk, at single interface and in a single domain. • It is Larmor precession, Zeeman spatial beam-splitting and neutron spin resonance. • These methods are complementary to polarized neutron reflectometry.

Method for the Field-oriented Control of an Induction Motor

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2000-01-01

A method for the field-oriented control of an induction motor by means of a frequency contverter is dislosed, in which method a transformation angle is determined by estimation and is corrected in dependence on a rotational speed of a rotor flux vector or of the induction motor and/or in dependence...... on a delay time. In this connection it is desirable to improve the control behavior. To that end, the transformation angle is corrected a second time to compensate for a phase shift in the frequency converter....

Comparative analysis of expert and machine-learning methods for classification of body cavity effusions in companion animals.

Science.gov (United States)

Hotz, Christine S; Templeton, Steven J; Christopher, Mary M

2005-03-01

A rule-based expert system using CLIPS programming language was created to classify body cavity effusions as transudates, modified transudates, exudates, chylous, and hemorrhagic effusions. The diagnostic accuracy of the rule-based system was compared with that produced by 2 machine-learning methods: Rosetta, a rough sets algorithm and RIPPER, a rule-induction method. Results of 508 body cavity fluid analyses (canine, feline, equine) obtained from the University of California-Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital computerized patient database were used to test CLIPS and to test and train RIPPER and Rosetta. The CLIPS system, using 17 rules, achieved an accuracy of 93.5% compared with pathologist consensus diagnoses. Rosetta accurately classified 91% of effusions by using 5,479 rules. RIPPER achieved the greatest accuracy (95.5%) using only 10 rules. When the original rules of the CLIPS application were replaced with those of RIPPER, the accuracy rates were identical. These results suggest that both rule-based expert systems and machine-learning methods hold promise for the preliminary classification of body fluids in the clinical laboratory.

Method for automatic control rod operation using rule-based control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kinoshita, Mitsuo; Yamada, Naoyuki; Kiguchi, Takashi

1988-01-01

An automatic control rod operation method using rule-based control is proposed. Its features are as follows: (1) a production system to recognize plant events, determine control actions and realize fast inference (fast selection of a suitable production rule), (2) use of the fuzzy control technique to determine quantitative control variables. The method's performance was evaluated by simulation tests on automatic control rod operation at a BWR plant start-up. The results were as follows; (1) The performance which is related to stabilization of controlled variables and time required for reactor start-up, was superior to that of other methods such as PID control and program control methods, (2) the process time to select and interpret the suitable production rule, which was the same as required for event recognition or determination of control action, was short (below 1 s) enough for real time control. The results showed that the method is effective for automatic control rod operation. (author)

Assessment of the nutritional status of adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia during induction chemotherapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Deluche, Elise; Girault, Stephane; Jesus, Pierre; Monzat, Sophie; Turlure, Pascal; Leobon, Sophie; Abraham, Julie; Daly, Nathalie; Dauriac, Olivia; Bordessoule, Dominique

2017-09-01

To the best of our knowledge, few studies have evaluated the nutritional status in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) during induction treatment. The aim of this retrospective study was to describe nutritional status of newly diagnosed adult patients with AML at admission and during induction chemotherapy. We included consecutive newly diagnosed adult patients with AML who were admitted to the Department of Hematology (Limoges University Hospital) from April 2010 to January 2014. Nutritional assessment included body mass index (BMI) and weight loss to diagnose undernutrition. Weekly laboratory tests were collected and total energy expenditure was calculated to adapt food intake. Of 95 patients, 14 (15%) presented with undernutrition at admission: low BMI values (P 5% for 9.5% patients. After chemotherapy induction, 17 patients (18%) were undernutrition (P = 0.05). Patients without undernutrition had a significantly lower median weight, BMI, and serum albumin level at discharge compared with their admission values (P nutritional status undergoing induction chemotherapy have shorter hospital stays and longer survival. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

48 CFR 6302.30 - Alternative dispute resolution methods (Rule 30).

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... TRANSPORTATION BOARD OF CONTRACT APPEALS RULES OF PROCEDURE 6302.30 Alternative dispute resolution methods (Rule... Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR): Settlement Judges and Mini-Trials. These procedures are designed to... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 7 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Alternative dispute...

Research on Fault Diagnosis Method Based on Rule Base Neural Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheng Ni

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The relationship between fault phenomenon and fault cause is always nonlinear, which influences the accuracy of fault location. And neural network is effective in dealing with nonlinear problem. In order to improve the efficiency of uncertain fault diagnosis based on neural network, a neural network fault diagnosis method based on rule base is put forward. At first, the structure of BP neural network is built and the learning rule is given. Then, the rule base is built by fuzzy theory. An improved fuzzy neural construction model is designed, in which the calculated methods of node function and membership function are also given. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of this method.

Cytarabine and daunorubicin or idarubicin in induction therapy of Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eivazi-Ziaei, J.; Kermani, I.A.; Nikanfar, A.; Maljaie, H.; Mahmoudpour, A.; Dolatkhah, R.

2010-01-01

Objectives: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the most common form of acute leukemia, is treated by remission induction and post-remission therapy. Remission induction is usually achieved by administration of cytarabine along with an anthracycline such as Daunorubicin (DAU) or Idarubicin (IDA). Our objective was see the benefits if any of IDA over DAU in AML therapy. Methodology: Eighty adult AML patients were enrolled in this study, where 40 received DAU and 40 were treated with IDA. Remission status in each subject was studied and response to therapy was subsequently analyzed using SPSS. Results: Complete remission, partial remission and no responsive status were 15, 19, and 14 respectively for patients on DAU and 14, 18, and 11 for patients on IDA protocol. No significant benefit was detected for IDA compared to DAU in response to therapy. Conclusion: We found no benefit in using IDA over DAU in induction therapy for AML patients treated in northwest of Iran. (author)

Rapid COJEC Induction Therapy for High-risk Neuroblastoma Patients - Cochrane Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Peinemann, F; van Dalen, E C; Berthold, F

2016-04-01

Neuroblastoma is a rare malignant disease and patients with high-risk neuroblastoma have a poor prognosis. Rapid COJEC induction chemotherapy means (almost) the same total doses given within a shorter time period. In theory, rapid COJEC could reduce the risk of drug resistance and it has been considered as a potential candidate for improving the outcome. The objective was to evaluate effects of rapid COJEC compared to standard induction chemotherapy in patients with high-risk neuroblastoma. We searched the databases CENTRAL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE from inception to 11 November 2014 and included randomized controlled trials. We identified one relevant randomized controlled trial with 130 participants receiving rapid COJEC and 132 participants receiving standard OPEC/COJEC induction chemotherapy. There was no statistically significant difference between the treatment groups in complete response (risk ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.71 to 1.38, P=0.94) and treatment-related mortality (risk ratio 1.21, 95% confidence interval 0.33 to 4.39, P=0.77). A statistically significant difference in favor of the standard treatment arm was identified for the following early toxicities: febrile neutropenia, septicemia, and renal toxicity. The differences in complete response and treatment-related mortality between treatment alternatives were not statistically significantly different. Based on the currently available evidence, we are uncertain about the effects of rapid COJEC induction chemotherapy in patients with high-risk neuroblastoma. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Appropriateness guidelines and predictive rules to select patients for upper endoscopy: a nationwide multicenter study.

Science.gov (United States)

Buri, Luigi; Hassan, Cesare; Bersani, Gianluca; Anti, Marcello; Bianco, Maria Antonietta; Cipolletta, Livio; Di Giulio, Emilio; Di Matteo, Giovanni; Familiari, Luigi; Ficano, Leonardo; Loriga, Pietro; Morini, Sergio; Pietropaolo, Vincenzo; Zambelli, Alessandro; Grossi, Enzo; Intraligi, Marco; Buscema, Massimo

2010-06-01

Selecting patients appropriately for upper endoscopy (EGD) is crucial for efficient use of endoscopy. The objective of this study was to compare different clinical strategies and statistical methods to select patients for EGD, namely appropriateness guidelines, age and/or alarm features, and multivariate and artificial neural network (ANN) models. A nationwide, multicenter, prospective study was undertaken in which consecutive patients referred for EGD during a 1-month period were enrolled. Before EGD, the endoscopist assessed referral appropriateness according to the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) guidelines, also collecting clinical and demographic variables. Outcomes of the study were detection of relevant findings and new diagnosis of malignancy at EGD. The accuracy of the following clinical strategies and predictive rules was compared: (i) ASGE appropriateness guidelines (indicated vs. not indicated), (ii) simplified rule (>or=45 years or alarm features vs. <45 years without alarm features), (iii) logistic regression model, and (iv) ANN models. A total of 8,252 patients were enrolled in 57 centers. Overall, 3,803 (46%) relevant findings and 132 (1.6%) new malignancies were detected. Sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the simplified rule were similar to that of the ASGE guidelines for both relevant findings (82%/26%/0.55 vs. 88%/27%/0.52) and cancer (97%/22%/0.58 vs. 98%/20%/0.58). Both logistic regression and ANN models seemed to be substantially more accurate in predicting new cases of malignancy, with an AUC of 0.82 and 0.87, respectively. A simple predictive rule based on age and alarm features is similarly effective to the more complex ASGE guidelines in selecting patients for EGD. Regression and ANN models may be useful in identifying a relatively small subgroup of patients at higher risk of cancer.

Tofacitinib induction and maintenance therapy in East Asian patients with active ulcerative colitis: subgroup analyses from three phase 3 multinational studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Satoshi Motoya

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Background/Aims : Tofacitinib is an oral, small-molecule Janus kinase inhibitor being investigated for ulcerative colitis (UC. In OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2, patients with moderately to severely active UC received placebo or tofacitinib 10 mg twice daily (BID for 8 weeks. Clinical responders in OCTAVE Induction were re-randomized to 52 weeks' therapy with placebo, tofacitinib 5 mg BID, or tofacitinib 10 mg BID. Methods : We conducted post-hoc efficacy and safety analyses of East Asian patients in OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2 and OCTAVE Sustain. Results : A total of 121 East Asian (Japan, Korea, and Taiwan patients were randomized in OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2 (placebo, n=26; tofacitinib 10 mg BID, n=95, and 63 in OCTAVE Sustain (placebo, n=20; tofacitinib 5 mg BID, n=22; tofacitinib 10 mg BID, n=21. At week 8 of OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2, 18.9% of patients (18/95 achieved remission with tofacitinib 10 mg BID versus 3.8% (1/26 with placebo. In OCTAVE Sustain, the week 52 remission rates were 45.5% (10/22, 47.6% (10/21, and 15.0% (3/20 with 5 mg BID, 10 mg BID, and placebo, respectively. Adverse event rates were similar between groups in OCTAVE Induction and numerically higher with tofacitinib in OCTAVE Sustain. Serious adverse event rates were similar across groups in all studies. Infections were numerically more frequent with tofacitinib than placebo. Increases in serum lipid levels were observed with tofacitinib. Conclusion : In East Asian patients with UC, tofacitinib demonstrated numerically greater efficacy versus placebo as induction and maintenance therapy, with a safety profile consistent with the global study population. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01465763; NCT01458951; NCT01458574.

Automated identification of protein-ligand interaction features using Inductive Logic Programming: a hexose binding case study.

Science.gov (United States)

A Santos, Jose C; Nassif, Houssam; Page, David; Muggleton, Stephen H; E Sternberg, Michael J

2012-07-11

There is a need for automated methods to learn general features of the interactions of a ligand class with its diverse set of protein receptors. An appropriate machine learning approach is Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), which automatically generates comprehensible rules in addition to prediction. The development of ILP systems which can learn rules of the complexity required for studies on protein structure remains a challenge. In this work we use a new ILP system, ProGolem, and demonstrate its performance on learning features of hexose-protein interactions. The rules induced by ProGolem detect interactions mediated by aromatics and by planar-polar residues, in addition to less common features such as the aromatic sandwich. The rules also reveal a previously unreported dependency for residues cys and leu. They also specify interactions involving aromatic and hydrogen bonding residues. This paper shows that Inductive Logic Programming implemented in ProGolem can derive rules giving structural features of protein/ligand interactions. Several of these rules are consistent with descriptions in the literature. In addition to confirming literature results, ProGolem's model has a 10-fold cross-validated predictive accuracy that is superior, at the 95% confidence level, to another ILP system previously used to study protein/hexose interactions and is comparable with state-of-the-art statistical learners.

Sodium flow rate measurement method of annular linear induction pumps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Araseki, Hideo; Kirillov, Igor R.; Preslitsky, Gennady V.

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► We found a new method of flow rate monitoring of electromagnetic pump. ► The method is very simple and does not require a large space. ► The method was verified with an experiment and a numerical analysis. ► The experimental data and the numerical results are in good agreement. - Abstract: The present paper proposes a method for measuring sodium flow rate of annular linear induction pumps. The feature of the method lies in measuring the leaked magnetic field with measuring coils near the stator end on the outlet side and in correlating it with the sodium flow rate. This method is verified through an experiment and a numerical analysis. The data obtained in the experiment reveals that the correlation between the leaked magnetic field and the sodium flow rate is almost linear. The result of the numerical analysis agrees with the experimental data. The present method will be particularly effective to sodium flow rate monitoring of each one of plural annular linear induction pumps arranged in parallel in a vessel which forms a large-scale pump unit.

Portable Rule Extraction Method for Neural Network Decisions Reasoning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Darius PLIKYNAS

2005-08-01

Full Text Available Neural network (NN methods are sometimes useless in practical applications, because they are not properly tailored to the particular market's needs. We focus thereinafter specifically on financial market applications. NNs have not gained full acceptance here yet. One of the main reasons is the "Black Box" problem (lack of the NN decisions explanatory power. There are though some NN decisions rule extraction methods like decompositional, pedagogical or eclectic, but they suffer from low portability of the rule extraction technique across various neural net architectures, high level of granularity, algorithmic sophistication of the rule extraction technique etc. The authors propose to eliminate some known drawbacks using an innovative extension of the pedagogical approach. The idea is exposed by the use of a widespread MLP neural net (as a common tool in the financial problems' domain and SOM (input data space clusterization. The feedback of both nets' performance is related and targeted through the iteration cycle by achievement of the best matching between the decision space fragments and input data space clusters. Three sets of rules are generated algorithmically or by fuzzy membership functions. Empirical validation of the common financial benchmark problems is conducted with an appropriately prepared software solution.

Safety of Therapeutic Fever Induction in Cancer Patients Using Approved PAMP Drugs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Uwe Rudolf Max Reuter

2018-04-01

Full Text Available William Coley, between 1895 and 1936, treated hundreds of cancer patients using infusions of fever inducing bacerial extracts. Similar experiments were done by Klyuyeva and co-workers in the 1940ies in Russia using trypanosoma extracts. Many remissions and cures were reported. We have conjectured that pathogen associated molecular pattern substances (PAMP are the molecular explanation for the beneficial treatments in both groups. We could show that a combination of PAMP can eradicate solid tumours in cancer mice if applied several times. Accordingly, we suggested to combine PAMP containing approved drugs to treat cancer patients using a protocol similar to the old fever induction regimen. In this retrospective phase-1 study we report on the fever induction capacity and safety of applications of bacterial extracts, combinations of bacterial extracts with approved drugs, and combinations of approved drugs in 131 mainly cancer patients. Adverse reactions were those which can be expected during a feverish infection and mild. Over 523 fever inductions, no severe adverse reaction was observed.

Comparison of Outcomes for Patients With Unresectable, Locally Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Treated With Induction Chemotherapy Followed By Concurrent Chemoradiation vs. Concurrent Chemoradiation Alone

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Eugene H.; Liao Zhongxing; Cox, James D.; Guerrero, Thomas M.; Chang, Joe Y.; Jeter, Melinda; Borghero, Yerko; Wei Xiong; Fossella, Frank; Herbst, Roy S.; Blumenschein, George R.; Moran, Cesar; Allen, Pamela K.; Komaki, Ritsuko

2007-01-01

Purpose: To retrospectively compare outcomes for patients with unresectable locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated at our institution with concurrent chemoradiation with or without induction chemotherapy. Methods and Materials: We retrospectively analyzed 265 consecutive patients who received definitive treatment with three-dimensional conformal radiation and concurrent chemotherapy. Of these, 127 patients received induction chemotherapy before concurrent chemoradiation. Results: The two groups of patients (with induction vs. without induction chemotherapy) were similar in age, performance status, weight loss, histology, grade, and stage. Patients who received induction chemotherapy had better overall survival (median, 1.9 vs. 1.4 years; 5-year rate, 25% vs. 12%; p < 0.001) and distant metastasis-free survival (5-year rate, 42% vs. 23%; p = 0.021). Locoregional control was not significantly different between the two groups. Multivariate analysis showed that induction chemotherapy was the most significant factor affecting overall survival, with a hazard ratio of 0.55 (95% confidence interval 0.40-0.75; p < 0.001). A planned subgroup analysis showed that induction chemotherapy was associated with a significant overall survival benefit for patients with adenocarcinoma or large-cell carcinoma (5-year rate, 24% vs. 8%; p = 0.003) but not for those with squamous cell carcinoma. A multivariate analysis of patients with adenocarcinoma or large-cell carcinoma confirmed that induction chemotherapy was the most significant factor associated with better overall survival, with a hazard ratio of 0.47 (95% confidence interval, 0.28-0.78; p = 0.003). Conclusion: Our retrospective analysis suggests that in combination with concurrent chemoradiation, induction chemotherapy may provide a small but significant survival benefit for patients with unresectable locally advanced adenocarcinoma or large-cell carcinoma of the lung

Phonotactics in inductive logic programming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nerbonne, J.; Konstantopoulos, S.; Klopotek, M.A.; Wierzchon, S.T.; Trojanowski, K.

2004-01-01

We examine the results of applying inductive logic programming (ILP) to a relatively simple linguistic task, that of recognizing monosyllables in one language. ILP is suited to linguistic problems given linguists' preference for formulating their theories in discrete rules, and because of ILP's

An Asymmetrical Space Vector Method for Single Phase Induction Motor

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cui, Yuanhai; Blaabjerg, Frede; Andersen, Gert Karmisholt

2002-01-01

Single phase induction motors are the workhorses in low-power applications in the world, and also the variable speed is necessary. Normally it is achieved either by the mechanical method or by controlling the capacitor connected with the auxiliary winding. Any above method has some drawback which...

Routine interim disease assessment in patients undergoing induction chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia: Can we do better?

Science.gov (United States)

Campuzano-Zuluaga, Germán; Deutsch, Yehuda; Salzberg, Matthew; Gomez, Alexandra; Vargas, Fernando; Elias, Roy; Kwon, Deukwoo; Goodman, Mark; Ikpatt, Offiong F; Chapman, Jennifer R; Watts, Justin; Vega, Francisco; Swords, Ronan

2016-03-01

The presence of >5% blasts at "day 14" (D14), in patients undergoing induction chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is problematic. It is unclear if a second course of chemotherapy for early persistent disease will alter outcome in these patients. We conducted a retrospective study of AML patients undergoing induction chemotherapy where diagnostic, interim (around day 14), and recovery (days 21-42) bone marrow (BM) evaluations were available for review. Of the 113 patients included in the final analysis, 99 (87.6%) achieved CR at hematologic recovery. At D14, 90 patients (79.6%) had 5% blasts). Of these, 11 (47.8%) received a second course of chemotherapy (double induction [DI]) and 12 (52.2%) were observed until count recovery (single induction [SI]). No significant difference in CR rates was observed between these two groups (58.3% DI group vs. 45.5% SI group, P value = 0.684). In our analysis, D14 BM evaluation did not uniformly identify patients with primary induction failure. To unequivocally determine the value of a D14 marrow assessment in AML, prospective studies in the context of large cooperative group trials are required. Considering our findings and similar reports from others, we propose that D14 marrow assessment should be individualized, and that other factors, such as cytogenetics and early peripheral blood blast clearance should be considered, to identify patients most likely to benefit from interim disease assessment during AML induction therapy. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Backtracking Method of Coloring Administrative Maps Considering Visual Perception Rules

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

WEI Zhiwei

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Color design in administrative maps should incorporate and balance area configuration, color harmony, and users' purposes. Based on visual perceptual rules, this paper quantifies color harmony, color contrast and perceptual balance in coloring administrative maps, and a model is suggested to evaluate the coloring quality after color template is selected. Then a backtracking method based on area balance is proposed to compute colored areas. Experiments show that this method can well meet visual perceptual rules while coloring administrative maps, and can be used for later map design.

The Moral Dignity of Inductive Method and the Reconciliation of Science and Faith in Adam Sedgwick's Discourse

Science.gov (United States)

Bellon, Richard

2012-07-01

Science's inductive method required patient, humble and self-controlled behavior; Christian revelation demanded the same virtues. The discoveries of science and the truths of scripture would always harmonize as long as both men of science and men of faith conducted themselves in scrupulous accordance with their duty. So ran a central argument in A Discourse on the studies of the university (1833; 5th ed, 1850) by Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), the longtime professor of geology at the University of Cambridge. This sanctification of the inductive method provided the foundation for a theistic science which (in theory) did not subordinate scientific theory to religious doctrine. This vision provided the foundation for Sedgwick's lifelong crusade against all forms of evolutionary theory. Evolution's impiety, he insisted, resulted from (and exacerbated) a failure to behave inductively. The fact that Sedgwick (in principle if not always in practice) elevated norms of behavior above systems of belief had an important and paradoxical consequence. Even though his personal hatred of evolution never cooled, his Discourse nonetheless provided a dominant model for younger theists to reconcile faith with Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Communication between anesthesiologists, patients and the anesthesia team: a descriptive study of induction and emergence.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Andrew F; Pope, Catherine; Goodwin, Dawn; Mort, Maggie

2005-11-01

Although the importance of communication skills in anesthetic practice is increasingly recognized, formal communication skills training has hitherto dealt only with limited aspects of this professional activity. We aimed to document and analyze the informally-learned communication that takes place between anesthesia personnel and patients at induction of and emergence from general anesthesia. We adopted an ethnographic approach based principally on observation of anesthesia personnel at work in the operating theatres with subsequent analysis of observation transcripts. We noted three main styles of communication on induction, commonly combined in a single induction. In order of frequency, these were: (1) descriptive, where the anesthesiologists explained to the patient what he/she might expect to feel; (2) functional, which seemed designed to help anesthesiologists maintain physiological stability or assess the changing depth of anesthesia and (3) evocative, which referred to images or metaphors. Although the talk we have described is nominally directed at the patient, it also signifies to other members of the anesthetic team how induction is progressing. The team may also contribute to the communication behaviour depending on the context. Communication on emergence usually focused on establishing that the patient was awake. Communication at induction and emergence tends to fall into specific patterns with different emphases but similar functions. This communication work is shared across the anesthetic team. Further work could usefully explore the relationship between communication styles and team performance or indicators of patient safety or well-being.

Scaffold hopping in drug discovery using inductive logic programming.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsunoyama, Kazuhisa; Amini, Ata; Sternberg, Michael J E; Muggleton, Stephen H

2008-05-01

In chemoinformatics, searching for compounds which are structurally diverse and share a biological activity is called scaffold hopping. Scaffold hopping is important since it can be used to obtain alternative structures when the compound under development has unexpected side-effects. Pharmaceutical companies use scaffold hopping when they wish to circumvent prior patents for targets of interest. We propose a new method for scaffold hopping using inductive logic programming (ILP). ILP uses the observed spatial relationships between pharmacophore types in pretested active and inactive compounds and learns human-readable rules describing the diverse structures of active compounds. The ILP-based scaffold hopping method is compared to two previous algorithms (chemically advanced template search, CATS, and CATS3D) on 10 data sets with diverse scaffolds. The comparison shows that the ILP-based method is significantly better than random selection while the other two algorithms are not. In addition, the ILP-based method retrieves new active scaffolds which were not found by CATS and CATS3D. The results show that the ILP-based method is at least as good as the other methods in this study. ILP produces human-readable rules, which makes it possible to identify the three-dimensional features that lead to scaffold hopping. A minor variant of a rule learnt by ILP for scaffold hopping was subsequently found to cover an inhibitor identified by an independent study. This provides a successful result in a blind trial of the effectiveness of ILP to generate rules for scaffold hopping. We conclude that ILP provides a valuable new approach for scaffold hopping.

Treatment outcome and prognostic factor analysis in transplant-eligible Chinese myeloma patients receiving bortezomib-based induction regimens including the staged approach, PAD or VTD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chim Chor

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background We have reported promising outcomes using a staged approach, in which bortezomib/thalidomide/dexamethasone was used only in 14 patients with suboptimal response to VAD (vincristine/adriamycin/dexamethasone before autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT. Here we compared the outcomes of the staged approach with frontline PAD (bortezomib/doxorubicin/dexamethasone or VTD (bortezomib/thalidomide/dexamethasone induction, and analysed prognostic factors for outcome. Patients and methods Ninety-one transplant-eligible Chinese patients received three induction regimens prior to ASCT [staged approach (N = 25, PAD (N = 31, VTD (N = 35]. and received thalidomide maintenance for 2 years post-ASCT. Results 43 (47.3% patients had International Staging System (ISS III disease. By an intention-to-treat analysis, the overall CR/nCR rate were 37.4% post-induction, and 62.6% post-ASCT. Five-year overall (OS and event-free (EFS survivals were 66% and 45.1%. There was no difference of the post-induction CR/nCR rate, EFS or OS between patients induced by these three regimens. Moreover, ISS III disease did not affect CR/nCR rates. Multivariate analysis showed that ISS and post-ASCT CR/nCR impacted OS while ISS and post-induction CR/nCR impacted EFS. Conclusions These three induction regimens produced comparable and favorable outcomes in myeloma. The unfavorable outcome of ISS stage III persisted despite upfront/early use of bortezomib. CR/nCR predicted favorable survivals.

Sodium flow rate measurement method of annular linear induction pump

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Araseki, Hideo

2011-01-01

This report describes a method for measuring sodium flow rate of annular linear induction pumps arranged in parallel and its verification result obtained through an experiment and a numerical analysis. In the method, the leaked magnetic field is measured with measuring coils at the stator end on the outlet side and is correlated with the sodium flow rate. The experimental data and the numerical result indicate that the leaked magnetic field at the stator edge keeps almost constant when the sodium flow rate changes and that the leaked magnetic field change arising from the flow rate change is small compared with the overall leaked magnetic field. It is shown that the correlation between the leaked magnetic field and the sodium flow rate is almost linear due to this feature of the leaked magnetic field, which indicates the applicability of the method to small-scale annular linear induction pumps. (author)

The effects of three methods of synchronization on estrus induction ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The effects of three methods of synchronization on estrus induction and ... Due to the importances of estrus synchronization in sheep reproduction and fertility, the ... sponges (medroxyprogesterone) and controlled intravaginal drug-releasing ...

Analysis of the iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method under a heuristic rule

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Qinian; Wang, Wei

2018-03-01

The iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method is one of the most prominent regularization methods for solving nonlinear ill-posed inverse problems when the data is corrupted by noise. In order to produce a useful approximate solution, this iterative method should be terminated properly. The existing a priori and a posteriori stopping rules require accurate information on the noise level, which may not be available or reliable in practical applications. In this paper we propose a heuristic selection rule for this regularization method, which requires no information on the noise level. By imposing certain conditions on the noise, we derive a posteriori error estimates on the approximate solutions under various source conditions. Furthermore, we establish a convergence result without using any source condition. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the performance of our heuristic selection rule.

78 FR 13405 - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Health Insurance Market Rules; Rate Review

Science.gov (United States)

2013-02-27

... Parts 144, 147, 150, et al. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Health Insurance Market Rules... Insurance Market Rules; Rate Review AGENCY: Department of Health and Human Services. ACTION: Final rule. SUMMARY: This final rule implements provisions related to fair health insurance premiums, guaranteed...

Derived rules for predicative set theory: An application of sheaves

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van den Berg, B.; Moerdijk, I.

2012-01-01

We show how one may establish proof-theoretic results for constructive Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, such as the compactness rule for Cantor space and the Bar Induction rule for Baire space, by constructing sheaf models and using their preservation properties.

Estimation of Mechanical Signals in Induction Motors using the Recursive Prediction Error Method

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Børsting, H.; Knudsen, Morten; Rasmussen, Henrik

1993-01-01

Sensor feedback of mechanical quantities for control applications in induction motors is troublesome and relative expensive. In this paper a recursive prediction error (RPE) method has successfully been used to estimate the angular rotor speed ........Sensor feedback of mechanical quantities for control applications in induction motors is troublesome and relative expensive. In this paper a recursive prediction error (RPE) method has successfully been used to estimate the angular rotor speed .....

Does applying the Canadian Cervical Spine rule reduce cervical spine radiography rates in alert patients with blunt trauma to the neck? A retrospective analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yesupalan Rajam

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A cautious outlook towards neck injuries has been the norm to avoid missing cervical spine injuries. Consequently there has been an increased use of cervical spine radiography. The Canadian Cervical Spine rule was proposed to reduce unnecessary use of cervical spine radiography in alert and stable patients. Our aim was to see whether applying the Canadian Cervical Spine rule reduced the need for cervical spine radiography without missing significant cervical spine injuries. Methods This was a retrospective study conducted in 2 hospitals. 114 alert and stable patients who had cervical spine radiographs for suspected neck injuries were included in the study. Data on patient demographics, high risk & low risk factors as per the Canadian Cervical Spine rule and cervical spine radiography results were collected and analysed. Results 28 patients were included in the high risk category according to the Canadian Cervical Spine rule. 86 patients fell into the low risk category. If the Canadian Cervical Spine rule was applied, there would have been a significant reduction in cervical spine radiographs as 86/114 patients (75.4% would not have needed cervical spine radiograph. 2/114 patients who had significant cervical spine injuries would have been identified when the Canadian Cervical Spine rule was applied. Conclusion Applying the Canadian Cervical Spine rule for neck injuries in alert and stable patients would have reduced the use of cervical spine radiographs without missing out significant cervical spine injuries. This relates to reduction in radiation exposure to patients and health care costs.

Method for the mechanical axis alignment of the linear induction accelerator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Hong; China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang; Yao Jin; Liu Yunlong; Zhang Linwen; Deng Jianjun

2004-01-01

Accurate mechanical axis alignment is a basic requirement for assembling a linear induction accelerator (LIA). The total length of an LIA is usually over thirty or fifty meters, and it consists of many induction cells. By using a laser tracker a new method of mechanical axis alignment for LIA is established to achieve the high accuracy. This paper introduces the method and gives implementation step and point position measure errors of the mechanical axis alignment. During the alignment process a 55 m-long alignment control survey net is built, and the theoretic revision of the coordinate of the control survey net is presented. (authors)

Automated identification of protein-ligand interaction features using Inductive Logic Programming: a hexose binding case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A Santos Jose C

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background There is a need for automated methods to learn general features of the interactions of a ligand class with its diverse set of protein receptors. An appropriate machine learning approach is Inductive Logic Programming (ILP, which automatically generates comprehensible rules in addition to prediction. The development of ILP systems which can learn rules of the complexity required for studies on protein structure remains a challenge. In this work we use a new ILP system, ProGolem, and demonstrate its performance on learning features of hexose-protein interactions. Results The rules induced by ProGolem detect interactions mediated by aromatics and by planar-polar residues, in addition to less common features such as the aromatic sandwich. The rules also reveal a previously unreported dependency for residues cys and leu. They also specify interactions involving aromatic and hydrogen bonding residues. This paper shows that Inductive Logic Programming implemented in ProGolem can derive rules giving structural features of protein/ligand interactions. Several of these rules are consistent with descriptions in the literature. Conclusions In addition to confirming literature results, ProGolem’s model has a 10-fold cross-validated predictive accuracy that is superior, at the 95% confidence level, to another ILP system previously used to study protein/hexose interactions and is comparable with state-of-the-art statistical learners.

Resistivity measurements using a direct current induction method (1963); Mesure de resistivite par la methode d'induction en courant continu (1963)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Delaplace, J; Hillairet, J [Commissariat a l' Energie Atomique, Saclay (France). Centre d' Etudes Nucleaires

1964-07-01

The conventional methods for measuring electrical resistivities necessitate the fixing of electrical contacts on the sample either mechanically or by soldering. Furthermore it is also necessary to carry,out the measurements on low cross-section samples which are not always easy to obtain. Our direct-current induction method on the other hand requires no contacts and can easily be applied to samples of large cross-section. The sample is placed in a uniform magnetic field; at the moment when the current is cut, eddy currents appear in the sample which tend to oppose the disappearance of the field. The way in which the magnetic flux decreases in the sample makes it possible to determine the resistivity of the material. This method has been applied to samples having diameters of between 1 and 30 mm in the case of metals which are good conductors. It gives a value for the local resistivity and makes it possible to detect any variation along a sample. The measurements can be carried out at all temperature from a few degrees absolute to 500 deg. C. We have used the induction method to follow the purification of beryllium by zone-melting; it is in effect possible to estimate the purity of a material by resistivity measurements. We have measured the resistivity along each bar treated by the zone-melting technique and have thus, localised the purest section. High temperature measurements have been carried out on uranium carbide and on iron-aluminium alloys. This method constitutes an interesting means of investigation the resistivity of solid materials. Its accuracy and rapidity make it particularly adapted both to fundamental research and to production control. (authors) [French] Les methodes classiques de mesure de resistivite electrique imposent la realisation sur l'echantillon de contacts electriques obtenus soit mecaniquement, soit par soudure. En outre, elles demandent, le plus souvent, d'effectuer les mesures sur des echantillons de faible section qu'il n'est pas

Pochhammer symbol with negative indices. A new rule for the method of brackets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gonzalez Ivan

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The method of brackets is a method of integration based upon a small number of heuristic rules. Some of these have been made rigorous. An example of an integral involving the Bessel function is used to motivate a new evaluation rule.

Comparison of two inductive learning methods: A case study in failed fuel identification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reifman, J. [Argonne National Lab., IL (United States); Lee, J.C. [Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering

1992-05-01

Two inductive learning methods, the ID3 and Rg algorithms, are studied as a means for systematically and automatically constructing the knowledge base of expert systems. Both inductive learning methods are general-purpose and use information entropy as a discriminatory measure in order to group objects of a common class. ID3 constructs a knowledge base by building decision trees that discriminate objects of a data set as a function of their class. Rg constructs a knowledge base by grouping objects of the same class into patterns or clusters. The two inductive methods are applied to the construction of a knowledge base for failed fuel identification in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II. Through analysis of the knowledge bases generated, the ID3 and Rg algorithms are compared for their knowledge representation, data overfitting, feature space partition, feature selection, and search procedure.

Comparison of two inductive learning methods: A case study in failed fuel identification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reifman, J. (Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)); Lee, J.C. (Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering)

1992-01-01

Two inductive learning methods, the ID3 and Rg algorithms, are studied as a means for systematically and automatically constructing the knowledge base of expert systems. Both inductive learning methods are general-purpose and use information entropy as a discriminatory measure in order to group objects of a common class. ID3 constructs a knowledge base by building decision trees that discriminate objects of a data set as a function of their class. Rg constructs a knowledge base by grouping objects of the same class into patterns or clusters. The two inductive methods are applied to the construction of a knowledge base for failed fuel identification in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II. Through analysis of the knowledge bases generated, the ID3 and Rg algorithms are compared for their knowledge representation, data overfitting, feature space partition, feature selection, and search procedure.

Comparison of two inductive learning methods: A case study in failed fuel identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reifman, J.; Lee, J.C.

1992-01-01

Two inductive learning methods, the ID3 and Rg algorithms, are studied as a means for systematically and automatically constructing the knowledge base of expert systems. Both inductive learning methods are general-purpose and use information entropy as a discriminatory measure in order to group objects of a common class. ID3 constructs a knowledge base by building decision trees that discriminate objects of a data set as a function of their class. Rg constructs a knowledge base by grouping objects of the same class into patterns or clusters. The two inductive methods are applied to the construction of a knowledge base for failed fuel identification in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II. Through analysis of the knowledge bases generated, the ID3 and Rg algorithms are compared for their knowledge representation, data overfitting, feature space partition, feature selection, and search procedure

Association-rule-based tuberculosis disease diagnosis

Science.gov (United States)

Asha, T.; Natarajan, S.; Murthy, K. N. B.

2010-02-01

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease caused by bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It usually spreads through the air and attacks low immune bodies such as patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). This work focuses on finding close association rules, a promising technique in Data Mining, within TB data. The proposed method first normalizes of raw data from medical records which includes categorical, nominal and continuous attributes and then determines Association Rules from the normalized data with different support and confidence. Association rules are applied on a real data set containing medical records of patients with TB obtained from a state hospital. The rules determined describes close association between one symptom to another; as an example, likelihood that an occurrence of sputum is closely associated with blood cough and HIV.

A Position Sensorless Control Method for SRM Based on Variation of Phase Inductance

Science.gov (United States)

Komatsuzaki, Akitomo; Miki, Ichiro

Switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives are suitable for variable speed industrial applications because of the simple structure and high-speed capability. However, it is necessary to detect the rotor position with a position sensor attached to the motor shaft. The use of the sensor increases the cost of the drive system and machine size, and furthermore the reliability of the system is reduced. Therefore, several approaches to eliminate the position sensor have already been reported. In this paper, a position sensorless control method based on the variation of the phase inductance is described. The phase inductance regularly varies with the rotor position. The SRM is controlled without the position sensor using the de-fluxing period and the phase inductance. The turn-off timing is determined by computing the difference of angle between the sampling point and the aligned point and the variation of angle during the de-fluxing period. In the magnetic saturation region, the phase inductance at the current when the effect of the saturation starts is computed and the sensorless control can be carried out using this inductance. Experimental results show that the SRM is well controlled without the position sensor using the proposed method.

Common and dissociable neural correlates associated with component processes of inductive reasoning.

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Xiuqin; Liang, Peipeng; Lu, Jie; Yang, Yanhui; Zhong, Ning; Li, Kuncheng

2011-06-15

The ability to draw numerical inductive reasoning requires two key cognitive processes, identification and extrapolation. This study aimed to identify the neural correlates of both component processes of numerical inductive reasoning using event-related fMRI. Three kinds of tasks: rule induction (RI), rule induction and application (RIA), and perceptual judgment (Jud) were solved by twenty right-handed adults. Our results found that the left superior parietal lobule (SPL) extending into the precuneus and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) were commonly recruited in the two components. It was also observed that the fronto-parietal network was more specific to identification, whereas the striatal-thalamic network was more specific to extrapolation. The findings suggest that numerical inductive reasoning is mediated by the coordination of multiple brain areas including the prefrontal, parietal, and subcortical regions, of which some are more specific to demands on only one of these two component processes, whereas others are sensitive to both. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ANALYSIS OF INDUCTION MOTOR WITH BROKEN BARS AND CONSTANT SPEED USING CIRCUIT-FIELD COUPLED METHOD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Halem

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the use of the two-dimensional finite element method for modeling the three-phase squirrel-cage induction motor by using circuit coupled method. In order to analyze the machine performances, the voltage source is considered. The Ansys magnetic analysis software is used for calculating the magnetic field of an induction motor having a cage fault. The experimental results prove that the proposed approach constitutes a useful tool for the study and diagnostics of induction motors.

High temperature sealing method : induction brazing for SOFCs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Heo, Y.H.; Lee, S.B.; Song, R.H.; Shin, D.R. [Korea Inst. of Energy Research, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Lim, T.H. [Korea Inst. of Energy Research, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of). Advanced Fuel Cell Research Center

2009-07-01

This study examined the use of induction brazing as a high temperature sealing method for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Nickel-based brazing alloys were modified using reactive titanium-hydride (TiH2). The gas sealing properties of the induction brazing process on anode-supported tubular SOFCs and ferritic stainless steel were evaluated. Brazing alloys BNi-2 and BNi-4 were not wetted in a yttria-silica-zircon (YSZ) electrolyte. The brazing alloy with added TiH2 showed good wettability with the YSZ electrolyte as a result of the formation of a TiOX layer. Only the BNi-4 alloy joined with the YSZ electrolyte. An open circuit voltage (OCV) value was used to estimate the gas tightness of the brazed cell. It was concluded that the BNi-4 TiH2 modified alloy is a suitable sealing material for SOFCs operating in temperatures up to 750 degrees C.

New method for the induction of therapeutic amenorrhea: low dose endometrial afterloading irradiation. Clinical and hormonal studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gronroos, M.; Turunen, T.; Raekallio, J.; Ruotsalinen, P.; Salmi, T. (Turku Univ. (Finland). Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology)

1982-08-01

The authors present a new method for the induction of therapeutic amenorrhea: low dose endometrial afterloading irradiation. The problem with this method has been how to inactivate the endometrium while maintaining the physiological function of the ovaries. In 5/29 young patients regular or irregular bleedings occurred after an endometrial dose of 11+-1 Gy. These subjects were given a repeat low dose intrauterine irradiation. Thereafter no bleedings were found in four out of five patients. Two to 9 years after the repeat irradiation the plasma levels of E/sub 1/, E/sub 2/, FSH and LH corresponded closely to those of healthy women in reproductive age in three out of five patients; some high plasma P levels indicated ovulation. In two patients the E/sub 1/, E/sub 2/, and P values were more likely postmenopausal but, on the other hand, FSH and LH values reproductive ones. 19 refs.

Modelling imperfect adherence to HIV induction therapy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Smith? Robert J

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Induction-maintenance therapy is a treatment regime where patients are prescribed an intense course of treatment for a short period of time (the induction phase, followed by a simplified long-term regimen (maintenance. Since induction therapy has a significantly higher chance of pill fatigue than maintenance therapy, patients might take drug holidays during this period. Without guidance, patients who choose to stop therapy will each be making individual decisions, with no scientific basis. Methods We use mathematical modelling to investigate the effect of imperfect adherence during the inductive phase. We address the following research questions: 1. Can we theoretically determine the maximal length of a possible drug holiday and the minimal number of doses that must subsequently be taken while still avoiding resistance? 2. How many drug holidays can be taken during the induction phase? Results For a 180 day therapeutic program, a patient can take several drug holidays, but then has to follow each drug holiday with a strict, but fairly straightforward, drug-taking regimen. Since the results are dependent upon the drug regimen, we calculated the length and number of drug holidays for all fifteen protease-sparing triple-drug cocktails that have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Conclusions Induction therapy with partial adherence is tolerable, but the outcome depends on the drug cocktail. Our theoretical predictions are in line with recent results from pilot studies of short-cycle treatment interruption strategies and may be useful in guiding the design of future clinical trials.

