bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
HIV infection and sexual risk behaviour among youth who have experienced orphanhood: systematic review and meta‐analysis
Authors: Operario Don , Underhill Kristen , Chuong Carolyn , Cluver Lucie
Published: May 2011

Background

Previous research has suggested that orphaned children and adolescents might have elevated risk for HIV infection. We examined the state of evidence regarding the association between orphan status and HIV risk in studies of youth aged 24 years and younger.

Methods

Using systematic review methodology, we identified 10 studies reporting data from 12 countries comparing orphaned and non‐orphaned youth on HIV‐related risk indicators, including HIV serostatus, other sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and sexual behaviours. We meta‐analyzed data from six studies reporting prevalence data on the association between orphan status and HIV serostatus, and we qualitatively summarized data from all studies on behavioural risk factors for HIV among orphaned youth.

Results

Meta‐analysis of HIV testing data from 19,140 participants indicated significantly greater HIV seroprevalence among orphaned (10.8%) compared with non‐orphaned youth (5.9%) (odds ratio = 1.97; 95% confidence interval = 1.41‐2.75). Trends across studies showed evidence for greater sexual risk behaviour in orphaned youth.

Conclusions

Studies on HIV risk in orphaned populations, which mostly include samples from sub‐Saharan Africa, show nearly two‐fold greater odds of HIV infection among orphaned youth and higher levels of sexual risk behaviour than among their non‐orphaned peers. Interventions to reduce risk for HIV transmission in orphaned youth are needed to address the sequelae of parental illness and death that might contribute to sexual risk and HIV infection.
18q deletion in a cystic fibrosis infant, increased morbidity and challenge for correct treatment choices: a case report
Authors: Spinelli Elide , Timpano Silviana , Fogazzi Annalisa , Dester Silvia , Milianti Susanna , Padoan Rita
Published: May 2011

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is the most frequent recessive disease of Caucasian patients. Association with other diseases or syndromes has previously been reported. Co-morbidity may be a challenge for clinicians, who have to face more severe problems.

We have described a CF infant, F508del homozygote, diagnosed by neonatal screening, who also had a chromosome 18q terminal deletion [del (18)(q22-qter)]. Some clinical features of the 18q deletion: e.g., cardiopathy, gastro-oesophageal reflux and severe muscular hypotonia, worsened the CF clinical picture and his quality of life, with repeated pulmonary exacerbations and failure to thrive in the first six months of life. The treatment strategy was chosen following an accurate multi-disciplinary team study of overlapping chromosome syndrome and CF symptoms. The use of a gastrostomy device for enteral nutrition together with a new device (Ez-PAP) for chest physiotherapy led to normal growth, a notably reduced hospitalization rate and improved quality of life.

This case shows how co-morbidities worsening the clinical course of a "complicated patient" can be faced thanks to unconventional therapies that represent a challenge for clinicians.
Integration and publication of heterogeneous text-mined relationships on the Semantic Web
Authors: Coulet Adrien , Garten Yael , Dumontier Michel , Altman Russ B , Musen Mark A , Shah Nigam H
Published: May 2011

Background

Advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques enable the extraction of fine-grained relationships mentioned in biomedical text. The variability and the complexity of natural language in expressing similar relationships causes the extracted relationships to be highly heterogeneous, which makes the construction of knowledge bases difficult and poses a challenge in using these for data mining or question answering.

Results

We report on the semi-automatic construction of the PHARE relationship ontology (the PHArmacogenomic RElationships Ontology) consisting of 200 curated relations from over 40,000 heterogeneous relationships extracted via text-mining. These heterogeneous relations are then mapped to the PHARE ontology using synonyms, entity descriptions and hierarchies of entities and roles. Once mapped, relationships can be normalized and compared using the structure of the ontology to identify relationships that have similar semantics but different syntax. We compare and contrast the manual procedure with a fully automated approach using WordNet to quantify the degree of integration enabled by iterative curation and refinement of the PHARE ontology. The result of such integration is a repository of normalized biomedical relationships, named PHARE-KB, which can be queried using Semantic Web technologies such as SPARQL and can be visualized in the form of a biological network.

Conclusions

The PHARE ontology serves as a common semantic framework to integrate more than 40,000 relationships pertinent to pharmacogenomics. The PHARE ontology forms the foundation of a knowledge base named PHARE-KB. Once populated with relationships, PHARE-KB (i) can be visualized in the form of a biological network to guide human tasks such as database curation and (ii) can be queried programmatically to guide bioinformatics applications such as the prediction of molecular interactions. PHARE is available at http://purl.bioontology.org/ontology/PHARE.
HyQue: evaluating hypotheses using Semantic Web technologies
Authors: Callahan Alison , Dumontier Michel , Shah Nigam H
Published: May 2011

Background

Key to the success of e-Science is the ability to computationally evaluate expert-composed hypotheses for validity against experimental data. Researchers face the challenge of collecting, evaluating and integrating large amounts of diverse information to compose and evaluate a hypothesis. Confronted with rapidly accumulating data, researchers currently do not have the software tools to undertake the required information integration tasks.

