Clinical researchers use disease progression models to understand patient status and characterize progression patterns from longitudinal health records. One approach for disease progression modeling is to describe patient status using a small number of states that represent distinctive distributions over a set of observed measures. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) and its variants are a class of models

Large-scale science research facilities, such as those for investigation into the smallest components of physical matter, often consist of buildings with quite extraordinary features as regards shape and scale. These architectures are semiotically interesting in several ways: they have extraordinary outer forms that reflect the their inner activities; they require forms of mediation and planning t

Few germline mutations are known to affect lung cancer risk. We performed analyses of rare variants from 39,146 individuals of European ancestry and investigated gene expression levels in 7,773 samples. We find a large-effect association with an ATM L2307F (rs56009889) mutation in adenocarcinoma for discovery (adjusted Odds Ratio = 8.82, P = 1.18 × 10−15) and replication (adjusted OR = 2.93, P = 2

INTRODUCTION: Despite much literature on reference values of acid-base status in umbilical cord blood at birth, there are as yet no studies performed to determine gestational age-dependent references in cord venous blood and no studies on preterm acid-base standards. Similarly, the normal reference range of Apgar scores for term and preterm infants has not yet been determined.MATERIAL AND METHODS:

It is not known how ghrelin affects insulin secretion in human islets from patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) or whether islet ghrelin expression or circulating ghrelin levels are altered in T2D. Here we sought out to identify the effect of ghrelin on insulin secretion in human islets and the impact of T2D on circulating ghrelin levels and on islet ghrelin cells. The effect of ghrelin on insulin

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is associated with poor pregnancy outcomes and increased long-term risk of metabolic diseases for both mother and child. In Tanzania, GDM prevalence increased from 0% in 1991 to 19.5% in 2016. Anaemia has been proposed to precipitate the pathogenesis of GDM. We aimed to examine the prevalence of GDM in a rural area of Tanzania with a high prevalence of anaemia a

Background: Research concerning the potential roles of cardiovascular disease (CaVD) and diabetes mellitus (DM) as risk factors for Lewy body disease (LBD) is limited. These disorders are, however, established risk factors for vascular dementia (VaD) and have been proposed as risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of CaVD and D

Randomized clinical trials are the preferred study design to address key research questions about the benefits or harms of interventions. However, randomized trials of oxygen therapy are difficult to conduct and have limitations. The purpose of this article is to offer our view on the potential use of patient registries in the field of home oxygen in COPD as an alternative to randomized trials by

We propose four different estimators that take into account the autocorrelation structure when reconciling forecasts in a temporal hierarchy. Combining forecasts from multiple temporal aggregation levels exploits information differences and mitigates model uncertainty, while reconciliation ensures a unified prediction that supports aligned decisions at different horizons. In previous studies, weig

A fundamental question for economic sociology is: how are prices set? In economic sociological theory, a price is generally conceptualized either in terms of the performative construction of economy (e.g. a market device), or in terms of co-ordinational effects of power relations between buyers and sellers (e.g. the effect of social structures and institutions). In this paper, I set out to show ho

Introduction. Walking as a means of transportation is central in sustainable urban design. Little focus has, however, been placed on the influence of micro-level environmental features, such as vegetation and street lighting, on perceived safety and walking.Method. This study applied a non-explicit approach to explore the impact of greenery and outdoor lighting on neighborhood walkability. Partici

Trade-offs exist among the multiple ecosystem services (ES) generated by forests. Generally, wood production conflicts with the provisioning of public-good ES such as the storage of carbon, nutrient retention and conservation of biodiversity. Recognizing that forests generate both private- and public-good ES implies that forestry should be optimized to maximize the contribution of forests to socie

Incentive alignment is discussed as one of the key factors for successful implementation of supply chain management. However, there is a lack of empirical research regarding implementation as well as evaluation of the effects of alignment mechanisms in practice. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore and describe the current practice and to identify gaps of Supply chain incentive alignm