APPLICATION OF A FUNCTIONAL MATHEMATICAL QUALITY INDEX TO ASPARAGINE, FREE SUGAR AND PHENOLIC ACID CONTENT OF 20 COMMERCIAL POTATO VARIETIES

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In this article, we apply a functional mathematical index (FMI), introduced in a previous publication, to 20 commercial potato varieties. The index allows evaluation of nutritional, safety and processing “quality parameters” of different potato cultivars. The main goal of the index is to link the q...

Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the main meal quality index when applied in the UK population.

PubMed

Gorgulho, B M; Pot, G K; Marchioni, D M

2017-05-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Main Meal Quality Index when applied on the UK population. The indicator was developed to assess meal quality in different populations, and is composed of 10 components: fruit, vegetables (excluding potatoes), ratio of animal protein to total protein, fiber, carbohydrate, total fat, saturated fat, processed meat, sugary beverages and desserts, and energy density, resulting in a score range of 0-100 points. The performance of the indicator was measured using strategies for assessing content validity, construct validity, discriminant validity and reliability, including principal component analysis, linear regression models and Cronbach's alpha. The indicator presented good reliability. The Main Meal Quality Index has been shown to be valid for use as an instrument to evaluate, monitor and compare the quality of meals consumed by adults in the United Kingdom.

Research on the Establishment and Evaluation of End - to - End Service Quality Index System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Chen; Jing, Tao; Ji, Yutong

2018-01-01

From the perspective of power data networks, put forward the index system model to measure the quality of service, covering user experience, business performance, network capacity support, etc., and gives the establishment and use of each layer index in the model.

Assessment of Ganga river ecosystem at Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India with reference to water quality indices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhutiani, R.; Khanna, D. R.; Kulkarni, Dipali Bhaskar; Ruhela, Mukesh

2016-06-01

The river Ganges is regarded as one of the most holy and sacred rivers of the world from time immemorial. The evaluation of river water quality is a critical element in the assessment of water resources. The quality/potability of water that is consumed defines the base line of protection against many diseases and infections. The present study aimed to calculate Water Quality Index (WQI) by the analysis of sixteen physico-chemical parameters on the basis of River Ganga index of Ved Prakash, weighted arithmetic index and WQI by National sanitation foundation (NSF) to assess the suitability of water for drinking, irrigation purposes and other human uses. These three water quality indices have been used to assess variation in the quality of the River Ganga at monitored locations over an 11-year period. Application of three different indexes to assess the water quality over a period of 11 years shows minor variations in water quality. Index values as per River Ganga Index by Ved Prakash et al. from 2000 to 2010 ranged between medium to good, Index values as per NSF Index for years 2000-2010 indicate good water quality, while Index values as per the weighted arithmetic index method for the study period indicate poor water quality.

Cotton genotypes selection through artificial neural networks.

PubMed

Júnior, E G Silva; Cardoso, D B O; Reis, M C; Nascimento, A F O; Bortolin, D I; Martins, M R; Sousa, L B

2017-09-27

Breeding programs currently use statistical analysis to assist in the identification of superior genotypes at various stages of a cultivar's development. Differently from these analyses, the computational intelligence approach has been little explored in genetic improvement of cotton. Thus, this study was carried out with the objective of presenting the use of artificial neural networks as auxiliary tools in the improvement of the cotton to improve fiber quality. To demonstrate the applicability of this approach, this research was carried out using the evaluation data of 40 genotypes. In order to classify the genotypes for fiber quality, the artificial neural networks were trained with replicate data of 20 genotypes of cotton evaluated in the harvests of 2013/14 and 2014/15, regarding fiber length, uniformity of length, fiber strength, micronaire index, elongation, short fiber index, maturity index, reflectance degree, and fiber quality index. This quality index was estimated by means of a weighted average on the determined score (1 to 5) of each characteristic of the HVI evaluated, according to its industry standards. The artificial neural networks presented a high capacity of correct classification of the 20 selected genotypes based on the fiber quality index, so that when using fiber length associated with the short fiber index, fiber maturation, and micronaire index, the artificial neural networks presented better results than using only fiber length and previous associations. It was also observed that to submit data of means of new genotypes to the neural networks trained with data of repetition, provides better results of classification of the genotypes. When observing the results obtained in the present study, it was verified that the artificial neural networks present great potential to be used in the different stages of a genetic improvement program of the cotton, aiming at the improvement of the fiber quality of the future cultivars.

A novel evaluation method for building construction project based on integrated information entropy with reliability theory.

PubMed

Bai, Xiao-ping; Zhang, Xi-wei

2013-01-01

Selecting construction schemes of the building engineering project is a complex multiobjective optimization decision process, in which many indexes need to be selected to find the optimum scheme. Aiming at this problem, this paper selects cost, progress, quality, and safety as the four first-order evaluation indexes, uses the quantitative method for the cost index, uses integrated qualitative and quantitative methodologies for progress, quality, and safety indexes, and integrates engineering economics, reliability theories, and information entropy theory to present a new evaluation method for building construction project. Combined with a practical case, this paper also presents detailed computing processes and steps, including selecting all order indexes, establishing the index matrix, computing score values of all order indexes, computing the synthesis score, sorting all selected schemes, and making analysis and decision. Presented method can offer valuable references for risk computing of building construction projects.

Automated Water Quality Survey and Evaluation Using an IoT Platform with Mobile Sensor Nodes

PubMed Central

Li, Teng; Xia, Min; Chen, Jiahong; Zhao, Yuanjie; de Silva, Clarence

2017-01-01

An Internet of Things (IoT) platform with capabilities of sensing, data processing, and wireless communication has been deployed to support remote aquatic environmental monitoring. In this paper, the design and development of an IoT platform with multiple Mobile Sensor Nodes (MSN) for the spatiotemporal quality evaluation of surface water is presented. A survey planner is proposed to distribute the Sampling Locations of Interest (SLoIs) over the study area and generate paths for MSNs to visit the SLoIs, given the limited energy and time budgets. The SLoIs are chosen based on a cellular decomposition that is composed of uniform hexagonal cells. They are visited by the MSNs along a path ring generated by a planning approach that uses a spanning tree. For quality evaluation, an Online Water Quality Index (OLWQI) is developed to interpret the large quantities of online measurements. The index formulations are modified by a state-of-the-art index, the CCME WQI, which has been developed by the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment (CCME) for off-line indexing. The proposed index has demonstrated effective and reliable performance in online indexing a large volume of measurements of water quality parameters. The IoT platform is deployed in the field, and its performance is demonstrated and discussed in this paper. PMID:28788098

Objective measurements to evaluate glottal space segmentation from laryngeal images.

PubMed

Gutiérrez-Arriola, J M; Osma-Ruiz, V; Sáenz-Lechón, N; Godino-Llorente, J I; Fraile, R; Arias-Londoño, J D

2012-01-01

Objective evaluation of the results of medical image segmentation is a known problem. Applied to the task of automatically detecting the glottal area from laryngeal images, this paper proposes a new objective measurement to evaluate the quality of a segmentation algorithm by comparing with the results given by a human expert. The new figure of merit is called Area Index, and its effectiveness is compared with one of the most used figures of merit found in the literature: the Pratt Index. Results over 110 laryngeal images presented high correlations between both indexes, demonstrating that the proposed measure is comparable to the Pratt Index and it is a good indicator of the segmentation quality.

A fuzzy-logic based decision-making approach for identification of groundwater quality based on groundwater quality indices.

PubMed

Vadiati, M; Asghari-Moghaddam, A; Nakhaei, M; Adamowski, J; Akbarzadeh, A H

2016-12-15

Due to inherent uncertainties in measurement and analysis, groundwater quality assessment is a difficult task. Artificial intelligence techniques, specifically fuzzy inference systems, have proven useful in evaluating groundwater quality in uncertain and complex hydrogeological systems. In the present study, a Mamdani fuzzy-logic-based decision-making approach was developed to assess groundwater quality based on relevant indices. In an effort to develop a set of new hybrid fuzzy indices for groundwater quality assessment, a Mamdani fuzzy inference model was developed with widely-accepted groundwater quality indices: the Groundwater Quality Index (GQI), the Water Quality Index (WQI), and the Ground Water Quality Index (GWQI). In an effort to present generalized hybrid fuzzy indices a significant effort was made to employ well-known groundwater quality index acceptability ranges as fuzzy model output ranges rather than employing expert knowledge in the fuzzification of output parameters. The proposed approach was evaluated for its ability to assess the drinking water quality of 49 samples collected seasonally from groundwater resources in Iran's Sarab Plain during 2013-2014. Input membership functions were defined as "desirable", "acceptable" and "unacceptable" based on expert knowledge and the standard and permissible limits prescribed by the World Health Organization. Output data were categorized into multiple categories based on the GQI (5 categories), WQI (5 categories), and GWQI (3 categories). Given the potential of fuzzy models to minimize uncertainties, hybrid fuzzy-based indices produce significantly more accurate assessments of groundwater quality than traditional indices. The developed models' accuracy was assessed and a comparison of the performance indices demonstrated the Fuzzy Groundwater Quality Index model to be more accurate than both the Fuzzy Water Quality Index and Fuzzy Ground Water Quality Index models. This suggests that the new hybrid fuzzy indices developed in this research are reliable and flexible when used in groundwater quality assessment for drinking purposes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Can Item Analysis of MCQs Accomplish the Need of a Proper Assessment Strategy for Curriculum Improvement in Medical Education?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pawade, Yogesh R.; Diwase, Dipti S.

2016-01-01

Item analysis of Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) is the process of collecting, summarizing and utilizing information from students' responses to evaluate the quality of test items. Difficulty Index (p-value), Discrimination Index (DI) and Distractor Efficiency (DE) are the parameters which help to evaluate the quality of MCQs used in an…

[Application of entropy-weight TOPSIS model in synthetical quality evaluation of Angelica sinensis growing in Gansu Province].

PubMed

Gu, Zhi-rong; Wang, Ya-li; Sun, Yu-jing; Dind, Jun-xia

2014-09-01

To investigate the establishment and application methods of entropy-weight TOPSIS model in synthetical quality evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine with Angelica sinensis growing in Gansu Province as an example. The contents of ferulic acid, 3-butylphthalide, Z-butylidenephthalide, Z-ligustilide, linolic acid, volatile oil, and ethanol soluble extractive were used as an evaluation index set. The weights of each evaluation index were determined by information entropy method. The entropyweight TOPSIS model was established to synthetically evaluate the quality of Angelica sinensis growing in Gansu Province by Euclid closeness degree. The results based on established model were in line with the daodi meaning and the knowledge of clinical experience. The established model was simple in calculation, objective, reliable, and can be applied to synthetical quality evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine.

[Construction and application of economy-pollution-environment three-dimensional evaluation model for district].

PubMed

Fan, Xin-Gang; Mi, Wen-Bao; Ma, Zhen-Ning

2015-02-01

For deep analysis on the regional environmental economic system, the paper analyzes the mutual relation of regional economy development, environmental quality, environmental pollution, and builds the theoretical basis. Then, the economy-pollution-environment quality three-dimensional coupling evaluation model for district is constructed. It includes economic development level index, environmental pollution index, and environmental quality index. The model is a cube, which has spatialization and visualization characteristics. The model includes 8 sub cubes, which expresses 8 types of state, e. g. low pollution-inferior quality-low level of economic development etc. The model can be used to evaluate the status of region, divide development phase, analyze evolution trend etc. It has two ways including relative meaning evaluation (RME) and absolute meaning evaluation (AME). Based on the model, Yinchuan City in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is used as an example for the empirical study. Using RME, compared with Guangzhou city, The result shows that the Yinchuan City has been a high pollution-low quality-low level of economic development state for a long period during 1996-2010. After 2007, the state changed to a high pollution-high quality-low level of economic development. Now, the environmental quality of Yinchuan city gets better, but pollutant discharge pressure is high, and tends to be the break point of high environment quality and low environment. With AME, using national standard, the Yinchuan City remains a high pollution-low quality-low level of economic development state during 1996-2010. Empirical research verifies that different target reference areas and relevant national standards have different main parameters, the evaluating result has an flexible range. The dimensionless data enhances the coupling of index. The data position in model increases the visibility to the environmental management decisions. The model improves mismatches of calculated data size, time asymmetry of spatial data, verification of the former multi-target coupling model.

Comprehensive evaluation of land quality basing on 3S technology and farmers' survey: A case study in Crisscross Region of Wind-drift Sand Regions along the Great Wall and Loess Plateau

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Yan-yu; Wang, Jing; Shi, Yan-xi; Li, Yu-huan; Lv, Chun-yan

2005-10-01

The Crisscross Region of Wind-drift Sand Regions along the Great Wall and Loess Plateau locates in southern Ordos Plateau and northern Chinese Loess Plateau, where wind erosion and water erosion coexist and specified environmental and socio-economic factors, especially human activities induce serious land degradation. However, there are only a few studies provide an overall assessment consequences. Integrated land quality assessment considering impacts of soil, topography, vegetation, environmental hazards, social-economic factors and land managements are imperative to the regional sustainable land managements. A pilot study was made in Hengshan County (Shanxi Province) with the objective of developing comprehensive land quality evaluation model integrating data from farmers' survey and Remote Sensing. Surveys were carried out in 107 households of study area in 2003 and 2004 to get farmers' perceptions of land quality and to collect correlative information. It was found out that farmers evaluated land quality by slope, water availability, soil texture, yields, amount of fertilizer, crop performance, sandy erosion degree and water erosion degree. Scientists' indicators which emphasize on getting information by RS technology were introduced to reflecting above indicators information for the sake of developing a rapid, efficient and local-fitted land quality assessment model including social-economic, environmental and anthropogenic factors. Data from satellite and surveys were integrated with socio-economic statistic data using geographical information system (GIS) and three indexes, namely Production Press Index (PPI), Land State Index (LSI) and Farmer Behavior Index (FBI) were proposed to measure different aspects of land quality. A model was further derived from the three indexes to explore the overall land quality of the study area. Results suggest that local land prevalently had a poor quality. This paper shows that whilst the model was competent for its work in the study area and evaluation results would supply beneficial information for management decisions.

SU-E-T-60: A Plan Quality Index in IMRT QA That Is Independent of the Acceptance Criteria

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kim, D; Kang, S; Kim, T

2015-06-15

Purpose: In IMRT QA, plan quality evaluation is made based on pass rate under preset acceptance criteria, mostly using gamma-values. This method is convenient but, its Result highly depends on what the acceptance criteria are and suffers from the lack of sensitivity in judging how good the plan is. In this study, we introduced a simple but effective plan quality index of IMRT QA based on dose difference only to supplement such shortcomings, and investigated its validity. Methods: The proposed index is a single value which is calculated mainly based on point-by-point comparison between planned and measured dose distributions, andmore » it becomes “1” in an ideal case. A systematic evaluation was performed with one-dimensional test dose distributions. For 3 hypothetical dose profiles, various displacements (in both dose and space) were introduced, the proposed index was calculated for each case, and the behavior of obtained indices was analyzed and compared with that of gamma evaluation. In addition, the feasibility of the index was assessed with clinical IMRT/VMAT/SBRT QA cases for different sites (prostate, head & neck, liver, lung, spine, and abdomen). Results: The proposed index showed more robust correlation with the amount of induced displacement compared to the gamma evaluation method. No matter what the acceptance criteria are (e.g., whether 3%/3mm or 2%/2mm), it was possible to clearly rank every case with the proposed index while it was difficult to do with the gamma evaluation method. Conclusion: IMRT plan quality can be evaluated quantitatively by the proposed index. It is considered that the proposed index would provide useful information for better judging the level of goodness of each plan and its Result is independent of the acceptance criteria. This work was supported by the Radiation Technology R&D program (No. 2013M2A2A7043498) and the Mid-career Researcher Program (2014R1A2A1A10050270) through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT&Future Planning.« less

Objective evaluation of interior noise booming in a passenger car based on sound metrics and artificial neural networks.

PubMed

Lee, Hyun-Ho; Lee, Sang-Kwon

2009-09-01

Booming sound is one of the important sounds in a passenger car. The aim of the paper is to develop the objective evaluation method of interior booming sound. The development method is based on the sound metrics and ANN (artificial neural network). The developed method is called the booming index. Previous work maintained that booming sound quality is related to loudness and sharpness--the sound metrics used in psychoacoustics--and that the booming index is developed by using the loudness and sharpness for a signal within whole frequency between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. In the present paper, the booming sound quality was found to be effectively related to the loudness at frequencies below 200 Hz; thus the booming index is updated by using the loudness of the signal filtered by the low pass filter at frequency under 200 Hz. The relationship between the booming index and sound metric is identified by an ANN. The updated booming index has been successfully applied to the objective evaluation of the booming sound quality of mass-produced passenger cars.

Human visual system consistent quality assessment for remote sensing image fusion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Jun; Huang, Junyi; Liu, Shuguang; Li, Huali; Zhou, Qiming; Liu, Junchen

2015-07-01

Quality assessment for image fusion is essential for remote sensing application. Generally used indices require a high spatial resolution multispectral (MS) image for reference, which is not always readily available. Meanwhile, the fusion quality assessments using these indices may not be consistent with the Human Visual System (HVS). As an attempt to overcome this requirement and inconsistency, this paper proposes an HVS-consistent image fusion quality assessment index at the highest resolution without a reference MS image using Gaussian Scale Space (GSS) technology that could simulate the HVS. The spatial details and spectral information of original and fused images are first separated in GSS, and the qualities are evaluated using the proposed spatial and spectral quality index respectively. The overall quality is determined without a reference MS image by a combination of the proposed two indices. Experimental results on various remote sensing images indicate that the proposed index is more consistent with HVS evaluation compared with other widely used indices that may or may not require reference images.

SME Worker Affective (SWA) index based on environmental ergonomics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ushada, M.; Kusuma Aji, G.; Okayama, T.; Khidir, M.

2018-04-01

Small-Medium sized (SME) is a focal type of Indonesian industry which contributes to national emerging economies. Indonesian goverment has developed employee social security system (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan) to support worker quality of life. However, there were limited research which could assist BPJS Ketenagakerjaan in evaluating worker quality of life. Worker quality of life could be categorized as the highest worker needs or affective states. SME Worker Affective (SWA) index is being concerned as a basic tool to make balance between worker performance and quality of life in workstation of SMEs. The research objectives are: 1) To optimize the environmental ergonomics in SMEs; 2) To quantify SME Worker Affective (SWA) index based on optimized environmental ergonomics. The research advantage is to support Indonesian goverment in monitoring SMEs good practices to its worker quality of life. Simulated annealing optimized the heart rate and environmental ergonomics parameters. SWA index was determined based on comparison between optimized heart rate and environmental ergonomics parameters. SWA index were quantified for 380 data of worker. The evaluation indicated 51.3% worker in affective and 48.7% in non-affective condition. Research results indicated that stakeholders of SMEs should put more attention on environmental ergonomics and worker affective.

Exploring in integrated quality evaluation of Chinese herbal medicines: the integrated quality index (IQI) for aconite.

PubMed

Zhang, Ding-kun; Wang, Jia-bo; Yang, Ming; Peng, Cheng; Xiao, Xiao-he

2015-07-01

Good medicinal herbs, good drugs. Good evaluation method and indices are the prerequisite of good medicinal herbs. However, there exist numerous indices for quality evaluation and control in Chinese medicinal materials. However, most of these indices are non-interrelated each other, as well as having little relationship with efficiency and safety. The results of different evaluatior methods may not be consistent, even contradictory. Considering the complex material properties of Chinese medicinal materials, single method and index is difficult to objectively and comprehensively reflect the quality. Therefore, it is essential to explore the integrated evaluation methods. In this paper, oriented by the integrated evaluation strategies for traditional Chinese medicine quality, a new method called integrated quality index (IQI) by the integration of empirical evaluation, chemical evaluation, and biological evaluation was proposed. In addition, a study case of hypertoxic herb Aconitum carmichaelii Debx. was provided to explain this method in detail. The results suggested that in the view of specifications, the average weight of Jiangyou aconite was the greatest, followed by Weishan aconite, Butuo aconite, Hanzhong aconite, and Anxian aconite; from the point of chemical components, Jiangyou aconite had the characteristic with strong efficacy and weak toxicity, next was Hanzhong aconite, Butuo aconite, Weishan aconite, and Anxian aconite; taking toxicity price as the index, Hanzhong aconite and Jiangyou aconite have the lower toxicity, while Butuo aconite, Weishan aconite, and Anxian aconite have the relatively higher one. After the normalization and integration of evaluation results, we calculated the IQI value of Jiangyou aconite, Hanzhong aconite, Butuo aconite, Weishan aconite, and Anxian aconite were 0.842 +/- 0.091, 0.597 +/- 0.047, 0.442 +/- 0.033, 0.454 +/- 0.038, 0.170 +/- 0.021, respectively. The quality of Jiangyou aconite is significantly better than the others (P < 0.05) followed by Hanzhong aconite, which is consistent with the traditional understanding of genuineness. It can be concluded that IQI achieves the integrated control and evaluation for the quality of Chinese medicinal materials, and it is an exploration for building the good medicinal herbs standards. In addition, IQI provides technical supports for the geoherbalism evaluation, selective breeding, the development of precision decoction pieces, high quality and favourable price in market circulation, and rational drug use.

Uncertainty result of biotic index in analysing the water quality of Cikapundung river catchment area, Bandung

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Surtikanti, Hertien Koosbandiah

2017-05-01

The Biotic Index was developed in Western Countries in response to the need in water quality evaluation. This method analysis is based on the classification of aquatic macrobenthos as a bioindicator for clean and polluted water. The aim of this study is to compare the analysis of Cikapundung river using 6 different Biotic Indexes. BI Shannon-Weiner, Belgian Biological Index (BBI), Family Biotic Index (FBI), Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP), Biological Monitoring Working Party-Average Score Per Taxon (BMWP-ASPT), and A Scoring System for Macroinvertebrate in Australian River (A SIGNAL). Those analysis are compared with Physical Water Index (CPI) which is developed in Indonesia. The result shows that a decreasing water quality is detected upstream to downstream of Cikapundung River. However, based on the CPI analysis result, the BMWP-ASPT biotic index analysis is more comprehensive than other BI in explaining Cikapundung water quality.

[Physical fingerprint for quality control of traditional Chinese medicine extract powders].

PubMed

Zhang, Yi; Xu, Bing; Sun, Fei; Wang, Xin; Zhang, Na; Shi, Xin-Yuan; Qiao, Yan-Jiang

2016-06-01

The physical properties of both raw materials and excipients are closely correlated with the quality of traditional Chinese medicine preparations in oral solid dosage forms. In this paper, based on the concept of the chemical fingerprint for quality control of traditional Chinese medicine products, the method of physical fingerprint for quality evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine extract powders was proposed. This novel physical fingerprint was built by the radar map, and consisted of five primary indexes (i.e. stackablity, homogeneity, flowability, compressibility and stability) and 12 secondary indexes (i.e. bulk density, tap density, particle size<50 μm percentage, relative homogeneity index, hausner ratio, angle of repose, powder flow time, inter-particle porosity, Carr index, cohesion index, loss on drying, hygroscopicity). Panax notoginseng saponins (PNS) extract was taken for an example. This paper introduced the application of physical fingerprint in the evaluation of source-to-source and batch-to-batch quality consistence of PNS extract powders. Moreover, the physical fingerprint of PNS was built by calculating the index of parameters, the index of parametric profile and the index of good compressibility, in order to successfully predict the compressibility of the PNS extract powder and relevant formulations containing PNS extract powder and conventional pharmaceutical excipients. The results demonstrated that the proposed method could not only provide new insights into the development and process control of traditional Chinese medicine solid dosage forms. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Heuristic Model Of The Composite Quality Index Of Environmental Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khabarov, A. N.; Knyaginin, A. A.; Bondarenko, D. V.; Shepet, I. P.; Korolkova, L. N.

2017-01-01

The goal of the paper is to present the heuristic model of the composite environmental quality index based on the integrated application of the elements of utility theory, multidimensional scaling, expert evaluation and decision-making. The composite index is synthesized in linear-quadratic form, it provides higher adequacy of the results of the assessment preferences of experts and decision-makers.

CUQI: cardiac ultrasound video quality index

PubMed Central

Razaak, Manzoor; Martini, Maria G.

2016-01-01

Abstract. Medical images and videos are now increasingly part of modern telecommunication applications, including telemedicinal applications, favored by advancements in video compression and communication technologies. Medical video quality evaluation is essential for modern applications since compression and transmission processes often compromise the video quality. Several state-of-the-art video quality metrics used for quality evaluation assess the perceptual quality of the video. For a medical video, assessing quality in terms of “diagnostic” value rather than “perceptual” quality is more important. We present a diagnostic-quality–oriented video quality metric for quality evaluation of cardiac ultrasound videos. Cardiac ultrasound videos are characterized by rapid repetitive cardiac motions and distinct structural information characteristics that are explored by the proposed metric. Cardiac ultrasound video quality index, the proposed metric, is a full reference metric and uses the motion and edge information of the cardiac ultrasound video to evaluate the video quality. The metric was evaluated for its performance in approximating the quality of cardiac ultrasound videos by testing its correlation with the subjective scores of medical experts. The results of our tests showed that the metric has high correlation with medical expert opinions and in several cases outperforms the state-of-the-art video quality metrics considered in our tests. PMID:27014715

Evaluation of Shiraz wastewater treatment plant effluent quality for agricultural irrigation by Canadian Water Quality Index (CWQI)

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Using treated wastewater in agriculture irrigation could be a realistic solution for the shortage of fresh water in Iran, however, it is associated with environmental and health threats; therefore, effluent quality assessment is quite necessary before use. The present study aimed to evaluate the physicochemical and microbial quality of Shiraz wastewater treatment plant effluent for being used in agricultural irrigation. In this study, 20 physicochemical and 3 microbial parameters were measured during warm (April to September) and cold months (October to march). Using the measured parameters and the Canadian Water Quality Index, the quality of the effluent was determined in both warm and cold seasons and in all the seasons together. Results The calculated index for the physicochemical parameters in the effluent was equal (87) in warm and cold months and it was obtained as 85 for the seasons all together. When the microbial parameters were used in order to calculate the index, it declined to 67 in warm and cold seasons and 64 in all the seasons together. Also, it was found that three physicochemical parameters (TDS, EC, and NO3) and three microbial parameters (Fecal coliform, Helminthes egg, and Total coliform) had the most contribution to the reduction of the index value. Conclusions The results showed that the physicochemical quality of Shiraz Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent was good for irrigation in the warm, cold, and total of the two kinds of seasons. However, by applying the microbial parameter, the index value declined dramatically and the quality of the effluent was marginal. PMID:23566673

Functional evaluations in the monitoring of the river ecosystem processes: the Adige River as a case stu.

PubMed

Braioni, M G; Salmoiraghi, G; Bracco, F; Villani, M; Braioni, A; Girelli, L

2002-03-12

A model of analysis and environmental evaluation was applied to 11 stretches of the Adige River, where an innovative procedure was carried out to interpret ecological results. Within each stretch, the most suitable methods were used to assess the quality and processes of flood plains, banks, water column, bed, and interstitial environment. Indices were applied to evaluate the wild state and ecological quality of the banks (wild state index, buffer strip index) and the landscape quality of wide areas of the fluvial corridor (environmental landscape index). The biotic components (i.e., macrozoobenthos, phytoplankton and zooplankton, interstitial hyporheic fauna, vegetation in the riparian areas) were analysed by both quantitative and functional methods (as productivity, litter--processing and colonisation). The results achieved were then translated into five classes of functional evaluation. These qualitative assessments have thus preserved a high level of precision and sensitivity in quantifying both the quality of the environmental conditions and the integrity of the ecosystem processes. Read together with urban planning data, they indicate what actions are needed to restore and rehabilitate the Adige River corridor.

Suitability Evaluation on River Bank Filtration of the Second Songhua River, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Lixue; Ye, Xueyan; Du, Xinqiang

2016-04-01

The Second Songhua River is the biggest river with the most economic value in Jilin Province, China. In recent years, with the rapid development of economy, water resources and water environment problem is getting prominent, including surface water pollution and over exploitation of groundwater resources, etc. By means of bank filtration, the Second Songhua River basin might realize the combined utilization of regional groundwater and surface water, and thus has important significance for the guarantee of water demand for industrial and agricultural production planning in the basin. The following steps were adopted to evaluate the suitability of bank filtration nearby the Scond Songhua River : Firstly, in order to focus on the most possible area, the evaluation area was divided based on the aspects of natural geographical conditions and hydraulic connection extent between river water and groundwater. Second, the main suitability indexes including water quantity, water quality, interaction intensity between surface water and groundwater, and the exploitation condition of groundwater resource, and nine sub-indexes including hydraulic conductivity, aquifer thickness, river runoff, the status of groundwater quality, the status of surface water quality, groundwater hydraulic gradient, possible influence zone width of surface water under the condition of groundwater exploitation, permeability of riverbed layer and groundwater depth were proposed to establish an evaluation index system for the suitability of river bank filtration. Thirdly, Combined with the natural geography, geology and hydrogeology conditions of the Second Songhua River basin, the ArcGIS technology is used to complete the evaluation of the various indicators. According to the weighted sum of each index, the suitability of river bank filtration in the study area is divided into five grades. The evaluation index system and evaluation method established in this article are applicable to the Second Songhua River basin, which have clear pertinence and limitation. For future generalization of the evaluation index system, the specific evaluation index and its scoring criteria should be modified appropriately based on local conditions.

Adaptability and stability of soybean cultivars for grain yield and seed quality.

PubMed

Silva, K B; Bruzi, A T; Zambiazzi, E V; Soares, I O; Pereira, J L A R; Carvalho, M L M

2017-05-10

This study aimed at verifying the adaptability and stability of soybean cultivars, considering the grain yield and quality of seeds, adopting univariate and multivariate approaches. The experiments were conducted in two crops, three environments, in 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 crop seasons, in the county of Inconfidentes, Lavras, and Patos de Minas, in the Minas Gerais State, Brazil. We evaluated 17 commercial soybean cultivars. For adaptability and stability evaluations, the Graphic and GGE biplot methods were employed. Previously, a selection index was estimated based on the sum of the standardized variables (Z index). The data relative to grain yield, mass of one thousand grain, uniformity test (sieve retention), and germination test were standardized (Z ij ) per cultivar. With the sum of Z ij , we obtained the selection index for the four traits evaluated together. In the Graphic method evaluation, cultivars NA 7200 RR and CD 2737 RR presented the highest values for selection index Z. By the GGE biplot method, we verified that cultivar NA 7200 RR presented greater stability in both univariate evaluations, for grain yield, and for selection index Z.

Research on Livable Community Evaluation Based on GIS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yin, Zhangcai; Wu, Yang; Jin, Zhanghaonan; Zhang, Xu

2018-01-01

Community is the basic unit of the city. Research on livable community could provide a bottom-up research path for the realization of livable city. Livability is the total factor affecting the quality of community life. In this paper, livable community evaluation indexes are evaluated based on GIS and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. Then the sum-index and sub-index of community livability are both calculated. And community livable evaluation index system is constructed based on the platform of GIS. This study provides theoretical support for the construction and management of livable communities, so as to guide the development and optimization of city.

Total quality index of ultrasound-treated blueberry and cranberry juices and nectars.

PubMed

Režek Jambrak, Anet; Šimunek, Marina; Djekic, Ilija

2018-01-01

The influence of ultrasound in combination with elevated temperature (thermosonication) is important in inactivation effects on microorganisms. However, overall quality of these products can be deteriorated. The aim of this study was to examine the use of a single quality index in evaluating effects of ultrasound technology on quality characteristics of blueberry and cranberry juices and nectars. For the purpose of this study based on 10 quality parameters, two mathematical models for calculating a single total quality index have been introduced. Samples were treated according to the experimental design, with high power ultrasound frequency of 20 kHz under various conditions (treatment time: 3, 6 and 9 min, sample temperature: 20 ℃, for thermosonication: 40 and 60 ℃ and amplitude: 60, 90 and 120 µm). Mathematical index of total quality index in order to evaluate total quality of ultrasound-treated juices and nectars was established. For cranberry juices, treatments '11' (amplitude 120 µm) and '16' (amplitude 60 µm) both for 9 min and the temperature of 20 ℃ were best scored for both models. Treatment '6' (amplitude 120 µm, 3 min treatment time and the sample temperature of 20 ℃) for cranberry nectars was among the best for both models. Ultrasound treatments '6' of amplitude 120 µm, 3 min and the temperature of 20 ℃ and '11' same amplitude 120 µm and temperature, but 9 min were best scored blueberry juices for both models. Blueberry nectar had best total quality index for treatments '5' (amplitude 120 µm, 6 min treatment time and the sample temperature of 40 ℃) and '6' (amplitude 120 µm, 3 min treatment time and the sample temperature of 20 ℃).

Video quality assessment method motivated by human visual perception

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Meiling; Jiang, Gangyi; Yu, Mei; Song, Yang; Peng, Zongju; Shao, Feng

2016-11-01

Research on video quality assessment (VQA) plays a crucial role in improving the efficiency of video coding and the performance of video processing. It is well acknowledged that the motion energy model generates motion energy responses in a middle temporal area by simulating the receptive field of neurons in V1 for the motion perception of the human visual system. Motivated by the biological evidence for the visual motion perception, a VQA method is proposed in this paper, which comprises the motion perception quality index and the spatial index. To be more specific, the motion energy model is applied to evaluate the temporal distortion severity of each frequency component generated from the difference of Gaussian filter bank, which produces the motion perception quality index, and the gradient similarity measure is used to evaluate the spatial distortion of the video sequence to get the spatial quality index. The experimental results of the LIVE, CSIQ, and IVP video databases demonstrate that the random forests regression technique trained by the generated quality indices is highly correspondent to human visual perception and has many significant improvements than comparable well-performing methods. The proposed method has higher consistency with subjective perception and higher generalization capability.

Performance of biotic indices in comparison to chemical-based Water Quality Index (WQI) in evaluating the water quality of urban river.

PubMed

Wan Abdul Ghani, Wan Mohd Hafezul; Abas Kutty, Ahmad; Mahazar, Mohd Akmal; Al-Shami, Salman Abdo; Ab Hamid, Suhaila

2018-04-19

In order to evaluate the water quality of one of the most polluted urban river in Malaysia, the Penchala River, performance of eight biotic indices, Biomonitoring Working Party (BMWP), BMWP Thai , BMWP Viet , Average Score Per Taxon (ASPT), ASPT Thai , BMWP Viet , Family Biotic Index (FBI), and Singapore Biotic Index (SingScore), was compared. The water quality categorization based on these biotic indices was then compared with the categorization of Malaysian Water Quality Index (WQI) derived from measurements of six water physicochemical parameters (pH, BOD, COD, NH 3 -N, DO, and TSS). The river was divided into four sections: upstream section (recreational area), middle stream 1 (residential area), middle stream 2 (commercial area), and downstream. Abundance and diversity of the macroinvertebrates were the highest in the upstream section (407 individual and H' = 1.56, respectively), followed by the middle stream 1 (356 individual and H' = 0.82). The least abundance was recorded in the downstream section (214 individual). Among all biotic indices, BMWP was the most reliable in evaluating the water quality of this urban river as their classifications were comparable to the WQI. BMWPs in this study have strong relationships with dissolved oxygen (DO) content. Our results demonstrated that the biotic indices were more sensitive towards organic pollution than the WQI. BMWP indices especially BMWP Viet were the most reliable and could be adopted along with the WQI for assessment of water quality in urban rivers.

[Grades evaluation of Scutellariae Radix slices based on quality constant].

PubMed

Deng, Zhe; Zhang, Jun; Jiao, Meng-Jiao; Zhong, Wen; Cui, Wen-Jin; Cheng, Jin-Tang; Chen, Sha; Wang, Yue-Sheng; Liu, An

2017-05-01

By measuring the morphological indexes and the marker components content of 22 batches of Scutellariae Radix slices as well as calculating the quality constant, this research was aimed to establish a new method of evaluating the specifications and grades of Scutellariae Radix slices. The quality constants of these samples were in the range of 0.04-0.49, which can be divided into several grades based on the real requirement. If they were divided into three grades, the quality constant was ≥0.39 for the first grade, <0.39 but ≥0.24 for the second grade, and <0.24 for the third grade. This work indicated that the quality constants characterizing both apparent parameters and intrinsic quality can be used as a comprehensive evaluation index to classify the grades of traditional Chinese medicine quantitatively, clearly and objectively. The research results in this paper would provide new ideas and references for evaluating the specifications and grades of traditional Chinese medicines. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Improvement of impact noise in a passenger car utilizing sound metric based on wavelet transform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Sang-Kwon; Kim, Ho-Wuk; Na, Eun-Woo

2010-08-01

A new sound metric for impact sound is developed based on the continuous wavelet transform (CWT), a useful tool for the analysis of non-stationary signals such as impact noise. Together with new metric, two other conventional sound metrics related to sound modulation and fluctuation are also considered. In all, three sound metrics are employed to develop impact sound quality indexes for several specific impact courses on the road. Impact sounds are evaluated subjectively by 25 jurors. The indexes are verified by comparing the correlation between the index output and results of a subjective evaluation based on a jury test. These indexes are successfully applied to an objective evaluation for improvement of the impact sound quality for cases where some parts of the suspension system of the test car are modified.

Water Quality Evaluation of PET Bottled Water by Mineral Balance in the Northeast Asian Region: A Case Study of South Korea

PubMed Central

Houri, Daisuke; Koo, Chung Mo

2015-01-01

Background The past few years have seen a demand for drinking water in contemporary society with a focus on safety and taste. Mineral water is now marketed as a popular commercial product and, partly due to health concerns, the production. Methods For the study, a comparison was carried out of water samples from 9 types of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottled water sold in South Korea as well as from tap water in the cities of Seoul and Chuncheon. These were compared with samples of Japanese PET bottled water in order to determine shared commonalities and identify individual characteristics. To evaluate water quality objectively, we quantified the elements contained in the water samples. Samples were assessed not with the usual sensory evaluation but with the evaluation approach advocated by Hashimoto et al. which employs the Water Index of Taste and the Water Index of Health. The levels of water quality obtained were compared with the “Prerequisites for Tasty Water” and the “Standards for Tasty Water” devised for city water. Results The PET Bottled water varieties analyzed in this study—Seoksu, Icis, Bong Pyong, Soon Soo 100, Dong Won Saem Mul, GI JANG SOO and DIAMOND—showed the Water Index of Taste ≥ 2.0 and the Water Index of Health ≥ 5.2, which we classified as tasty/healthy water. SamDaSoo and NamiNeral can be classified as tasty water due to their values of the Water Index of Taste ≥ 2.0 and the Water Index of Health < 5.2. Conclusion The South Korean PET bottled water studied here fulfills the “Water Index of Taste,” “Water Index of Health,” “Standard for Tasty Water” and “Prerequisites for Tasty Water” that Japanese people value for city water. We can conclude that bottled water which meets water quality requirements will be considered good-tasting by a majority of people. PMID:26538797

Water Quality Evaluation of PET Bottled Water by Mineral Balance in the Northeast Asian Region: A Case Study of South Korea.

PubMed

Houri, Daisuke; Koo, Chung Mo

2015-09-01

The past few years have seen a demand for drinking water in contemporary society with a focus on safety and taste. Mineral water is now marketed as a popular commercial product and, partly due to health concerns, the production. For the study, a comparison was carried out of water samples from 9 types of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottled water sold in South Korea as well as from tap water in the cities of Seoul and Chuncheon. These were compared with samples of Japanese PET bottled water in order to determine shared commonalities and identify individual characteristics. To evaluate water quality objectively, we quantified the elements contained in the water samples. Samples were assessed not with the usual sensory evaluation but with the evaluation approach advocated by Hashimoto et al. which employs the Water Index of Taste and the Water Index of Health. The levels of water quality obtained were compared with the "Prerequisites for Tasty Water" and the "Standards for Tasty Water" devised for city water. The PET Bottled water varieties analyzed in this study-Seoksu, Icis, Bong Pyong, Soon Soo 100, Dong Won Saem Mul, GI JANG SOO and DIAMOND-showed the Water Index of Taste ≥ 2.0 and the Water Index of Health ≥ 5.2, which we classified as tasty/healthy water. SamDaSoo and NamiNeral can be classified as tasty water due to their values of the Water Index of Taste ≥ 2.0 and the Water Index of Health < 5.2. The South Korean PET bottled water studied here fulfills the "Water Index of Taste," "Water Index of Health," "Standard for Tasty Water" and "Prerequisites for Tasty Water" that Japanese people value for city water. We can conclude that bottled water which meets water quality requirements will be considered good-tasting by a majority of people.

What do people eat when they don’t eat meat? An evaluation of dietary quality using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 2007-2012

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Objective: To compare diet quality scores between adult non-meat eaters and meat eaters, and to compare the consumption of diet components across quintiles of diet quality. Design: Cross-sectional analysis. Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) and Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 (AHEI-2010) we...

Flaw detection and evaluation

DOEpatents

Wilks, Robert S.; Sturges, Jr., Robert H.

1983-01-01

The invention provides a method of and apparatus for optically inspecting nuclear fuel pellets for surface flaws. The inspection system includes a prism and lens arrangement for scanning the surface of each pellet as the same is rotated. The resulting scan produces data indicative of the extent and shape of each flaw which is employed to generate a flaw quality index for each detected flaw. The flaw quality indexes from all flaws are summed and compared with an acceptable surface quality index. The result of the comparison is utilized to control the acceptance or rejection of the pellet.

Automatic MeSH term assignment and quality assessment.

PubMed Central

Kim, W.; Aronson, A. R.; Wilbur, W. J.

2001-01-01

For computational purposes documents or other objects are most often represented by a collection of individual attributes that may be strings or numbers. Such attributes are often called features and success in solving a given problem can depend critically on the nature of the features selected to represent documents. Feature selection has received considerable attention in the machine learning literature. In the area of document retrieval we refer to feature selection as indexing. Indexing has not traditionally been evaluated by the same methods used in machine learning feature selection. Here we show how indexing quality may be evaluated in a machine learning setting and apply this methodology to results of the Indexing Initiative at the National Library of Medicine. PMID:11825203

Evaluation of water quality and stability in the drinking water distribution network in the Azogues city, Ecuador.

PubMed

García-Ávila, Fernando; Ramos-Fernández, Lía; Pauta, Damián; Quezada, Diego

2018-06-01

This document presents the physical-chemical parameters with the objective of evaluating and analyzing the drinking water quality in the Azogues city applying the water quality index (WQI) and to research the water stability in the distribution network using corrosion indexes. Thirty samples were collected monthly for six months throughout the drinking water distribution network; turbidity, temperature, electric conductivity, pH, total dissolved solids, total hardness, calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, chlorides, nitrates, sulfates and phosphates were determined; the physical-chemical parameters were measured using standard methods. The processed data revealed that the average values ​​of LSI, RSI and PSI were 0.5 (±0.34), 6.76 (±0.6), 6.50 (±0.99) respectively. The WQI calculation indicated that 100% of the samples are considered excellent quality water. According to the Langelier, Ryznar and Pukorius indexes showed that drinking water in Azogues is corrosive. The quality of drinking water according to the WQI is in a good and excellent category.

Habitat-effectiveness index for elk on Blue Mountain Winter Ranges.

Treesearch

Jack Ward Thomas; Donavin A. Leckenby; Mark Henjum; Richard J. Pedersen; Larry D. Bryant

1988-01-01

An elk-habitat evaluation procedure for winter ranges in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon and Washington is described. The index is based on an interaction of size and spacing of cover and forage areas, roads open to traffic per unit of area, cover quality, and quantity and quality of forage.

Water quality evaluation of Al-Gharraf river by two water quality indices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ewaid, Salam Hussein

2017-11-01

Water quality of Al-Gharraf river, the largest branch of Tigris River south of Iraq, was evaluated by the National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index (NFS WQI) and the Heavy Metal Pollution Index (HPI) depending on 13 physical, chemical, and biological parameters of water quality measured monthly at ten stations on the river during 2015. The NSF-WQI range obtained for the sampling sites was 61-70 indicating a medium water quality. The HPI value was 98.6 slightly below the critical value for drinking water of 100, and the water quality in the upstream stations is better than downstream due to decrease in water and the accumulation of contaminants along the river. This study explains the significance of applying the water quality indices that show the aggregate impact of ecological factors in charge of water pollution of surface water and which permits translation of the monitoring data to assist the decision makers.

The Effect of Aromatherapy on Sleep Quality of Elderly People Residing in a Nursing Home.

PubMed

Faydalı, Saide; Çetinkaya, Funda

Sleep is important for health and quality of life in the elderly, and sleep disturbances are reported to be associated with many of the adverse medical conditions. This research was carried out to evaluate the effect of inhalation of lavender oil on sleep quality of nursing home residents. A questionnaire was used to evaluate sociodemographic characteristics and sleeping properties of the 30 volunteers, enrolled. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was applied as a pre- and posttest to measure sleep quality of individuals who inhaled lavender oil drops on the pillows every evening for a week before sleeping. Before and after aromatherapy, the mean Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score of the nursing home residents was (Equation is included in full-text article.)= 6.0 ± 5.1 and (Equation is included in full-text article.)= 2.6 ± 3.4, respectively, whereas statistically significant difference was not observed for independent variables. Cronbach α reliability coefficient of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scale was found to be 0.816. The results indicated an improvement of sleep quality of nursing home residents after the application of aromatherapy with lavender oil.

[Influence of human activities on groundwater environment based on coefficient variation method].

PubMed

Zhao, Wei; Lin, Jian; Wang, Shu-Fang; Liu, Ji-Lai; Chen, Zhong-Rong; Kou, Wen-Jie

2013-04-01

Groundwater system in the plain area of Beijing can be divided into six subsystems. Due to the different hydrogeological conditions of the subsystems, the degrees to which human activities affect the subsystems are also diverse. In order to evaluate the influence of human activities on each subsystem, the first and second aquifer with relatively poor water quality were chosen to be the evaluating positions, based on the data of groundwater sampled in September, 2011. With respect to human activities affect index such as total hardness, TDS, sulfate and ammonium, variation coefficient methods were used to calculate the weight of each index. Then scores were obtained for each index with national standard as reference, and superposition calculations were used to gain comprehensive scores, finally the groundwater quality conditions were evaluated. Contrast analyses were used to evaluate the incidence of human activities with groundwater subsystems as evaluation unit and water quality partitions as evaluation factors. The results indicate that the influence of human activities on the first aquifer is greater than that of the second aquifer, the Yongding river groundwater subsystems and the Chaobai river groundwater subsystems are affected more than other groundwater subsystems.

Habitat Suitability Index Models: Black-shouldered kite

USGS Publications Warehouse

Faanes, Craig A.; Howard, Rebecca J.

1987-01-01

A review and synthesis of existing information were used to develop a model for evaluating black-shouldered kite habitat quality. The model is scaled to produce an index between 0 (unsuitable habitat) to 1.0 (optimal habitat). Habitat suitability index models are designed for use with the Habitat Evaluation Procedures previously developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Guidelines for model application are provided.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Cultivated Land Irrigation Guarantee Capability with Remote Sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, C., Sr.; Huang, J.; Li, L.; Wang, H.; Zhu, D.

2015-12-01

Abstract: Cultivated Land Quality Grade monitoring and evaluation is an important way to improve the land production capability and ensure the country food safety. Irrigation guarantee capability is one of important aspects in the cultivated land quality monitoring and evaluation. In the current cultivated land quality monitoring processing based on field survey, the irrigation rate need much human resources investment in long investigation process. This study choses Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei as study region, taking the 1 km × 1 km grid size of cultivated land unit with a winter wheat-summer maize double cropping system as study object. A new irrigation capacity evaluation index based on the ratio of the annual irrigation requirement retrieved from MODIS data and the actual quantity of irrigation was proposed. With the years of monitoring results the irrigation guarantee capability of study area was evaluated comprehensively. The change trend of the irrigation guarantee capability index (IGCI) with the agricultural drought disaster area in rural statistical yearbook of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area was generally consistent. The average of IGCI value, the probability of irrigation-guaranteed year and the weighted average which controlled by the irrigation demand index were used and compared in this paper. The experiment results indicate that the classification result from the present method was close to that from irrigation probability in the gradation on agriculture land quality in 2012, with overlap of 73% similar units. The method of monitoring and evaluation of cultivated land IGCI proposed in this paper has a potential in cultivated land quality level monitoring and evaluation in China. Key words: remote sensing, evapotranspiration, MODIS cultivated land quality, irrigation guarantee capability Authors: Chao Zhang, Jianxi Huang, Li Li, Hongshuo Wang, Dehai Zhu China Agricultural University zhangchaobj@gmail.com

Development and evaluation of a quality score for abstracts

PubMed Central

Timmer, Antje; Sutherland, Lloyd R; Hilsden, Robert J

2003-01-01

Background The evaluation of abstracts for scientific meetings has been shown to suffer from poor inter observer reliability. A measure was developed to assess the formal quality of abstract submissions in a standardized way. Methods Item selection was based on scoring systems for full reports, taking into account published guidelines for structured abstracts. Interrater agreement was examined using a random sample of submissions to the American Gastroenterological Association, stratified for research type (n = 100, 1992–1995). For construct validity, the association of formal quality with acceptance for presentation was examined. A questionnaire to expert reviewers evaluated sensibility items, such as ease of use and comprehensiveness. Results The index comprised 19 items. The summary quality scores showed good interrater agreement (intra class coefficient 0.60 – 0.81). Good abstract quality was associated with abstract acceptance for presentation at the meeting. The instrument was found to be acceptable by expert reviewers. Conclusion A quality index was developed for the evaluation of scientific meeting abstracts which was shown to be reliable, valid and useful. PMID:12581457

Total quality index of Agaricus bisporus mushrooms packed in modified atmosphere.

PubMed

Djekic, Ilija; Vunduk, Jovana; Tomašević, Igor; Kozarski, Maja; Petrovic, Predrag; Niksic, Miomir; Pudja, Predrag; Klaus, Anita

2017-07-01

The aim of this study was to develop a total quality index and examine the effects of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) on the quality of Agaricus bisporus mushrooms stored for 22 days at 4 °C. Mushrooms were packaged under three MAPs: high nitrogen packaging (HNP), low carbon dioxide packaging (LCP) and low oxygen packaging (LOP). Passive MAP with air inside initially was used as the atmosphere treatment (AIR). This research revealed two phases in quality deterioration of A. bisporus mushrooms. During the first week, most of the quality parameters were not statistically different. Thereafter, odor intensities were stronger for all four types of packaging. Color difference and browning index values showed significantly lower color changes for AIR and LOP compared with HNP and LCP mushrooms. The best total quality index was calculated for LOP, followed by LCP and AIR. The findings of this study are useful with respect to examining two-component MAPs, separating the limiting factors (O 2 and CO 2 ) and evaluating quality deterioration effects and the total quality index of A. bisporus mushrooms. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

Measurement of Health Care Quality in Atopic Dermatitis - Development and Application of a Set of Quality Indicators.

PubMed

Steinke, S; Beikert, F C; Langenbruch, A; Fölster-Holst, R; Ring, J; Schmitt, J; Werfel, T; Hintzen, S; Franzke, N; Augustin, M

2018-05-15

Quality indicators are essential tools for the assessment of health care, in particular for guideline-based procedures. 1) Development of a set of indicators for the evaluation of process and outcomes quality in atopic dermatitis (AD) care. 2) Application of the indicators to a cross-sectional study and creation of a global process quality index. An expert committee consisting of 10 members of the German guideline group on atopic dermatitis condensed potential quality indicators to a final set of 5 outcomes quality and 12 process quality indicators using a Delphi panel. The outcomes quality and 7 resp. 8 process quality indicators were retrospectively applied to a nationwide study on 1,678 patients with atopic dermatitis (AtopicHealth). Each individual process quality indicator score was then summed up to a global index (ranges from 0 (no quality achieved) to 100 (full quality achieved)) displaying the quality of health care. In total, the global process quality index revealed a median value of 62.5 and did not or only slightly correlate to outcome indicators as the median SCORAD (SCORing Atopic Dermatitis; rp =0.08), Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI; rp = 0.256), and Patient Benefit Index (PBI; rp = -0.151). Process quality of AD care is moderate to good. The health care process quality index does not substantially correlate to the health status of AD patients measured by 5 different outcomes quality indicators. Further research should include the investigation of reliability, responsiveness, and feasibility of the proposed quality indicators for AD. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Novel bibliometric scores for evaluating research quality and output: a correlation study with established indexes.

PubMed

Scotti, Valeria; De Silvestri, Annalisa; Scudeller, Luigia; Abele, Paola; Topuz, Funda; Curti, Moreno

2016-12-23

Novel bibliometric indexes (commonly known as altmetrics) are gaining interest within the scientific community and might represent an important alternative measure of research quality and output. We evaluate how these new metrics correlate with established bibliometric indexes such as the impact factor (IF), currently used as a measure of scientific production as well as a criterion for scientific research funding, and how they might be helpful in assessing the impact of research. We calculated altmetrics scores for all the articles published at our institution during a single year and examined the correlation between altmetrics scores and IFs as a measure of research quality and impact in all departments. For all articles from the various departments published in a single year, the altmetrics score and the sum of all IFs showed a strong and significant correlation (Spearman's rho 0.88). The correlation was significant also when the major components of altmetrics, including Facebook, Twitter and Mendeley, were analyzed. The implementation of altmetrics has been found to be easy and effective at both the researcher and librarian levels. The novel bibliographic index altmetrics is consistent and reliable and can complement or be considered a valid alternative to standard bibliometric indexes to benchmark output and quality of research for academic and funding purposes.

TU-FG-201-10: Quality Management of Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI) Plans

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ji, H; Lorio, V; Cernica, G

2016-06-15

Purpose: Since 2008, over 700 patients received high dose rate (HDR) APBI treatment at Virginia Hospital Center. The complexity involved in the planning process demonstrated a broad variation between patient geometry across all applicators, in relation to anatomical regions of interest. A quality management program instituting various metrics was implemented in March 2013 with the goal of ensuring an optimal plan is achieved for each patient. Methods: For each plan, an in-house complexity index, geometric conformity index, and plan quality index were defined. These indices were obtained for all patients treated. For patients treated after the implementation, the conformity indexmore » and quality index were maximized while other dosimetric limits, such as maximum skin and rib doses, were strictly kept. Subsequently, all evaluation parameters and applicator information were placed in a database for cross-evaluation with similar complexity. Results: Both the conformity and quality indices show good correlation with the complexity index. They decrease as complexity increases for all applicators. Multi lumen type balloon applicators demonstrate a minimal advantage over single lumen applicators in increasingly complex patient geometries, as compared to SAVI applicators which showed considerably greater advantage in these circumstances. After the implementation of the in-house planning protocol, there is a direct improvement of quality for SAVI plans. Conclusion: Due to their interstitial nature, SAVI devices show a better conformity in comparison to balloon-based devices regardless of the number of lumens, especially in complex cases. The quality management program focuses on optimizing indices by utilizing prior planning knowledge based on complexity levels. The database of indices assists in decision making and has subsequently aided in balancing the experience level among planners. This approach has made APBI planning more robust for patient care, with a measurable improvement in the plan quality.« less

Physicochemical, nutritional and infrared spectroscopy evaluation of an optimized soybean/corn flour extrudate

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

A central composite design using RMS successfully described the effect of independent variables (feed moisture, die temperature and soybean proportion) on the specific parameters of product quality (expansion index, water absorption index, water solubility index and total color difference) studied. ...

Evaluation of dietary intake in Danish adults by means of an index based on food-based dietary guidelines.

PubMed

Knudsen, Vibeke K; Fagt, Sisse; Trolle, Ellen; Matthiessen, Jeppe; Groth, Margit V; Biltoft-Jensen, Anja; Sørensen, Mette R; Pedersen, Agnes N

2012-01-01

Data on dietary intake and physical activity has been collected from a representative sample of the Danish population from 2003-2008. The aim of the present study was to describe the habitual diet in Denmark and to evaluate the overall diet quality using a diet quality index based on the National Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG), which consists of seven guidelines regarding diet and one regarding physical activity. Data from the Danish National Survey of Diet and Physical Activity 2003-2008 (n=3354) were included. The diet quality index was constructed based on five of the seven dietary guidelines. Individuals were categorised according to quartiles of the diet quality index, and food and nutrient intakes were estimated in each of the groups. Macronutrient distribution did not meet recommendations in any of the groups, as energy from total fat and especially saturated fat was too high. A high intake of high-fat milk products, fat on bread and processed meat contributed to a high intake of total fat and saturated fat, and sugar-sweetened soft drinks contributed to a high intake of added sugars in the group below the lowest quartile of the diet quality index. Individuals above in the highest quartile had higher intakes of 'healthy foods' such as fish, fruit and vegetables, rye bread, and also a higher consumption of water and wine. Overall, intakes of micronutrients were sufficient in all groups. The diet quality index is a useful tool in assessing food and nutrient intake in individuals with high vs. low degree of compliance towards the dietary guidelines, and provides a valuable tool in future studies investigating variations in dietary intakes with respect to lifestyle, demographic and regional differences in Denmark.

Associations between Rice, Noodle, and Bread Intake and Sleep Quality in Japanese Men and Women

PubMed Central

Yoneyama, Satoko; Sakurai, Masaru; Nakamura, Koshi; Morikawa, Yuko; Miura, Katsuyuki; Nakashima, Motoko; Yoshita, Katsushi; Ishizaki, Masao; Kido, Teruhiko; Naruse, Yuchi; Nogawa, Kazuhiro; Suwazono, Yasushi; Sasaki, Satoshi; Nakagawa, Hideaki

2014-01-01

Background Previous studies have shown that a diet with a high-glycemic index is associated with good sleep quality. Therefore, we investigated the association of sleep quality with the intake of 3 common starchy foods with different glycemic indexes–rice, bread, and noodles–as well as the dietary glycemic index in a Japanese population. Methods The participants were 1,848 men and women between 20 and 60 years of age. Rice, bread, and noodle consumption was evaluated using a self-administered diet history questionnaire. Sleep quality was evaluated by using the Japanese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and a global score >5.5 was considered to indicate poor sleep. Results Multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for poor sleep across the quintiles of rice consumption were 1.00 (reference), 0.68 (0.49–0.93), 0.61 (0.43–0.85), 0.59 (0.42–0.85), and 0.54 (0.37–0.81) (p for trend = 0.015); those for the quintiles of noodle consumption were 1.00 (reference), 1.25 (0.90–1.74), 1.05 (0.75–1.47), 1.31 (0.94–1.82), and 1.82 (1.31–2.51) (p for trend = 0.002). Bread intake was not associated with sleep quality. A higher dietary glycemic index was significantly associated with a lower risk of poor sleep (p for trend = 0.020). Conclusion A high dietary glycemic index and high rice consumption are significantly associated with good sleep in Japanese men and women, whereas bread intake is not associated with sleep quality and noodle consumption is associated with poor sleep. The different associations of these starchy foods with sleep quality might be attributable to the different glycemic index of each food. PMID:25127476

Citation analysis of faculty publication: beyond Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index.

PubMed Central

Reed, K L

1995-01-01

When evaluated for promotion or tenure, faculty members are increasingly judged more on the quality than on the quantity of their scholarly publications. As a result, they want help from librarians in locating all citations to their published works for documentation in their curriculum vitae. Citation analysis using Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index provides a logical starting point in measuring quality, but the limitations of these sources leave a void in coverage of citations to an author's work. This article discusses alternative and additional methods of locating citations to published works. PMID:8547915

Citation analysis of faculty publication: beyond Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index.

PubMed

Reed, K L

1995-10-01

When evaluated for promotion or tenure, faculty members are increasingly judged more on the quality than on the quantity of their scholarly publications. As a result, they want help from librarians in locating all citations to their published works for documentation in their curriculum vitae. Citation analysis using Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index provides a logical starting point in measuring quality, but the limitations of these sources leave a void in coverage of citations to an author's work. This article discusses alternative and additional methods of locating citations to published works.

Review of Comprehensive Evaluation Methods for Power Quality and Its Trend in New Generation Energy System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Ruihua; Wang, Rong; Liu, Qunying; Yang, Li; Xi, Chuan; Wang, Wei; Li, Lingzhou; Zhao, Zhoufang; Zhou, Ying

2018-02-01

With China’s new energy generation grid connected capacity being in the forefront of the world and the uncertainty of new energy sources, such as wind energy and solar energy, it is be of great significance to study scientific and comprehensive assessment of power quality. On the foundation of analysizing the current power quality index systematically and objectively, the new energy grid power quality analysis method and comprehensive evaluation method, this paper tentatively explored the trend of the new generation of energy system power quality comprehensive evaluation.

Voice quality after endoscopic laser surgery and radiotherapy for early glottic cancer: objective measurements emphasizing the Voice Handicap Index

PubMed Central

Caminero Cueva, Maria Jesús; Señaris González, Blanca; Llorente Pendás, José Luis; Gorriz Gil, Carmen; López Llames, Aurora; Alonso Pantiga, Ramón; Suárez Nieto, Carlos

2007-01-01

We analyzed the functional outcome and self-evaluation of the voice of patients with T1 glottic carcinoma treated with endoscopic laser surgery and radiotherapy. We performed an objective voice evaluation, as well as a physical, emotional and functional well being assessment of 19 patients treated with laser surgery and 18 patients treated with radiotherapy. Voice quality is affected both by surgery and radiotherapy. Voice parameters only show differences in the maximum phonation time between both treatments. Results in the Voice Handicap Index show that radiotherapy has less effect on patient voice quality perception. There is a reduced impact on the patient’s perception of voice quality after radiotherapy, despite there being no significant differences in vocal quality between radiotherapy and laser cordectomy. PMID:17999074

Qualities of Sore Throat Index (QuaSTI): measuring descriptors of sore throat in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

PubMed

Schachtel, Bernard; Shephard, Adrian; Schachtel, Emily; Lorton, Mary Beth; Shea, Tim; Aspley, Sue

2018-03-01

Patients with pharyngitis often describe various sensory, affective and evaluative pain qualities. Using an 11-word/phrase index, the Qualities of Sore Throat Index (QuaSTI), we characterized throat symptoms and evaluated changes in a randomized controlled trial (NCT01986361). Patients received a single flurbiprofen 8.75 mg (n = 101) or placebo (n = 21) lozenge and rated throat soreness at baseline and regular intervals over 3 h, and the QuaSTI at baseline, 1, 2 and 3 h post-treatment. The QuaSTI distinguished active drug from placebo and detected clinically important (≥2-point) changes over 3 h. Mean change from baseline over 3 h was significantly greater for flurbiprofen (154%) than placebo (p < 0.05). The QuaSTI is a sensitive instrument for measuring therapeutic effects in patients with pharyngitis.

