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Bayesian network (BN), a simple graphical notation for conditional independence assertions, is promised to represent the probabilistic relationships between diseases and symptoms. Learning the structure of a Bayesian network classifier (BNC) encodes conditional independence assumption between attributes,...

This paper aims to statistically test the null hypothesis for identity of the probability distribution of one-dimensional (1D) continuous parameters in two different populations, presented by fuzzy samples of i.i.d. observations. A degree of membership to the corresponding population is assigned to any...

In order to tackle the numerous problems facing with service management in healthcare industry, various quality improvement (QI) techniques are used for improving the quality of services in this section. Among with these techniques, Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) has more potential to solve these...

Nigeria is an African country with abundant natural and human resources with an aspiration to be among the top 20 economies in world by the year 2020. Such objective can only be achieved through requisite infrastructural development projects within the Nigeria’s built environment such as road, power...

We describe a few families of orthogonal matrix polynomials of size N × N satisfying first order differential equations. This problem differs from the recent efforts reported for instance in [7] (Orthogonal matrix polynomials satisfying second order differential equations, Internat. Math. Research Notices,...

Conditional symmetry We investigate conditional symmetry in three directions. The first direction is a research of the Q-conditional symmetry. The second direction is studying conditional symmetry when an algebra of invariance is known and an additional condition is unknown. The third direction is the...

Cigarette and waterpipe (shisha and hookah) smoking are main public health concerns in Lebanon. We aim to assess the relationship between smoking and stroke, mainly waterpipe smoking, to better apply preventive and therapeutic interventions. A case-control study was conducted at five tertiary private...

Although the Nepalese Army’s regular infantry troops are the tools of disaster response their competency at times becomes questionable. Their disaster response’s soft skill knowledge, technical skill knowledge and preparedness activities along with the perception of senior army officers have been analyzed....

This paper draws on a general equilibrium poisson pseudo maximum likelihood model augmented by a dynamic capital accumulation to estimate the effects of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) on intra-African trade flows. The empirical results show that the AfCFTA could raise intra-African...

A new solvable N-body model of goldfish type is identified. Its Newtonian equations of motion read as follows: z¨n=-6z˙nzn-4zn3+32(z˙n+2zn2)∑k=1N(z˙ kzk+2zk)+2∑𝓁=1,𝓁≠nN[(z˙n+2zn2)(z˙𝓁+2z𝓁2)zn-z𝓁],      n=1,…,N, where...

The purpose of this study is to develop a deep learning–based method that can automatically generate segmentations on cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) for head and neck online adaptive radiation therapy (ART), where expert-drawn contours in planning CT (pCT) images serve as prior knowledge. Because...

Objectives: Several studies have observed that altered endothelial function is involved in the development of stress-induced hypertension. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of chronic social stress (crowding) on endothelium-dependent relaxation (EDR) of the superior mesenteric artery...

Objectives: Endothelial dysfunction (ED) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of hypertension. In this work, we studied sex differences in the endothelium-dependent relaxation (EDR) of the femoral artery (FA) and its nitric oxide (NO)-dependent and NO-independent components in peri-pubertal (7-week-old)...

Background: Poor sleep quality has been related to poor vascular function and higher risk of cardiovascular disease in the general population. Persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) exhibit a high cardiovascular risk, and report poor sleep quality. To date, the association between sleep quality and vascular...

Background: Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is a measure of arterial stiffness which predicts cardiovascular risk independently of blood pressure. Local PWV can be measured non-invasively in the ascending aorta of adults by means of Ultrasound (US), using successive recordings of Diameter (D) and the velocity...

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) experience autonomic dysfunction, with reduced sympathetic and parasympathetic control. This results in alterations in resting heart rate and blood pressure and attenuated responses to sympathoexcitatory stimuli. It is unknown to what extent this impacts...

Background: Hypertensive humans exhibit reduced nitric oxide bioavailability and increased salt sensitivity, both of which are related to central artery stiffening. We studied the effect of 5 week NO restriction via L-NAME treatment in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and 5% salted diet in salt-sensitive...

Background: Aging is associated with increased arterial stiffness and wave reflection, which is predictive of all-cause cardiovascular (CV) mortality (1–3). Firefighters have the highest cardiovascular mortality of any occupational group (4). High levels of heat stress, physical exertion, and elevated...

We scaled up a bio-inspired control architecture for the motor control and motor learning of a real modular robot. In our approach, the Locally Weighted Projection Regression algorithm (LWPR) and a cerebellar microcircuit coexist, in the form of a Unit Learning Machine. The LWPR algorithm optimizes the...

Encoding plays a key role in determining the optimization efficiency of a genetic algorithm. In the optimization of a continuous function, binary encodings are normally used due to their low coding-alphabet cardinalities. Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of building-block supply, it is remarked that...

