Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time Patient-Specific ECG Classification by 1-D Convolutional Neural Networks

Goal: This paper presents a fast and accurate patient-specific electrocardiogram (ECG) classification and monitoring system. Methods: An adaptive implementation of 1-D convolutional neural networks (CNNs) is inherently used to fuse the two major blocks of the ECG classification into a single learning body: feature extraction and classification. Therefore, for each patient, an individual and simple CNN will be trained by using relatively small common and patient-specific training data, and thus, such patient-specific feature extraction ability can further improve the classification performance. Since this also negates the necessity to extract hand-crafted manual features, once a dedicated CNN is trained for a particular patient, it can solely be used to classify possibly long ECG data stream in a fast and accurate manner or alternatively, such a solution can conveniently be used for real-time ECG monitoring and early alert system on a light-weight wearable device. Results: The results over the MIT-BIH arrhythmia benchmark database demonstrate that the proposed solution achieves a superior classification performance than most of the state-of-the-art methods for the detection of ventricular ectopic beats and supraventricular ectopic beats. Conclusion: Besides the speed and computational efficiency achieved, once a dedicated CNN is trained for an individual patient, it can solely be used to classify his/her long ECG records such as Holter registers in a fast and accurate manner. Significance: Due to its simple and parameter invariant nature, the proposed system is highly generic, and, thus, applicable to any ECG dataset.
Association between Vitamin D receptor (Cdx2, Fok1, Bsm1, Apa1, Bgl1, Taq1, and Poly (A)) gene polymorphism and breast cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The purpose of this systemic review and meta-analysis was to examine the relationship between VDR gene polymorphisms and breast cancer. Literature was searched through PubMed database, Google scholar, and the web of knowledge from December 2015 to January 2017 and consists of 34 studies (26,372 cases and 32,883 controls). All statistical measures were done using STATA version 11.2. The heterogeneity among studies was tested using I2 statistics. Mantel–Haenszel method and DerSimonian–Laird method were used to combine data from studies using both random-effect model and fixed-effect model, respectively. Potential publication bias was evaluated by Egger’s test. Sensitivity analysis was also performed to evaluate the quality and consistency in results. The results of this meta-analysis revealed that VDR gene polymorphisms (Bsm1 bb vs BB; SOR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.054–1.322, Apa1 aa vs AA; SOR = 1.18, 95% CI = 0.87–1.59, Poly (A) LL vs SS; SOR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.06–1.88, Fok1 ff + Ff vs FF; SOR = 1.25, 95% CI = 0.896–1.759, Apa1 aa+Aa vs AA; SOR = 1.13, 95% CI = 0.95–1.35, Poly (A) LL + LS vs SS; SOR = 1.19, 95% CI = 1.00–1.43, Poly (A) L vs S; SOR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.03–1.35) are associated with the breast cancer. Cdx2, Bgl1, and Taq1 do not show association with breast cancer. Thus, the finding of this meta-analysis concluded that VDR Bsm1, Apa1, Fok1, and Poly (A) gene polymorphisms may be susceptible for breast cancer development.
Factors Contributing to Medication Noncompliance of Newly Diagnosed Smear-Positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in the District of Colombo, Sri Lanka

Medication noncompliance hinders effective tuberculosis control. This descriptive study investigates the factors contributing to medication noncompliance among new patients with smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis on treatment at government health institutions in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In a cohort of patients aged ≥15 years (n = 326), 23% were found to be noncompliers (n = 74) on follow-up. The median age of noncompliers (50 years) was significantly higher than the compliers (45 years). In multivariate logistic regression analysis, factors associated with noncompliance are as follows: being a male, living alone or with extended family, experiencing side effects to medication, perceiving nonsusceptibility to adverse effects of illness, and perceiving no benefit in regular treatment. The participants of a focus group discussion on service factors opined that the reception at treatment facilities and the interaction with certain categories of staff were poor. Noncompliance is related to a multiplicity of factors involving patients and healthcare services.
Evaluation of a Health Education Intervention on Knowledge and Attitudes of Food Handlers Working in a Medical College in Delhi, India

The present study assessed change in knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported hand-washing practices of 136 food handlers 3 months after providing them health education using posters and interactive sessions using a flip chart. There was a significant change in the proportion of study participants who named food borne or waterborne diseases, including gastroenteritis (79.4% to 91.9%), worm infestation (39.0% to 55.9%), cholera (16.2% to 42.7%), and typhoid (9.6% to 28.7%). Significant increase in knowledge about hand hygiene measures, namely, washing hands before handling food (23.5% to 65.4%) and keeping nails cut and clean (8.1% to 57.4%), was observed. Baseline self-reported hand-washing practices revealed low figures for washing hands after micturition (82.4%) and smoking (52.8%) and consistent use of soap at the workplace (24.3%) and after micturition (14.0%), which improved after health education but not to the desired extent. Findings highlight the importance of providing health education in food and personal hygiene to food handlers and incorporating the same in existing guidelines for food establishments laid down by civic agencies in Delhi and elsewhere.
Desflurane-induced Hemodynamic Changes in Patients with Hypertension