Results

We present HyQue, a Semantic Web tool for querying scientific knowledge bases with the purpose of evaluating user submitted hypotheses. HyQue features a knowledge model to accommodate diverse hypotheses structured as events and represented using Semantic Web languages (RDF/OWL). Hypothesis validity is evaluated against experimental and literature-sourced evidence through a combination of SPARQL queries and evaluation rules. Inference over OWL ontologies (for type specifications, subclass assertions and parthood relations) and retrieval of facts stored as Bio2RDF linked data provide support for a given hypothesis. We evaluate hypotheses of varying levels of detail about the genetic network controlling galactose metabolism inSaccharomyces cerevisiaeto demonstrate the feasibility of deploying such semantic computing tools over a growing body of structured knowledge in Bio2RDF.

Conclusions

HyQue is a query-based hypothesis evaluation system that can currently evaluate hypotheses about the galactose metabolism inS. cerevisiae. Hypotheses as well as the supporting or refuting data are represented in RDF and directly linked to one another allowing scientists to browse from data to hypothesis andvice versa.HyQue hypotheses and data are available athttp://semanticscience.org/projects/hyque.
Scalable representations of diseases in biomedical ontologies
Authors: Schulz Stefan , Spackman Kent , James Andrew , Cocos Cristian , Boeker Martin
Published: May 2011

Background

The realm of pathological entities can be subdivided into pathological dispositions, pathological processes, and pathological structures. The latter are the bearer of dispositions, which can then be realized by their manifestations — pathologic processes. Despite its ontological soundness, implementing this model via purpose-oriented domain ontologies will likely require considerable effort, both in ontology construction and maintenance, which constitutes a considerable problem for SNOMED CT, presently the largest biomedical ontology.

Results

We describe an ontology design pattern which allows ontologists to make assertions that blur the distinctions between dispositions, processes, and structures until necessary. Based on the domain upper-level ontology BioTop, it permits ascriptions of location and participation in the definition of pathological phenomena even without an ontological commitment to a distinction between these three categories. An analysis of SNOMED CT revealed that numerous classes in the findings/disease hierarchy are ambiguous with respect to process vs. disposition. Here our proposed approach can easily be applied to create unambiguous classes. No ambiguities could be defined regarding the distinction of structure and non-structure classes, but here we have found problematic duplications.

Conclusions

We defend a judicious use of disjunctive, and therefore ambiguous, classes in biomedical ontologies during the process of ontology construction and in the practice of ontology application. The use of these classes is permitted to span across several top-level categories, provided it contributes to ontology simplification and supports the intended reasoning scenarios.
Developing a kidney and urinary pathway knowledge base
Authors: Jupp Simon , Klein Julie , Schanstra Joost , Stevens Robert
Published: May 2011

Background

Chronic renal disease is a global health problem. The identification of suitable biomarkers could facilitate early detection and diagnosis and allow better understanding of the underlying pathology. One of the challenges in meeting this goal is the necessary integration of experimental results from multiple biological levels for further analysis by data mining. Data integration in the life science is still a struggle, and many groups are looking to the benefits promised by the Semantic Web for data integration.

Results

We present a Semantic Web approach to developing a knowledge base that integrates data from high-throughput experiments on kidney and urine. A specialised KUP ontology is used to tie the various layers together, whilst background knowledge from external databases is incorporated by conversion into RDF. Using SPARQL as a query mechanism, we are able to query for proteins expressed in urine and place these back into the context of genes expressed in regions of the kidney.

Conclusions

The KUPKB gives KUP biologists the means to ask queries across many resources in order to aggregate knowledge that is necessary for answering biological questions. The Semantic Web technologies we use, together with the background knowledge from the domain’s ontologies, allows both rapid conversion and integration of this knowledge base. The KUPKB is still relatively small, but questions remain about scalability, maintenance and availability of the knowledge itself.

Availability

The KUPKB may be accessed via http://www.e-lico.eu/kupkb.
C-reactive protein in critically ill cancer patients with sepsis: influence of neutropenia
Authors: Póvoa Pedro , Souza-Dantas Vicente Ces , Soares Márcio , Salluh Jorge IF
Published: May 2011

Introduction

Several biomarkers have been studied in febrile neutropenia. Our aim was to assess C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration in septic critically ill cancer patients and to compare those with and without neutropenia.

Methods

A secondary analysis of a matched case-control study conducted at an oncologic medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) was performed, segregating patients with severe sepsis/septic shock. The impact of neutropenia on CRP concentrations at admission and during the first week of ICU stay was assessed.