Objective quality assessment for multiexposure multifocus image fusion.

PubMed

Hassen, Rania; Wang, Zhou; Salama, Magdy M A

2015-09-01

There has been a growing interest in image fusion technologies, but how to objectively evaluate the quality of fused images has not been fully understood. Here, we propose a method for objective quality assessment of multiexposure multifocus image fusion based on the evaluation of three key factors of fused image quality: 1) contrast preservation; 2) sharpness; and 3) structure preservation. Subjective experiments are conducted to create an image fusion database, based on which, performance evaluation shows that the proposed fusion quality index correlates well with subjective scores, and gives a significant improvement over the existing fusion quality measures.

PQScal (Power Quality Score Calculation for Distribution Systems with DER Integration)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Power Quality is of great importance to evaluate the “health” of a distribution system, especially when the distributed energy resource (DER) penetration becomes more significant. The individual components that make up power quality, such as voltage magnitude and unbalance, can be measured in simulations or in the field, however, a comprehensive method to incorporate all of these values into a single score doesn't exist. As a result, we propose a methodology to quantify the power quality health using the single number value, named as Power Quality Score (PQS). The PQS is dependent on six metrics that are developed based onmore » both components that directly impact power quality and those are often reference in the context of power quality. These six metrics are named as System Average Voltage Magnitude Violation Index (SAVMVI), System Average Voltage Fluctuation Index (SAVFI), System Average Voltage Unbalance Index (SAVUI), System Control Device Operation Index (SCDOI), System Reactive Power Demand Index (SRPDI) and System Energy Loss Index (SELI). This software tool, PQScal, is developed based on this novel PQS methodology. Besides of traditional distribution systems, PQScal can also measure the power quality for distribution systems with various DER penetrations. PQScal has been tested on two utility distribution feeders with distinct model characteristics and its effectiveness has been proved. In sum, PQScal can help utilities or other parties to measure the power quality of distribution systems with DER integration easily and effectively.« less

Model of Auctioneer Estimation of Swordtip Squid (Loligo edulis) Quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nakamura, Makoto; Matsumoto, Keisuke; Morimoto, Eiji; Ezoe, Satoru; Maeda, Toshimichi; Hirano, Takayuki

The knowledge of experienced auctioneers regarding the circulation of marine products is an essential skill and is necessary for evaluating product quality and managing aspects such as freshness. In the present study, the ability of an auctioneer to quickly evaluate the freshness of swordtip squid (Loligo edulis) at fish markets was analyzed. Evaluation characteristics used by an auctioneer were analyzed and developed using a fuzzy logic model. Forty boxes containing 247 swordtip squid with mantles measuring 220 mm that had been evaluated and assigned to one of five quality categories by an auctioneer were used for the analysis and the modeling. The relationships between the evaluations of appearance, body color, and muscle freshness were statistically analyzed. It was found that a total of four indexes of the epidermis color strongly reflected evaluations of appearance: dispersion ratio of the head, chroma on the head-end mantle and the difference in the chroma and brightness of the mantle. The fuzzy logic model used these indexes for the antecedent-part of the linguistic rules. The results of both simulation and evaluations demonstrate that the model is robust, with the predicted results corresponding with more than 96% of the quality assignments of the auctioneers.

A pressure ulcer and fall rate quality composite index for acute care units: A measure development study.

PubMed

Boyle, Diane K; Jayawardhana, Ananda; Burman, Mary E; Dunton, Nancy E; Staggs, Vincent S; Bergquist-Beringer, Sandra; Gajewski, Byron J

2016-11-01

Composite indices are single measures that combine the strengths of two or more individual measures and provide broader, easy-to-use measures for evaluation of provider performance and comparisons across units and hospitals to support quality improvement. The study objective was to develop a unit-level inpatient composite nursing care quality performance index-the Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index. Two-phase measure development study. 5144 patient care units in 857 United States hospitals participating in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indictors ® during the year 2013. The Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index was developed in two phases. In Phase 1 the formula was generated using a utility function and generalized penalty analysis. Experts with experience in healthcare quality measurement provided the point of indicator equivalence. In Phase 2 initial validity evidence was gathered based on hypothesized relationships between the Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index and other variables using two-level (unit, hospital) hierarchical linear mixed modeling. The Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index=100-PUR-FR, where PUR is pressure ulcer rate and FR is total fall rate. Higher scores indicate better quality. Bland-Altman plots demonstrated agreement between pairs of experts and provided evidence for inter-rater reliability of the formula. The validation process demonstrated that higher registered nurse skill mix, higher percent of registered nurses with a baccalaureate in nursing or higher degree, higher percent of registered nurses with national specialty certification, and lower percent of hours supplied by agency staff were significantly associated with higher Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index scores. Higher percentages of unit patients at risk for a hospital-acquired pressure ulcer and higher unit rates of physical restraint use were not associated with higher Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index scores. The Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index is a step toward providing a more holistic perspective of unit level nursing quality than individual measures and may help nurses nursing administrators obtain a broader view of which patient care units are the higher and lower performers. Further study is needed to examine the usability of the Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A PRESSURE ULCER AND FALL RATE QUALITY COMPOSITE INDEX FOR ACUTE CARE UNITS: A MEASURE DEVELOPMENT STUDY

PubMed Central

Jayawardhana, Ananda; Burman, Mary E.; Dunton, Nancy E.; Staggs, Vincent S.; Bergquist-Beringer, Sandra; Gajewski, Byron J.

2016-01-01

Background Composite indices are single measures that combine the strengths of two or more individual measures and provide broader, easy-to-use measures for evaluation of provider performance and comparisons across units and hospitals to support quality improvement. Objective The study objective was to develop a unit-level inpatient composite nursing care quality performance index – the Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index. Design Two-phase measure development study. Settings 5,144 patient care units in 857 United States hospitals participating in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indictors® during the year 2013. Methods The Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index was developed in two phases. In Phase 1 the formula was generated using a utility function and generalized penalty analysis. Experts with experience in healthcare quality measurement provided the point of indicator equivalence. In Phase 2 initial validity evidence was gathered based on hypothesized relationships between the Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index and other variables using two-level (unit, hospital) hierarchical linear mixed modeling. Results The Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index = 100 − PUR − FR, where PUR is pressure ulcer rate and FR is total fall rate. Higher scores indicate better quality. Bland-Altman plots demonstrated agreement between pairs of experts and provided evidence for inter-rater reliability of the formula. The validation process demonstrated that higher registered nurse skill mix, higher percent of registered nurses with a baccalaureate in nursing or higher degree, higher percent of registered nurses with national specialty certification, and lower percent of hours supplied by agency staff were significantly associated with higher Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index scores. Higher percentages of unit patients at risk for a hospital-acquired pressure ulcer and higher unit rates of physical restraint use were not associated with higher Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index scores. Conclusions The Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index is a step toward providing a more holistic perspective of unit level nursing quality than individual measures and may help nurses nursing administrators obtain a broader view of which patient care units are the higher and lower performers. Further study is needed to examine the usability of the Pressure Ulcer and Fall Rate Quality Composite Index. PMID:27607602

[Study on artificial neural network combined with multispectral remote sensing imagery for forest site evaluation].

PubMed

Gong, Yin-Xi; He, Cheng; Yan, Fei; Feng, Zhong-Ke; Cao, Meng-Lei; Gao, Yuan; Miao, Jie; Zhao, Jin-Long

2013-10-01

Multispectral remote sensing data containing rich site information are not fully used by the classic site quality evaluation system, as it merely adopts artificial ground survey data. In order to establish a more effective site quality evaluation system, a neural network model which combined remote sensing spectra factors with site factors and site index relations was established and used to study the sublot site quality evaluation in the Wangyedian Forest Farm in Inner Mongolia Province, Chifeng City. Based on the improved back propagation artificial neural network (BPANN), this model combined multispectral remote sensing data with sublot survey data, and took larch as example, Through training data set sensitivity analysis weak or irrelevant factor was excluded, the size of neural network was simplified, and the efficiency of network training was improved. This optimal site index prediction model had an accuracy up to 95.36%, which was 9.83% higher than that of the neural network model based on classic sublot survey data, and this shows that using multi-spectral remote sensing and small class survey data to determine the status of larch index prediction model has the highest predictive accuracy. The results fully indicate the effectiveness and superiority of this method.

Looking at prescription quality in Ayurveda: Developing, validating and pilot testing a prescription quality index for Ayurveda.

PubMed

Rastogi, Sanjeev

2017-11-06

Prescription quality can be a direct predictor of the net outcome of a health care delivery effort. Quality of prescription may be considered as a cumulative matrix of multiple components of a prescription on the basis of their relative importance. Prescription quality index is a recognized tool in clinical medicine for multiple purposes including the prediction of health care intervention outcome. Considering the importance of prescription quality among every system of medicine, an attempt was made to design a prescription quality index for Ayurveda. The Prescription Quality Index for Ayurveda was designed through item selection following a thorough literature search and was validated through multiple peer group discussions. Final draft of index containing 38 individual items carrying different scores as per their importance in the prescription was subjected to a pilot test upon 1576 indoor prescriptions generated in 2015 at State Ayurvedic College Hospital, Lucknow. The study revealed large information gaps in the components of the prescription where it was supposed to be noted by the prescribers. These gaps in the Ayurvedic prescriptions were most significant in the areas pertaining to Ayurvedic fundamentals of clinical examination, disease diagnosis and Ayurvedic drug intake methods. Prescription Quality Index for Ayurveda was found useful in underlining the gaps between the ideal and generated prescriptions. This can be utilized as a useful tool to evaluate the quality of Ayurvedic prescriptions by seeing their adherence to the standard prescription template. Copyright © 2017 Transdisciplinary University, Bangalore and World Ayurveda Foundation. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Challenges for implementing water quality monitoring and analysis on a small Costa Rican catchment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Golcher, Christian; Cernesson, Flavie; Tournoud, Marie-George; Bonin, Muriel; Suarez, Andrea

2016-04-01

The Costa Rican water regulatory framework (WRF) (2007), expresses the national concern about the degradation of surface water quality observed in the country since several years. Given the urgency of preserving and restoring the surface water bodies, and facing the need of defining a monitoring tool to classify surface water pollution, the Costa-Rican WRF relies on two water quality indexes: the so-called "Dutch Index" (D.I) and the Biological Monitoring Working Party adapted to Costa Rica (BMWP'CR), allowing an "easy" physicochemical and biological appraisal of the water quality and the ecological integrity of water bodies. Herein, we intend to evaluate whether the compound of water quality indexes imposed by Costa Rican legislation, is suitable to assess rivers local and global anthropogenic pressure and environmental conditions. We monitor water quality for 7 points of Liberia River (northern pacific region - Costa Rica) from March 2013 to July 2015. Anthropogenic pressures are characterized by catchment land use and riparian conditions. Environmental conditions are built from rainfall daily series. Our results show (i) the difficulties to monitor new sites following the recent implementation of the WRF; (ii) the statistical characteristics of each index; and (iii) a modelling tentative of relationships between water quality indexes and explanatory factors (land-use, riparian characteristics and climate conditions).

Algorithms to qualify respiratory data collected during the transport of trauma patients.

PubMed

Chen, Liangyou; McKenna, Thomas; Reisner, Andrew; Reifman, Jaques

2006-09-01

We developed a quality indexing system to numerically qualify respiratory data collected by vital-sign monitors in order to support reliable post-hoc mining of respiratory data. Each monitor-provided (reference) respiratory rate (RR(R)) is evaluated, second-by-second, to quantify the reliability of the rate with a quality index (QI(R)). The quality index is calculated from: (1) a breath identification algorithm that identifies breaths of 'typical' sizes and recalculates the respiratory rate (RR(C)); (2) an evaluation of the respiratory waveform quality (QI(W)) by assessing waveform ambiguities as they impact the calculation of respiratory rates and (3) decision rules that assign a QI(R) based on RR(R), RR(C) and QI(W). RR(C), QI(W) and QI(R) were compared to rates and quality indices independently determined by human experts, with the human measures used as the 'gold standard', for 163 randomly chosen 15 s respiratory waveform samples from our database. The RR(C) more closely matches the rates determined by human evaluation of the waveforms than does the RR(R) (difference of 3.2 +/- 4.6 breaths min(-1) versus 14.3 +/- 19.3 breaths min(-1), mean +/- STD, p < 0.05). Higher QI(W) is found to be associated with smaller differences between calculated and human-evaluated rates (average differences of 1.7 and 8.1 breaths min(-1) for the best and worst QI(W), respectively). Establishment of QI(W) and QI(R), which ranges from 0 for the worst-quality data to 3 for the best, provides a succinct quantitative measure that allows for automatic and systematic selection of respiratory waveforms and rates based on their data quality.

Evaluation of quality indicators and disease damage in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus patients.

PubMed

Harris, Julia G; Maletta, Kristyn I; Kuhn, Evelyn M; Olson, Judyann C

2017-02-01

The aim of this study was to describe compliance with select quality indicators and assess organ-specific dysfunction in a childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus population by using a validated damage index and to evaluate associations between compliance with quality indicators and disease damage. A retrospective chart review was performed on patients diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus prior to age 18 followed at a single center in the USA from 1999 to 2012 (n = 75). Data regarding quality indicators and outcome variables, including the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index, were collected. The median disease duration was 3.8 years. The proportion of patients or patient-years in which care complied with the proposed quality measures was 94.4% for hydroxychloroquine use, 84.3% for vitamin D recommendation,75.8% for influenza vaccination (patient-years), 67.2% for meningococcal vaccination, 49.0% for ophthalmologic examination (patient-years), 31.7% for pneumococcal vaccination, and 28.6% for bone mineral density evaluation. Disease damage was present in 41.3% of patients at last follow-up, with an average damage index score of 0.81. Disease damage at last follow-up was associated with minority race/ethnicity (p = 0.008), bone mineral density evaluation (p = 0.035), and vitamin D recommendation (p = 0.018). Adherence to quality indicators in a childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus population is varied, and disease damage is prevalent. This study highlights the importance of quality improvement initiatives aimed at optimizing care delivery to reduce disease damage in pediatric lupus patients.

Current Quality-of-Life Tools Available for Use in Contact Dermatitis.

PubMed

Swietlik, Jacquelyn; Reeder, Margo

2016-01-01

Contact dermatitis is a common dermatologic condition that can cause significant impairment in patients' overall quality of life (QoL). This impact is separate and potentially more clinically relevant than one's disease "severity" in contact dermatitis and should be consistently addressed by dermatologists. Despite this, QoL tools specific to contact dermatitis are lacking, and there is little consistency in the literature regarding the tool used to evaluate clinical response to therapies. Measurements currently available to evaluate disease-related QoL in contact dermatitis fit into 1 of the following 3 general types: generic health-related QoL measures, dermatology-related QoL measures, or specific dermatologic disease-related QoL measures. This article reviews the strengths and weaknesses of existing QoL tools used in contact dermatitis including: Short Form Survey 36, Dermatology Life Quality Index, Skindex-29, Skindex-16, Dermatology-Specific Quality of Life, and Fragrance Quality of Life Index.

Development and Validation of an Index to Measure the Quality of Facility-Based Labor and Delivery Care Processes in Sub-Saharan Africa

PubMed Central

Tripathi, Vandana; Stanton, Cynthia; Strobino, Donna; Bartlett, Linda

2015-01-01

Background High quality care is crucial in ensuring that women and newborns receive interventions that may prevent and treat birth-related complications. As facility deliveries increase in developing countries, there are concerns about service quality. Observation is the gold standard for clinical quality assessment, but existing observation-based measures of obstetric quality of care are lengthy and difficult to administer. There is a lack of consensus on quality indicators for routine intrapartum and immediate postpartum care, including essential newborn care. This study identified key dimensions of the quality of the process of intrapartum and immediate postpartum care (QoPIIPC) in facility deliveries and developed a quality assessment measure representing these dimensions. Methods and Findings Global maternal and neonatal care experts identified key dimensions of QoPIIPC through a modified Delphi process. Experts also rated indicators of these dimensions from a comprehensive delivery observation checklist used in quality surveys in sub-Saharan African countries. Potential QoPIIPC indices were developed from combinations of highly-rated indicators. Face, content, and criterion validation of these indices was conducted using data from observations of 1,145 deliveries in Kenya, Madagascar, and Tanzania (including Zanzibar). A best-performing index was selected, composed of 20 indicators of intrapartum/immediate postpartum care, including essential newborn care. This index represented most dimensions of QoPIIPC and effectively discriminated between poorly and well-performed deliveries. Conclusions As facility deliveries increase and the global community pays greater attention to the role of care quality in achieving further maternal and newborn mortality reduction, the QoPIIPC index may be a valuable measure. This index complements and addresses gaps in currently used quality assessment tools. Further evaluation of index usability and reliability is needed. The availability of a streamlined, comprehensive, and validated index may enable ongoing and efficient observation-based assessment of care quality during labor and delivery in sub-Saharan Africa, facilitating targeted quality improvement. PMID:26107655

A study on reliability of power customer in distribution network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Liyuan; Ouyang, Sen; Chen, Danling; Ma, Shaohua; Wang, Xin

2017-05-01

The existing power supply reliability index system is oriented to power system without considering actual electricity availability in customer side. In addition, it is unable to reflect outage or customer’s equipment shutdown caused by instantaneous interruption and power quality problem. This paper thus makes a systematic study on reliability of power customer. By comparing with power supply reliability, reliability of power customer is defined and extracted its evaluation requirements. An indexes system, consisting of seven customer indexes and two contrast indexes, are designed to describe reliability of power customer from continuity and availability. In order to comprehensively and quantitatively evaluate reliability of power customer in distribution networks, reliability evaluation method is proposed based on improved entropy method and the punishment weighting principle. Practical application has proved that reliability index system and evaluation method for power customer is reasonable and effective.

[Index assessment of airborne VOCs pollution in automobile for transporting passengers].

PubMed

Chen, Xiao-Kai; Cheng, He-Ming; Luo, Hui-Long

2013-12-01

Car for transporting passenger is the most common means of transport and in-car airborne volatile organic compounds (VOCs) cause harm to health. In order to analyze the pollution levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, styrene and TVOC, index evaluation method was used according to the domestic and international standards of indoor and in-car air quality (IAQ). For Chinese GB/T 18883-2002 IAQ Standard, GB/T 17729-2009 Hygienic Standard for the Air Quality inside Long Distance Coach, GB/T 27630-2011 Guideline for Air Quality Assessment of Passenger Car, IAQ standard of South Korea, Norway, Japan and Germany, the heaviest pollution of VOCs in passenger car was TVOC, TVOC, benzene, benzene, TVOC, toluene and TVOC, respectively, the average pollution grade of automotive IAQ was median pollution, median pollution, clean, light pollution, median pollution, clean and heavy pollution, respectively. Index evaluation can effectively analyze vehicular interior air quality, and the result has a significant difference with different standards; German standard is the most stringent, while Chinese GB/T 18883-2002 standard is the relatively stringent and GB/T 27630-2011 is the most relaxed.

Interaction Between Orexin-A and Sleep Quality in Females in Extreme Weight Conditions.

PubMed

Sauchelli, Sarah; Jiménez-Murcia, Susana; Fernández-García, Jose C; Garrido-Sánchez, Lourdes; Tinahones, Francisco J; Casanueva, Felipe F; Baños, Rosa M; Botella, Cristina; Crujeiras, Ana B; de la Torre, Rafael; Fernández-Real, Jose M; Frühbeck, Gema; Granero, Roser; Ortega, Francisco J; Rodríguez, Amaia; Zipfel, Stephan; Giel, Katrin E; Menchón, Jose M; Fernández-Aranda, Fernando

2016-11-01

The current study examined the relationship between plasma orexin-A and sleep in obesity. Concentrations of orexin-A and sleep were evaluated in 26 obese, 40 morbid obese and 32 healthy-weight participants. The sleep monitor Actiwatch AW7 and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were used to evaluate sleep. The Symptom Checklist-90-Revised was administered to assess symptoms of psychopathology. A higher weight status was associated with elevated orexin-A levels (p = .050), greater depression, anxiety and somatization symptoms (all: p < .001), and impoverished self-reported sleep quality (p < .001). A quadratic trend was found in objective sleep time, being longest in the obese group (p = .031). Structural equation modelling showed plasma orexin-A to be related to poor total sleep quality, which in turn was associated with elevated body mass index. Our data confirm an interaction between elevated plasma orexin-A concentrations and poor sleep that contributes to fluctuations in body mass index. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Objective Quality Assessment for Color-to-Gray Image Conversion.

PubMed

Ma, Kede; Zhao, Tiesong; Zeng, Kai; Wang, Zhou

2015-12-01

Color-to-gray (C2G) image conversion is the process of transforming a color image into a grayscale one. Despite its wide usage in real-world applications, little work has been dedicated to compare the performance of C2G conversion algorithms. Subjective evaluation is reliable but is also inconvenient and time consuming. Here, we make one of the first attempts to develop an objective quality model that automatically predicts the perceived quality of C2G converted images. Inspired by the philosophy of the structural similarity index, we propose a C2G structural similarity (C2G-SSIM) index, which evaluates the luminance, contrast, and structure similarities between the reference color image and the C2G converted image. The three components are then combined depending on image type to yield an overall quality measure. Experimental results show that the proposed C2G-SSIM index has close agreement with subjective rankings and significantly outperforms existing objective quality metrics for C2G conversion. To explore the potentials of C2G-SSIM, we further demonstrate its use in two applications: 1) automatic parameter tuning for C2G conversion algorithms and 2) adaptive fusion of C2G converted images.

Comparative analysis of water quality and toxicity assessment methods for urban highway runoff.

PubMed

Chen, Rui-Hong; Li, Fei-Peng; Zhang, Hai-Ping; Jiang, Yue; Mao, Ling-Chen; Wu, Ling-Ling; Chen, Ling

2016-05-15

In this study, comparative analyses of highway runoff samples obtained from seventeen storm events have been conducted between the traditional water quality assessment method and biotoxicity tests, using zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos and luminous bacteria (Vibrio qinghaiensis. Q67) to provide useful information for ecotoxicity assessment of urban highway runoff. The study results showed that the Nemerow pollution index based on US EPA recommended Criteria Maximum Concentrations (CMC) (as traditional water quality assessment method) had no significant correlation with luminous bacteria acute toxicity test results, while significant correlation has been observed with two indicators of 72 hpf (hours post fertilization) hour hatching rate and 96 hpf abnormality rate from the toxicity test with zebrafish embryos. It is therefore concluded that the level of mixture toxicity of highway runoff could not be adequately measured by the Nemerow assessment method. Moreover, the key pollutants identified from the water quality assessment and from the biotoxicity evaluation were not consistent. For biotoxic effect evaluation of highway runoff, three indexes were found to be sensitive, i.e. 24 hpf lethality and 96 hpf abnormality of zebrafish embryos, as well as the inhibition rate for luminous bacteria Q67. It is therefore recommended that these indexes could be incorporated into the traditional Nemerow method to provide a more reasonable evaluation of the highway runoff quality and ecotoxicity. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development and application of a soil organic matter-based soil quality index in mineralized terrane of the Western US

Treesearch

S. W. Blecker; L. L. Stillings; M. C. Amacher; J. A. Ippolito; N. M. DeCrappeo

2012-01-01

Soil quality indices provide a means of distilling large amounts of data into a single metric that evaluates the soil's ability to carry out key ecosystem functions. Primarily developed in agroecosytems, then forested ecosystems, an index using the relation between soil organic matter and other key soil properties in more semi-arid systems of the Western US...

A clinical trial for evaluation of leech application in the management of Vicarcikā (Eczema)

PubMed Central

Shankar, K.M. Pratap; Rao, S. Dattatreya; Umar, Shaik Nafeez; Gopalakrishnaiah, V.

2014-01-01

Background: Skin diseases are among the most common health problems worldwide and are associated with a considerable burden. Eczema is such a skin ailment which cause psychological, social and financial burden on the patient and their families. Management of eczema with antibiotics, antihistamines, steroids etc., are available but even after their use relapses, recurrences and other complications are very common. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of leech application in the management of vicarcikā (Eczema) with standard clinical parameters viz. Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI) score, SCORing of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) Index and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). Materials and Methods: An open labeled clinical trial study without control group was conducted with 27 patients having the classical symptoms of vicarcikā (Eczema), selected as per the inclusion and exclusion criteria from outpatient department and inpatient department sections of Shalya Department, S.V. Ayurvedic Hospital, Tirupati. Minimum four sittings of leech application were carried out with 7 days interval. Pre- and post-treatment evaluation of the patient was done with Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI) score, SCORing of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) Index and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). Statistical Analysis: Analysis of the data was done with Student's paired t-test. Results: The total EASI score showed considerable reduction up to 54.45% (P < 0.01) and the SCORAD Index significantly reduced by 55% (P < 0.01). The life quality of the patient calculated by DLQI improved significantly by 62.36% (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Leech application gives significant relief for the symptoms of eczema. The life quality of the patient also improved significantly after leech therapy. No adverse reactions were reported during the entire course of study. PMID:25593404

Selection indices for quality evaluation in wheat breeding.

PubMed

Branlard, G; Pierre, J; Rousset, M

1992-06-01

From multilocation trials involving 125 cultivars of wheat of mainly French and European origin four tests - protein content, Pelshenke, modified Zeleny and the mixograph - were used to establish six selection indices. Three of these indices - IW1, IW2 and IW3 - were calculated in order to evaluate the genetic potentiality of the lines for dough strength as given by the Chopin alveograph. The indices IV1, IV2 and IV3 were established to evaluate loaf volume as measured by the French bread-making standard. A quality index IQ was calculated from the allelic effects of the high-molecular-weight (HMW) subunits of glutenin from 195 cultivars assessed by the Chopin alveograph and the Pelshenke test. Comparison of the relative efficiency of each of the six indices to the individual tests revealed the superiority of the indices over one or several technological parameters. The six selection indices and the quality index were compared using 30 very diverse F4 lines. Their ability to retain the good quality lines is discussed in particular.

SITEQUAL--A User's Guide: Computerized Site Evaluation for 14 Southern Hardwood Species

Treesearch

Constance A. Harrington; Bettina M. Casson

1986-01-01

An interactive computer program, SITEQUAL, has been developed from the widely-used Baker and Broadfoot field guides, which evaluate site quality for 14 southern hardwood tree species. The SITEQUAL program calculates site index for all species simultaneously and provides a breakdown of site index into the component contributions by each of the four major soil factors...

Empirical research in service engineering based on AHP and fuzzy methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Yanrui; Cao, Wenfu; Zhang, Lina

2015-12-01

Recent years, management consulting industry has been rapidly developing worldwide. Taking a big management consulting company as research object, this paper established an index system of service quality of consulting, based on customer satisfaction survey, evaluated service quality of the consulting company by AHP and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods.

Attachment and Self-Evaluation in Chinese Adolescents: Age and Gender Differences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Song, Hairong; Thompson, Ross A.; Ferrer, Emilio

2009-01-01

This study investigated age and gender differences in the quality of attachment to mothers, fathers, and peers, and the association of attachment with measures of self-evaluation in 584 Chinese adolescents in junior high, high school, and university. Their responses to the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment indexed attachment quality, and…

The effects of mindfulness and relaxation training for insomnia (MRTI) on postmenopausal women: a pilot study.

PubMed

Garcia, Marcelo C; Kozasa, Elisa H; Tufik, Sergio; Mello, Luiz Eugênio A M; Hachul, Helena

2018-05-21

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of mindfulness and relaxation training for insomnia on insomnia and quality of life in postmenopausal women. Thirty postmenopausal women aged 50 to 65 years, who were not using hormone therapy, and had a diagnosis of insomnia and an apnea-hypopnea index of less than 15, were randomly assigned to two groups: a mindfulness intervention group and a control group. They were assessed before the intervention, and 8 weeks after its completion using questionnaires assessing sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), insomnia (Insomnia Severity Index), quality of life in menopause (Menopause-Specific Quality of Life), menopausal symptoms (Kupperman Menopausal Index), and level of attention (Mindfulness Awareness Attention Scale). They were also assessed through ambulatory polysomnography. This is a pilot study and is limited by its small sample size. The results of the questionnaires showed significant differences in the group that received mindfulness training compared with the control group, namely, improvements in sleep quality, a reduction in the severity of insomnia, a better quality of life, improved attention levels, and a reduction in menopausal and vasomotor symptoms. Polysomnography results showed no differences between the groups. Eight weeks mindfulness meditation training improved sleep quality, quality of life, attention levels, and reduced vasomotor symptoms in postmenopausal women with insomnia.

Assessing clarity of message communication for mandated USEPA drinking water quality reports.

PubMed

Phetxumphou, Katherine; Roy, Siddhartha; Davy, Brenda M; Estabrooks, Paul A; You, Wen; Dietrich, Andrea M

2016-04-01

The United States Environmental Protection Agency mandates that community water systems (CWSs), or drinking water utilities, provide annual consumer confidence reports (CCRs) reporting on water quality, compliance with regulations, source water, and consumer education. While certain report formats are prescribed, there are no criteria ensuring that consumers understand messages in these reports. To assess clarity of message, trained raters evaluated a national sample of 30 CCRs using the Centers for Disease Control Clear Communication Index (Index) indices: (1) Main Message/Call to Action; (2) Language; (3) Information Design; (4) State of the Science; (5) Behavioral Recommendations; (6) Numbers; and (7) Risk. Communication materials are considered qualifying if they achieve a 90% Index score. Overall mean score across CCRs was 50 ± 14% and none scored 90% or higher. CCRs did not differ significantly by water system size. State of the Science (3 ± 15%) and Behavioral Recommendations (77 ± 36%) indices were the lowest and highest, respectively. Only 63% of CCRs explicitly stated if the water was safe to drink according to federal and state standards and regulations. None of the CCRs had passing Index scores, signaling that CWSs are not effectively communicating with their consumers; thus, the Index can serve as an evaluation tool for CCR effectiveness and a guide to improve water quality communications.

Developing and evaluating a target-background similarity metric for camouflage detection.

PubMed

Lin, Chiuhsiang Joe; Chang, Chi-Chan; Liu, Bor-Shong

2014-01-01

Measurement of camouflage performance is of fundamental importance for military stealth applications. The goal of camouflage assessment algorithms is to automatically assess the effect of camouflage in agreement with human detection responses. In a previous study, we found that the Universal Image Quality Index (UIQI) correlated well with the psychophysical measures, and it could be a potentially camouflage assessment tool. In this study, we want to quantify the camouflage similarity index and psychophysical results. We compare several image quality indexes for computational evaluation of camouflage effectiveness, and present the results of an extensive human visual experiment conducted to evaluate the performance of several camouflage assessment algorithms and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of these algorithms. The experimental data demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach, and the correlation coefficient result of the UIQI was higher than those of other methods. This approach was highly correlated with the human target-searching results. It also showed that this method is an objective and effective camouflage performance evaluation method because it considers the human visual system and image structure, which makes it consistent with the subjective evaluation results.

[Cross-cultural adaptation of the Quality of Life Index Spinal Cord Injury - Version III].

PubMed

Reis, Priscila Alencar Mendes; Carvalho, Zuila Maria de Figueiredo; Tirado Darder, Juan José; Oriá, Mônica Oliveira Batista; Studart, Rita Mônica Borges; Maniva, Samia Jardelle Costa de Freitas

2015-06-01

To translate and culturally adapt to Portuguese the Ferrans and Powers Quality of Life Index Spinal Cord Injury - Version III and characterize the sample in relation to sociodemographic and clinical aspects. A methodological study with view to cross-cultural adaptation, following the particular steps of this method: initial translation, translation synthesis, back-translation (translation back to the original language), review by a committee of judges and pretest of the final version. The pretest was carried out with 30 patients with spinal cord injury. An index of 74 items divided into two parts (satisfaction/importance) was obtained. The criteria of semantic equivalence were evaluated as very adequate translation, higher than 87%, and vocabulary and were grammar higher than 86%. Idiomatic equivalence was higher than 74%, experimental greater than 78% and conceptual was greater than 70%. After cross-cultural adaptation, the instrument proved semantic, idiomatic, experimental and conceptual adequacy, in addition to helping the evaluation of the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury.

Tadalafil once daily and extracorporeal shock wave therapy in the management of patients with Peyronie's disease and erectile dysfunction: results from a prospective randomized trial.

PubMed

Palmieri, A; Imbimbo, C; Creta, M; Verze, P; Fusco, F; Mirone, V

2012-04-01

Extracorporeal shock wave therapy improves erectile function in patients with Peyronie's disease. However, erectile dysfunction still persists in many cases. We aimed to investigate the effects of extracorporeal shock wave therapy plus tadalafil 5 mg once daily in the management of patients with Peyronie's disease and erectile dysfunction not previously treated. One hundred patients were enrolled in a prospective, randomized, controlled study. Patients were randomly allocated to receive either extracorporeal shock wave therapy alone for 4 weeks (n = 50) or extracorporeal shock wave therapy plus tadalafil 5 mg once daily for 4 weeks (n = 50). Main outcome measures were: erectile function (evaluated through the shortened version of the International Index of Erectile Function), pain during erection (evaluated through a Visual Analog Scale), plaque size, penile curvature and quality of life (evaluated through an internal questionnaire). Follow-up evaluations were performed after 12 and 24 weeks. In both groups, at 12 weeks follow-up, mean Visual Analog Scale score, mean International Index of Erectile Function score and mean quality of life score ameliorated significantly while mean plaque size and mean curvature degree were unchanged. Intergroup analysis revealed a significantly higher mean International Index of Erectile Function score and quality of life score in patients receiving the combination. After 24 weeks, intergroup analysis revealed a significantly higher mean International Index of Erectile Function score and mean quality of life score in patients that received extracorporeal shock wave therapy plus tadalafil. In conclusion extracorporeal shock wave therapy plus tadalafil 5 mg once daily may represent a valid conservative strategy for the management of patients with Peyronie's disease and erectile dysfunction. © 2011 The Authors. International Journal of Andrology © 2011 European Academy of Andrology.

Redundancies in "H" Index Variants and the Proposal of the Number of Top-Cited Papers as an Attractive Indicator

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bornmann, Lutz

2012-01-01

Ruscio, Seaman, D'Oriano, Stremlo, and Mahalchik (this issue) evaluate 22 bibliometric indicators, including conventional measures, like the number of publications, the "h" index, and many "h" index variants. To assess the quality of the indicators, their well-justified criteria encompass conceptual, empirical, and practical…

The Healthy Beverage Index Is Associated with Reduced Cardiometabolic Risk in US Adults: A Preliminary Analysis.

PubMed

Duffey, Kiyah J; Davy, Brenda M

2015-10-01

Beverage recommendations exist, but few evaluate overall beverage intake quality. Our objective was to develop a scoring algorithm for assessing beverage intake quality among US adults (aged ≥19 years), and to examine the association between overall beverage quality and cardiometabolic risk. We developed a scoring algorithm, similar to the Healthy Eating Index-2010, using recommendations for total beverage energy, meeting fluid requirements, and consuming within recommended limits for beverage subgroups (eg, low-fat milk, fruit juice). Multiple scoring systems were evaluated. The final scoring system, which consisted of 10 components, was applied to the average of 2 days of 24-hour dietary intake data for adults (aged ≥19 years) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 2005-2010. Poisson regression models stratified by sex and body mass index multivariables were used to examine the cross-sectional association between the Healthy Beverage Index (HBI) score and cardiometabolic outcomes. The 10-item index had a mean±standard deviation score of 63±16 from a possible 100 points. Each 10-point higher HBI score was associated with lower odds ratios for hypertension (men and women); high fasting insulin level, high fasting glucose level, and high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (women and overweight/obese men), low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (women), and high C-reactive protein level (men). We found positive associations between higher HBI scores and more favorable lipid profiles; hypertension risk; and, among men, C-reactive protein levels. These preliminary results suggest that the HBI could be a valuable tool to evaluate overall beverage intake quality in adults. More research is needed to understand whether improvements in beverage quality and, thus, HBI score, are associated with beneficial changes in health. Copyright © 2015 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessment and Evaluation of Quality of Life (OHRQoL) of Patients with Dental Implants Using the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) - A Clinical Study.

PubMed

Alzarea, Bader K

2016-04-01

Peri-implant tissue health is a requisite for success of dental implant therapy. Plaque accumulation leads to initiation of gingivitis around natural teeth and peri-implantitis around dental implants. Peri-implantitis around dental implants may result in implant placement failure. For obtaining long-term success, timely assessment of dental implant site is mandatory. To assess and evaluate Quality of Life (OHRQoL) of individuals with dental implants using the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14). Total 92 patients were evaluated for assessment of the health of peri-implant tissues by recording, Plaque Index (PI), Probing Pocket Depth (PD), Bleeding On Probing (BOP) and Probing Attachment Level (PAL) as compared to contra-lateral natural teeth (control). In the same patients Quality of Life Assessment was done by utilizing Oral Health Impact Profile Index (OHIP-14). The mean plaque index around natural teeth was more compared to implants and it was statistically significant. Other three dimensions mean bleeding on probing; mean probing attachment level and mean pocket depth around both natural teeth and implant surfaces was found to be not statistically significant. OHIP-14 revealed that patients with dental implants were satisfied with their Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL). Similar inflammatory conditions are present around both natural teeth and implant prostheses as suggested by results of mean plaque index, mean bleeding on probing, mean pocket depth and mean probing attachment level, hence reinforcing the periodontal health maintenance both prior to and after incorporation of dental implants. Influence of implant prostheses on patient's oral health related quality of life (as depicted by OHIP-14) and patients' perceptions and expectations may guide the clinician in providing the best implant services.

IMPACT OF ATOPIC DERMATITIS ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF PEDIATRIC PATIENTS AND THEIR GUARDIANS

PubMed Central

Campos, Amanda Letícia Bezerra; de Araújo, Filipe Moreira; dos Santos, Maria Amélia Lopes; dos Santos, Alex de Assis Santos; Pires, Carla Andréa Avelar

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the impact of atopic dermatitis on the quality of life of pediatric patients in the age group of 5-16 years, and their parents, assisted at the Dermatology Department of Universidade do Estado do Pará in 2015. Methods: A cross-sectional study including 51 patients and their guardians, to whom two questionnaires about the quality of life were applied, the Children’s Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI) and the Dermatitis Family Impact (DFI). To evaluate the severity of the disease, the researchers applied the Severity Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) index. The Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC) evaluated the correlation between CDLQI, DFI, SCORAD, and the contingency coefficient C evaluated the association between the qualitative variables, considering p<0.05 significant. Results: Of the patients, 55% were female. The average age was 9.5±3.2 years, and 41% had family income up ≤1 minimum wage. The average score was 5.4±5.1 for CDLQI, 6.6±4.5 for DFI, and 28.3±19.8 for SCORAD. The correlation among the scores CDLQI, DFI, and SCORAD was significant by the PPMCC (p<0,001). Conclusions: Atopic dermatitis affects the quality of life of both children and their guardians, and indicates the importance of including the study of quality of life as a complement to clinical evaluation. PMID:28977306

Imaging the Parasinus Region with a Third-Generation Dual-Source CT and the Effect of Tin Filtration on Image Quality and Radiation Dose.

PubMed

Lell, M M; May, M S; Brand, M; Eller, A; Buder, T; Hofmann, E; Uder, M; Wuest, W

2015-07-01

CT is the imaging technique of choice in the evaluation of midface trauma or inflammatory disease. We performed a systematic evaluation of scan protocols to optimize image quality and radiation exposure on third-generation dual-source CT. CT protocols with different tube voltage (70-150 kV), current (25-300 reference mAs), prefiltration, pitch value, and rotation time were systematically evaluated. All images were reconstructed with iterative reconstruction (Advanced Modeled Iterative Reconstruction, level 2). To individually compare results with otherwise identical factors, we obtained all scans on a frozen human head. Conebeam CT was performed for image quality and dose comparison with multidetector row CT. Delineation of important anatomic structures and incidental pathologic conditions in the cadaver head was evaluated. One hundred kilovolts with tin prefiltration demonstrated the best compromise between dose and image quality. The most dose-effective combination for trauma imaging was Sn100 kV/250 mAs (volume CT dose index, 2.02 mGy), and for preoperative sinus surgery planning, Sn100 kV/150 mAs (volume CT dose index, 1.22 mGy). "Sn" indicates an additional prefiltration of the x-ray beam with a tin filter to constrict the energy spectrum. Exclusion of sinonasal disease was possible with even a lower dose by using Sn100 kV/25 mAs (volume CT dose index, 0.2 mGy). High image quality at very low dose levels can be achieved by using a Sn100-kV protocol with iterative reconstruction. The effective dose is comparable with that of conventional radiography, and the high image quality at even lower radiation exposure favors multidetector row CT over conebeam CT. © 2015 by American Journal of Neuroradiology.

First steps in developing a multimetric macroinvertebrate index for the Ohio River

USGS Publications Warehouse

Applegate, J.M.; Baumann, P.C.; Emery, E.B.; Wooten, M.S.

2007-01-01

The causes of degradation of aquatic systems are often complex and stem from a variety of human influences. Comprehensive, multimetric biological indices have been developed to quantify this degradation and its effect on aquatic communities, and measure subsequent recovery from anthropogenic stressors. Traditionally, such indices have concentrated on small-to medium-sized streams. Recently, however, the Ohio River Fish Index (ORFIn) was created to assess biotic integrity in the Ohio River. The goal of the present project was to begin developing a companion Ohio River multimetric index using benthic macroinvertebrates. Hester-Dendy multiplate samplers were used to evaluate benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in relation to a gradient of water quality disturbance, represented by varying distances downstream of industrial and municipal wastewater outfalls in the Ohio River. In August 1999 and 2000, samplers were set every 100 m downstream of outfalls (12 outfalls in 1999, 22 in 2000) for 300-1000 m, as well as at upstream reference sites. Candidate metrics (n = 55) were examined to determine which have potential to detect changes in water quality downstream of outfalls. These individual measures of community structure were plotted against distance downstream of each outfall to determine their response to water quality disturbance. Values at reference and outfall sites were also compared. Metrics that are ecologically relevant and showed a response to outfall disturbance were identified as potentially valuable in a multimetric index. Multiple box plots of index scores indicated greater response to outfall disturbance during periods of low-flow, and longitudinal river-wide trends. Evaluation of other types of anthropogenic disturbance, as well as continued analysis of the effects of chemical water quality on macroinvertebrate communities in future years will facilitate further development of a multimetric benthic macroinvertebrate index to evaluate biotic integrity in the Ohio River. Copyright ?? 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Use of a quality trait index to increase the reliability of phenotypic evaluations in broccoli

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Selection of superior broccoli hybrids involves multiple considerations, including optimization of head quality traits. Quality assessment of broccoli heads is often confounded by relatively subjective human preferences for optimal appearance of heads. To assist the selection process, we assessed fi...

[Research progress on identification and quality evaluation of glues medicines].

PubMed

Li, Hui-Hu; Ren, Gang; Chen, Li-Min; Zhong, Guo-Yue

2018-01-01

Glues medicines is a special kind of traditional Chinese medicine.As the market demand is large, the raw materials are in short supply and lacks proper quality evaluation technology, which causes inconsistent quality of products on the market. Its authentic identification and evaluation stay a problem to be solved. In this paper, the research progress of the methods and techniques of the evaluation of the identification and quality of glues medicines were reviewed. The researches of medicinal glue type identification and quality evaluation mainly concentrated in four aspects of medicinal materials of physical and chemical properties, trace elements, organic chemicals and biological genetic methods and techniques. The methods of physicochemical properties include thermal analysis, gel electrophoresis, isoelectric focusing electrophoresis, infrared spectroscopy, gel exclusion chromatography, and circular dichroism. The methods including atomic absorption spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, plasma emission spectrometry and visible spectrophotometry were used for the study of the trace elements of glues medicines. The organic chemical composition was studied by methods of composition of amino acids, content detection, odor detection, lipid soluble component, organic acid detection. Methods based on the characteristics of biogenetics include DNA, polypeptide and amino acid sequence difference analysis. Overall, because of relative components similarity of the glues medicines (such as amino acids, proteins and peptides), its authenticity and quality evaluation index is difficult to judge objectively, all sorts of identification evaluation methods have different characteristics, but also their limitations. It indicates that further study should focus on identification of evaluation index and various technology integrated application combining with the characteristics of the production process. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Fast mapping algorithm of lighting spectrum and GPS coordinates for a large area

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Chih-Wei; Hsu, Ke-Fang; Hwang, Jung-Min

2016-09-01

In this study, we propose a fast rebuild technology for evaluating light quality in large areas. Outdoor light quality, which is measured by illuminance uniformity and the color rendering index, is difficult to conform after improvement. We develop an algorithm for a lighting quality mapping system and coordinates using a micro spectrometer and GPS tracker integrated with a quadcopter or unmanned aerial vehicle. After cruising at a constant altitude, lighting quality data is transmitted and immediately mapped to evaluate the light quality in a large area.

Selection of an evaluation index for water ecological civilizations of water-shortage cities based on the grey rough set

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, X. Y.; Zhu, J. W.; Xie, J. C.; Liu, J. L.; Jiang, R. G.

2017-08-01

According to the characteristics and existing problems of water ecological civilization of water-shortage cities, the evaluation index system of water ecological civilization was established using a grey rough set. From six aspects of water resources, water security, water environment, water ecology, water culture and water management, this study established the prime frame of the evaluation system, including 28 items, and used rough set theory to undertake optimal selection of the index system. Grey correlation theory then was used for weightings in order that the integrated evaluation index system for water ecology civilization of water-shortage cities could be constituted. Xi’an City was taken as an example, for which the results showed that 20 evaluation indexes could be obtained after optimal selection of the preliminary framework of evaluation index. The most influential indices were the water-resource category index and water environment category index. The leakage rate of the public water supply pipe network, as well as the disposal, treatment and usage rate of polluted water, urban water surface area ratio, the water quality of the main rivers, and so on also are important. It was demonstrated that the evaluation index could provide an objectively reflection of regional features and key points for the development of water ecology civilization for cities with scarce water resources. It is considered that the application example has universal applicability.

Using Reliability and Item Analysis to Evaluate a Teacher-Developed Test in Educational Measurement and Evaluation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quaigrain, Kennedy; Arhin, Ato Kwamina

2017-01-01

Item analysis is essential in improving items which will be used again in later tests; it can also be used to eliminate misleading items in a test. The study focused on item and test quality and explored the relationship between difficulty index (p-value) and discrimination index (DI) with distractor efficiency (DE). The study was conducted among…

Evaluation of water quality index for River Sabarmati, Gujarat, India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shah, Kosha A.; Joshi, Geeta S.

2017-06-01

An attempt has been made to develop water quality index (WQI), using six water quality parameters pH, dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand, electrical conductivity, nitrate nitrogen and total coliform measured at three different stations along the Sabarmati river basin from the year 2005 to 2008. Rating scale is developed based on the tolerance limits of inland waters and health point of view. Weighted arithmetic water quality index method was used to find WQI along the stretch of the river basin. It was observed from this study that the impact of human activity and sewage disposal in the river was severe on most of the parameters. The station located in highly urban area showed the worst water quality followed by the station located in moderately urban area and lastly station located in a moderately rural area. It was observed that the main cause of deterioration in water quality was due to the high anthropogenic activities, illegal discharge of sewage and industrial effluent, lack of proper sanitation, unprotected river sites and urban runoff.

Index admission laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute cholecystitis restores Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index (GIQLI) score.

PubMed

Yu, Hongyan; Chan, Esther Ern-Hwei; Lingam, Pravin; Lee, Jingwen; Woon, Winston Wei Liang; Low, Jee Keem; Shelat, Vishal G

2018-02-01

Previous studies have evaluated quality of life (QoL) in patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) for cholelithiasis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate QoL after index admission LC in patients diagnosed with acute cholecystitis (AC) using the Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index (GIQLI) questionnaire. Patients ≥21 years admitted to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore for AC and who underwent index admission LC between February 2015 and January 2016 were evaluated using the GIQLI questionnaire preoperatively and 30 days postoperatively. A total of 51 patients (26 males, 25 females) with a mean age of 60 years (24-86 years) were included. Median duration of abdominal pain at presentation was 2 days (1-21 days). 45% of patients had existing comorbidities, with diabetes mellitus being most common (33%). 31% were classified as mild AC, 59% as moderate and 10% as severe AC according to Tokyo Guideline 2013 (TG13) criteria. Post-operative complications were observed in 8 patients, including retained common bile duct stone (n=1), wound infection (n=2), bile leakage (n=2), intra-abdominal collection (n=1) and atrial fibrillation (n=2). 86% patients were well at 30 days follow-up and were discharged. A significant improvement in GIQLI score was observed postoperatively, with mean total GIQLI score increasing from 106.0±16.9 (101.7-112.1) to 120.4±18.0 (114.8-125.9) ( p <0.001). Significant improvements were also observed in GIQLI subgroups of gastrointestinal symptoms, physical status, emotional status and social function status. Index admission LC restores QoL in patients with AC as measured by GIQLI questionnaire.

Empirical studies assessing the quality of health information for consumers on the world wide web: a systematic review.

PubMed

Eysenbach, Gunther; Powell, John; Kuss, Oliver; Sa, Eun-Ryoung

The quality of consumer health information on the World Wide Web is an important issue for medicine, but to date no systematic and comprehensive synthesis of the methods and evidence has been performed. To establish a methodological framework on how quality on the Web is evaluated in practice, to determine the heterogeneity of the results and conclusions, and to compare the methodological rigor of these studies, to determine to what extent the conclusions depend on the methodology used, and to suggest future directions for research. We searched MEDLINE and PREMEDLINE (1966 through September 2001), Science Citation Index (1997 through September 2001), Social Sciences Citation Index (1997 through September 2001), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (1997 through September 2001), LISA (1969 through July 2001), CINAHL (1982 through July 2001), PsychINFO (1988 through September 2001), EMBASE (1988 through June 2001), and SIGLE (1980 through June 2001). We also conducted hand searches, general Internet searches, and a personal bibliographic database search. We included published and unpublished empirical studies in any language in which investigators searched the Web systematically for specific health information, evaluated the quality of Web sites or pages, and reported quantitative results. We screened 7830 citations and retrieved 170 potentially eligible full articles. A total of 79 distinct studies met the inclusion criteria, evaluating 5941 health Web sites and 1329 Web pages, and reporting 408 evaluation results for 86 different quality criteria. Two reviewers independently extracted study characteristics, medical domains, search strategies used, methods and criteria of quality assessment, results (percentage of sites or pages rated as inadequate pertaining to a quality criterion), and quality and rigor of study methods and reporting. Most frequently used quality criteria used include accuracy, completeness, readability, design, disclosures, and references provided. Fifty-five studies (70%) concluded that quality is a problem on the Web, 17 (22%) remained neutral, and 7 studies (9%) came to a positive conclusion. Positive studies scored significantly lower in search (P =.02) and evaluation (P =.04) methods. Due to differences in study methods and rigor, quality criteria, study population, and topic chosen, study results and conclusions on health-related Web sites vary widely. Operational definitions of quality criteria are needed.

Development and preliminary validation of an index for indicating the risks of the design of working hours to health and wellbeing.

PubMed

Schomann, Carsten; Giebel, Ole; Nachreiner, Friedhelm

2006-01-01

BASS 4, a computer program for the design and evaluation of workings hours, is an example of an ergonomics-based software tool that can be used by safety practitioners at the shop floor with regard to legal, ergonomic, and economic criteria. Based on experiences with this computer program, a less sophisticated Working-Hours-Risk Index for assessing the quality of work schedules (including flexible work hours) to indicate risks to health and wellbeing has been developed to provide a quick and easy applicable tool for legally required risk assessments. The results of a validation study show that this risk index seems to be a promising indicator for predicting risks of health complaints and wellbeing. The purpose of the Risk Index is to simplify the evaluation process at the shop floor and provide some more general information about the quality of a work schedule that can be used for triggering preventive interventions. Such a risk index complies with practitioners' expectations and requests for easy, useful, and valid instruments.

Quality of life in people with Parkinson's disease: the relevance of social relationships and communication.

PubMed

Takahashi, Kayoko; Kamide, Naoto; Suzuki, Makoto; Fukuda, Michinari

2016-01-01

[Purpose] Maintaining high quality of life is crucial for the rehabilitation of patients with Parkinson's disease. The quality of life scales currently in use do not assess all quality of life domains or their importance for each individual. Therefore, a new quality of life measure, the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life-Direct Weighting, was used to investigate quality of life in people with Parkinson's disease. [Subjects and Methods] Fifteen people with idiopathic Parkinson's disaese (average age = 80.0 years, standard deviation = 10.3 years, Hoehn & Yahr stages 1-4) were interviewed using the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life-Direct Weighting. Its quality of life constructs were tested by comparing them against disease-specific quality of life (39-items Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire), motor functioning (Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III), and activities of daily living (Barthel Index). [Results] Social connections such as "family" and "friends" were revealed as important constructs of life satisfaction. The Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life-Direct Weighting was not significantly correlated with the 39-items Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III, or Barthel Index but was significantly correlated with the "communication" dimension of the 39-items Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire. [Conclusion] The Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life-Direct Weighting detected various domains of quality of life, especially social relationships with family and friends. "Being heard" was also revealed as an essential component of life satisfaction, as it provides patients with a feeling of acceptance and assurance, possibly resulting in better quality of life.

Measuring Teachers and Learners' Perceptions of the Quality of Their Online Learning Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gómez-Rey, Pilar; Barbera, Elena; Fernández-Navarro, Francisco

2016-01-01

This article explores the quality of the online learning experience based on the Sloan-C framework and the Online Learning Consortium's (OLC) quality scorecard. The OLC index has been implemented to evaluate quality in online programs from different perspectives. Despite this, the opinions of learners are ignored, and it is built using feedback…

Assessment and hydro-geochemical characterization for evaluation of corrosion and scaling potential of groundwater in South West Delhi, India.

PubMed

Acharya, Sanigdha; Sharma, S K; Khandegar, Vinita

2018-06-01

In the present study, hydro-geochemical characteristics of groundwater samples collected from South West Delhi, India, have been assessed. 50 sampling locations were recorded with the help of global positioning system, to assess the groundwater quality and evaluate the corrosion and scaling potential. Hydro-geochemical characterization for different parameters such as pH, temperature (T), electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), salinity (SA), total hardness (TH), total alkalinity ( H C O 3 - ), levels of anions such as calcium (Ca +2 ), magnesium (Mg +2 ), sodium (Na + ), potassium (K + ) and cations which include chloride (Cl - ), Flouride (F - ), sulfates ( S O 4 - 2 ), Nitrates ( N O 3 - ) was done using standard APHA methods. The corrosion and scaling potential of groundwater was evaluated by five stability indices: Langelier saturation index (LSI), Ryznar stability index (RSI), Aggressive index (AI), Learson-Skold index (Ls) and Puckorius scaling index (PSI). The dataset classified groundwater as polluted and this indicates that the water is not safe for domestic, agricultural and industrial usage and will need further treatment. This dataset is beneficial for policymakers, and researchers in the field of water purification, quality management and in preventing the economic and safety concerns related to corrosion and scaling of groundwater.

PRISMA and AMSTAR Show Systematic Reviews of Health Literacy and Cancer Screening are Good Quality.

PubMed

Sharma, Sakshi; Oremus, Mark

2018-04-11

To evaluate the reporting and methodological quality of systematic reviews (SRs) in health literacy and cancer screening; to investigate factors that may influence overall quality. A review of SRs published between 2009 and 2017. We calculated indices to represent the included SRs' adherence to PRISMA and AMSTAR. To assess possible determinants of SR quality, we regressed the index scores on year and region of publication, journal impact factor, authors' reported use of PRISMA, and presence of funding statements. We included 19 SRs and median index scores were 0.86 for PRISMA (interquartile range [IQR] = 0.11; range = 0.32 to 1.00) and 0.67 for AMSTAR (IQR = 0.30; range = 0.22 to 1.00). Methodological and reporting problems pertained to protocol registration or publication, number of raters used, gray literature searches, excluded article lists, and unintegrated discussions of risk of bias and efficacy. Only journal impact factor was statistically significantly associated (positively) with PRISMA and AMSTAR index scores. The quality of SRs in health literacy and cancer screening was generally good. Systematic reviewers should register or publish their protocols, include PRISMA and AMSTAR checklists when submitting SRs to journals, and self-evaluate their SRs before submission. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A systematic review of goal directed fluid therapy: rating of evidence for goals and monitoring methods.

PubMed

Wilms, Heath; Mittal, Anubhav; Haydock, Matthew D; van den Heever, Marc; Devaud, Marcello; Windsor, John A

2014-04-01

To review the literature on goal directed fluid therapy and evaluate the quality of evidence for each combination of goal and monitoring method. A search of major digital databases and hand search of references was conducted. All studies assessing the clinical utility of a specific fluid therapy goal or set of goals using any monitoring method were included. Data was extracted using a pre-determined pro forma and papers were evaluated using GRADE principles to assess evidence quality. Eighty-one papers met the inclusion criteria, investigating 31 goals and 22 methods for monitoring fluid therapy in 13052 patients. In total there were 118 different goal/method combinations. Goals with high evidence quality were central venous lactate and stroke volume index. Goals with moderate quality evidence were sublingual microcirculation flow, the oxygen extraction ratio, cardiac index, cardiac output, and SVC collapsibility index. This review has highlighted the plethora of goals and methods for monitoring fluid therapy. Strikingly, there is scant high quality evidence, in particular for non-invasive G/M combinations in non-operative and non-intensive care settings. There is an urgent need to address this research gap, which will be helped by methodologies to compare utility of G/M combinations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Study on Fitts' Law Based Gait Symmetric Evaluation and It's Clinic Application.

PubMed

Rencheng, Wang; Meiqin, Zhang; Xiaonan, Deng; Dewen, Jin; Maobin, Wang; Guangqing, Li

2005-01-01

Symmetry, one of the prominent characters of normal human gait, could be destroyed by some special or abnormal factors such as barrier spanning, walking impediment, etc. Therefore, it becomes an important factor used to evaluate qualities and functions of walking. In this paper, the fitts' law based symmetry index calculation is introduced and its application in clinic test is also reported. The results show that the fitts' law based index is effective in clinic evaluation.

Indexing of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies in MEDLINE and EMBASE

PubMed Central

Wilczynski, Nancy L.; Haynes, R. Brian

2007-01-01

Background: STAndards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) were published in 2003 and endorsed by some journals but not others. Objective: To determine whether the quality of indexing of diagnostic accuracy studies in MEDLINE and EMBASE has improved since the STARD statement was published. Design: Evaluate the change in the mean number of “accurate index terms” assigned to diagnostic accuracy studies, comparing STARD (endorsing) and non-STARD (non-endorsing) journals, for 2 years before and after STARD publication. Results: In MEDLINE, no differences in indexing quality were found for STARD and non-STARD journals before or after the STARD statement was published in 2003. In EMBASE, indexing in STARD journals improved compared with non-STARD journals (p = 0.02). However, articles in STARD journals had half the number of accurate indexing terms as articles in non-STARD journals, both before and after STARD statement publication (p < 0.001). PMID:18693947

Indexing of diagnosis accuracy studies in MEDLINE and EMBASE.

PubMed

Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian

2007-10-11

STAndards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) were published in 2003 and endorsed by some journals but not others. To determine whether the quality of indexing of diagnostic accuracy studies in MEDLINE and EMBASE has improved since the STARD statement was published. Evaluate the change in the mean number of "accurate index terms" assigned to diagnostic accuracy studies, comparing STARD (endorsing) and non-STARD (non-endorsing) journals, for 2 years before and after STARD publication. In MEDLINE, no differences in indexing quality were found for STARD and non-STARD journals before or after the STARD statement was published in 2003. In EMBASE, indexing in STARD journals improved compared with non-STARD journals (p = 0.02). However, articles in STARD journals had half the number of accurate indexing terms as articles in non-STARD journals, both before and after STARD statement publication (p < 0.001).

Persistent reflux symptoms cause anxiety, depression, and mental health and sleep disorders in gastroesophageal reflux disease patients

PubMed Central

Kimura, Yoshihide; Kamiya, Takeshi; Senoo, Kyouji; Tsuchida, Kenji; Hirano, Atsuyuki; Kojima, Hisayo; Yamashita, Hiroaki; Yamakawa, Yoshihiro; Nishigaki, Nobuhiro; Ozeki, Tomonori; Endo, Masatsugu; Nakanishi, Kazuhisa; Sando, Motoki; Inagaki, Yusuke; Shikano, Michiko; Mizoshita, Tsutomu; Kubota, Eiji; Tanida, Satoshi; Kataoka, Hiromi; Katsumi, Kohei; Joh, Takashi

2016-01-01

Some patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease experience persistent reflux symptoms despite proton pump inhibitor therapy. These symptoms reduce their health-related quality of life. Our aims were to evaluate the relationship between proton pump inhibitor efficacy and health-related quality of life and to evaluate predictive factors affecting treatment response in Japanese patients. Using the gastroesophageal reflux disease questionnaire, 145 gastroesophageal reflux disease patients undergoing proton pump inhibitor therapy were evaluated and classified as responders or partial-responders. Their health-related quality of life was then evaluated using the 8-item Short Form Health Survey, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale questionnaires. Sixty-nine patients (47.6%) were partial responders. These patients had significantly lower scores than responders in 5/8 subscales and in the mental health component summary of the 8-item Short Form Health Survey. Partial responders had significantly higher Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale scores, including anxiety and depression scores, than those of responders. Non-erosive reflux disease and double proton pump inhibitor doses were predictive factors of partial responders. Persistent reflux symptoms, despite proton pump inhibitor therapy, caused mental health disorders, sleep disorders, and psychological distress in Japanese gastroesophageal reflux disease patients. PMID:27499583

Persistent reflux symptoms cause anxiety, depression, and mental health and sleep disorders in gastroesophageal reflux disease patients.

