Tag: statistics

Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop. 2024 Apr 26:S0889-5406(24)00137-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ajodo.2024.03.014. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to examine the use of orthodontic 3-dimensional (3D) printing technology in North America and to understand why orthodontists are, or are not, incorporating 3D printing technology in their practices.

METHODS: A survey questionnaire was delivered on a secure online platform, RedCap (Case Western Reserve University Clinical and Translational Science Award; no. UL1TR002548). The survey consisted of 14-34 items with branching logic. The association between participant demographics and in-house 3D printing was assessed using a chi-square test of independence.

RESULTS: A total of 518 responses were recorded. The highest number of responses came from respondents in the 36-45-year age group. Most of the respondents were practice owners; 46.9% had 3D printers in their office. Chi-square tests of independence were performed on the data to see which associations existed. The strongest statistical associations with using an in-house 3D printer are seen with patient load, practice type, years since residency, and orthodontist’s position.

CONCLUSIONS: Approximately 75% of orthodontists use 3D printing technology in some capacity in North America. Major factors that influenced orthodontists to incorporate 3D printing technology into their office were self-interest and research. Major factors that have prevented orthodontists from not incorporating 3D printing technology into their office were space for equipment/ventilation and digital workflow training deficit. Orthodontists use their 3D printers mostly to make plastic retainers from printed models. The strongest associations with using in-house 3D printers are seen in patient load, practice type, years since residency, and orthodontist position. Increasing patient load and being in private practice increases the likelihood of having a 3D printer.

PMID:38678454 | DOI:10.1016/j.ajodo.2024.03.014

Med Educ Online. 2024 Dec 31;29(1):2345444. doi: 10.1080/10872981.2024.2345444. Epub 2024 Apr 28.

ABSTRACT

Accelerated medical school curricula, such as three-year programs, have gained attention in recent years but studies evaluating their impact are still scarce. This study examines the Fully Integrated Readiness for Service Training (FIRST) program, a three-year accelerated pathway, to assess its impact on students’ academic performance preparedness for residency. In this observational study, we compared the academic outcomes of FIRST program students to traditional four-year curriculum students from 2018 to 2023. We analyzed multiple metrics, including exam performance (United States Medical Licensing Examination Step scores, shelf exam scores, and pre-clinical course scores) and clinical performance scores during the application and individualization phases. Analysis of Variance was used to examine the effect of accelerated pathway program experience relative to traditional 4-year medical school curriculum on the learning outcomes. FIRST program students were on average 1.5 years younger upon graduation than their traditional peers. While FIRST program students scored slightly lower on Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK), they exhibited no significant differences in other exam scores or clinical performance relative to the traditional students. Notably, FIRST students achieved equivalent clinical performance ratings during critical clerkships and rotations. Our findings suggest that a three-year medical school curriculum can effectively prepare students for residency and produce graduates with comparable medical knowledge and clinical skills, offering potential benefits in terms of financial relief and personal well-being for medical students.

PMID:38678447 | DOI:10.1080/10872981.2024.2345444

Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 2024 Apr 28. doi: 10.1111/cpf.12884. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

It is controversial whether people with vasovagal syncope (VVS) have abnormal autonomic responses at baseline and whether specific diagnostic manoeuvres have a diagnostic value. We investigated whether the pupillary light reflex and cardiac autonomic tests can be used to identify autonomic dysfunction in volunteers with a medical history of VVS. The study groups included 128 healthy volunteers, of whom 31 reported a history of typical VVS. The right pupil was evaluated using an automated, commercial infra-red pupillometer under strict conditions. In addition to miosis and mydriasis kinetics, pupil diameters were measured. Heart rate variability at rest and heart rate changes to standing were quantified with high-resolution electrocardiography and designated software. The demographic and clinical characteristics of both groups were statistically similar. Average constriction velocity (ACV) was significantly higher in VVS patients following a univariate analysis (3.83 ± 0.59 vs. 3.56 ± 0.73 mm/s, p = 0.042) and after correcting for potential confounders (p = 0.049). All other pupillometric and heart rate indices were comparable between groups. Patients with a history of VVS depict pupillary parasympathetic overactivity in response to light stimuli, manifested as increased ACV. The prognostic implications of this finding and the significance of using this simple clinical tool to identify patients who are at risk for developing frequent episodes of VVS or physical injuries following a syncope merits further study.