Treatment of patients with unresectable squamous head and neck cancer with induction chemotherapy followed by hyperfractionated radiotherapy; Traitement de patients atteints d'un cancer irresecable de la tete et du cou avec une chimiotherapie d'induction suivie d'une radiotherapie hyperfractionnee

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mesia, R.; Majem, M.; Barretina Ginesta, M.P.; Montes, A.; Cardenal, F. [Institut Catala d' Oncologia-Duran i Reynals, Dept. of Medical Oncology, L' Hospitalet de LLobregat-Barcelona (Spain); Galiana, R.; Guedea, F. [Institut Catala d' Oncologia-Duran i Reynals, Dept. of Radiation Oncology, L' Hospitalet de LLobregat-Barcelona (Spain); Manos, M. [Institut Catala d' Oncologia-Duran i Reynals, Dept. of ENT, L' Hospitalet de LLobregat-Barcelona (Spain); Monner, A. [Institut Catala d' Oncologia-Duran i Reynals, Dept. of Dept. of Maxillofacial Surgery, L' Hospitalet de LLobregat-Barcelona (Spain); Perez, J. [Institut Catala d' Oncologia-Duran i Reynals, Clinical Investigation Unit, L' Hospitalet de LLobregat-Barcelona (Spain)

2008-03-15

Purpose: the contribution of induction chemotherapy (CT) followed by hyperfractionated radiotherapy (h.f.R.T.) in unresectable squamous head and neck cancer has been evaluated in a single institution as an assistancial protocol. Patients and methods: from March 1994 to June 2000 all consecutive patients with unresectable disease were treated with four courses of platin plus fluorouracil based CT followed by h.f.R.T.. Tumor resectability and response was assessed by a multidisciplinary committee. Results: ninety-nine patients (pts) were treated. All of them had stage IV-M0 disease: 67 T4, 88 N2-N3. Tumor location: 62 oropharynx, 22 hypopharynx, eight oral cavity and seven larynx. Tumor response at the end of treatment: 61 patients complete response, 17 partial response, two stable disease, 10 progressive disease and nine unevaluated. With a median follow-up of 70 months the 5-year loco-regional control and overall survival was 30.3% (95% CI: 21.9-38.6) and 21.6% (95% CI: 13.4-29.8), respectively. Loco-regional control and overall survival is significantly influenced by prior response to induction CT. Main grade 3-4 toxicity related to CT was stomatitis, but there were five patients with an ischemic event. Grade 3-4 acute toxicity related to h.f.R.T.: 47 stomatitis, 20 epithelitis. Chronic toxicity related to h.f.R.T.: six emergency tracheotomies due to laryngeal edema, five pneumonia and one mucous/soft-tissue necrosis. There were eight toxic related deaths. Conclusion: induction CT followed by h.f.R.T. might increase the overall survival rate in unresectable disease. H.f.R.T. resulted in a high rate of acute toxicity and its use would not be warranted in those patients with no response to induction CT who had a low probability of long-term control. (authors)

Different strategies in solving series completion inductive reasoning problems : An fMRI and computational study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liang, Peipeng; Jia, Xiuqin; Taatgen, Niels A.; Zhong, Ning; Li, Kuncheng

Neural correlate of human inductive reasoning process is still unclear. Number series and letter series completion are two typical inductive reasoning tasks, and with a common core component of rule induction. Previous studies have demonstrated that different strategies are adopted in number series

A decision aid to rule out pneumonia and reduce unnecessary prescriptions of antibiotics in primary care patients with cough and fever

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hunziker Roger

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Physicians fear missing cases of pneumonia and treat many patients with signs of respiratory infection unnecessarily with antibiotics. This is an avoidable cause for the increasing worldwide problem of antibiotic resistance. We developed a user-friendly decision aid to rule out pneumonia and thus reduce the rate of needless prescriptions of antibiotics. Methods This was a prospective cohort study in which we enrolled patients older than 18 years with a new or worsened cough and fever without serious co-morbidities. Physicians recorded results of a standardized medical history and physical examination. C-reactive protein was measured and chest radiographs were obtained. We used Classification and Regression Trees to derive the decision tool. Results A total of 621 consenting eligible patients were studied, 598 were attending a primary care facility, were 48 years on average and 50% were male. Radiographic signs for pneumonia were present in 127 (20.5% of patients. Antibiotics were prescribed to 234 (48.3% of patients without pneumonia. In patients with C-reactive protein values below 10 μg/ml or patients presenting with C-reactive protein between 11 and 50 μg/ml, but without dyspnoea and daily fever, pneumonia can be ruled out. By applying this rule in clinical practice antibiotic prescription could be reduced by 9.1% (95% confidence interval (CI: 6.4 to 11.8. Conclusions Following validation and confirmation in new patient samples, this tool could help rule out pneumonia and be used to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions in patients presenting with cough and fever in primary care. The algorithm might be especially useful in those instances where taking a medical history and physical examination alone are inconclusive for ruling out pneumonia

Cross-Validation of Survival Bump Hunting by Recursive Peeling Methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Dazard, Jean-Eudes; Choe, Michael; LeBlanc, Michael; Rao, J Sunil

2014-08-01

We introduce a survival/risk bump hunting framework to build a bump hunting model with a possibly censored time-to-event type of response and to validate model estimates. First, we describe the use of adequate survival peeling criteria to build a survival/risk bump hunting model based on recursive peeling methods. Our method called "Patient Recursive Survival Peeling" is a rule-induction method that makes use of specific peeling criteria such as hazard ratio or log-rank statistics. Second, to validate our model estimates and improve survival prediction accuracy, we describe a resampling-based validation technique specifically designed for the joint task of decision rule making by recursive peeling (i.e. decision-box) and survival estimation. This alternative technique, called "combined" cross-validation is done by combining test samples over the cross-validation loops, a design allowing for bump hunting by recursive peeling in a survival setting. We provide empirical results showing the importance of cross-validation and replication.

Limited hair cell induction from human induced pluripotent stem cells using a simple stepwise method.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohnishi, Hiroe; Skerleva, Desislava; Kitajiri, Shin-ichiro; Sakamoto, Tatsunori; Yamamoto, Norio; Ito, Juichi; Nakagawa, Takayuki

2015-07-10

Disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) cells are expected to contribute to exploring useful tools for studying the pathophysiology of inner ear diseases and to drug discovery for treating inner ear diseases. For this purpose, stable induction methods for the differentiation of human iPS cells into inner ear hair cells are required. In the present study, we examined the efficacy of a simple induction method for inducing the differentiation of human iPS cells into hair cells. The induction of inner ear hair cell-like cells was performed using a stepwise method mimicking inner ear development. Human iPS cells were sequentially transformed into the preplacodal ectoderm, otic placode, and hair cell-like cells. As a first step, preplacodal ectoderm induction, human iPS cells were seeded on a Matrigel-coated plate and cultured in a serum free N2/B27 medium for 8 days according to a previous study that demonstrated spontaneous differentiation of human ES cells into the preplacodal ectoderm. As the second step, the cells after preplacodal ectoderm induction were treated with basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) for induction of differentiation into otic-placode-like cells for 15 days. As the final step, cultured cells were incubated in a serum free medium containing Matrigel for 48 days. After preplacodal ectoderm induction, over 90% of cultured cells expressed the genes that express in preplacodal ectoderm. By culture with bFGF, otic placode marker-positive cells were obtained, although their number was limited. Further 48-day culture in serum free media resulted in the induction of hair cell-like cells, which expressed a hair cell marker and had stereocilia bundle-like constructions on their apical surface. Our results indicate that hair cell-like cells are induced from human iPS cells using a simple stepwise method with only bFGF, without the use of xenogeneic cells. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Phase Method of Invariant Measurement of Active-Inductive Measuring Two-Pole Parameters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Boris MAMIKONYAN

2017-04-01

Full Text Available There has been given the solution of the technical problem of separate measurement of parameters of inductance coils and inductive primary converters on alternating current without application of potential-current signals. As a measuring circuit the scheme of voltage divider with active-inductive two-pole is used, and as an output signal there has been used the angle of phase shift between two output voltages of the measuring circuit. For forming the output signal temporal separation of measurement channel is used. The advantages of phase method are mostly due to capacity of using microcontrollers. In the technical solutions under consideration the microcontroller regulates the measuring process and develops the measurement results.

Induction Chemotherapy for p16 Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

OpenAIRE

Saito, Yuki; Ando, Mizuo; Omura, Go; Yasuhara, Kazuo; Yoshida, Masafumi; Takahashi, Wataru; Yamasoba, Tatsuya

2016-01-01

Objectives/Hypothesis We aimed to determine the effectiveness of induction chemotherapy for treating p16?positive oropharyngeal cancer in our department. Study Design This was a retrospective case series to assess treatment effectiveness. Methods We administered induction chemotherapy to patients with stage III to IV oropharyngeal p16?positive squamous cell carcinoma between 2008 and 2013. Induction chemotherapy was administered using combinations of docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5?fluorouracil. ...

Utility of multiple rule out CT screening of high-risk atraumatic patients in an emergency department-a feasibility study

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pries-Heje, Mia M; Hasselbalch, Rasmus B; Raaschou, Henriette

2018-01-01

malignant tumors in 10 (10%) cases. The mean size specific radiation dose was 15.9 mSv (± 3.1 mSv). CONCLUSION: Screening with a multi-rule out CT scan of high-risk patients in an ED is feasible and result in discovery of clinically unrecognized diagnoses and malignant tumors, but at the cost of radiation......BACKGROUND: Several large trials have evaluated the effect of CT screening based on specific symptoms, with varying outcomes. Screening of patients with CT based on their prognosis alone has not been examined before. For moderate-to-high risk patients presenting in the emergency department (ED......), the potential gain from a CT scan might outweigh the risk of radiation exposure. We hypothesized that an accelerated "multiple rule out" CT screening of moderate-to-high risk patients will detect many clinically unrecognized diagnoses that affect change in treatment. METHOD: Patients ≥ 40 years, triaged as high...

Impact of parental presence during induction of anesthesia on anxiety level among pediatric patients and their parents: a randomized clinical trial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sadeghi A

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Afsaneh Sadeghi, Ahmad Khaleghnejad Tabari, Alireza Mahdavi, Sara Salarian, Seyed Sajjad Razavi Department of Anesthesiology, Pediatric Surgery Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Introduction: Anesthesia induction is a stressful event for children and their parents, and may have potentially harmful consequences on the patient’s physiological and mental situation. Stressful anesthesia induction has psychological adverse effects that recur with repeated anesthesia, can lead to increased pediatric discomfort during the recovery period, and may even induce reactionary postoperative behavior. A randomized controlled trial was performed to assess the impact of parental presence during induction of anesthesia (PPIA on preoperative anxiety of pediatric patients and their parents at three different times, cooperation of child with anesthesiologist at induction of anesthesia, and parental satisfaction.Patients and methods: A total of 96 pediatric patients undergoing elective minor surgery (ASA 1–2 were randomly divided into two groups. Both groups received oral midazolam (0.5 mg/kg at least 20 minutes before surgery, but in the PPIA group, the parents were also present in the operating room until loss of consciousness of child at anesthesia induction. Anxiety in the patients (as measured by the modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale [mYPAS] and parents (as measured by the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI], the Induction Compliance Checklist (ICC, and parental satisfaction (as measured by visual analog scale were assessed. Results: There was no significant difference in the mean anxiety scores (mYPAS of participants in the control and PPIA groups at ward T0 and upon arrival to operating room T1 (P>0.05. However, between the PPIA and control groups, mean mYPAS score was different at the time of induction of anesthesia T2 (35.5±16.6 vs 59.8±22.4; P<0.001. The ICC scores showed that perfect score was

Right ventricular volume estimation with cine MRI; A comparative study between Simpson's rule and a new modified area-length method

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sawachika, Takashi (Yamaguchi Univ., Ube (Japan). School of Medicine)

1993-04-01

To quantitate right ventricular (RV) volumes easily using cine MRI, we developed a new method called 'modified area-length method (MOAL method)'. To validate this method, we compared it to the conventional Simpson's rule. Magnetom H15 (Siemens) was used and 6 normal volunteers and 21 patients with various RV sizes were imaged with ECG triggered gradient echo method (FISP, TR 50 ms, TE 12 ms, slice thickness 9 mm). For Simpson's rule transverse images of 12 sequential views which cover whole heart were acquired. For the MOAL method, two orthogonal views were imaged. One was the sagittal view which includes RV outflow tract and the other was the coronal view defined from the sagittal image to cover the whole RV. From these images the area (As, Ac) of RV and the longest distance between RV apex and pulmonary valve (Lmax) were determined. By correlating RV volumes measured by Simpson's rule to As*Ac/Lmax the RV volume could be estimated as follows: V=0.85*As*Ac/Lmax+4.55. Thus the MOAL method demonstrated excellent accuracy to quantitate RV volume and the acquisition time abbreviated to one fifth compared with Simpson's rule. This should be a highly promising method for routine clinical application. (author).

A new method for the induction of therapeutic amenorrhea: low dose endometrial afterloading irradiation. Clinical and hormonal studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gronroos, M.; Turunen, T.; Raekallio, J.; Ruotsalinen, P.; Salmi, T.

1982-01-01

The authors present a new method for the induction of therapeutic amenorrhea: low dose endometrial afterloading irradiation. The problem with this method has been how to inactivate the endometrium while maintaining the physiological function of the ovaries. In 5/29 young patients regular or irregular bleedings occurred after an endometrial dose of 11+-1 Gy. These subjects were given a repeat low dose intrauterine irradiation. Thereafter no bleedings were found in four out of five patients. Two to 9 years after the repeat irradiation the plasma levels of E 1 , E 2 , FSH and LH corresponded closely to those of healthy women in reproductive age in three out of five patients; some high plasma P levels indicated ovulation. In two patients the E 1 , E 2 , and P values were more likely postmenopausal but, on the other hand, FSH and LH values reproductive ones. (author)

Analysis of QCD sum rule based on the maximum entropy method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gubler, Philipp

2012-01-01

QCD sum rule was developed about thirty years ago and has been used up to the present to calculate various physical quantities like hadrons. It has been, however, needed to assume 'pole + continuum' for the spectral function in the conventional analyses. Application of this method therefore came across with difficulties when the above assumption is not satisfied. In order to avoid this difficulty, analysis to make use of the maximum entropy method (MEM) has been developed by the present author. It is reported here how far this new method can be successfully applied. In the first section, the general feature of the QCD sum rule is introduced. In section 2, it is discussed why the analysis by the QCD sum rule based on the MEM is so effective. In section 3, the MEM analysis process is described, and in the subsection 3.1 likelihood function and prior probability are considered then in subsection 3.2 numerical analyses are picked up. In section 4, some cases of applications are described starting with ρ mesons, then charmoniums in the finite temperature and finally recent developments. Some figures of the spectral functions are shown. In section 5, summing up of the present analysis method and future view are given. (S. Funahashi)

Induction Chemotherapy for p16 Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Saito, Yuki; Ando, Mizuo; Omura, Go; Yasuhara, Kazuo; Yoshida, Masafumi; Takahashi, Wataru; Yamasoba, Tatsuya

2016-04-01

We aimed to determine the effectiveness of induction chemotherapy for treating p16-positive oropharyngeal cancer in our department. This was a retrospective case series to assess treatment effectiveness. We administered induction chemotherapy to patients with stage III to IV oropharyngeal p16-positive squamous cell carcinoma between 2008 and 2013. Induction chemotherapy was administered using combinations of docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil. We measured the survival rates using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test. We reviewed 23 patients (18 men and 5 women; age, 42-79 years). Induction chemotherapy resulted in partial or complete remission (20 patients) and in stable (2 patients) or progressive (1 patient) disease. In partial or complete remission, subsequent radiotherapy was performed in 16 patients, chemoradiotherapy in two, and transoral resection in two. In stable or progressive disease, subsequent open surgery was performed. Overall, one patient died of cervical lymph node metastasis, one died of kidney cancer, and one died of myocardial infarction. Event-free, distant-metastasis-free survival was present for 20 patients. The 3-year disease-specific survival was 95%; the overall survival was 87%. Two patients required gastrostomies during chemoradiotherapy and three required tracheotomies, but these were closed in all patients. The therapeutic response to induction chemotherapy for p16-positive oropharyngeal cancer was good. Partial or complete remission was achieved in almost 90% patients, and control of local and distant metastases was possible when it was followed by radiotherapy alone or with transoral resection of the primary tumor. A multicenter study is required to confirm these findings. 4.

Exploration of SWRL Rule Bases through Visualization, Paraphrasing, and Categorization of Rules

Science.gov (United States)

Hassanpour, Saeed; O'Connor, Martin J.; Das, Amar K.

Rule bases are increasingly being used as repositories of knowledge content on the Semantic Web. As the size and complexity of these rule bases increases, developers and end users need methods of rule abstraction to facilitate rule management. In this paper, we describe a rule abstraction method for Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) rules that is based on lexical analysis and a set of heuristics. Our method results in a tree data structure that we exploit in creating techniques to visualize, paraphrase, and categorize SWRL rules. We evaluate our approach by applying it to several biomedical ontologies that contain SWRL rules, and show how the results reveal rule patterns within the rule base. We have implemented our method as a plug-in tool for Protégé-OWL, the most widely used ontology modeling software for the Semantic Web. Our tool can allow users to rapidly explore content and patterns in SWRL rule bases, enabling their acquisition and management.

Development of an analysis rule of diagnosis error for standard method of human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jeong, W. D.; Kang, D. I.; Jeong, K. S.

2003-01-01

This paper presents the status of development of Korea standard method for Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), and proposed a standard procedure and rules for the evaluation of diagnosis error probability. The quality of KSNP HRA was evaluated using the requirement of ASME PRA standard guideline, and the design requirement for the standard HRA method was defined. Analysis procedure and rules, developed so far, to analyze diagnosis error probability was suggested as a part of the standard method. And also a study of comprehensive application was performed to evaluate the suitability of the proposed rules

Impact of constraints and rules of user-involvement methods for IS concept creation and specification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Mika Yasuoka; Ohno, Takehiko; Nakatani, Momoko

2015-01-01

ideas. In this paper, by exemplifying our user-involvement method with game elements, ICT Service Design Game, in comparison with conventional brainstorming, we show the impact of constraints and rules in user-involvement methods when creating service concepts and specifications for information systems....... The analysis is based on a comparative experiment on two design methods and shows that the constraints and rules of our game approach fostered innovative idea generation in spite of participants’ limited knowledge of and experience with design processes. Although our analysis is still in a preliminary stage......, it indicates some positive impact of constraints and rules in design methods, especially when the methods are used by non-design professionals....

A logic for inductive probabilistic reasoning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jaeger, Manfred

2005-01-01

Inductive probabilistic reasoning is understood as the application of inference patterns that use statistical background information to assign (subjective) probabilities to single events. The simplest such inference pattern is direct inference: from '70% of As are Bs" and "a is an A" infer...... that a is a B with probability 0.7. Direct inference is generalized by Jeffrey's rule and the principle of cross-entropy minimization. To adequately formalize inductive probabilistic reasoning is an interesting topic for artificial intelligence, as an autonomous system acting in a complex environment may have...... to base its actions on a probabilistic model of its environment, and the probabilities needed to form this model can often be obtained by combining statistical background information with particular observations made, i.e., by inductive probabilistic reasoning. In this paper a formal framework...

Frequency Splitting Analysis and Compensation Method for Inductive Wireless Powering of Implantable Biosensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Schormans, Matthew; Valente, Virgilio; Demosthenous, Andreas

2016-08-04

Inductive powering for implanted medical devices, such as implantable biosensors, is a safe and effective technique that allows power to be delivered to implants wirelessly, avoiding the use of transcutaneous wires or implanted batteries. Wireless powering is very sensitive to a number of link parameters, including coil distance, alignment, shape, and load conditions. The optimum drive frequency of an inductive link varies depending on the coil spacing and load. This paper presents an optimum frequency tracking (OFT) method, in which an inductive power link is driven at a frequency that is maintained at an optimum value to ensure that the link is working at resonance, and the output voltage is maximised. The method is shown to provide significant improvements in maintained secondary voltage and system efficiency for a range of loads when the link is overcoupled. The OFT method does not require the use of variable capacitors or inductors. When tested at frequencies around a nominal frequency of 5 MHz, the OFT method provides up to a twofold efficiency improvement compared to a fixed frequency drive. The system can be readily interfaced with passive implants or implantable biosensors, and lends itself to interfacing with designs such as distributed implanted sensor networks, where each implant is operating at a different frequency.

Frequency Splitting Analysis and Compensation Method for Inductive Wireless Powering of Implantable Biosensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew Schormans

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Inductive powering for implanted medical devices, such as implantable biosensors, is a safe and effective technique that allows power to be delivered to implants wirelessly, avoiding the use of transcutaneous wires or implanted batteries. Wireless powering is very sensitive to a number of link parameters, including coil distance, alignment, shape, and load conditions. The optimum drive frequency of an inductive link varies depending on the coil spacing and load. This paper presents an optimum frequency tracking (OFT method, in which an inductive power link is driven at a frequency that is maintained at an optimum value to ensure that the link is working at resonance, and the output voltage is maximised. The method is shown to provide significant improvements in maintained secondary voltage and system efficiency for a range of loads when the link is overcoupled. The OFT method does not require the use of variable capacitors or inductors. When tested at frequencies around a nominal frequency of 5 MHz, the OFT method provides up to a twofold efficiency improvement compared to a fixed frequency drive. The system can be readily interfaced with passive implants or implantable biosensors, and lends itself to interfacing with designs such as distributed implanted sensor networks, where each implant is operating at a different frequency.

Does intravenous induction dosing among patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgical procedures follow current recommendations: a study of contemporary practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Akhtar, Shamsuddin; Liu, Jia; Heng, Joseph; Dai, Feng; Schonberger, Robert B; Burg, Matthew M

2016-09-01

It is recommended to correct intravenous induction doses by up to 50% for patients older than 65 years. The objectives were to determine (a) the degree to which anesthesia providers correct induction doses for age and (b) additionally adjust for American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status (ASA-PS) class (severity of illness) and (c) whether postinduction hypotension is more common among patients aged >65. Retrospective chart review. Academic medical center. A total of 1869 adult patients receiving general anesthesia for GI surgical procedures from February 2013 to January 2014. Patients were divided into 3 age groups (age 80, which was still in less than the recommendations. An inverse relationship was observed between propofol dosing and ASA-PS class, but no consistent relationship was noted for fentanyl and midazolam. There were a significantly larger drop in mean arterial pressure and a greater likelihood of hypotension following induction in patients aged 65-79 years and >80 years as compared with those aged <65 years. This study shows that the administered dose of anesthetic induction agents is significantly higher than that recommended for patients older than 65 years. This failure to age-adjust dose may contribute to hypotensive episodes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Activity in the fronto-parietal network indicates numerical inductive reasoning beyond calculation: An fMRI study combined with a cognitive model.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Peipeng; Jia, Xiuqin; Taatgen, Niels A; Borst, Jelmer P; Li, Kuncheng

2016-05-19

Numerical inductive reasoning refers to the process of identifying and extrapolating the rule involved in numeric materials. It is associated with calculation, and shares the common activation of the fronto-parietal regions with calculation, which suggests that numerical inductive reasoning may correspond to a general calculation process. However, compared with calculation, rule identification is critical and unique to reasoning. Previous studies have established the central role of the fronto-parietal network for relational integration during rule identification in numerical inductive reasoning. The current question of interest is whether numerical inductive reasoning exclusively corresponds to calculation or operates beyond calculation, and whether it is possible to distinguish between them based on the activity pattern in the fronto-parietal network. To directly address this issue, three types of problems were created: numerical inductive reasoning, calculation, and perceptual judgment. Our results showed that the fronto-parietal network was more active in numerical inductive reasoning which requires more exchanges between intermediate representations and long-term declarative knowledge during rule identification. These results survived even after controlling for the covariates of response time and error rate. A computational cognitive model was developed using the cognitive architecture ACT-R to account for the behavioral results and brain activity in the fronto-parietal network.

Resistivity measurements using a direct current induction method (1963)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Delaplace, J.; Hillairet, J.

1964-01-01

The conventional methods for measuring electrical resistivities necessitate the fixing of electrical contacts on the sample either mechanically or by soldering. Furthermore it is also necessary to carry,out the measurements on low cross-section samples which are not always easy to obtain. Our direct-current induction method on the other hand requires no contacts and can easily be applied to samples of large cross-section. The sample is placed in a uniform magnetic field; at the moment when the current is cut, eddy currents appear in the sample which tend to oppose the disappearance of the field. The way in which the magnetic flux decreases in the sample makes it possible to determine the resistivity of the material. This method has been applied to samples having diameters of between 1 and 30 mm in the case of metals which are good conductors. It gives a value for the local resistivity and makes it possible to detect any variation along a sample. The measurements can be carried out at all temperature from a few degrees absolute to 500 deg. C. We have used the induction method to follow the purification of beryllium by zone-melting; it is in effect possible to estimate the purity of a material by resistivity measurements. We have measured the resistivity along each bar treated by the zone-melting technique and have thus, localised the purest section. High temperature measurements have been carried out on uranium carbide and on iron-aluminium alloys. This method constitutes an interesting means of investigation the resistivity of solid materials. Its accuracy and rapidity make it particularly adapted both to fundamental research and to production control. (authors) [fr

A Decision Logic Approach to Mill’s Eliminative Induction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Piętka Dariusz

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The subject of the paper is a contemporary interpretation of J.S. Mill’s elimination method using selected concepts of Zdzisław Pawlak’s decision logic. The aim of the interpretation is to reformulate the original rules (canons of Mill’s induction so that they correspond more precisely to his concept of cause as a complex sufficient condition. In the first part of the paper, we turn to Mill’s writings and justify the thesis that in his understanding the cause is an aggregation of circumstances, and not a single circumstance; next, we point out that Mill’s original canons (for example the canon of agreement and the canon of difference do not allow causes-aggregations to be singled out from empirical data. In the second part of this paper, we present such aspects of Z. Pawlak’s decision logic that serve as the basis for the formalisation of the method of eliminative induction. We describe exhaustively the schema of induction that involves a gradual - divided into three stages - simplification of a set of implications corresponding to the observed dependencies [system of potential causes, effect]. The simplification is deductive because it maintains consistency within the set of implications. We show that such schema is ideal for isolating complex causes (aggregations of circumstances, ultimately described using complex conditional formulas of decision logic.

Applying cognitive developmental psychology to middle school physics learning: The rule assessment method

Science.gov (United States)

Hallinen, Nicole R.; Chi, Min; Chin, Doris B.; Prempeh, Joe; Blair, Kristen P.; Schwartz, Daniel L.

2013-01-01

Cognitive developmental psychology often describes children's growing qualitative understanding of the physical world. Physics educators may be able to use the relevant methods to advantage for characterizing changes in students' qualitative reasoning. Siegler developed the "rule assessment" method for characterizing levels of qualitative understanding for two factor situations (e.g., volume and mass for density). The method assigns children to rule levels that correspond to the degree they notice and coordinate the two factors. Here, we provide a brief tutorial plus a demonstration of how we have used this method to evaluate instructional outcomes with middle-school students who learned about torque, projectile motion, and collisions using different instructional methods with simulations.

Antibody induction versus corticosteroid induction for liver transplant recipients

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Penninga, Luit; Wettergren, André; Wilson, Colin H

2014-01-01

BACKGROUND: Liver transplantation is an established treatment option for end-stage liver failure. To date, no consensus has been reached on the use of immunosuppressive T-cell specific antibody induction compared with corticosteroid induction of immunosuppression after liver transplantation....... OBJECTIVES: To assess the benefits and harms of T-cell specific antibody induction versus corticosteroid induction for prevention of acute rejection in liver transplant recipients. SEARCH METHODS: We searched The Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group Controlled Trials Register, the Cochrane Central Register...... to identify additional trials. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included all randomised clinical trials assessing immunosuppression with T-cell specific antibody induction versus corticosteroid induction in liver transplant recipients. Our inclusion criteria stated that participants within each included trial should...

An Analog-Digital Mixed Measurement Method of Inductive Proximity Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yi-Xin Guo

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Inductive proximity sensors (IPSs are widely used in position detection given their unique advantages. To address the problem of temperature drift, this paper presents an analog-digital mixed measurement method based on the two-dimensional look-up table. The inductance and resistance components can be separated by processing the measurement data, thus reducing temperature drift and generating quantitative outputs. This study establishes and implements a two-dimensional look-up table that reduces the online computational complexity through structural modeling and by conducting an IPS operating principle analysis. This table is effectively compressed by considering the distribution characteristics of the sample data, thus simplifying the processing circuit. Moreover, power consumption is reduced. A real-time, built-in self-test (BIST function is also designed and achieved by analyzing abnormal sample data. Experiment results show that the proposed method obtains the advantages of both analog and digital measurements, which are stable, reliable, and taken in real time, without the use of floating-point arithmetic and process-control-based components. The quantitative output of displacement measurement accelerates and stabilizes the system control and detection process. The method is particularly suitable for meeting the high-performance requirements of the aviation and aerospace fields.

A Numerical Comparison of Rule Ensemble Methods and Support Vector Machines

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meza, Juan C.; Woods, Mark

2009-12-18

Machine or statistical learning is a growing field that encompasses many scientific problems including estimating parameters from data, identifying risk factors in health studies, image recognition, and finding clusters within datasets, to name just a few examples. Statistical learning can be described as 'learning from data' , with the goal of making a prediction of some outcome of interest. This prediction is usually made on the basis of a computer model that is built using data where the outcomes and a set of features have been previously matched. The computer model is called a learner, hence the name machine learning. In this paper, we present two such algorithms, a support vector machine method and a rule ensemble method. We compared their predictive power on three supernova type 1a data sets provided by the Nearby Supernova Factory and found that while both methods give accuracies of approximately 95%, the rule ensemble method gives much lower false negative rates.

Low Annexin A1 expression predicts benefit from induction chemotherapy in oral cancer patients with moderate or poor pathologic differentiation grade.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Dong-wang; Liu, Ying; Yang, Xiao; Yang, Cheng-zhe; Ma, Jie; Yang, Xi; Qiao, Jin-ke; Wang, Li-zhen; Li, Jiang; Zhang, Chen-ping; Zhang, Zhi-yuan; Zhong, Lai-ping

2013-06-21

The benefit of induction chemotherapy in locally advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains to be clearly defined. Induction chemotherapy is likely to be effective for biologically distinct subgroups of patients and biomarker development might lead to identification of the patients whose tumors are to respond to a particular treatment. Annexin A1 may serve as a biomarker for responsiveness to induction chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to investigate Annexin A1 expression in pre-treatment biopsies from a cohort of OSCC patients treated with surgery and post-operative radiotherapy or docetaxel, cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (TPF) induction chemotherapy followed by surgery and post-operative radiotherapy. Furthermore we sought to assess the utility of Annexin A1 as a prognostic or predictive biomarker. Immunohistochemical staining for Annexin A1 was performed in pre-treatment biopsies from 232 of 256 clinical stage III/IVA OSCC patients. Annexin A1 index was estimated as the proportion of tumor cells (low and high, benefited from TPF induction chemotherapy as measured by distant metastasis-free survival (P=0.048, HR=0.373) as well as overall survival (P=0.078, HR=0.410). Annexin A1 can be used as a prognostic biomarker for OSCC. Patients with moderate/poorly differentiated OSCC and low Annexin A1 expression can benefit from the addition of TPF induction chemotherapy to surgery and post-operative radiotherapy. Annexin A1 expression can potentially be used as a predictive biomarker to select OSCC patients with moderate/poorly differentiated tumor who may benefit from TPF induction chemotherapy.

Gaming the system. Dodging the rules, ruling the dodgers.

Science.gov (United States)

Morreim, E H

1991-03-01

Although traditional obligations of fidelity require physicians to deliver quality care to their patients, including to utilize costly technologies, physicians are steadily losing their accustomed control over the necessary resources. The "economic agents" who own the medical and monetary resources of care now impose a wide array of rules and restrictions in order to contain their costs of operation. However, physicians can still control resources indirectly through "gaming the system," employing tactics such as "fudging" that exploit resource rules' ambiguity and flexibility to bypass the rules while ostensibly honoring them. Physicians may be especially inclined to game the system where resource rules seriously underserve patients' needs, where economic agents seem to be "gaming the patient," with needless obstacles to care, or where others, such as hospitals or even physicians themselves, may be denied needed reimbursements. Though tempting, gaming is morally and medically hazardous. It can harm patients and society, offend honesty, and violate basic principles of contractual and distributive justice. It is also, in fact, usually unnecessary in securing needed resources for patients. More fundamentally, we must reconsider what physicians owe their patients. They owe what is theirs to give: their competence, care and loyalty. In light of medicine's changing economics, two new duties emerge: economic advising, whereby physicians explicitly discuss the economic as well as medical aspects of each treatment option; and economic advocacy, whereby physicians intercede actively on their patients' behalf with the economic agents who control the resources.

New method for solving inductive electric fields in the non-uniformly conducting ionosphere

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Vanhamäki

2006-10-01

Full Text Available We present a new calculation method for solving inductive electric fields in the ionosphere. The time series of the potential part of the ionospheric electric field, together with the Hall and Pedersen conductances serves as the input to this method. The output is the time series of the induced rotational part of the ionospheric electric field. The calculation method works in the time-domain and can be used with non-uniform, time-dependent conductances. In addition, no particular symmetry requirements are imposed on the input potential electric field. The presented method makes use of special non-local vector basis functions called the Cartesian Elementary Current Systems (CECS. This vector basis offers a convenient way of representing curl-free and divergence-free parts of 2-dimensional vector fields and makes it possible to solve the induction problem using simple linear algebra. The new calculation method is validated by comparing it with previously published results for Alfvén wave reflection from a uniformly conducting ionosphere.

New method for solving inductive electric fields in the non-uniformly conducting ionosphere

Science.gov (United States)

Vanhamäki, H.; Amm, O.; Viljanen, A.

2006-10-01

We present a new calculation method for solving inductive electric fields in the ionosphere. The time series of the potential part of the ionospheric electric field, together with the Hall and Pedersen conductances serves as the input to this method. The output is the time series of the induced rotational part of the ionospheric electric field. The calculation method works in the time-domain and can be used with non-uniform, time-dependent conductances. In addition, no particular symmetry requirements are imposed on the input potential electric field. The presented method makes use of special non-local vector basis functions called the Cartesian Elementary Current Systems (CECS). This vector basis offers a convenient way of representing curl-free and divergence-free parts of 2-dimensional vector fields and makes it possible to solve the induction problem using simple linear algebra. The new calculation method is validated by comparing it with previously published results for Alfvén wave reflection from a uniformly conducting ionosphere.

Induction immunosuppressive therapies in renal transplantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Gabardi, Steven; Martin, Spencer T; Roberts, Keri L; Grafals, Monica

2011-02-01

Induction immunosuppressive therapies for patients undergoing renal transplantation are reviewed. The goal of induction therapy is to prevent acute rejection during the early posttransplantation period by providing a high degree of immunosuppression at the time of transplantation. Induction therapy is often considered essential to optimize outcomes, particularly in patients at high risk for poor short-term outcomes. All of the induction immunosuppressive agents currently used are biological agents and are either monoclonal (muromonab-CD3, daclizumab, basiliximab, alemtuzumab) or polyclonal (antithymocyte globulin [equine] or antithymocyte globulin [rabbit]) antibodies. Although antithymocyte globulin (rabbit) is not labeled for induction therapy, it is used for this purpose more than any other agent. Basiliximab is not considered as potent an immunosuppressive agent but has a much more favorable adverse-effect profile compared with antithymocyte globulin (rabbit) and is most commonly used in patients at low risk for acute rejection. Rituximab is being studied for use as induction therapy but to date has not demonstrated any significant benefits over placebo. While head-to-head data are available comparing most induction agents, the final decision on the most appropriate induction therapy for a transplant recipient is highly dependent on preexisting medical conditions, donor characteristics, and the maintenance immunosuppressive regimen to be used. No standard induction immunosuppressive regimen exists for patients undergoing renal transplantation. Antithymocyte globulin (rabbit) is the most commonly used agent, whereas basiliximab appears safer. The choice of regimen depends on the preferences of clinicians and institutions.

The role of the DLPFC in inductive reasoning of MCI patients and normal agings: an fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, YanHui; Liang, PeiPeng; Lu, ShengFu; Li, KunCheng; Zhong, Ning

2009-08-01

Previous studies of young people have revealed that the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays an important role in inductive reasoning. An fMRI experiment was performed in this study to examine whether the left DLPFC was involved in inductive reasoning of MCI patients and normal aging, and whether the activation pattern of this region was different between MCI patients and normal aging. The fMRI results indicated that MCI patients had no difference from normal aging in behavior performance (reaction time and accuracy) and the activation pattern of DLPFC. However, the BOLD response of the DLPFC region for MCI patients was weaker than that for normal aging, and the functional connectivity between the bilateral DLPFC regions for MCI patients was significantly higher than for normal aging. Taken together, these results indicated that DLPFC plays an important role in inductive reasoning of aging, and the functional abnormity of DLPFC may be an earlier marker of MCI before structural alterations.

Decoding rule search domain in the left inferior frontal gyrus

Science.gov (United States)

Babcock, Laura; Vallesi, Antonino

2018-01-01

Traditionally, the left hemisphere has been thought to extract mainly verbal patterns of information, but recent evidence has shown that the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) is active during inductive reasoning in both the verbal and spatial domains. We aimed to understand whether the left IFG supports inductive reasoning in a domain-specific or domain-general fashion. To do this we used Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis to decode the representation of domain during a rule search task. Thirteen participants were asked to extract the rule underlying streams of letters presented in different spatial locations. Each rule was either verbal (letters forming words) or spatial (positions forming geometric figures). Our results show that domain was decodable in the left prefrontal cortex, suggesting that this region represents domain-specific information, rather than processes common to the two domains. A replication study with the same participants tested two years later confirmed these findings, though the individual representations changed, providing evidence for the flexible nature of representations. This study extends our knowledge on the neural basis of goal-directed behaviors and on how information relevant for rule extraction is flexibly mapped in the prefrontal cortex. PMID:29547623

Inductive acquisition of expert knowledge

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muggleton, S.H.

1986-01-01

Expert systems divide neatly into two categories: those in which (1) the expert decisions result in changes to some external environment (control systems), and (2) the expert decisions merely seek to describe the environment (classification systems). Both the explanation of computer-based reasoning and the bottleneck (Feigenbaum, 1979) of knowledge acquisition are major issues in expert-systems research. The author contributed to these areas of research in two ways: 1. He implemented an expert-system shell, the Mugol environment, which facilitates knowledge acquisition by inductive inference and provides automatic explanation of run-time reasoning on demand. RuleMaster, a commercial version of this environment, was used to advantage industrially in the construction and testing of two large classification systems. 2. He investigated a new techniques called 'sequence induction' that can be used in construction of control systems. Sequence induction is based on theoretical work in grammatical learning. He improved existing grammatical learning algorithms as well as suggesting and theoretically characterizing new ones. These algorithms were successfully applied to acquisition of knowledge for a diverse set of control systems, including inductive construction of robot plans and chess end-gam strategies.

The GMD Method for Inductance Calculation Applied to Conductors with Skin Effect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. A. Aebischer

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The GMD method (geometric mean distance to calculate inductance offers undoubted advantages over other methods. But so far it seemed to be limited to the case where the current is uniformly distributed over the cross section of the conductor, i.e. to DC (direct current. In this paper, the definition of the GMD is extended to include cases of nonuniform distribution observed at higher frequencies as the result of skin effect. An exact relation between the GMD and the internal inductance per unit length for infinitely long conductors of circularly symmetric cross section is derived. It enables much simpler derivations of Maxwell’s analytical expressions for the GMD of circular and annular disks than were known before. Its salient application, however, is the derivation of exact expressions for the GMD of infinitely long round wires and tubular conductors with skin effect. These expressions are then used to verify the consistency of the extended definition of the GMD. Further, approximate formulae for the GMD of round wires with skin effect based on elementary functions are discussed. Total inductances calculated with the help of the derived formulae for the GMD with and without skin effect are compared to measurement results from the literature. For conductors of square cross section, an analytical approximation for the GMD with skin effect based on elementary functions is presented. It is shown that it allows to calculate the total inductance of such conductors for frequencies from DC up to 25 GHz to a precision of better than 1 %.

Induction of anti-tumor immunity by trifunctional antibodies in patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lindhofer Horst

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC from epithelial tumors is a fatal diagnosis without efficient treatment. Trifunctional antibodies (trAb are novel therapeutic approaches leading to a concerted anti-tumor activity resulting in tumor cell destruction. In addition, preclinical data in mouse tumor models demonstrated the induction of long lasting tumor immunity after treatment with trAb. We describe the induction of anti-tumor specific T-lymphocytes after intraperitoneal administration of trAb in patients with PC. 9 patients with progressive PC from gastric (n = 6 and ovarian cancer (n = 2, and cancer of unknown primary (n = 1 received 3 escalating doses of trAb after surgery and/or ineffective chemotherapy. The trAb EpCAM × CD3 (10, 20, 40 μg or HER2/neu × CD3 (10, 40, 80 μg were applicated by intraperitoneal infusion. Four weeks after the last trAb application, all patients were restimulated by subdermal injection of trAb + autologous PBMC + irradiated autologous tumor cells. Immunological reactivity was tested by analyzing PBMC for specific tumor reactive CD4+/CD8+ T lymphocytes using an IFN-γ secretion assay. In 5 of 9 patients, tumor reactive CD4+/CD8+ T-lymphocytes increased significantly, indicating specific anti-tumor immunity. A clinical response (stable disease, partial regression has been observed in 5 of 9 patients, with a mean time to progression of 3.6 months. Follow-up showed a mean survival of 11.8 months (median 8.0 months after trAb therapy. TrAb are able to induce anti-tumor immunity after intraperitoneal application and restimulation. The induction of long-lasting anti-tumor immunity may provide an additional benefit of the intraperitoneal therapy with trAb and should be further elevated in larger clinical trials.

Engineering method of calculation and choice of main parameters of the linear induction accelerator inductors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

В.Т. Чемерис

2006-04-01

Full Text Available  There is a method of simplified calculation and design parameters choice elaborated in this article with corresponding basing for the induction system of electron-beam sterilizer on the base of linear induction accelerator taking into account the parameters of magnetic material for production of cores and parameters of pulsed voltage.

CYP39A1 polymorphism is associated with toxicity during intensive induction chemotherapy in patients with advanced head and neck cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Melchardt, Thomas; Hufnagl, Clemens; Magnes, Teresa; Weiss, Lukas; Hutarew, Georg; Neureiter, Daniel; Schlattau, Alexander; Moser, Gerhard; Gaggl, Alexander; Tränkenschuh, Wolfgang; Greil, Richard; Egle, Alexander

2015-01-01

Induction chemotherapy incorporating docetaxel, cisplatin and 5- fluorouracil before radiotherapy may improve the outcome of patients with advanced head and neck cancer. Nevertheless, the addition of docetaxel increases hematological toxicity and infectious complications. Therefore, genetic markers predicting toxicity and efficacy of this treatment regimen may help to identify patients, who would have the most benefit from this intensive treatment. A cohort of 78 patients with advanced head and neck cancer treated with induction chemotherapy was assessed for clinical outcome and toxicity during treatment with curative intention. Genetic polymorphisms primary associated with treatment efficacy (ERCC2-rs13181, rs1799793, ERCC1-rs3212986, rs11615, XRCC1-rs25487) or with docetaxel caused toxicity (CYP39A1-rs7761731, SLCO1B3-rs11045585) were evaluated in all patients. The results of these analyses were correlated with the clinical outcome of the patients (loco regional control, progression free survival, overall survival) and treatment related toxicity during induction chemotherapy. Median progression free survival and overall survival was 20 and 31 months in an intention to treat analysis, respectively. Overall response rate to induction chemotherapy was high with 78.1 % of all patients. None of the polymorphisms tested was associated with the clinical outcome of the patients. Genotype A of the CYP39A1 rs7761731 polymorphism was associated with a higher incidence of leucopenia and infections or death during induction chemotherapy. Intensive induction chemotherapy results in a high response rate in the majority of patients. None of the polymorphisms tested was associated with the clinical outcome of the patients. The CYP39A1 polymorphism rs7761731 may help to identify patients at high risk for treatment related toxicity

Evaluation of left ventricular volume by MRI using modified Simpson's rule method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Okamura, Masahiro; Kondo, Takeshi; Anno, Naoko

1990-01-01

The conventional contrast left ventriculogrpahy (LVG) has been the gold standard for estimating left ventricular volume (LVV), but it is an invasive technique, and volume overload must be caused by contrast medium. the true left ventricular (LV) long axis may not be obtained by LVG in routine right anterior oblique (RAO) projection. MRI, on the other hand, is noninvasive, does not require contrast medium, and permits to obtain the true LV long axis sections. Thus, MRI seems the ideal technique for estimating LVV. To estimate LVV, we have developed the on-line programs for calculating LVV by single-plane (SMS) or biplane modified Simpson's rule method (BMS), and have applied these programs to the water in the bottle with the elliptic short axis plane, normal volunteer and patients with various heart diseases. In the water phantom, the water volume calculated by the BMS was more accurate than the SMS. In nine normal volunteers, multiple LV short axis sections in each end-systole and end-diastole were obtained by ECG-gated spin echo MRI, LVV as standard was calculated by true Simpson's rule method (TS) on these images. Then both vertical and horizontal LV long axis sections were also obtained by ECG-gated field echo (FE) rephasing cine MRI, LVV was calculated by the BMS or SMS on these images. The BMS or SMS significantly correlated (r=0.974, r=0.927, 0.947) with TS for estimating LVV, respectively. In 20 patients with various heart diseases, both vertical and horizontal LV long axis sections were obtained by FE cine MRI. LVV (r=0.907 and r=0.901) and EF (r=0.822 and r=0.938) calculated by the SMS on the vertical or horizontal LV long axis sections significantly correlated with the conventional RAO-LVG, respectively. In conclusion, the MRI using our on-line programs would be clinically useful for estimating LVV and EF. (author)

Nitrous Oxide Effects the Uptake of Sevoflurane to the Body During Induction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kamil Varlık Erel

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Objective: To determine the effects of nitrous oxide (N2O on the speed and quality of the uptake process of sevoflurane during inhalation induction in adult patients. Materials­ and­ Methods: For randomized controlled study, eighty-four American Society of Anesthesiologists I-II patients undergoing gynecological interventions were randomly assigned to receive an 8% sevoflurane mixture with either 67% N2O plus 33% oxygen [Group sevoflurane and nitrous oxide (SA] or 100% oxygen only [Group sevoflurane (S]. Both groups were induced by a single-breath induction. End-tidal and inspiratory concentrations of respiratory and anesthetic gasses were continuously assessed during induction as well as time to loss of eyelash reflex, time to cessation of eye movements, and time to initiation of spontaneous breaths. Patients were intubated by the 5th minute of induction and their vital signs, bispectral indexes, reflex responses to intubation and additional drug requirements for intubation were also recorded. Results: End-tidal sevoflurane concentrations and the ratio of alveolar to inspiratory sevoflurane concentrations (FA/Fi of patients in group SA recorded at the 2nd, the third and the 5th minute of induction showed statistically significant increases when compared with patients in group S. Time to loss of eyelash reflex and time to cessation of eye movements were found to be decreased in group SA by 25 and 13%, respectively. Patients who presented with a reflex response to intubation in group S exceeded patients in group SA by 38.8% and patients who required additional medication for intubation in group S exceeded patients in group SA by 28.6%. Conclusion: The findings of this study support the view that administration of N2O improves the rate and quality of mask induction with sevoflurane. The benefits provided by N2O attributable to the concentrating and second gas effects appear during the first few minutes of induction (2nd, 3rd, and 4th minutes as

Mixed arrays - problems with current methods and rules

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mennerdahl, D.