Results

A total of 154 critically ill septic cancer patients, 86 with neutropenia and 68 without, were included in the present study. At ICU admission, the CRP concentration of neutropenic patients was significantly higher than in non-neutropenic patients, 25.9 ± 11.2 mg/dL vs. 19.7 ± 11.4 mg/dL (P = 0.009). Among neutropenic patients, CRP concentrations at ICU admission were not influenced by the severity of neutropenia (< 100/mm3 vs. ≥ 100/mm3 neutrophils), 25.1 ± 11.6 mg/dL vs. 26.9 ± 10.9 mg/dL (P = 0.527). Time dependent analysis of CRP from Day 1 to Day 7 of antibiotic therapy showed an almost parallel decrease in both groups (P = 0.335), though CRP of neutropenic patients was, on average, always higher in comparison to that of non-neutropenic patients.

Conclusions

In septic critically ill cancer patients CRP concentrations are more elevated in those with neutropenia. However, the CRP course seems to be independent from the presence or absence of neutropenia.
Outcomes of Nordic mental health systems: life expectancy of patients with mental disorders
Authors: Wahlbeck Kristian , Westman Jeanette , Nordentoft Merete , Gissler Mika , Laursen Thomas Munk
Published: May 2011

Background

People with mental disorders evince excess mortality due to natural and unnatural deaths. The relative life expectancy of people with mental disorders is a proxy measure of effectiveness of social policy and health service provision.

Aims

To evaluate trends in health outcomes of people with serious mental disorders.

Method

We examined nationwide 5-year consecutive cohorts of people admitted to hospital for mental disorders in Denmark, Finland and Sweden in 1987–2006. In each country the risk population was identified from hospital discharge registers and mortality data were retrieved from cause-of-death registers. The main outcome measure was life expectancy at age 15 years.

Results

People admitted to hospital for a mental disorder had a two- to threefold higher mortality than the general population in all three countries studied. This gap in life expectancy was more pronounced for men than for women. The gap decreased between 1987 and 2006 in these countries, especially for women. The notable exception was Swedish men with mental disorders. In spite of the positive general trend, men with mental disorders still live 20 years less, and women 15 years less, than the general population.

Conclusions

During the era of deinstitutionalisation the life expectancy gap for people with mental disorders has somewhat diminished in the three Nordic countries. Our results support further development of the Nordic welfare state model, i.e. tax-funded community-based public services and social protection. Health promotion actions, improved access to healthcare and prevention of suicides and violence are needed to further reduce the life expectancy gap.
War exposure, 5-HTTLPR genotype and lifetime risk of
depression
Authors: Artero Sylvaine , Touchon Jacques , Dupuy Anne-Marie , Malafosse Alain , Ritchie Karen
Published: May 2011

Background

In 1962 approximately 1.5 million French people living in Algeria were
repatriated to France in very poor and often life-threatening conditions.
These people constitute a cohort for the study of the long-term impact of
gene–environment interaction on depression.

Aims

To examine the interaction between a highly stressful life event and
subsequent depression, and its modulation by a length polymorphism of the
serotonin transporter gene (5–HTTLPR).

Method

A community sample of people aged 65 years and over residing in the
Montpellier region of the south of France was randomly recruited from
electoral rolls. Genotyping was performed on 248 repatriated persons and
632 controls. Current and lifetime major and minor depressive disorders
were assessed according to DSM-IV criteria.

Results

A significant relationship was observed between exposure to repatriation
and subsequent depression (P<0.002), but there was no
significant effect of gene alone (P = 0.62). After
controlling for age, gender, education, disability, recent life events
and cognitive function, the gene–environment interaction
(repatriation×5-HTTLPR) was globally significant
(P<0.002; OR = 3.21, 95% CI 2.48–5.12). Individuals
carrying the two short (s) alleles of 5-HTTLPR were observed to be at
higher risk (P<0.005; OR = 2.34, 95% CI 1.24–4.32),
particularly when repatriation occurred before age 35 years
(P<0.002; OR = 2.91, 95% CI 1.44–5.88), but this
did not reach significance in those who were older at the time of the
event (P = 0.067).

Conclusions

The association between depression and war repatriation was significantly
modulated by 5-HTTLPR genotype but this appeared to occur only in people
who were younger at the time of exposure.
Intact Primary Mitochondrial Function in Myotubes Established from Women with PCOS
Authors: Eriksen Mette Brandt , Minet Ariane Denise , Glintborg Dorte , Gaster Michael
Published: May 2011

Context:

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) affects 5–8% of fertile women and is often accompanied by insulin resistance, leading to increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Skeletal muscle from insulin-resistant PCOS subjects display reduced expression of nuclear encoded genes involved in mitochondrial oxidative metabolism.

Objective:

We aimed to investigate whether there was a primary mitochondrial dysfunction or difference in mitochondria content that might contribute to the in vivo detected insulin resistance.

Design:

The ATP synthesis with and without ATP use and the mitochondrial mass was determined in mitochondria isolated from myotubes established from PCOS subjects and control subjects.

Patients:

Myotubes were established from eight insulin-resistant PCOS subjects (verified by euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp) and eight healthy weight- and age-matched controls.

Results:

Mitochondrial mass and measurable mitochondrial ATP synthesis, with and without ATP use, were not different between PCOS subjects and control subjects.