PubMed

Kimura, Yoshihide; Kamiya, Takeshi; Senoo, Kyouji; Tsuchida, Kenji; Hirano, Atsuyuki; Kojima, Hisayo; Yamashita, Hiroaki; Yamakawa, Yoshihiro; Nishigaki, Nobuhiro; Ozeki, Tomonori; Endo, Masatsugu; Nakanishi, Kazuhisa; Sando, Motoki; Inagaki, Yusuke; Shikano, Michiko; Mizoshita, Tsutomu; Kubota, Eiji; Tanida, Satoshi; Kataoka, Hiromi; Katsumi, Kohei; Joh, Takashi

2016-07-01

Some patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease experience persistent reflux symptoms despite proton pump inhibitor therapy. These symptoms reduce their health-related quality of life. Our aims were to evaluate the relationship between proton pump inhibitor efficacy and health-related quality of life and to evaluate predictive factors affecting treatment response in Japanese patients. Using the gastroesophageal reflux disease questionnaire, 145 gastroesophageal reflux disease patients undergoing proton pump inhibitor therapy were evaluated and classified as responders or partial-responders. Their health-related quality of life was then evaluated using the 8-item Short Form Health Survey, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale questionnaires. Sixty-nine patients (47.6%) were partial responders. These patients had significantly lower scores than responders in 5/8 subscales and in the mental health component summary of the 8-item Short Form Health Survey. Partial responders had significantly higher Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale scores, including anxiety and depression scores, than those of responders. Non-erosive reflux disease and double proton pump inhibitor doses were predictive factors of partial responders. Persistent reflux symptoms, despite proton pump inhibitor therapy, caused mental health disorders, sleep disorders, and psychological distress in Japanese gastroesophageal reflux disease patients.

The Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI): linguistic and cultural validation in Serbian.

PubMed

Janković, Slavenka; Vukićević, Jelica; Djordjević, Sanja; Janković, Janko; Marinković, Jelena; Erić, Miloš

2013-01-01

The Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI) evaluates the impact of skin diseases on the patient's quality of life. The purpose of the study was to translate and to validate the CDLQI into Serbian. The CDLQI was translated into Serbian following international recommendations for translation and cultural adaptation. The validation study was carried out on a large cohort of secondary schoolchildren who self-reported acne. Translating the CDLQI consisted of forward translation, reconciliation, back translation, back-translation review, and cognitive debriefing. The good internal consistency of the scale was demonstrated with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.87. A Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.66 between the CDLQI and the Cardiff Acne Disability Index (CADI) was deemed satisfactory to demonstrate concurrent validity. The translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and psychometric qualities of the CDLQI were satisfactory, enabling its application in clinical practice and future studies.

Development of a Diet Quality Index Adapted for Pregnant Women

PubMed Central

Crivellenti, Lívia Castro; Zuccolotto, Daniela Cristina Candelas; Sartorelli, Daniela Saes

2018-01-01

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE: To develop a Diet Quality Index Adapted for Pregnant Women (IQDAG) and to evaluate its relation with the characteristics of women treated at the Brazilian Unified Health System. METHODS: The data on food intake come from a cross-sectional study carried out with 785 adult pregnant women in the city of Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, Brazil, between 2011 and 2012. The index was based on the recommendations of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, previous national dietary indexes, and the new Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population. We used the ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, and chi-square tests to describe the quality of the diet according to the characteristics of the mother. RESULTS: The IQDAG has nine components, and it is represented by three food groups (in servings/1,000 kcal), five nutrients, and a moderator component. A high proportion of pregnant women reached the maximum score for the components of legumes and vegetables. However, few women reached the maximum score for consumption of fresh fruits, fiber, omega-3, calcium, folate, iron, and ultra-processed foods. We verified a better quality of diet among older and eutrophic pregnant women who reported practicing more physical activity and taking dietary supplements. We also observed the highest index score among women with higher intake of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins C, E, and A, and minerals calcium, folate, and iron, as well as among those with lower intake of total fats and saturated fats. CONCLUSIONS: This dietary index is unprecedented in incorporating the recommendation of the new Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population regarding the moderation of the consumption of ultra-processed foods. It was useful in evaluating the quality of the diet of pregnant women and we verified a higher score among older and eutrophic women who reported a healthy lifestyle. Strategies are needed to promote a higher consumption of fresh fruits, foods high in fiber, omega-3, calcium, folate, iron, and minimally processed foods in pregnant women. PMID:29791675

Assessment of soil biological quality index (QBS-ar) in different crop rotation systems in paddy soils

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nadimi-Goki, Mandana; Bini, Claudio; haefele, Stephan

2013-04-01

New methods, based on soil microarthropods for soil quality evaluation have been proposed by some Authors. Soil microarthropods demonstrated to respond sensitively to land management practices and to be correlated with beneficial soil functions. QBS Index (QBS-ar) is calculated on the basis of microarthropod groups present in a soil sample. Each biological form found in the sample receives a score from 1 to 20 (eco-morphological index, EMI), according to its adaptation to soil environment. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of various rotation systems and sampling periods on soil biological quality index, in paddy soils. For the purpose of this study surface soil samples (0-15 cm depth) were collected from different rotation systems (rice-rice-rice, soya-rice-rice, fallow-rice and pea-soya-rice) with three replications, and four sampling times in April (after field preparation), June (after seedling), August (after tillering stage) and October (after rice harvesting). The study area is located in paddy soils of Verona area, Northern Italy. Soil microarthropods from a total of 48 samples were extracted and classified according to the Biological Quality of Soil Index (QBS-ar) method. In addition soil moisture, Cumulative Soil Respiration and pH were measured in each site. More diversity of microarthropod groups was found in June and August sampling times. T-test results between different rotations did not show significant differences while the mean difference between rotation and different sampling times is statistically different. The highest QBS-ar value was found in the fallow-rice rotation in the forth soil sampling time. Similar value was found in soya-rice-rice rotation. Result of linear regression analysis indicated that there is significant correlation between QBS-ar values and Cumulative Soil Respiration. Keywords: soil biological quality index (QBS-ar), Crop Rotation System, paddy soils, Italy

Current status of quality evaluation of nursing care through director review and reflection from the Nursing Quality Control Centers

PubMed Central

Duan, Xia; Shi, Yan

2014-01-01

Background: The quality evaluation of nursing care is a key link in medical quality management. It is important and worth studying for the nursing supervisors to know the disadvantages during the process of quality evaluation of nursing care and then to improve the whole nursing quality. This study was to provide director insight on the current status of quality evaluation of nursing care from Nursing Quality Control Centers (NQCCs). Material and Methods: This qualitative study used a sample of 12 directors from NQCCs who were recruited from 12 provinces in China to evaluate the current status of quality evaluation of nursing care. Data were collected by in-depth interviews. Content analysis method was used to analyze the data. Results: Four themes emerged from the data: 1) lag of evaluation index; 2) limitations of evaluation content; 3) simplicity of evaluation method; 4) excessive emphasis on terminal quality. Conclusion: It is of great realistic significance to ameliorate nursing quality evaluation criteria, modify the evaluation content based on patient needs-oriented idea, adopt scientific evaluation method to evaluate nursing quality, and scientifically and reasonably draw horizontal comparisons of nursing quality between hospitals, as well as longitudinal comparisons of a hospital’s nursing quality. These methods mentioned above can all enhance a hospital’s core competitiveness and benefit more patients. PMID:25419427

Evaluation of quality of life related to nutritional status.

PubMed

Wanden-Berghe, Carmina; Sanz-Valero, Javier; Escribà-Agüir, Vicenta; Castelló-Botia, Isabel; Guardiola-Wanden-Berghe, Rocio

2009-04-01

The way in which the quality of life related to health (HRQoL) is affected by the nutritional status of the patient is a subject of constant interest and permanent debate. The purpose of the present paper is to review those studies that relate HRQoL to nutritional status and examine the tools (questionnaires) that they use to investigate this relationship. A critical review of published studies was carried out via an investigation of the following databases: MEDLINE (via PubMed); EMBASE; The Cochrane Library; Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL); Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science; Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (LILACS); Spanish Health Sciences Bibliographic Index (IBECS). The search was carried out from the earliest date possible until July 2007.The medical subject heading terms used were 'quality of life', 'nutritional status' and 'questionnaires'. The articles had to contain at least one questionnaire that evaluated quality of life. Twenty-eight documents fulfilling the inclusion criteria were accepted, although none of them used a specific questionnaire to evaluate HRQoL related to nutritional status. However, some of them used a combination of generic questionnaires with the intention of evaluating the same. Only three studies selectively addressed the relationship between nutritional status and quality of life, this evaluation being performed not by means of specific questionnaires but by statistical analysis of data obtained via validated questionnaires.

Real-Time Bias-Adjusted O3 and PM2.5 Air Quality Index Forecasts and their Performance Evaluations over the Continental United States

EPA Science Inventory

The National Air Quality Forecast Capacity (NAQFC) system, which links NOAA's North American Mesoscale (NAM) meteorological model with EPA's Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, provided operational ozone (O₃) and experimental fine particular matter (PM_2...

Developing and Evaluating a Target-Background Similarity Metric for Camouflage Detection

PubMed Central

Lin, Chiuhsiang Joe; Chang, Chi-Chan; Liu, Bor-Shong

2014-01-01

Background Measurement of camouflage performance is of fundamental importance for military stealth applications. The goal of camouflage assessment algorithms is to automatically assess the effect of camouflage in agreement with human detection responses. In a previous study, we found that the Universal Image Quality Index (UIQI) correlated well with the psychophysical measures, and it could be a potentially camouflage assessment tool. Methodology In this study, we want to quantify the camouflage similarity index and psychophysical results. We compare several image quality indexes for computational evaluation of camouflage effectiveness, and present the results of an extensive human visual experiment conducted to evaluate the performance of several camouflage assessment algorithms and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of these algorithms. Significance The experimental data demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach, and the correlation coefficient result of the UIQI was higher than those of other methods. This approach was highly correlated with the human target-searching results. It also showed that this method is an objective and effective camouflage performance evaluation method because it considers the human visual system and image structure, which makes it consistent with the subjective evaluation results. PMID:24498310

Characterising droughts in Central America with uncertain hydro-meteorological data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quesada Montano, B.; Westerberg, I.; Wetterhall, F.; Hidalgo, H. G.; Halldin, S.

2015-12-01

Droughts studies are scarce in Central America, a region frequently affected by droughts that cause significant socio-economic and environmental problems. Drought characterisation is important for water management and planning and can be done with the help of drought indices. Many indices have been developed in the last decades but their ability to suitably characterise droughts depends on the region of application. In Central America, comprehensive and high-quality observational networks of meteorological and hydrological data are not available. This limits the choice of drought indices and denotes the need to evaluate the quality of the data used in their calculation. This paper aimed to find which combination(s) of drought index and meteorological database are most suitable for characterising droughts in Central America. The drought indices evaluated were the standardised precipitation index (SPI), deciles (DI), the standardised precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and the effective drought index (EDI). These were calculated using precipitation data from the Climate Hazards Group Infra-Red Precipitation with station (CHIRPS), CRN073, the Climate Research Unit (CRU), ERA-Interim and station databases, and temperature data from the CRU database. All the indices were calculated at 1-, 3-, 6-, 9- and 12-month accumulation times. As a first step, the large-scale meteorological precipitation datasets were compared to have an overview of the level of agreement between them and find possible quality problems. Then, the performance of all the combinations of drought indices and meteorological datasets were evaluated against independent river discharge data, in form of the standardised streamflow index (SSI). Results revealed the large disagreement between the precipitation datasets; we found the selection of database to be more important than the selection of drought index. We found that the best combinations of meteorological drought index and database were obtained using the SPI and DI, calculated with CHIRPS and station data.

Index to Estimate the Efficiency of an Ophthalmic Practice.

PubMed

Chen, Andrew; Kim, Eun Ah; Aigner, Dennis J; Afifi, Abdelmonem; Caprioli, Joseph

2015-08-01

A metric of efficiency, a function of the ratio of quality to cost per patient, will allow the health care system to better measure the impact of specific reforms and compare the effectiveness of each. To develop and evaluate an efficiency index that estimates the performance of an ophthalmologist's practice as a function of cost, number of patients receiving care, and quality of care. Retrospective review of 36 ophthalmology subspecialty practices from October 2011 to September 2012 at a university-based eye institute. The efficiency index (E) was defined as a function of adjusted number of patients (N(a)), total practice adjusted costs (C(a)), and a preliminary measure of quality (Q). Constant b limits E between 0 and 1. Constant y modifies the influence of Q on E. Relative value units and geographic cost indices determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid for 2012 were used to calculate adjusted costs. The efficiency index is expressed as the following: E = b(N(a)/C(a))Q(y). Independent, masked auditors reviewed 20 random patient medical records for each practice and filled out 3 questionnaires to obtain a process-based quality measure. The adjusted number of patients, adjusted costs, quality, and efficiency index were calculated for 36 ophthalmology subspecialties. The median adjusted number of patients was 5516 (interquartile range, 3450-11,863), the median adjusted cost was 1.34 (interquartile range, 0.99-1.96), the median quality was 0.89 (interquartile range, 0.79-0.91), and the median value of the efficiency index was 0.26 (interquartile range, 0.08-0.42). The described efficiency index is a metric that provides a broad overview of performance for a variety of ophthalmology specialties as estimated by resources used and a preliminary measure of quality of care provided. The results of the efficiency index could be used in future investigations to determine its sensitivity to detect the impact of interventions on a practice such as training modules or practice restructuring.

Evaluation of selection index: application to the choice of an indirect multitrait selection index for soybean breeding.

PubMed

Bouchez, A; Goffinet, B

1990-02-01

Selection indices can be used to predict one trait from information available on several traits in order to improve the prediction accuracy. Plant or animal breeders are interested in selecting only the best individuals, and need to compare the efficiency of different trait combinations in order to choose the index ensuring the best prediction quality for individual values. As the usual tools for index evaluation do not remain unbiased in all cases, we propose a robust way of evaluation by means of an estimator of the mean-square error of prediction (EMSEP). This estimator remains valid even when parameters are not known, as usually assumed, but are estimated. EMSEP is applied to the choice of an indirect multitrait selection index at the F5 generation of a classical breeding scheme for soybeans. Best predictions for precocity are obtained by means of indices using only part of the available information.

Index of Alien Impact: A method for evaluating potential ecological impact of alien plant species

EPA Science Inventory

Alien plant species are stressors to ecosystems and indicators of reduced ecosystem integrity. The magnitude of the stress reflects not only the quantity of aliens present, but also the quality of their interactions with native ecosystems. We develop an Index of Alien Impact (IAI...

Landscape habitat suitability index software

Treesearch

William D. Dijak; Chadwick D. Rittenhouse; Michael A. Larson; Frank R. III Thompson; Joshua J. Millspaugh

2007-01-01

Habitat suitability index (HSI) models are traditionally used to evaluate habitat quality for wildlife at a local scale. Rarely have such models incorporated spatial relationships of habitat components. We introduce Landscape HSImodels, a new Microsoft Windowst (Microsoft, Redmond, WA)-based program that incorporates local habitat as well as landscape-scale attributes...

Physician performance assessment using a composite quality index.

PubMed

Liu, Kaibo; Jain, Shabnam; Shi, Jianjun

2013-07-10

Assessing physician performance is important for the purposes of measuring and improving quality of service and reducing healthcare delivery costs. In recent years, physician performance scorecards have been used to provide feedback on individual measures; however, one key challenge is how to develop a composite quality index that combines multiple measures for overall physician performance evaluation. A controversy arises over establishing appropriate weights to combine indicators in multiple dimensions, and cannot be easily resolved. In this study, we proposed a generic unsupervised learning approach to develop a single composite index for physician performance assessment by using non-negative principal component analysis. We developed a new algorithm named iterative quadratic programming to solve the numerical issue in the non-negative principal component analysis approach. We conducted real case studies to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. We provided interpretations from both statistical and clinical perspectives to evaluate the developed composite ranking score in practice. In addition, we implemented the root cause assessment techniques to explain physician performance for improvement purposes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Relationships between nutrient composition of flowers and fruit quality in orange trees grown in calcareous soil.

PubMed

Pestana, Maribela; Beja, Pedro; Correia, Pedro José; de Varennes, Amarilis; Faria, Eugénio Araújo

2005-06-01

To determine if flower nutrient composition can be used to predict fruit quality, a field experiment was conducted over three seasons (1996-1999) in a commercial orange orchard (Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck cv. 'Valencia Late', budded on Troyer citrange rootstock) established on a calcareous soil in southern Portugal. Flowers were collected from 20 trees during full bloom in April and their nutrient composition determined, and fruits were harvested the following March and their quality evaluated. Patterns of covariation in flower nutrient concentrations and in fruit quality variables were evaluated by principal component analysis. Regression models relating fruit quality variables to flower nutrient composition were developed by stepwise selection procedures. The predictive power of the regression models was evaluated with an independent data set. Nutrient composition of flowers at full bloom could be used to predict the fruit quality variables fresh fruit mass and maturation index in the following year. Magnesium, Ca and Zn concentrations measured in flowers were related to fruit fresh mass estimations and N, P, Mg and Fe concentrations were related to fruit maturation index. We also established reference values for the nutrient composition of flowers based on measurements made in trees that produced large (> 76 mm in diameter) fruit.

Beneficial effects of semen purification with magnetic nanoparticles

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Current techniques for sperm quality evaluation are mostly informative. They become useful when ejaculates of high index males not meeting quality standard are still discarded. Here we developed a molecular-based magnetic conjugates allowing selective elimination of damaged spermatozoa from semen ej...

Tear film aberration dynamics and vision-related quality of life in patients with dry eye disease.

PubMed

Denoyer, Alexandre; Rabut, Ghislaine; Baudouin, Christophe

2012-09-01

Corneal and ocular wavefront aberrations were recorded together with clinical examination results and patient-reported vision-related quality-of-life evaluation results to define the relevance of dynamic optical analysis of the eye in dry eye disease (DED). Prospective and comparative clinical study. Forty DED patients and 40 age- and gender-matched control subjects. Serial measurements of ocular and corneal higher-order aberrations (HOAs) after blink were performed for 10 seconds using the KR-1 aberrometer (Topcon, Clichy, France). Vision-related health-targeted quality of life was evaluated using the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaire. The clinical examination included tear film assessment (tear film break-up time and Schirmer I test), ocular surface damage assessment with the Oxford and van Bijsterveld indexes, and Meibomian dysfunction grading. Tear osmolarity also was measured. The time course of HOAs and modulation transfer function (MTF) was compared between groups and was analyzed in comparison with the OSDI and clinical data in DED patients. The root mean square of ocular and corneal total HOAs, particularly third-order aberrations, significantly increased over the 10-second period in DED patients, whereas no change occurred in controls. Analysis of MTF revealed progressive degradation of ocular optical quality resulting from loss of contrast at intermediate and high spatial frequencies in DED patients compared with controls. The progression index for corneal HOAs was correlated with the subjective index of patient-reported visual outcomes and with objective clinical findings of tear film and ocular surface damage. Objective measurement of the time course of HOAs may constitute a new single instrument to evaluate and manage patients with DED because it reliably reflects the completeness of the disease. Copyright © 2012 American Academy of Ophthalmology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An index-based robust decision making framework for watershed management in a changing climate.

PubMed

Kim, Yeonjoo; Chung, Eun-Sung

2014-03-01

This study developed an index-based robust decision making framework for watershed management dealing with water quantity and quality issues in a changing climate. It consists of two parts of management alternative development and analysis. The first part for alternative development consists of six steps: 1) to understand the watershed components and process using HSPF model, 2) to identify the spatial vulnerability ranking using two indices: potential streamflow depletion (PSD) and potential water quality deterioration (PWQD), 3) to quantify the residents' preferences on water management demands and calculate the watershed evaluation index which is the weighted combinations of PSD and PWQD, 4) to set the quantitative targets for water quantity and quality, 5) to develop a list of feasible alternatives and 6) to eliminate the unacceptable alternatives. The second part for alternative analysis has three steps: 7) to analyze all selected alternatives with a hydrologic simulation model considering various climate change scenarios, 8) to quantify the alternative evaluation index including social and hydrologic criteria with utilizing multi-criteria decision analysis methods and 9) to prioritize all options based on a minimax regret strategy for robust decision. This framework considers the uncertainty inherent in climate models and climate change scenarios with utilizing the minimax regret strategy, a decision making strategy under deep uncertainty and thus this procedure derives the robust prioritization based on the multiple utilities of alternatives from various scenarios. In this study, the proposed procedure was applied to the Korean urban watershed, which has suffered from streamflow depletion and water quality deterioration. Our application shows that the framework provides a useful watershed management tool for incorporating quantitative and qualitative information into the evaluation of various policies with regard to water resource planning and management. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nutritional evaluation of caseins and whey proteins and their hydrolysates from Protamex*

PubMed Central

Sindayikengera, Séverin; Xia, Wen-shui

2006-01-01

Whey protein concentrate (WPC 80) and sodium caseinate were hydrolyzed by Protamex to 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% degree of hydrolysis (DH). WPC 80, sodium caseinate and their hydrolysates were then analyzed, compared and evaluated for their nutritional qualities. Their chemical composition, protein solubility, amino acid composition, essential amino acid index (EAA index), biological value (BV), nutritional index (NI), chemical score, enzymic protein efficiency ratio (E-PER) and in vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) were determined. The results indicated that the enzymatic hydrolysis of WPC 80 and sodium caseinate by Protamex improved the solubility and IVPD of their hydrolysates. WPC 80, sodium caseinate and their hydrolysates were high-quality proteins and had a surplus of essential amino acids compared with the FAO/WHO/UNU (1985) reference standard. The nutritive value of WPC 80 and its hydrolysates was superior to that of sodium caseinate and its hydrolysates as indicated by some nutritional parameters such as the amino acid composition, chemical score, EAA index and predicted BV. However, the E-PER was lower for the WPC hydrolysates as compared to unhydrolyzed WPC 80 but sodium caseinate and its hydrolysates did not differ significantly. The nutritional qualities of WPC 80, sodium caseinate and their hydrolysates were good and make them appropriate for food formulations or as nutritional supplements. PMID:16421963

Feasibility of using of a simplified question in assessing diet quality of adolescents.

PubMed

Rodrigues, Paulo Rogério Melo; Gonçalves-Silva, Regina Maria Veras; Ferreira, Márcia Gonçalves; Pereira, Rosangela Alves

2017-05-01

This study aims to analyze the applicability of a simplified question in assessing diet quality of adolescents in a cross-sectional school-based study carried out in a sample of high school students. Diet quality self-perception was obtained when the participant was inquired about own diet considering "excellent", "good", "fair" or "poor" responses. We evaluated meals habits and food intake through food frequency questionnaire. The revised version of the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index (BHEI-R) was estimated and we identified three dietary patterns using factor analysis. "Good" self-perceived diet quality was reported by 56% of adolescents and was associated with regular consumption of fruits and vegetables, meal profile and high healthy eating index scores. However, consumption of foods harmful to health was not perceived as characteristic that affects diet quality. The evaluated question showed sensitivity of 28% to detect good quality diets and specificity of 79% to identify low nutritional value diets. The use of a simplified question to assess dietary habits of adolescents is limited, since the consumption of high-fat, high-sugar and high-sodium food was not recognized as an indicator of low quality diet.

Refernce Conditions for Streams in the Grand Prairie Natural Division of Illinois

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sangunett, B.; Dewalt, R.

2005-05-01

As part of the Critical Trends Assessment Program (CTAP) of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), 12 potential reference quality stream sites in the Grand Prairie Natural Division were evaluated in May 2004. This agriculturally dominated region, located in east central Illinois, is the most highly modified in the state. The quality of these sites was assessed using a modified Hilsenhoff Biotic Index and species richness of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) insect orders and a 12 parameter Habitat Quality Index (HQI). Illinois EPA high quality fish stations, Illinois Natural History Survey insect collection data, and best professional knowledge were used to choose which streams to evaluate. For analysis, reference quality streams were compared to 37 randomly selected meandering streams and 26 randomly selected channelized streams which were assessed by CTAP between 1997 and 2001. The results showed that the reference streams exceeded both taxa richness and habitat quality of randomly selected streams in the region. Both random meandering sites and reference quality sites increased in taxa richness and HQI as stream width increased. Randomly selected channelized streams had about the same taxa richness and HQI regardless of width.

Preoperative and post-operative sleep quality evaluation in rotator cuff tear patients.

PubMed

Serbest, Sancar; Tiftikçi, Uğur; Askın, Aydogan; Yaman, Ferda; Alpua, Murat

2017-07-01

The aim of this study was to examine the potential relationship between subjective sleep quality and degree of pain in patients with rotator cuff repair. Thirty-one patients who underwent rotator cuff repair prospectively completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index, and the Constant and Murley shoulder scores before surgery and at 6 months after surgery. Preoperative demographic, clinical, and radiologic parameters were also evaluated. The study analysed 31 patients with a median age of 61 years. There was a significant difference preoperatively versus post-operatively in terms of all PSQI global scores and subdivisions (p < 0.001). A statistically significant improvement was determined by the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Scale and the Constant and Murley shoulder scores (p ˂ 0.001). Sleep disorders are commonly seen in patients with rotator cuff tear, and after repair, there is an increase in the quality of sleep with a parallel improvement in shoulder functions. However, no statistically significant correlation was determined between arthroscopic procedures and the size of the tear and sleep quality. It is suggested that rotator cuff tear repair improves the quality of sleep and the quality of life. IV.

[Confusing the confused: thoughts on impact factor, h(irsch) index, Q value, and other cofactors that influence the researcher's happiness].

PubMed

Quindós, Guillermo

2009-06-30

The need to evaluate curricula for sponsorship for research projects or professional promotion, has led to the search for tools that allow an objective valuation. However, the total number papers published, or citations of articles of a particular author, or the impact factor of the Journal where they are published are inadequate indicators for the evaluation of the quality and productivity of researchers. The h index, proposed by Hirsch, categorises the papers according to the number of citations per article. This tool appears to lack the limitations of other bibliometric tools but is less useful for non English-speaking authors. To propose and debate the usefulness of the existing bibliometric indicators and tools for the evaluation and categorization of researchers and scientific journals. Search for papers on bibliometric tools. There are some hot spots in the debate on the national and international evaluation of researchers' productivity and quality of scientific journals. Opinions on impact factors and h index have been discussed. The positive discrimination, using the Q value, is proposed as an alternative for the evaluation of Spanish and Iberoamerican researchers. It is very important de-mystify the importance of bibliometric indicators. The impact factor is useful for evaluating journals from the same scientific area but not for the evaluation of researchers' curricula. For the comparison of curricula from two or more researchers, we must use the h index or the proposed Q value. the latter allows positive discrimination of the task for Spanish and Iberoamerican researchers.

Critical Analysis of Forest Degradation in the Southern Eastern Ghats of India: Comparison of Satellite Imagery and Soil Quality Index

PubMed Central

Ramachandran, Andimuthu; Radhapriya, Parthasarathy; Jayakumar, Shanmuganathan; Dhanya, Praveen; Geetha, Rajadurai

2016-01-01

India has one of the largest assemblages of tropical biodiversity, with its unique floristic composition of endemic species. However, current forest cover assessment is performed via satellite-based forest surveys, which have many limitations. The present study, which was performed in the Eastern Ghats, analysed the satellite-based inventory provided by forest surveys and inferred from the results that this process no longer provides adequate information for quantifying forest degradation in an empirical manner. The study analysed 21 soil properties and generated a forest soil quality index of the Eastern Ghats, using principal component analysis. Using matrix modules and geospatial technology, we compared the forest degradation status calculated from satellite-based forest surveys with the degradation status calculated from the forest soil quality index. The Forest Survey of India classified about 1.8% of the Eastern Ghats’ total area as degraded forests and the remainder (98.2%) as open, dense, and very dense forests, whereas the soil quality index results found that about 42.4% of the total area is degraded, with the remainder (57.6%) being non-degraded. Our ground truth verification analyses indicate that the forest soil quality index along with the forest cover density data from the Forest Survey of India are ideal tools for evaluating forest degradation. PMID:26812397

Utilisation of preharvest dropped apple peels as a flour substitute for a lower glycaemic index and higher fibre cake.

PubMed

Jun, Yujin; Bae, In Young; Lee, Suyong; Lee, Hyeon Gyu

2014-02-01

Fibre-enriched materials (FEMs) obtained from preharvest dropped apple peels were utilised as a source of dietary fibre in baked cakes and their effects on the textural/nutritional qualities and starch digestibility (glucose release behaviour, starch digestion fraction, predicted glycaemic index) of the cakes were evaluated. When FEMs were incorporated into the cake formulation (3 g and 6 g of dietary fibre per serving (100 g)), the volume of the cakes seemed to be reduced and their texture become harder. However, 3 g of FEMs did not degrade the cake qualities. The use of FEMs in cakes significantly reduced the levels of rapidly digestible starch and slowly digestible starch, while the levels of resistant starch increased. Additionally, the cake samples prepared with FEMs exhibited a lower predicted glycaemic index. This study may give rise to multi-functional bakery products with acceptable quality and low glycaemic index.

[Integrated assessment of ecosystem quality of arid inland river basin based on RS and GIS: A case study on Shiyang River Basin, Northwest China].

PubMed

Liang, Bian Bian; Shi, Pei Ji; Wang, Wei; Tang, Xiao; Zhou, Wen Xia; Jing, Ye

2017-01-01

The Shiyang River Basin is an important ecological area of the Eastern Hexi Corridor, and is one of the most prominent areas of water conflict and ecological environment problems. An assessment of ecosystem quality in the Shiyang River Basin can provide a reference for ecological protection in arid inland basin. Based on the concept of ecosystem quality and the statistical yearbook, remotely sensed and land cover data, an evaluation index was established with consideration of three aspects of ecosystem (i.e., productivity, stability and bearing capacity). Kruskal-Wallis (Φ 2 ) test and entropy method were applied to determine the weights of evaluation index. With the assistance of RS, GIS and SPSS software, a comprehensive evaluation and change analysis of ecosystem quality and corresponding index were conducted for various ecosystem types in the Shiyang River Basin in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. Results showed that the average ecosystem quality of the Shiyang River Basin was 57.76, and presented an obvious decrease with a magnitude of 0.72 per year du-ring 2000-2015. The spatial pattern of ecosystem quality was that the upstream was better than the midstream, and the midstream was superior to the downstream. The mean values of production capacity, stability and carrying capacity of ecosystem were 67.52, 45.37, and 58.53, respectively. Production capacity and stability had increased slightly, while carrying capacity gradually decreased. Considering various ecosystem types, the highest quality was detected for forest ecosystem with average annual value of 78.12, and this ecosystem presented the lowest decreasing magnitude of 0.28 per year; for grassland, farmland and urban ecosystems, the average annual value was 62.45, 58.76 and 50.29, respectively; the quality of wetland ecosystem was the lowest, and suffered the largest decline with an average rate of 0.98 per year.

Evaluation of maternal and neonatal hospital care: quality index of completeness

PubMed Central

da Silva, Ana Lúcia Andrade; Mendes, Antonio da Cruz Gouveia; Miranda, Gabriella Morais Duarte; de Sá, Domicio Aurélio; de Souza, Wayner Vieira; Lyra, Tereza Maciel

2014-01-01

OBJECTIVE Develop an index to evaluate the maternal and neonatal hospital care of the Brazilian Unified Health System. METHODS This descriptive cross-sectional study of national scope was based on the structure-process-outcome framework proposed by Donabedian and on comprehensive health care. Data from the Hospital Information System and the National Registry of Health Establishments were used. The maternal and neonatal network of Brazilian Unified Health System consisted of 3,400 hospitals that performed at least 12 deliveries in 2009 or whose number of deliveries represented 10.0% or more of the total admissions in 2009. Relevance and reliability were defined as criteria for the selection of variables. Simple and composite indicators and the index of completeness were constructed and evaluated, and the distribution of maternal and neonatal hospital care was assessed in different regions of the country. RESULTS A total of 40 variables were selected, from which 27 single indicators, five composite indicators, and the index of completeness of care were built. Composite indicators were constructed by grouping simple indicators and included the following variables: hospital size, level of complexity, delivery care practice, recommended hospital practice, and epidemiological practice. The index of completeness of care grouped the five variables and classified them in ascending order, thereby yielding five levels of completeness of maternal and neonatal hospital care: very low, low, intermediate, high, and very high. The hospital network was predominantly of small size and low complexity, with inadequate child delivery care and poor development of recommended and epidemiological practices. The index showed that more than 80.0% hospitals had a low index of completeness of care and that most qualified heath care services were concentrated in the more developed regions of the country. CONCLUSIONS The index of completeness proved to be of great value for monitoring the maternal and neonatal hospital care of Brazilian Unified Health System and indicated that the quality of health care was unsatisfactory. However, its application does not replace specific evaluations. PMID:25210827

Short term effect of conventional tillage and cover crops in physical and chemical properties in two olive orchards of southern Spain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guzmán, Gema; Giráldez, Juan Vicente; Gómez, José Alfonso

2014-05-01

Numerous studies have attempted to assess the differences in soil properties caused by different management systems in olive cropped farms. Nevertheless the influence of the most frequent management systems on the hydraulic properties of these soils has not been evaluated. Contrarily, there are very few studies that have tried to correlate these results with soil losses due to water erosion. There are complementary approaches to traditional degradation indices, as the S index based on the form of the soil retention curve (Dexter 2004a,b,c). The objectives of this study were (i) to evaluate the methods based on the S index to assess the physical quality of soil in olive orchards, (ii) to assess the short-term changes (2 years) in soil physical and chemical properties in two olive orchards under different managements systems, namely conventional tillage and cover crop, and (iii) to formulate strategies for assessing the quality of soil in olive orchards. For the studied soils, degradation processes (associated to conventional tillage) and the improvement of their properties (linked to cover crops) showed a fast response. Chemical changes were quickly observed. However physical changes are slower than chemical changes for both soils. Water retention curves allowed the evaluation of soil porosity based on depth in the profile and the management practices. The S index was computed for every soil using the conventional soil water retention equations fitted to the experimental data. For the olive cropped soils, higher S index values were obtained in the less degradated areas, in most of the cases. Therefore, the S index could be used as a soil quality indicator although further research should be required to study its evolution at a larger temporal scale. References: Dexter, A. R. 2004. a.- Soil physical quality. PartI. Theory, effects of soil texture, density, and organic matter, and effects on root growth. Geoderma 120 (2004) 201-214. Dexter, A. R. 2004. b.- Soil physical quality. Part II. Friability, tillage, tilth and hardsetting. Geoderma 120 (2004) 215-225. Dexter, A. R. 2004. c.- Soil physical quality. Part III: Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity and general conclusions about S-theory. Geoderma 120 (2004) 227-239.

Development and evaluation of the Dutch Healthy Diet index 2015.

PubMed

Looman, Moniek; Feskens, Edith Jm; de Rijk, Mariëlle; Meijboom, Saskia; Biesbroek, Sander; Temme, Elisabeth Hm; de Vries, Jeanne; Geelen, Anouk

2017-09-01

To update the Dutch Healthy Diet index, a measure of diet quality, to reflect adherence to the Dutch dietary guidelines 2015 and to evaluate against participants' characteristics and nutrient intakes with the score based on 24 h recall (24 hR) data and FFQ data. The Dutch Healthy Diet index 2015 (DHD15-index) consists of fifteen components representing the fifteen food-based Dutch dietary guidelines of 2015. Per component the score ranges between 0 and 10, resulting in a total score between 0 (no adherence) and 150 (complete adherence). Wageningen area, the Netherlands, 2011-2013. Data of 885 men and women, aged 20-70 years, participating in the longitudinal NQplus study, who filled out two 24 hR and one FFQ, were used. Mean (sd) score of the DHD15-index was 68·7 (16·1) for men and 79·4 (16·0) for women. Significant inverse trends were found between the DHD15-index and BMI, smoking, and intakes of energy, total fat and saturated fat. Positive trends were seen across sex-specific quintiles of the DHD15-index score with energy-adjusted micronutrient intakes. Mean DHD15-index score of the FFQ data was 15·5 points higher compared with 24 hR data, with a correlation coefficient of 0·56 between the scores. Observed trends of the DHD15-index based on FFQ with participant characteristics, macronutrient and energy-adjusted micronutrient intakes were similar to those with the DHD15-index based on 24 hR. The DHD15-index score assesses adherence to the Dutch dietary guidelines 2015 and indicates diet quality. The DHD15-index score can be based on 24 hR data and on FFQ data.

Nutritional composition, glycemic index, glycemic load, and organoleptical quality of glucomannan-enriched soy milk ice cream

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sa'adah, S.; Candra, O. M.; Nugrahani, G.; Pramono, A.; Afifah, D. N.

2018-01-01

Over the past decades, the number of childhood obesity cases has increased significantly, which led to an increase in the number of adults suffering from degenerative diseases such as diabetes mellitus (DM). Glucomannan-Enriched Soy Milk Ice Cream (GSMIC) may prevent obesity in children. The aim of the study was to test the level of carbohydrates, protein, fat, dietary fiber, glycemic index, glycemic load, and organoleptic quality of GSMIC. This experiment used a completely randomized design to test three formulations of glucomannan flour and soy milk (0.5%, 1.5%, and 2.5%). The products were tested for nutritional composition, and evaluated on glycemic index, glycemic load, and organoleptic quality. GSMIC 2.5% had higher levels of dietary fiber and high carbohydrate, protein, and fat content compared to ice cream (3.99%, 30.7%, 1.50%, 1.33%, respectively). The glycemic index of ice cream and 2.5% GSMIC were 75.83 (75%) and 51.48 (51%), respectively, while the glycemic load of ice cream and 2.5% GSMIC were 9.04 and 11.61, respectively. Based on the organoleptic analysis, formulation preferred by the panellists was 2.5% glucomannan flour. Glucomannan flour affected the level of carbohydrates, protein, fat, dietary fiber, glycemic index, glycemic load, and organoleptic quality in soy milk ice cream.

Soil quality indexing strategies for evaluating sugarcane expansion in Brazil

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Increasing demands for biofuels have intensified the land use change (LUC) for sugarcane cropping expansion in Brazil. Assessments of LUC-induced changes on soil quality (SQ) are essential for quantifying and monitoring the sustainability of sugarcane production over time. Since there is not a unive...

'76 EQ Index

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Wildlife, 1976

1976-01-01

This report evaluates the environmental quality of the United States. The analysis reveals that wildlife, soil, water, minerals, and living space indices have slid downward from 1969 to 1975. Only air quality slightly improved and timber remained steady. Despite this pessimistic picture, public support for environmental goals is still high. (MR)

Correlational Analysis of Objective and Subjective Measures of Cataract Quantification.

PubMed

Cochener, Béatrice; Patel, Sunni R; Galliot, Florence

2016-02-01

To evaluate whether correlations exist between objective and subjective measures of vision quality as a consequence of cataract and whether this may qualify the Objective Scatter Index as a supplementary means of cataract assessment. A prospective multicenter, cross-sectional study was conducted in 10 centers across France in patients undergoing cataract extraction surgery (lens opacity evaluated with the Lens Opacities Classification System III). A quality of life assessment using the Visual Function Index-14 (VF-14) (14 questions scored from 0 to 4) and measurement of visual acuity and evaluation of the Objective Scatter Index (HD Analyzer, Visiometrics SL, Terrassa, Spain) to assess the alteration of light scatter were used as measures in the study. The study included 1,768 eyes of 1,768 patients (mean age: 72.5 years; range: 28 to 93 years). The average OSI score was 4.97 ± 3.13 (range: 0.4 to 20.5). There was good correlation between visual acuity and OSI (r = -0.47, P < .001) and between OSI and VF-14 (r = -0.11, P < .001). The results presented in this study confirm that the Objective Scatter Index has sufficient correlations with visual acuity and VF-14 to supplement existing cataract diagnosis in a large population encompassing a broad spectrum of cataract presentations. Copyright 2016, SLACK Incorporated.

Relationship between fermentation index and other biochemical changes evaluated during the fermentation of Mexican cocoa (Theobroma cacao) beans.

PubMed

Romero-Cortes, Teresa; Salgado-Cervantes, Marco Antonio; García-Alamilla, Pedro; García-Alvarado, Miguel Angel; Rodríguez-Jimenes, Guadalupe del C; Hidalgo-Morales, Madeleine; Robles-Olvera, Víctor

2013-08-15

During traditional cocoa processing, the end of fermentation is empirically determined by the workers; consequently, a high variability on the quality of fermented cocoa beans is observed. Some physicochemical properties (such as fermentation index) have been used to measure the degree of fermentation and changes in quality, but only after the fermentation process has concluded, using dried cocoa beans. This would suggest that it is necessary to establish a relationship between the chemical changes inside the cocoa bean and the fermentation conditions during the fermentation in order to standardize the process. Cocoa beans were traditionally fermented inside wooden boxes, sampled every 24 h and analyzed to evaluate fermentation changes in complete bean, cotyledon and dried beans. The value of the fermentation index suggested as the minimal adequate (≥1) was observed at 72 h in all bean parts analyzed. At this time, values of pH, spectral absorption, total protein hydrolysis and vicilin-class globulins of fermented beans suggested that they were well fermented. Since no difference was found between the types of samples, the pH value could be used as a first indicator of the end of the fermentation and confirmed by evaluation of the fermentation index using undried samples, during the process. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.

Water quality evaluation system to assess the status and the suitability of the Citarum river water to different uses.

PubMed

Fulazzaky, Mohamad Ali

2010-09-01

Water quality degradation in the Citarum river will increase from the year to year due to increasing pollutant loads when released particularly from Bandung region of the upstream areas into the river without treatment. This will be facing the problems on water quality status to use for multi-purposes in the downstream areas. The water quality evaluation system is used to evaluate the available water condition that distinguishes into two categories, i.e., the water quality index (WQI) and water quality aptitude (WQA). The assessment of water quality for the Citarum river from 10 selected stations was found that the WQI situates in the bad category generally and the WQA ranges from the suitable quality for agriculture and livestock watering uses to the unsuitable for biological potential function, drinking water production, and leisure activities and sports in the upstream areas of Saguling dam generally.

Stress state of rock mass under open pit mining in the influence zone of tectonic disturbances (in terms of the Oktorkoi Fault, North Tien Shan)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kozhogulov, KCh; Nikolskaya, OV; Rybin, AK; Kuzikov, SI

2018-03-01

The qualitative connection between the crack growth direction and the orientation of the main axes of horizontal deformations in rocks mass in the area of the Boordin gold ore province is revealed. The effect of the rock mass quality (RQD) and contact conditions of crack surfaces on the stability index of pit wall rock mass is evaluated, and the influence of the rock mass quality index on the pit wall stability is determined.

Nutritional quality of major meals consumed away from home in Brazil and its association with the overall diet quality.

PubMed

Gorgulho, Bartira Mendes; Fisberg, Regina Mara; Marchioni, Dirce Maria Lobo

2013-08-01

The objective of the study is to evaluate the nutritional quality of meals consumed away from home and its association with overall diet quality. Data was obtained from 834 participants of a Health Survey in São Paulo, Brazil. Food intake was measured by a 24-hour dietary recall applied telephonically using the Automated Multiple-Pass Method. Overall dietary quality was assessed by the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index Revised (B-HEIR) and the Meal Quality Index (MQI) was used to evaluate dietary quality of the main meals. The association between the B-HEIR and the MQI was assessed by linear regression analysis. The consumption of at least one of the three main meals away from home was reported for 32% of respondents (70 adolescents, 156 adults and 40 elderly). The average MQI score of lunch consumed away from home was lower than lunch consumed at home, with higher amounts of total and saturated fats. The average score of B-HEIR was 58 points and was associated with the MQI score, energy, meal consumption location and gender. Lunch consumed away from home presented the worst quality, being higher in total and saturated fat. However, the meals consumed at home also need improvement. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Impact Factor: Implications of Open Access on Quality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grozanick, Sara E.

2010-01-01

There has been debate about the extent to which open access affects the quality of scholarly work. At the same time, researchers have begun to look for ways to evaluate the quality of open access publications. Dating back to the growth of citation indexes during the 1960s and 1970s, citation analysis--examining citation statistics--has since been…

The Relationship between Sleep Quality and Brain Amyloid Burden.

PubMed

Brown, Belinda M; Rainey-Smith, Stephanie R; Villemagne, Victor L; Weinborn, Michael; Bucks, Romola S; Sohrabi, Hamid R; Laws, Simon M; Taddei, Kevin; Macaulay, S Lance; Ames, David; Fowler, Christopher; Maruff, Paul; Masters, Colin L; Rowe, Christopher C; Martins, Ralph N

2016-05-01

To evaluate the association between self-reported sleep quality and levels of brain β-amyloid (Aβ) burden, and to determine the effect of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele on any associations found. This study is a cross-sectional analysis of 184 cognitively healthy men and women aged over 60 y. We measured sleep quality factors: specifically, sleep duration, latency (time taken to fall asleep), disturbances, efficiency, daytime dysfunction, and overall sleep quality, using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. All participants underwent Aβ positron emission tomography imaging for the quantification of brain Aβ burden and were APOE genotyped. Linear regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between sleep quality factors and brain Aβ burden, adjusting for age, body mass index, cardiovascular disease, and symptoms of depression, with APOE ε4 carriage entered as a moderator. Of the sleep factors, longer sleep latency was associated with higher levels of brain Aβ (B = 0.003 [standard error = 0.001], P = 0.02). APOE ε4 allele (carrier/noncarrier) did not moderate the relationship between sleep latency and brain Aβ burden. Our findings suggest a relationship between brain Aβ burden and sleep latency, independent of APOE ε4 genotype. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Probabilistic Analysis of Earthquake-Led Water Contamination: A Case of Sichuan, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Yan; Li, Lin; Benjamin Zhan, F.; Zhuang, Yanhua

2016-06-01

The objective of this paper is to evaluate seismic-led point source and non-point source water pollution, under the seismic hazard of 10 % probability of exceedance in 50 years, and with the minimum value of the water quality standard in Sichuan, China. The soil conservation service curve number method of calculating the runoff depth in the single rainfall event combined with the seismic damage index were applied to estimate the potential degree of non-point source water pollution. To estimate the potential impact of point source water pollution, a comprehensive water pollution evaluation framework is constructed using a combination of Water Quality Index and Seismic Damage Index methods. The four key findings of this paper are: (1) The water catchment that has the highest factory concentration does not have the highest risk of non-point source water contamination induced by the outbreak of potential earthquake. (2) The water catchment that has the highest numbers of cumulative water pollutants types are typically located in the south western parts of Sichuan where the main river basins in the regions flow through. (3) The most common pollutants in sample factories studied is COD and NH3-N which are found in all catchments. The least common pollutant is pathogen—found present in W1 catchment which has the best rating in the water quality index. (4) Using water quality index as a standardization parameter, parallel comparisons is made among the 16 water catchments. Only catchment W1 reaches level II water quality status which has the rating of moderately polluted in events of earthquake induced water contamination. All other areas suffer from severe water contamination with multiple pollution sources. The results from the data model are significant to urban planning commissions and businesses to strategically choose their factory locations in order to minimize potential hazardous impact during the outbreak of earthquake.

Evaluation of water quality at the source of streams of the Sinos River Basin, southern Brazil.

PubMed

Benvenuti, T; Kieling-Rubio, M A; Klauck, C R; Rodrigues, M A S

2015-05-01

The Sinos River Basin (SRB) is located in the northeastern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul (29º20' to 30º10'S and 50º15' to 51º20'W), southern Brazil, and covers two geomorphologic provinces: the southern plateau and the central depression. It is part of the Guaíba basin, has an area of approximately 800 km 2 and contains 32 counties. The basin provides drinking water for 1.6 million inhabitants in one of the most important industrial centres in Brazil. This study describes different water quality indices (WQI) used for the sub-basins of three important streams in the SRB: Pampa, Estância Velha/Portão and Schmidt streams. Physical, chemical and microbiological parameters assessed bimonthly using samples collected at each stream source were used to calculate the Horton Index (HI), the Dinius Index (DI) and the water quality index adopted by the US National Sanitation Foundation (NSF WQI) in the additive and multiplicative forms. These indices describe mean water quality levels at the streams sources. The results obtained for these 3 indexes showed a worrying scenario in which water quality has already been negatively affected at the sites where three important sub-basins in the Sinos River Basin begin to form.

Using Scientific Inquiry to Teach Students about Water Quality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Puche, Helena; Holt, Jame

2012-01-01

This semi-guided inquiry activity explores the macroinvertebrate fauna in water sources affected by different levels of pollution. Students develop their ability to identify macroinvertebrates, compare aquatic fauna from different sources of water samples, evaluate water quality using an index, document and analyze data, raise questions and…

Antral localization worsens the efficacy of enteral stents in malignant digestive tumors.

PubMed

Dolz, Carlos; Vilella, Àngels; González Carro, Pedro; González Huix, Ferran; Espinós, Juan Carlos; Santolaria, Santos; Pérez Roldán, Francisco; Figa, Montserrat; Loras, Carmen; Andreu, Hernán

2011-02-01

Malignant gastric outlet obstruction can be treated by means of enteral stenting or surgical gastrojejunalanatomosis. We evaluated in a prospective and multicentre study the efficacy of the enteral stent on food intake, the quality of life impact, and the relationship between efficacy and determined clinical and technical parameters. Seventy one patients affected by symptoms arising from gastroduodenal obstruction due to malignant tumors, with criteria of irresecability, metastatic disease or very high surgical risk, were treated by means of self expanding metal stents. We used the GOOSS index to evaluate efficacy, and the Euro Qol-5D index to evaluate quality of life. Before stenting patients with GOOSS 0 and 1 were 68 (98.5%). After stenting patients with GOOSS 2 and 3 (semisolid and solid food) were 58 (84,1%) (P<.0001). The Euro Qol-5D index measured before and a month after stenting were 10.17 and 10.04 respectively (P=.6). The median survival was 91 days (9-552). The enteral stents for localised tumors in the duodenum and the gastrojejunalanastomosis were effective in 26 patients (70.2%) and 13 patients respectively (86.6%), while the enteral stents of tumors in the antrum were effective in only 5 patients (29.4%). The palliative treatment of malignant gastric outlet obstruction with a uncovered metal stent produces a significant improvement of oral food intake and maintains the overall quality of life index. The antral localization is associated with a lower efficacy of the procedure. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.

Groundwater quality assessment for irrigation purposes based on irrigation water quality index and its zoning with GIS in the villages of Chabahar, Sistan and Baluchistan, Iran.

PubMed

Abbasnia, Abbas; Radfard, Majid; Mahvi, Amir Hossein; Nabizadeh, Ramin; Yousefi, Mahmood; Soleimani, Hamed; Alimohammadi, Mahmood

2018-08-01

The present study was conducted to evaluate the groundwater quality and its suitability for irrigation purpose through GIS in villages of Chabahr city, Sistan and Baluchistan province in Iran. This cross-sectional study was carried out from 2010 to 2011 the 1-year-monitoring period. The water samples were collected from 40 open dug wells in order to investigate the water quality. Chemical parameters including EC, SAR, Na + , Cl - , pH, TDS, H C O 3 - and IWQI were analyzed. In order to calculate the irrigation water quality index subsequent five water quality parameters (EC, SAR, Na + , Cl - , and H C O 3 - ) were utilized. Among the total of 40 samples were analyzed for IWQI, 40% of the samples classified as excellent water, 60% of the samples in good water category.

Design of an instrument to measure the quality of care in Physical Therapy.

PubMed

Cavalheiro, Leny Vieira; Eid, Raquel Afonso Caserta; Talerman, Claudia; Prado, Cristiane do; Gobbi, Fátima Cristina Martorano; Andreoli, Paola Bruno de Araujo

2015-01-01

To design an instrument composed of domains that would demonstrate physical therapy activities and generate a consistent index to represent the quality of care in physical therapy. The methodology Lean Six Sigma was used to design the tool. The discussion involved seven different management groups staff. By means of brainstorming and Cause & Effect Matrix, we set up the process map. Five requirements composed the quality of care index in physical therapy, after application of the tool called Cause & Effect Matrix. The following requirements were assessed: physical therapist performance, care outcome indicator, adherence to physical therapy protocols, measure whether the prognosis and treatment outcome was achieved and Infrastructure. The proposed design allowed evaluating several items related to physical therapy service, enabling customization, reproducibility and benchmarking with other organizations. For management, this index provides the opportunity to identify areas for improvement and the strengths of the team and process of physical therapy care.

Assessment of patient's experiences across the interface between primary and secondary care: Consumer Quality Index Continuum of care.

PubMed

Berendsen, Annette J; Groenier, Klaas H; de Jong, G Majella; Meyboom-de Jong, Betty; van der Veen, Willem Jan; Dekker, Janny; de Waal, Margot W M; Schuling, Jan

2009-10-01

Development and validation of a questionnaire that measures patients' experiences of collaboration between general practitioners (GPs) and specialists. A questionnaire was developed using the method of the consumer quality index and validated in a cross-sectional study among a random sample of patients referred to medical specialists in the Netherlands. Validation included factor analysis, ascertain internal consistency, and the discriminative ability. The response rate was 65% (1404 patients). Exploratory factor analysis indicated that four domains could be distinguished (i.e. GP Approach; GP Referral; Specialist; Collaboration). Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.51 to 0.93 indicating sufficient internal consistency to make comparison of groups of respondents possible. The Pearson correlation coefficients between the domains were <0.4, except between the domains GP Approach and GP Referral. All domains clearly produced discriminating scores for groups with different characteristics. The Consumer Quality Index (CQ-index) Continuum of Care can be a useful instrument to assess aspects of the collaboration between GPs and specialists from patients' perspective. It can be used to give feedback to both medical professionals and policy makers. Such feedback creates an opportunity for implementing specific improvements and evaluating quality improvement projects. 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

The efficacy of nonsurgical interventions for pediatric flexible flat foot: a critical review.

PubMed

Jane MacKenzie, Angela; Rome, Keith; Evans, Angela Margaret

2012-12-01

The pediatric flat foot frequently presents as a common parental concern in the health care setting. Foot orthoses are often used, yet benefits are uncertain and disputed, having been variably investigated. A recent Cochrane review cites limited evidence for nonsurgical interventions. This critical and structured review evaluates the effect of pediatric foot orthoses from assessment of the current literature. A systematic search of the following electronic databases: Medline, CINAHL, AMED, and SPORTDiscus, using an array of search terms. A further search was also performed on relevant reference listings. Inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed journal articles, publication date from 1970 onwards, in the English language. Exclusion criteria were surgery interventions, adult subjects, rigid flat foot, articles based on opinion. A structured Quality Index was used to evaluate the research quality of articles. Three reviewers independently assessed the studies with disputes resolved by majority consensus. Studies were then grouped according to the outcome measures used. Thirteen articles, from an initial 429, met the criteria for quality evaluation. The mean Quality Index score was 35% (range: 13% to 81%), indicative of generally poor and varying methodological quality. The low quality of the studies negates definitive conclusions. Only 3/13 quality evaluations scored > 50%; hence, evidence for efficacy of nonsurgical interventions for flexible pediatric flat feet is very limited. Future research needs validated foot type assessment, applicable outcome measures for the intervention, the use of control groups, allowance for independent effects of footwear, age range comparisons, larger samples, and prospective, longer follow-up. There is very limited evidence for the efficacy of nonsurgical interventions for children with flexible flat feet. Clinicians need to consider the lack of good-quality evidence in their decision-making for the management of pediatric flat foot.

Health literacy is associated with healthy eating index scores and sugar-sweetened beverage intake: findings from the rural lower Mississippi delta

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Although health literacy has been a public health priority area for more than a decade, the relationship between health literacy and dietary quality has not been thoroughly explored. This study, evaluates health literacy skills in relation to Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores and sugar-sweetened bev...

Using the annual phosphorus loss estimator (APLE) model to evaluate the University of Maryland phosphorus management tool

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Maryland’s phosphorus site index (PSI) has been used to guide management decisions to minimize the potential for P loss from agricultural fields in Maryland since the adoption of the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1998. The index was recently revised and renamed the University of Maryland Phospho...

Evaluation of multiple water quality indices for drinking and irrigation purposes for the Karoon river, Iran.

PubMed

Aminiyan, Milad Mirzaei; Aitkenhead-Peterson, Jacqueline; Aminiyan, Farzad Mirzaei

2018-06-16

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the water quality of the Karoon river, which is a main river in Iran country. For this purpose, hydrochemical analyses of a database that maintained by the Water Resources Authority of Khuzestan Province, Iran's Ministry of Energy, were carried out. These data were compared with the maximum permissible limit values recommended by World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization water standards for drinking and agricultural purposes, respectively. Also in this regard, multiple indices of water quality were utilized. However, not all indices gave similar rankings for water quality. According to the USSL diagram and Kelly ratio, Karoon's water quality is not suitable for irrigation purposes due to high salinity and moderate alkalinity. However, the results of the magnesium hazard analysis suggested that water quality for irrigation is acceptable. A Piper diagram illustrated that the most dominant water types during the 15 years of the study were Na-Cl and Na-SO 4 . The mineral saturation index also indicated that Na-Cl is the dominant water type. The water quality for drinking purpose was evaluated using a Schoeller diagram and water quality index (WQI). According to the computed WQI ranging from 111.9 to 194.0, the Karoon's water in the Khuzestan plain can be categorized as "poor water" for drinking purposes. Based on hydrochemical characteristics, years 2000-2007 and 2008-2014 were categorized into two clusters illustrating a decline in water quality between the two time periods.

Longitudinal Evaluation of Sleep-Disordered Breathing and Sleep Symptoms with Change in Quality of Life: The Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS)

PubMed Central

Silva, Graciela E.; An, Ming-Wen; Goodwin, James L.; Shahar, Eyal; Redline, Susan; Resnick, Helaine; Baldwin, Carol M.; Quan, Stuart F.

2009-01-01

Study Objectives: Findings from population studies evaluating the progression and incidence of sleep disordered breathing have shown evidence of a longitudinal increase in the severity of sleep disordered breathing. The present study evaluates the association among changes in sleep disordered breathing, sleep symptoms, and quality of life over time. Design: Prospective cohort study. Data were from the Sleep Heart Health Study. Setting: Multicenter study. Participants: Three thousand seventy-eight subjects aged 40 years and older from the baseline and follow-up examination cycles were included. Measurements: The primary outcomes were changes in the Physical Component Summary and Mental Component Summary scales obtained from the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form Health Survey. The primary exposure was change in the respiratory disturbance index obtained from unattended overnight polysomnograms performed approximately 5 years apart. Other covariates included measures of excessive daytime sleepiness and difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep. Results: Mean respiratory disturbance index increased from 8.1 ± 11 SD at baseline to 10.9 ± 14 (P < 0.0001) at follow-up. The mean Physical Component Summary and Mental Component Summary scores were 48.5 and 54.1 at baseline and 46.3 and 54.8 at follow-up. No associations between change in respiratory disturbance index and changes in Physical Component Summary or Mental Component Summary scores were seen. However, worsening of difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness were significantly associated with lower quality of life. Conclusions: A slight increase in severity of sleep disordered breathing was seen over 5 years; this was not associated with worsening of quality of life. However, subjective symptoms of quality of sleep and daytime sleepiness were associated with declining quality of life. Citation: Silva GE; An MW; Goodwin JL; Shahar E; Redline S; Resnick H; Baldwin CM; Quan SF. Longitudinal evaluation of sleep-disordered breathing and sleep symptoms with change in quality of life: the Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS). SLEEP 2009;32(8):1049-1057. PMID:19725256

A comparison of indexing methods to evaluate quality of soils subjected to different erosion: the role of soil microbiological properties.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Romaniuk, Romina; Lidia, Giuffre; Alejandro, Costantini; Norberto, Bartoloni; Paolo, Nannipieri

2010-05-01

Soil quality assessment is needed to evaluate the soil conditions and sustainability of soil and crop management properties, and thus requires a systematic approach to select and interpret soil properties to be used as indicators. The aim of this work was to evaluate and compare different indexing methods to assess quality of an undisturbed grassland soil (UN), a degraded pasture soil (GL) and a no tilled soil (NT) with four different A horizon depths (25, 23, 19 and 14 cm) reflecting a diverse erosion. Twenty four soil properties were measured from 0 to10 (1) and 10 to 20 cm. (2) and a minimum data set was chosen by multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) considering all measured soil properties together (A), or according to their classification in physical, chemical or microbiological (B) properties. The measured soil properties involved either inexpensive or not laborious standard protocols, to be used in routine laboratory analysis (simple soil quality index - SSQI), or a more laborious, time consuming and expensive protocols to determine microbial diversity and microbial functionality by methyl ester fatty acids (PLFA) and catabolic response profiles (CRP), respectively (complex soil quality index - CSQI). The selected properties were linearly normalized and integrated by the weight additive method to calculate SSQI A, SSQI B, CSQI A and CSQI B indices. Two microbiological soil quality indices (MSQI) were also calculated: the MSQI 1 only considered microbiological properties according to the procedure used for calculating SQI; the MSQI 2 was calculated by considering microbial carbon biomass (MCB), microbial activity (Resp) and functional diversity determined by CPR (E). The soil quality indices were SSQI A = MCB 1 + Particulate Organic Carbon (POC)1 + Mean Weight Diameter (MWD)1; SSQI B = Saturated hydraulic conductivity (K) 1 + Total Organic Carbon (TOC) 1 + MCB 1; CSQI A = MCB 1 + POC 1 + MWD 1; CSQI B = K 1+ TOC 1+ 0.3 * (MCB 1+ i/a +POC 1) + 0,05 * (E + cy/pre), where i/a and cy/pre are the iso/anteiso and cyclopropyl/precursors ratios determined by PLFA; MSQI 1 (0,3 * (MCB 1+ i/a 1 +POC 1) + 0,05 * (E 1+ cy/pre 1) ) and MSQI 2 (MCB 1+Resp 1+ E 1). All the calculated indices differentiated references plots (UN and GL), from those under no tillage (NT) system. Values were similar in NT plots with low erosion levels (NT 25 and 23) but higher than values of plots with high erosion (NT 19 and 14). Soil quality indices constructed by procedure B, (SSQI B and CSQI B) differentiated among the studied plots with the same or higher sensitivity than the other indices and allowed evaluating the impact of soil management practices and erosion on soil physical, chemical and microbiological properties. The lack of indicators representing all soil properties (physical, chemical and biological) in SQI constructed by procedure A could decrease the index sensitivity to changes in management; and the same may happen when physical, chemical and biological properties present different weights into the calculated SQI. The inclusion of CRP and PLFA data in the indices slightly increased or did not increase the index sensitivity (CSQI A and CSQI B). Generally microbiological indices (MSQI 1 and MSQI 2) were highly sensitive to soil erosion. However, we suggest that indices integrating physical, chemical and microbiological properties may give a more complete view of the soil quality than indices only based on measurement of a few microbiological properties.