1987-01-01

Simplified methods are used to control the criticality safety of mixed arrays (non-identical units) in storage or in transport. The basis for these methods is that the analyses of arrays of identical units are sufficient for drawing proper conclusions on mixed arrays. In a recent study of the rules for transport, two general flaws in such methods have been identified. One flaw is caused by increased neutron return rate to the central part of the array. The other flaw is caused by increased neutron coupling between two or more fissile units in an array. In both cases, replacement of fissile units with other units, which appear to be less reactive, can lead to criticality. This paper shows that the two flaws are common in also in current methods used for storage of fissile materials. (author)

Effect of different methods of pulse width modulation on power losses in an induction motor

Science.gov (United States)

Gulyaev, Alexander; Fokin, Dmitrii; Shuharev, Sergey; Ten, Evgenii

2017-10-01

We consider the calculation of modulation power losses in a system “induction motor-inverter” for various pulse width modulation (PWM) methods of the supply voltage. Presented values of modulation power losses are the result of modeling a system “DC link - two-level three-phase voltage inverter - induction motor - load”. In this study the power losses in a system “induction motor - inverter” are computed, as well as losses caused by higher harmonics of PWM supply voltage, followed by definition of active power consumed by the DC link for a specified value mechanical power on the induction motor shaft. Mechanical power was determined by the rotation speed and the torque on the motor shaft in various quasi-sinusoidal supply voltage PWM modes. These calculations reveal the best coefficient of performance (COP) in a system of a variable frequency drive (VFD) with independent voltage inverter controlled by induction motor PWM.

A Novel Classification Method for Syndrome Differentiation of Patients with AIDS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yufeng Zhao

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We consider the analysis of an AIDS dataset where each patient is characterized by a list of symptoms and is labeled with one or more TCM syndromes. The task is to build a classifier that maps symptoms to TCM syndromes. We use the minimum reference set-based multiple instance learning (MRS-MIL method. The method identifies a list of representative symptoms for each syndrome and builds a Gaussian mixture model based on them. The models for all syndromes are then used for classification via Bayes rule. By relying on a subset of key symptoms for classification, MRS-MIL can produce reliable and high quality classification rules even on datasets with small sample size. On the AIDS dataset, it achieves average precision and recall 0.7736 and 0.7111, respectively. Those are superior to results achieved by alternative methods.

A High-Performance Control Method of Constant V/f-Controlled Induction Motor Drives for Electric Vehicles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Long Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available A three-phase induction motor used as a propulsion system for the electric vehicle (EV is a nonlinear, multi-input multi-output, and strong coupling system. For such a complicated model system with unmeasured and unavoidable disturbances, as well as parameter variations, the conventional vector control method cannot meet the demands of high-performance control. Therefore, a novel control strategy named least squares support vector machines (LSSVM inverse control is presented in the paper. Invertibility of the induction motor in the constant V/f control mode is proved to confirm its feasibility. The LSSVM inverse is composed of an LSSVM approximating the nonlinear mapping of the induction motor and two integrators. The inverse model of the constant V/f-controlled induction motor drive is obtained by using LSSVM, and then the optimal parameters of LSSVM are determined automatically by applying a modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO. Cascading the LSSVM inverse with the induction motor drive system, the pseudolinear system can be obtained. Thus, it is easy to design the closed-loop linear regulator. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Modeling of Self-Excited Isolated Permanent Magnet Induction Generator Using Iterative Numerical Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohamed Mostafa R.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Self-Excited Permanent Magnet Induction Generator (PMIG is commonly used in wind energy generation systems. The difficulty of Self-Excited Permanent Magnet Induction Generator (SEPMIG modeling is the circuit parameters of the generator vary at each load conditions due to the a change in the frequency and stator voltage. The paper introduces a new modeling for SEPMIG using Gauss-sidle relaxation method. The SEPMIG characteristics using the proposed method are studied at different load conditions according to the wind speed variation, load impedance changes and different shunted capacitor values. The system modeling is investigated due to the magnetizing current variation, the efficiency variation, the power variation and power factor variation. The proposed modeling system satisfies high degree of simplicity and accuracy.

The induction of ovulation by pulsatile administration of GnRH: an appropriate method in hypothalamic amenorrhea.

Science.gov (United States)

Christou, Fotini; Pitteloud, Nelly; Gomez, Fulgencio

2017-08-01

The induction of ovulation by the means of a pump which assures the pulsatile administration of GnRH is a well-known method that applies to women suffering from amenorrhea of hypothalamic origin. Although a simple and efficient method to establish fertility, it is underused. Twelve patients suffering from this condition, 1 Kallmann syndrome, 4 normosmic isolated hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, and 7 functional hypothalamic amenorrhea desiring pregnancy were treated. They underwent one or more cycles of pulsatile GnRH, at a frequency of 90 minutes, either by the intravenous or the subcutaneous route. An initial dose of 5 μg per pulse in the intravenous route was administered and of 15 μg per pulse in the subcutaneous route. The treatment was monitored by regular dosing of gonadotropins, estradiol and progesterone, and the development of follicles and ovulation was monitored by intra-vaginal ultrasonography. All the patients had documented ovulation, after a mean of 17 days on pump stimulation. Single ovulation occurred in 30 of 33 treatment cycles, irrespective of the route of administration. Ovulation resulted in 10 pregnancies over 7 patients (2 pregnancies in 3 of them), distributed in the 3 diagnostic categories. For comparison, a patient with PCOS treated similarly, disclosed premature LH surge without ovulation.

The interaction of process and domain in prefrontal cortex during inductive reasoning.

Science.gov (United States)

Babcock, Laura; Vallesi, Antonino

2015-01-01

Inductive reasoning is an everyday process that allows us to make sense of the world by creating rules from a series of instances. Consistent with accounts of process-based fractionations of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) along the left-right axis, inductive reasoning has been reliably localized to left PFC. However, these results may be confounded by the task domain, which is typically verbal. Indeed, some studies show that right PFC activation is seen with spatial tasks. This study used fMRI to examine the effects of process and domain on the brain regions recruited during a novel pattern discovery task. Twenty healthy young adult participants were asked to discover the rule underlying the presentation of a series of letters in varied spatial locations. The rules were either verbal (pertaining to a single semantic category) or spatial (geometric figures). Bilateral ventrolateral PFC activations were seen for the spatial domain, while the verbal domain showed only left ventrolateral PFC. A conjunction analysis revealed that the two domains recruited a common region of left ventrolateral PFC. The data support a central role of left PFC in inductive reasoning. Importantly, they also suggest that both process and domain shape the localization of reasoning in the brain. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A noninvasive method for coronary artery diseases diagnosis using a clinically-interpretable fuzzy rule-based system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hamid Reza Marateb

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Coronary heart diseases/coronary artery diseases (CHDs/CAD, the most common form of cardiovascular disease (CVD, are a major cause for death and disability in developing/developed countries. CAD risk factors could be detected by physicians to prevent the CAD occurrence in the near future. Invasive coronary angiography, a current diagnosis method, is costly and associated with morbidity and mortality in CAD patients. The aim of this study was to design a computer-based noninvasive CAD diagnosis system with clinically interpretable rules. Materials and Methods: In this study, the Cleveland CAD dataset from the University of California UCI (Irvine was used. The interval-scale variables were discretized, with cut points taken from the literature. A fuzzy rule-based system was then formulated based on a neuro-fuzzy classifier (NFC whose learning procedure was speeded up by the scaled conjugate gradient algorithm. Two feature selection (FS methods, multiple logistic regression (MLR and sequential FS, were used to reduce the required attributes. The performance of the NFC (without/with FS was then assessed in a hold-out validation framework. Further cross-validation was performed on the best classifier. Results: In this dataset, 16 complete attributes along with the binary CHD diagnosis (gold standard for 272 subjects (68% male were analyzed. MLR + NFC showed the best performance. Its overall sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, type I error (α and statistical power were 79%, 89%, 84%, 0.1 and 79%, respectively. The selected features were "age and ST/heart rate slope categories," "exercise-induced angina status," fluoroscopy, and thallium-201 stress scintigraphy results. Conclusion: The proposed method showed "substantial agreement" with the gold standard. This algorithm is thus, a promising tool for screening CAD patients.

On the consistency of Koomen's fair abstraction rule

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bergstra, J.A.; Baeten, J.C.M.; Klop, J.W.

1987-01-01

We construct a graph model for ACP,, the algebra of communicating processes w%h silent steps, in which Koomen’s Fair Abstraction Rule (KFAR) holds, and also versions of the Approximation Induction Principle (AIP) and the Recursive Definition & Specification Principles (RDP&RSP). We use this model

Rough set and rule-based multicriteria decision aiding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roman Slowinski

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The aim of multicriteria decision aiding is to give the decision maker a recommendation concerning a set of objects evaluated from multiple points of view called criteria. Since a rational decision maker acts with respect to his/her value system, in order to recommend the most-preferred decision, one must identify decision maker's preferences. In this paper, we focus on preference discovery from data concerning some past decisions of the decision maker. We consider the preference model in the form of a set of "if..., then..." decision rules discovered from the data by inductive learning. To structure the data prior to induction of rules, we use the Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA. DRSA is a methodology for reasoning about data, which handles ordinal evaluations of objects on considered criteria and monotonic relationships between these evaluations and the decision. We review applications of DRSA to a large variety of multicriteria decision problems.

Tofacitinib induction and maintenance therapy in East Asian patients with active ulcerative colitis: subgroup analyses from three phase 3 multinational studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Motoya, Satoshi; Watanabe, Mamoru; Kim, Hyo Jong; Kim, Young Ho; Han, Dong Soo; Yuasa, Hirotoshi; Tabira, Junichi; Isogawa, Naoki; Arai, Shoko; Kawaguchi, Isao; Hibi, Toshifumi

2018-04-01

Tofacitinib is an oral, small-molecule Janus kinase inhibitor being investigated for ulcerative colitis (UC). In OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2, patients with moderately to severely active UC received placebo or tofacitinib 10 mg twice daily (BID) for 8 weeks. Clinical responders in OCTAVE Induction were re-randomized to 52 weeks' therapy with placebo, tofacitinib 5 mg BID, or tofacitinib 10 mg BID. We conducted post-hoc efficacy and safety analyses of East Asian patients in OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2 and OCTAVE Sustain. A total of 121 East Asian (Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) patients were randomized in OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2 (placebo, n=26; tofacitinib 10 mg BID, n=95), and 63 in OCTAVE Sustain (placebo, n=20; tofacitinib 5 mg BID, n=22; tofacitinib 10 mg BID, n=21). At week 8 of OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2, 18.9% of patients (18/95) achieved remission with tofacitinib 10 mg BID versus 3.8% (1/26) with placebo. In OCTAVE Sustain, the week 52 remission rates were 45.5% (10/22), 47.6% (10/21), and 15.0% (3/20) with 5 mg BID, 10 mg BID, and placebo, respectively. Adverse event rates were similar between groups in OCTAVE Induction and numerically higher with tofacitinib in OCTAVE Sustain. Serious adverse event rates were similar across groups in all studies. Infections were numerically more frequent with tofacitinib than placebo. Increases in serum lipid levels were observed with tofacitinib. In East Asian patients with UC, tofacitinib demonstrated numerically greater efficacy versus placebo as induction and maintenance therapy, with a safety profile consistent with the global study population. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01465763; NCT01458951; NCT01458574.

The diversity effect of inductive reasoning under segment manipulation of complex cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Antao; Li, Hong; Feng, Tingyong; Gao, Xuemei; Zhang, Zhongming; Li, Fuhong; Yang, Dong

2005-12-01

The present study proposed the idea of segment manipulation of complex cognition (SMCC), and technically made it possible the quantitative treatment and systematical manipulation on the premise diversity. The segment manipulation of complex cognition divides the previous inductive strengths judgment task into three distinct steps, attempting to particularly distinguish the psychological processes and their rules. The results in Experiment 1 showed that compared with the traditional method, the quantitative treatment and systematical manipulation of SMCC on the diversity did not change the task's nature, and remain rational and a good measurement of inductive strength judgment. The results in Experiment 2 showed that the participants' response rules in the triple-step task were expected from our proposal, and that in Step 2 the "feeling of surprise" (FOS), which seems implausible but predicted from the diversity premises, was measured, and its component might be the critical part that produced the diversity effect. The "feeling of surprise" may reflect the impact of emotion on cognition, representing a strong revision to premise probability principle of pure rational hypothesis proposed by Lo et al., and its roles in the diversity effect are worthy of further research. In this regards were discussed the mistakes that the premise probability principle makes when it takes posterity probability as prior probability.

Robust position control of induction motor using fuzzy logic control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Sei Chan; Kim, Duk Hun; Yang, Seung Ho; Won, Chung Yuen

1993-01-01

In recent years, fuzzy logic or fuzzy set theory has reveived attention of a number of researchers in the area of power electronics and motion control. The paper describes a vector-controlled induction motor position servo drive where fuzzy control is used to get robustness against parameter variation and load torque disturbance effects. Both coarse and fine control with the help of look-up rule tables are used to improve transient response and system settling time. The performance characteristics are then compared with those of proportional-integral(PI) control. The simulation results clearly indicate the superiority of fuzzy control with larger number of rules. The fuzzy controller was implemented with a 16-bit microprocessor and tested in laboratory on a 3-hp IGBT inverter induction motor drive system. The test results verify the simulation performance. (Author)

Haemodynamic stability during anaesthesia induction with propofol – impact of phenylephrine. A double-blind, randomised clinical trial.

OpenAIRE

KAMENIK, MIRT; KOS, DARJAN; MÖLLER PETRUN, Andreja; GREEN, DAVID W; ZORKO, NUŠKA; MEKIŠ, DUŠAN

2018-01-01

Background. We studied the efects of a parallel phenylephrine infusion during bispectral index guided anaesthesia induction with propofol on haemodynamic parameters. We hypothesised that mean arterial pressure and cardiac index would be better maintained in the group of patients receiving the phenylephrine infusion during induction. Methods. We studied ASA I-III patients scheduled for oncological abdominal surgery. Forty patients randomly received either a ...

Targeted training of the decision rule benefits rule-guided behavior in Parkinson's disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Ell, Shawn W

2013-12-01

The impact of Parkinson's disease (PD) on rule-guided behavior has received considerable attention in cognitive neuroscience. The majority of research has used PD as a model of dysfunction in frontostriatal networks, but very few attempts have been made to investigate the possibility of adapting common experimental techniques in an effort to identify the conditions that are most likely to facilitate successful performance. The present study investigated a targeted training paradigm designed to facilitate rule learning and application using rule-based categorization as a model task. Participants received targeted training in which there was no selective-attention demand (i.e., stimuli varied along a single, relevant dimension) or nontargeted training in which there was selective-attention demand (i.e., stimuli varied along a relevant dimension as well as an irrelevant dimension). Following training, all participants were tested on a rule-based task with selective-attention demand. During the test phase, PD patients who received targeted training performed similarly to control participants and outperformed patients who did not receive targeted training. As a preliminary test of the generalizability of the benefit of targeted training, a subset of the PD patients were tested on the Wisconsin card sorting task (WCST). PD patients who received targeted training outperformed PD patients who did not receive targeted training on several WCST performance measures. These data further characterize the contribution of frontostriatal circuitry to rule-guided behavior. Importantly, these data also suggest that PD patient impairment, on selective-attention-demanding tasks of rule-guided behavior, is not inevitable and highlight the potential benefit of targeted training.

Effect of etomidate and propofol induction on hemodynamic and endocrine response in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting/mitral valve and aortic valve replacement surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ram Prasad Kaushal

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The concerns for induction of anaesthesia in patients undergoing cardiac surgery include hemodynamic stability, attenuation of stress response and maintenance of balance between myocardial oxygen demand and supply. Various Intravenous anaesthetic agents like Thiopentone, Etomidate, Propofol, Midazolam, and Ketamine have been used for anesthetizing patients for cardiac surgeries. However, many authors have expressed concerns regarding induction with thiopentone, midazolam and ketamine. Hence, Propofol and Etomidate are preferred for induction in these patients. However, these two drugs have different characteristics. Etomidate is preferred for patients with poor left ventricular (LV function as it provides stable cardiovascular profile. But there are concerns about reduction in adrenal suppression and serum cortisol levels. Propofol, on the other hand may cause a reduction in systemic vascular resistance and subsequent hypotension. Thus, this study was conducted to compare induction with these two agents in cardiac surgeries. Methods: Baseline categorical and continuous variables were compared using Fisher′s exact test and student′s t test respectively. Hemodynamic variables were compared using student′s t test for independent samples. The primary outcome (serum cortisol and blood sugar of the study was compared using Wilcoxon Rank Sum test. The P value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Etomidate provides more stable hemodynamic parameters as compared to Propofol. Propofol causes vasodilation and may result in drop of systematic BP. Etomidate can therefore be safely used for induction in patients with good LV function for CABG/MVR/AVR on CPB without serious cortisol suppression lasting more than twenty-four hours.

Patient-Perceived Pressure from Clinicians for Labor Induction and Cesarean Delivery: A Population-Based Survey of U.S. Women

Science.gov (United States)

Jou, Judy; Kozhimannil, Katy B; Johnson, Pamela Jo; Sakala, Carol

2015-01-01

Objective To determine whether patient-perceived pressure from clinicians for labor induction or cesarean delivery is significantly associated with having these procedures. Data Sources/Study Setting Listening to Mothers III, a nationally representative survey of women 18–45 years who delivered a singleton infant in a U.S. hospital July 2011–June 2012 (N = 2,400). Study Design Multivariate logistic regression analysis of factors associated with perceived pressure and estimation of odds of induction and cesarean given perceived pressure. Principal Findings Overall, 14.8 percent of respondents perceived pressure from a clinician for labor induction and 13.3 percent for cesarean delivery. Women who perceived pressure for labor induction had higher odds of induction overall (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 3.51; 95 percent confidence interval [CI]: 2.5–5.0) and without medical reason (aOR: 2.13; 95 percent CI: 1.3–3.4) compared with women who did not perceive pressure. Those perceiving pressure for cesarean delivery had higher odds of cesarean overall (aOR: 5.17; 95 percent CI: 3.2–8.4), without medical reason (aOR: 6.13; 95 percent CI: 3.4–11.1), and unplanned cesarean (aOR: 6.70; 95 percent CI: 4.0–11.3). Conclusions Patient-perceived pressure from clinicians significantly predicts labor induction and cesarean delivery. Efforts to reduce provider–patient miscommunication and minimize potentially unnecessary procedures may be warranted. PMID:25250981

Calendar methods of fertility regulation: a rule of thumb.

Science.gov (United States)

Colombo, B; Scarpa, B

1996-01-01

"[Many] illiterate women, particularly in the third world, find [it] difficult to apply usual calendar methods for the regulation of fertility. Some of them are even unable to make simple subtractions. In this paper we are therefore trying to evaluate the applicability and the efficiency of an extremely simple rule which entails only [the ability to count] a number of days, and always the same way." (SUMMARY IN ITA) excerpt

Induction regimens for transplant-eligible patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma: a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zeng ZH

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Zi-Hang Zeng,1,2 Jia-Feng Chen,1,2 Yi-Xuan Li,1,2 Ran Zhang,1,2 Ling-Fei Xiao,1,2 Xiang-Yu Meng1,2 1Center for Evidence-Based and Translational Medicine, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, 2Department of Evidence-Based Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Second Clinical College of Wuhan University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the early efficacy and survivals of induction regimens for transplant-eligible patients with untreated multiple myeloma. Materials and methods: A comprehensive literature search in electronic databases was conducted for relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs. Eligible studies were selected according to the predefined selection criteria, before they were evaluated for methodological quality. Basic characteristics and data for network meta-analysis (NMA were extracted from included trials and pooled in our meta-analysis. The end points were the overall response rate (ORR, progression-free survival (PFS, and overall survival (OS. Results: A total of 14 RCTs that included 4,763 patients were analyzed. The post-induction ORR was higher with bortezomib plus thalidomide plus dexamethasone (VTD regimens, and VTD was better than the majority of other regimens. For OS, VTD plus cyclophosphamide (VTDC regimens showed potential superiority over other regimens, but the difference was not statistically significant. The PFS was longer with thalidomide plus doxorubicin plus dexamethasone (TAD regimens for transplant-eligible patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM. Conclusion: The NMA demonstrated that the VTD, VTDC, and TAD regimens are most beneficial in terms of ORR, OS, and PFS for transplant-eligible patients with NDMM, respectively. Keywords: multiple myeloma, newly diagnosed, transplant-eligible, induction therapies, network meta-analysis

Re-Evaluation of Acid-Base Prediction Rules in Patients with Chronic Respiratory Acidosis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tereza Martinu

2003-01-01

Full Text Available RATIONALE: The prediction rules for the evaluation of the acid-base status in patients with chronic respiratory acidosis, derived primarily from an experimental canine model, suggest that complete compensation should not occur. This appears to contradict frequent observations of normal or near-normal pH levels in patients with chronic hypercapnia.

A Method for Solving the Voltage and Torque Equations of the Split-Phase Induction Machines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. A. Olarinoye

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Single phase induction machines have been the subject of many researches in recent times. The voltage and torque equations which describe the dynamic characteristics of these machines have been quoted in many papers, including the papers that present the simulation results of these model equations. The way and manner in which these equations are solved is not common in literature. This paper presents a detailed procedure of how these equations are to be solved with respect to the splitphase induction machine which is one of the different types of the single phase induction machines available in the market. In addition, these equations have been used to simulate the start-up response of the split phase induction motor on no-load. The free acceleration characteristics of the motor voltages, currents and electromagnetic torque have been plotted and discussed. The simulation results presented include the instantaneous torque-speed characteristics of the Split phase Induction machine. A block diagram of the method for the solution of the machine equations has also been presented.

Proof of Kochen–Specker Theorem: Conversion of Product Rule to Sum Rule

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Toh, S.P.; Zainuddin, Hishamuddin

2009-01-01

Valuation functions of observables in quantum mechanics are often expected to obey two constraints called the sum rule and product rule. However, the Kochen–Specker (KS) theorem shows that for a Hilbert space of quantum mechanics of dimension d ≤ 3, these constraints contradict individually with the assumption of value definiteness. The two rules are not irrelated and Peres [Found. Phys. 26 (1996) 807] has conceived a method of converting the product rule into a sum rule for the case of two qubits. Here we apply this method to a proof provided by Mermin based on the product rule for a three-qubit system involving nine operators. We provide the conversion of this proof to one based on sum rule involving ten operators. (general)

Evaluation of inductive heating energy of sub-size improved DPC-C conductor by calorimetric method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ito, Toshinobu; Koizumi, Norikiyo; Wakabayashi, Hiroshi; Miura, Yuushi; Fujisaki, Hiroshi; Matsui, Kunihiro; Takahashi, Yoshikazu; Tsuji, Hiroshi

1996-08-01

The improved DPC-U conductor consisting of 648 chrome plated NbTi strands was fabricated and its stability has been investigated using 1/24 sub-size conductor. In the stability experiment, the inductive heating method was applied to originate initial normal zone. Since it is difficult to calculate the inductive heating energy deposited on the conductor because of complicate geometry of the twisted multi-strand cable, inductive heating energy had to be experimentally evaluated using calorimetric method. The heating energy is in proportion to integration of square of an applied sinusoidal wave pulsed current over the heating period. The experimental result shows the proportional constants for the conductor and conduit are 2.062 x 10 -3 [J/A 2 s] and 0.771 x 10 -3 [J/A 2 s], respectively. The coupling between the eddy currents in the strands and conduit might take effect on the heating energy put in the strands. It was shown this effect was however small in this experiment. Consequently, the inductive heating energy applied in the strands was estimated to be the proportional constant of 1.291 x 10 -3 [J/A 2 s] from the difference of the heat energies in the conductor and conduit. (author)

Addition of gemtuzumab ozogamicin to induction chemotherapy improves survival in older patients with acute myeloid leukemia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Burnett, Alan K; Russell, Nigel H; Hills, Robert K

2012-01-01

PURPOSE There has been little survival improvement in older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in the last two decades. Improving induction treatment may improve the rate and quality of remission and consequently survival. In our previous trial, in younger patients, we showed improved...

N-end rule pathway inhibition assists colon tumor regression via necroptosis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pritha Agarwalla

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Recent study has shown that N-end rule pathway, an ubiquitin dependent proteolytic system, counteracts cell death by degrading many antisurvival protein fragments like BCLxL, BRCA1, RIPK1, etc. Inhibition of the N-end rule pathway can lead to metabolic stabilization of proapoptotic protein fragments like RIPK1, thereby sensitizing cells to programmed cell death. Receptor interacting serine-threonine protein kinase-1 (RIPK1 is one of the upstream regulators of programmed necrosis known as necroptosis. Necroptosis is particularly gaining attention of cancer biologists as it provides an alternate therapeutic modality to kill cancer cells, which often evolve multiple strategies to circumvent growth inhibition by apoptosis. Utilizing the over expression of biotin receptor in cancer cells, herein, we report that coadministration of synthetic hetero-bivalent N-end rule inhibitor RFC11 and anticancer drug shikonin solubilized in a stable biotin receptor-targeted liposome exhibited significant synergistic antitumor effect in both subcutaneous and orthotopic mouse colon tumor model through induction of necroptosis with distinctive upregulation of RIPK1. Besides developing a newly targeted formulation for necroptosis induction, this report is the first in vivo evidence demonstrating that potent inhibition of N-end rule pathway can enhance therapeutic efficacy of conventional chemotherapeutics.

ATM induction insufficiency in a radiosensitive breast-cancer patient

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clarke, R.A.; Fang, Z.H.; Marr, P.J.; Kearsley, J.H.; Papadatos, G.; Lee, C.S.; University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW

2002-01-01

ATM induction insufficiency in a radiosensitive breast-cancer patient The ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) gene (ATM) is a dominant breast cancer gene with tumour suppressor activity. ATM also regulates cellular sensitivity to ionising radiation (IR) presumably through its role as a facilitator of DNA repair. In normal cells and tissues the ATM protein is rapidly induced by IR to threshold/maximum levels. The kinase function of the ATM protein is also rapidly activated in response to IR. The fact that women carriers of ATM mutations can have an increased risk of developing breast cancer and that many sporadic breast tumours have reduced levels of the ATM protein broadens the scope of ATM's tumour suppressor within the breast. This report describes the downregulation of ATM protein levels in a radiosensitive breast cancer patient. Postinduction ATM levels were up to tenfold lower in the patient's fresh tissues compared to normal controls. These results might indicate a much broader role for ATM anomalies in breast cancer aetiology. Copyright (2002) Blackwell Science Pty Ltd

Low Annexin A1 expression predicts benefit from induction chemotherapy in oral cancer patients with moderate or poor pathologic differentiation grade

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu, Dong-wang; Zhang, Chen-ping; Zhang, Zhi-yuan; Zhong, Lai-ping; Liu, Ying; Yang, Xiao; Yang, Cheng-zhe; Ma, Jie; Yang, Xi; Qiao, Jin-ke; Wang, Li-zhen; Li, Jiang

2013-01-01

The benefit of induction chemotherapy in locally advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains to be clearly defined. Induction chemotherapy is likely to be effective for biologically distinct subgroups of patients and biomarker development might lead to identification of the patients whose tumors are to respond to a particular treatment. Annexin A1 may serve as a biomarker for responsiveness to induction chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to investigate Annexin A1 expression in pre-treatment biopsies from a cohort of OSCC patients treated with surgery and post-operative radiotherapy or docetaxel, cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (TPF) induction chemotherapy followed by surgery and post-operative radiotherapy. Furthermore we sought to assess the utility of Annexin A1 as a prognostic or predictive biomarker. Immunohistochemical staining for Annexin A1 was performed in pre-treatment biopsies from 232 of 256 clinical stage III/IVA OSCC patients. Annexin A1 index was estimated as the proportion of tumor cells (low and high, <50% and ≥50% of stained cells, respectively) to Annexin A1 cellular membrane and cytoplasm staining. There was a significant correlation between Annexin A1 expression and pathologic differentiation grade (P=0.015) in OSCC patients. The proportion of patients with low Annexin A1 expression was significantly higher amongst those with moderate/poorly differentiated tumor (78/167) compared to those with well differentiated tumor (18/65). Multivariate Cox model analysis showed clinical stage (P=0.001) and Annexin A1 expression (P=0.038) as independent prognostic risk factors. Furthermore, a low Annexin A1 expression level was predictive of longer disease-free survival (P=0.036, HR=0.620) and locoregional recurrence-free survival (P=0.031, HR=0.607) compared to high Annexin A1 expression. Patients with moderate/poorly differentiated tumor and low Annexin A1 expression benefited from TPF induction chemotherapy as measured by distant metastasis

An algorithm for rule-in and rule-out of acute myocardial infarction using a novel troponin I assay.

Science.gov (United States)

Lindahl, Bertil; Jernberg, Tomas; Badertscher, Patrick; Boeddinghaus, Jasper; Eggers, Kai M; Frick, Mats; Rubini Gimenez, Maria; Linder, Rickard; Ljung, Lina; Martinsson, Arne; Melki, Dina; Nestelberger, Thomas; Rentsch, Katharina; Reichlin, Tobias; Sabti, Zaid; Schubera, Marie; Svensson, Per; Twerenbold, Raphael; Wildi, Karin; Mueller, Christian

2017-01-15

To derive and validate a hybrid algorithm for rule-out and rule-in of acute myocardial infarction based on measurements at presentation and after 2 hours with a novel cardiac troponin I (cTnI) assay. The algorithm was derived and validated in two cohorts (605 and 592 patients) from multicentre studies enrolling chest pain patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with onset of last episode within 12 hours. The index diagnosis and cardiovascular events up to 30 days were adjudicated by independent reviewers. In the validation cohort, 32.6% of the patients were ruled out on ED presentation, 6.1% were ruled in and 61.3% remained undetermined. A further 22% could be ruled out and 9.8% ruled in, after 2 hours. In total, 54.6% of the patients were ruled out with a negative predictive value (NPV) of 99.4% (95% CI 97.8% to 99.9%) and a sensitivity of 97.7% (95% CI 91.9% to 99.7%); 15.8% were ruled in with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 74.5% (95% CI 64.8% to 82.2%) and a specificity of 95.2% (95% CI 93.0% to 96.9%); and 29.6% remained undetermined after 2 hours. No patient in the rule-out group died during the 30-day follow-up in the two cohorts. This novel two-step algorithm based on cTnI measurements enabled just over a third of the patients with acute chest pain to be ruled in or ruled out already at presentation and an additional third after 2 hours. This strategy maximises the speed of rule-out and rule-in while maintaining a high NPV and PPV, respectively. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Persistent Dysphagia After Induction Chemotherapy in Patients with Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Predicts Poor Post-Operative Outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

McNamara, Michael J; Adelstein, David J; Allende, Daniela S; Bodmann, Joanna W; Ives, Denise I; Murthy, Sudish C; Raymond, Daniel; Raja, Siva; Rodriguez, Cristina P; Sohal, Davendra; Stephans, Kevin L; Videtic, Gregory M M; Rybicki, Lisa A

2017-06-01

Preoperative therapy is frequently employed in the management of esophageal adenocarcinoma. However, many patients are found to have advanced pathologic stage and have poor outcomes. A prognostic factor which identifies this patient population before surgery would be desirable, as alternative treatment strategies may be warranted. Between 2/08 and 1/12, 60 evaluable patients with locally advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma enrolled in single-arm phase II trial of induction chemotherapy, surgery, and post-operative adjuvant chemo-radiotherapy (CRT). A clinical stage of T3, N1, or M1a (AJCC 6th) was required for eligibility. Induction chemotherapy with epirubicin 50 mg/m 2 d1, oxaliplatin 130 mg/m 2 d1, and fluorouracil 200 mg/m 2 /day continuous infusion for 3 weeks, was given every 21 days for 3 cycles and was followed by surgical resection. Adjuvant CRT consisted of 50-55 Gy @ 1.8-2.0 Gy/day and 2 cycles of cisplatin (20 mg/m 2 /day) and fluorouracil (1000 mg/m 2 /day) given as 96-h infusions during weeks 1 and 4 of radiotherapy. Dysphagia was assessed at baseline and after induction chemotherapy. Persistent dysphagia was associated with worse distant metastatic control [HR 3.48 (1.43-8.43), p = 0.006], recurrence free survival [HR 3.04 (1.34-6.92), p = 0.008], and overall survival [HR 3.31 (1.43-7.66), p = 0.005]. Persistent dysphagia was associated with more advanced pathologic T descriptor (pT) (p = 0.048) and N descriptor (pN) (p = 0.002), a greater median number of involved lymph nodes (3 v 1, p = 0.003), and greater residual tumor viability (p = 0.05). No patients with persistent dysphagia had pT0-T2 or pN0 disease. Persistent dysphagia after induction chemotherapy is associated with more advanced pathologic stage and inferior outcomes.

An inductive database prototype based on virtual mining views

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blockeel, H.; Calders, T.; Fromont, É.; Goethals, B.; Prado, A.; Robardet, C.

2008-01-01

We present a prototype of an inductive database. Our system enables the user to query not only the data stored in the database but also generalizations (e.g. rules or trees) over these data through the use of virtual mining views. The mining views are relational tables that virtually contain the

Treatment preferences and trade-offs for ovulation induction in clomiphene citrate-resistant patients with polycystic ovary syndrome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bayram, Neriman; van Wely, Madelon; van der Veen, Fulco; Bossuyt, Patrick M. M.; Nieuwkerk, Pythia

2005-01-01

Objective: To investigate patient preferences and trade-offs for laparoscopic electrocautery of the ovaries relative to ovulation induction with recombinant FSH (rFSH) in patients with clomiphene citrate (CC)-resistant polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Design: Assessment of preferences and

Evidence of a Transition from Perceptual to Category Induction in 3- to 9-Year-Old Children

Science.gov (United States)

Badger, Julia R.; Shapiro, Laura R.

2012-01-01

We examined whether inductive reasoning development is better characterized by accounts assuming an early category bias versus an early perceptual bias. We trained 264 children aged 3 to 9 years to categorize novel insects using a rule that directly pitted category membership against appearance. This was followed by an induction task with…

A SEMI-AUTOMATIC RULE SET BUILDING METHOD FOR URBAN LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION BASED ON MACHINE LEARNING AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Y. Gu

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Classification rule set is important for Land Cover classification, which refers to features and decision rules. The selection of features and decision are based on an iterative trial-and-error approach that is often utilized in GEOBIA, however, it is time-consuming and has a poor versatility. This study has put forward a rule set building method for Land cover classification based on human knowledge and machine learning. The use of machine learning is to build rule sets effectively which will overcome the iterative trial-and-error approach. The use of human knowledge is to solve the shortcomings of existing machine learning method on insufficient usage of prior knowledge, and improve the versatility of rule sets. A two-step workflow has been introduced, firstly, an initial rule is built based on Random Forest and CART decision tree. Secondly, the initial rule is analyzed and validated based on human knowledge, where we use statistical confidence interval to determine its threshold. The test site is located in Potsdam City. We utilised the TOP, DSM and ground truth data. The results show that the method could determine rule set for Land Cover classification semi-automatically, and there are static features for different land cover classes.

An expert system design to diagnose cancer by using a new method reduced rule base.

Science.gov (United States)

Başçiftçi, Fatih; Avuçlu, Emre

2018-04-01

A Medical Expert System (MES) was developed which uses Reduced Rule Base to diagnose cancer risk according to the symptoms in an individual. A total of 13 symptoms were used. With the new MES, the reduced rules are controlled instead of all possibilities (2 13 = 8192 different possibilities occur). By controlling reduced rules, results are found more quickly. The method of two-level simplification of Boolean functions was used to obtain Reduced Rule Base. Thanks to the developed application with the number of dynamic inputs and outputs on different platforms, anyone can easily test their own cancer easily. More accurate results were obtained considering all the possibilities related to cancer. Thirteen different risk factors were determined to determine the type of cancer. The truth table produced in our study has 13 inputs and 4 outputs. The Boolean Function Minimization method is used to obtain less situations by simplifying logical functions. Diagnosis of cancer quickly thanks to control of the simplified 4 output functions. Diagnosis made with the 4 output values obtained using Reduced Rule Base was found to be quicker than diagnosis made by screening all 2 13 = 8192 possibilities. With the improved MES, more probabilities were added to the process and more accurate diagnostic results were obtained. As a result of the simplification process in breast and renal cancer diagnosis 100% diagnosis speed gain, in cervical cancer and lung cancer diagnosis rate gain of 99% was obtained. With Boolean function minimization, less number of rules is evaluated instead of evaluating a large number of rules. Reducing the number of rules allows the designed system to work more efficiently and to save time, and facilitates to transfer the rules to the designed Expert systems. Interfaces were developed in different software platforms to enable users to test the accuracy of the application. Any one is able to diagnose the cancer itself using determinative risk factors. Thereby

High Incidences of Invasive Fungal Infections in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patients Receiving Induction Chemotherapy without Systemic Antifungal Prophylaxis: A Prospective Observational Study in Taiwan.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jih-Luh Tang

Full Text Available Invasive fungal infections (IFIs is an important complication for acute myeloid leukemia (AML patients receiving induction chemotherapy. However, the epidemiological information is not clear in Southeastern Asia, an area of potential high incidences of IFIs. To clarify it, we enrolled 298 non-M3 adult AML patients receiving induction chemotherapy without systemic anti-fungal prophylaxis from Jan 2004 to Dec 2009, when we applied a prospective diagnostic and treatment algorithm for IFIs. Their demographic parameters, IFI characters, and treatment outcome were collected for analysis. The median age of these patients was 51 years. Standard induction chemotherapy was used for 246 (82.6% patients, and 66.8% of patients achieved complete remission (CR or partial remission. The incidence of all-category IFIs was 34.6% (5.7% proven IFIs, 5.0% probable IFIs and 23.8% possible IFIs. Candida tropicalis was the leading pathogen among yeast, and lower respiratory tract was the most common site for IFIs (75.4%, 80/106. Standard induction chemotherapy and failure to CR were identified as risk factors for IFIs. The presence of IFI in induction independently predicted worse survival (hazard ratio 1.536 (1.100-2.141, p value = 0.012. Even in those who survived from the initial IFI insults after 3 months, the presence of IFIs in induction still predicted a poor long-term survival. This study confirms high incidences of IFIs in Southeastern Asia, and illustrates potential risk factors; poor short-term and long-term outcomes are also demonstrated. This epidemiological information will provide useful perspectives for anti-fungal prophylaxis and treatment for AML patients during induction, so that best chances of cure and survival can be provided.

Second and third responses to the same induction regimen in relapsing patients with multiple myeloma.

Science.gov (United States)

Paccagnella, A; Chiarion-Sileni, V; Soesan, M; Baggio, G; Bolzonella, S; De Besi, P; Casara, D; Frizzarin, M; Salvagno, L; Favaretto, A

1991-09-01

From September 1975 to December 1986, 115 consecutive previously untreated patients with multiple myeloma (MM) were treated with combination chemotherapy consisting of BCNU, cyclophosphamide, melphalan, vincristine, and prednisone (M-2). No patients were excluded or lost during follow-up. Forty-three percent of the patients were Stage I plus II, and 57% were Stage III. Thirty-eight patients (33%) had blood urea nitrogen greater than or equal to 40 mg/dl (substage B). Reaching an objective response treatment was stopped, generally after 1 year, and restarted at relapse. After induction therapy, 94 patients (82%) responded and had a median duration of response (MDR) of 22 months. After first relapse, 26 of 38 patients (69%) responded again to the same regimen and had an MDR of 11 months. This response rate and MDR are significantly lower than the ones achieved in induction chemotherapy. After second relapse, 7 of 16 patients (44%) again responded with an MDR of 3.5 months. The median survival time (MST) was 50.5 months for all patients. The most relevant side effect was leukopenia. No case of secondary leukemia was noticed. The authors conclude that patients with MM can be treated safely without maintenance therapy after reaching remission because a high response rate can be obtained in first and even second relapse. The planned treatment pause at remission does not adversely affect the survival time. Secondary leukemia is infrequent after this policy. Quality of life improves during the treatment pause.

Using Machine Learning Methods Jointly to Find Better Set of Rules in Data Mining

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SUG Hyontai

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Rough set-based data mining algorithms are one of widely accepted machine learning technologies because of their strong mathematical background and capability of finding optimal rules based on given data sets only without room for prejudiced views to be inserted on the data. But, because the algorithms find rules very precisely, we may confront with the overfitting problem. On the other hand, association rule algorithms find rules of association, where the association resides between sets of items in database. The algorithms find itemsets that occur more than given minimum support, so that they can find the itemsets practically in reasonable time even for very large databases by supplying the minimum support appropriately. In order to overcome the problem of the overfitting problem in rough set-based algorithms, first we find large itemsets, after that we select attributes that cover the large itemsets. By using the selected attributes only, we may find better set of rules based on rough set theory. Results from experiments support our suggested method.