Conclusion:

We found no evidence for a primary impaired mitochondrial function or content in myotubes established from PCOS subjects, and our results suggest that reduced expression of oxidative genes in PCOS subjects is an adaptive trait.
Gandhi's Progressive Disillusionment: Thumbs, Fingers, and the Rejection of Scientific Modernism in Hind Swaraj
Authors: Breckenridge Keith
Published: May 2011

Gandhi is conventionally viewed as a lifelong critic of Western modernity and colonial government. This essay shows that these views, which were famously expressed in Hind Swaraj, took form in his struggle against the Transvaal state between 1906 and 1908. Before that time Gandhi was an early and influential advocate of the technologies of control, including compulsory fingerprinting for Indians in South Africa, that he would later resist very energetically. The essay suggests that Gandhi's disavowel of the goals and principles of western modernity was an unacknowledged rejection of his own earlier enthusiasm for the virtues of scientific government and late nineteenth-century progressivism.
The Tiger's Nature, but Not the Tiger: Bal Gangadhar Tilak as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's Counter-Guru
Authors: Pinney Christopher
Published: May 2011

Gandhi was obliged to negotiate the central problem of Bal Gangadhar Tilak's dominance of Indian politics through the first two decades of the twentieth century and the astonishing symmetry between many of their concerns. This article explores the distance that separates Gandhi and Tilak ethically and politically but also attempts to highlight the troubling deeper intimacy that conjoins their philosophies.
Patience, Inwardness, and Self-Knowledge in Gandhi's Hind Swaraj
Authors: Mehta Uday S.
Published: May 2011

This essay is on why patience as a concept is central to understanding Gandhi's critique of modernity and his conception of the self.
Gandhi before Mahatma: The Foundations of Political Truth
Authors: Kapila Shruti
Published: May 2011

This article aims to reconstruct Gandhi as a political thinker. In so doing it argues that truth rather than nonviolence was the central category of Gandhian politics. Truth for Gandhi was a capacity that broke with the consensual and took the form of an insistent visibility. Gandhi circumvented the dominant political languages of liberalism, historicism, and Marxism by focusing on sacrifice and the transformation of the self. This radical politics of truth, while impossible to institutionalize, nevertheless signaled the twentieth-century reevaluation of human experience. The Gandhian political subordinated the abstraction of nation and economy via the immediacy and visibility of embodied practice.
The Ellipsis of Touch: Gandhi's Unequals
Authors: Kumar Aishwary
Published: May 2011

There is a peculiar absence of the untouchable in Hind Swaraj. The absence is particularly striking, given that the annihilation of untouchability, if not of caste, would subsequently become indispensable for Gandhi's preoccupations with equality. More than two decades after Hind Swaraj, the Mahatma would consecrate the untouchable as harijan. Irrespective of whether one judges this gesture as incidental or integral to Gandhi's politics, the imbuing of divinity to the untouchable had deeper moral consequences, foremost of which was to institute touching as the site of moral warfare. What kind of war demanded touching and sacrifice at one and the same time? Gandhi's elaboration of touchability revealed the radical paradox and limits of satyagraha, for these consecrated unequals were neither political antagonists nor imperial sovereigns who might simply be apprehended as hostile combatants. They were his moral unequals, the constitutive ellipses of satyagraha, without which nonviolence itself might lose its precarious ethical equilibrium.
The Paradox of Nonviolence
Authors: Devji Faisal
Published: May 2011

Unlike the pacifists and humanitarians with whom he is routinely associated, Gandhi was critical of human rights as a legal and political project. Indeed, he attributed modern violence precisely to the fact that life had become an absolute value, something that could therefore be defended in the most murderous of ways. It was only by disregarding and even throwing life away, Gandhi maintained, that it might be protected. The love of death, in other words, might guarantee life far more effectively, if only as an indirect and unintended consequence, than making an absolute value of the latter.
The Ethics of Self-Rule: Violence and Masculinity in Contemporary South Africa
Authors: Soudien Crain
Published: May 2011

Male violence among and perpetrated by young South Africans is a major social question for the state and for social analysts. For the state the issue is fundamentally that of prevention. Social analysts concur but also seek to understand what lies behind it. Using as its point of departure contemporary scholars such as Aernout Zevenbergen, who ask what it means to be a man today, this article draws on the work of Slavoj Žižek and Gandhi to ask what place reflection — or, less ambitiously, learning — has in young people's sense of manliness.
Violent Texts, Vulnerable Readers:Hind Swarajand Its South African Audiences
Authors: Hofmeyr Isabel
Published: May 2011

