Many imputation methods have been developed over the years and tested mostly under ideal settings. Surprisingly, there is no detailed research on how imputation methods perform when the idealized assumptions about the distribution of data and/or model assumptions are partly not fulfilled. This research looks into the susceptibility of imputation techniques, particularly in relation to outliers, misclassifications, and incorrect model specifications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding complex interactions in biomedical networks is crucial for advancements in biomedicine, but traditional link prediction (LP) methods are limited in capturing this complexity. Representation-based learning techniques improve prediction accuracy by mapping nodes to low-dimensional embeddings, yet they often struggle with interpretability and scalability. We present BioPathNet, a novel graph neural network framework based on the Neural Bellman-Ford Network (NBFNet), addressing these limitations through path-based reasoning for LP in biomedical knowledge graphs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding complex interactions in biomedical networks is crucial for advancements in biomedicine, but traditional link prediction (LP) methods are limited in capturing this complexity. Representation-based learning techniques improve prediction accuracy by mapping nodes to low-dimensional embeddings, yet they often struggle with interpretability and scalability. We present BioPathNet, a novel graph neural network framework based on the Neural Bellman-Ford Network (NBFNet), addressing these limitations through path-based reasoning for LP in biomedical knowledge graphs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly evidence that patients with (multiple) pre-existing diseases are at highest risk for severe COVID-19 has been instrumental in the pandemic to allocate critical care resources and later vaccination schemes. However, systematic studies exploring the breadth of medical diagnoses, including common, but non-fatal diseases are scarce, but may help to understand severe COVID-19 among patients at supposedly low risk. Here, we systematically harmonized >12 million primary care and hospitalisation health records from ~500,000 UK Biobank participants into 1448 collated disease terms to systematically identify diseases predisposing to severe COVID-19 (requiring hospitalisation or death) and its post-acute sequalae, Long COVID.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Early evidence that patients with (multiple) pre-existing diseases are at highest risk for severe COVID-19 has been instrumental in the pandemic to allocate critical care resources and later vaccination schemes. However, systematic studies exploring the breadth of medical diagnoses are scarce but may help to understand severe COVID-19 among patients at supposedly low risk.
Methods: We systematically harmonized >12 million primary care and hospitalisation health records from ~500,000 UK Biobank participants into 1448 collated disease terms to systematically identify diseases predisposing to severe COVID-19 (requiring hospitalisation or death) and its post-acute sequalae, Long COVID.
Gram-positive organisms are known causative agents in toxic shock syndrome (TSS), an acute disease caused by bacterial exotoxins. During routine instrumentation removal for chronic osteomyelitis, intraoperative debridement, reaming, and irrigation can lead to cell lysis and subsequent dissemination of the bacterium exotoxin, which can result in acute cardiovascular compromise. We present two cases of chronic osteomyelitis in healed long-bone fractures that were treated with deep instrumentation removal and surgical debridement using a reamer-irrigator-aspirator (RIA) system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe explored the existence and application of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for pain management (PM) in German neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), and identified the factors associated with their application in practice. This study was part of the Safety4NICU project, a cross-sectional survey conducted from 2015 to 2016. All 224 German NICUs were invited to participate, providing written consent from the head neonatologist and head nurse.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe consider an urban instant delivery environment, e.g., meal delivery, in which customers place orders over the course of a day and are promised delivery within a short period of time after an order is placed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recent clinical trials demonstrate the feasibility of neoadjuvant immuno(chemo)therapy and report high rates of pathological remission, a surrogate marker for overall survival.
Patients And Methods: This is a retrospective multicentre real-world analysis of patients with locally resectable NSCLC, including oligometastatic disease, who received neoadjuvant immuno(chemo)therapy and resection. Consolidating immunotherapy was applied following multidisciplinary board recommendation.