Inhalational Induction and Maintenance of Sevoflurane-Based Anesthesia or Total Intravenous Anesthesia Using Propofol and Fentanyl in Patients with Concomitant Dyscirculatory Encephalopathy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. V. Likhvantsev

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: to improve the results of treatment in patients with concomitant cerebrovascular diseases, by reducing the incidence of postoperative delirium due to neuroprotective properties of sevoflurane. Subjects and methods. Eighty2two patients with concomitant dyscirculatory encephalopathy were examined. The goals of the study included evaluating (a efficiency and safety of total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA using propofol versus inhalational induction and (b maintenance of anesthesia (IIMA using sevoflurane in patients with atherosclerotic and hypertensive encephalopathy undergoing noncardiac surgery. Results. The patients from both groups were susceptible to episodes of unintentional cerebral desaturation (rSO2; however, only the TIVA group showed a high correlation between a decrease in rSO2 and increases in the blood levels of S100beta protein, a marker of neuronal damage, and in the incidence of postoperative delirium (r=0.7321; p=0.0000001 diagnosed in accordance to comprehensive clinical examination and MMSE scores. The IIMA group lacked a relationship of MMSE scores to the episodes of cerebral desaturation (r=0.1609; p=0.4860, which is regarded as a manifestation of the neuroprotective effect resulted from anesthetic preconditioning. Conclusion. sevafluran2based inhalational induction and maintenance of anesthesia in patients with atherosclerotic and hypertensive encephalopathy is preferable over intravenous anesthesia with propofol and fentanyl in patients with concomitatnt disregulatory enc encephalopathy. Key words: cerebral desaturation, postoperative delirium, anesthetic preconditioning, europrotection, sevoflurane.

A discriminative method for family-based protein remote homology detection that combines inductive logic programming and propositional models.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardes, Juliana S; Carbone, Alessandra; Zaverucha, Gerson

2011-03-23

Remote homology detection is a hard computational problem. Most approaches have trained computational models by using either full protein sequences or multiple sequence alignments (MSA), including all positions. However, when we deal with proteins in the "twilight zone" we can observe that only some segments of sequences (motifs) are conserved. We introduce a novel logical representation that allows us to represent physico-chemical properties of sequences, conserved amino acid positions and conserved physico-chemical positions in the MSA. From this, Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) finds the most frequent patterns (motifs) and uses them to train propositional models, such as decision trees and support vector machines (SVM). We use the SCOP database to perform our experiments by evaluating protein recognition within the same superfamily. Our results show that our methodology when using SVM performs significantly better than some of the state of the art methods, and comparable to other. However, our method provides a comprehensible set of logical rules that can help to understand what determines a protein function. The strategy of selecting only the most frequent patterns is effective for the remote homology detection. This is possible through a suitable first-order logical representation of homologous properties, and through a set of frequent patterns, found by an ILP system, that summarizes essential features of protein functions.

Evaluation of IOTA Simple Ultrasound Rules to Distinguish Benign and Malignant Ovarian Tumours

Science.gov (United States)

Kaur, Amarjit; Mohi, Jaswinder Kaur; Sibia, Preet Kanwal; Kaur, Navkiran

2017-01-01

Introduction IOTA stands for International Ovarian Tumour Analysis group. Ovarian cancer is one of the common cancers in women and is diagnosed at later stage in majority. The limiting factor for early diagnosis is lack of standardized terms and procedures in gynaecological sonography. Introduction of IOTA rules has provided some consistency in defining morphological features of ovarian masses through a standardized examination technique. Aim To evaluate the efficacy of IOTA simple ultrasound rules in distinguishing benign and malignant ovarian tumours and establishing their use as a tool in early diagnosis of ovarian malignancy. Materials and Methods A hospital based case control prospective study was conducted. Patients with suspected ovarian pathology were evaluated using IOTA ultrasound rules and designated as benign or malignant. Findings were correlated with histopathological findings. Collected data was statistically analysed using chi-square test and kappa statistical method. Results Out of initial 55 patients, 50 patients were included in the final analysis who underwent surgery. IOTA simple rules were applicable in 45 out of these 50 patients (90%). The sensitivity for the detection of malignancy in cases where IOTA simple rules were applicable was 91.66% and the specificity was 84.84%. Accuracy was 86.66%. Classifying inconclusive cases as malignant, the sensitivity and specificity was 93% and 80% respectively. High level of agreement was found between USG and histopathological diagnosis with Kappa value as 0.323. Conclusion IOTA simple ultrasound rules were highly sensitive and specific in predicting ovarian malignancy preoperatively yet being reproducible, easy to train and use. PMID:28969237

Single induction dose of etomidate versus other induction agents for endotracheal intubation in critically ill patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruder, Eric A; Ball, Ian M; Ridi, Stacy; Pickett, William; Hohl, Corinne

2015-01-08

The use of etomidate for emergency airway interventions in critically ill patients is very common. In one large registry trial, etomidate was the most commonly used agent for this indication. Etomidate is known to suppress adrenal gland function, but it remains unclear whether or not this adrenal gland dysfunction affects mortality. The primary objective was to assess, in populations of critically ill patients, whether a single induction dose of etomidate for emergency airway intervention affects mortality.The secondary objectives were to address, in populations of critically ill patients, whether a single induction dose of etomidate for emergency airway intervention affects adrenal gland function, organ dysfunction, or health services utilization (as measured by intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LOS), duration of mechanical ventilation, or vasopressor requirements).We repeated analyses within subgroups defined by the aetiologies of critical illness, timing of adrenal gland function measurement, and the type of comparator drug used. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); MEDLINE; CINAHL; EMBASE; LILACS; International Pharmaceutical Abstracts; Web of Science; the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE); and ISI BIOSIS Citation index(SM) on 8 February 2013. We reran the searches in August 2014. We will deal with any studies of interest when we update the review.We also searched the Scopus database of dissertations and conference proceedings and the US Food and Drug Administration Database. We handsearched major emergency medicine, critical care, and anaesthesiology journals.We handsearched the conference proceedings of major emergency medicine, anaesthesia, and critical care conferences from 1990 to current, and performed a grey literature search of the following: Current Controlled Trials; National Health Service - The National Research Register; ClinicalTrials.gov; NEAR website. We included randomized controlled

A Novel Method of Interestingness Measures for Association Rules Mining Based on Profit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chunhua Ju

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Association rules mining is an important topic in the domain of data mining and knowledge discovering. Some papers have presented several interestingness measure methods; the most typical are Support, Confidence, Lift, Improve, and so forth. But their limitations are obvious, like no objective criterion, lack of statistical base, disability of defining negative relationship, and so forth. This paper proposes three new methods, Bi-lift, Bi-improve, and Bi-confidence, for Lift, Improve, and Confidence, respectively. Then, on the basis of utility function and the executing cost of rules, we propose interestingness function based on profit (IFBP considering subjective preferences and characteristics of specific application object. Finally, a novel measure framework is proposed to improve the traditional one through experimental analysis. In conclusion, the new methods and measure framework are prior to the traditional ones in the aspects of objective criterion, comprehensive definition, and practical application.

Getting Objects Methods and Interactions by Extracting Business Rules from Legacy Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Omar El Beggar

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The maintenance of legacy systems becomes over the years extremely complex and highly expensive due to the incessant changes of company activities and policies. In this case, a new or an improved system must replace the previous one. However, replacing those systems completely from scratch is also very expensive and it represents a huge risk. The optimal scenario is evolving those systems by profiting from the valuable knowledge embedded in them. This paper aims to present an approach for knowledge acquisition from existing legacy systems by extracting business rules from source code. In fact, the business rules are extracted and assigned next to the domain entities in order to generate objects methods and interactions in an object-oriented platform. Furthermore, a rules translation in natural language is given. The aim is advancing a solution for re-engineering legacy systems, minimize the cost of their modernization and keep very small the gap between the company business and the renovated systems.

Usefulness of Clinical Prediction Rules, D-dimer, and Arterial Blood Gas Analysis to Predict Pulmonary Embolism in Cancer Patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shazia Awan

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Pulmonary embolism (PE is seven times more common in cancer patients than non-cancer patients. Since the existing clinical prediction rules (CPRs were validated predominantly in a non-cancer population, we decided to look at the utility of arterial blood gas (ABG analysis and D-dimer in predicting PE in cancer patients. Methods: Electronic medical records were reviewed between December 2005 and November 2010. A total of 177 computed tomography pulmonary angiograms (CTPAs were performed. We selected 104 individuals based on completeness of laboratory and clinical data. Patients were divided into two groups, CTPA positive (patients with PE and CTPA negative (PE excluded. Wells score, Geneva score, and modified Geneva score were calculated for each patient. Primary outcomes of interest were the sensitivities, specificities, positive, and negative predictive values for all three CPRs. Results: Of the total of 104 individuals who had CTPAs, 33 (31.7% were positive for PE and 71 (68.3% were negative. There was no difference in basic demographics between the two groups. Laboratory parameters were compared and partial pressure of oxygen was significantly lower in patients with PE (68.1 mmHg vs. 71 mmHg, p = 0.030. Clinical prediction rules showed good sensitivities (88−100% and negative predictive values (93−100%. An alveolar-arterial (A-a gradient > 20 had 100% sensitivity and negative predictive values. Conclusions: CPRs and a low A-a gradient were useful in excluding PE in cancer patients. There is a need for prospective trials to validate these results.

induction motor, unbalance, electrical loss, finite element method.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Camilo Andrés Cortés

2008-09-01

Full Text Available This paper shows the pattern of a 7.5 kW squirrel-cage induction motor’s electrical loss in balanced and unbalanced conditions, modelling the motor using the finite element method and comparing the results with experimental data obtained in the laboratory for the selected motor. Magnetic flux density variation was analysed at four places in the machine. The results so obtained sho- wed that the undervoltage unbalanced condition was the most critical from the motor’s total loss point of view. Regarding varia- tion of loss in parts of the motor, a constant iron loss pattern was found when the load was changed for each type of voltage supply and that the place where the loss had the largest rise was in the machine’s rotor.

Induction Cisplatin and Fluorouracil-Based Chemotherapy Followed by Concurrent Chemoradiation for Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin, C.-C.; Hsu, C.-H.; Cheng, Jason C.; Huang, C.-Y.; Tsai, Y.-C.; Hsu, F.-M.; Huang, K.-H.; Cheng, A.-L.; Pu, Y.-S.

2009-01-01

Purpose: To evaluate a multimodality bladder-preserving therapy in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Methods and Materials: Patients with stages T2-4aN0M0 bladder cancer suitable for cystectomy underwent radical transurethral resection and induction chemotherapy, followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT). Patients with a Karnofsky performance status (KPS) <80 or age ≥70 years underwent Protocol A: induction chemotherapy with three cycles of the cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (CF) regimen, and CCRT with six doses of weekly cisplatin and 64.8 Gy radiotherapy given with the shrinking-field technique. Patients with KPS ≥80 and age <70 years underwent Protocol B: induction chemotherapy with three cycles of weekly paclitaxel plus the CF regimen, and CCRT with six doses of weekly paclitaxel and cisplatin plus 64.8 Gy radiotherapy. Interval cystoscopy was employed after induction chemotherapy and when radiotherapy reached 43.2 Gy. Patients without a complete response (CR) were referred for salvage cystectomy. Results: Among 30 patients (median, 66 years) enrolled, 17 and 13 patients underwent Protocol A and B, respectively. After induction chemotherapy, 23 patients achieved CR. Five (17%) of 7 patients without CR underwent salvage cystectomy. Overall, 28 patients (93%) completed the protocol treatment. Of 22 patients who completed CCRT, 1 had recurrence with carcinoma in situ and 3 had distant metastases. After a median follow-up of 47 months, overall and progression-free survival rate for all patients were 77% and 54% at 3 years, respectively. Of 19 surviving patients, 15 (79%) retained functioning bladders. Conclusions: Our protocols may be alternatives to cystectomy for selected patients who wish to preserve the bladder.

Potential impact of the HIPAA privacy rule on data collection in a registry of patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Armstrong, David; Kline-Rogers, Eva; Jani, Sandeep M; Goldman, Edward B; Fang, Jianming; Mukherjee, Debabrata; Nallamothu, Brahmajee K; Eagle, Kim A

2005-05-23

Implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule has the potential to affect data collection in outcomes research. To examine the extent to which data collection may be affected by the HIPAA Privacy Rule, we used a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study design to assess participation rates with informed consent in 2 cohorts of patients eligible for the University of Michigan Acute Coronary Syndrome registry. The pre-HIPAA period included telephone interviews conducted at 6 months that sought verbal informed consent from patients. In the post-HIPAA period, informed consent forms were mailed to ask for permission to call to conduct a telephone interview. The primary outcome measure was the percentage of patients who provided consent. Incremental costs associated with the post-HIPAA period were also assessed. The pre-HIPAA period included 1221 consecutive patients with acute coronary syndrome, and the post-HIPAA period included 967 patients. Consent for follow-up declined from 96.4% in the pre-HIPAA period to 34.0% in the post-HIPAA period (Pconsent forms during the post-HIPAA period were older, were more likely to be married, and had lower mortality rates at 6 months. Incremental costs for complying with the HIPAA Privacy Rule were $8704.50 for the first year and $4558.50 annually thereafter. The HIPAA Privacy Rule significantly decreases the number of patients available for outcomes research and introduces selection bias in data collection for patient registries.

Fuzzy – PI controller to control the velocity parameter of Induction Motor

Science.gov (United States)

Malathy, R.; Balaji, V.

2018-04-01

The major application of Induction motor includes the usage of the same in industries because of its high robustness, reliability, low cost, highefficiency and good self-starting capability. Even though it has the above mentioned advantages, it also have some limitations: (1) the standard motor is not a true constant-speed machine, itsfull-load slip varies less than 1 % (in high-horsepower motors).And (2) it is not inherently capable of providing variable-speedoperation. In order to solve the above mentioned problem smart motor controls and variable speed controllers are used. Motor applications involve non linearity features, which can be controlled by Fuzzy logic controller as it is capable of handling those features with high efficiency and it act similar to human operator. This paper presents individuality of the plant modelling. The fuzzy logic controller (FLC)trusts on a set of linguistic if-then rules, a rule-based Mamdani for closed loop Induction Motor model. Themotor model is designed and membership functions are chosenaccording to the parameters of the motor model. Simulation results contains non linearity in induction motor model. A conventional PI controller iscompared practically to fuzzy logic controller using Simulink.

Induction concurrent chemoradiation therapy for invading apical non-small cell lung cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyoshi, Shinichiro; Nakamura, Kenji

2004-01-01

Although non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) involving the superior sulcus has been generally treated with radiation therapy (RT) followed by surgery, local recurrence is still a big problem to be solved. We investigated a role of induction therapy, especially induction concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CRT), on the surgical results of this type of NSCLC. We retrospectively reviewed 30 patients with NSCLC invading the apex of the chest wall who underwent surgery from 1987 to 1996. Ten patients (57±8 years) received surgery alone, 9 (55±13 years) received RT (42±7 Gy) followed by surgery and 11 (51±9 years) received cisplatin based chemotherapy and RT (47±5 Gy) as an induction therapy. Two and 4-year survival rates were 30% and 20% in patients with surgery alone, 22% and 11% in patients with induction RT, and 73% and 53% in patients with induction CRT, respectively. The survival was significantly better in patients with induction CRT than those with induction RT or surgery alone. Univariate analysis demonstrated that curability (yes versus no: p=0.027) and induction therapy (surgery alone and RT versus CRT: p=0.0173) were significant prognostic factors. Multivariate analysis revealed that only induction therapy (p=0.0238) was a significant prognostic factor. Induction CRT seems to improve the survival in patients with NSCLC invading the apex of the chest wall compared with induction RT or surgery alone. (author)

Skeletal Muscle Cell Induction from Pluripotent Stem Cells

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yusaku Kodaka

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Embryonic stem cells (ESCs and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs have the potential to differentiate into various types of cells including skeletal muscle cells. The approach of converting ESCs/iPSCs into skeletal muscle cells offers hope for patients afflicted with the skeletal muscle diseases such as the Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD. Patient-derived iPSCs are an especially ideal cell source to obtain an unlimited number of myogenic cells that escape immune rejection after engraftment. Currently, there are several approaches to induce differentiation of ESCs and iPSCs to skeletal muscle. A key to the generation of skeletal muscle cells from ESCs/iPSCs is the mimicking of embryonic mesodermal induction followed by myogenic induction. Thus, current approaches of skeletal muscle cell induction of ESCs/iPSCs utilize techniques including overexpression of myogenic transcription factors such as MyoD or Pax3, using small molecules to induce mesodermal cells followed by myogenic progenitor cells, and utilizing epigenetic myogenic memory existing in muscle cell-derived iPSCs. This review summarizes the current methods used in myogenic differentiation and highlights areas of recent improvement.

A new inductive method for measuring the RRR-value of niobium

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bolore, M.; Bonin, B.; Boudigou, Y.; Heuveline, S.; Jacques, E.; Jaidane, S.; Koechlin, F.; Safa, H.

1996-01-01

A new method for measuring the RRR-value of niobium is presented. The principle of the measurement uses low frequency induction in a niobium sheet placed close to a pair of coils. In contrast with the usual resistive method, the present one gives information on the local value of the RRR, with a spatial resolution of the order of 1 cm. In addition, it is non destructive, thus opening the way to mapping RRR measurements on cavities. This tool will permit the measure of RRR inhomogeneities in cavities due to sheet forming or heat treatments, and the systematic check of the quality of weld seams. (author)

Studies on thiopentone and midazolam hemodynamic response during induction of anesthesia in patients with coronary artery disease

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

mohammad Sofiabadi

2005-08-01

Conclusions: Hemodynamic effects of midazolam is similar to thiopentone. Midazolam is a water-soluble, safe and effective inductive anesthetic with short- term effects, much lesser venous irritation, and it can be used instead of thiopentone in patients with cardiac diseases or those patients which thiopentone is contraindicated for whom.

Induction Chemotherapy and Continuous Hyperfractionated Accelerated Radiotherapy (CHART) for Patients With Locally Advanced Inoperable Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: The MRC INCH Randomized Trial

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hatton, Matthew; Nankivell, Matthew; Lyn, Ethan; Falk, Stephen; Pugh, Cheryl; Navani, Neal; Stephens, Richard; Parmar, Mahesh

2011-01-01

Purpose: Recent clinical trials and meta-analyses have shown that both CHART (continuous hyperfractionated accelerated radiation therapy) and induction chemotherapy offer a survival advantage over conventional radical radiotherapy for patients with inoperable non-small cell-lung cancer (NSCLC). This multicenter randomized controlled trial (INCH) was set up to assess the value of giving induction chemotherapy before CHART. Methods and Materials: Patients with histologically confirmed, inoperable, Stage I-III NSCLC were randomized to induction chemotherapy (ICT) (three cycles of cisplatin-based chemotherapy followed by CHART) or CHART alone. Results: Forty-six patients were randomized (23 in each treatment arm) from 9 UK centers. As a result of poor accrual, the trial was closed in December 2007. Twenty-eight patients were male, 28 had squamous cell histology, 34 were Stage IIIA or IIIB, and all baseline characteristics were well balanced between the two treatment arms. Seventeen (74%) of the 23 ICT patients completed the three cycles of chemotherapy. All 42 (22 CHART + 20 ICT) patients who received CHART completed the prescribed treatment. Median survival was 17 months in the CHART arm and 25 months in the ICT arm (hazard ratio of 0.60 [95% CI 0.31-1.16], p = 0.127). Grade 3 or 4 adverse events (mainly fatigue, dysphagia, breathlessness, and anorexia) were reported for 13 (57%) CHART and 13 (65%) ICT patients. Conclusions: This small randomized trial indicates that ICT followed by CHART is feasible and well tolerated. Despite closing early because of poor accrual, and so failing to show clear evidence of a survival benefit for the additional chemotherapy, the results suggest that CHART, and ICT before CHART, remain important options for the treatment of inoperable NSCLC and deserve further study.

77 FR 70583 - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Health Insurance Market Rules; Rate Review

Science.gov (United States)

2012-11-26

... Parts 144, 147, 150, et al. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Health Insurance Market Rules... and 156 [CMS-9972-P] RIN 0938-AR40 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Health Insurance Market... Affordable Care Act with respect to health insurance issuers and group health plans that are non-federal...

In elderly patients with AML, which patients should be considered fit or unfit for standard induction therapy?

Science.gov (United States)

Swords, Ronan; Santini, Valeria

2012-01-01

A 75-year-old man visits his primary care physician for a routine checkup and a complete blood count reveals pancytopenia. BM examination confirms the diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia. No dysplastic features were noted and his karyotype results are pending. The patient has well-controlled hypertension and his last hospital admission was 20 years ago for repair of a rotator cuff injury. His Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status is 0/4 and he has no cognitive impairment. You believe the patient is fit for standard acute myeloid leukemia induction, but you are concerned because of his older age and you are considering less-intensive approaches.

Maintenance treatment with azacytidine for patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) or acute myeloid leukaemia following MDS in complete remission after induction chemotherapy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grövdal, Michael; Karimi, Mohsen; Khan, Rasheed

2010-01-01

chemotherapy. Sixty patients were enrolled and treated by standard induction chemotherapy. Patients that reached CR started maintenance therapy with subcutaneous azacytidine, 5/28 d until relapse. Promoter-methylation status of CDKN2B (P15 ink4b), CDH1 and HIC1 was examined pre-induction, in CR and 6, 12...... and 24 months post CR. Twenty-four (40%) patients achieved CR after induction chemotherapy and 23 started maintenance treatment with azacytidine. Median CR duration was 13.5 months, >24 months in 17% of the patients, and 18-30.5 months in the four patients with trisomy 8. CR duration was not associated......-IV thrombocytopenia and neutropenia occurred after 9.5 and 30% of the cycles, respectively, while haemoglobin levels increased during treatment. 5-azacytidine treatment is safe, feasible and may be of benefit in a subset of patients....

A random walk rule for phase I clinical trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Durham, S D; Flournoy, N; Rosenberger, W F

1997-06-01

We describe a family of random walk rules for the sequential allocation of dose levels to patients in a dose-response study, or phase I clinical trial. Patients are sequentially assigned the next higher, same, or next lower dose level according to some probability distribution, which may be determined by ethical considerations as well as the patient's response. It is shown that one can choose these probabilities in order to center dose level assignments unimodally around any target quantile of interest. Estimation of the quantile is discussed; the maximum likelihood estimator and its variance are derived under a two-parameter logistic distribution, and the maximum likelihood estimator is compared with other nonparametric estimators. Random walk rules have clear advantages: they are simple to implement, and finite and asymptotic distribution theory is completely worked out. For a specific random walk rule, we compute finite and asymptotic properties and give examples of its use in planning studies. Having the finite distribution theory available and tractable obviates the need for elaborate simulation studies to analyze the properties of the design. The small sample properties of our rule, as determined by exact theory, compare favorably to those of the continual reassessment method, determined by simulation.

A clinical return-to-work rule for patients with back pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Dionne, Clermont E; Bourbonnais, Renée; Frémont, Pierre; Rossignol, Michel; Stock, Susan R; Larocque, Isabelle

2005-06-07

Tools for early identification of workers with back pain who are at high risk of adverse occupational outcome would help concentrate clinical attention on the patients who need it most, while helping reduce unnecessary interventions (and costs) among the others. This study was conducted to develop and validate clinical rules to predict the 2-year work disability status of people consulting for nonspecific back pain in primary care settings. This was a 2-year prospective cohort study conducted in 7 primary care settings in the Quebec City area. The study enrolled 1007 workers (participation, 68.4% of potential participants expected to be eligible) aged 18-64 years who consulted for nonspecific back pain associated with at least 1 day's absence from work. The majority (86%) completed 5 telephone interviews documenting a large array of variables. Clinical information was abstracted from the medical files. The outcome measure was "return to work in good health" at 2 years, a variable that combined patients' occupational status, functional limitations and recurrences of work absence. Predictive models of 2-year outcome were developed with a recursive partitioning approach on a 40% random sample of our study subjects, then validated on the rest. The best predictive model included 7 baseline variables (patient's recovery expectations, radiating pain, previous back surgery, pain intensity, frequent change of position because of back pain, irritability and bad temper, and difficulty sleeping) and was particularly efficient at identifying patients with no adverse occupational outcome (negative predictive value 78%- 94%). A clinical prediction rule accurately identified a large proportion of workers with back pain consulting in a primary care setting who were at a low risk of an adverse occupational outcome.

Activity in the fronto-parietal network indicates numerical inductive reasoning beyond calculation : An fMRI study combined with a cognitive model

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liang, Peipeng; Jia, Xiuqin; Taatgen, Niels A; Borst, Jelmer P; Li, Kuncheng

2016-01-01

Numerical inductive reasoning refers to the process of identifying and extrapolating the rule involved in numeric materials. It is associated with calculation, and shares the common activation of the fronto-parietal regions with calculation, which suggests that numerical inductive reasoning may

INFLUENCE OF BROKEN ROTOR BARS LOCATION IN THE SQUIRREL CAGE INDUCTION MOTOR USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Halem

2013-06-01

Full Text Available It is well known that the number of broken bars and varying load affect on the amplitudes of specific harmonic components in the process analysis of induction motors under broken rotor bars. The location of broken bars is an important factor which affects the diagnosis of the broken bars defect. In this paper the simulation is determinate for different cases for distribution of broken bars under induction motor pole in order to show the impact of broken bars location upon the amplitude of harmonic fault. The simulation results are obtained by using time stepping finite elements (TSFE method. The geometrical characteristics of motor, the effects of slotting and the magnetic saturation of lamination core are included in induction motor model.

INFLUENCE OF BROKEN ROTOR BARS LOCATION IN THE SQUIRREL CAGE INDUCTION MOTOR USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Halem

2015-07-01

Full Text Available It is well known that the number of broken bars and varying load affect on the amplitudes of specific harmonic components  in the process analysis of induction motors under broken rotor bars. The location of broken bars is an important factor which affects the diagnosis of the broken bars defect. In this paper the simulation is determinate for different cases for distribution of broken bars under induction motor pole in order to show the impact of broken bars location upon the amplitude of harmonic fault. The simulation results are obtained by using time stepping finite elements (TSFE method. The geometrical characteristics of motor, the effects of slotting and the magnetic saturation of lamination core are included in induction motor model.

A Feasibility Study on UO2/ZrO2 Mixture Melting using Induction Skull Melting Method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hong, S. W.; Kim, J. H.; Kim, H. D.

1998-01-01

Using ISM(Induction Skull Melting) method, which is usually used for the crystallization of refractory materials, a feasibility study on melting of the UO 2 /ZrO 2 mixture(w/o 8:2) is carried out. Frequency, one of main design parameters for ISM, is determined from electrical resistance of UO 2 /ZrO 2 mixture. Heat loss from the crucible for UO 2 /ZrO 2 20kg melting is predicted by comparison with the existing experimental data for UO , ZrO 2 , and ThO 2 . The analysis shows that melting and superheating of the UO 2 /ZrO 2 mixture using induction skull melting method is possible. To attain the superheat of 300K for 20 kg of UO 2 /ZrO 2 , 100kHz, 100 kW power input for induction coil, and 570L/min coolant flow rate are found to be required. The results of this feasibility study will be adopted for designing UO 2 /ZrO 2 furnace using actual corium material at KAERI

Hypnotic induction in dentistry--coping with the fear of losing control (autonomy): a brief communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Kleinhauz, M; Eli, I

1991-07-01

A common cause of stress among dental patients is the patient's fear of losing control in face of the "helplessness provoking" dental situation. Although hypno-relaxation and hypnosis serve as efficient tools to aid in the administration of dental treatment to such patients, some of them may view hypnosis as a further relinquishing of control to the hypnotist and thus resist hypnotic induction, despite their willingness to try to use hypnosis for therapeutic reasons. To avoid this resistance, a "self-control" induction method is suggested that enables the patient to remain in control throughout the process. This technique minimizes the threat of losing one's autonomy and thus enables treatment of these patients.

Language, Semantics, and Methods for Security Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Crazzolara, Federico

events. Methods like strand spaces and the inductive method of Paulson have been designed to support an intensional, event-based, style of reasoning. These methods have successfully tackled a number of protocols though in an ad hoc fashion. They make an informal spring from a protocol to its......-nets. They have persistent conditions and as we show in this thesis, unfold under reasonable assumptions to a more basic kind of nets. We relate SPL-nets to strand spaces and inductive rules, as well as trace languages and event structures so unifying a range of approaches, as well as providing conditions under...... reveal. The last few years have seen the emergence of successful intensional, event-based, formal approaches to reasoning about security protocols. The methods are concerned with reasoning about the events that a security protocol can perform, and make use of a causal dependency that exists between...

Comparison of 2D and 3D neural induction methods for the generation of neural progenitor cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Chandrasekaran, Abinaya; Avci, Hasan X; Ochalek, Anna; Rösingh, Lone N; Molnár, Kinga; László, Lajos; Bellák, Tamás; Téglási, Annamária; Pesti, Krisztina; Mike, Arpad; Phanthong, Phetcharat; Bíró, Orsolya; Hall, Vanessa; Kitiyanant, Narisorn; Krause, Karl-Heinz; Kobolák, Julianna; Dinnyés, András

2017-12-01

Neural progenitor cells (NPCs) from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are frequently induced using 3D culture methodologies however, it is unknown whether spheroid-based (3D) neural induction is actually superior to monolayer (2D) neural induction. Our aim was to compare the efficiency of 2D induction with 3D induction method in their ability to generate NPCs, and subsequently neurons and astrocytes. Neural differentiation was analysed at the protein level qualitatively by immunocytochemistry and quantitatively by flow cytometry for NPC (SOX1, PAX6, NESTIN), neuronal (MAP2, TUBB3), cortical layer (TBR1, CUX1) and glial markers (SOX9, GFAP, AQP4). Electron microscopy demonstrated that both methods resulted in morphologically similar neural rosettes. However, quantification of NPCs derived from 3D neural induction exhibited an increase in the number of PAX6/NESTIN double positive cells and the derived neurons exhibited longer neurites. In contrast, 2D neural induction resulted in more SOX1 positive cells. While 2D monolayer induction resulted in slightly less mature neurons, at an early stage of differentiation, the patch clamp analysis failed to reveal any significant differences between the electrophysiological properties between the two induction methods. In conclusion, 3D neural induction increases the yield of PAX6 + /NESTIN + cells and gives rise to neurons with longer neurites, which might be an advantage for the production of forebrain cortical neurons, highlighting the potential of 3D neural induction, independent of iPSCs' genetic background. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effective Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease by Means of Association Rules

Science.gov (United States)

Chaves, R.; Ramírez, J.; Górriz, J. M.; López, M.; Salas-Gonzalez, D.; Illán, I.; Segovia, F.; Padilla, P.

In this paper we present a novel classification method of SPECT images for the early diagnosis of the Alzheimer's disease (AD). The proposed method is based on Association Rules (ARs) aiming to discover interesting associations between attributes contained in the database. The system uses firstly voxel-as-features (VAF) and Activation Estimation (AE) to find tridimensional activated brain regions of interest (ROIs) for each patient. These ROIs act as inputs to secondly mining ARs between activated blocks for controls, with a specified minimum support and minimum confidence. ARs are mined in supervised mode, using information previously extracted from the most discriminant rules for centering interest in the relevant brain areas, reducing the computational requirement of the system. Finally classification process is performed depending on the number of previously mined rules verified by each subject, yielding an up to 95.87% classification accuracy, thus outperforming recent developed methods for AD diagnosis.

The Aptitude-Treatment Interaction Effects on the Learning of Grammar Rules

Science.gov (United States)

Hwu, Fenfang; Sun, Shuyan

2012-01-01

The present study investigates the interaction between two types of explicit instructional approaches, deduction and explicit-induction, and the level of foreign language aptitude in the learning of grammar rules. Results indicate that on the whole the two equally explicit instructional approaches did not differentially affect learning…

The effect of esmolol on corrected-QT interval, corrected-QT interval dispersion changes seen during anesthesia induction in hypertensive patients taking an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zahit Çeker

2015-02-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The importance of minimizing the exaggerated sympatho-adrenergic responses and QT interval and QT interval dispersion changes that may develop due to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation during anesthesia induction in the hypertensive patients is clear. Esmolol decreases the hemodynamic response to laryngoscopy and intubation. However, the effect of esmolol in decreasing the prolonged QT interval and QT interval dispersion as induced by laryngoscopy and intubation is controversial. We investigated the effect of esmolol on the hemodynamic, and corrected-QT interval and corrected-QT interval dispersion changes seen during anesthesia induction in hypertensive patients using angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors. METHODS: 60 ASA I-II patients, with essential hypertension using angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors were included in the study. The esmolol group received esmolol at a bolus dose of 500 mcg/kg followed by a 100 mcg/kg/min infusion which continued until the 4th min after intubation. The control group received 0.9% saline similar to the esmolol group. The mean blood pressure, heart rate values and the electrocardiogram records were obtained as baseline values before the anesthesia, 5 min after esmolol and saline administration, 3 min after the induction and 30 s, 2 min and 4 min after intubation. RESULTS: The corrected-QT interval was shorter in the esmolol group (p = 0.012, the corrected-QT interval dispersion interval was longer in the control group (p = 0.034 and the mean heart rate was higher in the control group (p = 0.022 30 s after intubation. The risk of arrhythmia frequency was higher in the control group in the 4-min period following intubation (p = 0.038. CONCLUSION: Endotracheal intubation was found to prolong corrected-QT interval and corrected-QT interval dispersion, and increase the heart rate during anesthesia induction with propofol in hypertensive patients using angiotensin converting

The Interplay of Externalizing Problems and Physical and Inductive Discipline during Childhood

Science.gov (United States)

Choe, Daniel Ewon; Olson, Sheryl L.; Sameroff, Arnold J.

2013-01-01

Children who are physically disciplined are at elevated risk for externalizing problems. Conversely, maternal reasoning and reminding of rules, or inductive discipline, is associated with fewer child externalizing problems. Few studies have simultaneously examined bidirectional associations between these forms of discipline and child adjustment…

A Method to Construct Plasma with Nonlinear Density Enhancement Effect in Multiple Internal Inductively Coupled Plasmas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Zhipeng; Li Hong; Liu Qiuyan; Luo Chen; Xie Jinlin; Liu Wandong

2011-01-01

A method is proposed to built up plasma based on a nonlinear enhancement phenomenon of plasma density with discharge by multiple internal antennas simultaneously. It turns out that the plasma density under multiple sources is higher than the linear summation of the density under each source. This effect is helpful to reduce the fast exponential decay of plasma density in single internal inductively coupled plasma source and generating a larger-area plasma with multiple internal inductively coupled plasma sources. After a careful study on the balance between the enhancement and the decay of plasma density in experiments, a plasma is built up by four sources, which proves the feasibility of this method. According to the method, more sources and more intensive enhancement effect can be employed to further build up a high-density, large-area plasma for different applications. (low temperature plasma)

Inductance loop and partial

CERN Document Server

Paul, Clayton R

2010-01-01

"Inductance is an unprecedented text, thoroughly discussing "loop" inductance as well as the increasingly important "partial" inductance. These concepts and their proper calculation are crucial in designing modern high-speed digital systems. World-renowned leader in electromagnetics Clayton Paul provides the knowledge and tools necessary to understand and calculate inductance." "With the present and increasing emphasis on high-speed digital systems and high-frequency analog systems, it is imperative that system designers develop an intimate understanding of the concepts and methods in this book. Inductance is a much-needed textbook designed for senior and graduate-level engineering students, as well as a hands-on guide for working engineers and professionals engaged in the design of high-speed digital and high-frequency analog systems."--Jacket.

Dexmedetomidine as an adjunct to anesthetic induction to attenuate hemodynamic response to endotracheal intubation in patients undergoing fast-track CABG

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Menda Ferdi

2010-01-01

Full Text Available During induction of general anesthesia hypertension and tachycardia caused by tracheal intubation may lead to cardiac ischemia and arrhythmias. In this prospective, randomized study, dexmedetomidine has been used to attenuate the hemodynamic response to endotracheal intubation with low dose fentanyl and etomidate in patients undergoing myocardial revascularization receiving beta blocker treatment. Thirty patients undergoing myocardial revascularization received in a double blind manner, either a saline placebo or a dexmedetomidine infusion (1 µg/kg before the anesthesia induction. Heart rate (HR and blood pressure (BP were monitored at baseline, after placebo or dexmedetomidine infusion, after induction of general anesthesia, one, three and five minutes after endotracheal intubation. In the dexmedetomidine (DEX group systolic (SAP, diastolic (DAP and mean arterial pressures (MAP were lower at all times in comparison to baseline values; in the placebo (PLA group SAP, DAP and MAP decreased after the induction of general anesthesia and five minutes after the intubation compared to baseline values. This decrease was not significantly different between the groups. After the induction of general anesthesia, the drop in HR was higher in DEX group compared to PLA group. One minute after endotracheal intubation, HR significantly increased in PLA group while, it decreased in the DEX group. The incidence of tachycardia, hypotension and bradycardia was not different between the groups. The incidence of hypertension requiring treatment was significantly greater in the PLA group. It is concluded that dexmedetomidine can safely be used to attenuate the hemodynamic response to endotracheal intubation in patients undergoing myocardial revascularization receiving beta blockers.

Our experiences with the induction of opioids for early laryngeal cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sueta, Takayuki; Fukuzaki, Tsutomu; Onishi, Yoshiki; Sugamura, Mayumi; Miyagi, Morimichi; Nakagawa, Takashi; Takase, Hisamitsu

2012-01-01

Radiotherapy and chemo-radiotherapy are generally effective for early laryngeal cancer. However, the local pain due to the mucositis induced by the irradiation often prevents the completion of treatment. Since 2005, we have administrated an opioid to control a pain if necessary. We divided 40 early laryngeal cancer patients into 2 groups of 20 patients, and the influence of treatment with the opioid was investigated in the two groups. One group received the induction of the opioid, and patients were treated from 2008 to 2010. The others were treated before 2004 and did not receive the opioid. Both groups frequently used various painkillers, however, the time after the initiation of treatment when subjects began taking the painkiller was shorter for the after induction group than the before induction group. Ten percent of patients paused radiation treatment in the after induction group, and 70% had to temporarily stop treatment in the before induction group. Thus, the interruption of radiation was significantly less frequent in the after induction group than the before induction group. Our results indicate that the introduction of opioids for radiation patients improved the course of cancer treatment. (author)

Honoring Dental Patients' Privacy Rule Right of Access in the Context of Electronic Health Records.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramoni, Rachel B; Asher, Sheetal R; White, Joel M; Vaderhobli, Ram; Ogunbodede, Eyitope O; Walji, Muhammad F; Riedy, Christine; Kalenderian, Elsbeth

2016-06-01

A person's right to access his or her protected health information is a core feature of the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. If the information is stored electronically, covered entities must be able to provide patients with some type of machine-readable, electronic copy of their data. The aim of this study was to understand how academic dental institutions execute the Privacy Rule's right of access in the context of electronic health records (EHRs). A validated electronic survey was distributed to the clinical deans of 62 U.S. dental schools during a two-month period in 2014. The response rate to the survey was 53.2% (N=33). However, three surveys were partially completed, and of the 30 completed surveys, the 24 respondents who reported using axiUm as the EHR at their dental school clinic were the ones on which the results were based (38.7% of total schools at the time). Of the responses analyzed, 86% agreed that clinical modules should be considered part of a patient's dental record, and all agreed that student teaching-related modules should not. Great variability existed among these clinical deans as to whether administrative and financial modules should be considered part of a patient record. When patients request their records, close to 50% of responding schools provide the information exclusively on paper. This study found variation among dental schools in their implementation of the Privacy Rule right of access, and although all the respondents had adopted EHRs, a large number return records in paper format.

Automatic design of decision-tree induction algorithms tailored to flexible-receptor docking data.

Science.gov (United States)

Barros, Rodrigo C; Winck, Ana T; Machado, Karina S; Basgalupp, Márcio P; de Carvalho, André C P L F; Ruiz, Duncan D; de Souza, Osmar Norberto

2012-11-21

This paper addresses the prediction of the free energy of binding of a drug candidate with enzyme InhA associated with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This problem is found within rational drug design, where interactions between drug candidates and target proteins are verified through molecular docking simulations. In this application, it is important not only to correctly predict the free energy of binding, but also to provide a comprehensible model that could be validated by a domain specialist. Decision-tree induction algorithms have been successfully used in drug-design related applications, specially considering that decision trees are simple to understand, interpret, and validate. There are several decision-tree induction algorithms available for general-use, but each one has a bias that makes it more suitable for a particular data distribution. In this article, we propose and investigate the automatic design of decision-tree induction algorithms tailored to particular drug-enzyme binding data sets. We investigate the performance of our new method for evaluating binding conformations of different drug candidates to InhA, and we analyze our findings with respect to decision tree accuracy, comprehensibility, and biological relevance. The empirical analysis indicates that our method is capable of automatically generating decision-tree induction algorithms that significantly outperform the traditional C4.5 algorithm with respect to both accuracy and comprehensibility. In addition, we provide the biological interpretation of the rules generated by our approach, reinforcing the importance of comprehensible predictive models in this particular bioinformatics application. We conclude that automatically designing a decision-tree algorithm tailored to molecular docking data is a promising alternative for the prediction of the free energy from the binding of a drug candidate with a flexible-receptor.

Inductive reasoning in Zambia, Turkey, and the Netherlands Establishing cross-cultural equivalence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van de Vijver, F.J.R.

2002-01-01

Tasks of inductive reasoning and its component processes were administered to 704 Zambian, 877 Turkish, and 632 Dutch pupils from the highest two grades of primary and the lowest two grades of secondary school. All items were constructed using item-generating rules. Three types of equivalence were

Different strategies in solving series completion inductive reasoning problems: an fMRI and computational study.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Peipeng; Jia, Xiuqin; Taatgen, Niels A; Zhong, Ning; Li, Kuncheng

2014-08-01

Neural correlate of human inductive reasoning process is still unclear. Number series and letter series completion are two typical inductive reasoning tasks, and with a common core component of rule induction. Previous studies have demonstrated that different strategies are adopted in number series and letter series completion tasks; even the underlying rules are identical. In the present study, we examined cortical activation as a function of two different reasoning strategies for solving series completion tasks. The retrieval strategy, used in number series completion tasks, involves direct retrieving of arithmetic knowledge to get the relations between items. The procedural strategy, used in letter series completion tasks, requires counting a certain number of times to detect the relations linking two items. The two strategies require essentially the equivalent cognitive processes, but have different working memory demands (the procedural strategy incurs greater demands). The procedural strategy produced significant greater activity in areas involved in memory retrieval (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, DLPFC) and mental representation/maintenance (posterior parietal cortex, PPC). An ACT-R model of the tasks successfully predicted behavioral performance and BOLD responses. The present findings support a general-purpose dual-process theory of inductive reasoning regarding the cognitive architecture. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Improving the Interpretability of Classification Rules Discovered by an Ant Colony Algorithm: Extended Results.

Science.gov (United States)

Otero, Fernando E B; Freitas, Alex A

2016-01-01

Most ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms for inducing classification rules use a ACO-based procedure to create a rule in a one-at-a-time fashion. An improved search strategy has been proposed in the cAnt-Miner[Formula: see text] algorithm, where an ACO-based procedure is used to create a complete list of rules (ordered rules), i.e., the ACO search is guided by the quality of a list of rules instead of an individual rule. In this paper we propose an extension of the cAnt-Miner[Formula: see text] algorithm to discover a set of rules (unordered rules). The main motivations for this work are to improve the interpretation of individual rules by discovering a set of rules and to evaluate the impact on the predictive accuracy of the algorithm. We also propose a new measure to evaluate the interpretability of the discovered rules to mitigate the fact that the commonly used model size measure ignores how the rules are used to make a class prediction. Comparisons with state-of-the-art rule induction algorithms, support vector machines, and the cAnt-Miner[Formula: see text] producing ordered rules are also presented.

Rules Extraction with an Immune Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deqin Yan

2007-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a method of extracting rules with immune algorithms from information systems is proposed. Designing an immune algorithm is based on a sharing mechanism to extract rules. The principle of sharing and competing resources in the sharing mechanism is consistent with the relationship of sharing and rivalry among rules. In order to extract rules efficiently, a new concept of flexible confidence and rule measurement is introduced. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is effective.

Induction position for spinal anaesthesia: Sitting versus lateral position

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shahzad, K.; Afshan, G.