Gandhi's Hind Swaraj is a seminal text setting out the Mahatma's key ideas on nonviolence and civil disobedience. The book takes the form of a dialogue between a Reader and an Editor discussing questions of how British India should best obtain home rule. Most scholarship on the book argues that the Reader is an Indian extremist who wants to oppose colonial rule by force, a position of which Gandhi disapproved. However, in early prefaces of the book, which have now largely disappeared from contemporary editions, Gandhi identifies “the Reader” as the reader of Indian Opinion, the newspaper he edited in South Africa, where he spent twenty-one years. This article asks what it means to reinstate this South African reader in Gandhi's seminal text. What implications would this diasporic reader have for Gandhi's thinking and ideas of Indian nationalism more generally? What might this “unlikely reader” in South Africa tell us about transnational ideas of reading and theories of transnationalism more broadly?
An “Eventful” History ofHind Swaraj: Gandhi between the Battle of Tsushima and the Union of South Africa
Authors: Hyslop Jonathan
Published: May 2011

This article argues that Gandhi's book Hind Swaraj was centrally concerned with undermining the influence of the violent “terrorist” wing of nationalism on Indian political militants. In particular he sought to question the inspiration that Japan's military defeat of Russia in 1905 had given to the terrorists. For Gandhi, the Japanese example led in a militaristic and Westernizing direction. To this he counterposed his own model of peaceful resistance and idealized village life. Gandhi's critique of modernity needs to be understood within the context of this project, which explains some of the inconsistencies of his relation to ideas of the modern. In the long run, the doctrine of Hind Swaraj successfully positioned Gandhi as the most radical and national of Indian political leaders, while at the same time almost surreptitiously leaving the door open to pragmatic engagement with the colonial power. This article also emphasizes the South African location of Gandhi's book; his campaign in the Transvaal and its unique conditions were crucial to the formation of the ideas put forward in it, and the unification of South Africa in 1910 was a key reference point for his constitutional notions. Winning the battle for the minds of the Indian political elite, a campaign that he launched through Hind Swaraj, was the necessary preliminary to Gandhi's later, broader achievement.
The use of email as a component of adult stammering therapy: a preliminary report
Authors: Allen Carolyn R
Published: May 2011

In West Glasgow email has evolved from a rapid means of arranging therapy appointments with adults who stammer into a medium for exchange of therapeutic messages with some clients. Since 2004, sixteen clients have used email to communicate as part of their therapy programme. The benefits include improving access to services, supporting speech change, facilitating lasting personal growth, improving clinical decision-making, equalizing the therapist-client relationship and enhancing caseload management. Although this experience suggests that email is appropriate for stammering therapy, the effectiveness and ethics of, and the rationale for, clinical practice that includes email need careful consideration. Further research is required to formally evaluate the client experience.
The compatibility of telehealth with health-care delivery
Authors: Vuononvirta Tiina , Timonen Markku , Keinänen-Kiukaanniemi Sirkka , Timonen Olavi , Ylitalo Kirsti , Kanste Outi , Taanila Anja
Published: May 2011

There is no clear understanding about the concept of technology adoption in the health-care environment. Compatibility is one of the factors affecting telehealth adoption. We investigated the key factors of telehealth's compatibility with health centre activities. Qualitative research was carried out in 2007–2009, with 55 interviews in seven health centres and in one special care hospital. The people interviewed were physicians, nurses and physiotherapists. After analysing the interview material, we concluded that compatibility has three aspects: individual, process and organizational compatibility. Individual compatibility was manifested in four different ways: from the viewpoints of professionals, patients, communication and cooperation. Three aspects of process compatibility were introduced: scheduling, resources and complexity of processes. Modest organizing efforts with telehealth and even a lack of interest can be expressions of organizational compatibility. Functional and user-friendly technology is a basic precondition for telehealth compatibility. With thorough organizing, most of the compatibility challenges can be solved.
A systematic review of digital interactive television systems and their applications in the health and social care fields
Authors: Blackburn Steven , Brownsell Simon , Hawley Mark S
Published: May 2011

We conducted a systematic review of the applications and technical features of digital interactive television (DITV) in the health and social care fields. The Web of Knowledge and IEEE Xplore databases were searched for articles published between January 2000 and March 2010 which related to DITV systems facilitating the communication of information to/from an individual's home with either a health or social care application. Out of 1679 articles retrieved, 42 met the inclusion criteria and were selected for review. An additional 20 articles were obtained from online grey literature sources. Twenty-five DITV systems operating in health and social care were identified, including seven commercial systems. The most common applications were related to health care, such as vital signs monitoring (68% of systems) and health information or advice (56% of systems). The most common technical features of DITV systems were two-way communication (88%), medical peripherals (68%), on-screen messaging (48%) and video communication (36%). Digital interactive television has the potential to deliver health and social care to people in their own homes. However, the requirement for a high-bandwidth communications infrastructure, the usability of the systems, their level of personalisation and the lack of evidence regarding clinical and cost-effectiveness will all need to be addressed if this approach is to flourish.
Telephone-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Muller Ingrid , Yardley Lucy
Published: May 2011