Background: A rapid increase in the desflurane concentration induces tachycardia and hypertension and increases the plasma catecholamine concentration. This study compared the desflurane-induced hemodynamic responses in hypertensive patients with those of normotensive patients. Methods: Sixty patients, 30 normotensive patient (group 1) and 30 hypertensive patients (group 2), were scheduled to undergo elective surgery under general anesthesia. The hypertensive patients have been taking regular antihypertensive drugs and their blood pressure and heart rate was well controlled. Thirty normotensive patients were not premedicated. The inspired concentration of desflurane through the mask was increased abruptly to 12.0 vol%. The target was to produce an end-tidal concentration of desflurane (ETdesf) of 10.0 vol% which was maintained until the end of the study by adjusting the vaporizer dial setting. The heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), cardiac index (CI), systemic vascular resistance (SVR), ETdesf, end-tidal concentration of carbon dioxide, and peripheral oxygen saturation were measured at the baseline and every 30 seconds for 5 minutes after inhaling of desflurane and for 2 minutes after intubation. Results: The HR, BP, and CI increased significantly in the two groups compared with the baseline. However, the HR, blood pressure, CI, SVR, and ETdesf were similar in both groups. In addition, there were no significant differences of hemodynamic changes between the β-blocker and the calcium channel blocker in the hypertensive patients. Conclusions: In patients with well-controlled hypertension, the hemodynamic responses to desflurane are similar to those in normotensive patients.
A Study of the Impact of Tuberculosis on the Quality of Life and the Effect After Treatment With DOTS

A prospective study was conducted on 90 patients of tuberculosis at 2 directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) cum microscopy centers in an urban area of Delhi. The WHOQOL-BREF (Hindi) questionnaire was used to assess the QOL at the onset of treatment, after 3 months of treatment under DOTS, and at completion of treatment. Patients with tuberculosis had significantly lower mean scores than controls for overall QOL. The most affected domains were physical and psychological. Women scored significantly better than men in the physical and environmental domains. Overall QOL scores were lowest for category II and significantly lower for the psychological and social domains. The mean scores after treatment were significantly lower than controls for overall QOL, the social and environmental domains. The DOTS regimen improves the QOL and its domains; however, they remain significantly affected compared to the healthy controls
Neural Data-Driven Musculoskeletal Modeling for Personalized Neurorehabilitation Technologies

Objectives: The development of neurorehabilitation technologies requires the profound understanding of the mechanisms underlying an individual's motor ability and impairment. A major factor limiting this understanding is the difficulty of bridging between events taking place at the neurophysiologic level (i.e., motor neuron firings) with those emerging at the musculoskeletal level (i.e. joint actuation), in vivo in the intact moving human. This review presents emerging model-based methodologies for filling this gap that are promising for developing clinically viable technologies. Methods: We provide a design overview of musculoskeletal modeling formulations driven by recordings of neuromuscular activity with a critical comparison to alternative model-free approaches in the context of neurorehabilitation technologies. We present advanced electromyography-based techniques for interfacing with the human nervous system and model-based techniques for translating the extracted neural information into estimates of motor function. Results: We introduce representative application areas where modeling is relevant for accessing neuromuscular variables that could not be measured experimentally. We then show how these variables are used for designing personalized rehabilitation interventions, biologically inspired limbs, and human-machine interfaces. Conclusion: The ability of using electrophysiological recordings to inform biomechanical models enables accessing a broader range of neuromechanical variables than analyzing electrophysiological data or movement data individually. This enables understanding the neuromechanical interplay underlying in vivo movement function, pathology, and robot-assisted motor recovery. Significance: Filling the gap between our understandings of movement neural and mechanical functions is central for addressing one of the major challenges in neurorehabilitation: personalizing current technologies and interventions to an individual's anatomy and impairment.
Sociopsychological Correlates of Smoking Among Male University Students in Bangladesh

This study examined knowledge, attitude, prevalence, and factors affecting cigarette smoking among male students of a university in Bangladesh. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 474 students in 2009. Both quantitative and qualitative statistics were employed to examine the relationship between smoking and sociopsychological factors. Overall, 36.1% of the students were currently smoking. Significantly, more nonsmokers than smokers showed negative attitudes toward smoking and positive attitudes toward tobacco-controlling measures. Age, study streams and year, mother’s education and occupation, monthly expenditure, and father’s smoking appeared as important determinants of students’ smoking. A multivariate logistic regression analysis yielded significantly (P < .001) increased risk of smoking among students of the Law and Shariah Faculty (odds ratio [OR] = 38.75, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 6.56-228.82), third-year students (OR = 7.18, 95% CI = 2.56-20.17), and urban residents (OR = 2.14, 95% CI = 1.26-3.63). There is an urgent need for health promotion and antitobacco education in building a tobacco-free nation.
Dogs: A Continuing and Common Neighborhood Nuisance of New Providence, The Bahamas