PMID:38678442 | DOI:10.1111/cpf.12884

J Water Health. 2024 Apr;22(4):701-716. doi: 10.2166/wh.2024.320. Epub 2024 Mar 18.

ABSTRACT

In order to identify and effectively control the impact of NO₃^– pollution on human health, on the basis of investigation, sampling, analysis and testing, statistical analysis software (SPSS19), groundwater pollution analysis software, Nemera comprehensive index method, correlation analysis method and human health risk assessment model are applied for analysis and research. The results indicate that the groundwater in the study area is mainly Class II water, with overall good water quality. The main influencing factors for producing Class IV are NO₃^–, Fe, F^– and SO₄^2-. The use of agricultural fertilizers is the main source of NO₃^– exceeding standards in groundwater in this area. There are significant differences in the health hazards caused by NO₃^– pollution in groundwater among different populations, and infants and young children are more susceptible to nitrate pollution. The division of pollution areas and high-risk groups plays an important guiding role in preventing health risks. The new achievements will help people improve their awareness of risk prevention, caring for the environment, respecting nature and implementing precise policies, promoting society to step onto the track of scientific and healthy development.

PMID:38678423 | DOI:10.2166/wh.2024.320

Water Sci Technol. 2024 Apr;89(8):2191-2208. doi: 10.2166/wst.2024.103. Epub 2024 Mar 29.

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to assess spatiotemporal water quality variation and its suitability for irrigation and domestic purposes in Lah River using the irrigation water quality index (IWQI) and the weighted arithmetic water quality index (WAWQI). The IWQI analysis result showed that the sodium absorption ratio, residual sodium carbonate, potential salinity, Kelly index, magnesium ratio, sodium percentage, and permeability index were found to be 1.07 mEq/L, -0.43 mEq/L, 0.8 mEq/L, 0.78 mEq/L, 43.01%, 42.95%, and 63.46%, respectively. The IWQIs revealed that the water quality of the river was appropriate for agricultural use during the dry season. Furthermore, the calculated WAWQI of the river water ranged from 123.13 to 394.72 during the wet season, indicating the high pollution levels in the Lah River and incompatibility for drinking purposes. On the other hand, the principal component analysis identified two pollution sources during the wet season and three during the dry season. In addition, the positive matrix prioritization model predicted the pollution source’s contribution quite well with a signal-to-noise ratio of >2 and a residual error between -3 and 3 for both seasons. This study suggests that water quality of Lah River is degrading periodically necessitating proper pollution management.

PMID:38678418 | DOI:10.2166/wst.2024.103

Water Sci Technol. 2024 Apr;89(8):2164-2176. doi: 10.2166/wst.2024.123. Epub 2024 Apr 15.

ABSTRACT

To assess the viability and effectiveness of bioretention cell in enhancing rainwater resource utilization within sponge cities, this study employs field monitoring, laboratory testing, and statistical analysis to evaluate the water purification capabilities of bioretention cell. Findings indicate a marked purification impact on surface runoff, with removal efficiencies of 59.81% for suspended solids (SS), 39.01% for chemical oxygen demand (COD), 37.53% for ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N), and 30.49% for total phosphorus (TP). The treated water largely complies with rainwater reuse guidelines and tertiary sewage discharge standards. Notably, while previous research in China has emphasized water volume control in sponge city infrastructures, less attention has been given to the qualitative aspects and field-based evaluations. This research not only fills that gap but also offers valuable insights and practical implications for bioretention cell integration into sponge city development. Moreover, the methodology and outcomes of this study serve as a benchmark for future sponge city project assessments, offering guidance to relevant authorities.