Telephone-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an increasingly popular mode of delivering care. We conducted a systematic review which focused on physical health outcomes. Literature searches were conducted to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing telephone-delivered CBT for improving physical health with any other therapy or routine care in patients with chronic illness. Eight RCTs (1093 patients) met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. Six of the eight RCTs compared the telephone intervention with routine care, one trial employed symptom monitoring as the control condition and the final trial compared telephone CBT to telephone supportive emotion-focused therapy. Meta-analysis found that telephone-delivered CBT significantly improved physical health in people with chronic illness (d = 0.225, 95% CI = 0.105, 0.344). Moderator analyses found that less therapist contact was associated with better outcomes, and telephone-delivered CBT was more effective for chronic illnesses that are not immediately life-threatening. The results of the meta-analysis support the use of telephone-delivered CBT as a tool for improving health in people with chronic illness. There is a need for future trials to evaluate cost-effectiveness.
A systematic review of lifestyle monitoring technologies
Authors: Brownsell Simon , Bradley David , Blackburn Steve , Cardinaux Fabien , Hawley Mark S
Published: May 2011

The evidence base for lifestyle monitoring is relatively weak, even though there are significant numbers of commercial installations around the world. We conducted a literature review to summarize the current position with regard to lifestyle monitoring based on sensors in the home. In total, 74 papers met the inclusion criteria. Only four papers reported trials involving 20 or more subjects, with a further 21 papers reporting trials involving one or more subjects. Most papers ( n = 49) were concerned with technology development. Motion detection was the most common of the technologies employed, followed by door and electrical appliance usage. The predominant monitoring strategy was that of detecting changes in activity. However, little attention has been given to determining when or how changes in the profile of activity should be used to raise a call for assistance from a health or care professional. Lifestyle monitoring remains a relatively immature research area in which there is little detailed understanding of how to provide comprehensive and effective systems.
Use of mobile telemedicine for cervical cancer screening
Authors: Quinley Kelly E , Gormley Rachel H , Ratcliffe Sarah J , Shih Ting , Szep Zsofia , Steiner Ann , Ramogola-Masire Doreen , Kovarik Carrie L
Published: May 2011

Visual inspection of the cervix with application of 4% acetic acid (VIA) is an inexpensive alternative to cytology-based screening in areas where resources are limited, such as in many developing countries. We have examined the diagnostic agreement between off-site (remote) expert diagnosis using photographs of the cervix (photographic inspection with acetic acid, PIA) and in-person VIA. The images for remote evaluation were taken with a mobile phone and transmitted by MMS. The study population consisted of 95 HIV-positive women in Gaborone, Botswana. An expert gynaecologist made a definitive positive or negative reading on the PIA results of 64 out of the 95 women whose PIA images were also read by the nurse midwives. The remaining 31 PIA images were deemed insufficient in quality for a reading by the expert gynaecologist. The positive nurse PIA readings were concordant with the positive expert PIA readings in 82% of cases, and the negative PIA readings between the two groups were fully concordant in 89% of cases. These results suggest that mobile telemedicine may be useful to improve access of women in remote areas to cervical cancer screening utilizing the VIA ‘see-and-treat’ method.
OR PRACTICE—Production Planning with Patterns: A Problem from Processed Food Manufacturing
Authors: Mehrotra Mili , Dawande Milind , Gavirneni Srinagesh , Demirci Mehmet , Tayur Sridhar
Published: May 2011

Based on our work with ConAgra Foods (http://www.conagrafoods.com), a leading U.S. food manufacturer, we study a large-scale production-planning problem. The problem incorporates several distinguishing characteristics of production in the processed-food industry, including (i) production patterns that define specific combinations of weeks in which products can be produced, (ii) food groups that classify products based on the allergens they contain, (iii) sequence-dependent setup times, and (iv) manufacture of a large number of products (typically, around 200–250) on multiple production lines (typically, around 15–20) in the presence of significant inventory holding costs and production setup costs. The objective is to obtain a minimum-cost four-week cyclic schedule to resolve three basic decisions: (a) the assignment of products to each line, (b) the partitioning of the demand of each product over the lines to which it is assigned, and (c) the sequence of production on each line.

We show that the general problem is strongly NP-hard. To develop intuition via theoretical analysis, we first obtain a polynomially solvable special case by sacrificing as little of its structure as possible and then analyzing the impact of imposing production patterns. A mixed-integer programming model of the general problem allows us to assess the average impact of production patterns and production capacities on the cost of an optimal schedule. Next, to solve practical instances of the problem, we develop an easy-to-implement heuristic. We first demonstrate the effectiveness of the heuristic on a comprehensive test bed of instances; the average percentage gap of the heuristic solution from the optimum is about 3%. Then, we show savings of about 28% on a real-world instance (283 products, 17 production lines) by comparing the schedule obtained from the heuristic to one that was in use (at ConAgra) based on an earlier consultant's work. Finally, we discuss the IT infrastructure implemented to enable the incorporation of optimized (or near-optimized) solutions for ongoing use.
Quantifying the Impact of Layout on Productivity: An Analysis from Robotic-Cell Manufacturing
Authors: Rajapakshe Tharanga , Dawande Milind , Sriskandarajah Chelliah
Published: May 2011

Although the impact of layout on the productivity of manufacturing systems is well recognized, a quantification of this impact is an issue that is often ignored or crudely approximated in practice. When evaluating competing layouts for a manufacturing system, the trade-off between their relative benefits and their relative costs underlines the need for a reasonably accurate comparison of the productivity offered by these potential layouts. In this paper, we argue for this approach by comparing the productivity of two well-known layouts in robotic-cell manufacturing: circular and linear.

