Outcome risk model development for heterogeneity of treatment effect analyses: a comparison of non-parametric machine learning methods and semi-parametric statistical methods.

Background: In randomized clinical trials, treatment effects may vary, and this possibility is referred to as heterogeneity of treatment effect (HTE). One way to quantify HTE is to partition participants into subgroups based on individual's risk of experiencing an outcome, then measuring treatment effect by subgroup. Given the limited availability of externally validated outcome risk prediction models, internal models (created using the same dataset in which heterogeneity of treatment analyses also will be performed) are commonly developed for subgroup identification.

Erratum: 313 Data-Driven Evaluation of Community Health Worker Program - CORRIGENDUM.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1017/cts.2024.

Optimizing Computer-Aided Diagnosis with Cost-Aware Deep Learning Models.

Classical machine learning and deep learning models for Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) commonly focus on overall classification performance, treating misclassification errors (false negatives and false positives) equally during training. This uniform treatment overlooks the distinct costs associated with each type of error, leading to suboptimal decision-making, particularly in the medical domain where it is important to improve the prediction sensitivity without significantly compromising overall accuracy. This study introduces a novel deep learning-based CAD system that incorporates a cost-sensitive parameter into the activation function.

Biomedical heterogeneous data categorization and schema mapping toward data integration.

Data integration is a well-motivated problem in the clinical data science domain. Availability of patient data, reference clinical cases, and datasets for research have the potential to advance the healthcare industry. However, the unstructured (text, audio, or video data) and heterogeneous nature of the data, the variety of data standards and formats, and patient privacy constraint make data interoperability and integration a challenge.

Demographic and Clinical Characteristics Associated With Severity, Clinical Outcomes, and Mortality of COVID-19 Infection in Gabon.

Importance: Since the emergence of COVID-19 in central China, sub-Saharan African countries, with the exception of South Africa, have been relatively spared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, few descriptive studies from this region are available.

Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients with COVID-19 infection in Gabon, from March to June 2020.

Learning Latent Spiculated Features for Lung Nodule Characterization.

Computer-aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems have long aimed to be used in clinical practice to help doctors make decisions by providing a second opinion. However, most machine learning based CAD systems make predictions without explicitly showing how their predictions were generated. Since the cognitive process of the diagnostic imaging interpretation involves various visual characteristics of the region of interest, the explainability of the results should leverage those characteristics.

Blending Education and Polymer Science: Semi Automated Creation of a Thermodynamic Property Database.

Structured databases of chemical and physical properties play a central role in the everyday research activities of scientists and engineers. In materials science, researchers and engineers turn to these databases to quickly query, compare, and aggregate various properties, thereby allowing for the development or application of new materials. The vast majority of these databases have been generated manually, through decades of labor-intensive harvesting of information from the literature; yet, while there are many examples of commonly used databases, a significant number of important properties remain locked within the tables, figures, and text of publications.

A Hybrid Human-Computer Approach to the Extraction of Scientific Facts from the Literature.

A wealth of valuable data is locked within the millions of research articles published each year. Reading and extracting pertinent information from those articles has become an unmanageable task for scientists. This problem hinders scientific progress by making it hard to build on results buried in literature.

[Intrathoracic giant peripheral nerve sheath tumor during Von Recklinghausen disease].

We report the case of a patient aged 23, admitted for bilateral intrathoracic tumor, including a giant right. Surgery was performed by right sternothoracotomy. After 7 days, she presented an irreversible cardiac arrest.

[Surgical approaches to hysterectomy].

Objectives: this study aims to assess the frequency, complications and advantages of each of the three principal approaches to hysterectomies: abdominal, vaginal, and laparoscopic.

Patients And Method: this prospective study analyses a consecutive series of 78 hysterectomies for benign disease (myomas and precancerous lesions of the cervix) in the gynaecological surgery department of Libreville Hospital Centre from March 1, 2006, to November, 2010. We excluded cases of genital prolapsus, invasive uterine cancer, and hysterectomy during pregnancy or delivery.

[A case of meningo-encephalitis due to West Nile virus in Libreville, Gabon].

Acute forms of meningo-encephalitis due to West Nile virus are rare. The purpose of this report is to describe the first case of acute meningoencephalitis due to West Nile virus diagnosed in Gabon. The patient was a 20-year-old Gabonese man.

[The problem of oxygen in developing countries].

Availability of a reliable oxygen (O2) supply is critical for hospitals in developing countries. The AIDS pandemic that is associated with severe pulmonary infections has further enhanced this problem. Today in 2006, even though a number of financially viable solutions adapted to conditions in developing countries are available, lack of oxygen is still a cause of death in Africa including in some capital cities.

Severe falciparum malaria in Gabonese children: clinical and laboratory features.

Background: Malaria continues to claim one to two million lives a year, mainly those of children in sub-Saharan Africa. Reduction in mortality depends, in part, on improving the quality of hospital care, the training of healthcare workers and improvements in public health. This study examined the prognostic indicators of severe falciparum malaria in Gabonese children.

[Analysis of snake bite envenomations in Gabon].

In tropical zones, snakebites are considered serious. Exotic snakes are characterised by the poisonousness of their venom and its abundance. Death is rapid in some cases and in others the sequelae are serious.

[Tropical myositis].

Tropical pyomyositis (TP) is a microbial infection involving one or more skeletal muscles that rapidly leads to abscess. The most common infectious agent is Staphylococcus aureus. Since muscle tissue is highly resistant to infection, occurrence of TP is contingent upon one or more compromising factors such as trauma, skin lesions, parasitosis, or malnutrition.

[Severe hypothermia in a tropical setting].

Hot, humid conditions in tropical regions generally rule out any risk of hypothermia due to cold exposure. In this report, we describe a case of severe hypothermia involving a core temperature of 26 degrees C in a 61-year-old man living in Gabon. Parkinson's disease and chronic alcoholism may have been predisposing factors.