2013-01-01

Objective: To compare the effect of induction position on block characteristics (sensory and motor nerves) and haemodynamic stability in elderly patients with isobaric bupivacaine. Patient comfort was also looked at. Methods: The randomized single blinded study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from September 2007 to August 2008. A total of 70 patients aged >60 years of both genders were included. Spinal anaesthesia was performed either in sitting or lateral position according to random allocation. Assessments of sensory, motor block and heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were recorded for 20 minutes. SPSS 16 was used for statistical analysis. Results: There was no significant difference for haemodynamic variables heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The onset of anaesthesia was faster in the sitting group (4.5 minutes vs 5.4 minutes). The motor block characteristics were similar in both the groups. The majority of patients who reported 'very comfortable' for induction position belonged to the lateral group. Conclusion: Both sitting and lateral positions have similar effects on sensory and motor blockade and haemodynamic stability. However, patients generally found lateral position very comfortable. (author)

Sonographic Diagnosis of Tubal Cancer with IOTA Simple Rules Plus Pattern Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Tongsong, Theera; Wanapirak, Chanane; Tantipalakorn, Charuwan; Tinnangwattana, Dangcheewan

2017-11-26

Objective: To evaluate diagnostic performance of IOTA simple rules plus pattern recognition in predicting tubal cancer. Methods: Secondary analysis was performed on prospective database of our IOTA project. The patients recruited in the project were those who were scheduled for pelvic surgery due to adnexal masses. The patients underwent ultrasound examinations within 24 hours before surgery. On ultrasound examination, the masses were evaluated using the well-established IOTA simple rules plus pattern recognition (sausage-shaped appearance, incomplete septum, visible ipsilateral ovaries) to predict tubal cancer. The gold standard diagnosis was based on histological findings or operative findings. Results: A total of 482 patients, including 15 cases of tubal cancer, were evaluated by ultrasound preoperatively. The IOTA simple rules plus pattern recognition gave a sensitivity of 86.7% (13 in 15) and specificity of 97.4%. Sausage-shaped appearance was identified in nearly all cases (14 in 15). Incomplete septa and normal ovaries could be identified in 33.3% and 40%, respectively. Conclusion: IOTA simple rules plus pattern recognition is relatively effective in predicting tubal cancer. Thus, we propose the simple scheme in diagnosis of tubal cancer as follows. First of all, the adnexal masses are evaluated with IOTA simple rules. If the B-rules could be applied, tubal cancer is reliably excluded. If the M-rules could be applied or the result is inconclusive, careful delineation of the mass with pattern recognition should be performed. Creative Commons Attribution License

Aniseikonia quantification: error rate of rule of thumb estimation.

Science.gov (United States)

Lubkin, V; Shippman, S; Bennett, G; Meininger, D; Kramer, P; Poppinga, P

1999-01-01

To find the error rate in quantifying aniseikonia by using "Rule of Thumb" estimation in comparison with proven space eikonometry. Study 1: 24 adult pseudophakic individuals were measured for anisometropia, and astigmatic interocular difference. Rule of Thumb quantification for prescription was calculated and compared with aniseikonia measurement by the classical Essilor Projection Space Eikonometer. Study 2: parallel analysis was performed on 62 consecutive phakic patients from our strabismus clinic group. Frequency of error: For Group 1 (24 cases): 5 ( or 21 %) were equal (i.e., 1% or less difference); 16 (or 67% ) were greater (more than 1% different); and 3 (13%) were less by Rule of Thumb calculation in comparison to aniseikonia determined on the Essilor eikonometer. For Group 2 (62 cases): 45 (or 73%) were equal (1% or less); 10 (or 16%) were greater; and 7 (or 11%) were lower in the Rule of Thumb calculations in comparison to Essilor eikonometry. Magnitude of error: In Group 1, in 10/24 (29%) aniseikonia by Rule of Thumb estimation was 100% or more greater than by space eikonometry, and in 6 of those ten by 200% or more. In Group 2, in 4/62 (6%) aniseikonia by Rule of Thumb estimation was 200% or more greater than by space eikonometry. The frequency and magnitude of apparent clinical errors of Rule of Thumb estimation is disturbingly large. This problem is greatly magnified by the time and effort and cost of prescribing and executing an aniseikonic correction for a patient. The higher the refractive error, the greater the anisometropia, and the worse the errors in Rule of Thumb estimation of aniseikonia. Accurate eikonometric methods and devices should be employed in all cases where such measurements can be made. Rule of thumb estimations should be limited to cases where such subjective testing and measurement cannot be performed, as in infants after unilateral cataract surgery.

Representation of molecular structure using quantum topology with inductive logic programming in structure-activity relationships.

Science.gov (United States)

Buttingsrud, Bård; Ryeng, Einar; King, Ross D; Alsberg, Bjørn K

2006-06-01

The requirement of aligning each individual molecule in a data set severely limits the type of molecules which can be analysed with traditional structure activity relationship (SAR) methods. A method which solves this problem by using relations between objects is inductive logic programming (ILP). Another advantage of this methodology is its ability to include background knowledge as 1st-order logic. However, previous molecular ILP representations have not been effective in describing the electronic structure of molecules. We present a more unified and comprehensive representation based on Richard Bader's quantum topological atoms in molecules (AIM) theory where critical points in the electron density are connected through a network. AIM theory provides a wealth of chemical information about individual atoms and their bond connections enabling a more flexible and chemically relevant representation. To obtain even more relevant rules with higher coverage, we apply manual postprocessing and interpretation of ILP rules. We have tested the usefulness of the new representation in SAR modelling on classifying compounds of low/high mutagenicity and on a set of factor Xa inhibitors of high and low affinity.

Effectiveness of gaseous and intravenous inductions on children′s anxiety and distress during extraction of teeth under general anesthesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giath Gazal

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Context: Anxiety and distress regarding dental treatment is a major issue for dental patients and can be exaggerated in pediatric dental patients. Aims: The aim was to investigate how different methods of induction for general anesthesia affect children′s distress for dental procedures such as extraction of teeth. Subjects and Methods: This was an observational clinical study conducted at Manchester University Dental Hospital. The induction of anesthesia in children was achieved with either intravenous (I.V. or a gaseous induction. The Modified Child Smiley Faces Scales were completed for children at various times intervals. Statistical Analysis Used: There were statistically significant differences between the mean distress scores for the I.V. and inhalation groups (P values from independent t-test: P < 0.001 was applied. Results: In gaseous induction group, the number of children who scored severe and very severe distress was greater than those who were in I.V. group. Gaseous induction was used for 23 children. Preoperatively, 56.5% children were in very severe distress, 17.4% in severe distress, 13% in moderate distress, 8.7% in mild distress and only one (4.3% showed no distress. For I.V. induction, 11.2% children were in very severe distress, 9% in severe distress, and 9.6% in moderate distress, 24.2% in mild distress and 46.1% showed no distress. Conclusions: Gaseous induction anesthesia for extractions of teeth does produce high levels of distress than I.V. induction in children for dental extractions. There was no significant difference between both induction methods in terms of distress levels at the time of recovery and 15 min postoperatively.

Oral misoprostol versus dinoprostone vaginal tablets for labor induction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khaled Ibrahim Abu El aish

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Background: Induction of labour is common in obstetric practice. We conducted this study to find the appropriate and safe drug for labour induction and to compare the safety and efficacy of oral misoprostol and vaginal dinoprostone for labour induction. Methods: In a provisional, prospective and cross-sectional study, one hundred and fifty five singleton cephalic presentation full term pregnancies with medical or obstetric indication for labour induction were allocated in two groups. First group received oral 50 micrograms for nulliparas and low parity group (1-4, and 25micrograms for grand multiparas (≥ 5 misoprostol orally every 6 hours to a maximum of four doses daily. In the second group vaginal tablets of dinoprostone 3mg then 1.5mg for nulliparas and 1.5mg for low parity and grand multiparas groups were inserted in the posterior fornix, every 8 hours. Primary outcome measures were: induction success, induction-delivery interval and number of used doses. Secondary outcome measures included: maternal side effects, caesarean section rate, mode of delivery and neonatal outcome. Data was collected from patient case notes and analyzed using software SPSS (version 13.0 and p-value < 0.05 was used as statistical significance of differences. Results: In our study there were no significant differences in baseline parameters in the two groups nor in the indications for labor induction except misoprostol was used in premature rupture of membrane. Induction of labor succeeded in 123 (79.35% women without other interventions from other methods (80.26%misoprostol group versus 78.5% dinoprostone p=0.492. It was observed that there were no significant differences between the two groups in final outcomes nor in obstetrical complications. There was no significance in differences between misoprostol and dinoprostone groups in induction-delivery interval (15.2 ± 14.5 hours versus 16.4 ± 11.3 hours p=0.6 resp.. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that oral

Fusion rule estimation using vector space methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rao, N.S.V.

1997-01-01

In a system of N sensors, the sensor S j , j = 1, 2 .... N, outputs Y (j) element-of Re, according to an unknown probability distribution P (Y(j) /X) , corresponding to input X element-of [0, 1]. A training n-sample (X 1 , Y 1 ), (X 2 , Y 2 ), ..., (X n , Y n ) is given where Y i = (Y i (1) , Y i (2) , . . . , Y i N ) such that Y i (j) is the output of S j in response to input X i . The problem is to estimate a fusion rule f : Re N → [0, 1], based on the sample, such that the expected square error is minimized over a family of functions Y that constitute a vector space. The function f* that minimizes the expected error cannot be computed since the underlying densities are unknown, and only an approximation f to f* is feasible. We estimate the sample size sufficient to ensure that f provides a close approximation to f* with a high probability. The advantages of vector space methods are two-fold: (a) the sample size estimate is a simple function of the dimensionality of F, and (b) the estimate f can be easily computed by well-known least square methods in polynomial time. The results are applicable to the classical potential function methods and also (to a recently proposed) special class of sigmoidal feedforward neural networks

Type III radical hysterectomy after induction chemotherapy for patients with locally advanced cervical carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez-Graniel, C; Reyes, M; Chanona, G; Gonzalez, A; Robles, E; Mohar, A; Lopez-Basave, H; De La Garza, J G; Dueñas-Gonzalez, A

2001-01-01

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery is a promising approach in locally advanced cervical carcinoma. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, technical aspects, and clinical results of surgery after induction chemotherapy in this patient population. Forty-one untreated cervical carcinoma patients staged as IB2 to IIIB received three 21-day courses of cisplatin 100mg/m2 on day 1 and gemcitabine 1000 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8 followed by surgery or concomitant chemoradiation. The response to chemotherapy, operability, surgical/pathological findings, disease-free period, and survival of the surgically treated patients were evaluated. All 41 patients were evaluated for toxicity and 40 were evaluated for response. The overall objective response rate was 95% (95% confidence interval 88%-100%), and was complete in three patients (7.5%) and partial in 35 (87.5%). Granulocytopenia grades 3/4 occurred in 13.8% and 3.4% of the courses, respectively, whereas nonhematological toxicity was mild. Twenty-three patients underwent type III radical hysterectomy. Mean duration of surgery was 3.8 h (range 2:30-5:20), median estimated blood loss was 670 ml and median hospital stay was 5.2 days. Intraoperative complications occurred in one case (venous injury). In all but one case the resection margins were negative. Four patients (17%) had positive nodes (one node each); six (26%) had complete pathologic response, three (13%) had microscopic; and 14 (60%) macroscopic residual disease. At 24 months of maximum follow-up (median 20), the disease-free and overall survival rates were 59% and 91%, respectively. Induction chemotherapy with cisplatin/gemcitabine produced a high response rate and did not increase the difficulty of surgery. Operating time, blood loss, intraoperative complications, and hospital stay were all within the range observed for type III hysterectomy in early stage patients. We therefore conclude that type III radical hysterectomy is feasible in locally

Crowbar System in Doubly Fed Induction Wind Generators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maurício B. C. Salles

2010-04-01

Full Text Available In the last 15 years, the use of doubly fed induction machines in modern variable-speed wind turbines has increased rapidly. This development has been driven by the cost reduction as well as the low-loss generation of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT. According to new grid code requirements, wind turbines must remain connected to the grid during grid disturbances. Moreover, they must also contribute to voltage support during and after grid faults. The crowbar system is essential to avoid the disconnection of the doubly fed induction wind generators from the network during faults. The insertion of the crowbar in the rotor circuits for a short period of time enables a more efficient terminal voltage control. As a general rule, the activation and the deactivation of the crowbar system is based only on the DC-link voltage level of the back-to-back converters. In this context, the authors discuss the critical rotor speed to analyze the instability of doubly fed induction generators during grid faults.

Impact of induction treatment before autologous stem cell transplantation on long-term outcome in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

Science.gov (United States)

Gassiot, Susanna; Motlló, Cristina; Llombart, Inuska; Morgades, Mireia; González, Yolanda; Garcia-Caro, Montse; Ribera, Josep-Maria; Oriol, Albert

2017-06-01

Clinical trials for patients with multiple myeloma (MM) using novel agent (NA)-based regimens before autologous stem cell transplantation (SCT) have shown improvement in response rates and progression-free survival (PFS); however they have failed to identify a significant overall survival (OS) benefit. The aim of this study was to analyze the potential impact of initial induction on the feasibility and outcome of subsequent treatment lines in a real clinical practice setting. Patients with consecutive MM <70 years of age diagnosed between 1999 and 2009 were prospectively registered and classified as having received conventional chemotherapy induction regimens with new agents available at relapse (CC cohort, 89 patients) or as treated with NAs upfront (NA cohort, 65 patients). Patients in the NA cohort demonstrated a superior median PFS (2.8 years vs 1.6 years, P=.03) and also a median PFS from diagnosis to second progression (5.2 years vs 2.7 years, P=.003). After a median follow-up of 7 years, clear differences in OS were observed (7.97 years in NA cohort compared to 3.35 years in CC cohort, P<.001). New agent-based first-line induction treatments provide benefits in both PFS and beyond that point, contributing to a significant improvement in OS. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Evaluation of inductive heating energy of a PF insert coil conductor by the calorimetric method (Contract research)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsui, Kunihiro; Nabara, Yoshihiro; Nunoya, Yoshihiko; Koizumi, Norikiyo; Okuno, Kiyoshi

2009-02-01

The PF Insert Coil is a single layer solenoid coil using a superconducting conductor designed for ITER, housed in a Poloidal field coil and installed in the bore of the CS Model Coil. A stability test of the conductor will be performed in a magnetic field generated by the CS Model Coil. In this test, the inductive heat of an inductive heater attached to the conductor will be applied to initiate a normal zone in the conductor. Since the conductor for the PF Insert Coil is a cable-in-conduit conductor, it is quite difficult to estimate inductive heating energy theoretically. Thus, the inductive heating energy is measured experimentally by the calorimetric method. The heating energy is in proportion to a constant multiplied by the integrated square of an applied sinusoidal current wave over the heating period. Experimental results show that the proportional constants of the conductor, cable, conduit and dummy conductor are 0.138 [J/A 2 s], 0.028 [J/A 2 s], 0.118 [J/A 2 s] and 0.009 [J/A 2 s], respectively. The first three denote not only the inductive heating but also the joule heating of the inductive heater. The final value denotes joule heating only. Therefore, subtracting the first three constants by the last one, the proportional constants of inductive heating generated in the conductor, cable and conduit are estimated to be 0.129 [J/A 2 s], 0.019 [J/A 2 s] and 0.109 [J/A 2 s], respectively. (author)

Highly scalable and robust rule learner: performance evaluation and comparison.

Science.gov (United States)

Kurgan, Lukasz A; Cios, Krzysztof J; Dick, Scott

2006-02-01

Business intelligence and bioinformatics applications increasingly require the mining of datasets consisting of millions of data points, or crafting real-time enterprise-level decision support systems for large corporations and drug companies. In all cases, there needs to be an underlying data mining system, and this mining system must be highly scalable. To this end, we describe a new rule learner called DataSqueezer. The learner belongs to the family of inductive supervised rule extraction algorithms. DataSqueezer is a simple, greedy, rule builder that generates a set of production rules from labeled input data. In spite of its relative simplicity, DataSqueezer is a very effective learner. The rules generated by the algorithm are compact, comprehensible, and have accuracy comparable to rules generated by other state-of-the-art rule extraction algorithms. The main advantages of DataSqueezer are very high efficiency, and missing data resistance. DataSqueezer exhibits log-linear asymptotic complexity with the number of training examples, and it is faster than other state-of-the-art rule learners. The learner is also robust to large quantities of missing data, as verified by extensive experimental comparison with the other learners. DataSqueezer is thus well suited to modern data mining and business intelligence tasks, which commonly involve huge datasets with a large fraction of missing data.

Outcome of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia after Induction Therapy --- Three-Year Experience in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Bangladesh

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M Belayet Hossain

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background: The incidence of different malignancies is increasing among the world populations. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL is the most common of all the paediatric malignancies. Response to induction therapy is one of the most important predictors of long term outcome of ALL. Objective: To see the immediate outcome of paediatric ALL patients following induction therapy. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted from January 2013 to December 2015. Total 221 paediatric ALL patients were included in this study. Diagnosis was based on history, examination, blast cells count on peripheral blood film and bone marrow study, CSF study and immunophenotyping of peripheral blood/bone marrow aspirate in patients who were financially capable. Among them, parents of 40 (18% patients did not agree to start chemotherapy. According to Modified UK ALL 2003 protocol (Regimen A & B 181 patients were given induction therapy (vincristine, prednisolone, L-asparaginase, and daunomycin in high risk patients. Among them 14 patients discontinued, 10 patients died during chemotherapy and rest 157 patients completed induction phase. Bone marrow study was repeated after completion of induction therapy and remission pattern was seen. Results: Out of 157 chemotherapy completed patients, 137 (87% went into complete remission (25% blast cells in the bone marrow. Ten (5.5% patients died due to bleeding, febrile neutropenia and sepsis during the course of induction therapy. Conclusion: ALL in children is curable with effective chemotherapy. Poverty, ignorance and misconception regarding outcome are responsible for refusal and discontinuation of chemotherapy in third world countries like Bangladesh. Mortality and treatment cost can be reduced with the improvement of the facilities for isolation, barrier nursing and supportive treatment, and by creating awareness.

Dobutamine use for arrhythmia induction during electrical programmed heart stimulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vanegas, Diego I; Perez, Climaco de J; Montenegro, Juan de J; Orjuela, Alejandro

2006-01-01

isoproterenol is the traditionally used drug for incrementing arrhythmia induction when this induction is not achieved during electric programmed heart stimulation under basal conditions. Dobutamine is an adrenergic agent, chemical precursor of isoproterenol, which can be an alternative for inducing arrhythmia during electrical programmed heart stimulation (PES). Patients and methods: a retrospective comparative study of the experience with dobutamine for inducing arrhythmia during electrical programmed heart stimulation was performed. The following data were collected: number of studies, data about the patient (medical record, age, gender, and study indication) protocol of programmed electrical stimulation, basal and under dobutamine or isoproterenol, and result of the study. Isoproterenol was used in doses of 1 to 3 micrograms per minute until the basal heart rate was incremented at least in 25%. Dobutamine was used in doses of 10 to 40 micrograms per kg of body weight, until obtaining the same increment in the basal heart rate. Results: 1054 electrophysiological studies were evaluated. In 144 patients (group A) isoproterenol was used and in 140, dobutamine (group B). In A group the mean age was 39.2 ± 16.2 and 58.3% were females. In-group B, mean age was 41.9 ± 18.6 and 51% were females. The most frequent symptom was palpitation and the most commonly induced arrhythmia was AV nodal reentry tachycardia in both groups. The induction of arrhythmia during the electrical programmed heat stimulation under drugs was similar in-group A (isoproterenol) respect to group B (dobutamine). Conclusions: There were no statistical significant differences in the induction of arrhythmia during electrical programmed heart stimulation using dobutamine or isoproterenol. Dobutamine may be safe and may be successfully used as an alternative to isoproterenol for arrhythmia induction during electrical programmed stimulation

The interplay of externalizing problems and physical and inductive discipline during childhood.

Science.gov (United States)

Choe, Daniel Ewon; Olson, Sheryl L; Sameroff, Arnold J

2013-11-01

Children who are physically disciplined are at elevated risk for externalizing problems. Conversely, maternal reasoning and reminding of rules, or inductive discipline, is associated with fewer child externalizing problems. Few studies have simultaneously examined bidirectional associations between these forms of discipline and child adjustment using cross-informant, multimethod data. We hypothesized that less inductive and more physical discipline would predict more externalizing problems, children would have evocative effects on parenting, and high levels of either form of discipline would predict low levels of the other. In a study of 241 children-spanning ages 3, 5.5, and 10-structural equation modeling indicated that 3-year-olds with higher teacher ratings of externalizing problems received higher mother ratings of physical discipline at age 5.5. Mothers endorsing more inductive discipline at child age 3 reported less physical discipline and had children with fewer externalizing problems at age 5.5. Negative bidirectional associations emerged between physical and inductive discipline from ages 5.5 to 10. Findings suggested children's externalizing problems elicited physical discipline, and maternal inductive discipline might help prevent externalizing problems and physical discipline.

Action Rules Mining

CERN Document Server

Dardzinska, Agnieszka

2013-01-01

We are surrounded by data, numerical, categorical and otherwise, which must to be analyzed and processed to convert it into information that instructs, answers or aids understanding and decision making. Data analysts in many disciplines such as business, education or medicine, are frequently asked to analyze new data sets which are often composed of numerous tables possessing different properties. They try to find completely new correlations between attributes and show new possibilities for users.   Action rules mining discusses some of data mining and knowledge discovery principles and then describe representative concepts, methods and algorithms connected with action. The author introduces the formal definition of action rule, notion of a simple association action rule and a representative action rule, the cost of association action rule, and gives a strategy how to construct simple association action rules of a lowest cost. A new approach for generating action rules from datasets with numerical attributes...

Evaluation of IOTA Simple Ultrasound Rules to Distinguish Benign and Malignant Ovarian Tumours.

Science.gov (United States)

Garg, Sugandha; Kaur, Amarjit; Mohi, Jaswinder Kaur; Sibia, Preet Kanwal; Kaur, Navkiran

2017-08-01

IOTA stands for International Ovarian Tumour Analysis group. Ovarian cancer is one of the common cancers in women and is diagnosed at later stage in majority. The limiting factor for early diagnosis is lack of standardized terms and procedures in gynaecological sonography. Introduction of IOTA rules has provided some consistency in defining morphological features of ovarian masses through a standardized examination technique. To evaluate the efficacy of IOTA simple ultrasound rules in distinguishing benign and malignant ovarian tumours and establishing their use as a tool in early diagnosis of ovarian malignancy. A hospital based case control prospective study was conducted. Patients with suspected ovarian pathology were evaluated using IOTA ultrasound rules and designated as benign or malignant. Findings were correlated with histopathological findings. Collected data was statistically analysed using chi-square test and kappa statistical method. Out of initial 55 patients, 50 patients were included in the final analysis who underwent surgery. IOTA simple rules were applicable in 45 out of these 50 patients (90%). The sensitivity for the detection of malignancy in cases where IOTA simple rules were applicable was 91.66% and the specificity was 84.84%. Accuracy was 86.66%. Classifying inconclusive cases as malignant, the sensitivity and specificity was 93% and 80% respectively. High level of agreement was found between USG and histopathological diagnosis with Kappa value as 0.323. IOTA simple ultrasound rules were highly sensitive and specific in predicting ovarian malignancy preoperatively yet being reproducible, easy to train and use.

Tofacitinib as Induction and Maintenance Therapy for Ulcerative Colitis.

Science.gov (United States)

Sandborn, William J; Su, Chinyu; Sands, Bruce E; D'Haens, Geert R; Vermeire, Séverine; Schreiber, Stefan; Danese, Silvio; Feagan, Brian G; Reinisch, Walter; Niezychowski, Wojciech; Friedman, Gary; Lawendy, Nervin; Yu, Dahong; Woodworth, Deborah; Mukherjee, Arnab; Zhang, Haiying; Healey, Paul; Panés, Julian

2017-05-04

Tofacitinib, an oral, small-molecule Janus kinase inhibitor, was shown to have potential efficacy as induction therapy for ulcerative colitis in a phase 2 trial. We further evaluated the efficacy of tofacitinib as induction and maintenance therapy. We conducted three phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of tofacitinib therapy in adults with ulcerative colitis. In the OCTAVE Induction 1 and 2 trials, 598 and 541 patients, respectively, who had moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis despite previous conventional therapy or therapy with a tumor necrosis factor antagonist were randomly assigned to receive induction therapy with tofacitinib (10 mg twice daily) or placebo for 8 weeks. The primary end point was remission at 8 weeks. In the OCTAVE Sustain trial, 593 patients who had a clinical response to induction therapy were randomly assigned to receive maintenance therapy with tofacitinib (either 5 mg or 10 mg twice daily) or placebo for 52 weeks. The primary end point was remission at 52 weeks. In the OCTAVE Induction 1 trial, remission at 8 weeks occurred in 18.5% of the patients in the tofacitinib group versus 8.2% in the placebo group (P=0.007); in the OCTAVE Induction 2 trial, remission occurred in 16.6% versus 3.6% (Ptofacitinib group and 40.6% in the 10-mg tofacitinib group versus 11.1% in the placebo group (Ptofacitinib than with placebo. In the OCTAVE Sustain trial, the rate of serious infection was similar across the three treatment groups, and the rates of overall infection and herpes zoster infection were higher with tofacitinib than with placebo. Across all three trials, adjudicated nonmelanoma skin cancer occurred in five patients who received tofacitinib and in one who received placebo, and adjudicated cardiovascular events occurred in five who received tofacitinib and in none who received placebo; as compared with placebo, tofacitinib was associated with increased lipid levels. In patients with moderately to severely

Correlation of pre-and post-induction chemotherapy 18-FDG PET findings with histopathology in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chan, Andrea M.; Berlangieri, Sam; Ngai, Michael W.

2009-01-01

Full text: Objective: To correlate 18F-FDG PET metabolic response to therapy with histopathology and survival, in patients with locally advanced (stage IIl) non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) receiving induction chemotherapy. Methods: A retrospective review of all patients with stage III NSCLC planned for induction chemotherapy and surgical resection, in whom pre- and post-chemotherapy FDG-PET at Austin Health between 2004 and 2007 was performed. The staging and positive nodal stations as determined by PET was compared to histopathological findings after resection. The tumour response on serial FDG PET was also compared to overall outcome. Results: 9 patients were included. There was a 100 % correlation between pre- or post- chemotherapy nodal staging and final histopathological nodal stage. Ninety percent of all positive nodal stations (9/10) seen on histopathology were correctly localised by pre- or post-chemotherapy FDG PET. Only one patient with a metastatic lymph node at nodal station 9 R could not be localised by prior PET studies. Of the patients in whom a down-staging in tumour status was observed on the postchemotherapy FDG-PET, 83% (5/6) of patients were still alive (follow-up range of 8 to 40 months) as compared with 33% (1/3 ) (follow-up range of 9-13 months) for non-responders. Conclusion: There is good correlation between pre- and/or post- chemotherapy FDG PET and final histopathology for the nodal staging of stage III NSCLC. There is an overall trend for those patients in whom PET resulted in a down-staging of tumour to have a longer survival.

A rule based method for context sensitive threshold segmentation in SPECT using simulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fleming, John S.; Alaamer, Abdulaziz S.

1998-01-01

Robust techniques for automatic or semi-automatic segmentation of objects in single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) are still the subject of development. This paper describes a threshold based method which uses empirical rules derived from analysis of computer simulated images of a large number of objects. The use of simulation allowed the factors affecting the threshold which correctly segmented objects to be investigated systematically. Rules could then be derived from these data to define the threshold in any particular context. The technique operated iteratively and calculated local context sensitive thresholds along radial profiles from the centre of gravity of the object. It was evaluated in a further series of simulated objects and in human studies, and compared to the use of a global fixed threshold. The method was capable of improving accuracy of segmentation and volume assessment compared to the global threshold technique. The improvements were greater for small volumes, shapes with large surface area to volume ratio, variable surrounding activity and non-uniform distributions. The method was applied successfully to simulated objects and human studies and is considered to be a significant advance on global fixed threshold techniques. (author)

System diagnostic builder: a rule-generation tool for expert systems that do intelligent data evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Nieten, Joseph L.; Burke, Roger

1993-03-01

The system diagnostic builder (SDB) is an automated knowledge acquisition tool using state- of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The SDB uses an inductive machine learning technique to generate rules from data sets that are classified by a subject matter expert (SME). Thus, data is captured from the subject system, classified by an expert, and used to drive the rule generation process. These rule-bases are used to represent the observable behavior of the subject system, and to represent knowledge about this system. The rule-bases can be used in any knowledge based system which monitors or controls a physical system or simulation. The SDB has demonstrated the utility of using inductive machine learning technology to generate reliable knowledge bases. In fact, we have discovered that the knowledge captured by the SDB can be used in any number of applications. For example, the knowledge bases captured from the SMS can be used as black box simulations by intelligent computer aided training devices. We can also use the SDB to construct knowledge bases for the process control industry, such as chemical production, or oil and gas production. These knowledge bases can be used in automated advisory systems to ensure safety, productivity, and consistency.

Global temperature stability by rule induction: An interdisciplinary bridge

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gunn, J.D.; Grzymala-Busse, J.W.

1994-01-01

Rules incorporating influences on global temperature, an estimate of radiation balance, were induced from astronomical, geophysical, and anthropogenic variables. During periods of intermediate global temperatures (generally like the present century), the influences assume canceling roles; influences cancel the effects of extreme states potentially imposed by other influences because they are, in aggregate, most likely to be assuming opposite values. This imparts an overall stability to the global temperature. To achieve cold or hot global temperature, influences assume reinforcing roles. CO 2 is an active influence on global temperature. By virtue of its constancy in the atmosphere, it can be expected to sponsor frequent hot years in combination with the other influences as they cycle through their periods. If measures were implemented to maintain warm or cool global temperatures, it could retain the status quo of present global agricultural regions. They are probably more productive than hot world regions would be because of narrow storm tracks

Automated detection of pain from facial expressions: a rule-based approach using AAM

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zhanli; Ansari, Rashid; Wilkie, Diana J.

2012-02-01

In this paper, we examine the problem of using video analysis to assess pain, an important problem especially for critically ill, non-communicative patients, and people with dementia. We propose and evaluate an automated method to detect the presence of pain manifested in patient videos using a unique and large collection of cancer patient videos captured in patient homes. The method is based on detecting pain-related facial action units defined in the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) that is widely used for objective assessment in pain analysis. In our research, a person-specific Active Appearance Model (AAM) based on Project-Out Inverse Compositional Method is trained for each patient individually for the modeling purpose. A flexible representation of the shape model is used in a rule-based method that is better suited than the more commonly used classifier-based methods for application to the cancer patient videos in which pain-related facial actions occur infrequently and more subtly. The rule-based method relies on the feature points that provide facial action cues and is extracted from the shape vertices of AAM, which have a natural correspondence to face muscular movement. In this paper, we investigate the detection of a commonly used set of pain-related action units in both the upper and lower face. Our detection results show good agreement with the results obtained by three trained FACS coders who independently reviewed and scored the action units in the cancer patient videos.

Induction chemotherapy in acute myeloid leukaemia: origins and emerging directions.

Science.gov (United States)

Upadhyay, Vivek A; Fathi, Amir T

2018-03-01

This review summarizes the hallmark developments in induction chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukaemia and further describes future directions in its evolution. We describe the origin of induction chemotherapy. We also describe notable modifications and adjustments to 7+3 induction chemotherapy since its development. Finally, we describe new efforts to modify and add new agents to induction therapy, including '7+3 Plus' combinations. Induction chemotherapy remains the standard of care for the majority of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia. However, its success is limited in a subset of patients by toxicity, failure to achieve remission and potential for subsequent relapse. Novel agents such as mutant fms like tyrosine kinase 3 inhibitors, mutant isocitrate dehydrogenase inhibitors, CD33-antibody drug conjugates and liposomal formulations have demonstrated significant potential as modifications to traditional induction chemotherapy.

Knowledge discovery about quality of life changes of spinal cord injury patients: clustering based on rules by states.

Science.gov (United States)

Gibert, Karina; García-Rudolph, Alejandro; Curcoll, Lluïsa; Soler, Dolors; Pla, Laura; Tormos, José María

2009-01-01

In this paper, an integral Knowledge Discovery Methodology, named Clustering based on rules by States, which incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and statistical methods as well as interpretation-oriented tools, is used for extracting knowledge patterns about the evolution over time of the Quality of Life (QoL) of patients with Spinal Cord Injury. The methodology incorporates the interaction with experts as a crucial element with the clustering methodology to guarantee usefulness of the results. Four typical patterns are discovered by taking into account prior expert knowledge. Several hypotheses are elaborated about the reasons for psychological distress or decreases in QoL of patients over time. The knowledge discovery from data (KDD) approach turns out, once again, to be a suitable formal framework for handling multidimensional complexity of the health domains.

Scoring Tools for the Analysis of Infant Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography Signals.

Science.gov (United States)

Robles-Rubio, Carlos Alejandro; Bertolizio, Gianluca; Brown, Karen A; Kearney, Robert E

2015-01-01

Infants recovering from anesthesia are at risk of life threatening Postoperative Apnea (POA). POA events are rare, and so the study of POA requires the analysis of long cardiorespiratory records. Manual scoring is the preferred method of analysis for these data, but it is limited by low intra- and inter-scorer repeatability. Furthermore, recommended scoring rules do not provide a comprehensive description of the respiratory patterns. This work describes a set of manual scoring tools that address these limitations. These tools include: (i) a set of definitions and scoring rules for 6 mutually exclusive, unique patterns that fully characterize infant respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) signals; (ii) RIPScore, a graphical, manual scoring software to apply these rules to infant data; (iii) a library of data segments representing each of the 6 patterns; (iv) a fully automated, interactive formal training protocol to standardize the analysis and establish intra- and inter-scorer repeatability; and (v) a quality control method to monitor scorer ongoing performance over time. To evaluate these tools, three scorers from varied backgrounds were recruited and trained to reach a performance level similar to that of an expert. These scorers used RIPScore to analyze data from infants at risk of POA in two separate, independent instances. Scorers performed with high accuracy and consistency, analyzed data efficiently, had very good intra- and inter-scorer repeatability, and exhibited only minor confusion between patterns. These results indicate that our tools represent an excellent method for the analysis of respiratory patterns in long data records. Although the tools were developed for the study of POA, their use extends to any study of respiratory patterns using RIP (e.g., sleep apnea, extubation readiness). Moreover, by establishing and monitoring scorer repeatability, our tools enable the analysis of large data sets by multiple scorers, which is essential for

Scoring Tools for the Analysis of Infant Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography Signals.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Alejandro Robles-Rubio

Full Text Available Infants recovering from anesthesia are at risk of life threatening Postoperative Apnea (POA. POA events are rare, and so the study of POA requires the analysis of long cardiorespiratory records. Manual scoring is the preferred method of analysis for these data, but it is limited by low intra- and inter-scorer repeatability. Furthermore, recommended scoring rules do not provide a comprehensive description of the respiratory patterns. This work describes a set of manual scoring tools that address these limitations. These tools include: (i a set of definitions and scoring rules for 6 mutually exclusive, unique patterns that fully characterize infant respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP signals; (ii RIPScore, a graphical, manual scoring software to apply these rules to infant data; (iii a library of data segments representing each of the 6 patterns; (iv a fully automated, interactive formal training protocol to standardize the analysis and establish intra- and inter-scorer repeatability; and (v a quality control method to monitor scorer ongoing performance over time. To evaluate these tools, three scorers from varied backgrounds were recruited and trained to reach a performance level similar to that of an expert. These scorers used RIPScore to analyze data from infants at risk of POA in two separate, independent instances. Scorers performed with high accuracy and consistency, analyzed data efficiently, had very good intra- and inter-scorer repeatability, and exhibited only minor confusion between patterns. These results indicate that our tools represent an excellent method for the analysis of respiratory patterns in long data records. Although the tools were developed for the study of POA, their use extends to any study of respiratory patterns using RIP (e.g., sleep apnea, extubation readiness. Moreover, by establishing and monitoring scorer repeatability, our tools enable the analysis of large data sets by multiple scorers, which is essential

Comparison of 2D and 3D neural induction methods for the generation of neural progenitor cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chandrasekaran, Abinaya; Avci, Hasan; Ochalek, Anna

2017-01-01

Neural progenitor cells (NPCs) from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are frequently induced using 3D culture methodologies however, it is unknown whether spheroid-based (3D) neural induction is actually superior to monolayer (2D) neural induction. Our aim was to compare the efficiency......), cortical layer (TBR1, CUX1) and glial markers (SOX9, GFAP, AQP4). Electron microscopy demonstrated that both methods resulted in morphologically similar neural rosettes. However, quantification of NPCs derived from 3D neural induction exhibited an increase in the number of PAX6/NESTIN double positive cells...... the electrophysiological properties between the two induction methods. In conclusion, 3D neural induction increases the yield of PAX6+/NESTIN+ cells and gives rise to neurons with longer neurites, which might be an advantage for the production of forebrain cortical neurons, highlighting the potential of 3D neural...

Induction methods and formation process of experimental myopia in guinea pigs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mi-Duo Chen

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Myopia, especially high myopia, is one of the most important eye diseases in the world. For many years the researchers established a variety of animal models and animal experiments to explore the mechanism of development of myopia. Guinea pig is one of the most commonly used myopia models in recent years. It has obvious advantages in many aspects, and it is a kind of experimental animals which is worth to be further applied to different kinds of myopic experiments and to be studied thoroughly. This article reviews the induction methods and the forming process of the guinea pig myopia model.

Efficacy and safety of infliximab induction therapy in Crohn's Disease in Central Europe - a Hungarian nationwide observational study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon László

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Infliximab (IFX has proven to be an effective addition to the therapeutic arsenal for refractory, fistulizing, and steroid dependent Crohn's disease (CD, with efficacy in the induction and maintenance of clinical remission of CD. Our objective in this study is to report the nationwide, multicenter experience with IFX induction therapy for CD in Hungary. Methods During a 6-year-period, beginning in 2000, a total of 363 CD patients were treated with IFX as induction therapy (5 mg/kg IFX infusions given at week 0, 2 and 6 at eleven centers in Hungary in this observational study. Data analysis included patient demographics, important disease parameters and the outcome of IFX induction therapy. Results Three hundred and sixty three patients (183 women and 180 men were treated with IFX since 2000. Mean age was 33.5 ± 11.2 years and the mean duration of disease was 6.7 ± 6.1 years. The population included 114 patients (31.4% with therapy-refractory CD, 195 patients (53.7% with fistulas, 16 patients (4.4% with both therapy-refractory CD and fistulas, and 26 patients (7.2% with steroid dependent CD. Overall response rate was 86.2% (313/363. A higher response rate was observed in patients with shorter disease duration (p = 0.05, OR:0.54, 95%CI:0.29-0.99 and concomitant immunosuppressant therapy (p = 0.05, OR: 2.03, 95%CI:0.165-0.596. Concomitant steroid treatment did not enhance the efficacy of IFX induction therapy. Adverse events included 34 allergic reactions (9.4%, 17 delayed type hypersensitivity (4.7%, 16 infections (4.4%, and 3 malignancies (0.8%. Conclusion IFX was safe and effective treatment in this cohort of Hungarian CD patients. Based on our experience co-administration of immunosuppressant therapy is suggested in patients receiving IFX induction therapy. However, concomitant steroid treatment did not enhanced the efficacy of IFX induction therapy.

Outcomes of autologous transplantation for multiple myeloma according to different induction regimens

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Edvan de Queiroz Crusoe

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Induction therapy followed by high-dose chemotherapy and autologous transplantation is the standard treatment for suitable patients with multiple myeloma. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess whether induction therapy with thalidomidecontaining regimens was associated with improved results compared to vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone, and whether cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone were associated with better results than thalidomide and dexamethasone. Methods: The records of 152 patients who underwent autologous transplantation at this institution from August of 2004 to January of 2012 were reviewed, selecting those with at least partial response to a maximum of eight cycles of induction therapy and sufficient follow-up information for analysis. Results: This study included 89 patients; 44 were female, with a mean age of 55 years (there was a significant trend for increasing age over the years of the study.The median number of induction therapy cycles was four, again with a trend of increase over the years.At least a very good partial response to induction therapy was achieved more often in the cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone group (61.1% and in the thalidomide and dexamethasone group (59.2% than in the vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone group (16.2%. The overall median progression-free survival was 34 months, with no statistically significant difference between the three groups. The overall median survival was not reached, and there was no significant difference between the three groups; the estimated five-year overall survival was 55%. Conclusion: Although the quality of responses appeared to be better with thalidomidecontaining regimens, these improvements did not translate into improved long-term outcomes. Given its track record, cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone is currently considered the preferred regimen for first-line induction therapy in the

[Usefulness of clinical prediction rules for ruling out deep vein thrombosis in a hospital emergency department].

Science.gov (United States)

Rosa-Jiménez, Francisco; Rosa-Jiménez, Ascensión; Lozano-Rodríguez, Aquiles; Santoro-Martínez, María Del Carmen; Duro-López, María Del Carmen; Carreras-Álvarez de Cienfuegos, Amelia

2015-01-01

To compare the efficacy of the most familiar clinical prediction rules in combination with D-dimer testing to rule out a diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in a hospital emergency department. Retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the case records of all patients attending a hospital emergency department with suspected lower-limb DVT between 1998 and 2002. Ten clinical prediction scores were calculated and D-dimer levels were available for all patients. The gold standard was ultrasound diagnosis of DVT by an independent radiologist who was blinded to clinical records. For each prediction rule, we analyzed the effectiveness of the prediction strategy defined by "low clinical probability and negative D-dimer level" against the ultrasound diagnosis. A total of 861 case records were reviewed and 577 cases were selected; the mean (SD) age was 66.7 (14.2) years. DVT was diagnosed in 145 patients (25.1%). Only the Wells clinical prediction rule and 4 other models had a false negative rate under 2%. The Wells criteria and the score published by Johanning and colleagues identified higher percentages of cases (15.6% and 11.6%, respectively). This study shows that several clinical prediction rules can be safely used in the emergency department, although none of them have proven more effective than the Wells criteria.

Addition of Arsenic Trioxide into Induction Regimens Could Not Accelerate Recovery of Abnormality of Coagulation and Fibrinolysis in Patients with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ye Zhang

Full Text Available All-trans retinoic acid combined to anthracycline-based chemotherapy is the standard regimen of acute promyelocytic leukemia. The advent of arsenic trioxide has contributed to improve the anti-leukemic efficacy in acute promyelocytic leukemia. The objectives of the current study were to evaluate if dual induction by all-trans retinoic acid and arsenic trioxide could accelerate the recovery of abnormality of coagulation and fibrinolysis in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia.Retrospective analysis was performed in 103 newly-diagnosed patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. Hemostatic variables and the consumption of component blood were comparably analyzed among patients treated by different induction regimen with or without arsenic trioxide.Compared to patients with other subtypes of de novo acute myeloid leukemia, patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia had lower platelet counts and fibrinogen levels, significantly prolonged prothrombin time and elevated D-dimers (P<0.001. Acute promyelocytic leukemia patients with high or intermediate risk prognostic stratification presented lower initial fibrinogen level than that of low-risk group (P<0.05. After induction treatment, abnormal coagulation and fibrinolysis of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia was significantly improved before day 10. The recovery of abnormal hemostatic variables (platelet, prothrombin time, fibrinogen and D-dimer was not significantly accelerated after adding arsenic trioxide in induction regimens; and the consumption of transfused component blood (platelet and plasma did not dramatically change either. Acute promyelocytic leukemia patients with high or intermediate risk prognostic stratification had higher platelet transfusion demands than that of low-risk group (P<0.05.Unexpectedly, adding arsenic trioxide could not accelerate the recovery of abnormality of coagulation and fibrinolysis in acute promyelocytic leukemia patients who received all

Induction melter apparatus

Science.gov (United States)

Roach, Jay A [Idaho Falls, ID; Richardson, John G [Idaho Falls, ID; Raivo, Brian D [Idaho Falls, ID; Soelberg, Nicholas R [Idaho Falls, ID

2008-06-17

Apparatus and methods of operation are provided for a cold-crucible-induction melter for vitrifying waste wherein a single induction power supply may be used to effect a selected thermal distribution by independently energizing at least two inductors. Also, a bottom drain assembly may be heated by an inductor and may include an electrically resistive heater. The bottom drain assembly may be cooled to solidify molten material passing therethrough to prevent discharge of molten material therefrom. Configurations are provided wherein the induction flux skin depth substantially corresponds with the central longitudinal axis of the crucible. Further, the drain tube may be positioned within the induction flux skin depth in relation to material within the crucible or may be substantially aligned with a direction of flow of molten material within the crucible. An improved head design including four shells forming thermal radiation shields and at least two gas-cooled plenums is also disclosed.