Assessment of symptoms of urinary incontinence in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

PubMed

Montezuma, Thais; Antônio, Flávia Ignácio; Rosa e Silva, Ana Carolina Japur de Sá; Sá, Marcos Felipe Silva de; Ferriani, Rui Alberto; Ferreira, Cristine Homsi Jorge

2011-01-01

The pelvic floor muscles are sensitive to androgens, and due to hyperandrogenism, women with polycystic ovary syndrome can have increased mass in these muscles compared to controls. The aim of this study is to compare reports of urine leakage and quality of life between women with and without polycystic ovary syndrome. One hundred thirteen 18-to 40-year-old nulliparous women with polycystic ovary syndrome or without the disease (controls) were recruited at the University Hospital of School Medicine of São Paulo University at Ribeirão Preto City, Brazil. The subjects were not taking any hormonal medication, had not undergone previous pelvic surgery and did not exercise their pelvic floor muscles. The women were divided into the following four groups: I-polycystic ovary syndrome with normal body mass index (n = 18), II-polycystic ovary syndrome with body mass index >25 (n = 32), III-controls with normal body mass index (n = 29), and IV-controls with Body Mass Index >25 (n = 34). Quality of life was evaluated using the SF-36 questionnaire, and the subjects with urinary complaints also completed the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short Form to evaluate the severity of their urinary incontinence. The replies to the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short Form revealed a significant difference in urinary function between groups, with 24% of the subjects in group IV reporting urinary incontinence. The mean scores for the SF-36 questionnaire revealed that group II had the lowest quality of life. The control obese group (IV) reported a higher prevalence of urinary incontinence. There was no difference in the reported frequency of urine loss between the polycystic ovary syndrome and control groups with normal body mass index or between the polycystic ovary syndrome and control groups with body mass index >25.

Measuring client experiences in long-term care in the Netherlands: a pilot study with the Consumer Quality Index Long-term Care.

PubMed

Triemstra, Mattanja; Winters, Sjenny; Kool, Rudolf B; Wiegers, Therese A

2010-04-12

This study aims to describe the development, testing and optimization of a new standard instrument, the Consumer Quality Index (CQ-index) Long-term Care, for measuring client experiences with long-term care in the Netherlands. Three versions of the CQ-index questionnaires and protocols for study sampling and data collection were developed, designed for interviews with residents of nursing or residential care homes and postal surveys among representatives of psychogeriatric residents and homecare clients. From July to November 2006 a pilot study was conducted among 2,697 clients of 68 nursing or residential care homes, 2,164 representatives of clients in 57 psychogeriatric care institutions, and 1,462 clients of 19 homecare organizations. We performed psychometric analyses and descriptive analyses, and evaluated the pilot study. The pilot study showed the feasibility and usability of the instruments, supported the multidimensionality of the questionnaires and showed first findings on client experiences and possibilities for quality improvement. Nine scales applied to all care settings: shared decision making, attitude and courtesy, information, body care, competence and safety of care, activities, autonomy, mental well-being, and availability of personnel. The pilot resulted in three optimized questionnaires and recommendations for nationwide implementation. The CQ-index Long-term Care provides a good basis to investigate the quality of nursing homes, residential care homes and homecare from the clients' perspective. This standardized instrument enables a nationwide comparison of the quality of long-term care for the purpose of transparency and quality assurance.

Methodological adequacy of articles published in two open-access Brazilian cardiology periodicals.

PubMed

Macedo, Cristiane Rufino; Silva, Davi Leite da; Puga, Maria Eduarda

2010-01-01

The use of rigorous scientific methods has contributed towards developing scientific articles of excellent methodological quality. This has made it possible to promote their citation and increase the impact factor. Brazilian periodicals have had to adapt to certain quality standards demanded by these indexing organizations, such as the content and the number of original articles published in each issue. This study aimed to evaluate the methodological adequacy of two Brazilian periodicals within the field of cardiology that are indexed in several databases and freely accessible through the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), and which are now indexed by the Web of Science (Institute for Scientific Information, ISI). Descriptive study at Brazilian Cochrane Center. All the published articles were evaluated according to merit assessment (content) and form assessment (performance). Ninety-six percent of the articles analyzed presented study designs that were adequate for answering the objectives. These two Brazilian periodicals within the field of cardiology published methodologically adequate articles, since they followed the quality standards. Thus, these periodicals can be considered both for consultation and as vehicles for publishing future articles. For further analyses, it is essential to apply other indicators of scientific activity such as bibliometrics, which evaluates quantitative aspects of the production, dissemination and use of information, and scientometrics, which is also concerned with the development of science policies, within which it is often superimposed on bibliometrics.

Relevance of water quality index for groundwater quality evaluation: Thoothukudi District, Tamil Nadu, India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singaraja, C.

2017-09-01

The present hydrogeochemical study was confined to the Thoothukudi District in Tamilnadu, India. A total of 100 representative water samples were collected during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon and analyzed for the major cations (sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium) and anions (chloride, sulfate, bicarbonate, fluoride and nitrate) along with various physical and chemical parameters (pH, total dissolved salts and electrical conductivity). Water quality index rating was calculated to quantify the overall water quality for human consumption. The PRM samples exhibit poor quality in greater percentage when compared with POM due to dilution of ions and agricultural impact. The overlay of WQI with chloride and EC corresponds to the same locations indicating the poor quality of groundwater in the study area. Sodium (Na %), sodium absorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), residual sodium bicarbonate, permeability index (PI), magnesium hazards (MH), Kelly's ratio (KR), potential salinity (PS) and Puri's salt index (PSI) and domestic quality parameters such as total hardness (TH), temporary, permanent hardness and corrosivity ratio (CR) were calculated. The majority of the samples were not suitable for drinking, irrigation and domestic purposes in the study area. In this study, the analysis of salinization/freshening processes was carried out through binary diagrams such as of mole ratios of {SO}_{ 4}^{ 2- } /Cl- and Cl-/EC that clearly classify the sources of seawater intrusion and saltpan contamination. Spatial diagram BEX was used to find whether the aquifer was in the salinization region or in the freshening encroachment region.

Patient dose, gray level and exposure index with a computed radiography system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silva, T. R.; Yoshimura, E. M.

2014-02-01

Computed radiography (CR) is gradually replacing conventional screen-film system in Brazil. To assess image quality, manufactures provide the calculation of an exposure index through the acquisition software of the CR system. The objective of this study is to verify if the CR image can be used as an evaluator of patient absorbed dose too, through a relationship between the entrance skin dose and the exposure index or the gray level values obtained in the image. The CR system used for this study (Agfa model 30-X with NX acquisition software) calculates an exposure index called Log of the Median (lgM), related to the absorbed dose to the IP. The lgM value depends on the average gray level (called Scan Average Level (SAL)) of the segmented pixel value histogram of the whole image. A Rando male phantom was used to simulate a human body (chest and head), and was irradiated with an X-ray equipment, using usual radiologic techniques for chest exams. Thermoluminescent dosimeters (LiF, TLD100) were used to evaluate entrance skin dose and exit dose. The results showed a logarithm relation between entrance dose and SAL in the image center, regardless of the beam filtration. The exposure index varies linearly with the entrance dose, but the angular coefficient is beam quality dependent. We conclude that, with an adequate calibration, the CR system can be used to evaluate the patient absorbed dose.

Anxiety and depression are improved by continuous positive airway pressure treatments in obstructive sleep apnea.

PubMed

Li, Yu-Ying; Mazarakis, Thodoris; Shen, Yu-Chih; Yang, Miao-Chun; Chang, En-Ting; Wang, Hsiu-Mei

2016-08-01

Background Obstructive sleep apnea involves repeated nocturnal desaturation and sleep fragmentation that leads to poor sleep quality, anxiety, and depression. This study aimed to investigate short- and long-term improvements in the anxiety and depression of patients with different obstructive sleep apnea treatments. Methods This is a prospective, non-randomized hospital-based study evaluated 55 patients (46 male, 9 female) with obstructive sleep apnea. The patients were divided into three groups based on different treatment: uvulopalatopharyngoplasty group, continuous positive airway pressure group, and no treatment group (by their own decision). They completed the Beck Depression Inventory II, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index before treatment and at one and six months after treatment. Results Compared to the no treatment group, the surgery and continuous positive airway pressure groups had higher body mass index, AHI, and Epworth sleepiness scale, but no difference in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Chinese Health Questionnaire-12, Beck Depression Inventory II, and Beck Anxiety Inventory. The continuous positive airway pressure and surgery groups still had no improvements in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Chinese Health Questionnaire-12, Beck Depression Inventory II, and Beck Anxiety Inventory scores one month after treatment. At six months after treatment, the continuous positive airway pressure group had significantly decreased Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Chinese Health Questionnaire-12, Beck Depression Inventory II, and Beck Anxiety Inventory, whereas the surgery group had significant difference in Beck Anxiety Inventory only and the no treatment group still had no significant difference in any of the parameters. Conclusions Continuous positive airway pressure can improve the sleep quality, quality of life, depression, and anxiety of obstructive sleep apnea patients after six months of treatment. However, surgery can significantly improve anxiety only in the same period.

Does the Kids Cafe Program's nutrition education improve children's dietary intake? A pilot evaluation study

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Our objective was to evaluate the Kids Café Program (KCP) nutrition education intervention and assess its impact on children's diet quality and body mass index (BMI) percentile. An experimental design consisting of pretest-posttest comparison groups using mixed methods was used to evaluate the 6-ses...

The effects of balneotherapy on disease activity, functional status, pulmonary function and quality of life in patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

PubMed

Aydemir, Koray; Tok, Fatih; Peker, Fatma; Safaz, Ismail; Taskaynatan, Mehmet Ali; Ozgul, Ahmet

2010-01-01

This study aimed to determine the effects of balneotherapy on disease activity, functional status, metrology index, pulmonary function and quality of life in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The study included 28 patients (27 male and 1 female) diagnosed with AS according to modified New York criteria. The patients were treated with balneotherapy for 3 weeks (30 min/day, 5 days/week). The patients were evaluated using the global index, Bath ankylosing spondylitis disease activity index (BASDAI), disease functional index (BASFI), metrology index (BASMI), chest expansion measures, pulmonary function testing, and the medical outcomes study-short form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) (measure of quality of life) before balneotherapy and 1 month after treatment. Post balneotherapy BASDAI and global index decreased, BASMI parameters improved, chest expansion increased, and some SF-36 parameters improved; however, none of these changes were statistically significant (P > 0.05), except for the decrease in BASMI total score (P < 0.05). Before balneotherapy 6 patients had restrictive pulmonary disorder, according to pulmonary function test results. Pulmonary function test results in 3 (50%) patients were normalized following balneotherapy; however, as for the other index, balneotherapy did not significantly affect pulmonary function test results. The AS patients' symptoms, clinical findings, pulmonary function test results, and quality of life showed a trend to improve following balneotherapy, although without reaching significant differences. Comprehensive randomized controlled spa intervention studies with longer follow-up periods may be helpful in further delineating the therapeutic efficacy of balneotherapy in AS patients.

A Multi-level Fuzzy Evaluation Method for Smart Distribution Network Based on Entropy Weight

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jianfang; Song, Xiaohui; Gao, Fei; Zhang, Yu

2017-05-01

Smart distribution network is considered as the future trend of distribution network. In order to comprehensive evaluate smart distribution construction level and give guidance to the practice of smart distribution construction, a multi-level fuzzy evaluation method based on entropy weight is proposed. Firstly, focus on both the conventional characteristics of distribution network and new characteristics of smart distribution network such as self-healing and interaction, a multi-level evaluation index system which contains power supply capability, power quality, economy, reliability and interaction is established. Then, a combination weighting method based on Delphi method and entropy weight method is put forward, which take into account not only the importance of the evaluation index in the experts’ subjective view, but also the objective and different information from the index values. Thirdly, a multi-level evaluation method based on fuzzy theory is put forward. Lastly, an example is conducted based on the statistical data of some cites’ distribution network and the evaluation method is proved effective and rational.

Water quality analysis in rivers with non-parametric probability distributions and fuzzy inference systems: application to the Cauca River, Colombia.

PubMed

Ocampo-Duque, William; Osorio, Carolina; Piamba, Christian; Schuhmacher, Marta; Domingo, José L

2013-02-01

The integration of water quality monitoring variables is essential in environmental decision making. Nowadays, advanced techniques to manage subjectivity, imprecision, uncertainty, vagueness, and variability are required in such complex evaluation process. We here propose a probabilistic fuzzy hybrid model to assess river water quality. Fuzzy logic reasoning has been used to compute a water quality integrative index. By applying a Monte Carlo technique, based on non-parametric probability distributions, the randomness of model inputs was estimated. Annual histograms of nine water quality variables were built with monitoring data systematically collected in the Colombian Cauca River, and probability density estimations using the kernel smoothing method were applied to fit data. Several years were assessed, and river sectors upstream and downstream the city of Santiago de Cali, a big city with basic wastewater treatment and high industrial activity, were analyzed. The probabilistic fuzzy water quality index was able to explain the reduction in water quality, as the river receives a larger number of agriculture, domestic, and industrial effluents. The results of the hybrid model were compared to traditional water quality indexes. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it considers flexible boundaries between the linguistic qualifiers used to define the water status, being the belongingness of water quality to the diverse output fuzzy sets or classes provided with percentiles and histograms, which allows classify better the real water condition. The results of this study show that fuzzy inference systems integrated to stochastic non-parametric techniques may be used as complementary tools in water quality indexing methodologies. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Validity and reliability of a novel measure of activity performance and participation.

PubMed

Murgatroyd, Phil; Karimi, Leila

2016-01-01

To develop and evaluate an innovative clinician-rated measure, which produces global numerical ratings of activity performance and participation. Repeated measures study with 48 community-dwelling participants investigating clinical sensibility, comprehensiveness, practicality, inter-rater reliability, responsiveness, sensitivity and concurrent validity with Barthel Index. Important clinimetric characteristics including comprehensiveness and ease of use were rated >8/10 by clinicians. Inter-rater reliability was excellent on the summary scores (intraclass correlation of 0.95-0.98). There was good evidence that the new outcome measure distinguished between known high and low functional scoring groups, including both responsiveness to change and sensitivity at the same time point in numerous tests. Concurrent validity with the Barthel Index was fair to high (Spearman Rank Order Correlation 0.32-0.85, p > 0.05). The new measure's summary scores were nearly twice as responsive to change compared with the Barthel Index. Other more detailed data could also be generated by the new measure. The Activity Performance Measure is an innovative outcome instrument that showed good clinimetric qualities in this initial study. Some of the results were strong, given the sample size, and further trial and evaluation is appropriate. Implications for Rehabilitation The Activity Performance Measure is an innovative outcome measure covering activity performance and participation. In an initial evaluation, it showed good clinimetric qualities including responsiveness to change, sensitivity, practicality, clinical sensibility, item coverage, inter-rater reliability and concurrent validity with the Barthel Index. Further trial and evaluation is appropriate.

Data envelopment analysis in service quality evaluation: an empirical study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Najafi, Seyedvahid; Saati, Saber; Tavana, Madjid

2015-09-01

Service quality is often conceptualized as the comparison between service expectations and the actual performance perceptions. It enhances customer satisfaction, decreases customer defection, and promotes customer loyalty. Substantial literature has examined the concept of service quality, its dimensions, and measurement methods. We introduce the perceived service quality index (PSQI) as a single measure for evaluating the multiple-item service quality construct based on the SERVQUAL model. A slack-based measure (SBM) of efficiency with constant inputs is used to calculate the PSQI. In addition, a non-linear programming model based on the SBM is proposed to delineate an improvement guideline and improve service quality. An empirical study is conducted to assess the applicability of the method proposed in this study. A large number of studies have used DEA as a benchmarking tool to measure service quality. These models do not propose a coherent performance evaluation construct and consequently fail to deliver improvement guidelines for improving service quality. The DEA models proposed in this study are designed to evaluate and improve service quality within a comprehensive framework and without any dependency on external data.

Reliability and agreement on embryo assessment: 5 years of an external quality control programme.

PubMed

Martínez-Granados, Luis; Serrano, María; González-Utor, Antonio; Ortiz, Nereyda; Badajoz, Vicente; López-Regalado, María Luisa; Boada, Montserrat; Castilla, Jose A

2018-03-01

An external quality-control programme for morphology-based embryo quality assessment, incorporating a standardized embryo grading scheme, was evaluated over a period of 5 years to determine levels of inter-observer reliability and agreement between practising clinical embryologists at IVF centres and the opinions of a panel of experts. Following Guidelines for Reporting Reliability and Agreement Studies, the Gwet index and proportion of positive (Ppos) and negative agreement were calculated. For embryo morphology assessment, a substantial degree of reliability was measured between the centres and the panel of experts (Gwet index: 0.76; 95% CI 0.70 to 0.84). The agreement was higher for good- versus poor-quality embryos. When multinucleation or vacuoles were observed, low levels of reliability were obtained (Ppos: 0.56 and 0.43, respectively). In blastocysts, the characteristic that presented the largest discrepancy was that related to the inner cell mass. In decisions about the final disposition of the embryo, reliability between centre and the panel of experts was moderate (Gwet index: 0.51; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.60). In conclusion, the ability of clinical embryologists to evaluate the presence of multinucleation and vacuoles in the early cleavage embryo, and to determine the category of the inner cell mass in blastocysts, needs to be improved. Copyright © 2017 Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Evaluation of h-Index as a Measure of Research Productivity Among Canadian Academic Plastic Surgeons.

PubMed

Hu, Jiayi; Gholami, Arian; Stone, Nicholas; Bartoszko, Justyna; Thoma, Achilleas

2018-02-01

Evaluation of research productivity among plastic surgeons can be complex. The Hirsch index (h-index) was recently introduced to evaluate both the quality and quantity of one's research activity. It has been proposed to be valuable in assessing promotions and grant funding within academic medicine, including plastic surgery. Our objective is to evaluate research productivity among Canadian academic plastic surgeons using the h-index. A list of Canadian academic plastic surgeons was obtained from websites of academic training programs. The h-index was retrieved using the Scopus database. Relevant demographic and academic factors were collected and their effects on the h-index were analyzed using the t test and Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney U test. Nominal and categorical variables were analyzed using χ 2 test and 1-way analysis of variance. Univariate and multivariate models were built a priori. All P values were 2 sided, and P < .05 was considered to be significant. Our study on Canadian plastic surgeons involved 175 surgeons with an average h-index of 7.6. Over 80% of the surgeons were male. Both univariable and multivariable analysis showed that graduate degree ( P < .0001), academic rank ( P = .03), and years in practice ( P < .0001) were positively correlated with h-index. Limitations of the study include that the Scopus database and the websites of training programs were not always up-to-date. The h-index is a novel tool for evaluating research productivity in academic medicine, and this study shows that the h-index can also serve as a useful metric for measuring research productivity in the Canadian plastic surgery community. Plastic surgeons would be wise to familiarize themselves with the h-index concept and should consider using it as an adjunct to existing metrics such as total publication number.

Heartwood and sapwood in eucalyptus trees: non-conventional approach to wood quality.

PubMed

Cherelli, Sabrina G; Sartori, Maria Márcia P; Próspero, André G; Ballarin, Adriano W

2018-01-01

This study evaluated the quality of heartwood and sapwood from mature trees of three species of Eucalyptus, by means of the qualification of their proportion, determination of basic and apparent density using non-destructive attenuation of gamma radiation technique and calculation of the density uniformity index. Six trees of each species (Eucalyptus grandis - 18 years old, Eucalyptus tereticornis - 35 years old and Corymbia citriodora - 28 years old) were used in the experimental program. The heartwood and sapwood were delimited by macroscopic analysis and the calculation of areas and percentage of heartwood and sapwood were performed using digital image. The uniformity index was calculated following methodology which numerically quantifies the dispersion of punctual density values of the wood around the mean density along the radius. The percentage of the heartwood was higher than the sapwood in all species studied. The density results showed no statistical difference between heartwood and sapwood. Differently from the density results, in all species studied there was statistical differences between uniformity indexes for heartwood and sapwood regions, making justifiable the inclusion of the density uniformity index as a quality parameter for Eucalyptus wood.

Quality of life assessment in patients treated for metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

PubMed

Wang, A Y; Palme, C E; Wang, J T; Morgan, G J; Gebski, V; Gilchrist, J; Veness, M J

2013-07-01

Treatment for metastatic cutaneous head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is usually multimodal and associated with morbidity. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of treatment on patients' quality of life. Cross-sectional survey of 42 patients (35 men, 7 women) at least 6 months after metastatic cutaneous head and neck squamous cell carcinoma treatment, using two standardised quality of life questionnaires: the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Head and Neck questionnaire and the Facial Disability Index, with statistical analysis to identify potential predictors of outcome. Female gender correlated with significantly lower Facial Disability Index physical function scores (p = 0.017). Alcohol consumption correlated with significantly better scores for Functional Assessment social well-being (p = 0.016), general total score (p = 0.041) and overall total score (p = 0.033), and for Facial Disability Index physical function (p = 0.034). Marital status, education, employment, chemotherapy, time from last treatment, parotidectomy and facial nerve sacrifice did not affect quality of life. The commonest patient complaints were dry mouth (76 per cent), altered voice quality and strength (55 per cent), and physical appearance (45 per cent). Female gender predicts worse quality of life, while alcohol consumption (versus none) predicted for better quality of life.

Type 2 diabetes affects sleep quality by disrupting the respiratory function.

PubMed

Colbay, Gulcan; Cetin, Mustafa; Colbay, Mehmet; Berker, Dilek; Guler, Serdar

2015-09-01

The effects of diabetes on the respiratory system were investigated with arterial blood gas, sleep quality index and respiratory functions tests. Fifty-three patients with type II diabetes and 41 healthy cases were included. Their biochemical data, demographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements and echocardiographic findings were collected from polyclinic records. Respiratory function tests were performed for all subjects and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire was conducted. Aforementioned data were compared between these two groups. The age, body weight and body mass index were similar but oxygen pressure, oxygen saturation, forced vital capacity (FVC; %), and sleep quality were decreased in patients with diabetes. Sleep quality was correlated with the presence of diabetes and hypertension, duration of diabetes, fasting and postprandial blood glucose levels, homeostasis model of assessment-insulin resistance, Glycosylated hemoglobin levels, and FVC. Half of the diabetic patients exhibited respiratory failure during sleep. Especially diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy, experienced a more severe and prolonged decrease in oxygen saturation. Blood gas, respiratory functions and sleep quality, which need to be evaluated as a whole, were affected in patients with diabetes. Assessment of sleep and its quality requires special attention in patients with diabetes. © 2014 Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Quality of life in inflammatory bowel disease patients: A cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Habibi, Farzaneh; Habibi, Mohammad Emadoddin; Gharavinia, Ali; Mahdavi, Sadegh Baradaran; Akbarpour, Mohammad Javad; Baghaei, Abdolmehdi; Emami, Mohammad Hassan

2017-01-01

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has a significant impact on health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This study aims to investigate the variables which can be attributed to HRQOL in IBD patients. Seventy-one patients filled in IBD questionnaire (IBDQ-32), Pittsburgh sleep quality index questionnaire, and sociodemographic questionnaire. Disease activity was assessed by Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) and ulcerative colitis activity index (UCAI). The correlations of sleep quality, sociodemographic variables, and disease characteristics with IBDQ were investigated. IBDQ-32 mean score was lower in patients who had hospitalization ( P = 0.01), poor sleep quality ( P < 0.001), anemia ( P = 0.03), more severe disease ( P = 0.01), and those who had not consumed folic acid ( P = 0.01) relative to their counterparts. A multivariate regression analysis identified the predictors of decreased HRQOL as not consuming folic acid ( P = 0.008), poor sleep quality ( P = 0.014), and disease severity ( P = 0.043). Impaired HRQOL was significantly associated with poor sleep quality, lack of folic acid consumption, and disease severity in IBD patients. Therefore, evaluation of folic acid level and efficacy of its supplementation in prospective studies is recommended. Treatment of sleep disturbance with pharmacological agents and nonpharmacological methods should be kept in mind as well.

Instructional Sensitivity Statistics Appropriate for Objectives-Based Test Items. CSE Report No. 91.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kosecoff, Jacqueline B.; Klein, Stephen P.

Two types of sensitivity indices were developed in this paper, one internal to the total test and the second external. To evaluate the success of these statistics the three criteria suggested for a satisfactory index of item quality were considered. The Internal Sensitivity Index appears to meet these demands. Certainly it is easily computed. In…

Relationship between dry matter content at harvest and maturity index and post-harvest quality of "Fuji" apples

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Two experiments were carried out to evaluate the relationship between dry matter content (DMC) and maturity index of ‘Fuji’ apple fruit sports (‘Mishima’, ‘Fuji Select’ and ‘Fuji Suprema’) during the final stage of fruit growth, and the relationship between DMC at harvest and the post-harvest fruit ...

Selection of Journals for Index Medicus: A Historical Review

PubMed Central

Karel, Leonard

1967-01-01

From the inception of the first Index Medicus, published in 1879, to the present, the National Library of Medicine has been concerned with the quality of journals in the Index. The Library has, therefore, sought advice repeatedly on how best to maintain currency of the Index without sacrificing quality and subject matter balance. Responding to suggestions, the Library decided in June 1964 to base its selection of journals on recommendations made by a panel consisting primarily of extramural consultants widely regarded as specialists in the totality of biomedical literature. Beginning with its first meeting in September 1964, this panel has been fortified in its reviews by advice from subject matter specialists. The panel, by its own wishes, which bear the endorsement of the Board of Regents of the Library, will continue to rely heavily on such expert advice in future evaluations of journals. PMID:6072093

a Free and Open Source Tool to Assess the Accuracy of Land Cover Maps: Implementation and Application to Lombardy Region (italy)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bratic, G.; Brovelli, M. A.; Molinari, M. E.

2018-04-01

The availability of thematic maps has significantly increased over the last few years. Validation of these maps is a key factor in assessing their suitability for different applications. The evaluation of the accuracy of classified data is carried out through a comparison with a reference dataset and the generation of a confusion matrix from which many quality indexes can be derived. In this work, an ad hoc free and open source Python tool was implemented to automatically compute all the matrix confusion-derived accuracy indexes proposed by literature. The tool was integrated into GRASS GIS environment and successfully applied to evaluate the quality of three high-resolution global datasets (GlobeLand30, Global Urban Footprint, Global Human Settlement Layer Built-Up Grid) in the Lombardy Region area (Italy). In addition to the most commonly used accuracy measures, e.g. overall accuracy and Kappa, the tool allowed to compute and investigate less known indexes such as the Ground Truth and the Classification Success Index. The promising tool will be further extended with spatial autocorrelation analysis functions and made available to researcher and user community.

Methodological quality and scientific impact of quantitative nursing education research over 18 months.

PubMed

Yucha, Carolyn B; Schneider, Barbara St Pierre; Smyer, Tish; Kowalski, Susan; Stowers, Eva

2011-01-01

The methodological quality of nursing education research has not been rigorously studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the methodological quality and scientific impact of nursing education research reports. The methodological quality of 133 quantitative nursing education research articles published between July 2006 and December 2007 was evaluated using the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI).The mean (+/- SD) MERSQI score was 9.8 +/- 2.2. It correlated (p < .05) with several scientific impact indicators: citation counts from Scopus (r = .223), Google Scholar (r = .224), and journal impact factor (r = .216); it was not associated with Web of Science citation count, funding, or h Index. The similarities between this study's MERSQI ratings for nursing literature and those reported for the medical literature, coupled with the association with citation counts, suggest that the MERSQI is an appropriate instrument to evaluate the quality of nursing education research.

Telephone Problem-Solving Treatment Improves Sleep Quality in Service Members With Combat-Related Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Results From a Randomized Clinical Trial.

PubMed

Vuletic, S; Bell, K R; Jain, S; Bush, N; Temkin, N; Fann, J R; Stanfill, K E; Dikmen, S; Brockway, J A; He, F; Ernstrom, K; Raman, R; Grant, G; Stein, M B; Gahm, G A

2016-01-01

Evaluate sleep quality, its correlates, and the effect of telephone-based problem-solving treatment (PST) in active duty postdeployment service members with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) SETTING:: Randomized clinical trial. Active duty service members with combat-related mTBI. Education-only (EO) and PST groups (N = 178 each) received printed study materials and 12 educational brochures. The PST group additionally received up to 12 PST telephone calls addressing participant-selected issues. Outcomes were evaluated postintervention (6 months) and at 12 months. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Sleep quality was manifestly poor in both groups at baseline (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index = 12.5 ± 4). Overall sleep quality was significantly different between the PST and EO groups at 6 months (P = .003) but not at 12 months. Longitudinally, PST significantly improved sleep quality at 6 months (P = .001) but not over the follow-up. Low sleep quality was associated with concussion symptoms, pain, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder at all time points (P < .0001). Sleep disorders, common in postdeployment service members with mTBI, are strongly associated with the presence of pain, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression. Telephone-based PST may be an effective therapeutic approach for reducing sleep disorders in this population. Research should focus on maintenance of treatment gains.

Development of a quality-of-life instrument for autoimmune bullous disease: the Autoimmune Bullous Disease Quality of Life questionnaire.

PubMed

Sebaratnam, Deshan F; Hanna, Anna Marie; Chee, Shien-ning; Frew, John W; Venugopal, Supriya S; Daniel, Benjamin S; Martin, Linda K; Rhodes, Lesley M; Tan, Jeremy Choon Kai; Wang, Charles Qian; Welsh, Belinda; Nijsten, Tamar; Murrell, Dédée F

2013-10-01

Quality-of-life (QOL) evaluation is an increasingly important outcome measure in dermatology, with disease-specific QOL instruments being the most sensitive to changes in disease status. To develop a QOL instrument specific to autoimmune bullous disease (AIBD). A comprehensive item generation process was used to build a 45-item pilot Autoimmune Bullous Disease Quality of Life (ABQOL) questionnaire, distributed to 70 patients with AIBD. Experts in bullous disease refined the pilot ABQOL before factor analysis was performed to yield the final ABQOL questionnaire of 17 questions. We evaluated validity and reliability across a range of indices. Australian dermatology outpatient clinics and private dermatology practices. PATIENTS AND EXPOSURE: Patients with a histological diagnosis of AIBD. The development of an AIBD-specific QOL instrument. Face and content validity were established through the comprehensive patient interview process and expert review. In terms of convergent validity, the ABQOL was found to have a moderate correlation with scores on the Dermatology Life Quality Index (R = 0.63) and the General Health subscale of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (R = 0.69; P = .009) and low correlation with the Pemphigus Disease Area Index (R = 0.42) and Autoimmune Bullous Disease Skin Disorder Intensity Score (R = 0.48). In terms of discriminant validity, the ABQOL was found to be more sensitive than the Dermatology Life Quality Index (P = .02). The ABQOL was also found to be a reliable instrument evaluated by internal consistency (Cronbach α coefficient, 0.84) and test-retest reliability (mean percentage variation, 0.92). The ABQOL has been shown to be a valid and reliable instrument that may serve as an end point in clinical trials. Future work should include incorporating patient weighting on questions to further increase content validity and translation of the measure to other languages. anzctr.org.au Identifier: ACTRN12612000750886.

A semi-automated tool for treatment plan-quality evaluation and clinical trial quality assurance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jiazhou; Chen, Wenzhou; Studenski, Matthew; Cui, Yunfeng; Lee, Andrew J.; Xiao, Ying

2013-07-01

The goal of this work is to develop a plan-quality evaluation program for clinical routine and multi-institutional clinical trials so that the overall evaluation efficiency is improved. In multi-institutional clinical trials evaluating the plan quality is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. In this note, we present a semi-automated plan-quality evaluation program which combines MIMVista, Java/MATLAB, and extensible markup language (XML). More specifically, MIMVista is used for data visualization; Java and its powerful function library are implemented for calculating dosimetry parameters; and to improve the clarity of the index definitions, XML is applied. The accuracy and the efficiency of the program were evaluated by comparing the results of the program with the manually recorded results in two RTOG trials. A slight difference of about 0.2% in volume or 0.6 Gy in dose between the semi-automated program and manual recording was observed. According to the criteria of indices, there are minimal differences between the two methods. The evaluation time is reduced from 10-20 min to 2 min by applying the semi-automated plan-quality evaluation program.

[Vocal recognition in dental and oral radiology].

PubMed

La Fianza, A; Giorgetti, S; Marelli, P; Campani, R

1993-10-01

Speech reporting benefits by units which can recognize sentences in any natural language in real time. The use of this method in the everyday practice of radiology departments shows its possible application fields. We used the speech recognition method to report orthopantomographic exams in order to evaluate the advantages the method offers to the management and quality of reporting the exams which are difficult to fit in other closed computed reporting systems. Both speech recognition and the conventional reporting method (tape recording and typewriting) were used to report 760 orthopantomographs. The average time needed to make the report, the legibility (or Flesch) index, as adapted for the Italian language, and finally a clinical index (the subjective opinion of 4 odontostomatologists) were evaluated for each exam, with both techniques. Moreover, errors in speech reporting (crude, human and overall errors) were also evaluated. The advantages of speech reporting consisted in the shorter time needed for the report to become available (2.24 vs 2.99 minutes) (p < 0.0005), in the improved Flesch index (30.62 vs 28.9) and in the clinical index. The data obtained from speech reporting in odontostomatologic radiology were useful not only to reduce the mean reporting time of orthopantomographic exams but also to improve report quality by reducing both grammar and transmission mistakes. However, the basic condition for such results to be obtained is the speaker's skills to make a good report.

The Spatial-Temporal Analysis of Ecological Environment of Red Bed Hills in East Sichuan - Taking LU County as a Case

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, H.; Liu, Y.; Wang, X.; Liu, J.

2018-04-01

Good ecological environment is the foundation of human existence and development, the development of society and economy must be based on the premise of maintaining the stability and balance of the ecological environment. RS and GIS technology are used in this paper while the red-bed hills of Sichuan Province-Lu County have been taken as an example. According to the ecological environment characteristics of the study areas and the principle of choosing evaluation index, this paper selected six evaluation indicators (elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation cover, land use, gully density) to establish evaluation index system of ecological environment of Lu County. This paper determine the weight of each evaluation index by AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and establishes a comprehensive evaluation model by the weighted comprehensive evaluation method. This model is used to divide the ecological environment quality of Lu County into excellent, good, middle, poor and worse, and to analyze the ecological environment change in Lu County in recent ten years.

Convergent validation of EQ-5D-5L in patients with Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Alvarado-Bolaños, Alonso; Cervantes-Arriaga, Amin; Rodríguez-Violante, Mayela; Llorens-Arenas, Rodrigo; Calderón-Fajardo, Humberto; Millán-Cepeda, Roxanna; Leal-Ortega, Roberto; Estrada-Bellmann, Ingrid; Zuñiga-Ramírez, Carlos

2015-11-15

The European Quality of Life Questionnaire 5 level version (EQ-5D-5L) is a recently updated instrument to assess Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) that has not been validated extensively. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the internal consistency and convergent validation of the EQ-5D-5L in a large sample of subjects with Parkinson's disease (PD). A cross-sectional study was carried out. Consecutive Mexican subjects with PD were included. HRQoL was assessed using the EQ-5D-5L and the PDQ-8. Validity of the EQ-5D-5L was assessed determining its association with clinical ratings of disease severity, as well as correlation with PDQ-8. Additionally, performance was evaluated along predefined groups based on clinical and demographic data of known determinants of quality of life. A total of 585 patients were included for this study. A strong correlation was found between EQ-5D-5L index and PDQ-8 index (Spearman's correlation coefficient=-0.75; p<0.001). Correlation between EQ-5D-5L index and PDQ-8 index remained strong (-0.60 to -0.78; p values <0.001) through all predefined groups. EQ-5D-5L scored higher in those patients with dyskinesia, wearing off, freezing, postural instability, cognitive impairment or depressive mood (p values <0.001). The EQ-5D-5L is a valid instrument for evaluating HRQoL in PD, performing adequately irrespective of heterogeneous clinical and demographic characteristics, and showing to be sensitive to features of advanced disease and treatment complications. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Physicochemical and biological quality of soil in hexavalent chromium-contaminated soils as affected by chemical and microbial remediation.

PubMed

Liao, Yingping; Min, Xiaobo; Yang, Zhihui; Chai, Liyuan; Zhang, Shujuan; Wang, Yangyang

2014-01-01

Chemical and microbial methods are the main remediation technologies for chromium-contaminated soil. These technologies have progressed rapidly in recent years; however, there is still a lack of methods for evaluating the chemical and biological quality of soil after different remediation technologies have been applied. In this paper, microbial remediation with indigenous bacteria and chemical remediation with ferrous sulphate were used for the remediation of soils contaminated with Cr(VI) at two levels (80 and 1,276 mg kg(-1)) through a column leaching experiment. After microbial remediation with indigenous bacteria, the average concentration of water-soluble Cr(VI) in the soils was reduced to less than 5.0 mg kg(-1). Soil quality was evaluated based on 11 soil properties and the fuzzy comprehensive assessment method, including fuzzy mathematics and correlative analysis. The chemical fertility quality index was improved by one grade using microbial remediation with indigenous bacteria, and the biological fertility quality index increased by at least a factor of 6. Chemical remediation with ferrous sulphate, however, resulted in lower levels of available phosphorus, dehydrogenase, catalase and polyphenol oxidase. The result showed that microbial remediation with indigenous bacteria was more effective for remedying Cr(VI)-contaminated soils with high pH value than chemical remediation with ferrous sulphate. In addition, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was proven to be a useful tool for monitoring the quality change in chromium-contaminated soils.

Poor quality diet is associated with overweight status and obesity in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome.

PubMed

Rodrigues, A M dos S; Martins, L B; Franklin, A M T; Candido, A L; dos Santos, L C; Ferreira, A V M

2015-02-01

The high rates of overweight status observed in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may reflect dietary intake, and so it is important to investigate diet quality and its relationship with the rates of overweight status and obesity among these patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted in which 100 women with PCOS (Rotterdam criteria) were evaluated considering anthropometric and dietary data. The anthropometric evaluation included the measurement of weight, height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference and waist-hip ratio. Food intake data were collected from two 24-h dietary recalls to assess dietary patterns using the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index - Revised (BHEI-R). The anthropometric analysis indicated a high prevalence of overweight status, obesity and increased visceral fat (30.0%, 60.0% and 90.0%, respectively). The mean BHEI-R score was 56.1 ± 12.0 points (range 34.5-77.5 points). Diet quality was negatively correlated with obesity, which was evaluated by BMI (r = -0.248; P = 0.013) and WC (r = -0.278; P = 0.005). Dietary interventions focused on improvement of diet quality should be targeted to treat patients with PCOS because obesity in these women is associated with worsening endocrine, metabolic and reproductive functions. © 2014 The British Dietetic Association Ltd.

[Relationship between age, body mass index, dependency and quality of life in malnourished patients after hospital discharge].

PubMed

Casals, Cristina; Vázquez Sánchez, María Ángeles; Casals Sánchez, José Luis; Rioja Vázquez, Rosalía; Martín Salvador, Esperanza; García-Agua Soler, Nuria

2015-04-01

The quality of life assessment means investigating how patients perceive their disease. Malnutrition-specific characteristics make patients more vulnerable, so it is important to know how these factors impact on patients' daily life. To assess the quality of life in malnourished patients who have had hospital admission, and to determine the relationship of the quality of life with age, body mass index, diagnosis of malnutrition, and dependency. Multicenter transversal descriptive study in 106 malnourished patients after hospital admission. The quality of life (SF-12 questionnaire), BMI, functional independency (Barthel index), morbidity, and a dietary intake evaluation were assessed. The relationship between variables was tested by using the Spearman correlation coefficient. The patients of the present study showed a SF-12 mean of 38.32 points. The age was significantly correlated with the SF-12 (r= -0.320, p= 0.001). The BMI was correlated with the SF-12 (r= 0.251, p= 0.011) and its mental component (r= 0.289, p= 0.03). It was also reported a significant correlation between the Barthel index and the SF-12 (r= 0.370, p< 0.001). The general health perception in malnourished patients who have had a hospital admission was lower than the Spanish mean. Moreover, the quality of life in these patients is significantly correlated with age, BMI and functional independency. Copyright AULA MEDICA EDICIONES 2014. Published by AULA MEDICA. All rights reserved.

Assessing Restoration Effects on River Hydromorphology Using the Process-based Morphological Quality Index in Eight European River Reaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belletti, B.; Nardi, L.; Rinaldi, M.; Poppe, M.; Brabec, K.; Bussettini, M.; Comiti, F.; Gielczewski, M.; Golfieri, B.; Hellsten, S.; Kail, J.; Marchese, E.; Marcinkowski, P.; Okruszko, T.; Paillex, A.; Schirmer, M.; Stelmaszczyk, M.; Surian, N.

2018-01-01

The Morphological Quality Index (MQI) and the Morphological Quality Index for monitoring (MQIm) have been applied to eight case studies across Europe with the objective of analyzing the hydromorphological response to various restoration measures and of comparing the results of the MQI and MQIm as a morphological assessment applied at the reach scale, with a conventional site scale physical-habitat assessment method. For each restored reach, the two indices were applied to the pre-restoration and post-restoration conditions. The restored reach was also compared to an adjacent, degraded reach. Results show that in all cases the restoration measures improved the morphological quality of the reach, but that the degree of improvement depends on many factors, including the initial morphological conditions, the length of the restored portion in relation to the reach length, and on the type of intervention. The comparison with a conventional site scale physical-habitat assessment method shows that the MQI and MQIm are best suited for the evaluation of restoration effects on river hydromorphology at the geomorphologically-relevant scale of the river reach.

Assessing Restoration Effects on River Hydromorphology Using the Process-based Morphological Quality Index in Eight European River Reaches.

PubMed

Belletti, B; Nardi, L; Rinaldi, M; Poppe, M; Brabec, K; Bussettini, M; Comiti, F; Gielczewski, M; Golfieri, B; Hellsten, S; Kail, J; Marchese, E; Marcinkowski, P; Okruszko, T; Paillex, A; Schirmer, M; Stelmaszczyk, M; Surian, N

2018-01-01

The Morphological Quality Index (MQI) and the Morphological Quality Index for monitoring (MQIm) have been applied to eight case studies across Europe with the objective of analyzing the hydromorphological response to various restoration measures and of comparing the results of the MQI and MQIm as a morphological assessment applied at the reach scale, with a conventional site scale physical-habitat assessment method. For each restored reach, the two indices were applied to the pre-restoration and post-restoration conditions. The restored reach was also compared to an adjacent, degraded reach. Results show that in all cases the restoration measures improved the morphological quality of the reach, but that the degree of improvement depends on many factors, including the initial morphological conditions, the length of the restored portion in relation to the reach length, and on the type of intervention. The comparison with a conventional site scale physical-habitat assessment method shows that the MQI and MQIm are best suited for the evaluation of restoration effects on river hydromorphology at the geomorphologically-relevant scale of the river reach.

An overall index of environmental quality in coal mining areas and energy facilities.

PubMed

Vatalis, Konstantinos I; Kaliampakos, Demetrios C

2006-12-01

An approach to measuring environmental quality and trends in coal mining and industrial areas was attempted in this work. For this purpose, the establishment of a reference scale characterizing the status of environmental quality is proposed by developing an Environmental Quality Index (EQI). The methodology involves three main components: social research, the opinion of environmental experts, and the combination of new or existing indices. A survey of public opinion was carried out to identify the main environmental problems in the region of interest. Environmental experts carried out a survey, and the weights of specific environmental problems were obtained through a fuzzy Delphi method and pairwise comparison. The weight attributed to each environmental problem was computed, using new or existing indices (subindices) in the relevant literature. The EQI comprises a combination of the subindices with their own weights. The methodology was applied to a heavily industrialized coal basin in northwestern Macedonia, Greece. The results show that the new index may be used as a reliable tool for evaluating environmental quality in different areas. In addition, the study of EQI trends on an interannual basis can provide useful information on the efficiency of environmental policies already implemented by the responsible authorities.

Measuring Gait Quality in Parkinson’s Disease through Real-Time Gait Phase Recognition

PubMed Central

Mileti, Ilaria; Germanotta, Marco; Di Sipio, Enrica; Imbimbo, Isabella; Pacilli, Alessandra; Erra, Carmen; Petracca, Martina; Del Prete, Zaccaria; Bentivoglio, Anna Rita; Padua, Luca

2018-01-01

Monitoring gait quality in daily activities through wearable sensors has the potential to improve medical assessment in Parkinson’s Disease (PD). In this study, four gait partitioning methods, two based on thresholds and two based on a machine learning approach, considering the four-phase model, were compared. The methods were tested on 26 PD patients, both in OFF and ON levodopa conditions, and 11 healthy subjects, during walking tasks. All subjects were equipped with inertial sensors placed on feet. Force resistive sensors were used to assess reference time sequence of gait phases. Goodness Index (G) was evaluated to assess accuracy in gait phases estimation. A novel synthetic index called Gait Phase Quality Index (GPQI) was proposed for gait quality assessment. Results revealed optimum performance (G < 0.25) for three tested methods and good performance (0.25 < G < 0.70) for one threshold method. The GPQI resulted significantly higher in PD patients than in healthy subjects, showing a moderate correlation with clinical scales score. Furthermore, in patients with severe gait impairment, GPQI was found higher in OFF than in ON state. Our results unveil the possibility of monitoring gait quality in PD through real-time gait partitioning based on wearable sensors. PMID:29558410

Quality of care in the intensive care unit from the perspective of patient's relatives: development and psychometric evaluation of the consumer quality index 'R-ICU'.

PubMed

Rensen, Ans; van Mol, Margo M; Menheere, Ilse; Nijkamp, Marjan D; Verhoogt, Ellen; Maris, Bea; Manders, Willeke; Vloet, Lilian; Verharen, Lisbeth

2017-01-24

The quality standards of the Dutch Society of Intensive Care require monitoring of the satisfaction of patient's relatives with respect to care. Currently, no suitable instrument is available in the Netherlands to measure this. This study describes the development and psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire-based Consumer Quality Index 'Relatives in Intensive Care Unit' (CQI 'R-ICU'). The CQI 'R-ICU' measures the perceived quality of care from the perspective of patients' relatives, and identifies aspects of care that need improvement. The CQI 'R-ICU' was developed using a mixed method design. Items were based on quality of care aspects from earlier studies and from focus group interviews with patients' relatives. The time period for the data collection of the psychometric evaluation was from October 2011 until July 2012. Relatives of adult intensive care patients in one university hospital and five general hospitals in the Netherlands were approached to participate. Psychometric evaluation included item analysis, inter-item analysis, and factor analysis. Twelve aspects were noted as being indicators of quality of care, and were subsequently selected for the questionnaire's vocabulary. The response rate of patients' relatives was 81% (n = 455). Quality of care was represented by two clusters, each showing a high reliability: 'Communication' (α = .80) and 'Participation' (α = .84). Relatives ranked the following aspects for quality of care as most important: no conflicting information, information from doctors and nurses is comprehensive, and health professionals take patients' relatives seriously. The least important care aspects were: need for contact with peers, nuisance, and contact with a spiritual counsellor. Aspects that needed the most urgent improvement (highest quality improvement scores) were: information about how relatives can contribute to the care of the patient, information about the use of meal-facilities in the hospital, and involvement in decision-making on the medical treatment of the patient. The CQI 'R-ICU' evaluates quality of care from the perspective of relatives of intensive care patients and provides practical information for quality assurance and improvement programs. The development and psychometric evaluation of the CQI 'R-ICU' led to a draft questionnaire, sufficient to justify further research into the reliability, validity, and the discriminative power of the questionnaire.

Systematic review of the impact of urinary tract infections on health-related quality of life.

PubMed

Bermingham, Sarah L; Ashe, Joanna F

2012-12-01

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Values for equivalent health states can vary substantially depending on the measure used and method of valuation; this has a direct impact on the results of economic analyses. To date, the majority of existing economic evaluations that include UTI as a health state refer to an analysis in which the Index of Well Being was used to estimate the quality of life experienced by young women with UTIs. Currently, there are no validated methods or filters for systematically searching for the type of generic quality of life data required for decision analytic models. This study is the only systematic review of quality of life in people with UTI in the literature. Twelve studies were identified which report quality of life using a variety of generic methods; the results of these papers were summarized in a way that is useful for a health researcher seeking to populate a decision model, design a clinical study or assess the effect of UTI on quality of life relative to other conditions. One research group provided previously unpublished data from a large cohort study; these scores were mapped to EuroQol 5-Dimension values using published algorithms and probabilistic simulations. The aim of this review was to identify studies that have evaluated the impact of symptomatic urinary tract infection (UTI) and UTI-associated bacteraemia on quality of life, and to summarize these data in a way that is useful for a health researcher seeking to populate a cost-utility model, design a clinical study or assess the effect of UTIs on quality of life relative to other conditions. We conducted a systematic search of the literature using MEDLINE, EMBASE, the NHS Economic Evaluations database, Health Technology Assessment database, Health Economics Evaluations database, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry and EuroQol website. Studies that reported utility values for symptomatic UTI or UTI-associated bacteraemia derived from a generic QoL measurement tool or expert opinion were included. Studies using disease-specific instruments were excluded. Twelve studies were identified that included a generic measure of health-related quality of life for patients with UTIs. These measures included: the short-form (SF)-36 and SF-12 questionnaires; the Health Utilities Index Mark 2; Quality of Well Being; the Index of Well Being, standard gamble; the Health and Activity Limitation Index; and expert opinion. The authors of studies using either of the SF questionnaires were contacted for additional data. One research group provided previously unpublished data from a large cohort study; these scores were mapped to EuroQol 5-Dimension (EQ-5D) values using published algorithms and probabilistic simulations. The present review provides health researchers with several sources from which to select utility values to populate cost-utility models. It also shows that very few studies have measured quality of life in patients with UTI using generic preference-based measures of health and none have evaluated the impact of this health state on quality of life in children. Future studies ought to consider the inclusion of commonly used preference-based measures of health, such as the EQ-5D, in all patient populations experiencing symptomatic UTI or UTI-related complications. © 2012 NATIONAL CLINICAL GUIDELINE CENTRE OF ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.

Evaluation of comprehensive environmental effect about coastal zone development activities in Liaoning Province and management advice.

PubMed

Wang, Wei-Wei; Cai, Yue-Yin; Sun, Yong-Guang; Ma, Hong-Wei

2015-07-01

Using spatial analysis function of Arcgis software, the present study investigated the building environment impact evaluation index system of coastal development in Liaoning Province. The factors of it included of current state of environmental quality, environmental impact of marine development and marine environmental disaster. Weighted factor analysis and comprehensive index method were utilized. At the end, comprehensive environment effect of coastal development in Liaoning Province were evaluated successfully. The result showed that the environmental effect of development activity were most serious, along the Zhao Jiatun coast in north of Zhimao bay and coast of Mianhua island in Dalian bay.

Characteristics utilization of public space in Padang City based on good public space index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eriawan, T.

2017-06-01

Padang is a metropolitan city which has 40 units of open space like plansum park, playground, and sports park with 10,88 hectar of total area. These open spaces are publics’, but not all of them are able to use as active public open spaces it caused by some of the parks are dormant parks beacuse they only for planted ground not for public activites.This study conducted to assess the quality of public space that exsist in Padang; Imam Bonjol park (representing of city open space (go-green)), H. Agus Salim sport center ( representing of sports park) and Pantai Muaro Padang area (representing of recreation/tourism).The method of this research conducted in several stages, first was the identification toward space’s function (Carmona,2008) and assess the space utilization index based approach to public space index (Metha,2007). The spaced quality is measured based on variable in Good Public Space Index which is the intensity of use, social activities, duration of activities, variation and pattern of use. The urgency of this research related to the effort to evaluate the policy of space arrangement and space control through the assessment of the use of existed spaces, until it can be references to Padang goverment in improving and increasing the quality of space thorugh development of spaces that have high quality.The assesment of quality of public open spaces in Padang conducted by assessed five space quality variables, result of analysis, utilization of public space was 0.69. based on the result it can be concluded the quality of public space in some parks in Padang has moderate index quality. This is caused by the time differentiation of the society, there is no interaction among society, and short time duration of the society in visiting the public space.

Quality of life in patients with vitiligo: a cross-sectional study based on Vitiligo Quality of Life index (VitiQoL).

PubMed

Hedayat, Kosar; Karbakhsh, Mojgan; Ghiasi, Maryam; Goodarzi, Azadeh; Fakour, Yousef; Akbari, Zahra; Ghayoumi, Afsaneh; Ghandi, Narges

2016-06-07

Vitiligo is a multi-factorial pigmentary skin disorder. Recently, the importance of emotional and psychological issues is proposed in incidence, progression, relapse and remission of vitiligo. There are limited studies conducted in developing countries, which assess life quality of patients with vitiligo. The aim of this study was the application and evaluation of a disease-specific quality of life index in Iranian patients, for the first time. This cross-sectional biphasic study was conducted on 25 patients as a pilot and another 173 patients as the main study group, in Razi Hospital, Tehran, Iran, 2013-2014. Persian version of Vitiligo Quality of Life index (VitiQoL) was developed with backward-forward method. Based on the pilot study, the validity and reliability were assessed. The Vitiligo Area and Score Index (VASI), VitiQoL, and their relationship, demographic and clinical characteristic of patients were measured. The Mean and standard deviation of the VitiQoL score was 30.5 ± 14.5 (range 0-60 in Persian version). There was a significant relationship between VASI score and VitiQoL (p = 0.015, r = 0.187). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed three important factors within VitiQoL: participation limitation, stigma, and behavior. In subscale analysis based on behavior factor, female patients had poorer quality of life (p = 0.02). Concomitant psychiatric problems, e.g. anxiety and depression, were not associated with QOL; however, they were near to being meaningful (p = 0.06, r = 0.14). VitiQoL is a valid index in estimating life quality of vitiligo patients and has proper relation to disease severity. Focusing on patient's life quality is an important entity in the management of vitiligo patients; relevant supportive group-based consultations and therapies are also important arms when approaching vitiligo.

Use of a silklike bedding fabric in patients with atopic dermatitis.

PubMed

Kurtz, Eleanor J; Yelverton, Christopher B; Camacho, Fabian T; Fleischer, Alan B

2008-01-01

Symptoms of atopic dermatitis are often affected by environmental irritants. Modulation of potential irritants may benefit such symptoms. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a novel silklike bedding fabric for persons with mild to moderate atopic dermatitis. Participants with mild to moderate atopic dermatitis were provided a bedsheet set. Eczema Area and Severity Index and Investigator Global Assessment were the primary outcome measures. Visual Analog Scale for itch and a quality of life were also evaluated. The Wilcoxon signed rank test indicated a significant decrease in severity, with the Investigator Global Assessment score decreasing from 2.05 to 1.74 at week 8 (p = 0.03), the Eczema Area and Severity Index decreasing from 2.63 at baseline to 2.19 (p = 0.014), and the itching score decreasing from 3.97 to 3.00 (p = 0.010). An increase in the study-specific quality of life index was also observed, changing from -0.08 (no change in quality of life) to 1.23 (some improvement) (p < 0.0001). Atopic dermatitis is commonly recalcitrant to therapy and synthetic silklike bed linens may have value as another option for the treatment of this disease. This pilot study demonstrated promising results that warrant confirmation in controlled clinical studies.

Validation of the French version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Addendum for posttraumatic stress disorder

PubMed Central

Ait-Aoudia, Malik; Levy, Pierre P.; Bui, Eric; Insana, Salvatore; de Fouchier, Capucine; Germain, Anne; Jehel, Louis

2013-01-01

Background Sleep disturbances are one of the main complaints of patients with trauma-related disorders. The original Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Addendum for PTSD (PSQI-A) is self-report instrument developed to evaluate posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-specific sleep disturbances in trauma-exposed individuals. However, to date, the PSQI-A has not yet been translated nor validated in French. Objective The present study aims to: a) translate the PSQI-A into French, and b) examine its psychometric properties. Method Seventy-three adult patients (mean age=40.3 [SD=15.0], 75% females) evaluated in a specialized psychotraumatology unit completed the French versions of the PSQI-A, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Impact Event Scale-Revised (IES-R). Results The French version of the PSQI-A showed satisfactory internal consistency, inter-item correlations, item correlations with the total score, convergent validity with PTSD and anxiety measures, and divergent validity with a depression measure. Conclusion Our findings support the use of the French version of the PSQI-A for both clinical care and research. The French version of the PSQI-A is an important addition to the currently available instruments that can be used to examine trauma-related sleep disturbances among French-speaking individuals. PMID:24044071

Case study of microarthropod communities to assess soil quality in different managed vineyards

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gagnarli, E.; Goggioli, D.; Tarchi, F.; Guidi, S.; Nannelli, R.; Vignozzi, N.; Valboa, G.; Lottero, M. R.; Corino, L.; Simoni, S.

2015-07-01

Land use influences the abundance and diversity of soil arthropods. The evaluation of the impact of different management strategies on soil quality is increasingly sought, and the determination of community structures of edaphic fauna can represent an efficient tool. In the area of Langhe (Piedmont, Italy), eight vineyards characterized for physical and chemical properties (soil texture, soil pH, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, calcium carbonate) were selected. We evaluated the effect of two types of crop management, organic and integrated pest management (IPM), on abundance and biodiversity of microarthropods living at the soil surface. Soil sampling was carried out in winter 2011 and spring 2012. All specimens were counted and determined up to the order level. The biodiversity analysis was performed using ecological indexes (taxa richness, dominance, Shannon-Wiener, Buzas and Gibson's evenness, Margalef, equitability, Berger-Parker), and the biological soil quality was assessed with the BSQ-ar index. The mesofauna abundance was affected by both the type of management and sampling time. On the whole, a higher abundance was in organic vineyards (N = 1981) than in IPM ones (N = 1062). The analysis performed by ecological indexes showed quite a high level of biodiversity in this environment, particularly in May 2012. Furthermore, the BSQ-ar values registered were similar to those obtained in preserved soils.

A Randomized Trial about Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Improves Outcomes among Adults with Type 2 Diabetes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Carla K.; Gutschall, Melissa

2009-01-01

Glycemic index (GI) represents the postprandial glucose response of carbohydrate foods, and glycemic load (GL) represents the quantity and quality of carbohydrate consumed. A diet lower in GI and GL may improve diabetes management. A 9-week intervention regarding GI and GL was evaluated among adults in the age range of 40-70 years who had had type…

Evaluation of groundwater quality and assessment of scaling potential and corrosiveness of water samples in Kadkan aquifer, Khorasan-e-Razavi Province, Iran.

PubMed

Esmaeili-Vardanjani, Mostafa; Rasa, Iraj; Amiri, Vahab; Yazdi, Mohammad; Pazand, Kaveh

2015-02-01

The chemical analysis of 129 groundwater samples in the Kadkan area, Khorasan-e-Razavi Province, NE of Iran was evaluated to determine the hydrochemical processes, assessment of groundwater quality for irrigation purposes, corrosiveness, and scaling potential of the groundwater. Accordingly, the suitability of groundwater for irrigation was evaluated based on the sodium adsorption ratio, residual sodium carbonate, sodium percent, salinity hazard, and US Salinity Laboratory hazard diagram. Based on the electrical conductivity and sodium adsorption ratio, the dominant classes are C3-S1, C3-S2, C2-S1, and C4-S2. According to the Wilcox plot, about 50 % of the samples fall in the "Excellent to Good" and "Good to Permissible" classes. Besides, the Langelier saturation index, Ryznar stability index (RSI), Larson-Skold index, and Puckorius scaling index were evaluated for assessing the corrosiveness and scaling potential of the groundwater. Corrosiveness and scaling indices stated that the majority of samples are classified into "Aggressive" and "Very Aggressive" category. In addition, chloride and sulfate interfere in 90 % of the samples. Assessment of hydrochemical characteristics indicates Na-Mg-Cl as the predominant hydrochemical type. Spatial distribution of hydrochemical parameters indicates that hydrochemical processes are influenced by geology and hydrogeology of Kadkan aquifer. The Gibbs plots gave an indication that groundwater chemistry in this area may have acquired the chemistry mainly from evaporation and mineral precipitation. Grouping the samples based on Q-mode hierarchical cluster analysis helped to more separation of similar samples. The R-mode HCA grouped analyzed parameters into two groups based on similarity of hydrochemical characteristics. As a result, the samples collected in northern and southern parts of the study area show the best quality (i.e., lowest salinity) for some purposes such as irrigation and drinking.

Effects of low sleep quality on sexual function, in women with fibromyalgia.

PubMed

Amasyali, A S; Taştaban, E; Amasyali, S Y; Turan, Y; Kazan, E; Sari, E; Erol, B; Cengiz, M; Erol, H

2016-01-01

Sexual dysfunction is a common experience in women with fibromyalgia. However, the physiopathology of this association is unclear. We aimed to evaluate whether sleep disturbance has an influence on sexual function in women with fibromyalgia. Fifty-four sexually active premenopausal women with fibromyalgia were enrolled in the study. The following questionnaires were used: the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Appropriate statistical analyses were used by using SPSS 18. The mean FSFI score was 25.344 ± 6.52 and showed no correlation with age, body mass index, BDI or duration of fibromyalgia. However, a positive correlation between sexual dysfunction and low sleep quality was found (r=0.43; P=0.001). In addition, the median FSFI score was 29.2 (27.2-32.4) in patients with higher sleep quality (PSQI⩽5), whereas it was 21.4 (18.9-25.3) in patients with lower sleep quality (PSQI>5) (P<0.001). There was a positive correlation between sexual dysfunction and symptoms of fibromyalgia as indicated by a higher FIQ score (r=0.37; P=0.006). Sexual dysfunction in female patients with fibromyalgia may be due to low sleep quality. Treatment of the sleep disorder may improve female sexual function.

Sleep Quality Assessment and Daytime Sleepiness of Liver Transplantation Candidates.