In 1841, the first Dog License Act officially described dogs as a nuisance. From then on, observers have repeatedly noted that dogs were a nuisance and that their barking was probably their prime irritant (Fielding, 2006). Three fatal dog attacks since 1991 have highlighted the extent to which dogs can be more than a nuisance (Burrows, Fielding, & Mather, 2004). This study reports the findings from 496 interviews—collected from a convenience sample with a quota—to assess the importance of dogs as a nuisance in the context of all neighborhood nuisances and to determine respondents' reactions to them. This study found dogs were to be the most commonly reported nuisance and the second most important nuisance in neighborhoods. Almost two-thirds of respondents took no action about the nuisances caused by dogs. Compared to their reactions to other nuisances, respondents were least likely to inform the police about dog nuisances. Reasons offered for these reactions may include antiquated laws and a feeling that citizens are not empowered to alter the status quo.
Prevalence and Correlates of Tobacco Smoking in Sri Lanka

Objectives: This study aimed to determine the prevalence and underlying sociodemographic correlates of smoking among Sri Lankans. Methods: A cross-sectional sample (N = 5000, age >18 years) was selected using a multistage random cluster sampling. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Results: Response rate was 91% (n = 4532); males 40%; mean age 46.1 years (±15.1). Overall, urban and rural prevalence of current smoking (smoking) was 18.3%, 17.2%, and 18.5%, respectively (P = nonsignificant, urban vs rural). Smoking was much higher in males than in females (38.0% vs 0.1%, P < .0001). Ex-smokers comprised 10.0% (males 20.7%, females 0.1%, P < .0001). Among the smokers 87.0% smoked <10 cigarettes per day. The male age groups < 20 and 20 to 29 years had the lowest (15.6%) and the highest (44.6%) prevalence of smoking, respectively. In males, smoking was highest in the least educated (odds ratio = 1.96, P = .001). Conclusions: Smoking is common among Sri Lankan males and is associated with lower education, income, and middle age.
Access to Diabetes Care and Medicines in the Philippines

In the Philippines, diabetes is rapidly becoming a major public health issue, as in other low- and middle-income countries. Availability and affordability of care and medicines are crucial to control diabetes. This study describes the situations of diabetes patients and identifies possible barriers to diabetes care and medicines in the Philippines. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from multilevel respondents using different semistructured questionnaires/checklists. The study revealed that many patients took intermittent medication based on their own judgment, and/ or selected certain pieces of medical advice, subjectively weighing symptoms against household budget. The current public health insurance scheme and decentralized health systems did not promote access to diabetes care. Investing in regular care is expected to be less expensive both for individuals and for society in the long-term. Insurance outpatient coverage and application of standard treatment/management guidelines will be of help to encourage providing and receiving regular care.
Effects of a Tailored Health Promotion Program to Reduce Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among Middle-Aged and Advanced-Age Bus Drivers

A tailored health promotion program was developed and applied to reduce cardiovascular disease risk factors among middle-aged and advanced-age bus drivers. The participants were 248 bus drivers from 2 transportation companies, in whom the authors surveyed health behaviors (physical activity, diet, smoking habit, and alcohol consumption), health status (body mass index, systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, and low-density lipoprotein), and job stress. The tailored health promotion program consisted of exercise, diet, temperance, and smoking cessation education; the program was developed to reduce cardiovascular disease risk factors and was administered for 6 months. After the program, health behaviors, such as physical activity, dietary habits, smoking habits, and alcohol consumption, and health status indicators, such as blood pressure, had significantly improved (P < .05). The authors did not find an association between job stress and health behavior and status. This suggests that a tailored health promotion program for middle-aged and advanced-age bus drivers was effective.
Multilevel Contextual 3-D CNNs for False Positive Reduction in Pulmonary Nodule Detection