System and method of adjusting the equilibrium temperature of an inductively-heated susceptor

Science.gov (United States)

Matsen, Marc R; Negley, Mark A; Geren, William Preston

2015-02-24

A system for inductively heating a workpiece may include an induction coil, at least one susceptor face sheet, and a current controller coupled. The induction coil may be configured to conduct an alternating current and generate a magnetic field in response to the alternating current. The susceptor face sheet may be configured to have a workpiece positioned therewith. The susceptor face sheet may be formed of a ferromagnetic alloy having a Curie temperature and being inductively heatable to an equilibrium temperature approaching the Curie temperature in response to the magnetic field. The current controller may be coupled to the induction coil and may be configured to adjust the alternating current in a manner causing a change in at least one heating parameter of the susceptor face sheet.

Change-Point Detection Method for Clinical Decision Support System Rule Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Siqi; Wright, Adam; Hauskrecht, Milos

2017-06-01

A clinical decision support system (CDSS) and its components can malfunction due to various reasons. Monitoring the system and detecting its malfunctions can help one to avoid any potential mistakes and associated costs. In this paper, we investigate the problem of detecting changes in the CDSS operation, in particular its monitoring and alerting subsystem, by monitoring its rule firing counts. The detection should be performed online, that is whenever a new datum arrives, we want to have a score indicating how likely there is a change in the system. We develop a new method based on Seasonal-Trend decomposition and likelihood ratio statistics to detect the changes. Experiments on real and simulated data show that our method has a lower delay in detection compared with existing change-point detection methods.

Induction chemotherapy combined with three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zheng Aiqing; Yu Jinming; Zhao Xianguang; Wang Xuetao; Wei Guangsheng

2005-01-01

Objective: To evaluate the effect and complication of induction chemotherapy combined with three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3DCRT) for locally advanced non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Ninety-two such patients were randomized into radiation therapy alone group(RT-, 50 patients) and induction chemotherapy combined radiotherapy group (CMT-, 42 patients). The induction chemotherapy consisted of 2-4 cycles of platinum-based regimen. Results: The overall median survival time was 15 months with 12 months in the RT group and 18 months in the CMT group (P=0.014) respectively. The 1-year overall survival rates were 48.6% and 71.2% in RT and CMT group, respectively (P=0.004). The 2-year survival rates were 20.8% and 37.6% in RT and CMT group, respectively (P=0.041). Treatment was well tolerated and the toxicities were similar in either group. Conclusion: The addition of induction chemotherapy to 3DCRT takes a survival advantage over 3DCRT alone for Stage III NSCLC without increasing toxicities. (authors)

RULE-BASE METHOD FOR ANALYSIS OF QUALITY E-LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

darsih darsih darsih

2016-04-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Assessing the quality of e-learning courses to measure the success of e-learning systems in online learning is essential. The system can be used to improve education. The study analyzes the quality of e-learning course on the web site www.kulon.undip.ac.id used a questionnaire with questions based on the variables of ISO 9126. Penilaiann Likert scale was used with a web app. Rule-base reasoning method is used to subject the quality of e-learningyang assessed. A case study conducted in four e-learning courses with 133 sample / respondents as users of the e-learning course. From the obtained results of research conducted both for the value of e-learning from each subject tested. In addition, each e-learning courses have different advantages depending on certain variables. Keywords : E-Learning, Rule-Base, Questionnaire, Likert, Measuring.

Retrospective Analysis of the Survival Benefit of Induction Chemotherapy in Stage IVa-b Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Lan, Xiao-Wen; Zou, Xue-Bin; Xiao, Yao; Tang, Jie; OuYang, Pu-Yun; Su, Zhen; Xie, Fang-Yun

2016-01-01

The value of adding induction chemotherapy to chemoradiotherapy in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LA-NPC) remains controversial, yet high-risk patients with LA-NPC have poor outcomes after chemoradiotherapy. We aimed to assess the survival benefits of induction chemotherapy in stage IVa-b NPC. A total of 602 patients with stage IVa-b NPC treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and concurrent chemotherapy with or without induction chemotherapy were retrospectively analyzed. Overall survival (OS), locoregional relapse-free survival (LRFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank test and Cox regression analysis. In univariate analysis, 5-year OS was 83.2% for induction chemotherapy plus concurrent chemotherapy and 74.8% for concurrent chemotherapy alone, corresponding to an absolute risk reduction of 8.4% (P = 0.022). Compared to concurrent chemotherapy alone, addition of induction chemotherapy improved 5-year DMFS (83.2% vs. 74.4%, P = 0.018) but not 5-year LRFS (83.7% vs. 83.0%, P = 0.848) or PFS (71.9% vs. 66.0%, P = 0.12). Age, T category, N category, chemotherapy strategy and clinical stage were associated with 5-year OS (P = 0.017, P = 0.031, P = 0.007, P = 0.022, P = 0.001, respectively). In multivariate analysis, induction chemotherapy plus concurrent chemotherapy was an independent favorable prognostic factor for OS (HR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.43-0.90, P = 0.012) and DMFS (HR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.38-0.83, P = 0.004). In subgroup analysis, induction chemotherapy significantly improved 5-year DMFS in stage IVa (86.8% vs. 77.3%, P = 0.008), but provided no significant benefit in stage IVb. In patients with stage IVa-b NPC treated with IMRT, addition of induction chemotherapy to concurrent chemotherapy significantly improved 5-year OS and 5-year DMFS. This study provides a basis for selection of high risk patients in future clinical therapeutic

Modeling of Lossy Inductance in Moving-Coil Loudspeakers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kong, Xiao-Peng; Agerkvist, Finn T.; Zeng, Xin-Wu

2015-01-01

The electrical impedance of moving-coil loudspeakers is dominated by the lossy inductance in high frequency range. Using the equivalent electrical circuit method, a new model for the lossy inductance based on separate functions for the magnitude and phase of the impedance is presented. The electr......The electrical impedance of moving-coil loudspeakers is dominated by the lossy inductance in high frequency range. Using the equivalent electrical circuit method, a new model for the lossy inductance based on separate functions for the magnitude and phase of the impedance is presented...

Development of a Predictive Model for Induction Success of Labour

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristina Pruenza

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Induction of the labour process is an extraordinarily common procedure used in some pregnancies. Obstetricians face the need to end a pregnancy, for medical reasons usually (maternal or fetal requirements or less frequently, social (elective inductions for convenience. The success of induction procedure is conditioned by a multitude of maternal and fetal variables that appear before or during pregnancy or birth process, with a low predictive value. The failure of the induction process involves performing a caesarean section. This project arises from the clinical need to resolve a situation of uncertainty that occurs frequently in our clinical practice. Since the weight of clinical variables is not adequately weighted, we consider very interesting to know a priori the possibility of success of induction to dismiss those inductions with high probability of failure, avoiding unnecessary procedures or postponing end if possible. We developed a predictive model of induced labour success as a support tool in clinical decision making. Improve the predictability of a successful induction is one of the current challenges of Obstetrics because of its negative impact. The identification of those patients with high chances of failure, will allow us to offer them better care improving their health outcomes (adverse perinatal outcomes for mother and newborn, costs (medication, hospitalization, qualified staff and patient perceived quality. Therefore a Clinical Decision Support System was developed to give support to the Obstetricians. In this article, we had proposed a robust method to explore and model a source of clinical information with the purpose of obtaining all possible knowledge. Generally, in classification models are difficult to know the contribution that each attribute provides to the model. We had worked in this direction to offer transparency to models that may be considered as black boxes. The positive results obtained from both the

Betel nut chewing history is an independent prognosticator for smoking patients with locally advanced stage IV head and neck squamous cell carcinoma receiving induction chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Yan-Ye; Chien, Chih-Yen; Luo, Sheng-Dean; Huang, Tai-Lin; Lin, Wei-Che; Fang, Fu-Min; Chiu, Tai-Jan; Chen, Yen-Hao; Lai, Chi-Chih; Hsu, Cheng-Ming; Li, Shau-Hsuan

2016-03-22

Smoking and betel nut chewing are well-known risk factors for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Smoking is also a strong prognosticator for patients with locally advanced HNSCC receiving induction chemotherapy. Smoking with or without betel nut chewing is a common practice in Asia. However, little is known regarding whether betel nut chewing can serve as a prognostic factor for smoking patients with locally advanced HNSCC receiving induction chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic impact of betel nut chewing in such patients receiving induction chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil (TPF). From January 2010 to December 2012, we retrospectively analyzed 162 smoking patients with locally advanced HNSCC who received induction chemotherapy with TPF at our institution. Background characteristics, including a history of betel nut chewing, were analyzed as potential prognostic factors. Among the 162 smoking patients, 131 patients (81%) were betel nut chewers, while 31 (19%) were non-betel nut chewers. One hundred fifty-six (96%) were men, and 6 (4%) were women. The median age was 53 years. The overall response rates to induction chemotherapy were 57 and 77% in patients with and without betel nut chewing history, respectively (P = 0.038). The 2-year progression survival rates were 37 and 67% in patients with and without betel nut chewing history, respectively (P = 0.004). The 2-year overall survival rates were 47 and 71% in patients with and without betel nut chewing history, respectively (P = 0.017). Betel nut chewing history was independently associated with a poor response to induction chemotherapy, an inferior progression-free survival rate, and a poor overall survival rate. Our results indicate that betel nut chewing history is independently associated with poor prognosis in smoking patients with locally advanced HNSCC receiving induction chemotherapy with TPF. Further investigation is warranted to

Induction of labour in postdates pregnant women

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haq, A.N.; Ahsan, S.; Sher, Z.

2012-01-01

Objective: To differentiate the effect of gestation on the mode of delivery by analysing the difference in the mode of induction, length of labour and the difference in parity or Bishop score and their effect on the mode of delivery of postdates women. Study Design: A cross-sectional observational study. Place and Duration of Study: PAEC General Hospital, Islamabad, from July 2006 to July 2008. Methodology:Patients were induced at 41 weeks (Group B) and > 40 weeks (Group A) of gestation. Tab misoprostol and PGE2 tablets were administered according to amniotic fluid index (AFI) and parity . Study variables included duration of gestation, mode of induction, length of labour, difference in parity and Bishop score assessed before induction in each group. The outcome was assessed by applying Chi-square test by comparing mode of delivery with the study variables in both groups. Results: A total of 78 patients were inducted in the study. They were divided in group B (n = 39) induced 41 weeks and group A (n = 39) induced at 40 weeks. Eighty four percent (n = 35) patients in group B delivered vaginally as compared to 71% (n = 28) in the 40 weeks group (p < 0.0001). The higher number of vaginal deliveries in 41 weeks group was independent of association between the induction agent, parity and mode of delivery. Conclusion: The mean length of gestation was the single most important factor among the studied variables in predicting a vaginal delivery. (author)

Exploratory analysis of methods for automated classification of laboratory test orders into syndromic groups in veterinary medicine.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fernanda C Dórea

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Recent focus on earlier detection of pathogen introduction in human and animal populations has led to the development of surveillance systems based on automated monitoring of health data. Real- or near real-time monitoring of pre-diagnostic data requires automated classification of records into syndromes--syndromic surveillance--using algorithms that incorporate medical knowledge in a reliable and efficient way, while remaining comprehensible to end users. METHODS: This paper describes the application of two of machine learning (Naïve Bayes and Decision Trees and rule-based methods to extract syndromic information from laboratory test requests submitted to a veterinary diagnostic laboratory. RESULTS: High performance (F1-macro = 0.9995 was achieved through the use of a rule-based syndrome classifier, based on rule induction followed by manual modification during the construction phase, which also resulted in clear interpretability of the resulting classification process. An unmodified rule induction algorithm achieved an F(1-micro score of 0.979 though this fell to 0.677 when performance for individual classes was averaged in an unweighted manner (F(1-macro, due to the fact that the algorithm failed to learn 3 of the 16 classes from the training set. Decision Trees showed equal interpretability to the rule-based approaches, but achieved an F(1-micro score of 0.923 (falling to 0.311 when classes are given equal weight. A Naïve Bayes classifier learned all classes and achieved high performance (F(1-micro= 0.994 and F(1-macro = .955, however the classification process is not transparent to the domain experts. CONCLUSION: The use of a manually customised rule set allowed for the development of a system for classification of laboratory tests into syndromic groups with very high performance, and high interpretability by the domain experts. Further research is required to develop internal validation rules in order to establish

Implications of revised AASM rules on scoring apneic and hypopneic respiratory events in patients with heart failure with nocturnal Cheyne-Stokes respiration.

Science.gov (United States)

Heinrich, Jessica; Spießhöfer, Jens; Bitter, Thomas; Horstkotte, Dieter; Oldenburg, Olaf

2015-05-01

This study investigated the implications of the revised scoring rules of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) in patients with heart failure (HF) with Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR). Ninety-one patients (NYHA ≥II, LVEF ≤45 %; age 73.6 ± 11.3 years old; 81 male subjects) with documented CSR underwent 8 h of cardiorespiratory polygraphy recordings. Those were analyzed by a single scorer strictly applying the 2007 recommended, 2007 alternative, and the 2012 scoring rules. Compared with the AASM 2007 recommended rules, apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) and hypopnea index (HI) increased significantly when the 2007 alternative and 2012 rules were applied (AHI 34.1 ± 13.5/h vs 37.6 ± 13.2/h vs 38.3 ± 13.2/h, respectively; HI 10.2 ± 9.4/h vs 13.7 ± 10.7/h vs 14.4 ± 11.0/h, respectively; all p CSR increased significantly with the alternate versus recommended 2007 rules (182.2 ± 117.0 vs 170.1 ± 115.0 min; p ≤ 0.001); there was a significant decrease in CSR duration for the 2012 versus 2007 alternative rules (182.2 ± 117.0 vs 166.7 ± 115.4 min; p ≤ 0.001). AHI was higher using the AASM 2012 scoring rules due to a less strict definition of hypopnea. Data on the prognostic effects of CSR in patients with HF and the benefits of treatment are mostly based on the AASM 2007 recommended rules, so differences between these and the newer version need to be taken into account.

Consistence of Network Filtering Rules

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

SHE Kun; WU Yuancheng; HUANG Juncai; ZHOU Mingtian

2004-01-01

The inconsistence of firewall/VPN(Virtual Private Network) rule makes a huge maintainable cost.With development of Multinational Company,SOHO office,E-government the number of firewalls/VPN will increase rapidly.Rule table in stand-alone or network will be increased in geometric series accordingly.Checking the consistence of rule table manually is inadequate.A formal approach can define semantic consistence,make a theoretic foundation of intelligent management about rule tables.In this paper,a kind of formalization of host rules and network ones for auto rule-validation based on SET theory were proporsed and a rule validation scheme was defined.The analysis results show the superior performance of the methods and demonstrate its potential for the intelligent management based on rule tables.

Ovulation induction: a mini review.

Science.gov (United States)

Messinis, Ioannis E

2005-10-01

Ovulation induction is the method for treating anovulatory infertility. For patients with hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism, the treatment involves administration of both FSH and LH, while HCG is injected for follicle rupture. Pulsatile GnRH has the same effectiveness as gonadotrophins and the advantage of the low multiple pregnancy rate. In polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the first treatment choice is clomiphene citrate. With this drug, in properly selected patients, the cumulative pregnancy rate approaches that of normal women. Low-dose protocols of FSH are the second line of treatment, effective in inducing monofollicular development. Laparoscopic ovarian drilling can be an alternative but not as a first choice treatment in clomiphene-resistant patients. Other treatments, such as pulsatile GnRH and GnRH agonists, are hardly used today in PCOS. However, in obese women with PCOS, weight loss and exercise should be recommended as the first line of therapy. Newer agents including aromatase inhibitors and insulin sensitizers, although promising, need further evaluation.

QCD Sum Rules, a Modern Perspective

CERN Document Server

Colangelo, Pietro; Colangelo, Pietro; Khodjamirian, Alexander

2001-01-01

An introduction to the method of QCD sum rules is given for those who want to learn how to use this method. Furthermore, we discuss various applications of sum rules, from the determination of quark masses to the calculation of hadronic form factors and structure functions. Finally, we explain the idea of the light-cone sum rules and outline the recent development of this approach.

THE RULE OF TRUTH AND “WHITE LIE” IN MODERN MEDICINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhanna V. Chashina

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction. The article focuses on a topical conflict in contemporary medical practice – truthful patient’s information. Analysis of the problem is considered in historical perspective, by bringing the views of both domestic and foreign authors. Various opinions and arguments for and against providing information to the patient about his health discussions to this day by physicians, despite the legalization provision of truthful information about the state of health. Materials and Methods. Material for the article was the ethical and regulatory documents that include provisions on the right of the patient in receiving truthful information. On the basis of the dialectical approach in the article, the object of the research is a rule of truthfulness in medicine, the analysis which takes place in the framework of medical ethics and its modern model of bioethics. The application of integrated approach allowed us to consider the problem from a position of morality and law, society, medicine and the individual. Using the following methods: comparative-historical, axiological, document analysis, and synthesis of the functionality, efficiency and appropriateness of the rules of veracity at the present stage of development of medicine. Results. In the course of the study it was revealed that the issue of the rule of truthfulness in modern medical practice, justifying from the perspective of modern model of medical ethics – bioethics and the law, is the inalienable right of the patient. In addition, you specify the inextricable link between the rule and the truthfulness rule of informed consent. These regulations removed the controversial question of the presence of the “holy lie” in medicine. But due to the absolutely inviolable rules of “no harm” in medicine it is necessary to consider the ethical and legal aspects of rules of veracity: the duty, the right, the opportunity and feasibility to speak the truth, allowing not only the law

Symbolic methods for the evaluation of sum rules of Bessel functions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Babusci, D.; Dattoli, G.; Górska, K.; Penson, K. A.

2013-01-01

The use of the umbral formalism allows a significant simplification of the derivation of sum rules involving products of special functions and polynomials. We rederive in this way known sum rules and addition theorems for Bessel functions. Furthermore, we obtain a set of new closed form sum rules involving various special polynomials and Bessel functions. The examples we consider are relevant for applications ranging from plasma physics to quantum optics

Study on the Method of Association Rules Mining Based on Genetic Algorithm and Application in Analysis of Seawater Samples

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qiuhong Sun

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Based on the data mining research, the data mining based on genetic algorithm method, the genetic algorithm is briefly introduced, while the genetic algorithm based on two important theories and theoretical templates principle implicit parallelism is also discussed. Focuses on the application of genetic algorithms for association rule mining method based on association rule mining, this paper proposes a genetic algorithm fitness function structure, data encoding, such as the title of the improvement program, in particular through the early issues study, proposed the improved adaptive Pc, Pm algorithm is applied to the genetic algorithm, thereby improving efficiency of the algorithm. Finally, a genetic algorithm based association rule mining algorithm, and be applied in sea water samples database in data mining and prove its effective.

Induction Brazing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henningsen, Poul

, or if the hottest area is located outside the joint interface, a number of defects may appear: the braze metal may flow away from the joint, the flux may burn off, poor binding of the braze metal may appear or the braze metal may be overheated. Joint geometry as well as electro-magnetic properties of the work piece...... presents a combined numerical and experimental method for determination of appropriate/optimiged coil geometry and position in induction brazing tube-to-plate joints of different ratios between tube and plate thickness and different combinations of the materials stainless steel, brass and copper....... The method has proven to give successful results in brazing tube-plate joints of copper-brass, copper-stainless steel, stainless steel-brass, and stainless steel-stainless steel. A new design of an adjustable flux concentrator for induction heating tube-to-plate joints is proposed and tested on a variety...

Cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone as induction therapy for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients destined for autologous stem-cell transplantation: MRC Myeloma IX randomized trial results

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Gareth J.; Davies, Faith E.; Gregory, Walter M.; Bell, Sue E.; Szubert, Alexander J.; Navarro Coy, Nuria; Cook, Gordon; Feyler, Sylvia; Johnson, Peter R.E.; Rudin, Claudius; Drayson, Mark T.; Owen, Roger G.; Ross, Fiona M.; Russell, Nigel H.; Jackson, Graham H.; Child, J. Anthony

2012-01-01

Background Thalidomide is active in multiple myeloma and is associated with minimal myelosuppression, making it a good candidate for induction therapy prior to high-dose therapy with autologous stem-cell transplantation. Design and Methods Oral cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone was compared with infusional cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Results The post-induction overall response rate (≥ partial response) for the intent-to-treat population was significantly higher with cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone (n=555) versus cyclophosphamide-vincristine-doxorubicin-dexamethasone (n=556); 82.5% versus 71.2%; odds ratio 1.91; 95% confidence interval 1.44–2.55; P<0.0001. The complete response rates were 13.0% with cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone and 8.1% with cyclophos-phamide-vincristine-doxorubicin-dexamethasone (P=0.0083), with this differential response being maintained in patients who received autologous stem-cell transplantation (post-transplant complete response 50.0% versus 37.2%, respectively; P=0.00052). Cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone was non-inferior to cyclophosphamide-vincristine-doxorubicin-dexamethasone for progression-free and overall survival, and there was a trend toward a late survival benefit with cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone in responders. A trend toward an overall survival advantage for cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone over cyclophosphamide-vincristine-doxorubicin-dexamethasone was also observed in a subgroup of patients with favorable interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization. Compared with cyclophosphamide-vincristine-doxorubicin-dexamethasone, cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone was associated with more constipation and somnolence, but a lower incidence of cytopenias. Conclusions The cyclophosphamide-thalidomide-dexamethasone regimen showed improved response rates and was not inferior

Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems

OpenAIRE

Sivakumar, Appa Iyer; Nguyen, Thu Ba Thi; Graves, Stephen C

2015-01-01

This paper considers how to schedule appointments for outpatients, for a clinic that is subject to appointment lead-time targets for both new and returning patients. We develop heuristic rules, which are the exact and relaxed appointment scheduling rules, to schedule each new patient appointment (only) in light of uncertainty about future arrivals. The scheduling rules entail two decisions. First, the rules need to determine whether or not a patient's request can be accepted; then, if the req...

Decision mining revisited - Discovering overlapping rules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mannhardt, Felix; De Leoni, Massimiliano; Reijers, Hajo A.; Van Der Aalst, Wil M P

2016-01-01

Decision mining enriches process models with rules underlying decisions in processes using historical process execution data. Choices between multiple activities are specified through rules defined over process data. Existing decision mining methods focus on discovering mutually-exclusive rules,

Decision Mining Revisited - Discovering Overlapping Rules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mannhardt, F.; De Leoni, M.; Reijers, H.A.; van der Aalst, W.M.P.; Nurcan, S.; Soffer, P.; Bajec, M.; Eder, J.

2016-01-01

Decision mining enriches process models with rules underlying decisions in processes using historical process execution data. Choices between multiple activities are specified through rules defined over process data. Existing decision mining methods focus on discovering mutually-exclusive rules,

Focal Radiation Therapy Dose Escalation Improves Overall Survival in Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer Patients Receiving Induction Chemotherapy and Consolidative Chemoradiation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Krishnan, Sunil, E-mail: skrishnan@mdanderson.org [Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Chadha, Awalpreet S. [Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Suh, Yelin [Department of Radiation Physics, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Chen, Hsiang-Chun [Department of Biostatistics, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas (United States); Rao, Arvind [Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas (United States); Das, Prajnan; Minsky, Bruce D.; Mahmood, Usama; Delclos, Marc E. [Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Sawakuchi, Gabriel O. [Department of Radiation Physics, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Beddar, Sam [Department of Radiation Physics, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States); Katz, Matthew H.; Fleming, Jason B. [Department of Surgical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas (United States); Javle, Milind M.; Varadhachary, Gauri R.; Wolff, Robert A. [Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas (United States); Crane, Christopher H. [Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas, Houston, Texas (United States)

2016-03-15

Purpose: To review outcomes of locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) patients treated with dose-escalated intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) with curative intent. Methods and Materials: A total of 200 patients with LAPC were treated with induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiation between 2006 and 2014. Of these, 47 (24%) having tumors >1 cm from the luminal organs were selected for dose-escalated IMRT (biologically effective dose [BED] >70 Gy) using a simultaneous integrated boost technique, inspiration breath hold, and computed tomographic image guidance. Fractionation was optimized for coverage of gross tumor and luminal organ sparing. A 2- to 5-mm margin around the gross tumor volume was treated using a simultaneous integrated boost with a microscopic dose. Overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival (RFS), local-regional and distant RFS, and time to local-regional and distant recurrence, calculated from start of chemoradiation, were the outcomes of interest. Results: Median radiation dose was 50.4 Gy (BED = 59.47 Gy) with a concurrent capecitabine-based (86%) regimen. Patients who received BED >70 Gy had a superior OS (17.8 vs 15.0 months, P=.03), which was preserved throughout the follow-up period, with estimated OS rates at 2 years of 36% versus 19% and at 3 years of 31% versus 9% along with improved local-regional RFS (10.2 vs 6.2 months, P=.05) as compared with those receiving BED ≤70 Gy. Degree of gross tumor volume coverage did not seem to affect outcomes. No additional toxicity was observed in the high-dose group. Higher dose (BED) was the only predictor of improved OS on multivariate analysis. Conclusion: Radiation dose escalation during consolidative chemoradiation therapy after induction chemotherapy for LAPC patients improves OS and local-regional RFS.

Stability improvement of induction generator-based wind turbine systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chen, Zhe; Hu, Y.; Blaabjerg, Frede

2007-01-01

The stability improvement of induction-generator-based wind turbine systems under power system fault conditions has been studied. Two types of generators are considered, namely rotor short-circuited induction generators and dynamic slip-controlled wound rotor induction generators. The factors...... affecting the stability are analysed. The characteristics of the induction-generator-based wind turbines are described, and possible methods of improving stability of the wind generators are discussed. The system modelling is presented, and then the discussed methods of improving stability are investigated...

Immature Reticulocyte Fraction and Absolute Neutrophil Count as Predictor of Hemopoietic Recovery in Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on Remission Induction Chemotherapy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shan E. Rauf

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Objective: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL encompasses a group of lymphoid neoplasms that are more common in children and arise from B-and T-lineage lymphoid precursor cells. The immature reticulocyte fraction (IRF, a new routine parameter in hematology analyzers, can give an indication of hemopoietic recovery like absolute neutrophil count (ANC. The purpose of this study was to evaluate IRF in excess of 5% was considered as IRF recovery. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, 2.5 to 3 mL of EDTA blood of 45 ALL patients undergoing the remission induction phase of their treatment was sampled and analyzed with a Sysmex XE-5000 on day 1 and every second day thereafter until the day of recovery. ANC of >0.5x109/L on the day corresponding to the first of the three consecutive counts was considered as the day of ANC recovery. IRF recovery was an IRF in excess of 5%. Results: The mean age of the patients was 12.04±5.30 years; 25 patients (55.6% were male and 20 patients (44.4% were female. On day 1 of induction remission, the mean IRF value was 9.68±1.41, while the mean ANC value was 0.077±0.061. Mean recovery day for IRF was 11.84±7.44 and mean recovery day for ANC was 17.67±8.77 (twotailed p-value <0.0001 with 95% confidence interval. By day 28, out of 45 patients 36 (80% showed ANC recovery, while 41 (91% showed IRF recovery. The remaining patients who had not shown recovery by day 28 were further followed up and all of them showed recovery of both parameters by day 39. Conclusion: This study concluded that postinduction bone marrow hemopoietic recovery was earlier by IRF than ANC in children with ALL on chemotherapy

Measurement of the D0 WAMUS magnet inductance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kristalinski, A.; Hance, R.; Jaskierny, W.

1994-12-01

Historically, the term inductance, as it relates to magnets, has been relatively obscure at Fermilab. Confusion resulted from the typical engineering approach to the matter, whereby distinction may not have been made between analytical and beam line magnets; and distribution transformers. The latter always have a laminated core to reduce eddy currents which makes their inductance in a transitional state very close to that in a steady state. This is true only if the core material is not in saturation, which is once again the case for transformers; but not for magnets, especially the analytical ones. Based on the traditional ''transformer'' thinking, an incorrect method to measure magnet inductance was initially employed. The characteristics of a tank circuit including the magnet under test were observed. Then based on the resonant frequency and quality factor, the inductance was calculated. This method represents a very valuable tool for magnet testing where you can compare newly built magnets to a reference magnet and see if there is any difference. Although electrically correct, this method unfortunately does not reveal any valuable information which could be used to anticipate the magnet behavior under the normal working conditions. Another method of measuring inductance, based on a freewheeling discharge of the magnet, is also widely used in the Lab. To measure the inductance, a magnet is powered from a small power supply for up to 100 A to 200 A, then the power is turned off and the current decay in the magnet is recorded. Based on the dc resistance measurements and the magnet current decay data, one can determine the magnet inductance. In order to do so, the inductance is assumed to be constant and current decay is assumed to be exponential. To find out how well the effective inductance represents the real process taking place in the magnet was one of the purposes of the experiment

Absence of MxA induction by interferon beta in patients with MS reflects complete loss of bioactivity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hesse, D.; Sellebjerg, F.; Sorensen, P.S.

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND: In patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) appearing during treatment with interferon (IFN) beta reduce or in high concentrations abolish bioactivity and therapeutic efficacy. In vivo MxA induction by IFNbeta is used as a marker of biologic response....... Lack of MxA in vivo response in patients with multiple sclerosis with NAbs is a reliable marker of a completely blocked biologic response to IFNbeta, with no indication of residual bioactivity Udgivelsesdato: 2009/8/4...

Decision support system for triage management: A hybrid approach using rule-based reasoning and fuzzy logic.

Science.gov (United States)

Dehghani Soufi, Mahsa; Samad-Soltani, Taha; Shams Vahdati, Samad; Rezaei-Hachesu, Peyman

2018-06-01

Fast and accurate patient triage for the response process is a critical first step in emergency situations. This process is often performed using a paper-based mode, which intensifies workload and difficulty, wastes time, and is at risk of human errors. This study aims to design and evaluate a decision support system (DSS) to determine the triage level. A combination of the Rule-Based Reasoning (RBR) and Fuzzy Logic Classifier (FLC) approaches were used to predict the triage level of patients according to the triage specialist's opinions and Emergency Severity Index (ESI) guidelines. RBR was applied for modeling the first to fourth decision points of the ESI algorithm. The data relating to vital signs were used as input variables and modeled using fuzzy logic. Narrative knowledge was converted to If-Then rules using XML. The extracted rules were then used to create the rule-based engine and predict the triage levels. Fourteen RBR and 27 fuzzy rules were extracted and used in the rule-based engine. The performance of the system was evaluated using three methods with real triage data. The accuracy of the clinical decision support systems (CDSSs; in the test data) was 99.44%. The evaluation of the error rate revealed that, when using the traditional method, 13.4% of the patients were miss-triaged, which is statically significant. The completeness of the documentation also improved from 76.72% to 98.5%. Designed system was effective in determining the triage level of patients and it proved helpful for nurses as they made decisions, generated nursing diagnoses based on triage guidelines. The hybrid approach can reduce triage misdiagnosis in a highly accurate manner and improve the triage outcomes. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of stellate ganglion block on cardiovascular reaction and heart rate variability in elderly patients during anesthesia induction and endotracheal intubation.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yong-Quan; Jin, Xiao-Ju; Liu, Zhao-Fang; Zhu, Mei-Fang

2015-03-01

To investigate the effects of stellate ganglion block (SGB) on cardiovascular response and heart rate (HR) variability in elderly patients during anesthesia induction and endotracheal intubation. A randomized, double-blinded, and placebo-controlled study. University-affiliated teaching hospital. Eighty elderly patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grades I and II) receiving elective surgery during general anesthesia. Right stellate ganglion injection (SGB) was performed in all patients using 10 mL of 1% lidocaine or normal saline. Systolic blood pressure (BP), diastolic BP, HR, and calculated rate pressure product. HR variability at the following time points: conscious status before induction (T0); immediately before intubation (T1); immediately after intubation (T2); and 1, 3, and 5 minutes postintubation (T3, T4, and T5). No significant differences in BP and HR were observed between the 2 groups. Rate pressure product values significantly increased in the control group compared with baseline and SGB group values. Low-frequency power (LF) and LF/high-frequency power (HF) significantly increased, and HF and normalized units of HF significantly decreased in the control group compared with baseline values. LF, normalized units of LF, and LF/HF in the SGB group significantly decreased compared with those of the control group. SGB protects the myocardium and effectively suppresses stress responses during anesthesia induction and tracheal intubation in elderly patients. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

75 FR 3163 - Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program-Basic Entitlement; Effective Date of Induction...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-20

... is retroactively inducted into a rehabilitation program, VA may authorize payment of tuition, fees... aggregate, or by the private sector, of $100 million or more (adjusted annually for inflation) in any year. This final rule will have no such effect on State, local, and Tribal governments, or on the private...

Effect of Linezolid on Hematologic Recovery in Newly Diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patients Following Induction Chemotherapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Nedved, Adrienne N; DeFrates, Sean R; Hladnik, Lindsay M; Stockerl-Goldstein, Keith E

2016-10-01

Assess the effects of linezolid on hematologic outcomes in newly diagnosed patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) following induction chemotherapy. Single-center, retrospective, observational, cohort study. Large, tertiary care academic medical center. A total of 225 patients ≥ 18 years admitted between December 2010 and 2013 with newly diagnosed AML were assessed for inclusion. Patients were identified through the use of ICD-9 codes and chemotherapy ordered via the computerized physician order entry system. Sixty-eight patients met inclusion criteria and were grouped into two arms based on antimicrobial treatment: LZD group (linezolid plus gram-negative antimicrobial, n=21) or control group (vancomycin or daptomycin plus gram-negative antimicrobial, n=47). The LZD group received linezolid ≥ 72 hours. The control group received vancomycin or daptomycin ≥ 72 hours. If patients switched extended gram-positive therapy, they were included in the LZD group as long as they had received ≥ 72 hours of linezolid. The primary end point of time to neutrophil recovery was not statistically different (28 days for LZD group vs 26 days for control group; p=0.675). The preplanned subgroup analysis of patients who received ≥ 14 days of linezolid demonstrated statistically similar median times to neutrophil recovery (29 days for LZD group vs 26 days for control group; p=0.487). Total duration of extended gram-positive antimicrobial therapy was significantly longer in the LZD group (27 days vs 16 days; plinezolid for extended gram-positive antimicrobial coverage following induction chemotherapy. This study provides new insight with a primary focus on the effects of hematologic outcomes when using linezolid in a well-defined acute leukemia population. Further study is warranted with larger populations to assess the potential adverse effects linezolid may have in patients with acute leukemia. © 2016 Pharmacotherapy Publications, Inc.

FUZZY MODELING BY SUCCESSIVE ESTIMATION OF RULES ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper presents an algorithm for automatically deriving fuzzy rules directly from a set of input-output data of a process for the purpose of modeling. The rules are extracted by a method termed successive estimation. This method is used to generate a model without truncating the number of fired rules, to within user ...

Factors That Influence the Practice of Elective Induction of Labor

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Jennifer; Low, Lisa Kane

2012-01-01

Elective induction of labor has been linked to increased rates of prematurity and rising rates of cesarean birth. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate current trends in induction of labor scholarship focusing on evidence-based factors that influence the practice of elective induction. A key word search was conducted to identify studies on the practice of elective induction of labor. Analysis of the findings included clustering and identification of recurrent themes among the articles with 3 categories being identified. Under each category, the words/phrases were further clustered until a construct could be named. A total of 49 articles met inclusion criteria: 7 patient, 6 maternity care provider, and 4 organization factors emerged. Only 4 of the articles identified were evidence based. Patient factors were divided into preferences/convenience, communication, fear, pressure/influence, trust, external influences, and technology. Provider factors were then divided into practice preferences/convenience, lack of information, financial incentives, fear, patient desire/demand, and technology. Organization factors were divided into lack of enforcement/accountability, hospital culture, scheduling of staff, and market share issues. Currently, there is limited data-based information focused on factors that influence elective induction of labor. Despite patient and provider convenience/preferences being cited in the literature, the evidence does not support this practice. PMID:22843006

Electro‐Quasistatic Analysis of an Electrostatic Induction Micromotor Using the Cell Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Miguel Monzón-Verona

2010-10-01

Full Text Available An electro-quasistatic analysis of an induction micromotor has been realized by using the Cell Method. We employed the direct Finite Formulation (FF of the electromagnetic laws, hence, avoiding a further discretization. The Cell Method (CM is used for solving the field equations at the entire domain (2D space of the micromotor. We have reformulated the field laws in a direct FF and analyzed physical quantities to make explicit the relationship between magnitudes and laws. We applied a primal-dual barycentric discretization of the 2D space. The electric potential has been calculated on each node of the primal mesh using CM. For verification purpose, an analytical electric potential equation is introduced as reference. In frequency domain, results demonstrate the error in calculating potential quantity is neglected (

Métodos para indução do parto Methods for labor induction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olímpio Barbosa de Moraes Filho

2005-08-01

choice for labor induction and thus collaborate with the reduction in cesarean section rates, it is necessary that an accessible, cheap, safe, effective, easy to be used method with good acceptability is available. Although several methods of labor induction reported in medical literature do exist, it is known that there is no ideal method. However, among them, two are highlighted. The first is oxytocin, which has the advantages of promoting physiologic uterine contractions of labor and reverting uterine hypercontractility when suspended. The other method is misoprostol, nowadays the most used, which ripens the uterine cervix and induces uterine contractions of labor. However, there are still some controversies regarding its ideal dose, route and safety.

Labor induction just after external cephalic version with epidural analgesia at term.

Science.gov (United States)

Cuerva, Marcos J; Piñel, Carlos S; Caceres, Javier; Espinosa, Jose A

2017-06-01

To analyze the benefits of external cephalic version (ECV) with epidural analgesia at term and labor induction just after the procedure. This is a retrospective observational study with patients who did not want trying a breech vaginal delivery and decided trying an ECV with epidural analgesia at term and wanted labor induction or cesarean section after the procedure. We present the results of 40 ECV with epidural analgesia at term and labor induction or cesarean section just after the ECV. ECV succeeded in 26 out of 40 (65%) patients. Among the 26 successful ECV, 6 delivered by cesarean (23.1%). 20 patients delivered vaginally (76.9%; 50% of all patients). Considering that a high number of cesarean deliveries can be avoided, induction of labor after ECV with epidural analgesia at term can be considered after being discussed in selected patient. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

CALCULATION OF INDUCTANCE OF THE INTERIOR PERMANENT MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTOR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Phyong Le Ngo

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM refers to salient-pole synchronous motors, characterized by inequality of inductances of longitudinal (d and transverse (q axes. Electromagnetic torque of IPMSM consists of two components: active torque and reactive torque; the latter depends on inductances of d and q axes. An analytical method to calculate own inductances and mutual inductances of a three-phase IPMSM is presented. Distributed windings of the stator are substituted by equivalent sine distributed windings. An interior permanent magnets rotor is substituted by an equivalent salient-pole rotor. Sections of a magnetic circuit comprising interior permanent magnets, air barriers and steel bridges are substituted by equivalent air-gap. The expressions of the magnetic induction created by current of the stator windings at each point of the air gap as well as of magnetic flux linkage of the stator windings have been obtained. The equations of the self-inductances of phases A, B, C, and of inductance of mutual induction are determined from magnetic flux linkage. The inductance of the d and q axes have been obtained as a result of transformation of the axes abc–dq. The results obtained with the use of the proposed analytical method and the finite element method are presented in the form of a graph; the calculations that have been obtained by these two methods were compared. 

A Bayesian Scoring Technique for Mining Predictive and Non-Spurious Rules.

Science.gov (United States)

Batal, Iyad; Cooper, Gregory; Hauskrecht, Milos

Rule mining is an important class of data mining methods for discovering interesting patterns in data. The success of a rule mining method heavily depends on the evaluation function that is used to assess the quality of the rules. In this work, we propose a new rule evaluation score - the Predictive and Non-Spurious Rules (PNSR) score. This score relies on Bayesian inference to evaluate the quality of the rules and considers the structure of the rules to filter out spurious rules. We present an efficient algorithm for finding rules with high PNSR scores. The experiments demonstrate that our method is able to cover and explain the data with a much smaller rule set than existing methods.

[Optimization of ventricular function during anesthesia induction by administering crystalloids and colloids to heart surgery patients].

Science.gov (United States)

Ballesteros, M; Boldt, J; Zickmann, B; Knothe, C; Hempelmann, G

1995-01-01

To describe the changes in cardiac function after administration of three different solutions infused after anesthetic induction. Thirty-six patients scheduled for elective aortocoronary bypass surgery were randomly distributed into three groups. Over a period of 25 min after anesthetic induction, 12 received 10 ml/kg of Ringer solution (low dose crystalloid group), 12 received 20 ml/kg of Ringer solution (high dose crystalloid group), and 12 received 10 ml/kg of Ringer solution with 10 ml/kg of hydroxi-ethyl-almidon solution 450,000 D, 0.7 substitution grade (group C-HEA). Minute volume, systemic and pulmonary pressures, osmolality of blood and urine, and plasma and urine sodium concentrations were measured before and after infusion of the assigned liquid. In spite of the volume infused, low dose crystalloid group showed a high incidence of oliguria, increased urinary osmolality and decreased sodium in urine. Cardiac and systolic indices and left ventricular work load remained stable after infusion of the assigned liquid in low and high dose crystalloid groups, whereas they increased significantly ion group C-HEA (+23%, +16% and +20%). Administration of restricted doses of crystalloids after anesthetic induction favors the retention of water and sodium. Higher doses of crystalloids weaken this effect. However, neither of these two regimens leads to a more effective cardiac work load. A combination of crystalloids and colloids administered immediately after anesthetic induction temporarily improves cardiac performance during surgery.

Stochastic Estimation Methods for Induction Motor Transient Thermal Monitoring Under Non Linear Condition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mellah HACEN

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The induction machine, because of its robustness and low-cost, is commonly used in the industry. Nevertheless, as every type of electrical machine, this machine suffers of some limitations. The most important one is the working temperature which is the dimensioning parameter for the definition of the nominal working point and the machine lifetime. Due to a strong demand concerning thermal monitoring methods appeared in the industry sector. In this context, the adding of temperature sensors is not acceptable and the studied methods tend to use sensorless approaches such as observators or parameters estimators like the extended Kalman Filter (EKF. Then the important criteria are reliability, computational cost ad real time implementation.

Retrospective comparison of the Low Risk Ankle Rules and the Ottawa Ankle Rules in a pediatric population.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellenbogen, Amy L; Rice, Amy L; Vyas, Pranav

2017-09-01

A recent multicenter prospective Canadian study presented prospective evidence supporting the Low Risk Ankle Rules (LRAR) as a means of reducing the number of ankle radiographs ordered for children presenting with an ankle injury while maintaining nearly 100% sensitivity. This is in contrast to a previous prospective study which showed that this rule yielded only 87% sensitivity. It is important to further investigate the LRAR and compare them with the already validated Ottawa Ankle Rules (OAR) to potentially curb healthcare costs and decrease unnecessary radiation exposure without compromising diagnostic accuracy. We conducted a retrospective chart review of 980 qualifying patients ages 12months to 18years presenting with ankle injury to a commonly staffed 310 bed children's hospital and auxiliary site pediatric emergency department. There were 28 high-risk fractures identified. The Ottawa Ankle Rules had a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI 87.7-100), specificity of 33.1% (95% CI 30.1-36.2), and would have reduced the number of ankle radiographs ordered by 32.1%. The Low Risk Ankle Rules had a sensitivity of 85.7% (95% CI 85.7-96), specificity of 64.9% (95% CI 61.8-68), and would have reduced the number of ankle radiographs ordered by 63.1%. The latter rule missed 4 high-risk fractures. The Low Risk Ankle Rules may not be sensitive enough for use in Pediatric Emergency Departments, while the Ottawa Ankle Rules again demonstrated 100% sensitivity. Further research on ways to implement the Ottawa Ankle Rules and maximize its ability to decrease wait times, healthcare costs, and improve patient satisfaction are needed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The myth of induction in qualitative nursing research.