We consider the problem of optimizing throughput in single-gripper, bufferless robotic cells that produce identical parts under the free-pickup criterion and the additive-travel-time metric. For cells with a circular layout, we show that the problem of finding an optimal 1-unit cycle is NP-hard. Our main algorithmic result is a polynomial-time 5/3-approximation algorithm for this problem. We then demonstrate that our algorithm provides near-optimal solutions by compiling its performance on an extensive test bed of practically-relevant instances. Finally, we use the algorithm to assess the increase in throughput for cells with a circular layout over those with a linear layout. We show that a circular layout offers a significant improvement in productivity and demonstrate the robustness of this improvement by examining the sensitivity with respect to changes in the design parameters of the robotic cell. Thus, our work provides operations managers with a tool to trade off the resulting increase in revenue with the additional cost of acquiring and maintaining a robot that can exploit a circular layout.
An Ascending Vickrey Auction for Selling Bases of a Matroid
Authors: Bikhchandani Sushil , de Vries Sven , Schummer James , Vohra Rakesh V.
Published: May 2011

Consider selling bundles of indivisible goods to buyers with concave utilities that are additively separable in money and goods. We propose an ascending auction for the case when the seller is constrained to sell bundles whose elements form a basis of a matroid. It extends easily to polymatroids. Applications include scheduling, allocation of homogeneous goods, and spatially distributed markets, among others. Our ascending auction induces buyers to bid truthfully and returns the economically efficient basis. Unlike other ascending auctions for this environment, ours runs in pseudopolynomial or polynomial time. Furthermore, we prove the impossibility of an ascending auction for nonmatroidal independence set-systems.
TECHNICAL NOTE—Optimal Control of an Assembly System with Multiple Stages and Multiple Demand Classes
Authors: Benjaafar Saif , ElHafsi Mohsen , Lee Chung-Yee , Zhou Weihua
Published: May 2011

We consider an assembly system with multiple stages, multiple items, and multiple customer classes. The system consists of m production facilities, each producing a different item. Items are produced in variable batch sizes, one batch at a time, with exponentially distributed batch production times. Demand from each class takes place continuously over time according to a compound Poisson process. At each decision epoch, we must determine whether or not to produce an item and, should demand from a particular class arise, whether or not to satisfy it from existing inventory, if any is available. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process and use it to characterize the structure of the optimal policy. In contrast to systems with exogenous and deterministic production lead times, we show that the optimal production policy for each item is a state-dependent base-stock policy with the base-stock level nonincreasing in the inventory level of items that are downstream and nondecreasing in the inventory level of all other items. For inventory allocation, we show that the optimal policy is a multilevel state-dependent rationing policy with the rationing level for each demand class nonincreasing in the inventory level of all nonend items. We also show how the optimal control problem can be reformulated in terms of echelon inventory and how the essential features of the optimal policy can be reinterpreted in terms of echelon inventory.
An Elasticity Approach to the Newsvendor with Price-Sensitive Demand
Authors: Kocabıyıkoğlu Ayşe , Popescu Ioana
Published: May 2011

We introduce a measure of elasticity of stochastic demand, called the elasticity of the lost-sales rate, which offers a unifying perspective on the well-known newsvendor with pricing problem. This new concept provides a framework to characterize structural results for coordinated and uncoordinated pricing and inventory strategies. Concavity and submodularity of the profit function, as well as sensitivity properties of the optimal inventory and price policies, are characterized by monotonicity conditions, or bounds, on the elasticity of the lost-sales rate. These elasticity conditions are satisfied by most relevant demand models in the marketing and operations literature. Our results unify and complement previous work on price-setting newsvendor models and provide a new tool for researchers modeling stochastic price-sensitive demand in other contexts.
Multidimensional Approximation Algorithms for Capacity-Expansion Problems
Authors: Truong Van-Anh , Roundy Robin O.
Published: May 2011

We develop multidimensional balancing algorithms to compute provably near-optimal capacity-expansion policies. Our approach is computationally efficient and guaranteed to produce a policy with total expected cost of no more than twice that of an optimal policy. We overcome the curse of dimensionality by introducing novel cost-separation schemes to separate the lost-sales cost of the system into exact monotonic subparts. This is the first approximation technique for multimachine, multiproduct systems facing stochastic, nonstationary, and correlated demands. To show the generality of this separation technique, we apply it to the capacity-expansion problem under two different production planning models: monotone production and revenue-maximizing production. We make the assumptions of minimal inventory and lost sales.
TECHNICAL NOTE—Optimal Product Acquisition, Pricing, and Inventory Management for Systems with Remanufacturing
Authors: Zhou Sean X. , Yu Yikun
Published: May 2011