PubMed

Marques, D M; Teixeira, H R S; Lopes, A R F; Martins-Pedersoli, T A; Ziviani, L C; Mente, Ê D; Castro-E-Silva, O; Galvão, C M; Mendes, K S

2016-09-01

The goal of this study was to evaluate the sleep quality and daytime sleepiness of patients eligible for liver transplants. A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted on liver transplant candidates from a transplant center in the interior of São Paulo State. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Epworth Sleepiness Scale questionnaires were applied to obtain demographic and clinical characteristics and to assess sleep quality and daytime sleepiness. The mean (±SD) score on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale of the 45 liver transplantation candidates was 7.00 ± 2.83 points, with 28.89% having scores >10 points, indicating excessive daytime sleepiness. The mean score on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was 6.64 ± 4.95 points, with 60% of the subjects showing impaired sleep quality, with scores >5 points. The average sleep duration was 07:16 h. Regarding sleep quality self-classification, 31.11% reported poor or very poor quality. It is noteworthy that 73.33% of patients had to go to the bathroom, 53.33% woke up in the middle of the night, and 40.00% reported pain related to sleeping difficulties. Comparison of subjects with good and poor sleep quality revealed a significant difference in time to sleep (P = .0002), sleep hours (P = .0003), and sleep quality self-classification (P = .000072). Liver transplant candidates have a compromised quality of sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness. In clinical practice, we recommend the evaluation and implementation of interventions aimed at improving the sleep and wakefulness cycle, contributing to a better quality of life. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Are the frail destined to fail? Frailty index as predictor of surgical morbidity and mortality in the elderly.

PubMed

Farhat, Joseph S; Velanovich, Vic; Falvo, Anthony J; Horst, H Mathilda; Swartz, Andrew; Patton, Joe H; Rubinfeld, Ilan S

2012-06-01

America's aging population has led to an increase in the number of elderly patients necessitating emergency general surgery. Previous studies have demonstrated that increased frailty is a predictor of outcomes in medicine and surgical patients. We hypothesized that use of a modification of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging Frailty Index would be a predictor of morbidity and mortality in patients older than 60 years undergoing emergency general surgery. Data were obtained from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Participant Use Files database in compliance with the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Data Use Agreement. We selected all emergency cases in patients older than 60 years performed by general surgeons from 2005 to 2009. The effect of increasing frailty on multiple outcomes including wound infection, wound occurrence, any infection, any occurrence, and mortality was then evaluated. Total sample size was 35,334 patients. As the modified frailty index increased, associated increases occurred in wound infection, wound occurrence, any infection, any occurrence, and mortality. Logistic regression of multiple variables demonstrated that the frailty index was associated with increased mortality with an odds ratio of 11.70 (p < 0.001). Frailty index is an important predictive variable in emergency general surgery patients older than 60 years. The modified frailty index can be used to evaluate risk of both morbidity and mortality in these patients. Frailty index will be a valuable preoperative risk assessment tool for the acute care surgeon. Prognostic study, level II. Copyright © 2012 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

[Study on the optimization of monitoring indicators of drinking water quality during health supervision].

PubMed

Ye, Bixiong; E, Xueli; Zhang, Lan

2015-01-01

To optimize non-regular drinking water quality indices (except Giardia and Cryptosporidium) of urban drinking water. Several methods including drinking water quality exceed the standard, the risk of exceeding standard, the frequency of detecting concentrations below the detection limit, water quality comprehensive index evaluation method, and attribute reduction algorithm of rough set theory were applied, redundancy factor of water quality indicators were eliminated, control factors that play a leading role in drinking water safety were found. Optimization results showed in 62 unconventional water quality monitoring indicators of urban drinking water, 42 water quality indicators could be optimized reduction by comprehensively evaluation combined with attribute reduction of rough set. Optimization of the water quality monitoring indicators and reduction of monitoring indicators and monitoring frequency could ensure the safety of drinking water quality while lowering monitoring costs and reducing monitoring pressure of the sanitation supervision departments.

Psychometric Properties of the Persian Translation of the Sexual Quality of Life–Male Questionnaire

PubMed Central

Maasoumi, Raziyeh; Mokarami, Hamidreza; Nazifi, Morteza; Stallones, Lorann; Taban, Abrahim; Yazdani Aval, Mohsen; Samimi, Kazem

2016-01-01

Sexual dysfunction has been demonstrated to be related to a poor quality of life. These dysfunctions are especially prevalent among men. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian translation of the Sexual Quality of Life–Male (SQOL-M), translated and adapted to measure sexual quality of life among Iranian men. Forward–backward procedures were applied in translating the original SQOL-M into Persian, and then the psychometric properties of the Persian translation of the SQOL-M were studied. A total of 181 participants (23-60 years old) were included in the study. Validity was assessed by construct validity using confirmatory factor analysis, convergent validity, and content validity. The international index of erectile function (IIEF) and the work ability index were used to study the convergent validity. Reliability was evaluated through internal consistency and test–retest reliability analyses. The results from confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a one-factor solution for the Persian version of the SQOL-M. Content validity of the translated measure was endorsed by 10 specialists. Pearson correlations indicated that work ability index score, dimensions of the IIEF, and the IIEF total score were positively correlated with the Persian version of the SQOL-M (p < .001). Reliability evaluation indicated a high internal consistency and test–retest reliability. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and intraclass correlation coefficients were .96 and .95, respectively. Results indicated that the Persian version of the SQOL-M has good to excellent psychometric properties and can be used to assess the sexual quality of life among Iranian men. PMID:26856758

Psychometric Properties of the Persian Translation of the Sexual Quality of Life-Male Questionnaire.

PubMed

Maasoumi, Raziyeh; Mokarami, Hamidreza; Nazifi, Morteza; Stallones, Lorann; Taban, Abrahim; Yazdani Aval, Mohsen; Samimi, Kazem

2017-05-01

Sexual dysfunction has been demonstrated to be related to a poor quality of life. These dysfunctions are especially prevalent among men. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian translation of the Sexual Quality of Life-Male (SQOL-M), translated and adapted to measure sexual quality of life among Iranian men. Forward-backward procedures were applied in translating the original SQOL-M into Persian, and then the psychometric properties of the Persian translation of the SQOL-M were studied. A total of 181 participants (23-60 years old) were included in the study. Validity was assessed by construct validity using confirmatory factor analysis, convergent validity, and content validity. The international index of erectile function (IIEF) and the work ability index were used to study the convergent validity. Reliability was evaluated through internal consistency and test-retest reliability analyses. The results from confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a one-factor solution for the Persian version of the SQOL-M. Content validity of the translated measure was endorsed by 10 specialists. Pearson correlations indicated that work ability index score, dimensions of the IIEF, and the IIEF total score were positively correlated with the Persian version of the SQOL-M ( p < .001). Reliability evaluation indicated a high internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient and intraclass correlation coefficients were .96 and .95, respectively. Results indicated that the Persian version of the SQOL-M has good to excellent psychometric properties and can be used to assess the sexual quality of life among Iranian men.

Level of NICU Quality of Developmental Care and Neurobehavioral Performance in Very Preterm Infants

PubMed Central

Del Prete, Alberto; Bellù, Roberto; Tronick, Ed; Borgatti, Renato

2012-01-01

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relation between the neurobehavior of very preterm infants and the level of NICU quality of developmental care. METHODS: The neurobehavior of 178 very preterm infants (gestational age ≤29 weeks and/or birth weight ≤1500 g) from 25 NICUs participating in a large multicenter, longitudinal study (Neonatal Adequate Care for Quality of Life, NEO-ACQUA) was examined with a standardized neurobehavioral assessment, the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS). A questionnaire, the NEO-ACQUA Quality of Care Checklist was used to evaluate the level of developmental care in each of the NICUs. A factor analyses applied to NEO-ACQUA Quality of Care Checklist produced 2 main factors: (1) the infant-centered care (ICC) index, which measures parents’ involvement in the care of their infant and other developmentally oriented care interventions, and (2) the infant pain management (IPM) index, which measures the NICU approach to and the procedures used for reducing infant pain. The relations between NNNS neurobehavioral scores and the 2 indexes were evaluated. RESULTS: Infants from NICUs with high scores on the ICC evidenced higher attention and regulation, less excitability and hypotonicity, and lower stress/abstinence NNNS scores than infants from low-care units. Infants from NICUs with high scores on the IPM evidenced higher attention and arousal, lower lethargy and nonoptimal reflexes NNNS scores than preterm infants from low-scoring NICUs. CONCLUSIONS: Very preterm infant neurobehavior was associated with higher levels of developmental care both in ICC and in IPM, suggesting that these practices support better neurobehavioral stability. PMID:22492762

Development of innovative computer software to facilitate the setup and computation of water quality index.

PubMed

Nabizadeh, Ramin; Valadi Amin, Maryam; Alimohammadi, Mahmood; Naddafi, Kazem; Mahvi, Amir Hossein; Yousefzadeh, Samira

2013-04-26

Developing a water quality index which is used to convert the water quality dataset into a single number is the most important task of most water quality monitoring programmes. As the water quality index setup is based on different local obstacles, it is not feasible to introduce a definite water quality index to reveal the water quality level. In this study, an innovative software application, the Iranian Water Quality Index Software (IWQIS), is presented in order to facilitate calculation of a water quality index based on dynamic weight factors, which will help users to compute the water quality index in cases where some parameters are missing from the datasets. A dataset containing 735 water samples of drinking water quality in different parts of the country was used to show the performance of this software using different criteria parameters. The software proved to be an efficient tool to facilitate the setup of water quality indices based on flexible use of variables and water quality databases.

Radiotherapy for T1-2N0 glottic cancer: a multivariate analysis of predictive factors for the long-term outcome in 1050 patients and a prospective assessment of quality of life and voice handicap index in a subset of 233 patients.

PubMed

Al-Mamgani, A; van Rooij, P H; Woutersen, D P; Mehilal, R; Tans, L; Monserez, D; Baatenburg de Jong, R J

2013-08-01

To evaluate the outcomes of patients with early stage glottic cancer (GC) treated with radiotherapy (RT). The current study report on a retrospective analysis of oncologic outcome of 1050 patients with T1-2N0 glottic cancer treated with radiotherapy. Prospective assessment of quality of life (QoL) and voice handicap index (VHI) was performed in all patients treated from 2006 onwards (n = 233). Local control (LC), regional control (RC), disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), quality of life and voice handicap index. After a median follow-up of 90 months (range 3-309), the actuarial rates of local control, regional control, disease-free survival and overall survival were 85%, 99%, 84% and 81% at 5 years and 82%, 98%, 80% and 61% at 10 years, respectively. On multivariate analysis, T2 tumours, smoking after radiotherapy and conventional radiation scheme correlated significantly with poor local control. Patients who continued smoking after radiotherapy had also significantly lower overall survival rates (OR 4.3, P < 0.001). Hypothyroidism was reported in 18% of patients. Slight and temporary deterioration of quality of life scores was reported. Patient-reported xerostomia and dysphagia at 48 months were -7.1 and -6.5, compared with baseline, respectively. Voice handicap index improved significantly from 37 at baseline to 18 at 48 months. Patients with T2b and those who continued smoking had significantly worse voice handicap index. In the current study, excellent outcome with good quality of life and voice handicap index scores were reported. T2 tumours, in particular T2b, and continuing smoking after radiotherapy correlated significantly with poor local control and worse voice handicap index. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Design of an instrument to measure the quality of care in Physical Therapy

PubMed Central

Cavalheiro, Leny Vieira; Eid, Raquel Afonso Caserta; Talerman, Claudia; do Prado, Cristiane; Gobbi, Fátima Cristina Martorano; Andreoli, Paola Bruno de Araujo

2015-01-01

ABSTRACT Objective: To design an instrument composed of domains that would demonstrate physical therapy activities and generate a consistent index to represent the quality of care in physical therapy. Methods: The methodology Lean Six Sigma was used to design the tool. The discussion involved seven different management groups staff. By means of brainstorming and Cause & Effect Matrix, we set up the process map. Results: Five requirements composed the quality of care index in physical therapy, after application of the tool called Cause & Effect Matrix. The following requirements were assessed: physical therapist performance, care outcome indicator, adherence to physical therapy protocols, measure whether the prognosis and treatment outcome was achieved and Infrastructure. Conclusion: The proposed design allowed evaluating several items related to physical therapy service, enabling customization, reproducibility and benchmarking with other organizations. For management, this index provides the opportunity to identify areas for improvement and the strengths of the team and process of physical therapy care. PMID:26154548

Efficacy of single and multi-metric fish-based indices in tracking anthropogenic pressures in estuaries: An 8-year case study.

PubMed

Martinho, Filipe; Nyitrai, Daniel; Crespo, Daniel; Pardal, Miguel A

2015-12-15

Facing a generalized increase in water degradation, several programmes have been implemented for protecting and enhancing the water quality and associated wildlife, which rely on ecological indicators to assess the degree of deviation from a pristine state. Here, single (species number, Shannon-Wiener H', Pielou J') and multi-metric (Estuarine Fish Assessment Index, EFAI) community-based ecological quality measures were evaluated in a temperate estuary over an 8-year period (2005-2012), and established their relationships with an anthropogenic pressure index (API). Single metric indices were highly variable and neither concordant amongst themselves nor with the EFAI. The EFAI was the only index significantly correlated with the API, indicating that higher ecological quality was associated with lower anthropogenic pressure. Pressure scenarios were related with specific fish community composition, as a result of distinct food web complexity and nursery functioning of the estuary. Results were discussed in the scope of the implementation of water protection programmes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of the Ecochemical Status of the Danube in Serbia in Terms of Water Quality Parameters

PubMed Central

Takić, Ljiljana; Mladenović-Ranisavljević, Ivana; Vuković, Milovan; Mladenović, Ilija

2012-01-01

The Danube is an international river passing partly through Serbia. The protection of the environment and sustainable use of water resources is a primary task that implies constant monitoring of the quality status and evaluation of ecochemical status of the water in the Danube basin. The investigation includes calculation of all-inclusive water quality by the Serbian water quality index (SWQI) method and an evaluation of eco-chemical status of the Danube water in terms of water quality parameters from the entry to the exit point along its course through Serbia in the year of 2009. The results show that the overall quality of the Danube water on the territory of Serbia corresponds to the descriptive indicator of “very good” water. According to the Council Directive75/440/EEC, the evaluation of the ecostatus, with slight deviation of individual parameters at Pančevo, corresponds to A1 category of the surface water quality intended for the abstraction of drinking water supplies in member states. PMID:22645471

Assessment of the Impacts of Rice Cropping through a Soil Quality Index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sione, S. M.; Wilson, M. G.; Paz González, A.

2012-04-01

In Entre Ríos (Argentina), rice cultivation is carried out mainly in Vertisols. Several factors, such as the use of sodium bicarbonate waters for irrigation, the excessive tillage required, and the lack of proper planning for land use, mainly regarding the crop sequence, cause serious impacts on the soil and have an effect on sustainable agriculture. Thus, the development of methodologies to detect these impacts has become a priority. The aim of this study was to standardize soil quality indicators (SQI) and integrate them into an index to evaluate the impacts of the rice production system on soil, at the farm scale. The study was conducted in farms of the traditional rice cultivation area of Entre Ríos province, Argentina. We evaluated a minimum data set consisting of six indicators: structural stability and percolation, total organic matter content (TOM), exchangeable sodium content (ESC), electrical conductivity of saturation extract (ECe) and reaction of the soil (pH). From a database from 75 production lots, we determined the reference values, i.e. limits to ensure the maintenance of long-term productivity and the allowable thresholds for each indicator. The indicators were standardized and integrated into a soil quality index. Five ranges of soil quality were established: very low, low, moderate, high and very high, depending on the values assigned to each SQI. This index allowed differentiating the impact of different crop sequences and showed that the increased participation of rice crop in the rotation resulted in a deterioration of the soil structure due to the decrease in the TOM and to the cumulative increase in ESC caused by the sodium bicarbonate water used for irrigation. Soil management strategies should aim to increase TOM values and to reduce the input of sodium to the exchange complex. A rotation with 50% to 60% of pasture and 40 to 50% of agriculture with a participation of rice lower than 20 to 25% would allow the sustainability of the production system. The use of the so called SQI, i.e. soil quality index, for rice crop production will allow generating early warning of degradation and thus adopting recovery measures.

Evaluating the ameliorative effect of natural dissolved organic matter (DOM) quality on copper toxicity to Daphnia magna: improving the BLM.

PubMed

Al-Reasi, Hassan A; Smith, D Scott; Wood, Chris M

2012-03-01

Various quality predictors of seven different natural dissolved organic matter (DOM) and humic substances were evaluated for their influence on protection of Daphnia magna neonates against copper (Cu) toxicity. Protection was examined at 3 and 6 mg l(-1) of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) of each DOM isolate added to moderately hard, dechlorinated water. Other water chemistry parameters (pH, concentrations of DOC, calcium, magnesium and sodium) were kept relatively constant. Predictors included absorbance ratios Abs(254/365) (index of molecular weight) and Abs-octanol(254)/Abs-water(254) (index of lipophilicity), specific absorption coefficient (SAC(340); index of aromaticity), and fluorescence index (FI; index of source). In addition, the fluorescent components (humic-like, fulvic-like, tryptophan-like, and tyrosine-like) of the isolates were quantified by parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). Up to 4-fold source-dependent differences in protection were observed amongst the different DOMs. Significant correlations in toxicity amelioration were found with Abs(254/365), Abs-octanol(254)/Abs-water(254), SAC(340), and with the humic-like fluorescent component. The relationships with FI were not significant and there were no relationships with the tryptophan-like or tyrosine-like fluorescent components at 3 mg C l(-1), whereas a negative correlation was seen with the fulvic-like component. In general, the results indicate that larger, optically dark, more lipophilic, more aromatic DOMs of terrigenous origin, with higher humic-like content, are more protective against Cu toxicity. A method for incorporating SAC(340) as a DOM quality indicator into the Biotic Ligand Model is presented; this may increase the accuracy for predicting Cu toxicity in natural waters.

Evaluation of a simple method for the automatic assignment of MeSH descriptors to health resources in a French online catalogue.

PubMed

Névéol, Aurélie; Pereira, Suzanne; Kerdelhué, Gaetan; Dahamna, Badisse; Joubert, Michel; Darmoni, Stéfan J

2007-01-01

The growing number of resources to be indexed in the catalogue of online health resources in French (CISMeF) calls for curating strategies involving automatic indexing tools while maintaining the catalogue's high indexing quality standards. To develop a simple automatic tool that retrieves MeSH descriptors from documents titles. In parallel to research on advanced indexing methods, a bag-of-words tool was developed for timely inclusion in CISMeF's maintenance system. An evaluation was carried out on a corpus of 99 documents. The indexing sets retrieved by the automatic tool were compared to manual indexing based on the title and on the full text of resources. 58% of the major main headings were retrieved by the bag-of-words algorithm and the precision on main heading retrieval was 69%. Bag-of-words indexing has effectively been used on selected resources to be included in CISMeF since August 2006. Meanwhile, on going work aims at improving the current version of the tool.

Normalized impact factor (NIF): an adjusted method for calculating the citation rate of biomedical journals.

PubMed

Owlia, P; Vasei, M; Goliaei, B; Nassiri, I

2011-04-01

The interests in journal impact factor (JIF) in scientific communities have grown over the last decades. The JIFs are used to evaluate journals quality and the papers published therein. JIF is a discipline specific measure and the comparison between the JIF dedicated to different disciplines is inadequate, unless a normalization process is performed. In this study, normalized impact factor (NIF) was introduced as a relatively simple method enabling the JIFs to be used when evaluating the quality of journals and research works in different disciplines. The NIF index was established based on the multiplication of JIF by a constant factor. The constants were calculated for all 54 disciplines of biomedical field during 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 years. Also, ranking of 393 journals in different biomedical disciplines according to the NIF and JIF were compared to illustrate how the NIF index can be used for the evaluation of publications in different disciplines. The findings prove that the use of the NIF enhances the equality in assessing the quality of research works produced by researchers who work in different disciplines. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of passenger health risk assessment of sustainable indoor air quality monitoring in metro systems based on a non-Gaussian dynamic sensor validation method.

PubMed

Kim, MinJeong; Liu, Hongbin; Kim, Jeong Tai; Yoo, ChangKyoo

2014-08-15

Sensor faults in metro systems provide incorrect information to indoor air quality (IAQ) ventilation systems, resulting in the miss-operation of ventilation systems and adverse effects on passenger health. In this study, a new sensor validation method is proposed to (1) detect, identify and repair sensor faults and (2) evaluate the influence of sensor reliability on passenger health risk. To address the dynamic non-Gaussianity problem of IAQ data, dynamic independent component analysis (DICA) is used. To detect and identify sensor faults, the DICA-based squared prediction error and sensor validity index are used, respectively. To restore the faults to normal measurements, a DICA-based iterative reconstruction algorithm is proposed. The comprehensive indoor air-quality index (CIAI) that evaluates the influence of the current IAQ on passenger health is then compared using the faulty and reconstructed IAQ data sets. Experimental results from a metro station showed that the DICA-based method can produce an improved IAQ level in the metro station and reduce passenger health risk since it more accurately validates sensor faults than do conventional methods. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Establishment of quality assurance for respiratory-gated radiotherapy using a respiration-simulating phantom and gamma index: Evaluation of accuracy taking into account tumor motion and respiratory cycle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Jae-Seung; Im, In-Chul; Kang, Su-Man; Goo, Eun-Hoe; Baek, Seong-Min

2013-11-01

The purpose of this study is to present a new method of quality assurance (QA) in order to ensure effective evaluation of the accuracy of respiratory-gated radiotherapy (RGR). This would help in quantitatively analyzing the patient's respiratory cycle and respiration-induced tumor motion and in performing a subsequent comparative analysis of dose distributions, using the gamma-index method, as reproduced in our in-house developed respiration-simulating phantom. Therefore, we designed a respiration-simulating phantom capable of reproducing the patient's respiratory cycle and respiration-induced tumor motion and evaluated the accuracy of RGR by estimating its pass rates. We applied the gamma index passing criteria of accepted error ranges of 3% and 3 mm for the dose distribution calculated by using the treatment planning system (TPS) and the actual dose distribution of RGR. The pass rate clearly increased inversely to the gating width chosen. When respiration-induced tumor motion was 12 mm or less, pass rates of 85% and above were achieved for the 30-70% respiratory phase, and pass rates of 90% and above were achieved for the 40-60% respiratory phase. However, a respiratory cycle with a very small fluctuation range of pass rates failed to prove reliable in evaluating the accuracy of RGR. Therefore, accurate and reliable outcomes of radiotherapy will be obtainable only by establishing a novel QA system using the respiration-simulating phantom, the gamma-index analysis, and a quantitative analysis of diaphragmatic motion, enabling an indirect measurement of tumor motion.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fatigue Management Training to Improve Police Sleep Health and Wellness: A Pilot Study.

PubMed

James, Lois; Samuels, Charles H; Vincent, Fiona

2018-01-01

To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention for improving sleep health in a sample of employees from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Using a pre- and post-design we exposed 61 RCMP members to a fatigue-management training program. Pre- and post-intervention surveys included the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) instrument, and the six item index of psychological distress (Symptom Checklist-90). We found the training improved member satisfaction with sleep (Wald = 2.58; df = 1; P = 0.03) and reduced symptoms of insomnia (Wald = 5.5; df = 1; P = 0.02). Furthermore, the training reduced the incidence of headaches (Wald = 6.5; df = 1; P = 0.01). Our findings suggest that a fatigue management training program resulted in positive sleep health benefits for police. We stress the importance of continued evaluation to inform the large-scale implementation of fatigue-management programs.

A classification of freshwater Louisiana lakes based on water quality and user perception data.

PubMed

Burden, D G; Malone, R F

1987-09-01

An index system developed for Louisiana lakes was based on correlations between measurable water quality parameters and perceived lake quality. Support data was provided by an extensive monitoring program of 30 lakes coordinated with opinion surveys undertaken during summer 1984. Lakes included in the survey ranged from 4 to 735 km(2) in surface area with mean depths ranging from 0.5 to 8.0 m. Water quality data indicated most of these lakes are eutrophic, although many have productive fisheries and are considered recreational assets. Perception ratings of fishing quality and its associated water quality were obtained by distributing approximately 1200 surveys to Louisiana Bass Club Associaton members. The ability of Secchi disc transparency, total organic carbon, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, total phosphorus, and chlorophyll a to discriminate between perception classes was examined using probability distributions and multivariate analyses. Secchi disc and total organic carbon best reflected perceived lake conditions; however, these parameters did not provide the discrimination necessary for developing a quantitative risk assessment of lake trophic state. Consequently, an interim lakes index system was developed based on total organic carbon and perceived lake conditions. The developed index system will aid State officials in interpretating and evaluating regularly collected lake quality data, recognizing potential problem areas, and identifying proper management policies for protecting fisheries usage within the State.

On the Use of a Signal Quality Index Applying at Tracking Stage Level to Assist the RAIM System of a GNSS Receiver.

PubMed

Berardo, Mattia; Lo Presti, Letizia

2016-07-02

In this work, a novel signal processing method is proposed to assist the Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) module used in a receiver of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to improve the integrity of the estimated position. The proposed technique represents an evolution of the Multipath Distance Detector (MPDD), thanks to the introduction of a Signal Quality Index (SQI), which is both a metric able to evaluate the goodness of the signal, and a parameter used to improve the performance of the RAIM modules. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Development of a phantom and a methodology for evaluation of depth kerma and kerma index for dental cone beam computed tomography.

PubMed

Batista, W O; Navarro, M V T; Maia, A F

2013-12-01

Basically, all modalities of diagnostic radiology require phantoms suitable for dosimetric evaluations. New technologies frequently arise unaccompanied of tools for dosimetric evaluations and quality control. In this study, a low-cost phantom and a consequent proposed methodology for dosimetric evaluations in cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) were presented. The developed phantom has typical dimensions of the human face, was built in polymethyl methacrylate and filled with water. Three devices with different technological concepts were evaluated and a proposed index, kerma index-height product (PKIH), was defined as an option to the use of air kerma-area product. The results of this study show relatively uniform kerma profiles for scanners with field of views (FOVs) of large diameters and non-uniform for FOVs of small diameters. With regard to the values obtained for the kerma indexes, much higher values were found for the equipment FOVs with small diameter compared with the values of the two other equipment that have larger diameters. The results indicate that (1) there is a need for special phantoms for use in CBCT, (2) the use of P(KA) in the evaluation of protocols on different equipment can lead to false interpretations and (3) the new index is a suitable alternative for the use of P(KA) in CBCT.

Identifying biomarkers of dietary patterns by using metabolomics123

PubMed Central

Derkach, Andriy; Reedy, Jill; Subar, Amy F; Sampson, Joshua N; Albanes, Demetrius; Gu, Fangyi; Kontto, Jukka; Lassale, Camille; Liao, Linda M; Männistö, Satu; Mondul, Alison M; Weinstein, Stephanie J; Irwin, Melinda L; Mayne, Susan T; Stolzenberg-Solomon, Rachael

2017-01-01

Background: Healthy dietary patterns that conform to national dietary guidelines are related to lower chronic disease incidence and longer life span. However, the precise mechanisms involved are unclear. Identifying biomarkers of dietary patterns may provide tools to validate diet quality measurement and determine underlying metabolic pathways influenced by diet quality. Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the correlation of 4 diet quality indexes [the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) 2010, the Alternate Mediterranean Diet Score (aMED), the WHO Healthy Diet Indicator (HDI), and the Baltic Sea Diet (BSD)] with serum metabolites. Design: We evaluated dietary patterns and metabolites in male Finnish smokers (n = 1336) from 5 nested case-control studies within the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study cohort. Participants completed a validated food-frequency questionnaire and provided a fasting serum sample before study randomization (1985–1988). Metabolites were measured with the use of mass spectrometry. We analyzed cross-sectional partial correlations of 1316 metabolites with 4 diet quality indexes, adjusting for age, body mass index, smoking, energy intake, education, and physical activity. We pooled estimates across studies with the use of fixed-effects meta-analysis with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons, and conducted metabolic pathway analyses. Results: The HEI-2010, aMED, HDI, and BSD were associated with 23, 46, 23, and 33 metabolites, respectively (17, 21, 11, and 10 metabolites, respectively, were chemically identified; r-range: −0.30 to 0.20; P = 6 × 10−15 to 8 × 10−6). Food-based diet indexes (HEI-2010, aMED, and BSD) were associated with metabolites correlated with most components used to score adherence (e.g., fruit, vegetables, whole grains, fish, and unsaturated fat). HDI correlated with metabolites related to polyunsaturated fat and fiber components, but not other macro- or micronutrients (e.g., percentages of protein and cholesterol). The lysolipid and food and plant xenobiotic pathways were most strongly associated with diet quality. Conclusions: Diet quality, measured by healthy diet indexes, is associated with serum metabolites, with the specific metabolite profile of each diet index related to the diet components used to score adherence. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00342992. PMID:28031192

Quality index of the surface water of Amazonian rivers in industrial areas in Pará, Brazil.

PubMed

Medeiros, Adaelson Campelo; Faial, Kleber Raimundo Freitas; do Carmo Freitas Faial, Kelson; da Silva Lopes, Iris Danielly; de Oliveira Lima, Marcelo; Guimarães, Raphael Mendonça; Mendonça, Neyson Martins

2017-10-15

In this study was to evaluate the waters quality of the Murucupi River, located in urban agglomerate area and intense industrial activity in Barcarena City, Pará State. The Arapiranga River in Abaetetuba City was used as control area (Background), next to Barcarena. Was used the Water Quality Index (WQI) based on nine variables analized. Waters quality of the Arapiranga and Murucupi rivers were regular to good and bad to good, respectively. Anthropogenic influence on the Murucupi River was higher, mainly by the disposal of domestic effluents from the urban agglomerate and of the industrial waste tailing basins upstream of this river. Due to its less inhabited environment and further away from the area urban and industrial, the Arapiranga River was more preserved. Waters pollution of around these area is increasingly intense, and restricted its uses for various purposes. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Progress of Iran in Medical Research.

PubMed

Kolahdoozan, Shadi; Massarrat, Sadegh

2016-11-01

 The indexed Iranian journals in ISI and PubMed at the end of 2012 with known impact factor (IF) were evaluated with regard to the number of articles published in 2010-2012, the number of citations by authors from inside and outside Iran, their IF as well as their ranking order among all other journals in their specialized categories. There were among 130 English journals, 21 indexed with known IF. The mean IF of these journals increased from 0.4 in 2010 to 0.68 in 2012. The number of citations per article by authors from outside Iran increased from 0.19 to 0.49 during the same time period. The rank of the majority of the indexed journals was in the lowest 20% of their category. Although some improvement has been observed in the quality and the number of citations of Iranian journals indexed in ISI during these two years, the quality of the manuscripts remains low. A reduction in the number of journals, a change of their structure as well as more financial resources for research is necessary for the improvement of the quality and better rank and status of Iranian science among an international audience.

Ecosystem Modeling Applied to Nutrient Criteria Development in Rivers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carleton, James N.; Park, Richard A.; Clough, Jonathan S.

2009-09-01

Threshold concentrations for biological impairment by nutrients are difficult to quantify in lotic systems, yet States and Tribes in the United States are charged with developing water quality criteria to protect these ecosystems from excessive enrichment. The analysis described in this article explores the use of the ecosystem model AQUATOX to investigate impairment thresholds keyed to biological indexes that can be simulated. The indexes selected for this exercise include percentage cyanobacterial biomass of sestonic algae, and benthic chlorophyll a. The calibrated model was used to analyze responses of these indexes to concurrent reductions in phosphorus, nitrogen, and suspended sediment in an enriched upper Midwestern river. Results suggest that the indexes would respond strongly to changes in phosphorus and suspended sediment, and less strongly to changes in nitrogen concentration. Using simulated concurrent reductions in all three water quality constituents, a total phosphorus concentration of 0.1 mg/l was identified as a threshold concentration, and therefore a hypothetical water quality criterion, for prevention of both excessive periphyton growth and sestonic cyanobacterial blooms. This kind of analysis is suggested as a way to evaluate multiple contrasting impacts of hypothetical nutrient and sediment reductions and to define nutrient criteria or target concentrations that balance multiple management objectives concurrently.

[Correspondence analysis between traditional commercial specifications and quantitative quality indices of Notopterygii Rhizoma et Radix].

PubMed

Jiang, Shun-Yuan; Sun, Hong-Bing; Sun, Hui; Ma, Yu-Ying; Chen, Hong-Yu; Zhu, Wen-Tao; Zhou, Yi

2016-03-01

This paper aims to explore a comprehensive assessment method combined traditional Chinese medicinal material specifications with quantitative quality indicators. Seventy-six samples of Notopterygii Rhizoma et Radix were collected on market and at producing areas. Traditional commercial specifications were described and assigned, and 10 chemical components and volatile oils were determined for each sample. Cluster analysis, Fisher discriminant analysis and correspondence analysis were used to establish the relationship between the traditional qualitative commercial specifications and quantitative chemical indices for comprehensive evaluating quality of medicinal materials, and quantitative classification of commercial grade and quality grade. A herb quality index (HQI) including traditional commercial specifications and chemical components for quantitative grade classification were established, and corresponding discriminant function were figured out for precise determination of quality grade and sub-grade of Notopterygii Rhizoma et Radix. The result showed that notopterol, isoimperatorin and volatile oil were the major components for determination of chemical quality, and their dividing values were specified for every grade and sub-grade of the commercial materials of Notopterygii Rhizoma et Radix. According to the result, essential relationship between traditional medicinal indicators, qualitative commercial specifications, and quantitative chemical composition indicators can be examined by K-mean cluster, Fisher discriminant analysis and correspondence analysis, which provide a new method for comprehensive quantitative evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine quality integrated traditional commodity specifications and quantitative modern chemical index. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Assessing the content and quality of information on the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis on the World Wide Web.

PubMed

Pérez-López, Faustino R; Pérez Roncero, Gonzalo R

2006-12-01

To evaluate the content and quality of currently available Internet-based information on the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. A sample was obtained comprising the 75 top sites retrieved with the Google search engine using 'treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis' and then evaluated according to predefined general and specific criteria, content type, language and quality. Using a systematic scoring tool, each site was assessed for factual information provided and site quality. The sites studied were heterogeneous in content and quality. The most frequent type of website corresponded to non-profit organizations (n = 40), followed by commercial sites (n = 19), professional sites (n = 8) and government sites (n = 8). There were no significant differences in the popularity index, medical content score or quality score among the four groups of sites. Twelve websites were papers published in peer-reviewed medical journals. Few sites provided comprehensive medical and complete information on the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis oriented towards consumers. The consumer-oriented webpage with the most balanced and complete information was that of the National Osteoporosis Foundation which, at the same time, had the highest popularity index of all the resources studied. The content and quality of websites concerning the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis are highly varied and sometimes biased. The most frequent high-quality information corresponds to peer-reviewed medical journals. It is necessary to increase the number of resources, with rigorous language that is understandable for consumers, in relation to the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Development of innovative computer software to facilitate the setup and computation of water quality index

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Developing a water quality index which is used to convert the water quality dataset into a single number is the most important task of most water quality monitoring programmes. As the water quality index setup is based on different local obstacles, it is not feasible to introduce a definite water quality index to reveal the water quality level. Findings In this study, an innovative software application, the Iranian Water Quality Index Software (IWQIS), is presented in order to facilitate calculation of a water quality index based on dynamic weight factors, which will help users to compute the water quality index in cases where some parameters are missing from the datasets. Conclusion A dataset containing 735 water samples of drinking water quality in different parts of the country was used to show the performance of this software using different criteria parameters. The software proved to be an efficient tool to facilitate the setup of water quality indices based on flexible use of variables and water quality databases. PMID:24499556

Assessing quality of life in patients with prostate cancer: a systematic and standardized comparison of available instruments.

PubMed

Schmidt, Stefanie; Garin, Olatz; Pardo, Yolanda; Valderas, José M; Alonso, Jordi; Rebollo, Pablo; Rajmil, Luis; Garcia-Forero, Carlos; Ferrer, Montse

2014-10-01

The objective was to obtain a standardized evaluation of available prostate cancer-specific quality of life instruments used in patients with early-stage disease. We carried out systematic literature reviews in the PubMed database to identify manuscripts which contained information regarding either the development process or metric properties of prostate cancer-specific quality of life instruments. Each instrument was evaluated by two experts, independently, using the Evaluating Measures of Patient-Reported Outcomes (EMPRO) tool. An overall and seven attribute-specific EMPRO scores were calculated (range 0-100, worst to best): measurement model, reliability, validity, responsiveness, interpretability, burden and alternative forms. Eight instruments and 57 manuscripts (2-15 per instrument) were identified. The Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) was the best rated (overall EMPRO score 83.1 points). Good results were also obtained by University of California Los Angeles-Prostate Cancer Index (UCLA-PCI), Patient-Oriented Prostate Utility Scale (PORPUS) and Prostate Cancer Quality of Life Instrument (PC-QoL) with 77.3, 70.5 and 64.8 points, respectively. These four instruments passed with distinction the validity and responsiveness evaluation. Insufficient reliability results were observed for UCLA-PCI and PORPUS. Current evidence supports the choice of EPIC, PORPUS or PC-QoL. Attribute-specific EMPRO results facilitate selecting the adequate instrument for every purpose. For longitudinal studies or clinical trials, where responsiveness is the priority, EPIC or PC-QoL should be considered. We recommend the PORPUS for economic evaluations because it allows cost-utility analysis, and EPIC short versions to minimize administration burden.

Application of CCME Water Quality Index to monitor water quality: a case study of the Mackenzie River Basin, Canada.

PubMed

Lumb, Ashok; Halliwell, Doug; Sharma, Tribeni

2006-02-01

All six ecosystem initiatives evolved from many years of federal, provincial, First Nation, local government and community attention to the stresses on sensitive habitats and species, air and water quality, and the consequent threats to community livability. This paper assesses water quality aspect for the ecosystem initiatives and employs newly developed Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI) which provides a convenient mean of summarizing complex water quality data that can be easily understood by the public, water distributors, planners, managers and policy makers. The CCME WQI incorporates three elements: Scope - the number of water quality parameters (variables) not meeting water quality objectives (F(1)); Frequency - the number of times the objectives are not met (F(2)); and Amplitude. the extent to which the objectives are not met (F(3)). The index produces a number between 0 (worst) to 100 (best) to reflect the water quality. This study evaluates water quality of the Mackenzie - Great Bear sub-basin by employing two modes of objective functions (threshold values): one based on the CCME water quality guidelines and the other based on site-specific values that were determined by the statistical analysis of the historical data base. Results suggest that the water quality of the Mackenzie-Great Bear sub-basin is impacted by high turbidity and total (mostly particulate) trace metals due to high suspended sediment loads during the open water season. Comments are also provided on water quality and human health issues in the Mackenzie basin based on the findings and the usefulness of CCME water quality guidelines and site specific values.

Comorbidities, metabolic risk profile and health-related quality of life in German patients with plaque-type psoriasis: a cross-sectional prospective study.

PubMed

Jacobi, Arnd; Kupke, Carina; Behzad, Melika; Hertl, Michael

2013-09-01

Patients with psoriasis experience a higher risk of cardiovascular and metabolic comorbidities and have a high burden of treatment. There is still a gap between treatment options and quality of care. The purpose of this study was to determine the demographic data, comorbidities, and the limitations of quality of life in patients with plaque-type psoriasis. This epidemiological evaluation was designed as a single-center, cross-sectional, prospective study in Marburg, Germany. To investigate the association between mild to severe psoriasis and comorbidities, data were obtained from 133 patients. The average Psoriasis Area and Severity Index was 13.4, and the average Dermatology Life Quality Index was 6.3. Among the patients with severe psoriasis, 95% had been prescribed systemic treatments. Comorbidities were evaluated, with depression 30.8%, arterial hypertension 39.1%, and hypercholesterolemia 20.3% in all patients. Our findings underscore the importance of cardiovascular and metabolic risk screening for all patients with psoriasis. There is still a need for systemic treatments and the definition of treatment goals for psoriasis as a systemic inflammatory disease. Such goals should integrate parameters that include comorbidities and an improvement in health-related quality of life. © 2013 The International Society of Dermatology.

Crown releasing of red maple poles to shorten high-quality sawlog rotations

Treesearch

Gayne G. Erdmann; Ralph M., Jr. Peterson; Robert R. Orberg

1985-01-01

The effects of six crown-release treatments on growth and bole quality development of 54-year-old dominant, codominant, and intermediate red maples (Acer rubrum L.) were evaluated on a good red maple site (site index = 19.3 mat 50 years) in upper Michigan. Results showed that crown release stimulated the growth of dominants, codominants, and strong...

Clinical and psychosocial factors predicting health-related quality of life in hemodialysis patients.

PubMed

Kang, Gun Woo; Lee, In Hee; Ahn, Ki Sung; Lee, Jonghun; Ji, Yunmi; Woo, Jungmin

2015-07-01

Many patients with end-stage renal disease have significant impairment in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Most previous studies have focused on clinical factors; however, quality of life can also be affected by psychosocial factors. The aim of this study was to identify the possible predictors of HRQoL among clinical and psychosocial factors in hemodialysis (HD) patients. The study included 101 patients who were undergoing HD. Psychosocial factors were evaluated using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. We also assessed laboratory and clinical factors, including albumin, Kt/V as a marker of dialysis adequacy, normalized protein catabolic rate, and duration of HD. The Euro Quality of Life Questionnaire 5-Dimensional Classification (EQ-5D) was used to evaluate HRQoL. The mean EQ-5D index score was 0.704 ± 0.199. The following variables showed a significant association with the EQ-5D index: age (P < 0.001), depression (P < 0.001), anxiety (P < 0.001), support from friends (P < 0.001), cognitive function (P < 0.001), duration of HD (P = 0.034), triglyceride (P = 0.031), total iron-binding capacity (P = 0.036), and phosphorus (P = 0.037). Multiple regression analysis showed that age (95% confidence interval [CI] -0.008 to -0.002), anxiety (95% CI -0.025 to -0.009), and support from friends (95% CI 0.004 to 0.018) were independent predictors of impaired HRQoL. This study explored determinants of impaired HRQoL in HD patients. We found that impaired HRQoL was independently associated with age, anxiety, and support from friends. We should consider psychosocial as well as clinical factors when evaluating ways to improve HRQoL in HD patients. © 2015 International Society for Hemodialysis.

[The application of vector analysis for evaluation of astigmatism correction in the corneal refractive surgery].

PubMed

Zhang, Jiamei; Wang, Yan

2016-01-01

Since sixty percent of ametropes obtain astigmatism, which has influence on the visual quality, correcting the astigmatism is always the focus of concerns during visual correction procedures especially for the corneal refractive surgery. The postoperative spherical equivalent or residual cylindrical dioptors was used as quantitative index to evaluate the correction of astigmatism previously; however, such results neglect the effect of astigmatic axis shift on the treatment. Taking astigmatism as a vector parameter could describe the magnitude and direction of astigmatism accurately, thus it was increasingly applied in the evaluation of astigmatism correction. This paper reviews the present vector analysis methods, evaluation indexes and its application for the correction of astigmatism in the corneal refractive surgery.

Data Sources for an Environmental Quality Index: Availability, Quality, and Utility

PubMed Central

Rappazzo, Kristen; Messer, Lynne C.

2011-01-01

Objectives. An environmental quality index (EQI) for all counties in the United States is under development to explore the relationship between environmental insults and human health. The EQI is potentially useful for investigators researching health disparities to account for other concurrent environmental conditions. This article focused on the identification and assessment of data sources used in developing the EQI. Data source strengths, limitations, and utility were addressed. Methods. Five domains were identified that contribute to environmental quality: air, water, land, built, and sociodemographic environments. An inventory of possible data sources was created. Data sources were evaluated for appropriate spatial and temporal coverage and data quality. Results. The overall data inventory identified multiple data sources for each domain. From the inventory (187 sources, 617 records), the air, water, land, built environment, and sociodemographic domains retained 2, 9, 7, 4, and 2 data sources for inclusion in the EQI, respectively. However, differences in data quality, geographic coverage, and data availability existed between the domains. Conclusions. The data sources identified for use in the EQI may be useful to researchers, advocates, and communities to explore specific environmental quality questions. PMID:21836111

Heavy metals analysis and quality assessment in drinking water - Khorramabad city, Iran.

PubMed

Ghaderpoori, Mansour; Kamarehie, Bahram; Jafari, Ali; Ghaderpoury, Afshin; Karami, Mohammadamin

2018-02-01

Continuous monitoring of drinking water quality is essential in terms of heavy metals and toxic substances. The general objective of this study were to determine the concentration of heavy metals in drinking water of Khorramabad city and to determine the water quality indices (The heavy metal pollution index and heavy metal evaluation index). According to the city map, 45 points were selected for drinking water sampling through the city distribution system. The results of this study showed that the average concentration of heavy metals such as Zn, Pb, Cd, Cr, and Cu were 47.01 μg/l, 3.2 μg/l, 0.42 μg/l, 5.08 μg/l, and 6.79 μg/l, respectively. The HPI and HEI (water quality indices) for Zn, Pb, Cd, Cr, and Cu were 46.58, 46.58, respectively. According to the indices, the city drinking water quality is good in terms of heavy metals.

Speech Clarity Index (Ψ): A Distance-Based Speech Quality Indicator and Recognition Rate Prediction for Dysarthric Speakers with Cerebral Palsy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kayasith, Prakasith; Theeramunkong, Thanaruk

It is a tedious and subjective task to measure severity of a dysarthria by manually evaluating his/her speech using available standard assessment methods based on human perception. This paper presents an automated approach to assess speech quality of a dysarthric speaker with cerebral palsy. With the consideration of two complementary factors, speech consistency and speech distinction, a speech quality indicator called speech clarity index (Ψ) is proposed as a measure of the speaker's ability to produce consistent speech signal for a certain word and distinguished speech signal for different words. As an application, it can be used to assess speech quality and forecast speech recognition rate of speech made by an individual dysarthric speaker before actual exhaustive implementation of an automatic speech recognition system for the speaker. The effectiveness of Ψ as a speech recognition rate predictor is evaluated by rank-order inconsistency, correlation coefficient, and root-mean-square of difference. The evaluations had been done by comparing its predicted recognition rates with ones predicted by the standard methods called the articulatory and intelligibility tests based on the two recognition systems (HMM and ANN). The results show that Ψ is a promising indicator for predicting recognition rate of dysarthric speech. All experiments had been done on speech corpus composed of speech data from eight normal speakers and eight dysarthric speakers.

The Relationships Among Sleep Quality and Chronotype, Emotional Disturbance, and Insomnia Vulnerability in Shift Nurses.

PubMed

Lee, Ching-Yi; Chen, Hsi-Chung; Meg Tseng, Mei-Chih; Lee, Hsin-Chien; Huang, Lian-Hua

2015-09-01

Shift work is a prominent feature of most nursing jobs. Although chronotype, emotional disturbance, and insomnia vulnerability are important factors for patients with insomnia in general, their effects on shift nurses are unknown. This study explores the relationships between the sleep quality of shift nurses and the variables of chronotype, emotional disturbance, and insomnia vulnerability. A survey was conducted with 398 shift nurses in a medical center. Chronotype, emotional disturbance, insomnia vulnerability, and sleep quality were evaluated using the Smith Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Rating Scale, the Ford Insomnia Response to Stress Test, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, respectively. On the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, 70.1% of the participants scored higher than 5. Multiple regression analysis revealed that, together with night shift work (b [SE] = 1.05 [0.35], p = .003), higher levels of emotional disturbance (b [SE] = 0.30 [0.05], p < .001) and higher insomnia vulnerability (b [SE] = 0.18 [0.03], p < .001) were predictors of poor sleep quality and that chronotype was not a predictor of poor sleep quality. The multiple mediator model indicated that emotional disturbance significantly mediated an indirect effect of evening chronotype preference on poor subjective sleep quality (one subscale of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index). In addition to shift patterns, emotional disturbance and high insomnia vulnerability are factors that may be used to identify shift nurses who face a higher risk of sleep disturbance. Because evening chronotype may indirectly influence subjective sleep quality through the pathway of emotional disturbance, further research into the mechanism that underlies this pathway is warranted.

Impact of the Z potential technique on reducing the sperm DNA fragmentation index, fertilization rate and embryo development.

PubMed

Duarte, Carlos; Núñez, Víctor; Wong, Yat; Vivar, Carlos; Benites, Elder; Rodriguez, Urso; Vergara, Carlos; Ponce, Jorge

2017-12-01

In assisted reproduction procedures, we need to develop and enhance new protocols to optimize sperm selection. The aim of this study is to evaluate the ability of the Z potential technique to select sperm with intact DNA in non-normospermic patients and evaluate the impact of this selection on embryonic development. We analyzed a total of 174 human seminal samples with at least one altered parameter. We measured basal, post density gradients, and post density gradients + Z potential DNA fragmentation index. To evaluate the impact of this technique on embryo development, 54 cases were selected. The embryo development parameters evaluated were fertilization rate, cleavage rate, top quality embryos at the third day and blastocysts rate. We found significant differences in the study groups when we compared the sperm fragmentation index by adding the Z potential technique to density gradient selection vs. density gradients alone. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the embryo development parameters between the low sperm fragmentation index group vs. the moderate and high sperm fragmentation index groups, when selecting sperms with this new technique. The Z potential technique is a very useful tool for sperm selection; it significantly reduces the DNA fragmentation index and improves the parameters of embryo development. This technique could be considered routine for its simplicity and low cost.

Study on GIS Visualization in Evaluation of the Human Living Environment in Shenyang-Dalian Urban Agglomeration

PubMed Central

Hou, Kang; Zhou, Jieting; Li, Xuxiang; Ge, Shengbin

2016-01-01

Analysis of human living environmental quality of Shenyang-Dalian urban agglomerations has important theoretical and practical significance in rapid development region. A lot of investigations have been carried for Shenyang-Dalian urban agglomerations, including 38 counties. Based on the carrying capacity of resources, natural and socioeconomic environmental factors and regional changes of human living environmental evaluation are analyzed with the application of geographic information systems (GIS) software. By using principal component analysis (PCA) model and natural breaks classification (NBC) method, the evaluation results are divided into five categories. The results show that the human living environmental evaluation (HLEE) indexes of Dalian, Shenyang, and Liaoyang are higher than other counties. Among these counties, the human living environmental evaluation (HLEE) indexes of coastal counties are significantly higher than inland counties. The range of the human living environmental evaluation index in most of the study area is at III, IV, and V levels, accounting for 80.01%. Based on these results, it could illustrate the human living environment is in relatively suitable condition in Shenyang-Dalian urban agglomeration. PMID:27200212

[Application of relative quality constant in grades evaluation of Glycyrrizae Radix et Rhizome pieces].

PubMed

Deng, Zhe; Jiao, Meng-Jiao; Zhang, Jun; Xian, Jing; Zhang, Qing; Chen, Chang; Wang, Yue-Sheng; Liu, An

2017-07-01

Quality constant evaluation is a comprehensive method for grades evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine pieces, but when it comes to Glycyrrizae Radix et Rhizome pieces, grades evaluation is diverged due to significant difference in contents of liquiritin and glycyrrhizic acid and unreasonable weight of index. To solve this problem, we have established a relative quality constant method in this paper to evaluate grades of Glycyrrizae Radix et Rhizome pieces. Twenty-nine batches of different quality samples were collected and tested, and finally, 17 batches of them were chosen as researcher objects. The results revealed that the range of the relative quality constant of these samples was from 1.78 to 11.49. When Glycyrrizae Radix et Rhizome pieces are divided into three grades: the relative quality constant of first grade is greater than or equal to 9.19; the second grade is greater than or equal to 5.75 but less than 9.19; while the third grade is less than 5.75. This research indicates that relative quality constant can divide the grades of herbal pieces in a scientific, reasonable, objective and specific way and remedy the shortage of quality constant perfectly. It provides a novel mode for grading pieces of Chinese medicine that contains multi-target ingredients. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

The usefulness of Quality of Life Childhood Epilepsy (QOLCE) questionnaire in evaluating the quality of life of children with epilepsy.

PubMed

Talarska, D

2007-01-01

Evaluation of quality of life has become a frequently used method in treatment effects supervision. Quality of Life Childhood Epilepsy (QOLCE) questionnaire, which is completed by patients' parents, has been prepared for children with epilepsy. It enables to determine the quality of life in children aged 4-18 years. The aim of the study was to show the usefulness of QOLCE questionnaire in evaluating the quality of life of children with epilepsy. 160 epileptic children, aged 8-18 years and their parents were examined in the Chair and Department of Developmental Neurology, K. Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences in Poznań. QOLCE questionnaire was completed by parents and "Young people and epilepsy" questionnaire was designed for children. Reliability index of the complete questionnaire in own research and in the original amounted to 0.93 Cronbach alpha coefficient. Epileptic, drug-resistant children constituted 28% of the examined group. Parents of children with controlled seizures evaluated children's functioning in analyzed areas of quality of life higher. 1. QOLCE questionnaire is a suitable tool to evaluate the quality of children's and adolescents' life. 2. The most significant differences in functioning of epileptic, drug-resistant patients and those with controlled seizures were observed in areas of cognitive processes and social activity.

The occurrence and potential ecological risk assessment of bauxite mine-impacted water and sediments in Kuantan, Pahang,Malaysia.

PubMed

Kusin, Faradiella Mohd; Rahman, Muhammad Syazwan Abd; Madzin, Zafira; Jusop, Shamshuddin; Mohamat-Yusuff, Ferdaus; Ariffin, Mariani; Z, Mohd Syakirin Md

2017-01-01

Recent bauxite mining activities in the vicinity of Kuantan, Pahang, have been associated with apparent environmental quality degradation and have raised environmental concerns among the public. This study was carried out to evaluate the overall ecological impacts on water and sediment quality from the bauxite mining activities. Water and sediment samples were collected at seven sampling locations within the bauxite mining areas between June and December 2015. The water samples were analyzed for water quality index (WQI) and distribution of major and trace element geochemistry. Sediment samples were evaluated based on geochemical indices, i.e., the enrichment factor (EF) and geoaccumulation index (I geo ). Potential ecological risk index was estimated to assess the degree to which sediments of the mine-impacted areas have been contaminated with heavy metals. The results showed that WQIs of some locations were classified as slightly polluted and contained metal contents exceeding the recommended guideline values. The EFs indicated minimal to moderate enrichment of metals (Pb, Cu, Zn, Mn, As, Cd, Cr, Ni, Co, and Sr) in the sediments. I geo showed slightly to partially polluted sediments with respect to As at some locations. The potential ecological risk index (RI) showed that As posed the highest potential ecological risk with RI of 52.35-60.92 at two locations, while other locations indicated low risk. The findings from this study have demonstrated the impact of recent bauxite mining activities, which might be of importance to the local communities and relevant authorities to initiate immediate rehabilitation phase of the impacted area.

Is open access sufficient? A review of the quality of open-access nursing journals.

PubMed

Crowe, Marie; Carlyle, Dave

2015-02-01

The present study aims to review the quality of open-access nursing journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals that published papers in 2013 with a nursing focus, written in English, and were freely accessible. Each journal was reviewed in relation to their publisher, year of commencement, number of papers published in 2013, fee for publication, indexing, impact factor, and evidence of requirements for ethics and disclosure statements. The quality of the journals was assessed by impact factors and the requirements for indexing in PubMed. A total of 552 were published in 2013 in the 19 open-access nursing journals that met the inclusion criteria. No journals had impact factors listed in Web of Knowledge, but three had low Scopus impact factors. Only five journals were indexed with PubMed. The quality of the 19 journals included in the review was evaluated as inferior to most subscription-fee journals. Mental health nursing has some responsibility to the general public, and in particular, consumers of mental health services and their families, for the quality of papers published in open-access journals. The way forward might involve dual-platform publication or a process that enables assessment of how research has improved clinical outcomes. © 2014 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.

A novel method to construct an air quality index based on air pollution profiles.

PubMed

Thach, Thuan-Quoc; Tsang, Hilda; Cao, Peihua; Ho, Lai-Ming

2018-01-01

Air quality indices based on the maximum of sub-indices of pollutants are easy to produce and help quantify the degree of air pollution. However, they discount the additive effects of multiple pollutants and are only sensitive to changes in highest sub-index. We propose a simple and concise method to construct an air quality index that takes into account additive effects of multiple pollutants and evaluate the extent to which this index predicts health effects. We obtained concentrations of four criteria pollutants: particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10μm (PM 10 ), sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and ozone (O 3 ) and daily admissions to Hong Kong hospitals for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases for all ages and those 65 years or older for years 2001-2012. We derived sub-indices of the four criteria pollutants, calculated by normalizing pollutant concentrations to their respective short-term WHO Air Quality Guidelines (WHO AQG). We aggregated the sub-indices using the root-mean-power function with an optimal power to form an overall air quality index. The optimal power was determined by minimizing the sum of over- and under-estimated days. We then assessed associations between the pollution bands of the index and cardiovascular and respiratory admissions using a time-stratified case-crossover design adjusted for ambient temperature, relative humidity and influenza epidemics. Further, we conducted case-crossover analyses using the Hong Kong air quality data with the respective standards and classification of pollution bands of the China Air Quality Index (AQI), the United Kingdom Daily AQI (DAQI), and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) AQI. The mean concentrations of PM 10 and SO 2 based on maximum 3-h mean exceeded the WHO AQG by 37% and 50%, respectively. We identified the combined condition of observed high-pollution days as either at least one pollutant > 1.5×WHO AQG or at least two pollutants > 1.0×WHO AQG to characterize the typical pollution profiles over the study period, which resulted in the optimal power=3.0. The distribution of days in different pollution bands of the index was: 5.8% for "Low" (0-50), 37.6% for "Moderate" (51-100), 31.1% for "High" (101-150), 14.7% for "Very High" (151-200), and 10.8% for "Serious" (201+). For cardiovascular and respiratory admissions, there were significant associations with the pollution bands of the index for all ages and those 65 years or older. The trends of increasing pollution bands in relation to increasing excess risks of cardiovascular and respiratory admissions were significant for the proposed index, the China AQI, the UK DAQI and the USEPA AQI (P value for test for linear trend < 0.0001), suggesting a dose-response relation. We have developed a simple and concise method to construct an air quality index that accounts for multiple pollutants to quantify air quality conditions for Hong Kong. Further developments are needed in order to support the extension of the method to other settings. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Assessing abstracts of Iranian systematic reviews and metaanalysis indexed in WOS and Scopus using PRISMA.

PubMed

Kazerani, Maryam; Davoudian, Atefeh; Zayeri, Farid; Soori, Hamid

2017-01-01

Background: Systematic reviews and meta-analysis have significant advantages over conventional reviews in that all available data should be presented. This study aimed to evaluate Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analysis abstracts indexed in WOS and Scopus during 2003-2012 based on PRISMA checklist. Methods: This is an analytical study. We evaluated 46 article abstracts indexed in WOS, 89 article abstracts indexed in Scopus and 158 article abstracts indexed in WOS and Scopus both (overlapped group). The quality of the abstracts was evaluated according to the PRISMA checklist for abstracts. Some indicators including distribution per year, total citation, average citations per year, average citations per documents and average citations per year in each article were determined through searching the WOS and Scopus Databases' analytical section. Then, the correlations between the abstract's PRISMA scores, average citations per year, and publication year were calculated. Results: The abstract's quality is not desirable as far as the PRISMA criteria are concerned. In other words, none of the articles' abstracts is in line with the PRISMA items. The average of scores of the current study was 5.9 while the maximum score was 12. The PRISMA criteria showed the highest compliance with "Objectives" (98.6%), the second highest with "Synthesis of result" (85%) and "Title" (80.2%) and the lowest compliance with "Registration" (2%). There was a positive correlation between the compliance of PRISMA score and the average citations per year while there was a negative correlation between PRISMA score and the publication year. Conclusion: It seems that the suggested criteria for reporting Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analysis are not considered adequately by the writers and even scientific journal editors.

Assessing abstracts of Iranian systematic reviews and metaanalysis indexed in WOS and Scopus using PRISMA

PubMed Central

Kazerani, Maryam; Davoudian, Atefeh; Zayeri, Farid; Soori, Hamid

2017-01-01

Background: Systematic reviews and meta-analysis have significant advantages over conventional reviews in that all available data should be presented. This study aimed to evaluate Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analysis abstracts indexed in WOS and Scopus during 2003-2012 based on PRISMA checklist. Methods: This is an analytical study. We evaluated 46 article abstracts indexed in WOS, 89 article abstracts indexed in Scopus and 158 article abstracts indexed in WOS and Scopus both (overlapped group). The quality of the abstracts was evaluated according to the PRISMA checklist for abstracts. Some indicators including distribution per year, total citation, average citations per year, average citations per documents and average citations per year in each article were determined through searching the WOS and Scopus Databases’ analytical section. Then, the correlations between the abstract's PRISMA scores, average citations per year, and publication year were calculated. Results: The abstract’s quality is not desirable as far as the PRISMA criteria are concerned. In other words, none of the articles’ abstracts is in line with the PRISMA items. The average of scores of the current study was 5.9 while the maximum score was 12. The PRISMA criteria showed the highest compliance with "Objectives" (98.6%), the second highest with "Synthesis of result" (85%) and "Title" (80.2%) and the lowest compliance with "Registration" (2%). There was a positive correlation between the compliance of PRISMA score and the average citations per year while there was a negative correlation between PRISMA score and the publication year. Conclusion: It seems that the suggested criteria for reporting Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analysis are not considered adequately by the writers and even scientific journal editors. PMID:28955668

The evaluation of temperament and quality of life in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome.

PubMed

Ozcan Dag, Zeynep; Alpua, Murat; Isik, Yuksel; Buturak, S Visal; Tulmac, Ozlem B; Turkel, Yakup

2017-03-01

To evaluate the temperament and quality of life (QoL) of patients with PCOS. Fifty-three adult patients with PCOS and 38 healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Demographic characteristics including age, education and body mass index (BMI) were recorded. Affective temperaments were assessed by the temperament evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego-autoquestionnaire version (TEMPS-A) scale. The general health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument used in this study was short Form 36. Hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) were also performed. The patients with PCOS had significantly higher rates of depressive, anxious and hyperthymic scores compared to controls. The PCOS patients had significantly lower mean SF-36 health summary scores. TEMPS-A seems to be an easy and reliable test to evaluate temperament in PCOS patients.

The Role of Tonsillectomy in Adults with Tonsillar Hypertrophy and Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

PubMed

Smith, Matthew M; Peterson, Ed; Yaremchuk, Kathleen L

2017-08-01

Objective To determine if tonsillectomy alone is an effective treatment in improving obstructive sleep apnea in adult subjects with tonsillar hypertrophy and to evaluate the effect of tonsillectomy on patient-reported quality-of-life indices. Study Design Case series with planned data collection. Setting Academic hospital. Subjects and Methods Thirty-four subjects completed enrollment and intervention from January 2011 to January 2016. Subjects completed pre- and postoperative quality-of-life questionnaires, including the Insomnia Severity Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and the Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire-10. Surgical response to treatment was defined by a >50% decrease in the Apnea-Hypopnea Index and a decrease in the overall Apnea-Hypopnea Index to <20. Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank tests were used to test each variable to assess for a change from pre- to postintervention. Subjects were then split into 3 BMI subgroups, with results also evaluated by Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank tests. Results There was a significant difference discovered between the mean preoperative Apnea-Hypopnea Index of 31.57 and the mean postoperative value of 8.12 ( P < .001). All patient-reported outcomes improved significantly following tonsillectomy. After stratifying all outcome variables (Apnea-Hypopnea Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Insomnia Severity Index, and Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire-10) by sex, race, and tonsil size, no statistically significant difference was noted among any of these subgroups. There was a 78% surgical response to treatment. Conclusion Tonsillectomy appears to be an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnea in a select population of adults with tonsillar hypertrophy.