PMID:38678416 | DOI:10.2166/wst.2024.123

Water Sci Technol. 2024 Apr;89(8):1891-1912. doi: 10.2166/wst.2024.077. Epub 2024 Mar 12.

ABSTRACT

Urban flooding has made it necessary to gain a better understanding of how well gully pots perform when overwhelmed by solids deposition due to various climatic and anthropogenic variables. This study investigates solids deposition in gully pots through the review of eight models, comprising four deterministic models, two hybrid models, a statistical model, and a conceptual model, representing a wide spectrum of solid depositional processes. Traditional models understand and manage the impact of climatic and anthropogenic variables on solid deposition but they are prone to uncertainties due to inadequate handling of complex and non-linear variables, restricted applicability, inflexibility and data bias. Hybrid models which integrate traditional models with data-driven approaches have proved to improve predictions and guarantee the development of uncertainty-proof models. Despite their effectiveness, hybrid models lack explainability. Hence, this study presents the significance of eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) tools in addressing the challenges associated with hybrid models. Finally, crossovers between various models and a representative workflow for the approach to solids deposition modelling in gully pots is suggested. The paper concludes that the application of explainable hybrid modeling can serve as a valuable tool for gully pot management as it can address key limitations present in existing models.

PMID:38678398 | DOI:10.2166/wst.2024.077

Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2024 Apr 28. doi: 10.1002/ksa.12216. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To describe rates of conversion to unicompartmental or total knee arthroplasty (KA) in patients over the age of 40 years (at initial surgery) after partial meniscectomy (ME) or meniscal repair (MR).

METHODS: Patients over the age of 40 undergoing isolated ME or MR between 2016 and 2018 were extracted from a single healthcare provider database. Data on patient characteristics, type of initial surgery, number of returns to the operating room, as well as performed procedures, including conversion to KA, were recorded. Comparative group statistics as well as a Kaplan-Meier survival rate analysis were performed.

RESULTS: A total of 3638 patients (47.8% female) were included, with 3520 (96.8%) undergoing ME and 118 (3.2%) MR. Overall, 378 (10.4%) patients returned to the OR at an average of 22.7 ± 17.3 months postoperatively. Conversion to KA was performed more frequently in patients after primary ME (n = 270, 7.7%) compared to those with MR (2.5%, n = 3, odds ratio [OR]: 3.2, p = 0.03). Compared to ME (2.3%, n = 82), two times as many patients undergoing MR returned for subsequent meniscus surgery (MR: 5.9%, n = 7, OR: 2.6, p = 0.02). Time from primary surgery to KA (ME: 22 ± 17 months, MR: 25 ± 15 months, p = 0.96) did not differ between the treatment groups. Survivorship was 95% for ME and 98.2% for MR after 24 months (p = 0.76) and 92.5% and 98.2% after 60 months (p = 0.07), respectively.

CONCLUSION: The overall reoperation rate after meniscal surgery was 10.4% in patients over the age of 40 years. Patients treated with primary ME have over three times higher odds to undergo subsequent KA compared to those treated with MR. However, patients with primary MR have a higher rate of subsequent meniscus surgery compared to those undergoing primary ME. This information is important when considering and treating a patient over the age of 40 and meniscal injury.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III study.

PMID:38678394 | DOI:10.1002/ksa.12216

Brief Bioinform. 2024 Mar 27;25(3):bbae188. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbae188.

ABSTRACT

MOTIVATION: Over the past decade, single-cell transcriptomic technologies have experienced remarkable advancements, enabling the simultaneous profiling of gene expressions across thousands of individual cells. Cell type identification plays an essential role in exploring tissue heterogeneity and characterizing cell state differences. With more and more well-annotated reference data becoming available, massive automatic identification methods have sprung up to simplify the annotation process on unlabeled target data by transferring the cell type knowledge. However, in practice, the target data often include some novel cell types that are not in the reference data. Most existing works usually classify these private cells as one generic ‘unassigned’ group and learn the features of known and novel cell types in a coupled way. They are susceptible to the potential batch effects and fail to explore the fine-grained semantic knowledge of novel cell types, thus hurting the model’s discrimination ability. Additionally, emerging spatial transcriptomic technologies, such as in situ hybridization, sequencing and multiplexed imaging, present a novel challenge to current cell type identification strategies that predominantly neglect spatial organization. Consequently, it is imperative to develop a versatile method that can proficiently annotate single-cell transcriptomics data, encompassing both spatial and non-spatial dimensions.