Science.gov (United States)

Bergdahl, Elisabeth; Berterö, Carina M

2015-04-01

In nursing today, it remains unclear what constitutes a good foundation for qualitative scientific inquiry. There is a tendency to define qualitative research as a form of inductive inquiry; deductive practice is seldom discussed, and when it is, this usually occurs in the context of data analysis. We will look at how the terms 'induction' and 'deduction' are used in qualitative nursing science and by qualitative research theorists, and relate these uses to the traditional definitions of these terms by Popper and other philosophers of science. We will also question the assertion that qualitative research is or should be inductive. The position we defend here is that qualitative research should use deductive methods. We also see a need to understand the difference between the creative process needed to create theory and the justification of a theory. Our position is that misunderstandings regarding the philosophy of science and the role of inductive and deductive logic and science are still harming the development of nursing theory and science. The purpose of this article is to discuss and reflect upon inductive and deductive views of science as well as inductive and deductive analyses in qualitative research. We start by describing inductive and deductive methods and logic from a philosophy of science perspective, and we examine how the concepts of induction and deduction are often described and used in qualitative methods and nursing research. Finally, we attempt to provide a theoretical perspective that reconciles the misunderstandings regarding induction and deduction. Our conclusion is that openness towards deductive thinking and testing hypotheses is needed in qualitative nursing research. We must also realize that strict induction will not create theory; to generate theory, a creative leap is needed. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hypnosis for induction of labour.

Science.gov (United States)

Nishi, Daisuke; Shirakawa, Miyako N; Ota, Erika; Hanada, Nobutsugu; Mori, Rintaro

2014-08-14

Induction of labour using pharmacological and mechanical methods can increase complications. Complementary and alternative medicine methods including hypnosis may have the potential to provide a safe alternative option for the induction of labour. However, the effectiveness of hypnosis for inducing labour has not yet been fully evaluated. To assess the effect of hypnosis for induction of labour compared with no intervention or any other interventions. We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (31 January 2014), handsearched relevant conference proceedings, contacted key personnel and organisations in the field for published and unpublished references. All published and unpublished randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and cluster-RCTs of acceptable quality comparing hypnosis with no intervention or any other interventions, in which the primary outcome is to assess whether labour was induced. Two review authors assessed the one trial report that was identified (but was subsequently excluded). No RCTs or cluster-RCTs were identified from the search strategy. There was no evidence available from RCTs to assess the effect of hypnosis for induction of labour. Evidence from RCTs is required to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of this intervention for labour induction. As hypnosis may delay standard care (in case standard care is withheld during hypnosis), its use in induction of labour should be considered on a case-by-case basis.Future RCTs are required to examine the effectiveness and safety of hypnotic relaxation for induction of labour among pregnant women who have anxiety above a certain level. The length and timing of the intervention, as well as the staff training required, should be taken into consideration. Moreover, the views and experiences of women and staff should also be included in future RCTs.

Totally optimal decision rules

KAUST Repository

Amin, Talha

2017-11-22

Optimality of decision rules (patterns) can be measured in many ways. One of these is referred to as length. Length signifies the number of terms in a decision rule and is optimally minimized. Another, coverage represents the width of a rule’s applicability and generality. As such, it is desirable to maximize coverage. A totally optimal decision rule is a decision rule that has the minimum possible length and the maximum possible coverage. This paper presents a method for determining the presence of totally optimal decision rules for “complete” decision tables (representations of total functions in which different variables can have domains of differing values). Depending on the cardinalities of the domains, we can either guarantee for each tuple of values of the function that totally optimal rules exist for each row of the table (as in the case of total Boolean functions where the cardinalities are equal to 2) or, for each row, we can find a tuple of values of the function for which totally optimal rules do not exist for this row.

Totally optimal decision rules

KAUST Repository

Amin, Talha M.; Moshkov, Mikhail

2017-01-01

Optimality of decision rules (patterns) can be measured in many ways. One of these is referred to as length. Length signifies the number of terms in a decision rule and is optimally minimized. Another, coverage represents the width of a rule’s applicability and generality. As such, it is desirable to maximize coverage. A totally optimal decision rule is a decision rule that has the minimum possible length and the maximum possible coverage. This paper presents a method for determining the presence of totally optimal decision rules for “complete” decision tables (representations of total functions in which different variables can have domains of differing values). Depending on the cardinalities of the domains, we can either guarantee for each tuple of values of the function that totally optimal rules exist for each row of the table (as in the case of total Boolean functions where the cardinalities are equal to 2) or, for each row, we can find a tuple of values of the function for which totally optimal rules do not exist for this row.

Cocaine Promotes Coincidence Detection and Lowers Induction Threshold during Hebbian Associative Synaptic Potentiation in Prefrontal Cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Ruan, Hongyu; Yao, Wei-Dong

2017-01-25

Addictive drugs usurp neural plasticity mechanisms that normally serve reward-related learning and memory, primarily by evoking changes in glutamatergic synaptic strength in the mesocorticolimbic dopamine circuitry. Here, we show that repeated cocaine exposure in vivo does not alter synaptic strength in the mouse prefrontal cortex during an early period of withdrawal, but instead modifies a Hebbian quantitative synaptic learning rule by broadening the temporal window and lowers the induction threshold for spike-timing-dependent LTP (t-LTP). After repeated, but not single, daily cocaine injections, t-LTP in layer V pyramidal neurons is induced at +30 ms, a normally ineffective timing interval for t-LTP induction in saline-exposed mice. This cocaine-induced, extended-timing t-LTP lasts for ∼1 week after terminating cocaine and is accompanied by an increased susceptibility to potentiation by fewer pre-post spike pairs, indicating a reduced t-LTP induction threshold. Basal synaptic strength and the maximal attainable t-LTP magnitude remain unchanged after cocaine exposure. We further show that the cocaine facilitation of t-LTP induction is caused by sensitized D1-cAMP/protein kinase A dopamine signaling in pyramidal neurons, which then pathologically recruits voltage-gated l-type Ca 2+ channels that synergize with GluN2A-containing NMDA receptors to drive t-LTP at extended timing. Our results illustrate a mechanism by which cocaine, acting on a key neuromodulation pathway, modifies the coincidence detection window during Hebbian plasticity to facilitate associative synaptic potentiation in prefrontal excitatory circuits. By modifying rules that govern activity-dependent synaptic plasticity, addictive drugs can derail the experience-driven neural circuit remodeling process important for executive control of reward and addiction. It is believed that addictive drugs often render an addict's brain reward system hypersensitive, leaving the individual more susceptible to

Radiological response and survival in locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with three-drug induction chemotherapy followed by radical local treatment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bonanno L

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Laura Bonanno,1 Giulia Zago,1 Giuseppe Marulli,2 Paola Del Bianco,3 Marco Schiavon,2 Giulia Pasello,1 Valentina Polo,1,4 Fabio Canova,1 Fabrizio Tonetto,5 Lucio Loreggian,5 Federico Rea,2 PierFranco Conte,1,4 Adolfo Favaretto1 1Medical Oncology Unit 2, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, 2Thoracic Surgery Department, University of Padova, 3Clinical Trials and Biostatistics Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, 4Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology, University of Padova, 5Radiotherapy Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Padova, Italy Objectives: If concurrent chemoradiotherapy cannot be performed, induction chemotherapy followed by radical-intent surgical treatment is an acceptable option for non primarily resectable non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLCs. No markers are available to predict which patients may benefit from local treatment after induction. This exploratory study aims to assess the feasibility and the activity of multimodality treatment, including triple-agent chemotherapy followed by radical surgery and/or radiotherapy in locally advanced NSCLCs. Methods: We retrospectively collected data from locally advanced NSCLCs treated with induction chemotherapy with carboplatin (area under the curve 6, d [day]1, paclitaxel (200 mg/m2, d1, and gemcitabine (1,000 mg/m2 d1, 8 for three to four courses, followed by radical surgery and/or radiotherapy. We analyzed radiological response and toxicity. Estimated progression-free survival (PFS and overall survival (OS were correlated to response, surgery, and clinical features. Results: In all, 58 NSCLCs were included in the study: 40 staged as IIIA, 18 as IIIB (according to TNM Classification of Malignant Tumors–7th edition staging system. A total of 36 (62% patients achieved partial response (PR, and six (10% progressions were recorded. Grade 3–4 hematological toxicity was observed in 36 (62% cases. After chemotherapy, 37 (64% patients underwent surgery

Sensitivity of a Clinical Decision Rule and Early Computed Tomography in Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dustin G. Mark

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Application of a clinical decision rule for subarachnoid hemorrhage, in combination with cranial computed tomography (CT performed within six hours of ictus (early cranial CT, may be able to reasonably exclude a diagnosis of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH. This study’s objective was to examine the sensitivity of both early cranial CT and a previously validated clinical decision rule among emergency department (ED patients with aSAH and a normal mental status. Methods: Patients were evaluated in the 21 EDs of an integrated health delivery system between January 2007 and June 2013. We identified by chart review a retrospective cohort of patients diagnosed with aSAH in the setting of a normal mental status and performance of early cranial CT. Variables comprising the SAH clinical decision rule (age >40, presence of neck pain or stiffness, headache onset with exertion, loss of consciousness at headache onset were abstracted from the chart and assessed for inter-rater reliability. Results: One hundred fifty-five patients with aSAH met study inclusion criteria. The sensitivity of early cranial CT was 95.5% (95% CI [90.9-98.2]. The sensitivity of the SAH clinical decision rule was also 95.5% (95% CI [90.9-98.2]. Since all false negative cases for each diagnostic modality were mutually independent, the combined use of both early cranial CT and the clinical decision rule improved sensitivity to 100% (95% CI [97.6-100.0]. Conclusion: Neither early cranial CT nor the SAH clinical decision rule demonstrated ideal sensitivity for aSAH in this retrospective cohort. However, the combination of both strategies might optimize sensitivity for this life-threatening disease.

Choosing the rules: distinct and overlapping frontoparietal representations of task rules for perceptual decisions.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jiaxiang; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Carlin, Johan D; Rowe, James B

2013-07-17

Behavior is governed by rules that associate stimuli with responses and outcomes. Human and monkey studies have shown that rule-specific information is widely represented in the frontoparietal cortex. However, it is not known how establishing a rule under different contexts affects its neural representation. Here, we use event-related functional MRI (fMRI) and multivoxel pattern classification methods to investigate the human brain's mechanisms of establishing and maintaining rules for multiple perceptual decision tasks. Rules were either chosen by participants or specifically instructed to them, and the fMRI activation patterns representing rule-specific information were compared between these contexts. We show that frontoparietal regions differ in the properties of their rule representations during active maintenance before execution. First, rule-specific information maintained in the dorsolateral and medial frontal cortex depends on the context in which it was established (chosen vs specified). Second, rule representations maintained in the ventrolateral frontal and parietal cortex are independent of the context in which they were established. Furthermore, we found that the rule-specific coding maintained in anticipation of stimuli may change with execution of the rule: representations in context-independent regions remain invariant from maintenance to execution stages, whereas rule representations in context-dependent regions do not generalize to execution stage. The identification of distinct frontoparietal systems with context-independent and context-dependent task rule representations, and the distinction between anticipatory and executive rule representations, provide new insights into the functional architecture of goal-directed behavior.

Diagnosis of the three-phase induction motor using thermal imaging

Science.gov (United States)

Glowacz, Adam; Glowacz, Zygfryd

2017-03-01

Three-phase induction motors are used in the industry commonly for example woodworking machines, blowers, pumps, conveyors, elevators, compressors, mining industry, automotive industry, chemical industry and railway applications. Diagnosis of faults is essential for proper maintenance. Faults may damage a motor and damaged motors generate economic losses caused by breakdowns in production lines. In this paper the authors develop fault diagnostic techniques of the three-phase induction motor. The described techniques are based on the analysis of thermal images of three-phase induction motor. The authors analyse thermal images of 3 states of the three-phase induction motor: healthy three-phase induction motor, three-phase induction motor with 2 broken bars, three-phase induction motor with faulty ring of squirrel-cage. In this paper the authors develop an original method of the feature extraction of thermal images MoASoID (Method of Areas Selection of Image Differences). This method compares many training sets together and it selects the areas with the biggest changes for the recognition process. Feature vectors are obtained with the use of mentioned MoASoID and image histogram. Next 3 methods of classification are used: NN (the Nearest Neighbour classifier), K-means, BNN (the back-propagation neural network). The described fault diagnostic techniques are useful for protection of three-phase induction motor and other types of rotating electrical motors such as: DC motors, generators, synchronous motors.

Randomized Study of Concurrent Carboplatin, Paclitaxel, and Radiotherapy with or Without Prior Induction Chemotherapy in Patients with Locally Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gouda, Y.S.; Eldeeb, N.A.; Omar, A.M.; Kohail, H.M.; El-Geneidy, M.M.; Elkerm, Y.M.

2006-01-01

Background: Multiple concepts of combined modality therapy for locally advanced inoperable non-small cell lung cancer have been investigated. These include induction chemotherapy, concomitant chemo-radiotherapy, and radiation only. To date, combined modality therapy specially the use of concomitant chemo-radiotherapy has led to promising results and was shown to be superior to radiotherapy alone in phase II studies. However the optimum chemo-therapeutic regimen to be used as well as the benefit of induction chemotherapy before concomitant chemo-radiotherapy are yet to be determined. Based on these observations, we investigated the use of paclitaxel and carboplatin concomitantly with radiotherapy and the benefit of prior two cycles induction chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: In this trial 50 patients with locally advanced inoperable non small cell lung cancer, good performance status and minimal weight loss have been randomized into 3 groups each of 20 patients. Group A received induction 2 cycles paclitaxel (175 mg/m 2 ) and carboplatin (AUC 6) on day I and 28 th followed by concomitant paclitaxel (45 mg/m 2 ) and carboplatin (AUC 2) weekly with radiotherapy. Group B received concomitant carboplatin, paclitaxel (same doses as in group A) and radiotherapy with no prior induction chemotherapy. Group C received only radiotherapy to a total dose of 60 Gy in conventional fractionation. Results: A total of 60 patients were enrolled in this study between 1998 and 2000. Pretreatment characteristics, including age, gender, performance status, histological features and stage were comparable in each group. The incidence of oesophagi tis was significantly higher in group A and B than in group C (ρ=0.023). Hematological toxicities was also significantly higher in group A and B than in group C (ρ=0.003). The response rate was significantly higher in group A and B than in group C (75%,79%, and 40% respectively) (ρ =0.020). The time to in-field progresion was significantly

Discovering Sentinel Rules for Business Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Middelfart, Morten; Pedersen, Torben Bach

This paper proposes the concept of sentinel rules for multi-dimensional data that warns users when measure data concerning the external environment changes. For instance, a surge in negative blogging about a company could trigger a sentinel rule warning that revenue will decrease within two months, so a new course of action can be taken. Hereby, we expand the window of opportunity for organizations and facilitate successful navigation even though the world behaves chaotically. Since sentinel rules are at the schema level as opposed to the data level, and operate on data changes as opposed to absolute data values, we are able to discover strong and useful sentinel rules that would otherwise be hidden when using sequential pattern mining or correlation techniques. We present a method for sentinel rule discovery and an implementation of this method that scales linearly on large data volumes.

42 CFR 35.2 - Compliance with hospital rules.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... EXAMINATIONS HOSPITAL AND STATION MANAGEMENT General § 35.2 Compliance with hospital rules. All patients and visitors in stations and hospitals of the Service are expected to comply with the rules and instructions... 42 Public Health 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Compliance with hospital rules. 35.2 Section 35.2...

A rule-based fault detection method for air handling units

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schein, J.; Bushby, S. T.; Castro, N. S. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States); House, J. M. [Iowa Energy Center, Ankeny, IA (United States)

2006-07-01

Air handling unit performance assessment rules (APAR) is a fault detection tool that uses a set of expert rules derived from mass and energy balances to detect faults in air handling units (AHUs). Control signals are used to determine the mode of operation of the AHU. A subset of the expert rules which correspond to that mode of operation are then evaluated to determine whether a fault exists. APAR is computationally simple enough that it can be embedded in commercial building automation and control systems and relies only upon the sensor data and control signals that are commonly available in these systems. APAR was tested using data sets collected from a 'hardware-in-the-loop' emulator and from several field sites. APAR was also embedded in commercial AHU controllers and tested in the emulator. (author)

Inductive matrix completion for predicting gene-disease associations.

Science.gov (United States)

Natarajan, Nagarajan; Dhillon, Inderjit S

2014-06-15

Most existing methods for predicting causal disease genes rely on specific type of evidence, and are therefore limited in terms of applicability. More often than not, the type of evidence available for diseases varies-for example, we may know linked genes, keywords associated with the disease obtained by mining text, or co-occurrence of disease symptoms in patients. Similarly, the type of evidence available for genes varies-for example, specific microarray probes convey information only for certain sets of genes. In this article, we apply a novel matrix-completion method called Inductive Matrix Completion to the problem of predicting gene-disease associations; it combines multiple types of evidence (features) for diseases and genes to learn latent factors that explain the observed gene-disease associations. We construct features from different biological sources such as microarray expression data and disease-related textual data. A crucial advantage of the method is that it is inductive; it can be applied to diseases not seen at training time, unlike traditional matrix-completion approaches and network-based inference methods that are transductive. Comparison with state-of-the-art methods on diseases from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database shows that the proposed approach is substantially better-it has close to one-in-four chance of recovering a true association in the top 100 predictions, compared to the recently proposed Catapult method (second best) that has bigdata.ices.utexas.edu/project/gene-disease. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Spatio-Temporal Rule Mining

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gidofalvi, Gyozo; Pedersen, Torben Bach

2005-01-01

Recent advances in communication and information technology, such as the increasing accuracy of GPS technology and the miniaturization of wireless communication devices pave the road for Location-Based Services (LBS). To achieve high quality for such services, spatio-temporal data mining techniques...... are needed. In this paper, we describe experiences with spatio-temporal rule mining in a Danish data mining company. First, a number of real world spatio-temporal data sets are described, leading to a taxonomy of spatio-temporal data. Second, the paper describes a general methodology that transforms...... the spatio-temporal rule mining task to the traditional market basket analysis task and applies it to the described data sets, enabling traditional association rule mining methods to discover spatio-temporal rules for LBS. Finally, unique issues in spatio-temporal rule mining are identified and discussed....

Rules and routines in organizations and the management of safety rules

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weichbrodt, J. Ch.

2013-07-01

participation in rule creation. Paper 2 makes use of extensive empirical data collected at three different fields of work within SBB (signaling, shunting, and construction and maintenance). Using both interviews and observation methods, four cases of contested safety rules (i.e., rules that are often bent or broken) are analyzed in detail. For each case, the different aspects of the rule and the routine are disentangled and put in relation to one another. In this manner, the precise way in which rules influence routines (as well as the limits of this influence) is uncovered. Additionally, different ways of sensemaking of rules in the different fields of work are identified and put in relation to the cases of contested rules. Finally, in paper 3, most of the research covered so far is built upon in order to address the question of what should be done to adequately manage safety rules in high-risk organizations. Drawing from organization theory, safety rules are conceptualized as instruments for organizational control, as coordination mechanisms, and as a codified forms of organizational knowledge. With these three functions in mind, four common challenges with safety rules are outlined, as well as four typical measures of good rules management. The relationship between these measures and the challenges and their implication for rules as control, coordination and knowledge are discussed. (author)

Rules and routines in organizations and the management of safety rules

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weichbrodt, J. Ch.

2013-01-01

participation in rule creation. Paper 2 makes use of extensive empirical data collected at three different fields of work within SBB (signaling, shunting, and construction and maintenance). Using both interviews and observation methods, four cases of contested safety rules (i.e., rules that are often bent or broken) are analyzed in detail. For each case, the different aspects of the rule and the routine are disentangled and put in relation to one another. In this manner, the precise way in which rules influence routines (as well as the limits of this influence) is uncovered. Additionally, different ways of sensemaking of rules in the different fields of work are identified and put in relation to the cases of contested rules. Finally, in paper 3, most of the research covered so far is built upon in order to address the question of what should be done to adequately manage safety rules in high-risk organizations. Drawing from organization theory, safety rules are conceptualized as instruments for organizational control, as coordination mechanisms, and as a codified forms of organizational knowledge. With these three functions in mind, four common challenges with safety rules are outlined, as well as four typical measures of good rules management. The relationship between these measures and the challenges and their implication for rules as control, coordination and knowledge are discussed. (author)

Recruiting Unmotivated Smokers into a Smoking Induction Trial

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Kari Jo; Bradley-Ewing, Andrea; Goggin, Kathy; Richter, Kimber P.; Patten, Christi; Williams, Karen; Lee, Hyoung S.; Staggs, Vincent S.; Catley, Delwyn

2016-01-01

Little is known about effective methods to recruit unmotivated smokers into cessation induction trials, the reasons unmotivated smokers agree to participate, and the impact of those reasons on study outcomes. A mixed-method approach was used to examine recruitment data from a randomized controlled cessation induction trial that enrolled 255 adult…

Butorphanol suppresses fentanyl-induced cough during general anesthesia induction

OpenAIRE

Cheng, Xiao-Yan; Lun, Xiao-Qin; Li, Hong-Bo; Zhang, Zhi-Jie

2016-01-01

Abstract Fentanyl-induced cough (FIC) is unwanted in the patients requiring stable induction of general anesthesia. This study was designed to evaluate the suppressive effects of butorphanol pretreatment on the incidence and severity of FIC during the induction of general anesthesia. A total of 315 patients of American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I and II, scheduled for elective surgery under general anesthesia were randomized into 3 equally sized groups (n = 0105). Two minut...

A Rules-Based Algorithm to Prioritize Poor Prognosis Cancer Patients in Need of Advance Care Planning.

Science.gov (United States)

Bestvina, Christine M; Wroblewski, Kristen E; Daly, Bobby; Beach, Brittany; Chow, Selina; Hantel, Andrew; Malec, Monica; Huber, Michael T; Polite, Blase N

2018-03-13

Accurate understanding of the prognosis of an advanced cancer patient can lead to decreased aggressive care at the end of life and earlier hospice enrollment. Our goal was to determine the association between high-risk clinical events identified by a simple, rules-based algorithm and decreased overall survival, to target poor prognosis cancer patients who would urgently benefit from advanced care planning. A retrospective analysis was performed on outpatient oncology patients with an index visit from April 1, 2015, through June 30, 2015. We examined a three-month window for "high-risk events," defined as (1) change in chemotherapy, (2) emergency department (ED) visit, and (3) hospitalization. Patients were followed until January 31, 2017. A total of 219 patients receiving palliative chemotherapy at the University of Chicago Medicine with a prognosis of ≤12 months were included. The main outcome was overall survival, and each "high-risk event" was treated as a time-varying covariate in a Cox proportional hazards regression model to calculate a hazard ratio (HR) of death. A change in chemotherapy regimen, ED visit, hospitalization, and at least one high-risk event occurred in 54% (118/219), 10% (22/219), 26% (57/219), and 67% (146/219) of patients, respectively. The adjusted HR of death for patients with a high-risk event was 1.72 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.19-2.46, p = 0.003), with hospitalization reaching significance (HR 2.74, 95% CI 1.84-4.09, p rules-based algorithm identified those with the greatest risk of death among a poor prognosis patient group. Implementation of this algorithm in the electronic health record can identify patients with increased urgency to address goals of care.

KEBERADAAN KONSEP RULE BY LAW (NEGARA BERDASARKAN HUKUM DIDALAM TEORI NEGARA HUKUM THE RULE OF LAW

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Made Hendra Wijaya

2013-11-01

Full Text Available This research titled, the existence of the concept of rule by law (state law within thestate theories of law the rule of law, which is where the first problem: How can theadvantages of Rule by Law in the theory of law Rule of Law?, How is the dis advantages of aconcept of Rule by law in the theory of law Rule of Law.This research method using the method of normative, legal research that examines thewritten laws of the various aspects, ie aspects of the theory, history, philosophy, comparative,structure and composition, scope, and content, consistent, overview, and chapter by chapter,formality, and the binding force of a law, and the legal language used, but did not examine orimlementasi applied aspects. By using this approach of Historical analysis and approach oflegal conceptual analysis.In this research have found that the advantages of the concept of Rule by Law lies in theproviding of certainty, can also be social control for the community, thus ensuring all citizensin good order at all reciprocal relationships within the community. And Disadvantages of theconcept of Rule by Law if the Law which legalized state action is not supported by democracyand human rights, and the principles of justice, there will be a denial of human rights,widespread poverty, and racial segregation, and if the law is only utilized out by theauthorities as a means to legalize all forms of actions that violate human can inflicttotalitarian nature of the ruling

The Comparison of the Influence of Thiopental and Propofol on Intraocular Pressure during Induction of Anesthesia in Intubated Patients under Cataracct Surgery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Reza Sahraei

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The prevention of the increase of intraocular pressure and the further decrease of it during eye surgery has an impressive effect on the success of surgery. Some of the phases of the induction of anesthesia like laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation result in the increase of intraocular pressure and its consequences are dangerous for penetrating injuries of eyeball. The goal of this research is the comparison of the changes of intraocular pressure during the induction of anesthesia in completely same conditions by using thiopental and propofol and also the careful investigation of their influences on intraocular pressure in order to select the medicine that effectively decrease the intraocular pressure and prevent the increase of it after laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation. In this research, 88 patients were selected and they were randomly divided into 2 groups. In the beginning of the patients' anesthesia, both groups were preoxygenated and they simultaneously receive initial dose of atracurium (0/5 mg/kg and then initial dose of fentanyl (1-2 µg/Kg. After prescription of fentanyl, the induction of anesthesia in the first group was done withthiopental (4 mg/kg and in the second group with propofol (2/5 mg/kg and after that, atracurium intubation (0/7 mg/kg was prescribed. Intraocular pressure is measured in two phases before induction of anesthesia (with tetracaine eyedrop and 3 minutes after intubation (with schiotz tonometer and 3±0/75 degree of accuracy and by a person who is not aware of the kind of anesthesia. The patients are replicated in 2 experimental and control groups in terms of age and gender. The results of independent t-test show that there is no significant difference between 2 groups of thiopental and propofol in terms of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart beat and eye pressure before the induction of anesthesia (p-value>0,05. The results of independent t-test show that there is a significant difference between2

Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network head injuryprediction rules: on the basis of cost and effectiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Gökharman, Fatma Dilek; Aydın, Sonay; Fatihoğlu, Erdem; Koşar, Pınar Nercis

2017-12-19

Background/aim: Head injuries are commonly seen in the pediatric population. Noncontrast enhanced cranial CT is the method of choice to detect possible traumatic brain injury (TBI). Concerns about ionizing radiation exposure make the evaluation more challenging. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) rules in predicting clinically important TBI and to determine the amount of medical resource waste and unnecessary radiation exposure.Materials and methods: This retrospective study included 1041 pediatric patients presented to the emergency department. The patients were divided into subgroups of "appropriate for cranial CT", "not appropriate for cranial CT" and "cranial CT/observation of patient; both are appropriate". To determine the effectiveness of the PECARN rules, data were analyzed according to the presence of pathological findings Results: "Appropriate for cranial CT" results can predict pathology presence 118,056-fold compared to the "not appropriate for cranial CT" results. With "cranial CT/observation of patient; both are appropriate" results, pathology presence was predicted 11,457-fold compared to "not appropriate for cranial CT" results.Conclusion: PECARN rules can predict pathology presence successfully in pediatric TBI. Using PECARN can decrease resource waste and exposure to ionizing radiation.

Studies of tolerance induction through mixed chimerism in cynomolgus monkeys. Method for detection of chimeric cells and effect of thymic irradiation on induction of tolerance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoshino, Tomoaki; Kawai, Tatsuo; Ota, Kazuo

1996-01-01

To establish the method for the detection of chimerism in cynomologus monkeys, we tested cross reactivity of various anti-HLA monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to cynomolgus monkeys. In 29 mAb we tested, only three monoclonal anti-HLA antibodies crossreacted with lymphocytes of monkeys. With these mAb, chimeric cell can be detected up to 1% by flow cytometric analysis (study 1). Utilizing the method we developed in study 1, we applied the regimen that induces mixed chimerism and skin graft tolerance in mice to renal allotransplantation of cynomolgus monkey. Regimen A includes non-lethal dose of total body irradiation (TBI), administration of anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) for 3 days, donor bone marrow infusion and 45 days course of cyclosporine (CYA) administration. We added 7 Gy of thymic irradiation on day-6 in regimen B and on day-1 in regimen C. Although all monkeys in regimen A and B consistently developed chimerism, they rejected kidney allografts soon after stopping CYA. In contrast, 4 monkeys out of 5 failed to develop chimerism in regimen C, but renal allograft tolerance was induced in one monkey who developed chimerism in regimen C. In conclusion, the induction of chimerism is considered necessary but not sufficient for tolerance induction. (author)

Studies of tolerance induction through mixed chimerism in cynomolgus monkeys. Method for detection of chimeric cells and effect of thymic irradiation on induction of tolerance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hoshino, Tomoaki; Kawai, Tatsuo; Ota, Kazuo [Tokyo Women`s Medical Coll. (Japan)

1996-12-01

To establish the method for the detection of chimerism in cynomologus monkeys, we tested cross reactivity of various anti-HLA monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to cynomolgus monkeys. In 29 mAb we tested, only three monoclonal anti-HLA antibodies crossreacted with lymphocytes of monkeys. With these mAb, chimeric cell can be detected up to 1% by flow cytometric analysis (study 1). Utilizing the method we developed in study 1, we applied the regimen that induces mixed chimerism and skin graft tolerance in mice to renal allotransplantation of cynomolgus monkey. Regimen A includes non-lethal dose of total body irradiation (TBI), administration of anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) for 3 days, donor bone marrow infusion and 45 days course of cyclosporine (CYA) administration. We added 7 Gy of thymic irradiation on day-6 in regimen B and on day-1 in regimen C. Although all monkeys in regimen A and B consistently developed chimerism, they rejected kidney allografts soon after stopping CYA. In contrast, 4 monkeys out of 5 failed to develop chimerism in regimen C, but renal allograft tolerance was induced in one monkey who developed chimerism in regimen C. In conclusion, the induction of chimerism is considered necessary but not sufficient for tolerance induction. (author)

Changes in arterial blood pressure induced by passive leg raising predict hypotension during the induction of sedation in critically ill patients without severe cardiac dysfunction.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Tao; Pan, Chun; Guo, Feng-mei; Yang, Yi; Qiu, Hai-bo

2013-07-01

Hypotension due to the induction of sedation with dexmedetomidine infusion may be harmful in critically ill patients. Changes in pulse pressure induced by the passive leg raising test (PLR-ΔPP) as marker of fluid responsiveness, assessed prior to sedation, may predict hemodynamic changes. The present study was to investigate the power of the PLR test in critically ill patients in predicting hypotension induced by the induction of dexmedetomidine sedation. Fluid responsiveness was estimated by a passive leg raising (PLR) test before dexmedetomidine sedation. Patients were assigned to either the "Nonresponders" or "Responders" group according to their hemodynamic responses to the PLR test ("Nonresponders", PLR-ΔPP pressure, heart rate (HR), and central venous pressure (CVP) were measured at each phase of the study procedure. Hemodynamic fluctuations during the use of dexmedetomidine sedation were recorded and compared between the two groups. Fifty patients had a median (25% - 75% interquartile range) of 71 (61 - 78) years old were studied. At baseline, 39 of the 50 patients were "Nonresponders" and 11 were "Responders". Following dexmedetomidine sedation, patients classified as "Responders" had a significantly greater systolic blood pressure decrease during the induction of dexmedetomidine sedation than the "Nonresponders" ((-26.3 ± 6.8)% vs. -11.8 ± 8.5)%, P blood pressure. Finally, PLR-ΔPP was positively correlated with changes in systolic blood pressure (PLR-ΔSBP) (r(2) = 0.576; P AUC for PLR-ΔPP was 0.84 (95%CI 0.71 - 0.93). PLR-ΔPP predicted hypotension with a sensitivity of 73% and a specificity of 92%. The fluid responsiveness assessment pre-sedation was found to predict blood pressure fluctuation during the induction of dexmedetomidine sedation. The PLR test conducted prior to sedation may be a useful tool to identify patients with a high risk of hemodynamic events and may be used to indicate the need for prophylactic treatment.

The dead donor rule, voluntary active euthanasia, and capital punishment.

Science.gov (United States)

Coons, Christian; Levin, Noah

2011-06-01

We argue that the dead donor rule, which states that multiple vital organs should only be taken from dead patients, is justified neither in principle nor in practice. We use a thought experiment and a guiding assumption in the literature about the justification of moral principles to undermine the theoretical justification for the rule. We then offer two real world analogues to this thought experiment, voluntary active euthanasia and capital punishment, and argue that the moral permissibility of terminating any patient through the removal of vital organs cannot turn on whether or not the practice violates the dead donor rule. Next, we consider practical justifications for the dead donor rule. Specifically, we consider whether there are compelling reasons to promulgate the rule even though its corresponding moral principle is not theoretically justified. We argue that there are no such reasons. In fact, we argue that promulgating the rule may actually decrease public trust in organ procurement procedures and medical institutions generally - even in states that do not permit capital punishment or voluntary active euthanasia. Finally, we examine our case against the dead donor rule in the light of common arguments for it. We find that these arguments are often misplaced - they do not support the dead donor rule. Instead, they support the quite different rule that patients should not be killed for their vital organs.

Decision Mining Revisited – Discovering Overlapping Rules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mannhardt, F.; de Leoni, M.; Reijers, H.A.; van der Aalst, W.M.P.

2016-01-01

Decision mining enriches process models with rules underlying decisions in processes using historical process execution data. Choices between multiple activities are specified through rules defined over process data. Existing decision mining methods focus on discovering mutually-exclusive rules,

Assessment of extensive surgery for locally advanced lung cancer. Safety and efficacy of induction therapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Niwa, Hiroshi; Nakamae, Katsumi; Yamada, Takeshi; Kani, Hisanori; Maemoto, Katsutoshi; Mizuno, Takeo

1999-01-01

Locally advanced lung cancer has a poor prognosis, despite extensive surgery conducted in an effort to improve survival. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of induction therapy prior to extensive surgery for locally advanced lung cancer. Primary resection for lung cancer was done in 549 consecutive patients divided into three groups; 446 undergoing standard pulmonary resection (no extensive surgery), 87 undergoing extensive surgery without induction therapy, and 16 undergoing surgery after induction therapy. Morbidity was 23.5%, 28.6%, and 43.8%, respectively. The rate was significantly higher in the induction group compared with the no extensive surgery group (P<0.05). Surgical mortality was 0.67%, 3.4%, and 6.3%, respectively. The difference was statistically significant between the no extensive surgery and extensive surgery groups (P<0.02), and between the no extensive surgery and induction groups (P<0.02). Hospital mortality was 2.2%, 9.2%, and 6.3%, respectively. The rates were significantly higher in the extensive surgery (P<0.01) and induction (P<0.05) groups compared to the no extensive surgery group. Five-year survival was 50.3% for the patients who received induction therapy, and 14.7% for the patients who did not receive induction therapy. Survival differences between the induction and non induction groups were not significant, but some patients with T3 or T4 disease may benefit from induction therapy. The high morbidity of induction treatment should be recognized, and strict candidate selection and careful postoperative care used to help prevent increased mortality. (author)

“Treatment outcomes of different prognostic groups of patients on Cancer and Leukemia Group B trial 39801: Induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy compared with chemoradiotherapy alone for unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer”

Science.gov (United States)

Stinchcombe, Thomas E.; Hodgson, Lydia; Herndon, James E.; Kelley, Michael J.; Cicchetti, M. Giulia; Ramnath, Nithya; B.Niell, Harvey; Atkins, James N.; Akerley, Wallace; Green, Mark. R.; Vokes, Everett E.

2009-01-01

Background In Cancer and Leukemia Group B 39801, we evaluated whether induction chemotherapy before concurrent chemoradiotherapy would result in improved survival, and demonstrated no significant benefit from the addition of induction chemotherapy. The primary objective of this analysis was to dichotomize patients into prognostic groups using factors predictive of survival, and to investigate if induction chemotherapy was beneficial in either prognostic group. Patients and Methods A Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess the impact on survival of the following factors: (≥ 70 vs. < 70 years), gender, race, stage (IIIB vs. IIIA), hemoglobin (hgb) (< 13 vs. ≥13 g/dl), performance status (PS) (1 vs.0), weight loss (≥5% vs. < 5%), treatment arm, and the interaction between weight loss and hgb. Results Factors predictive of decreased survival were weight loss ≥ 5%, age ≥ 70 years, PS of 1, and hgb < 13 g/dl (p<0.05). Patients were classified as having ≥2 poor prognostic factors (n=165) or ≤ 1 factor (n=166). The hazard ratio (HR) for overall survival for the patients with ≥ 2 versus patients with ≤ 1 was 1.88 (95% CI, 1.49 to 2.37; p= < 0.0001); median survival times observed were 9 (95% CI, 8 to 11) and 18 (95% CI, 16 to 24) months, respectively. There was no significant difference in survival between treatment arms in patients with ≥ 2 factors (HR=0.86, 95% CI, 0.63 to 1.17; p=0.34) or ≤1 factor (HR=0.97, 95% CI, 0.70 to 1.35; p=0.87) Conclusions There is no evidence that induction chemotherapy is beneficial in either prognostic group. PMID:19652624

Standstill Estimation of Electrical Parameters in Induction Motors Using an Optimal Input Signal

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Børsting, H.; Knudsen, Morten; Vadstrup, P.

1995-01-01

The paper suggest a simple off-line method to obtain accurate estimates of the resistances and inductances of the induction motor.......The paper suggest a simple off-line method to obtain accurate estimates of the resistances and inductances of the induction motor....

The RIA studies on the changes of serum hormone levels during induction stage of intravenous anesthesia with three different drugs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lan Changsheng; Huang Jianmin; Pan Liping; Li Dongxue; Feng Rongfang

2002-01-01

Objective: To investigate of effects of propofol, thiopental and etomidate on pituitary adrenal functions during the induction stage of intravenous anaesthesia with them. Methods: Forty-eight patients undergoing elective surgery were randomly divided into three groups, propofol (group I), thipental (group II) and etomidate (group III). Peripheral blood samples were taken for the measurement of E, NE, PRL, GH, B-EP and cortisone before induction (T 0 ), During induction (T 1 ) and 2, 5, 15 min after intubation with RIA. Results: The study showed that none of the three drugs could inhibit increase in E and NE during induction and intubation, but propofol was significantly better than the other two. Conclusion: Propofol has less effects on pituitary-adrenal functions and is the drug of choice for induction

A Bayesian analysis of QCD sum rules

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gubler, Philipp; Oka, Makoto

2011-01-01

A new technique has recently been developed, in which the Maximum Entropy Method is used to analyze QCD sum rules. This approach has the virtue of being able to directly generate the spectral function of a given operator, without the need of making an assumption about its specific functional form. To investigate whether useful results can be extracted within this method, we have first studied the vector meson channel, where QCD sum rules are traditionally known to provide a valid description of the spectral function. Our results show a significant peak in the region of the experimentally observed ρ-meson mass, which is in agreement with earlier QCD sum rules studies and suggests that the Maximum Entropy Method is a strong tool for analyzing QCD sum rules.

A History of Probabilistic Inductive Logic Programming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabrizio eRiguzzi

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The field of Probabilistic Logic Programming (PLP has seen significant advances in the last 20 years, with many proposals for languages that combine probability with logic programming. Since the start, the problem of learning probabilistic logic programs has been the focus of much attention. Learning these programs represents a whole subfield of Inductive Logic Programming (ILP. In Probabilistic ILP (PILP two problems are considered: learning the parameters of a program given the structure (the rules and learning both the structure and the parameters. Usually structure learning systems use parameter learning as a subroutine. In this article we present an overview of PILP and discuss the main results.

Power Quality Improvement and LVRT Capability Enhancement of Wind Farms by Means of an Inductive Filtering Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yanjian Peng

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Unlike the traditional method for power quality improvement and low-voltage ride through (LVRT capability enhancement of wind farms, this paper proposes a new wind power integrated system by means of an inductive filtering method, especially if it contains a grid-connected transformer, a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM and fully-tuned (FT branches. First, the main circuit topology of the new wind power integrated system is presented. Then, the mathematical model is established to reveal the mechanism of harmonic suppression and the reactive compensation of the proposed wind power integrated system, and then the realization conditions of the inductive filtering method is obtained. Further, the control strategy of STATCOM is introduced. Based on the measured data for a real wind farm, the simulation studies are carried out to illustrate the performance of the proposed new wind power integrated system. The results indicate that the new system can not only enhance the LVRT capability of wind farms, but also prevent harmonic components flowing into the primary (grid winding of the grid-connected transformer. Moreover, since the new method can compensate for reactive power in a wind farm, the power factor at the grid side can be improved effectively.

The chemical induction of seizures in psychiatric therapy: were flurothyl (indoklon) and pentylenetetrazol (metrazol) abandoned prematurely?

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Kathryn; Fink, Max

2014-10-01

Camphor-induced and pentylenetetrazol-induced brain seizures were first used to relieve psychiatric illnesses in 1934. Electrical inductions (electroconvulsive therapy, ECT) followed in 1938. These were easier and less expensive to administer and quickly became the main treatment method. In 1957, seizure induction with the inhalant anesthetic flurothyl was tested and found to be clinically effective.For many decades, complaints of memory loss have stigmatized and inhibited ECT use. Many variations of electricity in form, electrode placement, dosing, and stimulation method offered some relief, but complaints still limit its use. The experience with chemical inductions of seizures was reviewed based on searches for reports of each agent in Medline and in the archival files of original studies by the early investigators. Camphor injections were inefficient and were rapidly replaced by pentylenetetrazol. These were effective but difficult to administer. Flurothyl inhalation-induced seizures were as clinically effective as electrical inductions with lesser effects on memory functions. Flurothyl inductions were discarded because of the persistence of the ethereal aroma and the fears induced in the professional staff that they might seize. Persistent complaints of memory loss plague electricity induced seizures. Flurothyl induced seizures are clinically as effective without the memory effects associated with electricity. Reexamination of seizure inductions using flurothyl in modern anesthesia facilities is encouraged to relieve medication-resistant patients with mood disorders and catatonia.

Inductive dielectric analyzer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Agranovich, Daniel; Popov, Ivan; Ben Ishai, Paul; Feldman, Yuri; Polygalov, Eugene

2017-01-01

One of the approaches to bypass the problem of electrode polarization in dielectric measurements is the free electrode method. The advantage of this technique is that, the probing electric field in the material is not supplied by contact electrodes, but rather by electromagnetic induction. We have designed an inductive dielectric analyzer based on a sensor comprising two concentric toroidal coils. In this work, we present an analytic derivation of the relationship between the impedance measured by the sensor and the complex dielectric permittivity of the sample. The obtained relationship was successfully employed to measure the dielectric permittivity and conductivity of various alcohols and aqueous salt solutions. (paper)

Evolving temporal association rules with genetic algorithms

OpenAIRE

Matthews, Stephen G.; Gongora, Mario A.; Hopgood, Adrian A.

