230582 research outputs found
Sort by
Clinical History Segment Extraction from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Assessments to Model Disease Trajectories
No full textChronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a long-term illness with a wide range of symptoms and condition trajectories. To improve the understanding of these, automated analysis of large amounts of patient data holds promise. Routinely documented assessments are useful for large-scale analysis, however relevant information is mainly in free text. As a first step to extract symptom and condition trajectories, natural language processing (NLP) methods are useful to identify important textual content and relevant information. In this paper, we propose an agnostic NLP method of extracting segments of patients' clinical histories in CFS assessments. Moreover, we present initial results on the advantage of using these segments to quantify and analyse the presence of certain clinically relevant concepts.</p
Temporal disaggregation of overlapping noisy quarterly data: Estimation of monthly output from UK Value Added Tax data
No full textThis paper derives monthly estimates of business sector output in theUK from rolling quarterly VAT-based turnover data. The administrative nature of the VAT data implies that their use could ultimately yield a more precise and granular picture of output across the economy. However, they show two particular features which complicate their exploitation: they are overlapping and subject to substantial noise. This motivates our choice of a multivariate unobserved components model for filtering and disaggregating temporally the aggregate figures. After illustrating our method using one industry as a case study, we estimate monthly seasonally adjusted gross output figures for the seventy-five industries for which the data are available. Our results show material differences from the existing output profile
Evaluation of variability in individual response to treatments in the clinical high-risk state for psychosis:a meta-analysis
No full textDecorating the ‘Christmas Tree’:The UN Security Council and the Secretariat’s Recommendations on Peacekeeping Mandates
No full textContemporary peacekeeping operations carry out many disparate tasks, which has triggered a debate about ‘Christmas Tree mandates’. Did the UN Security Council or the Secretariat drive this expansion? Using original data on 19 UN peacekeeping missions, 1998-2014, we compare peacekeeping tasks recommended by the Secretariat to those mandated by the Council. We find that the two bodies expressed different preferences regarding the nature, number, and novelty of peacekeeping tasks. First, the Council dropped Secretariat-recommended task as often as it added new ones on its own initiative. Second, the two bodies disagreed more over peacebuilding and peacemaking tasks than over peacekeeping tasks. Third, the Council preferred to be the one to introduce novel tasks that had not appeared in previous mandates. Finally, among the countries that “held the pen” on peacekeeping resolutions, the US was the most prone to dropping Secretariat-proposed tasks and the least willing to add tasks itself
Evaluation of shift-invariant image-space PSFs for the Biograph mMR PET Scanner
No full textResolution modelling in PET image reconstruction usually shows an enhancement of the contrast and an improvement in the resolution of the reconstructed images. The scanner resolution can be modelled in sinogram space more accurately but at the same time this method is more challenging to implement. In addition, the point spread function (PSF) is approximately shift-invariant in the region of the centre of the field of view. For that reason, a shift-invariant PSF implemented in image space can be used in brain imaging. In this work, we compare the performance of the PSF in sinogram space available in the Biograph mMR scanner to a shift-invariant image space PSF with different FWHM values. A long scan of a NEMA IQ phantom was used to evaluate quantitatively the different reconstruction methods. Additionally, patient data of a brain study was also used to evaluate the algorithms. A shift-invariant PSF of 4.5 mm matched the performance of the sinogram space PSF and in both cases Gibbs artifacts were visible
A study measuring the impact of shared decision making in a human-robot team
No full textThis paper presents the results of a user study in which the impact of sharing decision making in a human-robot team was measured. In the experiments outlined here, a human and robot play a game together in which the robot searches an arena for items, with input from the human, and the human-robot team earns points for finding and correctly identifying the items. The user study reported here involved 60 human subjects. Each subject interacted with two different robots. With one robot, the human acted as a supervisor: the human issued commands and the robot obeyed. With the other robot, the human acted as a collaborator: the human and robot shared decisions and were required to reach agreement about the robot’s actions in the arena before any actions were taken, facilitated using computational argumentation. Objective performance metrics were collected and analysed for both types of human-robot team, as well subjective feedback from human subjects regarding attitudes toward working with a robot. The objective results showed significant improvement in performance metrics with the human-as-collaborator pairs versus the human-as-supervisor pairs. Subjective results demonstrated significant differences across many subjective measures and indicated a distinct preference for the human-as-collaborator mode. The primary contribution of this work lies in the demonstration and evaluation of a computational argumentation approach to human-robot interaction, particularly in proving the efficacy of this approach over a less autonomous mode of interaction
Coming of Age at ‘Interesting Times’? Exploring the Nature of Youth Opportunity Across Three Cohorts in Contemporary China
No full textThis article explores the changes and continuity in the youth opportunity structure across three cohorts in the Chinese context. By identifying shared markers of the youth transition to adulthood as measures of the opportunity structure, this article pays particular attention to the role of the state in shaping youth opportunity. I draw upon the data from the 2003 and 2012 China General Social Survey (CGSS) and select three cohorts representing youth transitions in parallel with three different periods, including the ten-year Cultural Revolution, the market reform and further integration into the global economy. The findings suggest that education opportunities have opened up for younger generations. However, family characteristics seem to have a greater impact on young people’s opportunities to gain full-time employment and property ownership during the market transition and the recent globalisation phase. Moreover, all measures of opportunities declined for young women during the market reform and the recent globalisation era. The most consistent variable affecting youth opportunity across the three cohorts is political capital—that is, Chinese Communist Party membership. It can be argued that China represents a distinctive case of youth opportunity shaped by social reproduction through political capital and connections
Exploring the association between use of Gonadotropin Releasing Hormones agonists and prostate cancer diagnosis per se and diabetes control in men with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a nationwide, population-based cohort study
No full textBackground: Gonadotropin Releasing Hormones agonists (GnRH), which are first line treatment for metastatic prostate cancer (PCa), increase risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This study aims to quantify the association of use of GnRH with diabetes control in PCa men with T2DM.Methods: Nationwide population-based cohort study in the Swedish National Diabetes Register and Prostate Cancer data Base Sweden 4.1, on the association between GnRH and diabetes control in T2DM men with PCa by comparing T2DM men with PCa vs. without PCa, as well as comparing T2DM men with PCa on or not on GnRH. The primary exposure was use of GnRH. Worsening diabetes control was the primary outcome, defined as: 1) HbA1c rose to 58 mmol/mol or higher; 2) HbA1c increase by 10 mmol/mol or more; 3) Start of antidiabetic drugs or switch to insulin. We also combined all above definitions. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to analyze the association. Results: There were 5,714 T2DM men with PCa of whom 692 were on GnRH and 28,445 PCa-free men with T2DM with similar baseline characteristics. Diabetes control was worse in men with GnRH vs. PCa-free men (HR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.13-1.34) as well as compared with PCa men without GnRH (HR:1.58, 95% CI: 1.39-1.80), when we defined the worsening control of diabetes by combining all definitions above. Conclusion: Use of GnRH in T2DM men with PCa was associated with worse glycemic control. The findings highlight the need to closely monitor diabetes control in men with T2DM and PCa starting GnRH