Objective: False positive reduction is one of the most crucial components in an automated pulmonary nodule detection system, which plays an important role in lung cancer diagnosis and early treatment. The objective of this paper is to effectively address the challenges in this task and therefore to accurately discriminate the true nodules from a large number of candidates. Methods: We propose a novel method employing three-dimensional (3-D) convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for false positive reduction in automated pulmonary nodule detection from volumetric computed tomography (CT) scans. Compared with its 2-D counterparts, the 3-D CNNs can encode richer spatial information and extract more representative features via their hierarchical architecture trained with 3-D samples. More importantly, we further propose a simple yet effective strategy to encode multilevel contextual information to meet the challenges coming with the large variations and hard mimics of pulmonary nodules. Results: The proposed framework has been extensively validated in the LUNA16 challenge held in conjunction with ISBI 2016, where we achieved the highest competition performance metric (CPM) score in the false positive reduction track. Conclusion: Experimental results demonstrated the importance and effectiveness of integrating multilevel contextual information into 3-D CNN framework for automated pulmonary nodule detection in volumetric CT data. Significance: While our method is tailored for pulmonary nodule detection, the proposed framework is general and can be easily extended to many other 3-D object detection tasks from volumetric medical images, where the targeting objects have large variations and are accompanied by a number of hard mimics.
Planning of multiple robot trajectories in distinctive topologies

This contribution presents a novel approach for efficient online planning of topologically distinctive mobile robot trajectories. Trajectory optimization deforms an initial coarse path drafted by a global planner with respect to robot motion related objectives and constraints. The primary objective is to reach a goal state in minimal time on a collision free path that adheres to the kinematic and dynamic constraints of the mobile robot. Conventional local planners get often stuck in a local optimal trajectory as they are unable to transit across obstacles. Our approach seeks the globally optimal trajectory as it maintains and optimizes a subset of admissible candidate trajectories of distinctive topologies in parallel. In case of dynamic environments the planner switches to the current globally optimal trajectory among the candidate set. The online trajectory planning with timed elastic bands is tightly integrated with the robot motion feedback control. The comparative analysis with conventional local planners confirms the advantages of maintaining distinctive topologies to circumnavigate dynamic obstacles.
Effect of Intensive Hand Washing Education on Hand Washing Behaviors in Thai Households with an Influenza-Positive Child in Urban Thailand

This study assessed the effect of intensive education on self-reported frequency of hand washing (FHW), measured quality of hand washing (QHW), and measured scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) after 7 days and 90 days home-based intensive education of participants (aged >7 years) in households with a influenza-positive child. The authors provided intensive hand washing education using interactive participation including individual training, self-monitoring diary, provision of soap, and so on. There were significant improvements on FHW and QHW on day 7, control group (n1 = 135) reported 3.9 hand washing episodes/day, whereas the intervention group (n2 = 140) reported 5.7 episodes/day; control group (n1 = 164) obtained a 3.2 measured quality score, whereas the intervention group (n2 = 166) obtained a score of 6.4. Pre-education and 90 days post-education, FHW significantly improved by 2 episodes/day and QHW increased by 3 scores/episode. Knowledge of influenza and hand washing following coughing/sneezing showed significant improvement, but attitude modification toward severity of influenza requires a more intensified and longer intervention.
Evaluation of a Nutrition and Health Educational Online Computer Program for Older Adults

Background: Many older adults are at increased risk for nutritional deficiencies and foodborne illnesses. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a user-friendly computer application that provides nutrition, food safety, and health information tailored to the needs of older adults. Methods: To determine the effectiveness of the program, a 12-month intervention study was conducted in which subjects were assigned to an experimental (HE-HA) group (access to the computer program) or a control (CON) group (no access to computer program). Computers were placed in each of two Vermont rural congregate meal sites. One site served as the HE-HA group site and the other as the CON site. Forty-one adults congregate meal users (HE-HA group: n=16; CON group: n=25) age ? 55, were recruited to participate in the study. The Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI) checklist, food behavior checklist, and computer attitude surveys were completed by participants at baseline, 3, and 12 months. Focus groups were conducted between 8 and 9 months. Between and within group over time differences were statistically analyzed by Chi-square analyses and repeated measures ANOVA. Results and Conclusions: A significant positive impact of our program was noted on fruit and vegetable consumption (p < 0.005) and attitude regarding use of computers (p < 0.02). Focus group results indicated that all HE-HA participants claimed to have changed at least one aspect of his/her diet and that the Website contributed to this positive change. They also noted that the help of the “peer mentors” was a significant factor in their positive experience with using the Web application and with the use of computers in general. In this study, we demonstrated the successful use of a nutrition and health computer application in improving both nutrition behavior and computer skills and attitudes in older adults.
India at the Crossroads of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5

The current year marks the completion of two thirds of the period between the adoption of the millennium development goals (MDGs) and the target date of 2015. Although there has been some progress, it is incontestable that much more needs to be done. India contributes to 20% of births worldwide and has the highest proportion of children younger than 5 years. Global progress toward MDG 4 and 5 depends significantly on improvements in maternal and child health indicators in India. Although it has been reported that the country has made substantial progress, the pace has been slow and marred by vast regional variability. Certain states continue to have unacceptably high mortality and morbidity rates. This article provides a context to the current status of maternal and child health in India, highlights the achievements, and uses the available data effectively to emphasize the progress. The authors acknowledge the new initiatives and make recommendations for reinforcing the continuum of care.