In the current Internet system, there are many problems using anonymity of the network communication such as personal information leaks and crimes using the Internet system. This is why TCP/IP protocol used in Internet system does not have the user identification information on the communication data,...

The derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation is shown to be locally well-posed in a class of functions analytic on a strip around the real axis. The main feature of the result is that the width of the strip does not shrink in time. To overcome the derivative loss, Kato-type smoothing results and space-time...

We exhibit a class of Dirac operators that possess Huygens' property, i.e., the support of their fundamental solutions is precisely the light cone. This class is obtained by considering the rational solutions of the modified Korteweg-de Vries hierarchy.

This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment on total factor productivity conditional on relative backwardness in a panel of 45 African countries over the period 1980–2012. We use two measures of relative backwardness, namely: the distance from technological frontier and the income...

Background: Hemoglobinopathies represent a major public health problem in Saudi Arabia (SA). Reports suggest that their higher prevalence is not evenly distributed in SA. Regional differences were studied in sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia and their at-risk marriages using national data. Methods:...

To carry out their duties more effectively, health care professionals in the UAE often ask about the population structure and the main causes of mortality and morbidity in the country. This paper summarizes what is known about these topics drawing on secondary data sources that are available in the public...

Introduction: The purpose of this study is to examine associations between deaths owing to terrorism, civil war, and one-sided violence from 1994–2000 and substance use disorder disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Methods: The relationship between terrorism, and related violence and substance use...

This study investigated the effects of feeding rats for 24 months on different unsaturated fats (virgin olive, sunflower, or fish oil) on gingival mitochondrial ultrastructure and expression of genes related to mitochondrial biology as well as the amount of circulating fatty acids in the plasma. Results...

A hierarchy of new nonlinear evolution equations is proposed, which are composed of the positive and negative coupled KdV flows. Based on the theory of algebraic curve, the corresponding flows are straightened under the Abel-Jacobi coordinates. The meromorphic function ϕ, the Baker-Akhiezer vector ψ¯ ,...

Overlapping coefficient is a direct measure of similarity between two distributions which is recently becoming very useful. This paper investigates estimation for some well-known measures of overlap, namely Matusita's measure ρ, Weitzman's measure Δ and Λ based on Kullback–Leibler. Two estimation...

Background: Impaired angiogenesis may be amongst the possible mechanism underlining the development of peripheral sensory neuropathy (PSN) in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) patients.(1) Angiogenesis is regulated by circulating vascular growth factor, notably, angiopoietin (Ang)-1, Ang-2 and vascular endothelial...

Background: Treatment with aspirin is a cornerstone in the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in diabetes, whereas its place in primary prevention remains controversial. The effect of once-daily aspirin on platelet aggregation is unclear in patients with diabetes. Furthermore, the...

Objective: It has been previously demonstrated that T lymphocytes may be involved in the development of hypertension and microvascular remodeling, and that circulating T effector lymphocytes may be increased in hypertension. In particular, Th1 and Th17 lymphocytes may contribute to the progression of...

Background: Diabetic hypertensives patients present different hemodynamic pattern than only hypertensive patients. We aimed to investigate the relationship between the diastolic function and the pulse pressure amplification (PPA), an index combining both arterial stiffness and wave reflexion, in diabetic...

Patients with chronic severe psoriasis are at increased cardiovascular risk (CVR). Modern systemic treatments of psoriasis involve anti-TNF alpha (ATNF) and more recently introduced anti-IL12/IL-23 (ustekinumab, AIL12/23) which, by interfering with IL-17, a possibly vasculoprotective cytokine, may increase...

Objectives: It is widely thought that excess pulsatile pressure energy from increased stiffness of large central arteries (macro-vasculature) is transmitted to capillary networks (micro-vasculature) and causes end-organ damage (i.e. kidneys). However, this hypothesis has never been tested, and we sought...

In this study, we define a multiple Internet of intelligences (M-IOI) as the processing of homological information in layers. If agents in an M-IOI not only provide information in response to a question asked by a customer but also review information from other agents and summarize it, we refer to this...

We introduce a new four-parameter model called the Gumbel-Lomax distribution arising from the Gumbel- X generator recently proposed by Al-Aqtash (2013). Its density function can be right-skewed and reversed-J shaped, and can have decreasing and upside-down bathtub shaped hazard rate. Various structural...

According to the previous study of a decentralized autonomous FMS using a mind, it is found that the production outputs decreased because an agent sometimes lies. To solve this problem, we study an AGV’s lie. The study is that AGVs recognize the lie that each AGV sends. To do this, we propose to give...

Fuzzy Logic Controllers are a specific model of Fuzzy Rule Based Systems suitable for engineering applications for which classic control strategies do not achieve good results or for when it is too difficult to obtain a mathematical model. Recently, the International Electrotechnical Commission has published...