Multivariate-Statistical Assessment of Heavy Metals for Agricultural Soils in Northern China

PubMed Central

Yang, Pingguo; Yang, Miao; Mao, Renzhao; Shao, Hongbo

2014-01-01

The study evaluated eight heavy metals content and soil pollution from agricultural soils in northern China. Multivariate and geostatistical analysis approaches were used to determine the anthropogenic and natural contribution of soil heavy metal concentrations. Single pollution index and integrated pollution index could be used to evaluate soil heavy metal risk. The results show that the first factor explains 27.3% of the eight soil heavy metals with strong positive loadings on Cu, Zn, and Cd, which indicates that Cu, Zn, and Cd are associated with and controlled by anthropic activities. The average value of heavy metal is lower than the second grade standard values of soil environmental quality standards in China. Single pollution index is lower than 1, and the Nemerow integrated pollution index is 0.305, which means that study area has not been polluted. The semivariograms of soil heavy metal single pollution index fitted spherical and exponential models. The variable ratio of single pollution index showed moderately spatial dependence. Heavy metal contents showed relative safety in the study area. PMID:24892058

Study on the influence on water ecosystem by a lake inflow filtration system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Sushu; Gao, Shipei; Hu, Xiaodong; Weng, Songgan; Guo, Liuchao

2018-06-01

Lakes play important roles in the economic-social sustainable development. However, due to unreasonable development and urbanization in recent years, lake water pollution and ecological degradation have occurred in China. The improvement of the lake inflow water quality is very important. A filtration system includes Gravel filtering system, Aquatic plant area and Ecological bag area was established. The test river is one of the typical lake inflow river and located in the river network in the Chang Dang lake, China. Water quality, zooplankton and phytoplankton in the inflow river were observed form July to mid-August in order to analyze the general process. The average removal rate of NH3-N (ammonia nitrogen) TN (total nitrogen) and TP (total phosphorus) is 28.33, 25.76 and 24.43 %, respectively. The Pantle-Buck method was used to evaluate the water quality and the B/T index was used to evaluate the nutrition situation. The B/T values were reduced by 20 % and the SI pollution index was reduced by 11.8 %. Therefore, a positive effect on the water's ecological restoration was achieved by the filtration system.

[Rapid screening and quality evaluation for the harmful substance 5-hydroxymethyl furfural in commercially available traditional Chinese medicine injection using LC-MS/MS method].

PubMed

Zang, Qing-ce; He, Jing-jing; Bai, Jin-fa; Zheng, Ya-jie; Zhang, Rui-ping; Li, Tie-gang; Wang, Zhong-hua; He, Jiu-ming; Abliz, Zeper

2013-11-01

To screen the harmful substance 5-hydroxymethyl furfural content in commercially available traditional Chinese medicine injection which are commonly used, and to preliminarily evaluate the quality of these injections, 5-hydroxymethyl furfural was taken as an index. The contents of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural in 56 samples which consist of 23 kinds of traditional Chinese medicine injections and glucose injection were determined using LC-MS/MS, and 5-hydroxymethyl furfural was detected in 52 of these samples. The minimal content was 0.0038 microg x L(-1) and the maximum content was 1420 microg x mL(-1). The contents of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural were significantly different in traditional Chinese medicine injection which came from different kinds, manufacturers or batches. The results showed the quality difference of commercially available traditional Chinese medicine injection is significant taking 5-hydroxymethyl furfural content as assessment index. More attention should be paid to the safety of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural in traditional Chinese medicine injection, and unified limitation standard should be set to improve medication safety of traditional Chinese medicine injection.

Spatio-temporal evaluation of Yamchi Dam basin water quality using Canadian water quality index.

PubMed

Farzadkia, Mahdi; Djahed, Babak; Shahsavani, Esmaeel; Poureshg, Yousef

2015-04-01

In recent years, the growth of population and increase of the industries around the tributaries of Yamchi Dam basin have led to deterioration of dam water quality. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of the Yamchi Dam basin water, which is used for drinking and irrigation consumptions using Canadian Water Quality Index (CWQI) model, and to determine the main water pollution sources of this basin. Initially, nine sampling stations were selected in the sensitive locations of the mentioned basin's tributaries, and 12 physico-chemical parameters and 2 biological parameters were measured. The CWQI for drinking consumptions was under 40 at all the stations indicating a poor water quality for drinking consumptions. On the other hand, the CWQI was 62-100 for irrigation at different stations; thus, the water had an excellent to fair quality for irrigation consumptions. Almost in all the stations, the quality of irrigation and drinking water in cold season was better. Besides, for drinking use, total coliform and fecal coliform had the highest frequency of failure, and total coliform had the maximum deviation from the specified objective. For irrigation use, total suspended solids had the highest frequency of failure and deviation from the objective in most of the stations. The pisciculture center, aquaculture center, and the Nir City wastewater discharge were determined as the main pollution sources of the Yamchi Dam basin. Therefore, to improve the water quality in this important surface water resource, urban and industrial wastewater treatment prior to disposal and more stringent environmental legislations are recommended.

Low Socioeconomic Status Negatively Affects Sleep in Pregnant Women

PubMed Central

Okun, Michele L.; Tolge, Madeline; Hall, Martica

2014-01-01

Objective To evaluate the effect of socioeconomic status on measures of sleep quality, continuity, and quantity in a large cohort of pregnant women. Design Prospective, longitudinal study. Participants One hundred seventy (170) pregnant women at 10-20 weeks gestation. Methods Sleep quality was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Sleep duration and continuity (sleep fragmentation index [SFI]) were assessed with actigraphy at 10-12, 14-16, and 18-20 weeks gestation. Since sleep did not significantly differ across time, averages across all three time points were used in analyses. Socioeconomic status (SES) was defined by self-reported annual household income. Linear regression analyses were used to model the independent associations of SES on sleep after adjusting for age, race, parity, marital status, body mass index (BMI), perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and financial strain. Results On average, women reported modestly poor sleep quality (M = 5.4, SD= 2.7), short sleep duration (391 (55.6) min) and fragmented sleep (SFI M = 33.9, SD= 10.4. A household income < $50,000/year was associated with poorer sleep quality (β = -.18, p < .05) and greater sleep fragmentation (β= -.18, p < .05) following covariate adjustment. Conclusions Low SES was associated with poorer sleep quality and fragmented sleep, even after statistical adjustments. Perceived stress and financial strain attenuated SES-sleep associations indicating that psychosocial situations preceding pregnancy are also important to consider. PMID:24617761

Using multi-terminology indexing for the assignment of MeSH descriptors to health resources in a French online catalogue.

PubMed

Pereira, Suzanne; Névéol, Aurélie; Kerdelhué, Gaétan; Serrot, Elisabeth; Joubert, Michel; Darmoni, Stéfan J

2008-11-06

To assist with the development of a French online quality-controlled health gateway(CISMeF), an automatic indexing tool assigning MeSH descriptors to medical text in French was created. The French Multi-Terminology Indexer (FMTI) relies on a multi-terminology approach involving four prominent medical terminologies and the mappings between them. In this paper,we compare lemmatization and stemming as methods to process French medical text for indexing. We also evaluate the multi-terminology approach implemented in F-MTI. The indexing strategies were assessed on a corpus of 18,814 resources indexed manually. There is little difference in the indexing performance when lemmatization or stemming is used. However, the multi-terminology approach outperforms indexing relying on a single terminology in terms of recall. F-MTI will soon be used in the CISMeF production environment and in a Health MultiTerminology Server in French.

Translation and validation of Portuguese of a questionnaire for evaluation of psychosomatic symptoms in adults with atopic dermatitis*

PubMed Central

Boleira, Manuela; Lupi, Omar; Pires, Gisele Vianna; Dias, Gabriela; Seba, Amanda Jaccobson; Guimarães, Daniel Boleira Sieiro

2014-01-01

BACKGROUND atopic dermatitis is directly related to psychological stress, reduced quality of life and psychosomatic symptoms. The Psychosomatic Scale for Atopic Dermatitis is the only questionnaire developed specifically for assessment of psychosomatization in atopic dermatitis. OBJECTIVES the objective of this study was to cross-culturally adapt and validate a Brazilian-Portuguese version of the Psychosomatic Scale for Atopic Dermatitis. METHODS adaptation consisted of independent translation and backtranslation by three bilingual translators, followed by a pre-test. The Psychosomatic Scale for Atopic Dermatitis and the Dermatology Life Quality Index were self-administered to 47 patients with atopic dermatitis. Disease severity was evaluated using the Eczema Area and Severity Index. Factor analysis was used to identify the dimensions of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Psychosomatic Scale for Atopic Dermatitis. Internal consistency and convergence validity were also analyzed. Reproducibility was assessed using the Kappa coefficient. RESULTS factor analysis revealed a two-dimensional structure: stress/laziness/insecurity (I) and maladjustment/social relationships (II), explaining 54.4% of total variance. All dimensions revealed excellent internal consistency. External construct validity was confirmed by positive correlations between the Psychosomatic Scale for Atopic Dermatitis and the Dermatology Life Quality Index. Test-retest reliability was excellent, with k>0.7 for all questions. CONCLUSIONS the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Psychosomatic Scale for Atopic Dermatitis demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties and can be used for the evaluation of psychosomatic symptoms in patients with atopic dermatitis and as a tool in clinical and epidemiological research. PMID:25184916

Influence of multiple brain metastases’ size and number on the quality of SRS - VMAT dose delivery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prentou, G.; Koutsouveli, E.; Pantelis, E.; Papagiannis, P.; Georgiou, E.; Karaiskos, P.

2017-11-01

Stereotactic radiosurgery with volumetric modulated arc therapy (SRS-VMAT) has recently been introduced for treatment of multiple brain metastases with a single isocenter. The technique’s high efficiency is nevertheless dependent of metastatic tumors’ characteristics such as size and number. In this work the impact of the metastases’ size and number on the plan quality indices clinically used for plan evaluation and acceptance is investigated. Fifteen targets with a diameter of 1 cm and average volume of 0.7 cm3 and ten targets with a diameter of 2 cm and average volume of 6.5 cm3 were contoured on an anonymized patient CT dataset, in Monaco (Elekta) treatment planning system. VMAT plans for different target volumes (1 and 2 cm in diameter) and various target numbers (1-15) were generated using four non-coplanar arcs and the Agility (Elekta) linear accelerator (5 mm MLC width) using a Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm and 1mm dose calculation grid resolution. Conformity index (CI), gradient index (GI) and heterogeneity index (HI) were determined for each target. High quality plans were created for both 1 cm and 2 cm in diameter targets for limited (<6) number of targets per plan. For increased number of irradiated targets (>6) both CI and GI, clinically used for plan evaluation and acceptance, were found to deteriorate.

Computational Depth of Anesthesia via Multiple Vital Signs Based on Artificial Neural Networks.

PubMed

Sadrawi, Muammar; Fan, Shou-Zen; Abbod, Maysam F; Jen, Kuo-Kuang; Shieh, Jiann-Shing

2015-01-01

This study evaluated the depth of anesthesia (DoA) index using artificial neural networks (ANN) which is performed as the modeling technique. Totally 63-patient data is addressed, for both modeling and testing of 17 and 46 patients, respectively. The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is utilized to purify between the electroencephalography (EEG) signal and the noise. The filtered EEG signal is subsequently extracted to achieve a sample entropy index by every 5-second signal. Then, it is combined with other mean values of vital signs, that is, electromyography (EMG), heart rate (HR), pulse, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and signal quality index (SQI) to evaluate the DoA index as the input. The 5 doctor scores are averaged to obtain an output index. The mean absolute error (MAE) is utilized as the performance evaluation. 10-fold cross-validation is performed in order to generalize the model. The ANN model is compared with the bispectral index (BIS). The results show that the ANN is able to produce lower MAE than BIS. For the correlation coefficient, ANN also has higher value than BIS tested on the 46-patient testing data. Sensitivity analysis and cross-validation method are applied in advance. The results state that EMG has the most effecting parameter, significantly.

Computational Depth of Anesthesia via Multiple Vital Signs Based on Artificial Neural Networks

PubMed Central

Sadrawi, Muammar; Fan, Shou-Zen; Abbod, Maysam F.; Jen, Kuo-Kuang; Shieh, Jiann-Shing

2015-01-01

This study evaluated the depth of anesthesia (DoA) index using artificial neural networks (ANN) which is performed as the modeling technique. Totally 63-patient data is addressed, for both modeling and testing of 17 and 46 patients, respectively. The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is utilized to purify between the electroencephalography (EEG) signal and the noise. The filtered EEG signal is subsequently extracted to achieve a sample entropy index by every 5-second signal. Then, it is combined with other mean values of vital signs, that is, electromyography (EMG), heart rate (HR), pulse, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and signal quality index (SQI) to evaluate the DoA index as the input. The 5 doctor scores are averaged to obtain an output index. The mean absolute error (MAE) is utilized as the performance evaluation. 10-fold cross-validation is performed in order to generalize the model. The ANN model is compared with the bispectral index (BIS). The results show that the ANN is able to produce lower MAE than BIS. For the correlation coefficient, ANN also has higher value than BIS tested on the 46-patient testing data. Sensitivity analysis and cross-validation method are applied in advance. The results state that EMG has the most effecting parameter, significantly. PMID:26568957

Change of signs, symptoms and voice quality evaluations throughout a 3- to 6-month empirical treatment for laryngopharyngeal reflux disease.

PubMed

Lechien, J R; Finck, C; Khalife, M; Huet, K; Delvaux, V; Picalugga, M; Harmegnies, B; Saussez, S

2018-05-16

To assess the usefulness of voice quality measurements as a treatment outcome in patients with laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR)-related symptoms. Prospective uncontrolled multi-centre study. A total of 80 clinically diagnosed LPR patients with a reflux finding score (RFS)>7 and a reflux symptom index (RSI)>13 were treated with pantoprazole and diet recommendations during 3 or 6 months, according to their evolution. RSI; RFS; blinded Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain and Instability (GRBASI) and aerodynamic and acoustic measurements were evaluated at baseline, 3 months (n = 80), and 6 months (n = 41) post-treatment. We conducted a correlation analysis between the adherence to the diet, and the evolution of both signs and symptoms and between videolaryngostroboscopic signs and acoustic measurements. Reflux symptom index, RFS, perceptual voice quality evaluations (dysphonia, roughness, strain and instability), and aerodynamic and acoustic measurements (ie, percent jitter and percent shimmer) were significantly improved at 3 months post-treatment but not at 6 months. Percent jitter was the most useful outcome for evaluating the clinical evolution of patients throughout the treatment course. A significant relationship between globus sensation and posterior commissure hypertrophy was documented; both seemed to significantly improve from 3 to 6 months. The correlation analysis revealed correlations between adherence to diet recommendations and the improvement of symptoms and between posterior commissure granulation severity and acoustic measurement impairments. Voice quality improved in a manner similar to both signs and symptoms throughout a 6-month empirical treatment with better improvement the 3 first months. Voice quality assessments can be used as indicators of treatment effectiveness in patients with LPR-related symptoms. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An evaluation of a bed instability index as an indicator of habitat quality in mountain streams of the northwestern United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kusnierz, Paul C.; Holbrook, Christopher; Feldman, David L.

2015-01-01

Managers of aquatic resources benefit from indices of habitat quality that are reproducible and easy to measure, demonstrate a link between habitat quality and biota health, and differ between human-impacted (i.e., managed) and reference (i.e., nonimpacted or minimally impacted) conditions. The instability index (ISI) is an easily measured index that describes the instability of a streambed by relating the tractive force of a stream at bankfull discharge to the median substrate size. Previous studies have linked ISI to biological condition but have been limited to comparisons of sites within a single stream or among a small number of streams. We tested ISI as an indicator of human impact to habitat and biota in mountain streams of the northwestern USA. Among 1428 sites in six northwestern states, ISI was correlated with other habitat measures (e.g., residual pool depth, percent fine sediment) and indices of biotic health (e.g., number of intolerant macroinvertebrate taxa, fine sediment biotic index) and differed between managed and reference sites across a range of stream types and ecoregions. While ISI could be useful in mountain streams throughout the world, this index may be of particular interest to aquatic resource managers in the northwestern USA where a large dataset, from which ISI can be calculated, exists.

Periapical and endodontic status scale based on periapical bone lesions and endodontic treatment quality evaluation using cone-beam computed tomography.

PubMed

Venskutonis, Tadas; Plotino, Gianluca; Tocci, Luigi; Gambarini, Gianluca; Maminskas, Julius; Juodzbalys, Gintaras

2015-02-01

The purpose of this study was to present a new periapical and endodontic status scale (PESS) that is based on the complex periapical index (COPI), which was designed for the identification and classification of periapical bone lesions in cases of apical periodontitis, and the endodontically treated tooth index, which was designed for endodontic treatment quality evaluation by means of cone-beam computed tomographic (CBCT) analysis. Periapical and endodontic status parameters were selected from the already known indexes and scientific literature for radiologic evaluation. Radiographic images (CBCT imaging, digital orthopantomography [DOR], and digital periapical radiography) from 55 patients were analyzed. All parameters were evaluated on CBCT, DOR, and digital periapical radiographic images by 2 external observers. The statistical analysis was performed with software SPSS version 19.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL). Chi-square tests were used to compare frequencies of qualitative variables. The level of significance was set at P ≤ .05. Overall intraobserver and interobserver agreements were very good and good, respectively. CBCT analysis found more lesions and lesions of bigger dimension (P < .001). CBCT imaging was also superior in locating lesions in the apical part on the side compared with DOR and in the diagnosis of cortical bone destruction compared with both methods (P < .001). Through CBCT analysis, more root canals and more canals associated with lesions were found. The most informative and reproducible periapical and endodontic status parameters were selected, and a new PESS was proposed. The classification proposed in the present study seems to be reproducible and objective and adds helpful information with respect to the existing indexes. Future studies need to be conducted to validate PESS. Copyright © 2015 American Association of Endodontists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Scalable gastroscopic video summarization via similar-inhibition dictionary selection.

PubMed

Wang, Shuai; Cong, Yang; Cao, Jun; Yang, Yunsheng; Tang, Yandong; Zhao, Huaici; Yu, Haibin

2016-01-01

This paper aims at developing an automated gastroscopic video summarization algorithm to assist clinicians to more effectively go through the abnormal contents of the video. To select the most representative frames from the original video sequence, we formulate the problem of gastroscopic video summarization as a dictionary selection issue. Different from the traditional dictionary selection methods, which take into account only the number and reconstruction ability of selected key frames, our model introduces the similar-inhibition constraint to reinforce the diversity of selected key frames. We calculate the attention cost by merging both gaze and content change into a prior cue to help select the frames with more high-level semantic information. Moreover, we adopt an image quality evaluation process to eliminate the interference of the poor quality images and a segmentation process to reduce the computational complexity. For experiments, we build a new gastroscopic video dataset captured from 30 volunteers with more than 400k images and compare our method with the state-of-the-arts using the content consistency, index consistency and content-index consistency with the ground truth. Compared with all competitors, our method obtains the best results in 23 of 30 videos evaluated based on content consistency, 24 of 30 videos evaluated based on index consistency and all videos evaluated based on content-index consistency. For gastroscopic video summarization, we propose an automated annotation method via similar-inhibition dictionary selection. Our model can achieve better performance compared with other state-of-the-art models and supplies more suitable key frames for diagnosis. The developed algorithm can be automatically adapted to various real applications, such as the training of young clinicians, computer-aided diagnosis or medical report generation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attachment and self-evaluation in Chinese adolescents: age and gender differences.

PubMed

Song, Hairong; Thompson, Ross A; Ferrer, Emilio

2009-10-01

This study investigated age and gender differences in the quality of attachment to mothers, fathers, and peers, and the association of attachment with measures of self-evaluation in 584 Chinese adolescents in junior high, high school, and university. Their responses to the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment indexed attachment quality, and self-evaluation was measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Self-Liking and Self-Competence Scale. Consistent with findings with Western samples, our analyses revealed (a) lower parent-child relationship quality in middle (compared to early) adolescence, (b) a significant association of parental and peer attachment with self-evaluation, and (c) gender differences in attachment to peers, with females reporting stronger attachment than males. Chinese females reported stronger maternal attachment than did males, and for females the quality of maternal attachment was more strongly related to self-evaluation than any other attachment relationship. During high school, peer attachment quality - rather than parental - was preeminently associated with self-evaluation. The findings of this study indicate that in a context of considerable consistency of findings with Western studies, parent-child attachment in Chinese adolescents is also influenced by culture-specific practices that influence parent-youth relationships and their meaning to the child.

[New bibliometric indicators for the scientific literature: an evolving panorama].

PubMed

La Torre, G; Sciarra, I; Chiappetta, M; Monteduro, A

2017-01-01

Bibliometrics is a science which evaluates the impact of the scientific work of a journal or of an author, using mathematical and statistical tools. Impact Factor (IF) is the first bibliometric parameter created, and after it many others have been progressively conceived in order to go beyond its limits. Currently bibliometric indexes are used for academic purposes, among them to evaluate the eligibility of a researcher to compete for the National Scientific Qualification, in order to access to competitive exams to become professor. Aim of this study is to identify the most relevant bibliometric indexes and to summarized their characteristics. A revision of bibliometric indexes as been conducted, starting from the classic ones and completing with the most recent ones. The two most used bibliometric indexes are the IF, which measures the scientific impact of a periodical and bases on Web of Science citation database, and the h-index, which measures the impact of the scientific work of a researcher, basing on Scopus database. Besides them other indexes have been created more recently, such as the SCImago Journal Rank Indicator (SJR), the Source Normalised Impact per Paper (SNIP) and the CiteScore index. They are all based on Scopus database and evaluate, in different ways, the citational impact of a periodic. The i10-index instead is provided from Google Scholar database and allows to evaluate the impact of the scientific production of a researcher. Recently two softwares have been introduced: the first one, Publish or Perish, allows to evaluate the scientific work of a researcher, through the assessment of many indexes; the second one, Altmetric, measure the use in the Web of the academic papers, instead of measuring citations, by means of alternative metrics respect to the traditional ones. Each analized index shows advantages but also criticalities. Therefore the combined use of more than one indexes, citational and not, should be preferred, in order to correctly evaluate the work of reserchers and to finally improve the quality and the development of scientific research.

Effects of Radioactive Iodine Ablation Therapy on Voice Quality.

PubMed

Aydoğdu, İmran; Atar, Yavuz; Saltürk, Ziya; Sarı, Hüseyin; Ataç, Enes; Aydoğdu, Zeynep; İnan, Muzaffer; Mersinlioğlu, Gökhan; Uyar, Yavuz

2017-01-01

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of radioactive iodine ablation therapy on voice quality of patients diagnosed with well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma. We enrolled 36 patients who underwent total or subtotal thyroidectomy due to well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma. Voice recordings from patients were analyzed for acoustic and aerodynamic voice. The Voice Handicap Index-10 was used for subjective analysis. The control group consisted of 36 healthy participants. Results taken before and after therapy were compared statistically. There were no differences in the results taken before and after therapy for the radioactive iodine ablation group. The Voice Handicap Index-10 results did not differ between groups before and after therapy. Radioactive iodine ablation therapy has no effect on voice quality objectively or subjectively. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Heterogenous customer satisfaction index for evaluating university food service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aziz, Nazrina; Zain, Zakiyah; Syarifi, Nadia Asyikin Mohammad; Klivon, Julia; Ap, Nurasiah Che; Zaki, Mahirah

2017-11-01

This paper aims to measure the performance of university food service based on students' perception. Two cafeterias were chosen for comparison: one located at student residential hall (Café 1) and another at the university administration centre (Café 2). By considering the components of importance and satisfaction, the Heterogeneous Customer Satisfaction Index-HCSI was computed to measure the performance of quality items in both cafeterias. Stratified sampling method was used to select 278 students and the DINESERVE instrument was used to assess customer perception on service quality. The findings show that the customer rate these two cafeterias as quite satisfied only, with the HCSI for Café 1 slightly higher than that for Café 2.

Intensity modulated radiotherapy and 3D conformal radiotherapy for whole breast irradiation: a comparative dosimetric study and introduction of a novel qualitative index for plan evaluation, the normal tissue index

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yim, Jackie; Suttie, Clare; Bromley, Regina

We report on a retrospective dosimetric study, comparing 3D conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) and hybrid intensity modulated radiotherapy (hIMRT). We evaluated plans based on their planning target volume coverage, dose homogeneity, dose to organs at risk (OARs) and exposure of normal tissue to radiation. The Homogeneity Index (HI) was used to assess the dose homogeneity in the target region, and we describe a new index, the normal tissue index (NTI), to assess the dose in the normal tissue inside the tangent treatment portal. Plans were generated for 25 early-stage breast cancer patients, using a hIMRT technique. These were compared with themore » 3DCRT plans of the treatment previously received by the patients. Plan quality was evaluated using the HI, NTI and dose to OARs. The hIMRT technique was significantly more homogenous than the 3DCRT technique, while maintaining target coverage. The hIMRT technique was also superior at minimising the amount of tissue receiving D{sub 105%} and above (P < 0.0001). The ipsilateral lung and contralateral breast maximum were significantly lower in the hIMRT plans (P < 0.05 and P < 0.005), but the 3DCRT technique achieved a lower mean heart dose in left-sided breast cancer patients (P < 0.05). Hybrid intensity modulated radiotherapy plans achieved improved dose homogeneity compared to the 3DCRT plans and superior outcome with regard to dose to normal tissues. We propose that the addition of both HI and NTI in evaluating the quality of intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) breast plans provides clinically relevant comparators which more accurately reflect the new paradigm of treatment goals and outcomes in the era of breast IMRT.« less

Implementing and validating of pan-sharpening algorithms in open-source software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pesántez-Cobos, Paúl; Cánovas-García, Fulgencio; Alonso-Sarría, Francisco

2017-10-01

Several approaches have been used in remote sensing to integrate images with different spectral and spatial resolutions in order to obtain fused enhanced images. The objective of this research is three-fold. To implement in R three image fusion techniques (High Pass Filter, Principal Component Analysis and Gram-Schmidt); to apply these techniques to merging multispectral and panchromatic images from five different images with different spatial resolutions; finally, to evaluate the results using the universal image quality index (Q index) and the ERGAS index. As regards qualitative analysis, Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 show greater colour distortion with the three pansharpening methods, although the results for the other images were better. Q index revealed that HPF fusion performs better for the QuickBird, IKONOS and Landsat-7 images, followed by GS fusion; whereas in the case of Landsat-8 and Natmur-08 images, the results were more even. Regarding the ERGAS spatial index, the ACP algorithm performed better for the QuickBird, IKONOS, Landsat-7 and Natmur-08 images, followed closely by the GS algorithm. Only for the Landsat-8 image did, the GS fusion present the best result. In the evaluation of spectral components, HPF results tended to be better and ACP results worse, the opposite was the case with the spatial components. Better quantitative results are obtained in Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 images with the three fusion methods than with the QuickBird, IKONOS and Natmur-08 images. This contrasts with the qualitative evaluation reflecting the importance of splitting the two evaluation approaches (qualitative and quantitative). Significant disagreement may arise when different methodologies are used to asses the quality of an image fusion. Moreover, it is not possible to designate, a priori, a given algorithm as the best, not only because of the different characteristics of the sensors, but also because of the different atmospherics conditions or peculiarities of the different study areas, among other reasons.

Use of the landfill water pollution index (LWPI) for groundwater quality assessment near the landfill sites.

PubMed

Talalaj, Izabela A; Biedka, Pawel

2016-12-01

The purpose of the paper is to assess the groundwater quality near the landfill sites using landfill water pollution index (LWPI). In order to investigate the scale of groundwater contamination, three landfills (E, H and S) in different stages of their operation were taken into analysis. Samples of groundwater in the vicinity of studied landfills were collected four times each year in the period from 2004 to 2014. A total of over 300 groundwater samples were analysed for pH, EC, PAH, TOC, Cr, Hg, Zn, Pb, Cd, Cu, as required by the UE legal acts for landfill monitoring system. The calculated values of the LWPI allowed the quantification of the overall water quality near the landfill sites. The obtained results indicated that the most negative impact on groundwater quality is observed near the old Landfill H. Improper location of piezometer at the Landfill S favoured infiltration of run-off from road pavement into the soil-water environment. Deep deposition of the groundwater level at Landfill S area reduced the landfill impact on the water quality. Conducted analyses revealed that the LWPI can be used for evaluation of water pollution near a landfill, for assessment of the variability of water pollution with time and for comparison of water quality from different piezometers, landfills or time periods. The applied WQI (Water Quality Index) can also be an important information tool for landfill policy makers and the public about the groundwater pollution threat from landfill.

[Aquatic insects and water quality in Peñas Blancas watershed and reservoir].

PubMed

Mora, Meyer Guevara

2011-06-01

The aquatic insects have been used to evaluate water quality of aquatic environments. The population of aquatic insects and the water quality of the area were characterized according to the natural and human alterations present in the study site. During the monthly-survey, pH, DO, temperature, water level, DBO, PO4 and NO3 were measured. Biological indexes (abundance, species richness and the BMWP-CR) were used to evaluate the water quality. No relation between environmental and aquatic insects was detected. Temporal and spatial differences attributed to the flow events (temporal) and the presence of Peñas Blancas reservoir (spatial). In the future, the investigations in Peñas Blancas watershed need to be focused on determining the real influence of the flows, sediment release and the possible water quality degradation because of agriculture activities.

Evaluating which plan quality metrics are appropriate for use in lung SBRT.

PubMed

Yaparpalvi, Ravindra; Garg, Madhur K; Shen, Jin; Bodner, William R; Mynampati, Dinesh K; Gafar, Aleiya; Kuo, Hsiang-Chi; Basavatia, Amar K; Ohri, Nitin; Hong, Linda X; Kalnicki, Shalom; Tome, Wolfgang A

2018-02-01

Several dose metrics in the categories-homogeneity, coverage, conformity and gradient have been proposed in literature for evaluating treatment plan quality. In this study, we applied these metrics to characterize and identify the plan quality metrics that would merit plan quality assessment in lung stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) dose distributions. Treatment plans of 90 lung SBRT patients, comprising 91 targets, treated in our institution were retrospectively reviewed. Dose calculations were performed using anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA) with heterogeneity correction. A literature review on published plan quality metrics in the categories-coverage, homogeneity, conformity and gradient was performed. For each patient, using dose-volume histogram data, plan quality metric values were quantified and analysed. For the study, the radiation therapy oncology group (RTOG) defined plan quality metrics were: coverage (0.90 ± 0.08); homogeneity (1.27 ± 0.07); conformity (1.03 ± 0.07) and gradient (4.40 ± 0.80). Geometric conformity strongly correlated with conformity index (p < 0.0001). Gradient measures strongly correlated with target volume (p < 0.0001). The RTOG lung SBRT protocol advocated conformity guidelines for prescribed dose in all categories were met in ≥94% of cases. The proportion of total lung volume receiving doses of 20 Gy and 5 Gy (V 20 and V 5 ) were mean 4.8% (±3.2) and 16.4% (±9.2), respectively. Based on our study analyses, we recommend the following metrics as appropriate surrogates for establishing SBRT lung plan quality guidelines-coverage % (ICRU 62), conformity (CN or CI Paddick ) and gradient (R 50% ). Furthermore, we strongly recommend that RTOG lung SBRT protocols adopt either CN or CI Padddick in place of prescription isodose to target volume ratio for conformity index evaluation. Advances in knowledge: Our study metrics are valuable tools for establishing lung SBRT plan quality guidelines.

Health information on internet: quality, importance, and popularity of persian health websites.

PubMed

Samadbeik, Mahnaz; Ahmadi, Maryam; Mohammadi, Ali; Mohseni Saravi, Beniamin

2014-04-01

The Internet has provided great opportunities for disseminating both accurate and inaccurate health information. Therefore, the quality of information is considered as a widespread concern affecting the human life. Despite the increasingly substantial growth in the number of users, Persian health websites and the proportion of internet-using patients, little is known about the quality of Persian medical and health websites. The current study aimed to first assess the quality, popularity and importance of websites providing Persian health-related information, and second to evaluate the correlation of the popularity and importance ranking with quality score on the Internet. The sample websites were identified by entering the health-related keywords into four most popular search engines of Iranian users based on the Alexa ranking at the time of study. Each selected website was assessed using three qualified tools including the Bomba and Land Index, Google PageRank and the Alexa ranking. The evaluated sites characteristics (ownership structure, database, scope and objective) really did not have an effect on the Alexa traffic global rank, Alexa traffic rank in Iran, Google PageRank and Bomba total score. Most websites (78.9 percent, n = 56) were in the moderate category (8 ≤ x ≤ 11.99) based on their quality levels. There was no statistically significant association between Google PageRank with Bomba index variables and Alexa traffic global rank (P > 0.05). The Persian health websites had better Bomba quality scores in availability and usability guidelines as compared to other guidelines. The Google PageRank did not properly reflect the real quality of evaluated websites and Internet users seeking online health information should not merely rely on it for any kind of prejudgment regarding Persian health websites. However, they can use Iran Alexa rank as a primary filtering tool of these websites. Therefore, designing search engines dedicated to explore accredited Persian health-related Web sites can be an effective method to access high-quality Persian health websites.

Comparative analysis of data quality and applications in vegetation of HJ-1A CCD images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Hongwei; Tian, Qingjiu; Huang, Yan; Wang, Yan

2014-05-01

To study the data quality and to find the differences in vegetation monitoring applications, the same region at Chuzhou Lai 'an, the data of HJ-1A CCD1 on the April 1st, 2012 and the data of HJ-1A CCD2 on the March 31, 2012 have being comparative analysis by the method of objective quality (image)assessment which selecting over five spectral image evaluation parameters: radiation precision (mean, variance, inclination, steepness), information entropy, signal-to-noise ratio, sharpness, contrast, and normalized differential vegetation index. The results show that there is little differences between the HJ-1A CCD1 and CCD2 by objective evaluation of data quality except radiation precision conform to their design theory, so the conclusion is that the difference of them without considering on the usual unless continuation;and Combination of field observation data Lai'an spectral data and GPS data (each point),selecting the normalized difference vegetation index as CCD1, CCD2 in vegetation monitoring application on the evaluation of the differences, and the specific process is based on GPS data is divided into nine small plots of spectral data ,and image data of nine one-to-one correspondence plots, and their normalized difference vegetation index values were calculated ,and measured spectra data resampling HJ-1A CCD1, CCD2 spectral response function calculated NDVI, and the results show that there is little differences between the HJ-1A CCD1 and CCD2 by objective evaluation of data quality, and, the differences of wheat `s reflection and normalized vegetation index is mainly due to calibration coefficients of CCD1 and CCD2, the differences of the solar elevation angle when obtaining the image and atmospheric conditions, so it has to consider the performance indicators as well as access conditions of CCD1 and CCD2, and to be take the normalization techniques for processing for the comparison analysis in the use of HJ-1A CCD Data to surface dynamic changes; Finally, in order to study the response of the spectral response function proposed spectral response function of impact factor, and in view of the spectral response function measured spectral data resampling only HJ-1A CCD spectral response function, calculated according to the formula of the equivalent reflectivity quantitative spectral response function, and spectral normalization of proposed theoretical Technical Support. The Objective evaluation of its application of HJ-1A CCD1, and CCD2 data quality differences research has important implications for broader application to further promote China-made remote sensing satellite data, future research also needs calibration coefficient, the solar elevation angle atmospheric conditions and its image scanning angle be taken into account, and to make the corresponding normalized its impact quantitative research has important significance for the timing changes in the application of the ecological environment in China.

Relationship of work disability between the disease activity, depression and quality of life in patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

PubMed

Sağ, Sinem; Nas, Kemal; Sağ, Mustafa Serdar; Tekeoğlu, İbrahim; Kamanlı, Ayhan

2018-02-02

In this study, our objective was to determine the work productivity and work disability of the patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and to investigate the relation of these parameters with disease activity, anxiety, depression and quality of life. Fifty patients with the diagnosis of AS and 30 healthy control were included in the study. In patients with AS, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) was used to evaluate the disease activity; Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Metrology Index (BASMI) was used to evaluate the spinal mobility and Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI) was used to determine the functional status. In addition, the Ankylosing Spondylitis Quality of Life (ASQoL) questionnaire and The Short Form (SF-36) Health Survey was used to evaluate the health status, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was used for the evaluation of depression and anxiety and Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire: Specific Health Problem v2.0 (WPAI:SHP) was used to evaluate the work productivity. In AS patients duration of disease at the diagnosis was 7.24 ± 6.23 years. The time lost at work due to the disease, decrease in the work productivity and impairment in the time off daily activities were worse in the patient group compared with the control group (p< 0.05). The impairment in the work productivity was correlated with BASDAI and depression; difficulty in time-off activities was correlated with BASFI and anxiety and depression was correlated with BASDAI (p< 0.05). While the impairment in work productivity was correlated with the subparameter vitality in SF-36, difficulty in time off activities was correlated with general health status, social functions, vitality and mental health (p< 0.05). In this study, we determined that AS had a significant influence on the working conditions and the factors related to the disease had a significant correlation with work productivity. Factors related to the psychology and the disease were also correlated with the working conditions.

The use of citation indicators to identify and support high-quality research in Poland.

PubMed

Pilc, Andrzej

2008-01-01

In large, mostly English-speaking countries, where the "critical mass" of scientists working in different subfields of science is achieved, the peer review system may be sufficient to assess the quality of scientific research. However, in smaller countries, outside the Anglo-American circle, it is important to introduce different systems to identify research of high quality. In Poland, a parametric system for assessing the quality of research has been introduced. It was largely based on the impact factor of scientific journals. While the use of this indicator to assess research quality is highly questionable, the implementation of the system in the Polish reality is even worse. Therefore it is important to change and improve the system currently used by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to both evaluate and, more importantly, finance science in Poland. Here, a system based on three factors, i.e. the impact factor, the institutional h-index, and the institutional number of citations, is proposed. The scientific quality of institutions in Division VI: Medical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences were evaluated and the results were compared with the existing system. Moreover, a method to identify high-quality researchers and institutions at the national level based on the quantity of highly cited papers is shown. Additionally, an attempt to identify the highest quality Polish research on an international level is proposed. This is based on the number of individual citations, the individual h-index, the number of publications, and the priority of the discovery.

Health-related quality of life questionnaires in individuals with haemophilia: a systematic review of their measurement properties.

PubMed

Limperg, P F; Terwee, C B; Young, N L; Price, V E; Gouw, S C; Peters, M; Grootenhuis, M A; Blanchette, V; Haverman, L

2017-07-01

The evaluation of health related quality of life (HRQOL) is essential for a full assessment of the influence of an illness on patients' lives. The aim of this paper is to critically appraise and compare the measurement properties of HRQOL questionnaires studied in haemophilia. Bibliographic databases (Embase, Medline, Cinahl and PsycInfo) were searched for articles evaluating measurement properties of HRQOL questionnaires in haemophilia. Articles were excluded that did not report HRQOL measurement properties, or when <50% of the study population had haemophilia. The methodological quality of the selected studies was evaluated using the COSMIN checklist. The measurement properties of the HRQL questionnaires were rated as 'positive', 'indeterminate' or 'negative', accompanied by levels of evidence. The search resulted in 1597 unique hits, of which 22 studies were included. These articles evaluated three questionnaires for children (CHO-KLAT, Haemo-QoL and one unnamed measure) and five for adults (Hemofilia-QoL, Haemophilia Well-Being Index, HAEMO-QoL-A, Haem-A-QoL, and SF-36). The CHO-KLAT was the paediatric measure that showed the strongest measurement properties in high-quality studies. The Haemophilia Well-Being Index and HAEMO-QoL-A performed best among the adult measures. None of the studies reported measurement error and responsiveness. Our findings suggest that there is no need for new disease-specific HRQOL questionnaires for haemophilia, but rather that additional research is necessary to document the measurement properties of the currently available questionnaires, specifically focusing on the structural validity, measurement error and responsiveness of these questionnaires. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Multisite evaluation of APEX for water quality: II. Regional parameterization

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Phosphorus (P) index assessment requires independent estimates of long-term average annual P loss from multiple locations, management practices, soils, and landscape positions. Because currently available measured data are insufficient, calibrated and validated process-based models have been propos...

Use of plant indicators as an index to site quality

Treesearch

Marinus Westveld

1954-01-01

In any discussion of site evaluation we need to know first what the forester means by the term "site", and the function site serves in the field of forestry. The term may mean different things to different people.

Sleep disturbance in psoriasis - a case-controlled study.

PubMed

Jensen, P; Zachariae, C; Skov, L; Zachariae, R

2018-04-28

Sleep is essential for daytime functioning and health. Given the physical symptoms of psoriasis, a higher prevalence of sleep disorders could be expected. So far, the studies examining sleep disturbance in psoriasis have been of less-than-optimal methodological quality and with mixed results. We aimed to: 1) examine the prevalence of sleep disturbance in patients with plaque psoriasis compared to controls, 2) evaluate associations with health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and 3) examine possible disease-related predictors of disturbed sleep. We used a cross-sectional, case-controlled design. Participants included 179 consecutively recruited patients with plaque psoriasis and 105 controls. Measures included psoriasis severity (Psoriasis Area and Severity index [PASI]); HRQoL (Dermatology Life Quality Index [DLQI]); insomnia severity (Insomnia Severity Index [ISI]); sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI]); stress (Perceived Stress Scale [PSS]); Itch (Itch Severity Scale [ISS]); and depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory [BDI]). Analyses included group comparisons and regression analyses to identify predictors of sleep disturbance. Twenty-five per cent of patients with psoriasis reported clinical insomnia (ISI > 15), compared with 10.5% of controls. In all, 53.9% of patients with psoriasis were poor sleepers (PSQI > 5), compared with 21.9% of controls. Itch was statistically significantly associated with all sleep-related outcomes. A higher proportion of patients with psoriasis suffer from poor sleep than controls from the general population. Itch was the main predictor of impaired sleep. Improved control of psoriasis with decreased itch may improve sleep disturbance in psoriasis. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Dose specification and quality assurance of RTOG protocol 95-17; a cooperative group study of 192Ir breast implants as sole therapy

PubMed Central

Ibbott, Geoffrey S.; Hanson, W.F.; Martin, Elizabeth; Kuske, Robert R.; Arthur, Douglas; Rabinovitch, Rachel; White, Julia; Wilenzick, Raymond M.; Harris, Irene; Tailor, Ramesh C.

2007-01-01

Purpose RTOG protocol 95-17 was a phase I/II trial to evaluate multi-catheter brachytherapy as the sole method of adjuvant breast radiotherapy for stage I/II breast carcinoma following breast conserving surgery. Low or high dose rate sources were allowed. Dose prescription and treatment evaluation were based on recommendations in ICRU Report 58, and included the parameters mean central dose (MCD), average peripheral dose, dose homogeneity index (DHI), and the dimensions of the low and high dose regions. Methods and Materials Three levels of quality assurance were implemented: (1) Credentialing of institutions was required prior to entering patients onto the study. (2) Rapid review of each treatment plan was conducted prior to treatment, and (3) Retrospective review was performed by the Radiological Physics Center in conjunction with the study chairman and RTOG dosimetry staff. Results Credentialing focused on the accuracy of dose calculation algorithm and compliance with protocol guidelines. Rapid review was designed to identify and correct deviations from the protocol prior to treatment. The retrospective review involved recalculation of dosimetry parameters and review of dose distributions to evaluate the treatment. Specifying both central and peripheral doses resulted in uniform dose distributions, with a mean dose homogeneity index of 0.83 ±0.06. Conclusions Vigorous quality assurance resulted in a high-quality study with few deviations; only 4 of 100 patients were judged as minor variations from protocol and no patient was judged a major deviation. This study should be considered a model for quality assurance of future trials. PMID:18035213

Evaluating the Quality of Life of Glaucoma Patients Using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.

PubMed

Otori, Yasumasa; Takahashi, Genichiro; Urashima, Mitsuyoshi; Kuwayama, Yasuaki

2017-11-01

To evaluate anxiety felt by glaucoma patients. In total, 472 glaucoma patients responded to a questionnaire on anxiety, subjective symptoms, and vision-related quality of life (VR-QOL) associated with glaucoma. Anxiety was evaluated using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), state anxiety (STAI-State) subscale along with our novel questionnaire, assessing visual function and subjective symptoms, specialized for glaucoma. VR-QOL was evaluated using 5 subitems from the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (VFQ-25). Adherence to ophthalmic antiglaucoma agents was confirmed. As indexes of visual function, corrected visual acuity (measured by eye chart), mean deviation (MD) score (measured with static perimetry), and 4 thresholds at the center of vision were determined. Stages were classified according to the Aulhorn Classification. From the STAI-State scores, the prevalence of anxiety in glaucoma patients was evaluated. We analyzed the correlation between the STAI-State and VFQ-25, anxiety, subjective symptoms, adherence, and visual function indexes. In total, 78% of glaucoma patients experienced at least an intermediate level of anxiety. The STAI-State correlated significantly with anxiety and subjective symptoms as measured by our novel questionnaire, particularly for questions "current anxiety about loss of vision" and "current anxiety in life" (r=0.468 and 0.500; both P<0.0001). However, STAI-State correlated weakly with VFQ-25, and not at all with visual function indexes and adherence. Many glaucoma patients feel anxiety. The STAI-State is correlated with the VR-QOL and anxiety in glaucoma patients, making it useful for understanding the anxiety present in glaucoma patients.

Efficacy of antimicrobial pullulan-based coating to improve internal quality and shelf-life of chicken eggs during storage.

PubMed

Morsy, Mohamed K; Sharoba, Ashraf M; Khalaf, Hassan H; El-Tanahy, Hassan H; Cutter, Catherine N

2015-05-01

There has been a growing interest in the use of natural materials as a delivery mechanism for antimicrobials and coatings in foods. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of pullulan coatings to improve internal quality and shelf-life of fresh eggs during 10 wk of storage at 25 and 4 °C. Three treatments of eggs were evaluated as follows; non-coated (control; C), coated with pullulan (P), and coated with pullulan containing nisin (N). The effects of the pullulan coatings on microbiological qualities, physical properties, and freshness parameters were investigated and compared with non-coated eggs. For non-coated eggs, as storage time increased, yolk index, albumen index, and Haugh unit value decreased and weight loss increased. However, pullulan coatings (P or N) minimized weight loss (<1.5%) and preserved the albumen and yolk quality of eggs (with a final B grade) 3 wk longer than non-coated eggs at 25 °C. At 4 °C, both P- and N-coated eggs went from AA to A grade after 9 wk and maintained the grade for 10 wk (4 wk longer than that of non-coated eggs). This study is the first to demonstrate that pullulan coatings can preserve the internal quality, prolong the shelf-life, and minimize weight loss of fresh eggs. © 2015 Institute of Food Technologists®

Skin care education and individual counselling versus treatment as usual in healthcare workers with hand eczema: randomised clinical trial.

PubMed

Ibler, Kristina Sophie; Jemec, Gregor B E; Diepgen, Thomas L; Gluud, Christian; Lindschou Hansen, Jane; Winkel, Per; Thomsen, Simon Francis; Agner, Tove

2012-12-12

To evaluate the effect of a secondary prevention programme with education on skin care and individual counselling versus treatment as usual in healthcare workers with hand eczema. Randomised, observer blinded parallel group superiority clinical trial. Three hospitals in Denmark. 255 healthcare workers with self reported hand eczema within the past year randomised centrally and stratified by profession, severity of eczema, and hospital. 123 were allocated to the intervention group and 132 to the control group. Education in skin care and individual counselling based on patch and prick testing and assessment of work and domestic related exposures. The control was treatment as usual. The primary outcome was clinical severity of disease at five month follow-up measured by scores on the hand eczema severity index. The secondary outcomes were scores on the dermatology life quality index, self evaluated severity of hand eczema, skin protective behaviours, and knowledge of hand eczema from onset to follow-up. Follow-up data were available for 247 of 255 participants (97%). At follow-up, the mean score on the hand eczema severity index was significantly lower (improved) in the intervention group than control group: difference of means, unadjusted -3.56 (95% confidence interval -4.92 to -2.14); adjusted -3.47 (-4.80 to -2.14), both P<0.001 for difference. The mean score on the dermatology life quality index was also significantly lower (improved) in the intervention group at follow-up: difference of means: unadjusted -0.78, non-parametric test P=0.003; adjusted -0.92, -1.48 to -0.37). Self evaluated severity and skin protective behaviour by hand washings and wearing of protective gloves were also statistically significantly better in the intervention group, whereas this was not the case for knowledge of hand eczema. A secondary prevention programme for hand eczema improved severity and quality of life and had a positive effect on self evaluated severity and skin protective behaviour by hand washings and wearing of protective gloves. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01012453.

Association between gingival bleeding and gingival enlargement and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of subjects under fixed orthodontic treatment: a cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Zanatta, Fabricio Batistin; Ardenghi, Thiago Machado; Antoniazzi, Raquel Pippi; Pinto, Tatiana Militz Perrone; Rösing, Cassiano Kuchenbecker

2012-11-27

There are scarce evidences that evaluated the impact of periodontal disease on oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) taking marginal gingival alterations into consideration. Thus, this study aimed to verify the association between OHRQoL and gingival enlargement and gingival bleeding in subjects under fixed orthodontic treatment (FOT). 330 participants under FOT for at least 6 months were examined by a single, calibrated examiner for periodontal variables and dental aesthetic index. Socio-economic background, body mass index, time with orthodontic appliances, and use of dental floss were assessed by oral interviews. OHRQoL was evaluated using the oral health impact profile (OHIP-14) questionnaire. The assessment of associations used unadjusted and adjusted Poisson regression models. Higher impacts on the OHIP-14 overall were observed in subjects who presented higher levels of anterior gingival enlargement (RR 2.83; 95% CI 2.60-3.09), were non-whites (RR 1.29; 95% CI 1.15-1.45), had household income lower than five national minimum wages (RR 1.85; 95% CI 1.30-2.61), presented body mass index>25 (RR 1.14; 95% CI 1.01-1.29), and showed a dental aesthetic index>30 (RR 1.32; 95% CI 1.20-1.46). Anterior gingival enlargement seems to influence the OHRQoL in subjects receiving orthodontic treatment.

Short-Term Effect of Two Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Training Programs on the Vocal Quality of Future Occupational Voice Users: "Resonant Voice Training Using Nasal Consonants" Versus "Straw Phonation".

PubMed

Meerschman, Iris; Van Lierde, Kristiane; Peeters, Karen; Meersman, Eline; Claeys, Sofie; D'haeseleer, Evelien

2017-09-18

The purpose of this study was to determine the short-term effect of 2 semi-occluded vocal tract training programs, "resonant voice training using nasal consonants" versus "straw phonation," on the vocal quality of vocally healthy future occupational voice users. A multigroup pretest-posttest randomized control group design was used. Thirty healthy speech-language pathology students with a mean age of 19 years (range: 17-22 years) were randomly assigned into a resonant voice training group (practicing resonant exercises across 6 weeks, n = 10), a straw phonation group (practicing straw phonation across 6 weeks, n = 10), or a control group (receiving no voice training, n = 10). A voice assessment protocol consisting of both subjective (questionnaire, participant's self-report, auditory-perceptual evaluation) and objective (maximum performance task, aerodynamic assessment, voice range profile, acoustic analysis, acoustic voice quality index, dysphonia severity index) measurements and determinations was used to evaluate the participants' voice pre- and posttraining. Groups were compared over time using linear mixed models and generalized linear mixed models. Within-group effects of time were determined using post hoc pairwise comparisons. No significant time × group interactions were found for any of the outcome measures, indicating no differences in evolution over time among the 3 groups. Within-group effects of time showed a significant improvement in dysphonia severity index in the resonant voice training group, and a significant improvement in the intensity range in the straw phonation group. Results suggest that the semi-occluded vocal tract training programs using resonant voice training and straw phonation may have a positive impact on the vocal quality and vocal capacities of future occupational voice users. The resonant voice training caused an improved dysphonia severity index, and the straw phonation training caused an expansion of the intensity range in this population.

Quality indexing with computer-aided lexicography

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Buchan, Ronald L.

1992-01-01

Indexing with computers is a far cry from indexing with the first indexing tool, the manual card sorter. With the aid of computer-aided lexicography, both indexing and indexing tools can provide standardization, consistency, and accuracy, resulting in greater quality control than ever before. A brief survey of computer activity in indexing is presented with detailed illustrations from NASA activity. Applications from techniques mentioned, such as Retrospective Indexing (RI), can be made to many indexing systems. In addition to improving the quality of indexing with computers, the improved efficiency with which certain tasks can be done is demonstrated.

A framework for evaluating e-health: Systematic review of studies assessing the quality of health information and services for patients on the Internet

PubMed Central

Eysenbach, Gunther

2000-01-01

Context A recent concern and topic of many publications in the last three years has been the quality of health information and services for the public on the Internet. Objectives To identify and summarize studies published in the peer-reviewed literature evaluating the quality of information and services for consumers on the Internet, including information published on web sites, information on newsgroups and mailing lists and other venues such as email contacts with doctors, as well as studies evaluating the quality of ehealth services such as cyberdoctors and cyberpharmacies. Data Sources MEDLINE and PREMEDLINE (1966 - May 2000), Science Citation Index (1992-May 2000), Social Sciences Citation Index (1992- May 2000), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (1992-May 2000) and a personal bibliographic database. Study Selection We included empirical studies where investigators searched the Internet systematically for specific health information or clearly define a set of specific services to be included, evaluated the quality of information or services found, and reported quantitative data. Data Extraction Study characteristics, medical domain, search strategies used, quality criteria and methodology of quality assessment, results (number of sites rated as sufficient pertaining to a quality), quality and rigor of study methodology and reporting. Data Synthesis A total of 41 studies met the inclusion criteria, dealing either with content of websites, information on e-commerce sites, quality of online-care or community venues. A) Content: 29 evaluated information on websites, of those 5 evaluated information on websites from the field of pediatrics, 3 from oncology, 3 pharmacology information, 2 nutrition information, 4 general clinical information and 12 specific information from other clinical disciplines. Studies varied widely in methodology, quality and results. Among the 29 studies dealing with quality of health information on websites, one study evaluated the authority of source, 19 studies checked sites for presence or absences of technical criteria (such as disclosure of sponsorship, authorship, presence of references or last update), three evaluated readability, 20 evaluated the accuracy of information, and 12 content completeness. B) E-Commerce: Three studies dealt with drug information on e-commerce sites. To evaluate the quality authors extracted prices, checked for completeness of online-history taking and/or information provided on the site e.g. pertaining to contraindications or the presence/absence of disclaimers and/or liability waivers. Only one of these three studies actually used the service by ordering drugs, allowing to evaluate quality of online-advice, qualification of cyberdocs, delivery time, reasons for non-delivery. C) Care: Five studies dealt with the quality of online consultations, of them one dealt with advice given by ordinary physicians in response to a unsolicited fictionous patient request, two evaluated the responses of cyberdocs soliciting patient requests, and two evaluated advice given in response to a request for an online prescription directed to drug e-commerce sites. D) Community: Seven studies evaluated messages on mailing lists or usenet newsgroups. Two studies collected messages from a venue and evaluated them for accuracy, two studies posted a "test" message on a newsgroup and evaluated the accuracy of responses. In three studies authors used the cumulative impact factor of the published research of the mailing list contributors as an indicator for the qualification of the authors and thus as quality indicator of the mailing list. Of the 23 studies evaluating accuracy and/or completeness of information provided on websites, 10 used guidelines as gold standard (all of the to extract a-priori criteria), five used peer-reviewed literature (all to compare information a posteriori), two used textbooks, one used consensus among the raters and three used the personal experience or opinion of the author. All three studies which compared information against personal opinion came to a positive conclusion regarding the accuracy of information, while all of the more rigorous studies comparing information against guidelines concluded that much of the information found on the web were of low quality. In two cases it was not reported where the gold standard comes from. 9 studies used more than one rater to assess a website, 6 of them provided some sort of information on inter-observer variability. Conclusions Methodology, results and conclusions of investigators vary widely. There is a wide variability even regarding the evaluation of formal criteria such as authorship and references. Differences in study conclusions regarding the quality of Internet information are likely a result of difference in study rigor, evaluation criteria and topic chosen. All but five studies concluded that quality is a problem on the Internet. The rigor of these five studies coming to a more positive conclusion as expressed in a "assessment quality score" was significantly inferior to the remaining studies. Although there were two comparative studies of the quality of information on the Internet compared with information found outside of the Internet, there is little evidence that health information found on the Internet is worse than health information in traditional media. A conceptual and methodological framework is presented for describing, comparing, and analyzing the structure and quality of e-health, based on Donabedians quality measures of structure, process and outcome.

A method of site quality evaluation for red alder.

Treesearch

Constance A. Harrington

1986-01-01

A field guide to predict site index for red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) was developed for use in western Washington and Oregon. The guide requires the user to evaluate 14 soil-site properties that are grouped into three general factors: (1) geographic and topographic position, (2) soil moisture and aeration during the growing season, and (3) soil fertility and physical...

Evaluation of an ion adsorption method to estimate intragravel flow velocity in salmonid spawning gravels

Treesearch

James L. Clayton; John G. King; Russell F. Thurow

1996-01-01

Intragravel water exchange provides oxygenated water, removes metabolic waste, and is an essential factor in salmonid embryo survival. Measurements of intragravel flow velocity have been suggested as an index of gravel quality and also as a useful predictor of fry emergence; however, proposed methods for measuring velocity in gravel are problematic. We evaluate an ion...

Texas lignite and the visual resource: an objective approach to visual resource evaluation and management

Treesearch

Harlow C. Landphair

1979-01-01

This paper relates the evolution of an empirical model used to predict public response to scenic quality objectively. The text relates the methods used to develop the visual quality index model, explains the terms used in the equation and briefly illustrates how the model is applied and how it is tested. While the technical application of the model relies heavily on...

Effect of temperature gradient on the optical quality of mercurous chloride crystals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Singh, N. B.; Davies, D. K.; Gottlieb, M.; Henningsen, T.; Mazelsky, R.

1989-01-01

Single crystals of mercurous chloride were grown at temperature gradients of 8, 11 and 17 K/cm by the physical vapor transport method. The optical quality of these crystals was evaluated by measuring bulk scattering and inhomogeneity of refractive index by birefringence interferometry. It was observed that a high temperature gradient at the solid-vapor interface induced thermal stresses and crystals showed higher scattering and irregular fringes.

Photosynthetic metabolism and quality of Eugenia pyriformis Cambess. seedlings on substrate function and water levels.

PubMed

Scalon, Silvana P Q; Jeromini, Tatiane S; Mussury, Rosilda M; Dresch, Daiane M

2014-12-01

The aim of this research was to evaluate the quality and photosynthetic metabolism of "uvaia" seedlings (Eugenia pyriformis Cambess.) on different substrates and water regimes. The seeds were sown in tubes of 50 x 190 mm in the following substrates: Sand (S), Latosol + Sand (L + S) (1:1), Latosol + Sand + Semi Decomposed Poultry Litter (L + S1 + PL) ( 1:1:0.5), Latosol + Sand + Semi Decomposed Poultry Litter (L + S2 + PL) (1:2:0.5), Latosol + Bioplant® (L + B) (1:1), and the water levels assessed were 50, 75 and 100% of water retention capacity. At 60, 90, 120 and 150 days the seedlings were evaluated according to their chlorophyll index, leaf area (cm2) and Dickson Quality Index (DQI) and at 150 days their internal concentration of carbon (mol m-2 s-1), stomatal conductance (mol m-2 s-1), transpiration rate (mmol m-2 s-1), photosynthesis (µmol m-2 s-1) and efficiency of water use (µmol de CO2 / mmol de H2O). Until their 150th days, the seedlings had higher quality and photosynthetic metabolism when cultured with substrates containing latosol + sand + poultry litter on the two variations assessed and water retention capacity of 50%.

Dose reduction and image quality optimizations in CT of pediatric and adult patients: phantom studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jeon, P.-H.; Lee, C.-L.; Kim, D.-H.; Lee, Y.-J.; Jeon, S.-S.; Kim, H.-J.

2014-03-01

Multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) can be used to easily and rapidly perform numerous acquisitions, possibly leading to a marked increase in the radiation dose to individual patients. Technical options dedicated to automatically adjusting the acquisition parameters according to the patient's size are of specific interest in pediatric radiology. A constant tube potential reduction can be achieved for adults and children, while maintaining a constant detector energy fluence. To evaluate radiation dose, the weighted CT dose index (CTDIw) was calculated based on the CT dose index (CTDI) measured using an ion chamber, and image noise and image contrast were measured from a scanned image to evaluate image quality. The dose-weighted contrast-to-noise ratio (CNRD) was calculated from the radiation dose, image noise, and image contrast measured from a scanned image. The noise derivative (ND) is a quality index for dose efficiency. X-ray spectra with tube voltages ranging from 80 to 140 kVp were used to compute the average photon energy. Image contrast and the corresponding contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were determined for lesions of soft tissue, muscle, bone, and iodine relative to a uniform water background, as the iodine contrast increases at lower energy (i.e., k-edge of iodine is 33 keV closer to the beam energy) using mixed water-iodine contrast normalization (water 0, iodine 25, 100, 200, and 1000 HU, respectively). The proposed values correspond to high quality images and can be reduced if only high-contrast organs are assessed. The potential benefit of lowering the tube voltage is an improved CNRD, resulting in a lower radiation dose and optimization of image quality. Adjusting the tube potential in abdominal CT would be useful in current pediatric radiography, where the choice of X-ray techniques generally takes into account the size of the patient as well as the need to balance the conflicting requirements of diagnostic image quality and radiation dose optimization.

The EVIDENT diet quality index is associated with cardiovascular risk and arterial stiffness in adults.