RESULTS: To address these issues, we propose a new, challenging yet realistic task called universal cell type identification for single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data. In this task, we aim to give semantic labels to target cells from known cell types and cluster labels to those from novel ones. To tackle this problem, instead of designing a suboptimal two-stage approach, we propose an end-to-end algorithm called scBOL from the perspective of Bipartite prototype alignment. Firstly, we identify the mutual nearest clusters in reference and target data as their potential common cell types. On this basis, we mine the cycle-consistent semantic anchor cells to build the intrinsic structure association between two data. Secondly, we design a neighbor-aware prototypical learning paradigm to strengthen the inter-cluster separability and intra-cluster compactness within each data, thereby inspiring the discriminative feature representations. Thirdly, driven by the semantic-aware prototypical learning framework, we can align the known cell types and separate the private cell types from them among reference and target data. Such an algorithm can be seamlessly applied to various data types modeled by different foundation models that can generate the embedding features for cells. Specifically, for non-spatial single-cell transcriptomics data, we use the autoencoder neural network to learn latent low-dimensional cell representations, and for spatial single-cell transcriptomics data, we apply the graph convolution network to capture molecular and spatial similarities of cells jointly. Extensive results on our carefully designed evaluation benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of scBOL over various state-of-the-art cell type identification methods. To our knowledge, we are the pioneers in presenting this pragmatic annotation task, as well as in devising a comprehensive algorithmic framework aimed at resolving this challenge across varied types of single-cell data. Finally, scBOL is implemented in Python using the Pytorch machine-learning library, and it is freely available at https://github.com/aimeeyaoyao/scBOL.

PMID:38678389 | DOI:10.1093/bib/bbae188

Dis Esophagus. 2024 Apr 28:doae039. doi: 10.1093/dote/doae039. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Surgery for cancer of the esophagus or gastro-esophageal junction can be performed with a variety of minimally invasive and open approaches. The left thoracoabdominal esophagectomy (LTE) is an open technique that gives an opportunity to operate in the chest and abdomen with excellent exposure of the gastro-esophageal junction through a single incision, and there is currently no equivalent minimally invasive technique available. The aim of this multi-institutional review was to study a large contemporary international study cohort of patients treated with LTE. An international multicenter cohort study was performed including all patients treated with LTE at six high-volume centers for gastro-esophageal cancer surgery between 2012 and 2022. Patient data were prospectively collected in each participating centers’ institutional database. Information about patient, tumor, and treatment details were collected. The study cohort included a total of 793 patients treated with LTE during the study period. The most frequently observed complications were pneumonia in 185/727 (25.5%) patients and atrial fibrillation in 91/727 (12.5%). Anastomotic leak occurred in 35/727 (4.8%) patients; no patient suffered from conduit necrosis. Thirty-day mortality occurred in 15/785 (1.9%) patients and 90-day mortality in 39/785 (5.0%) patients. Factors with statistically significant association with survival were American Society for Anesthesiologists-score, tumor location, tumor stage, and tumor free resection margins. Neoadjuvant therapy was not associated with increased survival compared to surgery alone but neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy compared to neoadjuvant chemotherapy showed statistically significant improved survival with hazard ratio 0.60 (95% confidence intervals:0.44-0.80, P = 0.001) in a multivariable adjusted model. This study demonstrates that LTE can be applied in selected patients with results that are comparable to other large studies of open and minimally invasive surgery for esophageal or gastro-esophageal cancer at high-volume centers.

PMID:38678385 | DOI:10.1093/dote/doae039