Unlabelled: The role of veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation therapy (V-V ECMO) in severe COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is still under debate and conclusive data from large cohorts are scarce. Furthermore, criteria for the selection of patients that benefit most from this highly invasive and resource-demanding therapy are yet to be defined. In this study, we assess survival in an international multicenter cohort of COVID-19 patients treated with V-V ECMO and evaluate the performance of several clinical scores to predict 30-day survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhotodetectors with internal gain are of great interest for imaging applications, since internal gain reduces the effective noise of readout electronics. High-gain photodetectors have been demonstrated, but only individually rather than as a full array in a camera. Consequently, there has been little investigation of the interaction between camera complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) electronics and the slow response time that high-gain photodetectors often exhibit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMinocycline-induced pigmentation (MIP) is an infrequent complication of minocycline therapy, with four subtypes each with distinct clinical features and histologic staining patterns. MIP may resolve following discontinuation of minocycline therapy or it may persist indefinitely. A 64-year-old Caucasian male presented with a 6 month history of progressive blue-gray facial pigmentation distributed symmetrically over his face.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe use topological data analysis as a tool to analyze the fit of mathematical models to experimental data. This study is built on data obtained from motion tracking groups of aphids in [Nilsen et al., PLOS One, 2013] and two random walk models that were proposed to describe the data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Cryolipolysis of the arms has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for non-invasive reduction of subcutaneous fat. This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of the concurrent use of a new commercially-available small applicator in conjunction with an existing medium sized applicator for the customized treatment of arm fat.
Methods: Bilateral arms of 15 eligible subjects were simultaneously treated using one or two vacuum applicators with flat contours.
Rosacea is a chronic facial inflammatory dermatosis characterized by background facial erythema and flushing and may be accompanied by inflammatory papules and pustules, cutaneous fibrosis and hyperplasia known as phyma, and ocular involvement. These features can have adverse impact on quality of life, and ocular involvement can lead to visual dysfunction. The past decade has witnessed increased research into pathogenic pathways involved in rosacea and the introduction of novel treatment innovations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this paper wepresent a method to correct the surface profile of an X-ray mirror by using a stress manipulated coating on the back side of mirror shells. The ability to fabricate a thin walled mirror by some replication process is required if future affordable X-ray space missions are to have ~30 times the effective area of the current best X-ray observatory, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe desire for continuously gaining new knowledge in astronomy has pushed the frontier of engineering methods to deliver lighter, thinner, higher quality mirrors at an affordable cost for use in an x-ray observatory. To address these needs, we have been investigating the application of magnetic smart materials (MSMs) deposited as a thin film on mirror substrates. MSMs have some interesting properties that make the application of MSMs to mirror substrates a promising solution for making the next generation of x-ray telescopes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the past decades, encouraging progress has been made in the prevention of surgical site infections (SSI). However, as SSI still occur today, strategic prevention measures such as standardized skin antisepsis must be implemented and rigorously promoted. Recent discoveries in skin physiology necessitate the development of novel antiseptic agents and procedures in order to ameliorate their efficacy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is a major risk factor for glaucoma and is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) reported associations with IOP at TMCO1 and GAS7, and with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) at CDKN2B-AS1, CAV1/CAV2, and SIX1/SIX6. To identify novel genetic variants and replicate the published findings, we performed GWAS and meta-analysis of IOP in >6,000 subjects of European ancestry collected in three datasets: the NEI Glaucoma Human genetics collaBORation, GLAUcoma Genes and ENvironment study, and a subset of the Age-related Macular Degeneration-Michigan, Mayo, AREDS and Pennsylvania study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSkin antisepsis is a key element for the prevention of surgical site infections, as well as for infections after injection and punctures. Recent investigations have shown that about 25% of the resident bacterial flora of the human skin resides within the hair follicle. These findings strongly suggest that the skin appendages play the role of a bacterial reservoir.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate the effects of central corneal thickness (CCT)-associated variants on primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) risk using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) data from the Glaucoma Genes and Environment (GLAUGEN) and National Eye Institute (NEI) Glaucoma Human Genetics Collaboration (NEIGHBOR) consortia.
Methods: A replication analysis of previously reported CCT SNPs was performed in a CCT dataset (n = 1117) and these SNPs were then tested for association with POAG using a larger POAG dataset (n = 6470). Then a CCT genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed.
We previously discovered that a polymorphic, deoxythymidine-homopolymer (poly-T, rs10524523) in intron 6 of the TOMM40 gene is associated with age-of-onset of Alzheimer's disease and with cognitive performance in elderly. Three allele groups were defined for rs10524523, hereafter '523', based on the number of 'T'-residues: 'Short' (S, T≤19), 'Long' (L, 20≤T≤29) and 'Very Long' (VL, T≥30). Homopolymers, particularly long homopolymers like '523', are difficult to genotype because 'slippage' occurs during PCR-amplification.
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