PubMed

Rodríguez-Martin, Carmela; Alonso-Domínguez, Rosario; Patino-Alonso, María C; Gómez-Marcos, Manuel A; Maderuelo-Fernández, José A; Martin-Cantera, Carlos; García-Ortiz, Luis; Recio-Rodríguez, José I

2017-04-08

We aimed to simplify information from food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) in a single parameter that allows for rapid identification of quality of patient diet and its relationship to cardiovascular risk and pulse wave velocity (PWV). The sample from the EVIDENT study, consisting of 1553 subjects (aged 20-80 years) with no cardiovascular disease selected by random sampling among those attending primary care clinics, was used. The EVIDENT diet index (range 0-100) was calculated based on the results of a FFQ. Evaluation of dietary habits also included adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD). Cardiovascular risk was estimated, and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was measured. Mean subject age was 54.9 ± 13.8 years, and 60.3% of subjects were female. The mean value of the EVIDENT diet index was 52.1 ± 3.2 points. Subjects in the third tertile (the highest score) had the greatest adherence to MD and the highest energy intake, with greater amounts of carbohydrates, protein, and fiber. The best cut-off point of the EVIDENT diet index for predicting good adherence to the MD is 52.3 (0.71 sensitivity, 0.61 specificity). In a multiple regression analysis, after a complete adjustment, it was estimated that for each one-point increase in the EVIDENT diet index, cardiovascular risk (CVR), blood-pressure, waist circumference, and PWV decreased by 0.14, 0.43, 0.24, and 0.09 respectively (p < 0.05, all). The diet quality index developed is associated to CVR and its components, and also with arterial stiffness, as measured with PWV. This index is also a good predictor of adherence to MD.

[Optimum harvest time of Tulipa edulis based on comparison of biomass accumulation and medicinal quality evaluation].

PubMed

Yang, Xiao-Hua; Guo, Qiao-Sheng; Zhu, Zai-Biao; Lin, Jian-Luo; Miao, Yuan-Yuan; Sun, Yuan

2016-02-01

The optimum harvest time of Tulipa edulis was explored based on biomass accumulation and medicinal quality evaluation. Samples were taken from bud stage (Feb 13th) to dormancy stage (May 14th) and the growth indexes, organs biomasses, drying rate, contents of water-soluble extract and polysaccharides were determined. The results showed that biomass distribution of T. edulis varied with growth center and the bulb gained maximum biomass allocation in the whole growth period. The total biomass accumulation and bulb biomass accumulation　increased in the whole growth period and peaked in fructescence stage. No differences were observed in bulb biomass among fructescence stage, withering stage and dormancy stage. The correlation between bulb biomass allocation and other morphological indexes varied with the harvest time. Bulb dry weight biomass had negative correlation with some morphological indexes of aerial part of T. edulis at bud stage, flower stage and fructescence and had significant positive (P<0.05) or extremely significant positive correlation（P<0.01）with other morphological indexes except for root at bearing fruits stage. The drying rate of bulb of T. edulis increased with the extension of harvest time and peaked in dormancy stage. The water-soluble extract of T. edulis bulb was the highest in pre-growing-stage. The tendency of polysaccharides contents showed a W-shape variation during the harvesting period. The polysaccharides content was the lowest in fructescence stage and was the highest in dormancy stage. Considering the yield and medicinal quality of T. edulis bulb, the optimum harvest time of T. edulis is in the withering stage or early stage of dormancy. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Factors associated with depression and severe depression in patients with COPD.

PubMed

Miravitlles, Marc; Molina, Jesús; Quintano, José Antonio; Campuzano, Anna; Pérez, Joselín; Roncero, Carlos

2014-11-01

Depression is very prevalent in COPD and may be associated with poor clinical outcomes. This was a multicenter, cross-sectional study aimed at evaluating the prevalence of depression and moderate to severe depression in COPD. Depressive symptoms were evaluated with the Beck's Depression Inventory. The COPD assessment test (CAT) and the EuroQoL-5 dimensions (EQ-5D) questionnaires were used to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Severity of COPD was assessed with the BODEx index and physical activity was estimated by the mean self-declared time walked per day. A total of 836 patients were included and up to 74.6% had some degree of depression with 51.5% having moderate to severe depression. On multivariate analysis, moderate to severe depression was associated with suicidal ideation (OR, 6.12; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.36-28.24), worse quality of life: EQ-5D (OR, 0.89; 95%CI, 0.86-0.93) and worse CAT scores (OR, 1.32; 95%CI, 1.19-1.46). When questionnaires were not included in the analysis, significant depression was associated with the Charlson comorbidity index, minutes walked per day and BODEx score. Depression is frequent in COPD and is associated with suicidal ideation, impaired HRQoL, increase in comorbidities, a reduction in physical activity and increased severity of COPD measured by the BODEx index. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individualized quality of life in patients with low back pain: reliability and validity of the Patient Generated Index.

PubMed

Løchting, Ida; Grotle, Margreth; Storheim, Kjersti; Werner, Erik L; Garratt, Andrew M

2014-09-01

To evaluate the reliability and validity of the improved version of the Patient Generated Index (PGI) in patients with low back pain. The PGI was administered to 90 patients attending care in 1 of 6 institutions in Norway and evaluated for reliability and validity. The questionnaire was given out to 61 patients for re-test purposes. The PGI was completed correctly by 80 (88.9%) patients and, of the 61 patients responding to the re-test, 50 (82.0%) completed both surveys correctly. PGI scores were approximately normally distributed, with a median of 40 (range 80), where 100 is the best possible quality of life. There were no floor or ceiling effects. The 5 most frequently listed areas affecting quality of life were pain, sleep, stiffness, socializing and housework. The test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.73. The smallest detectable changes for individual and group purposes were 32.8 and 4.6, respectively. The correlations between PGI scores and other instrument scores followed a priori hypotheses of low to moderate correlations. The PGI has evidence for reliability and validity in Norwegian patients with low back pain at the group level and may be considered for application in intervention studies when a comprehensive evaluation of quality of life is important. However, the smallest detectable change, of approximately 30 points, may be considered too large for individual purposes in clinical applications.

Optimization of Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) butter quality using screw expeller extraction.

PubMed

Gezahegn, Yonas A; Emire, Shimelis A; Asfaw, Sisay F

2016-11-01

The quality of Shea butter is highly affected by processing factors. Hence, the aim of this work was to evaluate the effects of conditioning duration (CD), moisture content (MC), and die temperature (DT) of screw expeller on Shea butter quality. A combination of 3 3 full factorial design and response surface methodology was used for this investigation. Response variables were refractive index, acid value, and peroxide value. The model enabled to identify the optimum operating settings (CD = 28-30 min, MC = 3-5 g/100 g, and DT = 65-70°C) for maximize refractive index and minimum acid value. For minimum peroxide value 0 min CD, 10 g/100 g MC, and 30°C were discovered. In all-over optimization, optimal values of 30 min CD, 9.7 g/100 g MC, and 70°C DT were found. Hence, the processing factors must be at their optimal values to achieve high butter quality and consistence.

Cognitive status among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

PubMed Central

Roncero, Carlos; Campuzano, Ana Isabel; Quintano, Jose Antonio; Molina, Jesús; Pérez, Joselín; Miravitlles, Marc

2016-01-01

Purpose We investigated the association between cognitive impairment and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), taking into account demographic and clinical variables evaluated during routine practice. Patients and methods We performed a post hoc analysis of a cross-sectional study that included subjects with stable COPD. Sociodemographic and clinical information was recorded using the Body mass index, airflow Obstruction, Dyspnea and Exacerbations index and the Charlson comorbidity index. Cognitive performance was studied by the mini-mental state examination, with a score less than 27 indicating clinical impairment. Depressive symptoms, physical activity, and quality of life (EuroQoL-5 dimensions and COPD Assessment Test) were also evaluated. Results The analysis included 940 subjects. The prevalence of cognitive impairment was 39.4%. Multivariate logistic regression models revealed that cognitive impairment was associated with educational level (odds ratio [OR] =0.096, 95% confidence interval [CI] =0.011–0.447) and poorer quality of life measured by the EuroQoL-5 dimensions social tariff (OR =0.967, 95% CI =0.950–0.983). When questionnaires were not included in the analysis, cognitive impairment was associated with educational level (OR =0.063, 95% CI =0.010–0.934), number of exacerbations (OR =11.070, 95% CI =1.450–84.534), Body mass index, airflow Obstruction, Dyspnea and Exacerbations index score (OR =1.261, 95% CI =1.049–1.515), and the Charlson comorbidity index (OR =1.412, 95% CI =1.118–1.783). Conclusion Cognitive impairment is common in COPD and is associated with low educational level, higher disease severity, and increased comorbidity. This could have therapeutic implications for this population. PMID:27042043

Evaluation of ET-based drought index derived from geostationary satellite data

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The utility and reliability of standard meteorological drought indices based on measurements of precipitation is limited by the spatial distribution and quality of currently available rainfall data. Furthermore, precipitation-based indices only reflect one component of the surface hydrologic cycle,...

Body image and college women's quality of life: The importance of being self-compassionate.

PubMed

Duarte, Cristiana; Ferreira, Cláudia; Trindade, Inês A; Pinto-Gouveia, José

2015-06-01

This study explored self-compassion as a mediator between body dissatisfaction, social comparison based on body image and quality of life in 662 female college students. Path analysis revealed that while controlling for body mass index, self-compassion mediated the impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavourable social comparisons on psychological quality of life. The path model accounted for 33 per cent of psychological quality of life variance. Findings highlight the importance of self-compassion as a mechanism that may operate on the association between negative body image evaluations and young women's quality of life. © The Author(s) 2015.

National Coastal Condition Report IV Factsheet

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Overall condition of the Nation’s coastal waters is fair. This rating is based on five indices of ecologicalcondition: water quality index, sediment quality index, benthic index, coastal habitat index, and fish tissue contaminants index.

Assessment and prediction of air quality using fuzzy logic and autoregressive models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carbajal-Hernández, José Juan; Sánchez-Fernández, Luis P.; Carrasco-Ochoa, Jesús A.; Martínez-Trinidad, José Fco.

2012-12-01

In recent years, artificial intelligence methods have been used for the treatment of environmental problems. This work, presents two models for assessment and prediction of air quality. First, we develop a new computational model for air quality assessment in order to evaluate toxic compounds that can harm sensitive people in urban areas, affecting their normal activities. In this model we propose to use a Sigma operator to statistically asses air quality parameters using their historical data information and determining their negative impact in air quality based on toxicity limits, frequency average and deviations of toxicological tests. We also introduce a fuzzy inference system to perform parameter classification using a reasoning process and integrating them in an air quality index describing the pollution levels in five stages: excellent, good, regular, bad and danger, respectively. The second model proposed in this work predicts air quality concentrations using an autoregressive model, providing a predicted air quality index based on the fuzzy inference system previously developed. Using data from Mexico City Atmospheric Monitoring System, we perform a comparison among air quality indices developed for environmental agencies and similar models. Our results show that our models are an appropriate tool for assessing site pollution and for providing guidance to improve contingency actions in urban areas.

Transvenous stimulation of the phrenic nerve for the treatment of central sleep apnoea: 12 months' experience with the remedē® System.

PubMed

Jagielski, Dariusz; Ponikowski, Piotr; Augostini, Ralph; Kolodziej, Adam; Khayat, Rami; Abraham, William T

2016-11-01

Patients with central sleep apnoea (CSA) often have poor quality of life and are at increased risk of morbidity and mortality. This study sought to evaluate the 12-month clinical outcomes of patients with CSA treated with unilateral transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation in the prospective, multicentre, non-randomized remedē ® System pilot study. Forty-seven patients with CSA were treated with the remedē ® System (Respicardia Inc., Minnetonka, MN, USA) for a minimum of 3 months. Sleep-disordered breathing parameters were evaluated by polysomnography (PSG) at 3, 6, and 12-month follow-up. Sleep symptoms and quality of life were also evaluated. Forty-one patients completed all follow-up PSGs and were included in the analysis. At 12 months, there was sustained improvement compared with baseline in the apnoea-hypopnoea index (49.9 ± 15.1 vs. 27.5 ± 18.3 events/h, P < 0.001) and central apnoea index (28.2 ± 15.0 vs. 6.0 ± 9.2 events/h, P < 0.001). Sustained improvement in the oxygen desaturation index (46.1 ± 19.1 vs. 26.9 ± 18.0 events/h, P < 0.001), rapid eye movement sleep (11.4 ± 6.1% vs. 17.1 ± 8.0%, P < 0.001), and sleep efficiency (69.3 ± 16.9% vs. 75.6 ± 17.1%, P = 0.024) were also observed. There were also continued favourable effects on sleepiness and quality of life. Three deaths unrelated to remedē ® System therapy and five serious adverse events occurred over 12 months of follow-up. The present study demonstrates that in patients with CSA, unilateral transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation is associated with sustained improvement in key sleep parameters, sleep symptoms, and quality of life over 12 months of follow-up. © 2016 The Authors. European Journal of Heart Failure © 2016 European Society of Cardiology.

Poor sleep quality is independently associated with physical disability in older adults.

PubMed

Chien, Meng-Yueh; Chen, Hsi-Chung

2015-03-15

We aimed to evaluate the association between sleep quality and physical disability in community-dwelling older adults. There were 213 community-dwelling adults (76 men and 137 women) aged 65 years and above participated into this investigation. The Groningen Activity Restriction Scale and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were utilized to evaluate physical disability and subjective sleep quality, respectively. Global functional capacity was measured by the 6-minute walk test (6MWT). The Mini Mental State Examination and the Chinese Geriatric Depression Screening Scale were used to evaluate cognitive function and depression. Univariate analysis revealed a correlation between physical disability and poor sleep quality, older age, 2 or more comorbidities, depression, functional capacity, and poor cognitive function. However, in the multivariate analyses, depression failed to show significant association with physical disability. In contrast, an independent association was observed between poor sleep quality and physical disability (OR = 2.03; 95% CI: 1.02-4.05). In community-dwelling older adults, subjective poor sleep was significantly associated with physical disability, even after controlling for the effects of other established risk factors. © 2014 American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Air pollution forecasting in Ankara, Turkey using air pollution index and its relation to assimilative capacity of the atmosphere.

PubMed

Genc, D Deniz; Yesilyurt, Canan; Tuncel, Gurdal

2010-07-01

Spatial and temporal variations in concentrations of CO, NO, NO(2), SO(2), and PM(10), measured between 1999 and 2000, at traffic-impacted and residential stations in Ankara were investigated. Air quality in residential areas was found to be influenced by traffic activities in the city. Pollutant ratios were proven to be reliable tracers to differentiate between different sources. Air pollution index (API) of the whole city was calculated to evaluate the level of air quality in Ankara. Multiple linear regression model was developed for forecasting API in Ankara. The correlation coefficients were found to be 0.79 and 0.63 for different time periods. The assimilative capacity of Ankara atmosphere was calculated in terms of ventilation coefficient (VC). The relation between API and VC was investigated and found that the air quality in Ankara was determined by meteorology rather than emissions.

Healthy eating index measures diet quality of Brazilian children of low socioeconomic status.

PubMed

Rauber, Fernanda; da Costa Louzada, Maria Laura; Vitolo, Márcia Regina

2014-01-01

This study aimed to assess the adaptation of the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) to Brazilian dietary recommendations for children aged 3 to 4 years (n = 345) and 7 to 8 years (n = 307). Dietary data were collected using two 24-hour recalls and diet quality was evaluated according to the adapted HEI. The mean HEI score was 65.7 ± 11.2 at 3 to 4 years and 65.0 ± 8.8 at 7 to 8 years. The HEI correlated positively with dietary variety and food groups (grains, vegetables, fruits, and meat/beans), except for milk at 3 to 4 years, and negatively with sodium, total fat, and saturated fat intake. HEI score was moderately to strongly associated with dietary fiber and several micronutrients. The HEI as adapted to Brazilian dietary guidelines can be used to determine diet quality in preschool- and school-aged children in Brazil.

The influence of institutionalization on the perception of autonomy and quality of life in old people.

PubMed

Cobo, Carmen María Sarabia

2014-12-01

To evaluate the influence exercised by institutionalization on the autonomy and perception of quality of life among the institutionalized elderly. The study is quasi-experimental (interrupted time series) and longitudinal. The sample is composed for 104 elderly people who went into a three nursing home in Santander, Spain. To assess the quality of life and dependence two scales were used: the Barthel Index and Lawton Index. There was an important relationship between autonomy and independence and their deterioration due to their institutionalisation, such as the physical and social aspects. It´s important to point out that the dependence of the elderly is a complex phenomenon, which admits many types of intervention, including the customary ones referring to more classic welfare actions which tend to supplant the absence of autonomy in everyday life by facilitating services and attention to make up for this need, without having to resort to institutionalization.

High-quality JPEG compression history detection for fake uncompressed images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Rong; Wang, Rang-Ding; Guo, Li-Jun; Jiang, Bao-Chuan

2017-05-01

Authenticity is one of the most important evaluation factors of images for photography competitions or journalism. Unusual compression history of an image often implies the illicit intent of its author. Our work aims at distinguishing real uncompressed images from fake uncompressed images that are saved in uncompressed formats but have been previously compressed. To detect the potential image JPEG compression, we analyze the JPEG compression artifacts based on the tetrolet covering, which corresponds to the local image geometrical structure. Since the compression can alter the structure information, the tetrolet covering indexes may be changed if a compression is performed on the test image. Such changes can provide valuable clues about the image compression history. To be specific, the test image is first compressed with different quality factors to generate a set of temporary images. Then, the test image is compared with each temporary image block-by-block to investigate whether the tetrolet covering index of each 4×4 block is different between them. The percentages of the changed tetrolet covering indexes corresponding to the quality factors (from low to high) are computed and used to form the p-curve, the local minimum of which may indicate the potential compression. Our experimental results demonstrate the advantage of our method to detect JPEG compressions of high quality, even the highest quality factors such as 98, 99, or 100 of the standard JPEG compression, from uncompressed-format images. At the same time, our detection algorithm can accurately identify the corresponding compression quality factor.

Quality of life, self-esteem and psychosocial factors in adolescents with acne vulgaris*

PubMed Central

Vilar, Gustavo Nunes; dos Santos, Laís Araújo; Sobral Filho, Jader Freire

2015-01-01

Background Dermatological diseases, among which acne vulgaris, have psychological impact on the affected generating feelings of guilt, shame and social isolation. Objectives To compare quality of life, self-esteem and other psychosocial variables amongst adolescents with and without acne vulgaris, and between levels of severity. Methods Cross-sectional observational study in a sample of 355 high school students from the city of João Pessoa. Data collection was performed with questionnaires and clinical-dermatological evaluation. The primary variables were the incidence of AV; quality of life, set by the Children's Dermatology Quality of Life Index and Dermatology Quality of Life Index; and self-esteem, measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. For calculation of statistical tests, we used the SPSS 20.0 software, considering p=0.05. Results The sample, with an average age of 16, showed 89.3% prevalence of acne vulgaris. The most prevalent psychosocial issue was "afraid that acne will never cease", present in 58% of affected youth. The median score of Quality of Life in Children's Dermatology Index was different amongst students with and without acne vulgaris (p=0.003), as well as the Quality of Life in Dermatology (p=0.038) scores, so that students with acne vulgaris have worse QoL. There was a correlation between the severity of acne vulgaris and worse quality of life. Self-esteem was not significantly associated with the occurrence or severity of acne vulgaris. Conclusions acne vulgaris assumes significance in view of its high prevalence and the effect on quality of life of adolescents, more severe at the more pronounced stages of disease (p<0.001). The psychosocial impact of acne vulgaris should be valued in the management of patients with this condition. PMID:26560206

Quality of life, self-esteem and psychosocial factors in adolescents with acne vulgaris.

PubMed

Vilar, Gustavo Nunes; Santos, Laís Araújo dos; Sobral Filho, Jader Freire

2015-01-01

Dermatological diseases, among which acne vulgaris, have psychological impact on the affected generating feelings of guilt, shame and social isolation. To compare quality of life, self-esteem and other psychosocial variables amongst adolescents with and without acne vulgaris, and between levels of severity. Cross-sectional observational study in a sample of 355 high school students from the city of João Pessoa. Data collection was performed with questionnaires and clinical-dermatological evaluation. The primary variables were the incidence of AV; quality of life, set by the Children's Dermatology Quality of Life Index and Dermatology Quality of Life Index; and self-esteem, measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. For calculation of statistical tests, we used the SPSS 20.0 software, considering p=0.05. The sample, with an average age of 16, showed 89.3% prevalence of acne vulgaris. The most prevalent psychosocial issue was "afraid that acne will never cease", present in 58% of affected youth. The median score of Quality of Life in Children's Dermatology Index was different amongst students with and without acne vulgaris (p=0.003), as well as the Quality of Life in Dermatology (p=0.038) scores, so that students with acne vulgaris have worse QoL. There was a correlation between the severity of acne vulgaris and worse quality of life. Self-esteem was not significantly associated with the occurrence or severity of acne vulgaris. acne vulgaris assumes significance in view of its high prevalence and the effect on quality of life of adolescents, more severe at the more pronounced stages of disease (p<0.001). The psychosocial impact of acne vulgaris should be valued in the management of patients with this condition.

Validation of the Korean Version of the Mini-Sleep Questionnaire-Insomnia in Korean College Students.

PubMed

Kim, Hee-Ju

2017-03-01

This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the Mini-Sleep Questionnaire-Insomnia in Korean college students. A total of 470 students from six nursing colleges in South Korea participated in the study. The translation and linguistic validation of the Mini-Sleep Questionnaire-Insomnia was performed based on guidelines. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Perceived Stress Scale were used to validate the measure. Cronbach α, item-total correlation for internal consistency reliability and intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability were evaluated. Exploratory factor analysis for construct validity, Pearson's correlation with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Perceived Stress Scale for concurrent validity, and the receiver operating character curve for predictive validity were assessed. The 4-item Mini-Sleep Questionnaire-Insomnia had a Cronbach α of .69 and the item-total correlations were higher than .30. Cronbach α increased to .73 if the item assessing the use of sleeping pills and tranquilizers was deleted. This item had marked skewness and kurtosis issues. Factor analysis indicated unidimensionality, explaining 53.0% of the total variance. The measure showed high test-retest reliability (i.e., intraclass correlation coefficient = .84), acceptable concurrent validity (r with the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index = .69; r with the Perceived Stress Scale = .31) and predictive validity [area under curve = .85; 95% confidence interval (0.81, 0.90)]. The Mini-Sleep Questionnaire-Insomnia showed acceptable reliability and validity. Yet, the limited distribution in sleep medications warrants further evaluations in the clinical population. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Film-based delivery quality assurance for robotic radiosurgery: Commissioning and validation.

PubMed

Blanck, Oliver; Masi, Laura; Damme, Marie-Christin; Hildebrandt, Guido; Dunst, Jürgen; Siebert, Frank-Andre; Poppinga, Daniela; Poppe, Björn

2015-07-01

Robotic radiosurgery demands comprehensive delivery quality assurance (DQA), but guidelines for commissioning of the DQA method is missing. We investigated the stability and sensitivity of our film-based DQA method with various test scenarios and routine patient plans. We also investigated the applicability of tight distance-to-agreement (DTA) Gamma-Index criteria. We used radiochromic films with multichannel film dosimetry and re-calibration and our analysis was performed in four steps: 1) Film-to-plan registration, 2) Standard Gamma-Index criteria evaluation (local-pixel-dose-difference ≤2%, distance-to-agreement ≤2 mm, pass-rate ≥90%), 3) Dose distribution shift until maximum pass-rate (Maxγ) was found (shift acceptance <1 mm), and 4) Final evaluation with tight DTA criteria (≤1 mm). Test scenarios consisted of purposefully introduced phantom misalignments, dose miscalibrations, and undelivered MU. Initial method evaluation was done on 30 clinical plans. Our method showed similar sensitivity compared to the standard End-2-End-Test and incorporated an estimate of global system offsets in the analysis. The simulated errors (phantom shifts, global robot misalignment, undelivered MU) were detected by our method while standard Gamma-Index criteria often did not reveal these deviations. Dose miscalibration was not detected by film alone, hence simultaneous ion-chamber measurement for film calibration is strongly recommended. 83% of the clinical patient plans were within our tight DTA tolerances. Our presented methods provide additional measurements and quality references for film-based DQA enabling more sensitive error detection. We provided various test scenarios for commissioning of robotic radiosurgery DQA and demonstrated the necessity to use tight DTA criteria. Copyright © 2015 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Self-perception of disease in patients with chronic diseases].

PubMed

Adrián-Arrieta, L; Casas-Fernández de Tejerina, J M

2017-11-18

The aim of this study is to assess the self-perception of disease by patients with chronic diseases and determine factors related to their perception of disease. Cross-sectional descriptive study performed between September 2014 and April 2015 in nine (6 urban and 3 rural) Health Centres of Navarra, Spain. The participants were recruited by convenience sampling of 196 patients aged over 65 years with at least one chronic disease. The outcome variable was: Perception of disease evaluated through The Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (9 items. Assessment of the cognitive and emotional representation of the disease. A higher total score indicates a greater threat of disease to the patient). Explanatory variables: Evaluation of the care received through the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care, Katz index, Gijon's socio-family evaluation scale and quality of life using the EQ5D questionnaire. Other variables studied were: gender, age, education, Charlson index, and number of chronic diseases. The association between the total The Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire value and the rest of the variables was calculated. The self-perception of disease is more negative for a larger number of diseases (rho: 0.242; p=.001), greater patient dependence (rho: -0.193; P=.007), and a poorer self-perceived quality of life (EQ VAS rho: -0.484; P<.001. EQ5D5L Index value rho: -0.507; P<.001). The perception that chronic patients have about their disease worsens as their diseases and their dependence increase, and also worsens their quality of life. Copyright © 2017 Sociedad Española de Médicos de Atención Primaria (SEMERGEN). Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

GAGES: A stream gage database for evaluating natural and alteredflow conditions in the conterminous United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Falcone, James A.; Carlisle, Daren M.; Wolock, David M.; Meador, Michael R.

2010-01-01

In addition, watersheds were assessed for their reference quality within nine broad regions for use in studies intended to characterize stream flows under conditions minimally influenced by human activities. Three primary criteria were used to assess reference quality: (1) a quantitative index of anthropogenic modification within the watershed based on GIS-derived variables, (2) visual inspection of every stream gage and drainage basin from recent high-resolution imagery and topographic maps, and (3) information about man-made influences from USGS Annual Water Data Reports. From the set of 6785 sites, we identified 1512 as reference-quality stream gages. All data derived for these watersheds as well as the reference condition evaluation are provided as an online data set termed GAGES (geospatial attributes of gages for evaluating stream flow).

Objective quality assessment of tone-mapped images.

PubMed

Yeganeh, Hojatollah; Wang, Zhou

2013-02-01

Tone-mapping operators (TMOs) that convert high dynamic range (HDR) to low dynamic range (LDR) images provide practically useful tools for the visualization of HDR images on standard LDR displays. Different TMOs create different tone-mapped images, and a natural question is which one has the best quality. Without an appropriate quality measure, different TMOs cannot be compared, and further improvement is directionless. Subjective rating may be a reliable evaluation method, but it is expensive and time consuming, and more importantly, is difficult to be embedded into optimization frameworks. Here we propose an objective quality assessment algorithm for tone-mapped images by combining: 1) a multiscale signal fidelity measure on the basis of a modified structural similarity index and 2) a naturalness measure on the basis of intensity statistics of natural images. Validations using independent subject-rated image databases show good correlations between subjective ranking score and the proposed tone-mapped image quality index (TMQI). Furthermore, we demonstrate the extended applications of TMQI using two examples-parameter tuning for TMOs and adaptive fusion of multiple tone-mapped images.

Breast reconstruction post mastectomy- Let's Google it. Accessibility, readability and quality of online information.

PubMed

Lynch, Noel P; Lang, Bronagh; Angelov, Sophia; McGarrigle, Sarah A; Boyle, Terence J; Al-Azawi, Dhafir; Connolly, Elizabeth M

2017-04-01

This study evaluated the readability, accessibility and quality of information pertaining to breast reconstruction post mastectomy on the Internet in the English language. Using the Google © search engine the keywords "Breast reconstruction post mastectomy" were searched for. We analyzed the top 75 sites. The Flesch Reading Ease Score and Gunning Fog Index were calculated to assess readability. Web site quality was assessed objectively using the University of Michigan Consumer Health Web site Evaluation Checklist. Accessibility was determined using an automated accessibility tool. In addition, the country of origin, type of organisation producing the site and presence of Health on the Net (HoN) Certification status was recorded. The Web sites were difficult to read and comprehend. The mean Flesch Reading Ease scores were 55.5. The mean Gunning Fog Index scores was 8.6. The mean Michigan score was 34.8 indicating weak quality of websites. Websites with HoN certification ranked higher in the search results (p = 0.007). Website quality was influenced by organisation type (p < 0.0001) with academic/healthcare, not for profit and government sites having higher Michigan scores. 20% of sites met the minimum accessibility criteria. Internet information on breast reconstruction post mastectomy and procedures is poorly written and we suggest that Webpages providing information must be made more readable and accessible. We suggest that health professionals should recommend Web sites that are easy to read and contain high-quality surgical information. Medical information on the Internet should be readable, accessible, reliable and of a consistent quality. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Non-destructive evaluation of ripening and quality traits in apples using a multiparametric fluorescence sensor.

PubMed

Betemps, Débora L; Fachinello, José Carlos; Galarça, Simone P; Portela, Nicácia M; Remorini, Damiano; Massai, Rossano; Agati, Giovanni

2012-07-01

The detection of pigments and colourless flavonoids in apples can provide a useful indication of fruit quality. Optical methods are preferable because they are fast and non-destructive. In this study, a fluorescence-based portable sensor was used in order to non-invasively determine the content of chlorophylls, anthocyanins and flavonols in Fuji, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apple cultivars. The aim was to define new non-destructive optical indices of apple quality. The anthocyanin index (ANTH) in Fuji was higher in the sunny (i.e. sun-exposed) side of the fruit compared to the shady side. For all cultivars, the flavonol index (FLAV) was higher in the sunny side compared with the shady side. The chlorophyll index (CHL) for the shady sides of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious was significantly higher than for the sunny sides. Fine linear regressions were found between the ANTH, FLAV and CHL indices and the actual anthocyanin, flavonol and chlorophyll concentrations, respectively, which were determined destructively on the apple peel extracts. A negative correlation was found between the apple sugar content and the chlorophyll fluorescence in the far-red spectral band. Our results indicate that a single multiparametric fluorescence-based sensor can provide valuable non-destructive markers of ripening and quality in apples. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry.

Massage therapy in cortisol circadian rhythm, pain intensity, perceived stress index and quality of life of fibromyalgia syndrome patients.

PubMed

de Oliveira, Felipe Rodrigues; Visnardi Gonçalves, Laura Cristina; Borghi, Filipy; da Silva, Larissa Gabriela Rocha Ventura; Gomes, Anne Elise; Trevisan, Gustavo; Luiz de Souza, Aglécio; Grassi-Kassisse, Dora Maria; de Oliveira Crege, Danilo Roberto Xavier

2018-02-01

We investigate the effects of a massage therapy program (MTP) in cortisol concentration (CC), intensity of pain, quality of life and perceived stress index of fibromyalgia patients. Volunteers (n = 24, aged 26-55 years) were treated with MT, twice a week for three months. They answered the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) and McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ-Br), and collected saliva to evaluate CC before and after the end of each month. The MT had improvement in quality of life, according to the FIQ results, and promoted reduction in PSQ values after the second (PSQ2-0.62 ± 0.04vsPSQ0-0.71 ± 0.04) and third month (PSQ3-0.64 ± 0.04vsPSQ0-0.71 ± 0.04). The MTP also promoted reduction in pain after the third month (MQP-Br1-44.50 ± 2.15vsMQP-Br4-35.38 ± 3.71). Despite PSQ reduction, the CC were not affected by the program. This pilot suggests that this treatment improved quality of life, reduced perceived stress index and pain in these volunteers. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Index of Biotic Integrity for shallow streams of the Hondo River basin, Yucatan Peninsula.

PubMed

Schmitter-Soto, Juan J; Ruiz-Cauich, Lissie E; Herrera, Roberto L; González-Solís, David

2011-01-15

An Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) is proposed, based on the fish communities and populations in streams of the Hondo River basin, Mexico-Belize. Freshwater environments in this area are threatened by exotic fishes, eutrophication, and pesticide pollution, among other problems. This IBI should allow to identify the most vulnerable sites and eventually guide rehabilitation efforts. Data on composition, structure, and function of fish communities were evaluated. Twenty-three sites in the Mexican part of the basin were explored; a stratified sample of 13 sites was used to design the IBI, and the rest were used to test and refine the index. Thirty-four candidate indicator metrics were scanned for their correlation with an index of water and habitat quality (IWHQ), as well as for the possible influence of stream width and altitude or distance to the Hondo River mainstem. Twelve variables were selected to constitute the IBI: relative abundances of Astyanax aeneus, 'Cichlasoma' urophthalmus, Poecilia mexicana, Poecilia sp. (a new species, probably endemic to the upper Hondo River basin), Xiphophorus hellerii, and X. maculatus; relative abundances of bentholimnetic, herbivore, and sensitive species; percentage of native and tolerant species; and Pielou's evenness index. Most of the sites have a low-medium quality and integrity, showing impact due to partial channelization or to suboptimal water quality, reflected in scarcity or absence of sensitive species, frequent excess of tolerant species, occasional presence of exotics, dominance of herbivores (perhaps due to proliferation of filamentous algae), or dominance of the opportunistic species P. mexicana. The streams with better water and habitat quality are those farthest away from the river mainstem, probably because of lower human population and economical production. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The use of medical quality indices as a performance-enhancement tool for community clinics.

PubMed

Elhayany, A

2001-12-01

One of the most important issues for a country, its population and doctors is the effective use of its health system. The extensive variation in doctors' performance leads to a tremendous waste of resources. To combat this, and at the same time ensure that medical quality plays a role when making decisions on interventions, it is essential to equip doctors and clinic directors with information on the quality of the medical care they are providing. In order to assist clinic directors in maintaining medical quality, Clalit Health Services has developed comparative medical indices enabling doctors to compare their performance to that of their colleagues, as well as to the standard and their performance over time. The development of an index to evaluate the quality of medical treatment offered in clinics provides doctors and the health system with an essential tool to lessen the existing variation among doctors and to enhance and evaluate performance.

A systematic review of systematic reviews on interventions for caregivers of people with chronic conditions.

PubMed

Corry, Margarita; While, Alison; Neenan, Kathleen; Smith, Valerie

2015-04-01

To evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to support caregivers of people with selected chronic conditions. Informal caregivers provide millions of care hours each week contributing to significant healthcare savings. Despite much research evaluating a range of interventions for caregivers, their impact remains unclear. A systematic review of systematic reviews of interventions to support caregivers of people with selected chronic conditions. The electronic databases of PubMed, CINAHL, British Nursing Index, PsycINFO, Social Science Index (January 1990-May 2014) and The Cochrane Library (Issue 6, June 2014), were searched using Medical Subject Heading and index term combinations of the keywords caregiver, systematic review, intervention and named chronic conditions. Papers were included if they reported a systematic review of interventions for caregivers of people with chronic conditions. The methodological quality of the included reviews was independently assessed by two reviewers using R-AMSTAR. Data were independently extracted by two reviewers using a pre-designed data extraction form. Narrative synthesis of review findings was used to present the results. Eight systematic reviews were included. There was evidence that education and support programme interventions improved caregiver quality of life. Information-giving interventions improved caregiver knowledge for stroke caregivers. Education, support and information-giving interventions warrant further investigation across caregiver groups. A large-scale funded programme for caregiver research is required to ensure that studies are of high quality to inform service development across settings. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Night eating in bipolar disorder.

PubMed

Melo, Matias Carvalho Aguiar; de Oliveira Ribeiro, Maximilo; de Araújo, Carolina Freitas Cardeal; de Mesquita, Licia Marah Figueredo; de Bruin, Pedro Felipe Carvalhedo; de Bruin, Veralice Meireles Sales

2018-05-07

Night eating syndrome (NES) involves reduced feeding during the day and evening hyperphagia sometimes accompanied by frequent nocturnal awakenings with conscious episodes of compulsive ingestion of food. Previously, NES has not been evaluated in bipolar disorder (BD). The objective of this study was to identify NES in euthymic BD patients. Eighty BD patients and 40 controls were examined using the Night Eating Questionnaire, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and Anxiety, Young Mania Rating Scale, Functioning Assessment Short-Test and International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), daytime sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale), severity of insomnia (Insomnia Severity Index) and morning-evening preference (Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire) were also evaluated. BD patients presented NES in 8.8% while the controls showed no NES. Patients with and without NES were not different with respect to gender, disease duration, smoking, heavy drinking, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and neck circumference. BD patients with NES scored higher for functioning as well as for the following specific components: occupational functioning, financial issues, interpersonal relationships and leisure time. They also had more anxiety, higher insomnia severity and worse sleep quality. Furthermore, BD patients with NES were more evening type. NES occurs more frequently in BD patients than in controls. BD patients with NES present more disease-related manifestations such as more anxiety, poorer functioning and worse sleep parameters. Patients with NES were more evening type. We speculate whether changing circadian preference in these patients can reduce NES. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How discriminating are discriminative instruments?

PubMed

Hankins, Matthew

2008-05-27

The McMaster framework introduced by Kirshner & Guyatt is the dominant paradigm for the development of measures of health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL). The framework defines the functions of such instruments as evaluative, predictive or discriminative. Evaluative instruments are required to be sensitive to change (responsiveness), but there is no corresponding index of the degree to which discriminative instruments are sensitive to cross-sectional differences. This paper argues that indices of validity and reliability are not sufficient to demonstrate that a discriminative instrument performs its function of discriminating between individuals, and that the McMaster framework would be augmented by the addition of a separate index of discrimination. The coefficient proposed by Ferguson (Delta) is easily adapted to HRQL instruments and is a direct, non-parametric index of the degree to which an instrument distinguishes between individuals. While Delta should prove useful in the development and evaluation of discriminative instruments, further research is required to elucidate the relationship between the measurement properties of discrimination, reliability and responsiveness.

A novel, fuzzy-based air quality index (FAQI) for air quality assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sowlat, Mohammad Hossein; Gharibi, Hamed; Yunesian, Masud; Tayefeh Mahmoudi, Maryam; Lotfi, Saeedeh

2011-04-01

The ever increasing level of air pollution in most areas of the world has led to development of a variety of air quality indices for estimation of health effects of air pollution, though the indices have their own limitations such as high levels of subjectivity. Present study, therefore, aimed at developing a novel, fuzzy-based air quality index (FAQI ) to handle such limitations. The index developed by present study is based on fuzzy logic that is considered as one of the most common computational methods of artificial intelligence. In addition to criteria air pollutants (i.e. CO, SO 2, PM 10, O 3, NO 2), benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and 1,3-butadiene were also taken into account in the index proposed, because of their considerable health effects. Different weighting factors were then assigned to each pollutant according to its priority. Trapezoidal membership functions were employed for classifications and the final index consisted of 72 inference rules. To assess the performance of the index, a case study was carried out employing air quality data at five different sampling stations in Tehran, Iran, from January 2008 to December 2009, results of which were then compared to the results obtained from USEPA air quality index (AQI). According to the results from present study, fuzzy-based air quality index is a comprehensive tool for classification of air quality and tends to produce accurate results. Therefore, it can be considered useful, reliable, and suitable for consideration by local authorities in air quality assessment and management schemes. Fuzzy-based air quality index (FAQI).

Establishment of a Quantitative Medical Technology Evaluation System and Indicators within Medical Institutions.

PubMed

Wu, Suo-Wei; Chen, Tong; Pan, Qi; Wei, Liang-Yu; Wang, Qin; Li, Chao; Song, Jing-Chen; Luo, Ji

2018-06-05

The development and application of medical technologies reflect the medical quality and clinical capacity of a hospital. It is also an effective approach in upgrading medical service and core competitiveness among medical institutions. This study aimed to build a quantitative medical technology evaluation system through questionnaire survey within medical institutions to perform an assessment to medical technologies more objectively and accurately, and promote the management of medical quality technologies and ensure the medical safety of various operations among the hospitals. A two-leveled quantitative medical technology evaluation system was built through a two-round questionnaire survey of chosen experts. The Delphi method was applied in identifying the structure of evaluation system and indicators. The judgment of the experts on the indicators was adopted in building the matrix so that the weight coefficient and maximum eigenvalue (λ max), consistency index (CI), and random consistency ratio (CR) could be obtained and collected. The results were verified through consistency tests, and the index weight coefficient of each indicator was conducted and calculated through analytical hierarchy process. Twenty-six experts of different medical fields were involved in the questionnaire survey, 25 of whom successfully responded to the two-round research. Altogether, 4 primary indicators (safety, effectiveness, innovativeness, and benefits), as well as 13 secondary indicators, were included in the evaluation system. The matrix is built to conduct the λ max, CI, and CR of each expert in the survey, and the index weight coefficients of primary indicators were 0.33, 0.28, 0.27, and 0.12, respectively, and the index weight coefficients of secondary indicators were conducted and calculated accordingly. As the two-round questionnaire survey of experts and statistical analysis were performed and credibility of the results was verified through consistency evaluation test, the study established a quantitative medical technology evaluation system model and assessment indicators within medical institutions based on the Delphi method and analytical hierarchy process. Moreover, further verifications, adjustments, and optimizations of the system and indicators will be performed in follow-up studies.

Evaluating the content and quality of information about premature ejaculation on the Internet: what are men being exposed to ?

PubMed

Gul, M; Kaynar, M

2017-03-01

Premature ejaculation is one of the most common male sexual dysfunctions; however, only a few patients with premature ejaculation are seeking professional help or advice. Internet has become an important source of knowledge, and thus, more patients are looking online for health information. According to our best knowledge, no study has evaluated the content and quality of websites on premature ejaculation. We, therefore, aimed to evaluate the content and quality of currently available Internet-based information on premature ejaculation. A sample was obtained comprising the 50 top sites retrieved from Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines using the terms 'premature ejaculation'. Each site then was reviewed based on some predefined evaluation criteria to determine the general quality, condition-specific content quality, popularity index and ownership. The websites reviewed were differed highly in terms of quality and ownership. Only a few sites provided comprehensive medical and complete information on premature ejaculation. The online information available is often of uncertain calibre; therefore, men are being exposed to information about premature ejaculation with a highly variable degree quality. This fact should be considered both by health professionals and website owners, and better online resources should be provided for these patients. © 2016 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

Relationship between the properties of raw and cooked spaghetti - new indices for pasta quality evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Biernacka, Beata; Dziki, Dariusz; Różyło, Renata; Wójcik, Monika; Miś, Antoni; Romankiewicz, Daria; Krzysiak, Zbigniew

2018-04-01

The quality of pasta can be evaluated by measuring the characteristics which encompass the most important quality parameters, such as colour, cooking properties and texture. The aim of the study was to suggest new indices which can be used to evaluate the quality of pasta. For the tests, 15 samples of spaghetti (produced from either semolina or common wheat flour) were used. The bending test was performed for the determination of the strength properties of raw pasta, while the pasta colour parameters were evaluated via the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage system. The pasta cooking test included the evaluation of optimum cooking time, weight increase index and cooking loss. The samples of cooked spaghetti were cut, and the parameters describing pasta texture were determined. Statistical analysis showed significant correlations (α = 0.05) between colour parameters (lightness and redness) and pasta ash content (R = -0.90 and 0.84, respectively). The mechanical properties of raw pasta correlated positively with pasta density. The strongest correlation was found between pasta density and flexural strength. The destruction force for raw spaghetti during the bending test correlated significantly and positively with the cutting force of the cooked pasta. The obtained correlations can be helpful in pasta quality evaluation.

Key findings from the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) program, what have we learned?

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2000-06-01

A study has been conducted to evaluate the quality and variability of the International Roughness Index (IRI) data in the Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) database. All LTPP profiles collected between June 1989 and October 1997 were visually rev...

Evaluation for the ecological quality status of coastal waters in East China Sea using fuzzy integrated assessment method.

PubMed

Wu, H Y; Chen, K L; Chen, Z H; Chen, Q H; Qiu, Y P; Wu, J C; Zhang, J F

2012-03-01

This research presented an evaluation for the ecological quality status (EcoQS) of three semi-enclosed coastal areas using fuzzy integrated assessment method (FIAM). With this method, the hierarchy structure was clarified by an index system of 11 indicators selected from biotic elements and physicochemical elements, and the weight vector of index system was calculated with Delphi-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) procedure. Then, the FIAM was used to achieve an EcoQS assessment. As a result of assessment, most of the sampling stations demonstrated a clear gradient in EcoQS, ranging from high to poor status. Among the four statuses, high and good, owning a ratio of 55.9% and 26.5%, respectively, were two dominant statuses for three bays, especially for Sansha Bay and Luoyuan Bay. The assessment results were found consistent with the pressure information and parameters obtained at most stations. In addition, the sources of uncertainty in classification of EcoQS were also discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

a Comprehensive Review of Pansharpening Algorithms for GÖKTÜRK-2 Satellite Images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kahraman, S.; Ertürk, A.

2017-11-01

In this paper, a comprehensive review and performance evaluation of pansharpening algorithms for GÖKTÜRK-2 images is presented. GÖKTÜRK-2 is the first high resolution remote sensing satellite of Turkey which was designed and built in Turkey, by The Ministry of Defence, TUBITAK-UZAY and Turkish Aerospace Industry (TUSAŞ) collectively. GÖKTÜRK-2 was launched at 18th. December 2012 in Jinguan, China and provides 2.5 meter panchromatic (PAN) and 5 meter multispectral (MS) spatial resolution satellite images. In this study, a large number of pansharpening algorithms are implemented and evaluated for performance on multiple GÖKTÜRK-2 satellite images. Quality assessments are conducted both qualitatively through visual results and quantitatively using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Correlation Coefficient (CC), Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Erreur Relative Globale Adimensionnelle de Synthése (ERGAS), Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and Universal Image Quality Index (UIQI).

Using multi-terminology indexing for the assignment of MeSH descriptors to health resources in a French online catalogue

PubMed Central

Pereira, Suzanne; Névéol, Aurélie; Kerdelhué, Gaétan; Serrot, Elisabeth; Joubert, Michel; Darmoni, Stéfan J.

2008-01-01

Background: To assist with the development of a French online quality-controlled health gateway (CISMeF), an automatic indexing tool assigning MeSH descriptors to medical text in French was created. The French Multi-Terminology Indexer (F-MTI) relies on a multi-terminology approach involving four prominent medical terminologies and the mappings between them. Objective: In this paper, we compare lemmatization and stemming as methods to process French medical text for indexing. We also evaluate the multi-terminology approach implemented in F-MTI. Methods: The indexing strategies were assessed on a corpus of 18,814 resources indexed manually. Results: There is little difference in the indexing performance when lemmatization or stemming is used. However, the multi-terminology approach outperforms indexing relying on a single terminology in terms of recall. Conclusion: F-MTI will soon be used in the CISMeF production environment and in a Health MultiTerminology Server in French. PMID:18998933

Indices for the assessment of nutritional quality of meals: a systematic review.

PubMed

Gorgulho, B M; Pot, G K; Sarti, F M; Marchioni, D M

2016-06-01

This systematic review aimed to synthesise information on indices developed to evaluate nutritional quality of meals. A strategy for systematic search of the literature was developed using keywords related to assessment of meal quality. Databases searched included ScienceDirect, PubMed, Lilacs, SciELO, Scopus, Cochrane, Embase and Google Scholar. The literature search resulted in seven different meal quality indices. Each article was analysed in order to identify the following items: authors, country, year, study design, population characteristics, type of meal evaluated, dietary assessment method, characteristics evaluated (nutrients or food items), score range, index components, nutritional references, correlations performed, validation and relationship with an outcome (if existing). Two studies developed instruments to assess the quality of breakfast, three analysed lunch, one evaluated dinner and one was applied to all types of meals and snacks. All meal quality indices reviewed were based on the evaluation of presence or absence of food groups and relative contributions of nutrients, according to food-based guidelines or nutrient references, adapting the daily dietary recommendations to one specific meal. Most of the indices included three items as components for meal quality assessment: (I) total fat or some specific type of fat, (II) fruits and vegetables and (III) cereals or whole grains. This systematic review indicates aspects that need further research, particularly the numerous approaches to assessing meals considering different foods and nutrients, and the need for validation studies of meal indices.

School Microware Reviews. Evaluations of Educational Software for Apple, PET, TRS-80, with Index to Evaluations in Other Publications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

School Microware Reviews, 1981

1981-01-01

This document describes the operation and quality of pre-college instructional software sold for use on microcomputers. It also assists in locating other sources of similar information about instructional software. This edition is limited to programs for the Apple II, Commodore PET, and Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. Fifty reviews of software…

Assessment of automatic exposure control performance in digital mammography using a no-reference anisotropic quality index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barufaldi, Bruno; Borges, Lucas R.; Bakic, Predrag R.; Vieira, Marcelo A. C.; Schiabel, Homero; Maidment, Andrew D. A.

2017-03-01

Automatic exposure control (AEC) is used in mammography to obtain acceptable radiation dose and adequate image quality regardless of breast thickness and composition. Although there are physics methods for assessing the AEC, it is not clear whether mammography systems operate with optimal dose and image quality in clinical practice. In this work, we propose the use of a normalized anisotropic quality index (NAQI), validated in previous studies, to evaluate the quality of mammograms acquired using AEC. The authors used a clinical dataset that consists of 561 patients and 1,046 mammograms (craniocaudal breast views). The results show that image quality is often maintained, even at various radiation levels (mean NAQI = 0.14 +/- 0.02). However, a more careful analysis of NAQI reveals that the average image quality decreases as breast thickness increases. The NAQI is reduced by 32% on average, when the breast thickness increases from 31 to 71 mm. NAQI also decreases with lower breast density. The variation in breast parenchyma alone cannot fully account for the decrease of NAQI with thickness. Examination of images shows that images of large, fatty breasts are often inadequately processed. This work shows that NAQI can be applied in clinical mammograms to assess mammographic image quality, and highlights the limitations of the automatic exposure control for some images.

Computer Supported Indexing: A History and Evaluation of NASA's MAI System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Silvester, June P.

1997-01-01

Computer supported or machine aided indexing (MAI) can be categorized in multiple ways. The system used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI) is described as semantic and computational. It's based on the co-occurrence of domain-specific terminology in parts of a sentence, and the probability that an indexer will assign a particular index term when a given word or phrase is encountered in text. The NASA CASI system is run on demand by the indexer and responds in 3 to 9 seconds with a list of suggested, authorized terms. The system was originally based on a syntactic system used in the late 1970's by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). The NASA mainframe-supported system consists of three components: two programs and a knowledge base (KB). The evolution of the system is described and flow charts illustrate the MAI procedures. Tests used to evaluate NASA's MAI system were limited to those that would not slow production. A very early test indicated that MAI saved about 3 minutes and provided several additional terms for each document indexed. It also was determined that time and other resources spent in careful construction of the KB pay off with high-quality output and indexer acceptance of MAI results.

Impact of Yangtze River Water Transfer on the Water Quality of the Lixia River Watershed, China

PubMed Central

Ma, Xiaoxue; Wang, Lachun; Wu, Hao; Li, Na; Ma, Lei; Zeng, Chunfen; Zhou, Yi; Yang, Jun

2015-01-01

To improve water quality and reduce the negative impacts of sudden inputs of water pollution in the Lixia River watershed, China, a series of experimental water transfers from the Yangtze River to the Lixia River were conducted from 2 December 2006 to 7 January 2007. Water samples were collected every six days at 55 monitoring sites during this period. Eight water parameters (water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), chemical oxygen demand (COD), potassium permanganate index (CODMn), ammonia nitrogen (NH4 +-N), electrical conductivity (EC), and water transparency (WT)) were analyzed to determine changes in nutrient concentrations during water transfers. The comprehensive pollution index (Pi) and single-factor (Si) evaluation methods were applied to evaluate spatio-temporal patterns of water quality during water transfers. Water quality parameters displayed different spatial and temporal distribution patterns within the watershed. Water quality was improved significantly by the water transfers, especially for sites closer to water intake points. The degree of improvement is positively related to rates of transfer inflow and drainage outflow. The effects differed for different water quality parameters at each site and at different water transfer times. There were notable decreases in NH4 +-N, DO, COD, and CODMn across the entire watershed. However, positive effects on EC and pH were not observed. It is concluded that freshwater transfers from the Yangtze River can be used as an emergency measure to flush pollutants from the Lixia River watershed. Improved understanding of the effects of water transfers on water quality can help the development and implementation of effective strategies to improve water quality within this watershed. PMID:25835525

Evaluation on health-related quality of life in deaf children with cochlear implant in China.

PubMed

Liu, Hong; Liu, Hong-Xiang; Kang, Hou-Yong; Gu, Zheng; Hong, Su-Ling

2016-09-01

Previous studies have shown that deaf children benefit considerably from cochlear implants. These improvements are found in areas such as speech perception, speech production, and audiology-verbal performance. Despite the increasing prevalence of cochlear implants in China, few studies have reported on health-related quality of life in children with cochlear implants. The main objective of this study was to explore health-related quality of life on children with cochlear implants in South-west China. A retrospective observational study of 213 CI users in Southwest China between 2010 and 2013. Participants were 213 individuals with bilateral severe-to-profound hearing loss who wore unilateral cochlear implants. The Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire and Health Utility Index Mark III were used pre-implantation and 1 year post-implantation. Additionally, 1-year postoperative scores for Mandarin speech perception were compared with preoperative scores. Health-related quality of life improved post-operation with scores on the Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire improving significantly in all subdomains, and the Health Utility Index 3 showing a significant improvement in the utility score and the subdomains of ''hearing," ''speech," and "emotion". Additionally, a significant improvement in speech recognition scores was found. No significant correlation was found between increased in quality of life and speech perception scores. Health-related quality of life and speech recognition in prelingual deaf children significantly improved post-operation. The lack of correlation between quality of life and speech perception suggests that when evaluating performance post-implantation in prelingual deaf children and adolescents, measures of both speech perception and quality of life should be used. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Body Image, Self-esteem, and Quality of Life in Patients with Psoriasis.

PubMed

Nazik, Hulya; Nazik, Selcuk; Gul, Feride C

2017-01-01

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the skin that may affect the visible areas of body. Hence, the quality of life, self-esteem, and body image can be affected in psoriasis patients. We aimed in the present study to assess the effects of psoriasis on the quality of life, self-esteem, and body image. The study included 92 patients with psoriasis, along with 98 control participants. The sociodemographic characteristics of the patients were assessed, their Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) scores were calculated to determine the clinical severity of the psoriasis, and the values were recorded. In addition, Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Body Image Scale, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale results were evaluated. When the control and psoriasis groups were evaluated regarding the DLQI, self-esteem, and body image, quality of life was found to be more negatively affected in the psoriasis group than the controls, which was statistically significant ( P < 0.001), and self-esteem ( P < 0.001) and body image ( P < 0.001) were found to be significantly lower. Educational status significantly affected self-esteem ( P < 0.001) and body image ( P = 0.021), however, quality of life was not significantly affected by this parameter ( P = 0.345). PASI was positively correlated with the quality of life ( r = 0.703) and self-esteem ( r = 0.448), however, it was negatively correlated with the body image ( r = -0.423). Psoriasis may negatively affect quality of life, self-esteem, and body image, and may also cause psychosocial problems. An assessment of new approaches on this issue may contribute to developments in the treatment of and rehabilitation from this disease.

Improving cancer patient care: development of a generic cancer consumer quality index questionnaire for cancer patients.

PubMed

Booij, Judith C; Zegers, Marieke; Evers, Pauline M P J; Hendriks, Michelle; Delnoij, Diana M J; Rademakers, Jany J D J M

2013-04-23

To develop a Consumer Quality Index (CQI) Cancer Care questionnaire for measuring experiences with hospital care of patients with different types of cancer. We derived quality aspects from focus group discussions, existing questionnaires and literature. We developed an experience questionnaire and sent it to 1,498 Dutch cancer patients. Another questionnaire measuring the importance of the quality aspects was sent to 600 cancer patients. Data were psychometrically analysed. The response to the experience questionnaire was 50 percent. Psychometric analysis revealed 12 reliable scales. Patients rated rapid and adequate referral, rapid start of the treatment after diagnosis, enough information and confidence in the healthcare professionals as most important themes. Hospitals received high scores for skills and cooperation of healthcare professionals and a patient-centered approach by doctors; and low scores for psychosocial guidance and information at completion of the treatment. The CQI Cancer Care questionnaire is a valuable tool for the evaluation of the quality of cancer care from the patient's perspective. Large scale implementation is necessary to determine the discriminatory powers of the questionnaire and may enable healthcare providers to improve the quality of cancer care. Preliminary results indicate that hospitals could improve their psychosocial guidance and information provision.

Contemporary Commercial Music Singing Students-Voice Quality and Vocal Function at the Beginning of Singing Training.

PubMed

Sielska-Badurek, Ewelina M; Sobol, Maria; Olszowska, Katarzyna; Niemczyk, Kazimierz

2017-10-03

The purpose of this study was to assess the voice quality and the vocal tract function in popular singing students at the beginning of their singing training at the High School of Music. This is a retrospective cross-sectional study. The study consisted of 45 popular singing students (35 females and 10 males, mean age: 19.9 ± 2.8 years). They were assessed in the first 2 months of their 4-year singing training at the High School of Music, between 2013 and 2016. Voice quality and vocal tract function were evaluated using videolaryngostroboscopy, palpation of the vocal tract structures, the perceptual speaking and singing voice assessment, acoustic analysis, maximal phonation time, the Voice Handicap Index, and the Singing Voice Handicap Index (SVHI). Twenty-two percent of Contemporary Commercial Music singing students began their education in the High School, with vocal nodules. Palpation of the vocal tract structure showed in 50% correct motions and tension in speaking and in 39.3% in singing. Perceptual voice assessment showed in 80% proper speaking voice quality and in 82.4% proper singing voice quality. The mean vocal fundamental frequency while speaking in females was 214 Hz and in males was 116 Hz. Dysphonia Severity Index was at the level of 2, and maximum phonation time was 17.7 seconds. The Voice Handicap Index and the SVHI remained within the normal range: 7.5 and 19, respectively. Perceptual singing voice assessment correlated with the SVHI (P = 0.006). Twenty-two percent of the Contemporary Commercial Music singing students began their education in the High School, with organic vocal fold lesions. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Self-awareness four years after severe traumatic brain injury: discordance between the patient's and relative's complaints. Results from the PariS-TBI study.

PubMed

Chesnel, Camille; Jourdan, Claire; Bayen, Eleonore; Ghout, Idir; Darnoux, Emmanuelle; Azerad, Sylvie; Charanton, James; Aegerter, Philippe; Pradat-Diehl, Pascale; Ruet, Alexis; Azouvi, Philippe; Vallat-Azouvi, Claire

2018-05-01

To evaluate the patient's awareness of his or her difficulties in the chronic phase of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to determine the factors related to poor awareness. This study was part of a larger prospective inception cohort study of patients with severe TBI in the Parisian region (PariS-TBI study). Intervention/Main measures: Evaluation was carried out at four years and included the Brain Injury Complaint Questionnaire (BICoQ) completed by the patient and his or her relative as well as the evaluation of impairments, disability and quality of life. A total of 90 patient-relative pairs were included. Lack of awareness was measured using the unawareness index that corresponded to the number of discordant results between the patient and relative in the direction of under evaluation of difficulties by the patient. The only significant relationship found with lack of awareness was the subjective burden perceived by the relative (Zarit Burden Inventory) ( r = 0.5; P < 0.00001). There was no significant relationship between lack of awareness and injury severity, pre-injury socio-demographic data, cognitive impairments, mood disorders, functional independence (Barthel index), global disability (Glasgow Outcome Scale), return to work at four years or quality of life (Quality Of Life after Brain Injury scale (QOLIBRI)). Lack of awareness four years post severe TBI was not related to the severity of the initial trauma, sociodemographic data, the severity of impairments, limitations of activity and participation, or the patient's quality of life. However, poor awareness did significantly influence the weight of the burden perceived by the relative.