Acquisition of used products (cores) is central to the success of remanufacturing programs for companies. At the same time, dynamic pricing strategies have been adopted in various industries to better balance supply and customer demand. In this paper, we study the integration of these two aspects of operations together with inventory management for a production/remanufacturing firm. We develop a periodic-review single-product inventory system with price-dependent customer demand. The product return in each period is random but can be actively controlled by the firm's acquisition effort. The firm aims to maximize its total discounted profit over a finite planning horizon by implementing optimal production, remanufacturing, product acquisition, and pricing strategies. We first show that with an exogenous selling price, the optimal production-remanufacturing-disposal policy is simple and characterized by three state-independent parameters. The optimal acquisition effort is decreasing in the aggregate inventory level of serviceable product and cores. Nevertheless, when pricing is an endogenous decision, we find that the optimal policy becomes much more complicated, and its control parameters are state dependent. The optimal selling price is decreasing, whereas the optimal acquisition effort is increasing in the serviceable product inventory level, and both decisions decrease with the aggregate inventory level.
Discounted Robust Stochastic Games and an Application to Queueing Control
Authors: Kardeş Erim , Ordóñez Fernando , Hall Randolph W.
Published: May 2011

This paper presents a robust optimization model for n-person finite state/action stochastic games with incomplete information. We consider nonzero sum discounted stochastic games in which none of the players knows the true data of a game, and each player adopts a robust optimization approach to address the uncertainty. We call these games discounted robust stochastic games. Such games allow us to use simple uncertainty sets for the unknown data and eliminate the need to have an a-priori probability distribution over a set of games. We prove the existence of equilibrium points and propose an explicit mathematical programming formulation for an equilibrium calculation. We illustrate the use of discounted robust stochastic games in a single server queueing control problem.
Unintended Pregnancy Rates at the State Level
Authors: Finer Lawrence B. , Kost Kathryn
Published: May 2011

CONTEXT: Unintended pregnancy is a key reproductive health indicator, but rates have never been calculated for all 50 states.

METHODS: State‐level estimates of unintended pregnancy rates in 2006 were calculated using data from several sources. The proportion of births resulting from unintended pregnancies was obtained from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System and similar state surveys, and the intention status of pregnancies ending in abortion from a national survey of abortion patients. These proportions were applied to birth and abortion counts for each state, and fetal losses were estimated. Rates of unintended pregnancy were obtained by dividing relevant figures by the number of women aged 15–44 in each state. Six states and the District of Columbia had no appropriate survey data; their rates were predicted using multivariate linear regression.

RESULTS: In 2006, the median state unintended pregnancy rate was 51 per 1,000 women aged 15–44. Most rates fell within a range of 40–65 unintended pregnancies per 1,000 women. The highest rate was in Mississippi (69); the lowest rate was in New Hampshire (36). Rates were generally highest in the South and Southwest, and in states with large urban populations. In 29 states and the District of Columbia, more than half of pregnancies were unintended; in nine, a consistent upward trend in unintended pregnancy rates between 2002 and 2006 was apparent; no state had a consistent decline.

CONCLUSIONS: These rates provide benchmarks for measuring the impact on unintended pregnancy of state policies and practices, such as those governing sex education and the funding of contraceptive services.
Possessive expressions in Oscan and Umbrian
Authors: Baldi Philip
Published: May 2011

This paper investigates the status of possessive expressions in Oscan and Umbrian in an attempt to determine whether these languages are “be-languages” like the conservative Hittite or Latvian, or “have-languages” like the innovating Latin or German. The inquiry is carried out by examining approximately thirty tokens of the “have” verb from the Oscan Tabula Bantina and the Umbrian Iguvine Tables. Based entirely on this evidence, the conclusion is that Umbrian has changed from the inherited mihi est type with be to the have type, while Oscan remains a be-language without a fully developed verb of possession.
The use of the dative with Latin compounds
Authors: Pinkster Harm
Published: May 2011

This article is about compound verbs in Latin that govern a dative case for their second or third argument, although the simple verbs they are related to do not govern a dative themselves. With most compounds the use of the dative can be explained by referring to one or more (classes of) verbs with a similar meaning, or – especially in creative texts – by assuming a more complicated bridge, which is none the less semantic. One semantic feature that seems to be important is the degree of control of the subject over the state of affairs.
Zeroing in on Latin asyndesis
Authors: Rosén Hannah
Published: May 2011

The manifestations of Latin asyndesis, traditionally discussed in the framework of stylistics, are here grouped into three major classes: (a) occasional absence of connectors, testifying to personal-style preferences or belonging to specific registers and genres and characterizing stages of the language; (b) invariable lack of connectors in well-defined syntactic environments which consistently exclude the use of intersentential connectors; and (c) linguistically pertinent non-connection, which is hereunder exemplified in two Latin syntactic patterns; such absence of connector is shown to participate in paradigms of connectors (established by means of collocability and exclusion): zero constitutes a legitimate member of the paradigm of Latin apodotic superordinators and the paradigm of Latin epitaxis-introductory elements.