2010-01-01

A novel framework for mining temporal association rules by discovering itemsets with a genetic algorithm is introduced. Metaheuristics have been applied to association rule mining, we show the efficacy of extending this to another variant - temporal association rule mining. Our framework is an enhancement to existing temporal association rule mining methods as it employs a genetic algorithm to simultaneously search the rule space and temporal space. A methodology for validating the ability of...

Electro-quasistatic analysis of an electrostatic induction micromotor using the cell method.

Science.gov (United States)

Monzón-Verona, José Miguel; Santana-Martín, Francisco Jorge; García-Alonso, Santiago; Montiel-Nelson, Juan Antonio

2010-01-01

An electro-quasistatic analysis of an induction micromotor has been realized by using the Cell Method. We employed the direct Finite Formulation (FF) of the electromagnetic laws, hence, avoiding a further discretization. The Cell Method (CM) is used for solving the field equations at the entire domain (2D space) of the micromotor. We have reformulated the field laws in a direct FF and analyzed physical quantities to make explicit the relationship between magnitudes and laws. We applied a primal-dual barycentric discretization of the 2D space. The electric potential has been calculated on each node of the primal mesh using CM. For verification purpose, an analytical electric potential equation is introduced as reference. In frequency domain, results demonstrate the error in calculating potential quantity is neglected (<3‰). In time domain, the potential value in transient state tends to the steady state value.

Inversion-based propofol dosing for intravenous induction of hypnosis

Science.gov (United States)

Padula, F.; Ionescu, C.; Latronico, N.; Paltenghi, M.; Visioli, A.; Vivacqua, G.

2016-10-01

In this paper we propose an inversion-based methodology for the computation of a feedforward action for the propofol intravenous administration during the induction of hypnosis in general anesthesia. In particular, the typical initial bolus is substituted with a command signal that is obtained by predefining a desired output and by applying an input-output inversion procedure. The robustness of the method has been tested by considering a set of patients with different model parameters, which is representative of a large population.

QCD sum rules in a Bayesian approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gubler, Philipp; Oka, Makoto

2011-01-01

A novel technique is developed, in which the Maximum Entropy Method is used to analyze QCD sum rules. The main advantage of this approach lies in its ability of directly generating the spectral function of a given operator. This is done without the need of making an assumption about the specific functional form of the spectral function, such as in the 'pole + continuum' ansatz that is frequently used in QCD sum rule studies. Therefore, with this method it should in principle be possible to distinguish narrow pole structures form continuum states. To check whether meaningful results can be extracted within this approach, we have first investigated the vector meson channel, where QCD sum rules are traditionally known to provide a valid description of the spectral function. Our results exhibit a significant peak in the region of the experimentally observed ρ-meson mass, which agrees with earlier QCD sum rules studies and shows that the Maximum Entropy Method is a useful tool for analyzing QCD sum rules.

Extraction of Static and Dynamic Reservoir Operation Rules by Genetic Programming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Habib Akbari Alashti

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Considering the necessity of desirable operation of limited water resources and assuming the significant role of dams in controlling and consuming the surface waters, highlights the advantageous of suitable operation rules for optimal and sustainable operation of dams. This study investigates the hydroelectric supply of a one-reservoir system of Karoon3 using nonlinear programming (NLP, genetic algorithm (GA, genetic programming (GP and fixed length gen GP (FLGGP in real-time operation of dam considering two approaches of static and dynamic operation rules. In static operation rule, only one rule curve is extracted for all months in a year whereas in dynamic operation rule, monthly rule curves (12 rules are extracted for each month of a year. In addition, nonlinear decision rule (NLDR curves are considered, and the total deficiency function as the target (objective function have been used for evaluating the performance of each method and approach. Results show appropriate efficiency of GP and FLGGP methods in extracting operation rules in both approaches. Superiority of these methods to operation methods yielded by GA and NLP is 5%. Moreover, according to the results, it can be remarked that, FLGGP method is an alternative for GP method, whereas the GP method cannot be used due to its limitations. Comparison of two approaches of static and dynamic operation rules demonstrated the superiority of dynamic operation rule to static operation rule (about 10% and therefore this method has more capabilities in real-time operation of the reservoirs systems.

Digital signal processing control of induction machine`s torque and stator flux utilizing the direct stator flux field orientation method

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seiz, Julie Burger [Union College, Schenectady, NY (United States)

1997-04-01

This paper presents a review of the Direct Stator Flux Field Orientation control method. This method can be used to control an induction motor`s torque and flux directly and is the application of interest for this thesis. This control method is implemented without the traditional feedback loops and associated hardware. Predictions are made, by mathematical calculations, of the stator voltage vector. The voltage vector is determined twice a switching period. The switching period is fixed throughout the analysis. The three phase inverter duty cycle necessary to control the torque and flux of the induction machine is determined by the voltage space vector Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technique. Transient performance of either the flux or torque requires an alternate modulation scheme which is also addressed in this thesis. A block diagram of this closed loop system is provided. 22 figs., 7 tabs.

A comparison of rule-based and machine learning approaches for classifying patient portal messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Cronin, Robert M; Fabbri, Daniel; Denny, Joshua C; Rosenbloom, S Trent; Jackson, Gretchen Purcell

2017-09-01

Secure messaging through patient portals is an increasingly popular way that consumers interact with healthcare providers. The increasing burden of secure messaging can affect clinic staffing and workflows. Manual management of portal messages is costly and time consuming. Automated classification of portal messages could potentially expedite message triage and delivery of care. We developed automated patient portal message classifiers with rule-based and machine learning techniques using bag of words and natural language processing (NLP) approaches. To evaluate classifier performance, we used a gold standard of 3253 portal messages manually categorized using a taxonomy of communication types (i.e., main categories of informational, medical, logistical, social, and other communications, and subcategories including prescriptions, appointments, problems, tests, follow-up, contact information, and acknowledgement). We evaluated our classifiers' accuracies in identifying individual communication types within portal messages with area under the receiver-operator curve (AUC). Portal messages often contain more than one type of communication. To predict all communication types within single messages, we used the Jaccard Index. We extracted the variables of importance for the random forest classifiers. The best performing approaches to classification for the major communication types were: logistic regression for medical communications (AUC: 0.899); basic (rule-based) for informational communications (AUC: 0.842); and random forests for social communications and logistical communications (AUCs: 0.875 and 0.925, respectively). The best performing classification approach of classifiers for individual communication subtypes was random forests for Logistical-Contact Information (AUC: 0.963). The Jaccard Indices by approach were: basic classifier, Jaccard Index: 0.674; Naïve Bayes, Jaccard Index: 0.799; random forests, Jaccard Index: 0.859; and logistic regression, Jaccard

Efficient speed control of induction motor using RBF based model reference adaptive control method

OpenAIRE

Kilic, Erdal; Ozcalik, Hasan Riza; Yilmaz, Saban

2017-01-01

This paper proposes a model reference adaptive speed controller based on artificial neural network for induction motor drives. The performance of traditional feedback controllers has been insufficient in speed control of induction motors due to nonlinear structure of the system, changing environmental conditions, and disturbance input effects. A successful speed control of induction motor requires a nonlinear control system. On the other hand, in recent years, it has been demonstrated that ar...

Induction of labor in a contemporary obstetric cohort.

Science.gov (United States)

Laughon, S Katherine; Zhang, Jun; Grewal, Jagteshwar; Sundaram, Rajeshwari; Beaver, Julie; Reddy, Uma M

2012-06-01

We sought to describe details of labor induction, including precursors and methods, and associated vaginal delivery rates. This was a retrospective cohort study of 208,695 electronic medical records from 19 hospitals across the United States, 2002 through 2008. Induction occurred in 42.9% of nulliparas and 31.8% of multiparas and elective or no recorded indication for induction at term occurred in 35.5% and 44.1%, respectively. Elective induction at term in multiparas was highly successful (vaginal delivery 97%) compared to nulliparas (76.2%). For all precursors, cesarean delivery was more common in nulliparas in the latent compared to active phase of labor. Regardless of method, vaginal delivery rates were higher with a ripe vs unripe cervix, particularly for multiparas (86.6-100%). Induction of labor was a common obstetric intervention. Selecting appropriate candidates and waiting longer for labor to progress into the active phase would make an impact on decreasing the national cesarean delivery rate. Published by Mosby, Inc.

Formulation of the verbal thought process based on generative rules

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Suehiro, N; Fujisaki, H

1984-01-01

As assumption is made on the generative nature of the verbal thought process, based on an analogy between language use and verbal thought. A procedure is then presented for acquiring the set of generative rules from a given set of concept strings, leading to an efficient representation of verbal knowledge. The non-terminal symbols derived in the acquisition process are found to correspond to concepts and superordinate concepts in the human process of verbal thought. The validity of the formulation and the efficiency of knowledge representation is demonstrated by an example in which knowledge of biological properties of animals is reorganized into a set of generative rules. The process of inductive inference is then defined as a generalization of the acquired knowledge, and the principle of maximum simplicity of rules is proposed as a possible criterion for such generalization. The proposal is also tested by an example in which only a small part of a systematic body of knowledge is utilized to make interferences on the unknown parts of the system. 6 references.

Radiological response and survival in locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with three-drug induction chemotherapy followed by radical local treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonanno, Laura; Zago, Giulia; Marulli, Giuseppe; Del Bianco, Paola; Schiavon, Marco; Pasello, Giulia; Polo, Valentina; Canova, Fabio; Tonetto, Fabrizio; Loreggian, Lucio; Rea, Federico; Conte, PierFranco; Favaretto, Adolfo

2016-01-01

If concurrent chemoradiotherapy cannot be performed, induction chemotherapy followed by radical-intent surgical treatment is an acceptable option for non primarily resectable non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLCs). No markers are available to predict which patients may benefit from local treatment after induction. This exploratory study aims to assess the feasibility and the activity of multimodality treatment, including triple-agent chemotherapy followed by radical surgery and/or radiotherapy in locally advanced NSCLCs. We retrospectively collected data from locally advanced NSCLCs treated with induction chemotherapy with carboplatin (area under the curve 6, d [day]1), paclitaxel (200 mg/m(2), d1), and gemcitabine (1,000 mg/m(2) d1, 8) for three to four courses, followed by radical surgery and/or radiotherapy. We analyzed radiological response and toxicity. Estimated progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were correlated to response, surgery, and clinical features. In all, 58 NSCLCs were included in the study: 40 staged as IIIA, 18 as IIIB (according to TNM Classification of Malignant Tumors-7th edition staging system). A total of 36 (62%) patients achieved partial response (PR), and six (10%) progressions were recorded. Grade 3-4 hematological toxicity was observed in 36 (62%) cases. After chemotherapy, 37 (64%) patients underwent surgery followed by adjuvant radiotherapy, and two patients received radical-intent radiotherapy. The median PFS and OS were 11 months and 23 months, respectively. Both PFS and OS were significantly correlated to objective response (P<0.0001) and surgery (P<0.0001 and P=0.002). Patients obtaining PR and receiving local treatment achieved a median PFS and OS of 35 and 48 months, respectively. Median PFS and OS of patients not achieving PR or not receiving local treatment were 5-7 and 11-15 months, respectively. The extension of surgery did not affect the outcome. The multimodality treatment was feasible, and triple

The effect of lidocaine on neutrophil respiratory burst during induction of general anaesthesia and tracheal intubation.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Swanton, B J

2012-02-03

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Respiratory burst is an essential component of the neutrophil\\'s biocidal function. In vitro, sodium thiopental, isoflurane and lidocaine each inhibit neutrophil respiratory burst. The objectives of this study were (a) to determine the effect of a standard clinical induction\\/tracheal intubation sequence on neutrophil respiratory burst and (b) to determine the effect of intravenous lidocaine administration during induction of anaesthesia on neutrophil respiratory burst. METHODS: Twenty ASA I and II patients, aged 18-60 years, undergoing elective surgery were studied. After induction of anaesthesia [fentanyl (2 microg kg-1), thiopental (4-6 mg kg-1), isoflurane (end-tidal concentration 0.5-1.5%) in nitrous oxide (66%) and oxygen], patients randomly received either lidocaine 1.5 mg kg-1 (group L) or 0.9% saline (group S) prior to tracheal intubation. Neutrophil respiratory burst was measured immediately prior to induction of anaesthesia, immediately before and 1 and 5 min after lidocaine\\/saline. RESULTS: Neutrophil respiratory burst decreased significantly after induction of anaesthesia in both groups [87.4 +\\/- 8.2% (group L) and 88.5 +\\/- 13.4% (group S) of preinduction level (P < 0.01 both groups)]. After intravenous lidocaine (but not saline) administration, neutrophil respiratory burst returned towards preinduction levels, both before (97.1 +\\/- 23.6%) and after (94.4 +\\/- 16.6%) tracheal intubation. CONCLUSION: Induction of anaesthesia and tracheal intubation using thiopentone and isoflurane, inhibit neutrophil respiratory burst. This effect may be diminished by the administration of lidocaine.

Class Association Rule Pada Metode Associative Classification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eka Karyawati

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Frequent patterns (itemsets discovery is an important problem in associative classification rule mining.  Differents approaches have been proposed such as the Apriori-like, Frequent Pattern (FP-growth, and Transaction Data Location (Tid-list Intersection algorithm. This paper focuses on surveying and comparing the state of the art associative classification techniques with regards to the rule generation phase of associative classification algorithms.  This phase includes frequent itemsets discovery and rules mining/extracting methods to generate the set of class association rules (CARs.  There are some techniques proposed to improve the rule generation method.  A technique by utilizing the concepts of discriminative power of itemsets can reduce the size of frequent itemset.  It can prune the useless frequent itemsets. The closed frequent itemset concept can be utilized to compress the rules to be compact rules.  This technique may reduce the size of generated rules.  Other technique is in determining the support threshold value of the itemset. Specifying not single but multiple support threshold values with regard to the class label frequencies can give more appropriate support threshold value.  This technique may generate more accurate rules. Alternative technique to generate rule is utilizing the vertical layout to represent dataset.  This method is very effective because it only needs one scan over dataset, compare with other techniques that need multiple scan over dataset.   However, one problem with these approaches is that the initial set of tid-lists may be too large to fit into main memory. It requires more sophisticated techniques to compress the tid-lists.

Offering induction of labor for 22-week premature rupture of membranes: a survey of obstetricians.

Science.gov (United States)

McKenzie, F; Tucker Edmonds, B

2015-08-01

To describe obstetricians' induction counseling practices for 22-week preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) and identify provider characteristics associated with offering induction. Surveyed 295 obstetricians on their likelihood (0-10) of offering induction for periviable PPROM across 10 vignettes. Twenty-two-week vignettes were analyzed, stratified by parental resuscitation preference. Bivariate analyses identified physician characteristics associated with reported likelihood ratings. Obstetricians (N=205) were not likely to offer induction. Median ratings by preference were as follows: resuscitation 1.0, uncertain 1.0 and comfort care 3.0. Only 41% of obstetricians were likely to offer induction to patients desiring comfort care. In addition, several provider-level factors, including practice region, parenting status and years in practice, were significantly associated with offering induction. Obstetricians do not readily offer induction when counseling patients with 22-week ruptured membranes, even when patients prefer palliation. This may place women at risk for infectious complications without accruing a neonatal benefit from prolonged latency.

Characterization methods of nano-patterned surfaces generated by induction heating assisted injection molding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tang, Peter Torben; Ravn, Christian; Menotti, Stefano

2015-01-01

An induction heating-assisted injection molding (IHAIM) process developed by the authors is used to replicate surfaces containing random nano-patterns. The injection molding setup is developed so that an induction heating system rapidly heats the cavity wall at rates of up to 10◦C/s. In order...

An Inductive Logic Programming Approach to Validate Hexose Binding Biochemical Knowledge.

Science.gov (United States)

Nassif, Houssam; Al-Ali, Hassan; Khuri, Sawsan; Keirouz, Walid; Page, David

2010-01-01

Hexoses are simple sugars that play a key role in many cellular pathways, and in the regulation of development and disease mechanisms. Current protein-sugar computational models are based, at least partially, on prior biochemical findings and knowledge. They incorporate different parts of these findings in predictive black-box models. We investigate the empirical support for biochemical findings by comparing Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) induced rules to actual biochemical results. We mine the Protein Data Bank for a representative data set of hexose binding sites, non-hexose binding sites and surface grooves. We build an ILP model of hexose-binding sites and evaluate our results against several baseline machine learning classifiers. Our method achieves an accuracy similar to that of other black-box classifiers while providing insight into the discriminating process. In addition, it confirms wet-lab findings and reveals a previously unreported Trp-Glu amino acids dependency.

[Induction of labor in patients with premature rupture of membranes in term pregnancy using dinoprostone vs oxytocin. An aleatory study].

Science.gov (United States)

Domínguez Salgado, C R; Gorostieta García, A; Vázquez Bretón, S

1999-10-01

It was accomplished a random comparative study to evaluate the effects of dinoprostone in the Hospital de Gineco Obstetricia No. 60 of the Mexican Institute of the Social Security, from June of 1997 to December of the same year, in relationship to the inducement cervical repening and vaginal delivery in patients with score less than or equal Bishop to 4. They were studied a total of 156 patients split into two groups: 78 patients who were administered by intracervical gel of Dinoprostone and to the remainders 78 were administered oxitocin with the same purpose, being this last the control group. We found that the duration time of induction with dinoprostone is 2 hours in average less than the inducement with oxitocin (p > 0.05). The were achieved 67 deliveries with dinoprostone and 65 deliveries with oxitocina, being not significantly. (p 0.05). We can conclude that the dinoprostone intracervical application reduce the induction and expulsion time, with better conditions of the new born, and less percent of infectious complications, in relationship to the Oxitocin control group.

Diagnostic accuracy of the STRATIFY clinical prediction rule for falls: A systematic review and meta-analysis

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Billington, Jennifer

2012-08-07

AbstractBackgroundThe STRATIFY score is a clinical prediction rule (CPR) derived to assist clinicians to identify patients at risk of falling. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the overall diagnostic accuracy of the STRATIFY rule across a variety of clinical settings.MethodsA literature search was performed to identify all studies that validated the STRATIFY rule. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. A STRATIFY score of ≥2 points was used to identify individuals at higher risk of falling. All included studies were combined using a bivariate random effects model to generate pooled sensitivity and specificity of STRATIFY at ≥2 points. Heterogeneity was assessed using the variance of logit transformed sensitivity and specificity.ResultsSeventeen studies were included in our meta-analysis, incorporating 11,378 patients. At a score ≥2 points, the STRATIFY rule is more useful at ruling out falls in those classified as low risk, with a greater pooled sensitivity estimate (0.67, 95% CI 0.52–0.80) than specificity (0.57, 95% CI 0.45 – 0.69). The sensitivity analysis which examined the performance of the rule in different settings and subgroups also showed broadly comparable results, indicating that the STRATIFY rule performs in a similar manner across a variety of different ‘at risk’ patient groups in different clinical settings.ConclusionThis systematic review shows that the diagnostic accuracy of the STRATIFY rule is limited and should not be used in isolation for identifying individuals at high risk of falls in clinical practice.

Risk-based rules for crane safety systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ruud, Stian [Section for Control Systems, DNV Maritime, 1322 Hovik (Norway)], E-mail: Stian.Ruud@dnv.com; Mikkelsen, Age [Section for Lifting Appliances, DNV Maritime, 1322 Hovik (Norway)], E-mail: Age.Mikkelsen@dnv.com

2008-09-15

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has recommended a method called formal safety assessment (FSA) for future development of rules and regulations. The FSA method has been applied in a pilot research project for development of risk-based rules and functional requirements for systems and components for offshore crane systems. This paper reports some developments in the project. A method for estimating target reliability for the risk-control options (safety functions) by means of the cost/benefit decision criterion has been developed in the project and is presented in this paper. Finally, a structure for risk-based rules is proposed and presented.

Risk-based rules for crane safety systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruud, Stian; Mikkelsen, Age

2008-01-01

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has recommended a method called formal safety assessment (FSA) for future development of rules and regulations. The FSA method has been applied in a pilot research project for development of risk-based rules and functional requirements for systems and components for offshore crane systems. This paper reports some developments in the project. A method for estimating target reliability for the risk-control options (safety functions) by means of the cost/benefit decision criterion has been developed in the project and is presented in this paper. Finally, a structure for risk-based rules is proposed and presented

Is basiliximab induction, a novel risk factor for new onset diabetes after transplantation for living donor renal allograft recipients?

Science.gov (United States)

Prasad, Narayan; Gurjer, Desraj; Bhadauria, Dharmender; Gupta, Amit; Srivastava, Aneesh; Kaul, Anupama; Jaiswal, Akhilesh; Yadav, Brijesh; Yadav, Subhash; Sharma, Raj K

2014-04-01

It was found that, by affecting populations of T lymphocytes and regulatory T cells, basiliximab also indirectly affects pancreatic β-cell function and glucose homeostasis. In this prospective observational study, we included all renal transplant recipients from 1 July 2007 to 31 July 2011. The overall incidence of hyperglycaemia (transient hyperglycaemia, impaired fasting glucose (IFG), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and new onset diabetes after transplantation (NODAT)) was compared between patients with and without basiliximab induction. Of the 439 eligible study patients, 105 patients received basiliximab induction and 334 patients did not. Overall hyperglycaemia (transient hyperglycaemia, IFG, IGT and NODAT) was detected in 102/334 (30.5%) patients without induction and 44/105 (41.9%) patients with induction (P = 0.03). Of the 102 patients with hyperglycaemia in patients without basiliximab, 46 (45.1%) patients improved, while only 10 (22.7%) of the 44 patients with basiliximab improved (P = 0.016) at the end of 3 months. Finally, NODAT was observed in 56/334 (16.7%) patients without induction and 102/334 (30.5%) patients with induction. Relative risk of NODAT with basiliximab was 2.3 (95% CI 1.4-3.9) compared to that of patients without induction. Basiliximab and hepatitis C virus infection were independent risk factors for NODAT. Risk of NODAT remained high with basiliximab despite adjusting the acute rejections episodes. Basiliximab induction prevents acute rejection; however, it is associated with increased risk of NODAT. © 2014 Asian Pacific Society of Nephrology.

Rapid induction of autoantibodies during ARDS and septic shock

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meduri G Umberto

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Little is known about the induction of humoral responses directed against human autoantigens during acute inflammation. We utilized a highly sensitive antibody profiling technology to study autoantibodies in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS and severe sepsis, conditions characterized by intensive immune activation leading to multiple organ dysfunction. Methods Using Luciferase Immunoprecipitation Systems (LIPS, a cohort of control, ARDS and sepsis patients were tested for antibodies to a panel of autoantigens. Autoantibody titers greater than the mean plus 3 SD of the 24 control samples were used to identify seropositive samples. Available longitudinal samples from different seropositive ARDS and sepsis patient samples, starting from within the first two days after admission to the intensive care, were then analyzed for changes in autoantibody over time. Results From screening patient plasma, 57% of ARDS and 46% of septic patients without ARDS demonstrated at least one statistically significant elevated autoantibody compared to the controls. Frequent high titer antibodies were detected against a spectrum of autoantigens including potassium channel regulator, gastric ATPase, glutamic decarboxylase-65 and several cytokines. Analysis of serial samples revealed that several seropositive patients had low autoantibodies at early time points that often rose precipitously and peaked between days 7-14. Further, the use of therapeutic doses of corticosteroids did not diminish the rise in autoantibody titers. In some cases, the patient autoantibody titers remained elevated through the last serum sample collected. Conclusion The rapid induction of autoantibodies in ARDS and severe sepsis suggests that ongoing systemic inflammation and associated tissue destruction mediate the break in tolerance against these self proteins.

Prediction of distant metastasis in head neck cancer patients: implications for induction chemotherapy and pre-treatment staging?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Studer, G.; Glanzmann, C.; Seifert, B.

2008-01-01

Background and purpose: intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) combined treatment approaches, surgical and radiodiagnostic advances, respectively, lead to improved local-regional control in head neck cancer (HNC). With increasing local-regional control, distant metastases (DM) become more meaningful. In some trials without concomitant chemotherapy, induction chemotherapy (IC) resulted in an absolute reduction of DM by ∝10-15%. In order to define a more efficient selection of patients at risk for DM with respect to IC and M-staging, we analysed our patients treated by contemporary standards. Patients and methods: between 1/2002 to 12/2007, 409 HNC patients were treated with IMRT; 303/409 (74%) underwent definitive, 106 (26%) postoperative IMRT. The mean/median follow-up was 23/20 months (3-72). 70% tolerated 4-7, 9% 1-3 cycles of simultaneous cisplatin. Treatment followed a prospectively designed protocol. In a previous study with 172 HNC IMRT patients, gross tumor volume (GTV) was found the strongest predictor for local-regional control. In the current study, this criterion has been prospectively tested for DM. Numbers needed to treat were calculated for IC. Results: DM developed in 28/399 (7%) patients; 10 presented initially with DM (total 38/409). In 13/28 (46%), DM remained the only manifestation of disease. GTV was the strongest predictor for DM (p 70 cc; only 6 of them (6/73, 8%) developed isolated DM. Conclusion: GTV was the most significant predictor for DM, that could guide selective pre-treatment M-staging. The subgroup with isolated DM in the high risk group, that could benefit from IC, is small. (orig.)

A Novel Detection Method for Underwater Moving Targets by Measuring Their ELF Emissions with Inductive Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jinhong Wang

2017-07-01

Full Text Available In this article, we propose a novel detection method for underwater moving targets by detecting their extremely low frequency (ELF emissions with inductive sensors. The ELF field source of the targets is modeled by a horizontal electric dipole at distances more than several times of the targets’ length. The formulas for the fields produced in air are derived with a three-layer model (air, seawater and seafloor and are evaluated with a complementary numerical integration technique. A proof of concept measurement is presented. The ELF emissions from a surface ship were detected by inductive electronic and magnetic sensors as the ship was leaving a harbor. ELF signals are of substantial strength and have typical characteristic of harmonic line spectrum, and the fundamental frequency has a direct relationship with the ship’s speed. Due to the high sensitivity and low noise level of our sensors, it is capable of resolving weak ELF signals at long distance. In our experiment, a detection distance of 1300 m from the surface ship above the sea surface was realized, which shows that this method would be an appealing complement to the usual acoustic detection and magnetic anomaly detection capability.

Cross-validation and Peeling Strategies for Survival Bump Hunting using Recursive Peeling Methods

Science.gov (United States)

Dazard, Jean-Eudes; Choe, Michael; LeBlanc, Michael; Rao, J. Sunil

2015-01-01

We introduce a framework to build a survival/risk bump hunting model with a censored time-to-event response. Our Survival Bump Hunting (SBH) method is based on a recursive peeling procedure that uses a specific survival peeling criterion derived from non/semi-parametric statistics such as the hazards-ratio, the log-rank test or the Nelson--Aalen estimator. To optimize the tuning parameter of the model and validate it, we introduce an objective function based on survival or prediction-error statistics, such as the log-rank test and the concordance error rate. We also describe two alternative cross-validation techniques adapted to the joint task of decision-rule making by recursive peeling and survival estimation. Numerical analyses show the importance of replicated cross-validation and the differences between criteria and techniques in both low and high-dimensional settings. Although several non-parametric survival models exist, none addresses the problem of directly identifying local extrema. We show how SBH efficiently estimates extreme survival/risk subgroups unlike other models. This provides an insight into the behavior of commonly used models and suggests alternatives to be adopted in practice. Finally, our SBH framework was applied to a clinical dataset. In it, we identified subsets of patients characterized by clinical and demographic covariates with a distinct extreme survival outcome, for which tailored medical interventions could be made. An R package PRIMsrc (Patient Rule Induction Method in Survival, Regression and Classification settings) is available on CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) and GitHub. PMID:27034730

Resting energy expenditure in critically ill patients: Evaluation methods and clinical applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Cláudia Soncini Sanches

Full Text Available Summary Patients on intensive care present systemic, metabolic, and hormonal alterations that may adversely affect their nutritional condition and lead to fast and important depletion of lean mass and malnutrition. Several factors and medical conditions can influence the energy expenditure (EE of critically ill patients, such as age, gender, surgery, serious infections, medications, ventilation modality, and organ dysfunction. Clinical conditions that can present with EE change include acute kidney injury, a complex disorder commonly seen in critically ill patients with manifestations that can range from minimum elevations in serum creatinine to renal failure requiring dialysis. The nutritional needs of this population are therefore complex, and determining the resting energy expenditure is essential to adjust the nutritional supply and to plan a proper diet, ensuring that energy requirements are met and avoiding complications associated with overfeeding and underfeeding. Several evaluation methods of EE in this population have been described, but all of them have limitations. Such methods include direct calorimetry, doubly labeled water, indirect calorimetry (IC, various predictive equations, and, more recently, the rule of thumb (kcal/kg of body weight. Currently, IC is considered the gold standard.

Effect of laryngoscopy on middle ear pressure during anaesthesia induction

OpenAIRE

Degerli, Semih; Acar, Baran; Sahap, Mehmet; Horasanlı, Eyup

2013-01-01

Aims: The procedure of laryngoscopic orotracheal intubation (LOTI) has many impacts on several parts of the body. But its effect on middle ear pressure (MEP) is not known well. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the MEP changes subsequent to insertion of endotracheal tube with laryngoscope. Subjects and methods: 44 patients were included in this study with a normal physical examination of ear, nose and throat. A standard general anaesthesia induction without any inhaler agent was perfor...

A Bayesian Scoring Technique for Mining Predictive and Non-Spurious Rules

OpenAIRE

Batal, Iyad; Cooper, Gregory; Hauskrecht, Milos

2012-01-01

Rule mining is an important class of data mining methods for discovering interesting patterns in data. The success of a rule mining method heavily depends on the evaluation function that is used to assess the quality of the rules. In this work, we propose a new rule evaluation score - the Predictive and Non-Spurious Rules (PNSR) score. This score relies on Bayesian inference to evaluate the quality of the rules and considers the structure of the rules to filter out spurious rules. We present ...

Inductive reasoning.

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Brett K; Heit, Evan; Swendsen, Haruka

2010-03-01

Inductive reasoning entails using existing knowledge or observations to make predictions about novel cases. We review recent findings in research on category-based induction as well as theoretical models of these results, including similarity-based models, connectionist networks, an account based on relevance theory, Bayesian models, and other mathematical models. A number of touchstone empirical phenomena that involve taxonomic similarity are described. We also examine phenomena involving more complex background knowledge about premises and conclusions of inductive arguments and the properties referenced. Earlier models are shown to give a good account of similarity-based phenomena but not knowledge-based phenomena. Recent models that aim to account for both similarity-based and knowledge-based phenomena are reviewed and evaluated. Among the most important new directions in induction research are a focus on induction with uncertain premise categories, the modeling of the relationship between inductive and deductive reasoning, and examination of the neural substrates of induction. A common theme in both the well-established and emerging lines of induction research is the need to develop well-articulated and empirically testable formal models of induction. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In Vitro Methods for Comparing Target Binding and CDC Induction Between Therapeutic Antibodies: Applications in Biosimilarity Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Salinas-Jazmín, Nohemi; González-González, Edith; Vásquez-Bochm, Luz X; Pérez-Tapia, Sonia M; Velasco-Velázquez, Marco A

2017-05-04

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are relevant to the treatment of different pathologies, including cancers. The development of biosimilar mAbs by pharmaceutical companies is a market opportunity, but it is also a strategy to increase drug accessibility and reduce therapy-associated costs. The protocols detailed here describe the evaluation of target binding and CDC induction by rituximab in Daudi cells. These two functions require different structural regions of the antibody and are relevant to the clinical effect induced by rituximab. The protocols allow the side-to-side comparison of a reference rituximab and a marketed rituximab biosimilar. The evaluated products showed differences both in target binding and CDC induction, suggesting that there are underlying physicochemical differences and highlighting the need to analyze the impact of those differences in the clinical setting. The methods reported here constitute simple and inexpensive in vitro models for the evaluation of the activity of rituximab biosimilars. Thus, they can be useful during biosimilar development, as well as for quality control in biosimilar production. Furthermore, the presented methods can be extrapolated to other therapeutic mAbs.

A comparison of Heuristic method and Llewellyn’s rules for identification of redundant constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Estiningsih, Y.; Farikhin; Tjahjana, R. H.

2018-03-01

Important techniques in linear programming is modelling and solving practical optimization. Redundant constraints are consider for their effects on general linear programming problems. Identification and reduce redundant constraints are for avoidance of all the calculations associated when solving an associated linear programming problems. Many researchers have been proposed for identification redundant constraints. This paper a compararison of Heuristic method and Llewellyn’s rules for identification of redundant constraints.

A Logic Programming Testbed for Inductive Thought and Specification.

Science.gov (United States)

Neff, Norman D.

This paper describes applications of logic programming technology to the teaching of the inductive method in computer science and mathematics. It discusses the nature of inductive thought and its place in those fields of inquiry, arguing that a complete logic programming system for supporting inductive inference is not only feasible but necessary.…

Infections During Induction Therapy of Protocol CCLG-2008 in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Single-center Experience with 256 Cases in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Si-Dan Li

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Infections remain a major cause of therapy-associated morbidity and mortality in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical charts of 256 children treated for ALL under the CCLG-2008 protocol in Beijing Children′s Hospital. Results: There were 65 infectious complications in 50 patients during vincristine, daunorubicin, L-asparaginase and dexamethasone induction therapy, including microbiologically documented infections (n = 12; 18.5%, clinically documented infections (n = 23; 35.3% and fever of unknown origin (n = 30; 46.2%. Neutropenia was present in 83.1% of the infectious episodes. In all, most infections occurred around the 15 th day of induction treatment (n = 28, and no patients died of infection-associated complications. Conclusions: The infections in this study was independent of treatment response, minimal residual diseases at the end of induction therapy, gender, immunophenotype, infection at first visit, risk stratification at diagnosis, unfavorable karyotypes at diagnosis and morphologic type. The infection rate of CCLG-2008 induction therapy is low, and the outcome of patients is favorable.

Performance of thirteen clinical rules to distinguish bacterial and presumed viral meningitis in Vietnamese children.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nguyen Tien Huy

Full Text Available BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Successful outcomes from bacterial meningitis require rapid antibiotic treatment; however, unnecessary treatment of viral meningitis may lead to increased toxicities and expense. Thus, improved diagnostics are required to maximize treatment and minimize side effects and cost. Thirteen clinical decision rules have been reported to identify bacterial from viral meningitis. However, few rules have been tested and compared in a single study, while several rules are yet to be tested by independent researchers or in pediatric populations. Thus, simultaneous test and comparison of these rules are required to enable clinicians to select an optimal diagnostic rule for bacterial meningitis in settings and populations similar to ours. METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at the Infectious Department of Pediatric Hospital Number 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The performance of the clinical rules was evaluated by area under a receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC using the method of DeLong and McNemar test for specificity comparison. RESULTS: Our study included 129 patients, of whom 80 had bacterial meningitis and 49 had presumed viral meningitis. Spanos's rule had the highest AUC at 0.938 but was not significantly greater than other rules. No rule provided 100% sensitivity with a specificity higher than 50%. Based on our calculation of theoretical sensitivity and specificity, we suggest that a perfect rule requires at least four independent variables that posses both sensitivity and specificity higher than 85-90%. CONCLUSIONS: No clinical decision rules provided an acceptable specificity (>50% with 100% sensitivity when applying our data set in children. More studies in Vietnam and developing countries are required to develop and/or validate clinical rules and more very good biomarkers are required to develop such a perfect rule.

Knowledge discovery in variant databases using inductive logic programming.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Hoan; Luu, Tien-Dao; Poch, Olivier; Thompson, Julie D

2013-01-01

Understanding the effects of genetic variation on the phenotype of an individual is a major goal of biomedical research, especially for the development of diagnostics and effective therapeutic solutions. In this work, we describe the use of a recent knowledge discovery from database (KDD) approach using inductive logic programming (ILP) to automatically extract knowledge about human monogenic diseases. We extracted background knowledge from MSV3d, a database of all human missense variants mapped to 3D protein structure. In this study, we identified 8,117 mutations in 805 proteins with known three-dimensional structures that were known to be involved in human monogenic disease. Our results help to improve our understanding of the relationships between structural, functional or evolutionary features and deleterious mutations. Our inferred rules can also be applied to predict the impact of any single amino acid replacement on the function of a protein. The interpretable rules are available at http://decrypthon.igbmc.fr/kd4v/.

Use of a Recursive-Rule eXtraction algorithm with J48graft to achieve highly accurate and concise rule extraction from a large breast cancer dataset

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoichi Hayashi

Full Text Available To assist physicians in the diagnosis of breast cancer and thereby improve survival, a highly accurate computer-aided diagnostic system is necessary. Although various machine learning and data mining approaches have been devised to increase diagnostic accuracy, most current methods are inadequate. The recently developed Recursive-Rule eXtraction (Re-RX algorithm provides a hierarchical, recursive consideration of discrete variables prior to analysis of continuous data, and can generate classification rules that have been trained on the basis of both discrete and continuous attributes. The objective of this study was to extract highly accurate, concise, and interpretable classification rules for diagnosis using the Re-RX algorithm with J48graft, a class for generating a grafted C4.5 decision tree. We used the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Dataset (WBCD. Nine research groups provided 10 kinds of highly accurate concrete classification rules for the WBCD. We compared the accuracy and characteristics of the rule set for the WBCD generated using the Re-RX algorithm with J48graft with five rule sets obtained using 10-fold cross validation (CV. We trained the WBCD using the Re-RX algorithm with J48graft and the average classification accuracies of 10 runs of 10-fold CV for the training and test datasets, the number of extracted rules, and the average number of antecedents for the WBCD. Compared with other rule extraction algorithms, the Re-RX algorithm with J48graft resulted in a lower average number of rules for diagnosing breast cancer, which is a substantial advantage. It also provided the lowest average number of antecedents per rule. These features are expected to greatly aid physicians in making accurate and concise diagnoses for patients with breast cancer. Keywords: Breast cancer diagnosis, Rule extraction, Re-RX algorithm, J48graft, C4.5

Outcome of Membrane Sweeping in Reducing Induction Rates in Post-Date Pregnancies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saleem, U.; Mustafa, N.; Akhtar, S.

2013-01-01

Objectives: To determine the effectiveness of membrane sweeping in reducing need for induction of labour in post-date pregnancies and to enlist types and frequencies of complications experienced with membrane sweeping. Study Design: Randomized Control trial. Setting and Duration of Study: The study was carried out at Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Combined Military Hospital, Lahore from February 2007 to April 2008. Patients and Methods: One hundred primi or second gravidas with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies having cephalic presentation at 40+1-5 weeks of gestation were enrolled after informed consent, and divided randomly into two groups of fifty each. Biophysical profile of 8/8 for each case was ensured. Group A underwent membrane sweeping while group B did not. All patients not having spontaneous labour were induced at 40+5 weeks. Data regarding number of patients having spontaneous labour or induction of labour was recorded. Mode of delivery either vaginal or cesarean birth was also recorded. In group A occurence of complications i.e vaginal bleeding or leaking, discomfort, irregular pains, fever and neonatal sepsis was recorded. Results: The difference in rate of spontaneous labor, induction rate and mode of delivery was insignificant between both the groups (p>0.05). In group A, 44% felt discomfort, 4% had bleeding per vaginum, 2% had leaking per vaginum and 28% had more than one complication. There were no cases of maternal or neonatal sepsis. Twenty percent did not have any side effects. Conclusion: Sweeping of membranes is not effective in reducing induction rates in post dates pregnancies. It does not improve the spontaneous labour rate and there is no effect on the mode of delivery. Therefore, any potential benefits of this intervention must be balanced against risk of maternal discomfort and other adverse effects. (author)

A general approach for developing system-specific functions to score protein-ligand docked complexes using support vector inductive logic programming.

Science.gov (United States)

Amini, Ata; Shrimpton, Paul J; Muggleton, Stephen H; Sternberg, Michael J E

2007-12-01

Despite the increased recent use of protein-ligand and protein-protein docking in the drug discovery process due to the increases in computational power, the difficulty of accurately ranking the binding affinities of a series of ligands or a series of proteins docked to a protein receptor remains largely unsolved. This problem is of major concern in lead optimization procedures and has lead to the development of scoring functions tailored to rank the binding affinities of a series of ligands to a specific system. However, such methods can take a long time to develop and their transferability to other systems remains open to question. Here we demonstrate that given a suitable amount of background information a new approach using support vector inductive logic programming (SVILP) can be used to produce system-specific scoring functions. Inductive logic programming (ILP) learns logic-based rules for a given dataset that can be used to describe properties of each member of the set in a qualitative manner. By combining ILP with support vector machine regression, a quantitative set of rules can be obtained. SVILP has previously been used in a biological context to examine datasets containing a series of singular molecular structures and properties. Here we describe the use of SVILP to produce binding affinity predictions of a series of ligands to a particular protein. We also for the first time examine the applicability of SVILP techniques to datasets consisting of protein-ligand complexes. Our results show that SVILP performs comparably with other state-of-the-art methods on five protein-ligand systems as judged by similar cross-validated squares of their correlation coefficients. A McNemar test comparing SVILP to CoMFA and CoMSIA across the five systems indicates our method to be significantly better on one occasion. The ability to graphically display and understand the SVILP-produced rules is demonstrated and this feature of ILP can be used to derive hypothesis for

Inductive learning of thyroid functional states using the ID3 algorithm. The effect of poor examples on the learning result.

Science.gov (United States)

Forsström, J

1992-01-01

The ID3 algorithm for inductive learning was tested using preclassified material for patients suspected to have a thyroid illness. Classification followed a rule-based expert system for the diagnosis of thyroid function. Thus, the knowledge to be learned was limited to the rules existing in the knowledge base of that expert system. The learning capability of the ID3 algorithm was tested with an unselected learning material (with some inherent missing data) and with a selected learning material (no missing data). The selected learning material was a subgroup which formed a part of the unselected learning material. When the number of learning cases was increased, the accuracy of the program improved. When the learning material was large enough, an increase in the learning material did not improve the results further. A better learning result was achieved with the selected learning material not including missing data as compared to unselected learning material. With this material we demonstrate a weakness in the ID3 algorithm: it can not find available information from good example cases if we add poor examples to the data.

The value of adrenaline in the induction of supraventricular tachycardia in the electrophysiological laboratory.

Science.gov (United States)

Cismaru, Gabriel; Rosu, Radu; Muresan, Lucian; Puiu, Mihai; Andronache, Marius; Hengan, Erika; Ispas, Daniel; Gusetu, Gabriel; Pop, Dana; Mircea, Petru Adrian; Zdrenghea, Dumitru

2014-11-01

The most commonly used drug for the facilitation of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) induction in the electrophysiological (EP) laboratory is isoprenaline. Despite isoprenaline's apparent indispensability, availability has been problematic in some European countries. Alternative sympatomimethic drugs such as adrenaline have therefore been tried. However, no studies have determined the sensitivity and specificity of adrenaline for the induction of SVT. The objective of this study was to determine the sensitivity and specificity of adrenaline for the induction of SVT. Between February 2010 and July 2013, 336 patients underwent an EP study for prior documented SVT. In 66 patients, adrenaline was infused because tachycardia was not induced under basal conditions. This group was compared with 30 control subjects with no history of SVT. Programmed atrial stimulation was carried out during baseline state and repeated after an infusion of adrenaline (dose ranging from 0.05 mcg/kgc to 0.3 mcg/kgc). The endpoint was the induction of SVT. Among 66 patients with a history of SVT but no induction under basal conditions, adrenaline facilitated induction in 54 patients (82%, P Adrenaline was generally well tolerated, except for two patients (3.0%), where it had to be discontinued due to headache and high blood pressure or lumbar pain. Adrenaline infusion has a high sensitivity (82%) and specificity (100%) for the induction of SVT in patients with prior documented SVT. Therefore, it could serve as an acceptable alternative to isoprenaline, when the latter is not available. Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2014. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Ovulation induction with myo-inositol alone and in combination with clomiphene citrate in polycystic ovarian syndrome patients with insulin resistance.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamenov, Zdravko; Kolarov, Georgi; Gateva, Antoaneta; Carlomagno, Gianfranco; Genazzani, Alessandro D