Interventions for Preventing Unintended, Rapid Repeat Pregnancy Among Adolescents: A Review of the Evidence and Lessons From High-Quality Evaluations

PubMed Central

Norton, Maureen; Chandra-Mouli, Venkatraman; Lane, Cate

2017-01-01

Background: In 2017, of the 22.5 million parenting adolescents (ages 15–19) in 60 countries, approximately 4.1 million gave birth to a second or higher-order child. Adolescent pregnancy in general, and rapid repeat pregnancies specifically, expose young mothers and their children to multiple health and socioeconomic risks. The purpose of this article is to review the impact of interventions designed to prevent unintended, rapid repeat pregnancies among adolescents, including those aimed at changing norms to postpone “intended” closely spaced pregnancies to promote healthy spacing. Methods: We searched PubMed and other databases for evaluations of interventions published in English from 1990 through 2016. We included evaluations that assessed a programmatic intervention specifically designed to prevent rapid repeat pregnancy (occurring less than 24 months after the index birth) or birth (occurring less than 33 months after the index birth), or that reported on contraceptive continuation for at least 2 years. We first assessed the quality of the evaluations, then ranked the interventions based on the quality of the evaluation and the level of impact on repeat pregnancy or birth (statistically significant impact, positive trends but not statistically significant, or no impact) to identify the most effective interventions. Finally, we extracted program design and implementation lessons from the interventions included in the high-quality evaluations. Results: Our search identified 2,187 articles, of which 40 evaluations met the inclusion criteria (24=high quality, 14=moderate quality, 2=less rigorous). We found 14 high-quality evaluations in which the intervention achieved a statistically significant impact on repeat pregnancy or birth. These interventions fell into 5 broad categories: (1) contraceptive services and information, with proactive monitoring of contraceptive use and outreach to families; (2) postpartum contraceptive counseling and services provided soon after delivery; (3) activities that help adolescents improve planning skills, including preparing contraceptive plans; (4) social and behavioral change activities that help adolescents understand the role contraception can play in determining positive life outcomes, and the implications of their reproductive health decisions for their future; and (5) activities that provide mentoring, goal setting, and motivation. Conclusion: Effective interventions that prevent rapid adolescent childbearing link clinical contraceptive services with non-clinical activities that build planning skills, enhance understanding of the role that contraceptives can play in determining positive life outcomes, and provide mentoring and goal setting. Recognizing potentially synergistic effects, we recommend testing various combinations of these interventions, with access to contraception as the foundational activity. PMID:29284694

Comparative analysis of SmartArc‐based dual arc volumetric‐modulated arc radiotherapy (VMAT) versus intensity‐modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma

PubMed Central

Chao, Pei‐Ju; Ting, Hui‐Min; Lo, Su‐Hua; Wang, Yu‐Wen; Tuan, Chiu‐Ching; Fang, Fu‐Min

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and quantify the planning performance of SmartArc‐based volumetric‐modulated arc radiotherapy (VMAT) versus fixed‐beam intensity‐modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) using a sequential mode treatment plan. The plan quality and performance of dual arc‐VMAT (DA‐VMAT) using the Pinnacle3 Smart‐Arc system (clinical version 9.0; Philips, Fitchburg, WI, USA) were evaluated and compared with those of seven‐field (7F)‐IMRT in 18 consecutive NPC patients. Analysis parameters included the conformity index (CI) and homogeneity index (HI) for the planning target volume (PTV), maximum and mean dose, normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) for the specified organs at risk (OARs), and comprehensive quality index (CQI) for an overall evaluation in the 11 OARs. Treatment delivery time, monitor units per fraction (MU/fr), and gamma (Γ3mm,3%) evaluations were also analyzed. DA‐VMAT achieved similar target coverage and slightly better homogeneity than conventional 7F‐IMRT with a similar CI and HI. NTCP values were only significantly lower in the left parotid gland (for xerostomia) for DA‐VMAT plans. The mean value of CQI at 0.98±0.02 indicated a 2% benefit in sparing OARs by DA‐VMAT. The MU/fr used and average delivery times appeared to show improved efficiencies in DA‐VMAT. Each technique demonstrated high accuracy in dose delivery in terms of a high‐quality assurance (QA) passing rate (>98%) of the (Γ3mm,3%) criterion. The major difference between DA‐VMAT and 7F‐IMRT using a sequential mode for treating NPC cases appears to be improved efficiency, resulting in a faster delivery time and the use of fewer MU/fr. PACS number: 87.53.Tf, 87.55.x, 87.55.D, 87.55.dk PMID:22089015

Mapping the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) Generic Core Scales onto the Child Health Utility Index-9 Dimension (CHU-9D) Score for Economic Evaluation in Children.

PubMed

Lambe, Tosin; Frew, Emma; Ives, Natalie J; Woolley, Rebecca L; Cummins, Carole; Brettell, Elizabeth A; Barsoum, Emma N; Webb, Nicholas J A

2018-04-01

The Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) questionnaire is a widely used, generic instrument designed for measuring health-related quality of life (HRQoL); however, it is not preference-based and therefore not suitable for cost-utility analysis. The Child Health Utility Index-9 Dimension (CHU-9D), however, is a preference-based instrument that has been primarily developed to support cost-utility analysis. This paper presents a method for estimating CHU-9D index scores from responses to the PedsQL™ using data from a randomised controlled trial of prednisolone therapy for treatment of childhood corticosteroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome. HRQoL data were collected from children at randomisation, week 16, and months 12, 18, 24, 36 and 48. Observations on children aged 5 years and older were pooled across all data collection timepoints and were then randomised into an estimation (n = 279) and validation (n = 284) sample. A number of models were developed using the estimation data before internal validation. The best model was chosen using multi-stage selection criteria. Most of the models developed accurately predicted the CHU-9D mean index score. The best performing model was a generalised linear model (mean absolute error = 0.0408; mean square error = 0.0035). The proportion of index scores deviating from the observed scores by <  0.03 was 53%. The mapping algorithm provides an empirical tool for estimating CHU-9D index scores and for conducting cost-utility analyses within clinical studies that have only collected PedsQL™ data. It is valid for children aged 5 years or older. Caution should be exercised when using this with children younger than 5 years, older adolescents (>  13 years) or patient groups with particularly poor quality of life. 16645249.

Stability of physical activity, fitness components and diet quality indices.

PubMed

Mertens, E; Clarys, P; Mullie, P; Lefevre, J; Charlier, R; Knaeps, S; Huybrechts, I; Deforche, B

2017-04-01

Regular physical activity (PA), a high level of fitness and a high diet quality are positively associated with health. However, information about stability of fitness components and diet quality indices is limited. This study aimed to evaluate stability of those parameters. This study includes 652 adults (men=57.56 (10.28) years; women=55.90 (8.34) years at follow-up) who participated in 2002-2004 and returned for follow-up at the Policy Research Centre Leuven in 2012-2014. Minutes sport per day and Physical activity level (PAL) were calculated from the Flemish Physical Activity Computerized Questionnaire. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), morphological fitness (MORF; body mass index and waist circumference) and metabolic fitness (METF) (blood cholesterol and triglycerides) were used as fitness components. Diet quality indices (Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI), Diet Quality Index (DQI), Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS)) were calculated from a diet record. Tracking coefficients were calculated using Pearson/Spearman correlation coefficients (r Pearson ) and intra-class correlation coefficients (r ICC ). In both men (r Pearson&ICC =0.51) and women (r Pearson =0.62 and r ICC =0.60) PAL showed good stability, while minutes sport remained stable in women (r Pearson&ICC =0.57) but less in men (r Pearson&ICC =0.45). Most fitness components remained stable (r⩾0.50) except some METF components in women. In general the diet quality indices and their components were unstable (r<0.50). PAL and the majority of the fitness components remained stable, while diet quality was unstable over 10 years. For unstable parameters such as diet quality measurements are needed at both time points in prospective research.

[Sleep quality in an adult population exposed to the noise of El Dorado Airport, Bogotá, 2012].

PubMed

Callejas, Lina María; Sarmiento, Rodrigo; Medina, Katalina; Sepúlveda, Henry; Deluque, Dayana; Escobar-Córdoba, Franklin E

2015-08-01

The airport of Bogotá lies within the city and its expansion could produce an increase in adverse effects on the health of the inhabitants of Fontibón and Engativá districts due to the noise it generates. To determine the prevalence of sleep disturbances and associated factors among residents of Fontibón exposed to this noise. A cross-sectional study design was used, involving a sample of 205 people aged 18 to 65, selected by means of stratified random sampling. Sleep quality was evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Descriptive statistics were carried out, as well as correlation tests between the different scales. A total of 60% of the residents reported poor quality sleep (PSQI>5), with a mean PSQI of 7.19 (SD=3.931), and the following pathological interruptions were found: subjective sleep quality, 27%; sleep latency, 39%; sleep duration, 33%; habitual sleep efficiency, 37%; sleep alterations, 30%; diurnal dysfunction, 40%, and use of sleeping medication, 5%. According to the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS>10), 28% of residents reported daytime somnolence. Regarding the prevalence of poor quality sleep according to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, 17% of those who reported not being able to sleep because of noise associated this with air traffic. A correlation was observed between the index and the scale ( r =0.329, CI 95%: 0.20-0.44). Inhabitants of the district reported poor sleep quality due to exposure to noise, airport operations being one of the main generating sources. Noise mitigation strategies in the district need to be reviewed and the public health implications of the El Dorado Airport expansion should be considered.

[Analysis of commercial specifications and grades of wild and cultivated Gentianae Macrophyllae Radix based on multi-indicative constituents].

PubMed

Yang, Yan-Mei; Lin, Li; Lu, You-Yuan; Ma, Xiao-Hui; Jin, Ling; Zhu, Tian-Tian

2016-03-01

The study is aimed to analyze the commercial specifications and grades of wild and cultivated Gentianae Macrophllae Radix based on multi-indicative constituents. The seven kinds of main chemical components containing in Gentianae Macrophyllae Radix were determined by UPLC, and then the quality levels of chemical component of Gentianae Macrophyllae Radix were clustered and classified by modern statistical methods (canonical correspondence analysis, Fisher discriminant analysis and so on). The quality indices were selected and their correlations were analyzed. Lastly, comprehensively quantitative grade division for quality under different commodity-specifications and different grades of same commodity-specifications of wild and planting were divided. The results provide a basis for a reasonable division of specification and grade of the commodity of Gentianae Macrophyllae Radix. The range of quality evaluation of main index components (gentiopicrin, loganin acid and swertiamarin) was proposed, and the Herbal Quality Index (HQI) was introduced. The rank discriminant function was established based on the quality by Fisher discriminant analysis. According to the analysis, the quality of wild and cultivated Luobojiao, one of the commercial specification of Gentianae Macrophyllae Radix was the best, Mahuajiao, the other commercial specification, was average , Xiaoqinjiao was inferior. Among grades, the quality of first-class cultivated Luobojiao was the worst, of second class secondary, and the third class the best; The quality of the first-class of wild Luobojiao was secondary, and the second-class the best; The quality of the second-class of Mahuajiao was secondary, and the first-class was the best; the quality of first-class Xiaoqinjiao was secondary, and the second-class was the better one between the two grades, but not obvious significantly. The method provides a new idea and method for evaluation of comprehensively quantitative on the quality of Gentianae Macrophyllae Radix. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Pansharpening on the Narrow Vnir and SWIR Spectral Bands of SENTINEL-2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vaiopoulos, A. D.; Karantzalos, K.

2016-06-01

In this paper results from the evaluation of several state-of-the-art pansharpening techniques are presented for the VNIR and SWIR bands of Sentinel-2. A procedure for the pansharpening is also proposed which aims at respecting the closest spectral similarities between the higher and lower resolution bands. The evaluation included 21 different fusion algorithms and three evaluation frameworks based both on standard quantitative image similarity indexes and qualitative evaluation from remote sensing experts. The overall analysis of the evaluation results indicated that remote sensing experts disagreed with the outcomes and method ranking from the quantitative assessment. The employed image quality similarity indexes and quantitative evaluation framework based on both high and reduced resolution data from the literature didn't manage to highlight/evaluate mainly the spatial information that was injected to the lower resolution images. Regarding the SWIR bands none of the methods managed to deliver significantly better results than a standard bicubic interpolation on the original low resolution bands.

Impact of Sleep Disorders, Quality of Life and Gastric Emptying in Distinct Subtypes of Functional Dyspepsia in Japan

PubMed Central

Yamawaki, Hiroshi; Shimpuku, Mayumi; Sato, Hitomi; Wakabayashi, Taiga; Maruki, Yuuta; Kodaka, Yasuhiro; Nagoya, Hiroyuki; Shindo, Tomotaka; Kawagoe, Tetsuro; Sakamoto, Choitsu

2014-01-01

Background/Aims The association between clinical symptoms, gastric emptying, quality of life and sleep disorders in distinct functional dyspepsia (FD) patients has not been studied yet in detail. Methods We enrolled 79 FD patients (postprandial distress syndrome [PDS], n = 65; epigastric pain syndrome [EPS], n = 47; EPS-PDS overlap, n = 33) and 44 healthy volunteers. Gastric motility was evaluated. We used Rome III criteria to evaluate clinical symptoms and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) scores to determine anxiety status. Sleep disorder was evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores. Results There were no significant differences in age, sex and Helicobacter pylori positivity between FD subtypes and healthy volunteers. The scores of Glasgow dyspepsia severity scores (GDSS), SF-8 and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) in distinct subtypes of FD patients were significantly different from those in healthy volunteers. However, there were not significant differences in these scores, Tmax and T1/2 among 3 subtypes of FD patients. PSQI score was significantly (P = 0.027, P = 0.002 and P = 0.039, respectively) associated with GDSS among EPS, PDS and EPS-PDS overlap patients. In addition, 8-item short form health survey (SF-8; Physical Component Score and Mental Component Score) was significantly associated with global PSQI score in PDS and EPS-PDS overlap patients. In contrast, SF-8 (Mental Component Score) only was significantly linked to global PSQI score in EPS patients. Conclusions Prevalences for sleep disorders, gastric motility and quality of life in 3 subtypes of FD patients were similar levels. In PDS and EPS-PDS overlap patients, SF-8 was significantly associated with global PSQI score. PMID:24466451

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and sleep quality in hypertensive patients.

PubMed

Bacci, Marcelo Rodrigues; Emboz, Jonathan Naim Mora; Alves, Beatriz da Costa Aguiar; Veiga, Glaucia Luciano da; Murad, Neif; Meneghini, Adriano; Chagas, Antonio Carlos P; Fonseca, Fernando Luiz Affonso

2017-12-01

Obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is one of the developmental factors of high blood pressure (HBP), a relevant global public health problem. OSAHS is characterized by the reduction or complete cessation of respiratory airflow due to intermittent airway collapse. Additionally, significant changes in sleep rhythm and pattern are observed in these patients. To evaluate the association between OSAHS and sleep quality in essential and resistant hypertensives. A cross-sectional, observational study evaluated 43 hypertensive patients treated at the outpatient clinics of the Faculdade de Medicina do ABC (FMABC) who were medicated with two or more antihypertensive drugs and divided into nonresistant or resistant to treatment. Group I (using up to two antihypertensive agents - 60.47% of the sample) presented mean systolic blood pressure (SBP) of 127.5±6.4 mmHg, mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of 79.6±5.2 mmHg, mean body mass index (BMI) of 27.2±5.3 kg/m2 and mean age of 51.2±15.1 years. Group II (using more than two antihypertensive drugs - 37.2% of the sample) presented mean SBP of 132.1±9.3 mmHg, mean DBP of 84.5±5.8 mmHg, mean BMI of 27.2±7.2 kg/m2 and mean age of 55.5±13.4 years. The patients presented low quality of sleep/sleep disorder evaluated by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which represents a preponderant factor for OSAHS. Patients at high risk for OSAHS had poor sleep quality and high levels of DBP, suggesting a causal relation between these parameters. However, they did not present a higher prevalence of resistant high blood pressure (RHBP).

Key interventions and quality indicators for quality improvement of STEMI care: a RAND Delphi survey.

PubMed

Aeyels, Daan; Sinnaeve, Peter R; Claeys, Marc J; Gevaert, Sofie; Schoors, Danny; Sermeus, Walter; Panella, Massimiliano; Coeckelberghs, Ellen; Bruyneel, Luk; Vanhaecht, Kris

2017-12-13

Identification, selection and validation of key interventions and quality indicators for improvement of in hospital quality of care for ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients. A structured literature review was followed by a RAND Delphi Survey. A purposively selected multidisciplinary expert panel of cardiologists, nurse managers and quality managers selected and validated key interventions and quality indicators prior for quality improvement for STEMI. First, 34 experts (76% response rate) individually assessed the appropriateness of items to quality improvement on a nine point Likert scale. Twenty-seven key interventions, 16 quality indicators at patient level and 27 quality indicators at STEMI care programme level were selected. Eighteen additional items were suggested. Experts received personal feedback, benchmarking their score with group results (response rate, mean, median and content validity index). Consequently, 32 experts (71% response rate) openly discussed items with an item-content validity index above 75%. By consensus, the expert panel validated a final set of 25 key interventions, 13 quality indicators at patient level and 20 quality indicators at care programme level prior for improvement of in hospital care for STEMI. A structured literature review and multidisciplinary expertise was combined to validate a set of key interventions and quality indicators prior for improvement of care for STEMI. The results allow researchers and hospital staff to evaluate and support quality improvement interventions in a large cohort within the context of a health care system.

Analytical Methods to Evaluate the Quality of Edible Fats and Oils: The JOCS Standard Methods for Analysis of Fats, Oils and Related Materials (2013) and Advanced Methods.

PubMed

Endo, Yasushi

2018-01-01

Edible fats and oils are among the basic components of the human diet, along with carbohydrates and proteins, and they are the source of high energy and essential fatty acids such as linoleic and linolenic acids. Edible fats and oils are used in for pan- and deep-frying, and in salad dressing, mayonnaise and processed foods such as chocolates and cream. The physical and chemical properties of edible fats and oils can affect the quality of oil foods and hence must be evaluated in detail. The physical characteristics of edible fats and oils include color, specific gravity, refractive index, melting point, congeal point, smoke point, flash point, fire point, and viscosity, while the chemical characteristics include acid value, saponification value, iodine value, fatty acid composition, trans isomers, triacylglycerol composition, unsaponifiable matters (sterols, tocopherols) and minor components (phospholipids, chlorophyll pigments, glycidyl fatty acid esters). Peroxide value, p-anisidine value, carbonyl value, polar compounds and polymerized triacylglycerols are indexes of the deterioration of edible fats and oils. This review describes the analytical methods to evaluate the quality of edible fats and oils, especially the Standard Methods for Analysis of Fats, Oils and Related Materials edited by Japan Oil Chemists' Society (the JOCS standard methods) and advanced methods.

Proposal of a Nutritional Quality Index (NQI) to Evaluate the Nutritional Supplementation of Sportspeople.

PubMed

Palacin-Arce, Alba; Monteagudo, Celia; Beas-Jimenez, Juan de Dios; Olea-Serrano, Fatima; Mariscal-Arcas, Miguel

2015-01-01

Numerous supplements are used by sportspeople. They are not always appropriate for the individual or the sports activity and may do more harm than good. Vitamin and mineral supplements are unnecessary if the energy intake is sufficient to maintain body weight and derives from a diet with an adequate variety of foods. The study objectives were to evaluate the main nutrients used as supplements in sports and to propose a nutritional quality index (NQI) that enables sportspeople to optimize their use of supplements and detect and remedy possible nutritional deficits. A nutritional study was performed in 485 sportspeople recruited from Centros Andaluces de Medicina del Deporte, (CAMD). All completed socio-demographic, food frequency, and lifestyle questionnaires. The nutritional quality of their diet and need for supplementation were evaluated by scoring their dietary intake with and without supplementation, yielding two NQI scores (scales of 0-21 points) for each participant. A superior mean NQI score was obtained when the supplements taken by participants were not included (16. 28 (SD of 3.52)) than when they were included (15.47 (SD: 3.08)), attributable to an excessive intake of some nutrients through supplementation. These results indicate that sportspeople with a varied and balanced diet do not need supplements, which appear to offer no performance benefits and may pose a health risk.

Proposal of a Nutritional Quality Index (NQI) to Evaluate the Nutritional Supplementation of Sportspeople

PubMed Central

Palacin-Arce, Alba; Monteagudo, Celia; Beas-Jimenez, Juan de Dios; Olea-Serrano, Fatima; Mariscal-Arcas, Miguel

2015-01-01

Background Numerous supplements are used by sportspeople. They are not always appropriate for the individual or the sports activity and may do more harm than good. Vitamin and mineral supplements are unnecessary if the energy intake is sufficient to maintain body weight and derives from a diet with an adequate variety of foods. The study objectives were to evaluate the main nutrients used as supplements in sports and to propose a nutritional quality index (NQI) that enables sportspeople to optimize their use of supplements and detect and remedy possible nutritional deficits. Material and Methods A nutritional study was performed in 485 sportspeople recruited from Centros Andaluces de Medicina del Deporte, (CAMD). All completed socio-demographic, food frequency, and lifestyle questionnaires. The nutritional quality of their diet and need for supplementation were evaluated by scoring their dietary intake with and without supplementation, yielding two NQI scores (scales of 0-21 points) for each participant. Results A superior mean NQI score was obtained when the supplements taken by participants were not included (16. 28 (SD of 3.52)) than when they were included (15.47 (SD: 3.08)), attributable to an excessive intake of some nutrients through supplementation. Conclusions These results indicate that sportspeople with a varied and balanced diet do not need supplements, which appear to offer no performance benefits and may pose a health risk. PMID:25938239

System of indexes and indicators for the quality evaluation of HACCP plans based on the results of the official controls conducted by the Servizio di Igiene degli Alimenti della Nutrizione (Food and Nutrition Health Service) of the Local Health Authority of Foggia, Italy.

PubMed

Panunzio, Michele F; Antoniciello, Antonietta; Pisano, Alessandra

2007-03-01

Within the realm of evaluating self-monitoring plans, developed based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) method and adopted by food companies, little research has been done concerning the quality of the plans. The Servizio di Igiene degli Alimenti e della Nutrizione (Food and Nutrition Health Service) of the Local Health Authority of Foggia, Italy, has conducted research with the aim to adopt a system of indexes and indicators for the qualitative evaluation of HACCP plans. The critical areas considered were the following: simplicity, specificity, feasibility and adherence. During the period from January 2004 to June 2005, the evaluation grid was used in examining 250 HACCP self-monitoring plans of food companies. For the analysis of the determining factor four groups were considered, with reference to HACCP self-monitoring plans designed: group 1 - with the aid of a qualified team; group 2 - with the aid of an unqualified team; group 3 - with the aid of an unqualified expert; group 4 - without the aid of an expert. The mean values of the measures elaborated decrease towards insufficiency moving from group 1 to group 4. In particular, collaboration by teams of unqualified experts brought about drafting unacceptable HACCP plans on the levels of specificity and adherence, with respect to the HACCP method. The method proposed of the analysis of the indexes and indicators beginning with an evaluation sheet can also help the individual company to better adjust contribution by internal or external professionals to the company.

The associations between diet quality, body mass index (BMI) and health and activity limitation index (HALEX) in the Geisinger Rural Aging Study (GRAS)

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Objectives To determine the associations between diet quality, body mass index (BMI), and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) as assessed by the health and activity limitation index (HALex) in older adults. Design Multivariate linear regression models were used to analyze associations between Di...

Psychometric properties of the medical outcomes study sleep scale in Spanish postmenopausal women.

PubMed

Zagalaz-Anula, Noelia; Hita-Contreras, Fidel; Martínez-Amat, Antonio; Cruz-Díaz, David; Lomas-Vega, Rafael

2017-07-01

This study aimed to analyze the reliability and validity of the Spanish version of the Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-SS), and its ability to discriminate between poor and good sleepers among a Spanish population with vestibular disorders. In all, 121 women (50-76 years old) completed the Spanish version of the MOS-SS. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity (exploratory factor analysis) were analyzed. Concurrent validity was evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey. To analyze the ability of the MOS-SS scores to discriminate between poor and good sleepers, a receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis was performed. The Spanish version of the MOS-SS showed excellent and substantial reliability in Sleep Problems Index I (two sleep disturbance items, one somnolence item, two sleep adequacy items, and awaken short of breath or with headache) and Sleep Problems Index II (four sleep disturbance items, two somnolence items, two sleep adequacy items, and awaken short of breath or with headache), respectively, and good internal consistency with optimal Cronbach's alpha values in all domains and indexes (0.70-0.90). Factor analysis suggested a coherent four-factor structure (explained variance 70%). In concurrent validity analysis, MOS-SS indexes showed significant and strong correlation with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index total score, and moderate with the 36-item Short Form Health Survey component summaries. Several domains and the two indexes were significantly able to discriminate between poor and good sleepers (P < 0.05). Optimal cut-off points were above 20 for "sleep disturbance" domain, with above 22.22 and above 33.33 for Sleep Problems Index I and II. The Spanish version of the MOS-SS is a valid and reliable instrument, suitable to assess sleep quality in Spanish postmenopausal women, with satisfactory general psychometric properties. It discriminates well between good and poor sleepers.

Evaluation Instruments for Quality of Life Related to Melasma: An Integrative Review.

PubMed

Pollo, Camila Fernandes; Meneguin, Silmara; Miot, Helio Amante

2018-05-21

The aim of this study was to analyze scientific production concerning the validation and cultural adaptation of quality of life evaluation instruments for patients with melasma and to offer a critical reflection on these methods. A literature review was performed based on a search of the Web of Science, Bireme, PubMed, Elsevier Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. All published articles from indexed periodicals in these electronic databases up to December 2015 were included. Eight articles were identified, of which only one (12.5%) referred to the development and validation of a specific instrument for evaluation of the quality of life of melasma patients. An additional six articles (75%) referred to transcultural adjustment and validation of the same instrument in other languages, and another (12.5%) article reported the development of a generic instrument for evaluation of quality of life in patients with pigment disorders. This review revealed only one specific instrument developed and validated in different cultures. Despite being widely used, this instrument did not follow the classic construction steps for psychometric instruments, which paves the way for future studies to develop novel instruments.

Evaluation Instruments for Quality of Life Related to Melasma: An Integrative Review

PubMed Central

Pollo, Camila Fernandes; Meneguin, Silmara; Miot, Helio Amante

2018-01-01

The aim of this study was to analyze scientific production concerning the validation and cultural adaptation of quality of life evaluation instruments for patients with melasma and to offer a critical reflection on these methods. A literature review was performed based on a search of the Web of Science, Bireme, PubMed, Elsevier Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. All published articles from indexed periodicals in these electronic databases up to December 2015 were included. Eight articles were identified, of which only one (12.5%) referred to the development and validation of a specific instrument for evaluation of the quality of life of melasma patients. An additional six articles (75%) referred to transcultural adjustment and validation of the same instrument in other languages, and another (12.5%) article reported the development of a generic instrument for evaluation of quality of life in patients with pigment disorders. This review revealed only one specific instrument developed and validated in different cultures. Despite being widely used, this instrument did not follow the classic construction steps for psychometric instruments, which paves the way for future studies to develop novel instruments. PMID:29791603

Functional status and quality of life 12 months after discharge from a medical ICU in healthy elderly patients: a prospective observational study

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Introduction Long-term outcomes of elderly patients after medical ICU care are little known. The aim of the study was to evaluate functional status and quality of life of elderly patients 12 months after discharge from a medical ICU. Methods We prospectively studied 112/230 healthy elderly patients (≥65 years surviving at least 12 months after ICU discharge) with full functional autonomy without cognitive impairment prior to ICU entry. The main diagnoses at admission using the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation III (APACHE III) classification diagnosis and length of ICU stay and ICU scores (APACHE II, Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) and OMEGA) at admission and discharge were collected. Comprehensive geriatric assessment included the presence of the main geriatric syndromes and the application of Lawton, Barthel, and Charlson Indexes and Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline to evaluate functionality, comorbidity and cognitive status, respectively. The EuroQol-5D assessed quality of life. Data were collected at baseline, during ICU and ward stay and 3, 6 and 12 months after hospital discharge. Paired or unpaired T-tests compared differences between groups (continuous variables), whereas the chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used for comparing dichotomous variables. For variables significant (P ≤ 0.1) on univariate analysis, a forward multiple regression analysis was performed. Results Only 48.9% of patients (mean age: 73.4 ± 5.5 years) were alive 12 months after discharge showing a significant decrease in functional autonomy (Lawton and Barthel Indexes) and quality of life (EuroQol-5D) compared to baseline status (P < 0.001, all). Multivariate analysis showed a higher Barthel Index and EQ-5D vas at hospital discharge to be associated factors of full functional recovery (P < 0.01, both). Thus, in patients with a Barthel Index ≥ 60 or EQ-5D vas ≥40 at discharge the hazard ratio for full functional recovery was 4.04 (95% CI: 1.58 to 10.33; P = 0.005) and 6.1 (95% CI: 1.9 to 19.9; P < 0.01), respectively. Geriatric syndromes increased after ICU stay and remained significantly increased during follow-up (P < 0.001). Conclusions The survival rate of elderly medical patients 12 months after discharge from the ICU is low (49%), although functional status and quality of life remained similar to baseline in most of the survivors. However, there was a two-fold increase in the prevalence of geriatric syndromes. PMID:21443796

Dermoscopic features of nail psoriasis treated with biologics.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Yuki; Uyama, Miki; Takada, Yuko; Yoshida, Kenji; Ishiko, Akira

2017-05-01

Although psoriatic nail lesions are small, they cause considerable discomfort for patients and adversely affect quality of life. Few studies have evaluated the dermoscopic features of psoriatic nails. The aim of this study was to clarify the dermoscopic features of nail psoriasis and identify those that reflect psoriatic activity. During biologic treatment of psoriasis, six patients with psoriatic nails twice underwent dermoscopic examination, with an interval of 17-42 weeks. We used the modified Nail Psoriasis Severity Index score and Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score to identify and assess dermoscopic features. We identified 10 dermoscopic findings, of which disappearance of diffuse scaling of the nail plate, transverse step-like notches and splinter hemorrhages of the nail bed, and appearance of erythematous borders of the onycholytic area were associated with improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score. Dermoscopy can detect nail changes during psoriasis treatment and should be used to evaluate treatment success. © 2017 Japanese Dermatological Association.

Clinical observation of patients with Fabry disease after switching from agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme) to agalsidase alfa (Replagal).

PubMed

Tsuboi, Kazuya; Yamamoto, Hiroshi

2012-09-01

Fabry disease is a rare, X-linked, inherited lysosomal storage disorder that can be treated with the enzymes agalsidase alfa (Replagal) and agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme). Currently, there is a global shortage of agalsidase beta, and this has increased global demand for agalsidase alfa. We assess the feasibility of switching patients on agalsidase beta treatment to agalsidase alfa instead. This analysis is part of an ongoing observational study involving 11 patients with Fabry disease in whom the treatment was switched from agalsidase beta (1 mg/kg every other week) to agalsidase alfa (0.2 mg/kg every other week). Data were collected for a minimum of 36 months: 24 months before and 12 months after the switch. Serial data were evaluated with respect to renal function, cardiac mass, pain, quality of life, and tolerability/safety. Indexes of renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate) and cardiac mass (left-ventricular mass index), pain (Brief Pain Inventory), and quality of life (EuroQoL-Dimensions) clearly showed that, in patients switched to agalsidase alfa, Fabry disease stabilized during the 12 months of follow-up. Despite the limitations of this preliminary observational study, it was found that all the patients maintained disease stability when treated with agalsidase alfa, as evidenced by estimated glomerular filtration rate, left-ventricular mass index, pain scores, and quality-of-life indexes, throughout 12 months of follow-up.

Clinical observation of patients with Fabry disease after switching from agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme) to agalsidase alfa (Replagal).

PubMed

Tsuboi, Kazuya; Yamamoto, Hiroshi

2012-09-01

Fabry disease is a rare, X-linked, inherited lysosomal storage disorder that can be treated with the enzymes agalsidasealfa (Replagal) and agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme). Currently, there is a global shortage of agalsidase beta, and this has increased global demand for agalsidase alfa. We assess the feasibility of switching patients on agalsidase beta treatment to agalsidase alfa instead. This analysis is part of an ongoing observational study involving 11 patients with Fabry disease in whom the treatment was switched from agalsidase beta (1 mg/kg every other week) to agalsidase alfa (0.2 mg/kg every other week). Data were collected for a minimum of 36 months: 24 months before and 12 months after the switch. Serial data were evaluated with respect to renal function, cardiac mass, pain, quality of life, and tolerability/safety. Indexes of renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate) and cardiac mass (left-ventricular mass index), pain (Brief Pain Inventory), and quality of life (EuroQoL-Dimensions) clearly showed that, in patients switched to agalsidase alfa, Fabry disease stabilized during the 12 months of follow-up. Despite the limitations of this preliminary observational study, it was found that all the patients maintained disease stability when treated with agalsidase alfa, as evidenced by estimated glomerular filtration rate, left-ventricular mass index,pain scores, and quality-of-life indexes, throughout 12 months of follow-up.

Measuring the impact of dermatological conditions on family and caregivers: a review of dermatology-specific instruments.

PubMed

Sampogna, F; Finlay, A Y; Salek, S S; Chernyshov, P; Dalgard, F J; Evers, A W M; Linder, D; Manolache, L; Marron, S E; Poot, F; Spillekom-van Koulil, S; Svensson, Å; Szepietowski, J C; Tomas-Aragones, L; Abeni, D

2017-09-01

The patient is the centre of a web of relationships, and the impact of his/her disease on family members and caregivers must be taken into account. The aim of this study was to identify the specific instruments that measure the impact of a dermatological disease on the quality of life (QoL) of family members, by performing a systematic search of the literature. Fifteen papers were identified, describing the creation and validation of nine instruments. Four of them concerned atopic dermatitis (Dermatitis Family Index, DFI; Parents' Index QoL Atopic Dermatitis, PiQoL-AD; QoL in primary caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis, QPCAD; Childhood Atopic Dermatitis Impact Scale, CADIS), two measured the impact of psoriasis in family members (Psoriasis Family Index, PFI; FamilyPso), one the impact of epidermolysis bullosa (Epidermolysis Bullosa Burden of Disease, EB-BoD), one of ichthyosis (Family Burden Ichthyosis, FBI), and one was generic for dermatological conditions (Family Dermatology Life Quality Index, FDLQI). The European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology quality of life taskforce recommends that the impact of a skin disease on family and caregivers should be measured as part of any thorough evaluation of the burden of a disease. Guidelines are given to choose the most appropriate instruments. © 2017 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

A survey of the current status of web-based databases indexing Iranian journals.

PubMed

Merat, Shahin; Khatibzadeh, Shahab; Mesgarpour, Bita; Malekzadeh, Reza

2009-05-01

The scientific output of Iran is increasing rapidly during the recent years. Unfortunately, most papers are published in journals which are not indexed by popular indexing systems and many of them are in Persian without English translation. This makes the results of Iranian scientific research unavailable to other researchers, including Iranians. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of current web-based databases indexing scientific articles published in Iran. We identified web-based databases which indexed scientific journals published in Iran using popular search engines. The sites were then subjected to a series of tests to evaluate their coverage, search capabilities, stability, accuracy of information, consistency, accessibility, ease of use, and other features. Results were compared with each other to identify strengths and shortcomings of each site. Five web sites were indentified. None had a complete coverage on scientific Iranian journals. The search capabilities were less than optimal in most sites. English translations of research titles, author names, keywords, and abstracts of Persian-language articles did not follow standards. Some sites did not cover abstracts. Numerous typing errors make searches ineffective and citation indexing unreliable. None of the currently available indexing sites are capable of presenting Iranian research to the international scientific community. The government should intervene by enforcing policies designed to facilitate indexing through a systematic approach. The policies should address Iranian journals, authors, and indexing sites. Iranian journals should be required to provide their indexing data, including references, electronically; authors should provide correct indexing information to journals; and indexing sites should improve their software to meet standards set by the government.

Effects of the bilateral isokinetic strengthening training on functional parameters, gait, and the quality of life in patients with stroke.

PubMed

Büyükvural Şen, Sıdıka; Özbudak Demir, Sibel; Ekiz, Timur; Özgirgin, Neşe

2015-01-01

To evaluate the effects of the bilateral isokinetic strengthening training applied to knee and ankle muscles on balance, functional parameters, gait, and the quality of in stroke patients. Fifty patients (33 M, 17 F) with subacute-chronic stroke and 30 healthy subjects were included. Stroke patients were allocated into isokinetic and control groups. Conventional rehabilitation program was applied to all cases; additionally maximal concentric isokinetic strengthening training was applied to the knee-ankle muscles bilaterally to the isokinetic group 5 days a week for 3 weeks. Biodex System 3 Pro Multijoint System isokinetic dynamometer was used for isokinetic evaluation. The groups were assessed by Functional Independence Measure, Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale, Timed 10-Meter Walk Test, Six-Minute Walk Test, Stair-Climbing Test, Timed up&go Test, Berg Balance Scale, and Rivermead Mobility Index. Compared with baseline, the isokinetic PT values of the knee and ankle on both sides significantly increased in all cases. PT change values were significantly higher in the isokinetic group than the control group (P<0.025). Furthermore, the quality of life, gait, balance and mobility index values improved significantly in both groups, besides the increase levels were found significantly higher in the isokinetic group (P<0.025, P<0.05). Bilateral isokinetic strengthening training in addition to conventional rehabilitation program after stroke seems to be effective on strengthening muscles on both sides, improving functional parameters, gait, balance and life quality.

Effects of the bilateral isokinetic strengthening training on functional parameters, gait, and the quality of life in patients with stroke

PubMed Central

Büyükvural Şen, Sıdıka; Özbudak Demir, Sibel; Ekiz, Timur; Özgirgin, Neşe

2015-01-01

Objective: To evaluate the effects of the bilateral isokinetic strengthening training applied to knee and ankle muscles on balance, functional parameters, gait, and the quality of in stroke patients. Methods: Fifty patients (33 M, 17 F) with subacute-chronic stroke and 30 healthy subjects were included. Stroke patients were allocated into isokinetic and control groups. Conventional rehabilitation program was applied to all cases; additionally maximal concentric isokinetic strengthening training was applied to the knee-ankle muscles bilaterally to the isokinetic group 5 days a week for 3 weeks. Biodex System 3 Pro Multijoint System isokinetic dynamometer was used for isokinetic evaluation. The groups were assessed by Functional Independence Measure, Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale, Timed 10-Meter Walk Test, Six-Minute Walk Test, Stair-Climbing Test, Timed up&go Test, Berg Balance Scale, and Rivermead Mobility Index. Results: Compared with baseline, the isokinetic PT values of the knee and ankle on both sides significantly increased in all cases. PT change values were significantly higher in the isokinetic group than the control group (P<0.025). Furthermore, the quality of life, gait, balance and mobility index values improved significantly in both groups, besides the increase levels were found significantly higher in the isokinetic group (P<0.025, P<0.05). Conclusion: Bilateral isokinetic strengthening training in addition to conventional rehabilitation program after stroke seems to be effective on strengthening muscles on both sides, improving functional parameters, gait, balance and life quality. PMID:26629238

An evaluation of methods used to teach quality improvement to undergraduate healthcare students to inform curriculum development within preregistration nurse education: a protocol for systematic review and narrative synthesis.

PubMed

Armstrong, Lorraine; Lauder, William; Shepherd, Ashley

2015-01-14

Despite criticism, quality improvement (QI) continues to drive political and educational priorities within health care. Until recently, QI educational interventions have varied, targeting mainly postgraduates, middle management and the medical profession. However, there is now consensus within the UK, USA and beyond to integrate QI explicitly into nurse education, and faculties may require redesign of their QI curriculum to achieve this. Whilst growth in QI preregistration nurse education is emerging, little empirical evidence exists to determine such effects. Furthermore, previous healthcare studies evaluating QI educational interventions lend little in the way of support and have instead been subject to criticism. They reveal methodological weakness such as no reporting of theoretical underpinnings, insufficient intervention description, poor evaluation methods, little clinical or patient impact and lack of sustainability. This study aims therefore to identify, evaluate and synthesise teaching methods used within the undergraduate population to aid development of QI curriculum within preregistration nurse education. A systematic review of the literature will be conducted. Electronic databases, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Psychological Information (PsychINFO), Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE) and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), will be searched alongside reference list scanning and a grey literature search. Peer-reviewed studies from 2000-2014 will be identified using key terms quality improvement, education, curriculum, training, undergraduate, teaching methods, students and evaluation. Studies describing a QI themed educational intervention aimed at undergraduate healthcare students will be included and data extracted using a modified version of the Reporting of Primary Studies in Education (REPOSE) Guidelines. Studies will be judged for quality and relevance using the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre's (EPPI) Weight of Evidence framework and a narrative synthesis of the findings provided. This study aims to identify, evaluate and synthesise the teaching methods used in quality improvement education for undergraduate healthcare students where currently this is lacking. This will enable nursing faculty to adopt the most effective methods when developing QI education within their curriculum. Prospero CRD42014013847.

A preliminary index of biotic integrity for monitoring the condition of the Rio Paraiba do Sul, southeast Brazil.

PubMed

Araujo, Francisco Gerson; Fichberg, Ilana; Pinto, Benjamin Carvalho Teixeira; Peixoto, Magna Galvao

2003-10-01

The biodiversity of many Brazilian rivers is seriously threatened by industrial and municipal pollution, and Rio Paraiba do Sul, located between two major industrial centers is one example of this situation. A survey of the fish assemblage was conducted from October 1998 to September 1999 and the data were used to develop an index of biotic integrity (IBI). We sampled three zones in bracketing a large urban-industrial complex to evaluate water quality changes and the usefulness of the IBI as a monitoring tool. Water quality was classified as poor upstream of the effluent discharges, very poor near the discharges, and poor-fair downstream of the discharges, with this latter situation revealing the current biological capacity of the river. Physical and chemical habitat characteristics were also measured at each site to construct an independent environmental index to validate the IBI. The habitat and IBI indices were highly correlated, suggesting this IBI would be applicable to other large rivers in southeast Brazil.

Initial Investigation of Reaction Control System Design on Spacecraft Handling Qualities for Earth Orbit Docking

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bailey, Randall E.; Jackson, E. Bruce; Goodrich, Kenneth H.; Ragsdale, W. Al; Neuhaus, Jason; Barnes, Jim

2008-01-01

A program of research, development, test, and evaluation is planned for the development of Spacecraft Handling Qualities guidelines. In this first experiment, the effects of Reaction Control System design characteristics and rotational control laws were evaluated during simulated proximity operations and docking. Also, the influence of piloting demands resulting from varying closure rates was assessed. The pilot-in-the-loop simulation results showed that significantly different spacecraft handling qualities result from the design of the Reaction Control System. In particular, cross-coupling between translational and rotational motions significantly affected handling qualities as reflected by Cooper-Harper pilot ratings and pilot workload, as reflected by Task-Load Index ratings. This influence is masked but only slightly by the rotational control system mode. While rotational control augmentation using Rate Command Attitude Hold can reduce the workload (principally, physical workload) created by cross-coupling, the handling qualities are not significantly improved. The attitude and rate deadbands of the RCAH introduced significant mental workload and control compensation to evaluate when deadband firings would occur, assess their impact on docking performance, and apply control inputs to mitigate that impact.

Quality evaluation of the edible blue-green alga Nostoc flagelliforme using a chlorophyll fluorescence parameter and several biochemical markers.

PubMed

Gao, Xiang; Yang, Yiwen; Ai, Yufeng; Luo, Hongyi; Qiu, Baosheng

2014-01-15

Nostoc flagelliforme is an edible blue-green alga with herbal and dietary values. Due to the diminishing supply of natural N. flagelliforme and the large investment on the development of its cultivation technology, it is anticipated that artificially cultured N. flagelliforme will soon sustain the market supply. Once this change occurs, the storage-associated quality problem will become the focus of attention for future trade. In this paper, we used a chlorophyll fluorescence parameter, maximum quantum efficiency of Photosystem II (Fv/Fm), and several biomarkers to evaluate the quality of several N. flagelliforme samples. It was found that longer storage times resulted in darker coloured solutions (released pigments) and decreased amounts of chlorophyll a (Chl a) and water-soluble sugars (WSS). Additionally, a higher Fv/Fm value suggests better physiological recovery and quality. In actual application, determination of Fv/Fm would be the first step for evaluating the quality of N. flagelliforme, and the biochemical indexes would serve as good secondary markers. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Data Quality Evaluation and Application Potential Analysis of TIANGONG-2 Wide-Band Imaging Spectrometer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qin, B.; Li, L.; Li, S.

2018-04-01

Tiangong-2 is the first space laboratory in China, which launched in September 15, 2016. Wide-band Imaging Spectrometer is a medium resolution multispectral imager on Tiangong-2. In this paper, the authors introduced the indexes and parameters of Wideband Imaging Spectrometer, and made an objective evaluation about the data quality of Wide-band Imaging Spectrometer in radiation quality, image sharpness and information content, and compared the data quality evaluation results with that of Landsat-8. Although the data quality of Wide-band Imager Spectrometer has a certain disparity with Landsat-8 OLI data in terms of signal to noise ratio, clarity and entropy. Compared with OLI, Wide-band Imager Spectrometer has more bands, narrower bandwidth and wider swath, which make it a useful remote sensing data source in classification and identification of large and medium scale ground objects. In the future, Wide-band Imaging Spectrometer data will be widely applied in land cover classification, ecological environment assessment, marine and coastal zone monitoring, crop identification and classification, and other related areas.

Chemical, Rheological and Nutritional Characteristics of Sesame and Olive Oils Blended with Linseed Oil.

PubMed

Hashempour-Baltork, Fataneh; Torbati, Mohammadali; Azadmard-Damirchi, Sodeif; Peter Savage, Geoffrey

2018-03-01

Purpose: Nutritional quality and oxidation stability are two main factors in the evaluation of edible oils. Oils in their pure form do not have an ideal fatty acid composition or suitable oxidative stability during processing or storage. Methods: This study was designed to evaluate the chemical, nutritional and rheological properties of oil mixtures in three ratios of olive: sesame: linseed, 65:30:5; 60:30:10 and 55:30:15. Acidity value, peroxide value, rancimat test, fatty acid profile, nutritional indexes and rheological properties of the oil blends were determined. The nutritional quality was determined by indexes, including the atherogenic and thrombogenic indexs; the ratios of hypocholesterolemic: hypercholesterolemic; poly unsaturated fatty acid: saturated fatty acid and the ω 6 :ω 3 . Results: The results indicated that blending of other vegetable oils with linseed oil could balance ω 6 :ω 3 . Results showed that formulated oils had a good balance of oxidation stability and nutritional properties as well. Rheological data showed that these oil blends followed Newtonian behavior at 4°C and 25°C. Conclusion: According to the results, addition of linseed oil to vegetable oils containing high levels of bioactive compounds was a simple and economic practice to obtain a functional oil with good nutritional and stability properties.

A critical appraisal of the reporting quality of published randomized controlled trials in the fall injuries.

PubMed

Asghari Jafarabadi, Mohammad; Sadeghi-Bazrgani, Homayoun; Dianat, Iman

2018-06-01

To evaluate the quality of reporting in published randomized controlled trials (RTCs) in the field of fall injuries. The 188 RTCs published between 2001 and 2011, indexed in EMBASE and Medline databases were extracted through searching by appropriate keywords and EMTree classification terms. The evaluation trustworthiness was assured through parallel evaluations of two experts in epidemiology and biostatistics. About 40%-75% of papers had problems in reporting random allocation method, allocation concealment, random allocation implementation, blinding and similarity among groups, intention to treat and balancing benefits and harms. Moreover, at least 10% of papers inappropriately/not reported the design, protocol violations, sample size justification, subgroup/adjusted analyses, presenting flow diagram, drop outs, recruitment time, baseline data, suitable effect size on outcome, ancillary analyses, limitations and generalizability. Considering the shortcomings found and due to the importance of the RCTs for fall injury prevention programmes, their reporting quality should be improved.

How Clean is your Local Air? Here's an app for that

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maskey, M.; Yang, E.; Christopher, S. A.; Keiser, K.; Nair, U. S.; Graves, S. J.

2011-12-01

Air quality is a vital element of our environment. Accurate and localized air quality information is critical for characterizing environmental impacts at the local and regional levels. Advances in location-aware handheld devices and air quality modeling have enabled a group of UAHuntsville scientists to develop a mobile app, LocalAQI, that informs users of current conditions and forecasts of up to twenty-four hours, of air quality indices. The air quality index is based on Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ). UAHuntsville scientists have used satellite remote sensing products as inputs to CMAQ, resulting in forecast guidance for particulate matter air quality. The CMAQ output is processed to compute a standardized air quality index. Currently, the air quality index is available for the eastern half of the United States. LocalAQI consists of two main views: air quality index view and map view. The air quality index view displays current air quality for the zip code of a location of interest. Air quality index value is translated into a color-coded advisory system. In addition, users are able to cycle through available hourly forecasts for a location. This location-aware app defaults to the current air quality of user's location. The map view displays color-coded air quality information for the eastern US with an ability to animate through the available forecasts. The app is developed using a cross-platform native application development tool, appcelerator; hence LocalAQI is available for iOS and Android-based phones and pads.

Endothelial function and sleep: associations of flow-mediated dilation with perceived sleep quality and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

PubMed

Cooper, Denise C; Ziegler, Michael G; Milic, Milos S; Ancoli-Israel, Sonia; Mills, Paul J; Loredo, José S; Von Känel, Roland; Dimsdale, Joel E

2014-02-01

Endothelial function typically precedes clinical manifestations of cardiovascular disease and provides a potential mechanism for the associations observed between cardiovascular disease and sleep quality. This study examined how subjective and objective indicators of sleep quality relate to endothelial function, as measured by brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD). In a clinical research centre, 100 non-shift working adults (mean age: 36 years) completed FMD testing and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, along with a polysomnography assessment to obtain the following measures: slow wave sleep, percentage rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, REM sleep latency, total arousal index, total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency and apnea-hypopnea index. Bivariate correlations and follow-up multiple regressions examined how FMD related to subjective (i.e., Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores) and objective (i.e., polysomnography-derived) indicators of sleep quality. After FMD showed bivariate correlations with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores, percentage REM sleep and REM latency, further examination with separate regression models indicated that these associations remained significant after adjustments for sex, age, race, hypertension, body mass index, apnea-hypopnea index, smoking and income (Ps < 0.05). Specifically, as FMD decreased, scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index increased (indicating decreased subjective sleep quality) and percentage REM sleep decreased, while REM sleep latency increased (Ps < 0.05). Poorer subjective sleep quality and adverse changes in REM sleep were associated with diminished vasodilation, which could link sleep disturbances to cardiovascular disease. © 2013 European Sleep Research Society.

Statistical summary and trend evaluation of air quality data for Cleveland, Ohio in 1967 to 1971: Total suspended particulate, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Neustadter, H. E.; Sidik, S. M.; Burr, J. C., Jr.

1972-01-01

Air quality data for Cleveland, Ohio, for the period of 1967 to 1971 were collated and subjected to statistical analysis. The total suspended particulate component is lognormally distributed; while sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide are reasonably approximated by lognormal distributions. Only sulfur dioxide, in some residential neighborhoods, meets Ohio air quality standards. Air quality has definitely improved in the industrial valley, while in the rest of the city, only sulfur dioxide has shown consistent improvement. A pollution index is introduced which displays directly the degree to which the environmental air conforms to mandated standards.

Acne smart club: an educational program for patients with acne.

PubMed

Fabbrocini, Gabriella; Izzo, Rosanna; Donnarumma, Marianna; Marasca, Claudio; Monfrecola, Giuseppe

2014-01-01

To evaluate adherence to therapy in acne patients using mobile phones and Short Message Service (SMS) to communicate. 160 patients were randomly assigned to two groups: the SMS group received 2 text messages twice a day for a period of 12 weeks; the control group did not receive any messages. Before and after 12 weeks, the following evaluations were performed in all patients: digital photographs, the Global Acne Grading System, the Dermatology Life Quality Index, the Cardiff Acne Disability Index, the doctor-patient relationship evaluated through the Patient-Doctor Depth-of-Relationship Scale, and the adherence to treatment evaluated by asking patients how many days a week they had followed the therapy. For statistical analysis we used Student's t test. The SMS group had a better improvement of all parameters compared to the control group. Adherence and compliance are higher for patients who are included in a strategy of control.

Monitoring and assessment of water health quality in the Tajan River, Iran using physicochemical, fish and macroinvertebrates indices.

PubMed

Aazami, Jaber; Esmaili-Sari, Abbas; Abdoli, Asghar; Sohrabi, Hormoz; Van den Brink, Paul J

2015-01-01

Nowadays, aquatic organisms are used as bio-indicators to assess ecological water quality in western regions, but have hardly been used in an Iranian context. We, therefore, evaluated the suitability of several indices to assess the water quality for an Iranian case study. Measured data on biotic (fish and macroinvertebrates) and abiotic elements (28 physicochemical and habitat parameters), were used to calculate six indices for assessment of water quality and the impact of human activities in the Tajan river, Iran. GIS, uni- and multivariate statistics were used to assess the correlations between biological and environmental endpoints. The results showed that ecological condition and water quality were reduced from up- to downstream. The reduced water quality was revealed by the biotic indices better than the abiotic ones which were linked to a variety of ecological water quality scales. The fish index showed a strong relationship with long-term database of physicochemical parameters (12 years (94%)), whereas macroinvertebrates index is more correlated with short-term data (76%). Meanwhile, the biotic and abiotic elements in this study were also classified well by PCA. Pulp and wood plants and sand mining are indicated to have the most negative effects on the river ecosystem.

Influence of quality of life, self-perception, and self-esteem on orthodontic treatment need.

PubMed

Dos Santos, Patrícia R; Meneghim, Marcelo de C; Ambrosano, Glaucia M B; Filho, Mario Vedovello; Vedovello, Silvia A S

2017-01-01

In this study, we aimed to assess the relationship between normative and perceived orthodontic treatment need associated with quality of life, self-esteem, and self-perception. The sample included 248 schoolchildren aged 12 years. The normative aspect of orthodontic treatment was assessed by the Dental Health Component and the Aesthetic Component of the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need. The subjects were further evaluated for their oral health-related quality of life, self-esteem, and self-perception of oral esthetics. The Aesthetic Component of the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need was considered as the response variable, and generalized linear models estimated by the GENMOD procedure (release 9.3, 2010; SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Model 1 was estimated with only the intercept, providing the basis for evaluating the reduction in variance in the other models studied; then the variables were tested sequentially, considering P ≤0.05 as the criterion for remaining in the model. In the model, self-perception and self-esteem were statistically significant in relation to the perceived need for treatment. The normative need was significantly associated with the outcome variable and was not influenced by independent variables. The normative need for orthodontics treatment was not overestimated by the perceived need, and the perceived need was not influenced by sex and the impact on quality of life. Copyright © 2017 American Association of Orthodontists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Clinical characteristics of sleep disorders in patients with Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Mao, Zhi-Juan; Liu, Chan-Chan; Ji, Su-Qiong; Yang, Qing-Mei; Ye, Hong-Xiang; Han, Hai-Yan; Xue, Zheng

2017-02-01

In order to investigate the sleep quality and influencing factors in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), 201 PD patients were enrolled and underwent extensive clinical evaluations. Subjective sleep evaluation was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). It was found that poor sleep quality (77.11%) and excessive daytime sleepiness (32.34%) were commonly seen in PD patients and positively correlated with disease severity. Then 70 out of the 201 PD patients and 70 age- and sex-matched controls underwent a polysomnographic recording. The parameters were compared between PD group and control group and the influencing factors of sleep in PD patients were analyzed. The results showed that sleep efficiency (SE) was significantly decreased (P<0.01), and sleep latency (SL) and the arousal index (AI) were increased (P<0.05) in the PD group as compared with those in the control group. SE and total sleep time (TST) were positively correlated with the Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stage. There was significant difference in the extent of hypopnea and hypoxemia between the PD group and the control group (P<0.05). Our results indicate that PD patients have an overall poor sleep quality and a high prevalence of sleep disorder, which may be correlated with the disease severity. Respiratory function and oxygen supply are also affected to a certain degree in PD patients.

A novel approach in water quality assessment based on fuzzy logic.

PubMed

Gharibi, Hamed; Mahvi, Amir Hossein; Nabizadeh, Ramin; Arabalibeik, Hossein; Yunesian, Masud; Sowlat, Mohammad Hossein

2012-12-15

The present work aimed at developing a novel water quality index based on fuzzy logic, that is, a comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) approach to the development of environmental indices for routine assessment of surface water quality, particularly for human drinking purposes. Twenty parameters were included based on their critical importance for the overall water quality and their potential impact on human health. To assess the performance of the proposed index under actual conditions, a case study was conducted at Mamloo dam, Iran, employing water quality data of four sampling stations in the water basin of the dam from 2006 to 2009. Results of this study indicated that the general quality of water in all the sampling stations over all the years of the study period is fairly low (yearly averages are usually in the range of 45-55). According to the results of ANOVA test, water quality did not significantly change over time in any of the sampling stations (P > 0.05). In addition, comparison of the outputs of the fuzzy-based proposed index proposed with those of the NSF water quality index (the WQI) and Canadian Water Quality Index (CWQI) showed similar results and were sensitive to changes in the level of water quality parameters. However, the index proposed by the present study produced a more stringent outputs compared to the WQI and CWQI. Results of the sensitivity analysis suggested that the index is robust against the changes in the rules. In conclusion, the proposed index seems to produce accurate and reliable results and can therefore be used as a comprehensive tool for water quality assessment, especially for the analysis of human drinking water. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

EFFECT OF STRUCTURED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY ON SLEEP-WAKE BEHAVIORS IN SEDENTARY ELDERS WITH MOBILITY LIMITATIONS

PubMed Central

Vaz Fragoso, Carlos A.; Miller, Michael E.; King, Abby C.; Kritchevsky, Stephen B.; Liu, Christine K.; Myers, Valerie H.; Nadkarni, Neelesh K.; Pahor, Marco; Spring, Bonnie J.; Gill, Thomas M.

2016-01-01

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of structured physical activity on sleep-wake behaviors in sedentary community-dwelling elders with mobility limitations. DESIGN Multicenter, randomized trial of moderate-intensity physical activity versus health education, with sleep-wake behaviors pre-specified as a tertiary outcome over a planned intervention period ranging between 24 and 30 months. SETTING Lifestyle Interventions and Independence in Elder (LIFE) Study. PARTICIPANTS 1635 community-dwelling persons, aged 70–89 years, who were initially sedentary with a Short Physical Performance Battery score <10. MEASUREMENTS Sleep-wake behaviors were evaluated by the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) (≥8 defined insomnia), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) (≥10 defined daytime drowsiness), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) (> 5 defined poor sleep quality) — administered at baseline and subsequently at 6, 18, and 30 months. RESULTS The randomized groups were similar on baseline demographic variables, including mean age (79 years) and sex (67% female). Relative to health education, structured physical activity significantly reduced the likelihood of having poor sleep quality (adjusted odds ratios [adjOR] for PSQI >5 of 0.80 [0.68, 0.94]), including a reduction in new cases (adjOR for PSQI >5 of 0.70 [0.54, 0.89]) but not in resolution of prevalent cases (adjOR for PSQI ≤5 of 1.13 [0.90, 1.43]). No significant intervention effects were observed for ISI or ESS. CONCLUSION Structured physical activity reduced the likelihood of developing poor sleep quality (PSQI >5) over the intervention period, when compared with health education, but had no effect on prevalent cases of poor sleep quality, or on sleep-wake behaviors evaluated by the ISI or ESS. These results suggest that the benefit of physical activity in this sample was preventive and limited to sleep-wake behaviors evaluated by the PSQI. PMID:26115386

Effect of Structured Physical Activity on Sleep-Wake Behaviors in Sedentary Elderly Adults with Mobility Limitations.

PubMed

Vaz Fragoso, Carlos A; Miller, Michael E; King, Abby C; Kritchevsky, Stephen B; Liu, Christine K; Myers, Valerie H; Nadkarni, Neelesh K; Pahor, Marco; Spring, Bonnie J; Gill, Thomas M

2015-07-01

To evaluate the effect of structured physical activity on sleep-wake behaviors in sedentary community-dwelling elderly adults with mobility limitations. Multicenter, randomized trial of moderate-intensity physical activity versus health education, with sleep-wake behaviors prespecified as a tertiary outcome over a planned intervention period ranging from 24 to 30 months. Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders Study. Community-dwelling persons aged 70 to 89 who were initially sedentary and had a Short Physical Performance Battery score less than 10 (N = 1,635). Sleep-wake behaviors were evaluated using the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) (≥8 defined insomnia), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) (≥10 defined daytime drowsiness), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) (>5 defined poor sleep quality) administered at baseline and 6, 18, and 30 months. The randomized groups were similar in terms of baseline demographic variables, including mean age (79) and sex (67% female). Structured physical activity resulted in a significantly lower likelihood of having poor sleep quality (adjusted odds ratios (aOR) for PSQI >5 = 0.80, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.68-0.94), including fewer new cases (aOR for PSQI >5 = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.54-0.89), than health education but not in resolution of prevalent cases (aOR for PSQI ≤5 = 1.13, 95% CI = 0.90-1.43). No significant intervention effects were observed for the ISI or ESS. Structured physical activity resulted in a lower likelihood of developing poor sleep quality (PSQI >5) over the intervention period than health education but had no effect on prevalent cases of poor sleep quality or on sleep-wake behaviors evaluated using the ISI or ESS. These results suggest that the benefit of physical activity in this sample was preventive and limited to sleep-wake behaviors evaluated using the PSQI. © 2015, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation © 2015, The American Geriatrics Society.

Development of indoor environmental index: Air quality index and thermal comfort index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saad, S. M.; Shakaff, A. Y. M.; Saad, A. R. M.; Yusof, A. M.; Andrew, A. M.; Zakaria, A.; Adom, A. H.

2017-03-01

In this paper, index for indoor air quality (also known as IAQI) and thermal comfort index (TCI) have been developed. The IAQI was actually modified from previous outdoor air quality index (AQI) designed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). In order to measure the index, a real-time monitoring system to monitor indoor air quality level was developed. The proposed system consists of three parts: sensor module cloud, base station and service-oriented client. The sensor module cloud (SMC) contains collections of sensor modules that measures the air quality data and transmit the captured data to base station through wireless. Each sensor modules includes an integrated sensor array that can measure indoor air parameters like Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide, Oxygen, Volatile Organic Compound and Particulate Matter. Temperature and humidity were also being measured in order to determine comfort condition in indoor environment. The result from several experiments show that the system is able to measure the air quality presented in IAQI and TCI in many indoor environment settings like air-conditioner, chemical present and cigarette smoke that may impact the air quality. It also shows that the air quality are changing dramatically, thus real-time monitoring system is essential.

Tradeoffs between Price and Quality: How a Value Index Affects Preference Formation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Creyer, Elizabeth H.; Ross, William T., Jr.

1997-01-01

Some of a group of 143 consumers were given a choice between higher-priced, higher-quality items and items with lower price and quality but higher value index (benefit/cost tradeoff); others were given price and quality information only. Consumers were more likely to choose lower-priced, higher-value options when the index information was…

Nutritional adequacy according to carbohydrates and fat quality.

PubMed

Sánchez-Tainta, Ana; Zazpe, Itziar; Bes-Rastrollo, Maira; Salas-Salvadó, Jordi; Bullo, Mónica; Sorlí, José Vicente; Corella, Dolores; Covas, M Isabel; Arós, Fernando; Gutierrez-Bedmar, Mario; Fiol, Miquel; de la Corte, F García; Serra-Majem, Lluis; Pinto, Xavier; Schröeder, Helmut; Ros, Emilio; López-Sabater, M Carmen; Estruch, Ramón; Martínez-González, Miguel Angel

2016-02-01

To investigate the association between carbohydrate quality, fat quality or adherence to the Mediterranean diet and intake adequacy of 19 micronutrients in the PREDIMED (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea) trial, a multicenter, randomized, controlled, parallel group and primary prevention trial conducted in Spain. We assessed baseline dietary intake of 6,542 elderly subjects at high cardiovascular risk through a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and a validated 14-item Mediterranean diet (Med-diet) score. We used a multidimensional carbohydrate quality index (CQI) using four criteria and a fat quality index (FQI) according to the ratio (MUFA + PUFA)/(SFA + TFA). The probability of intake adequacy was calculated comparing the intakes to DRI, and also using the probabilistic approach. Absolute and adjusted probability of having inadequate intake for either ≥6 DRI or ≥8 DRI were estimated to assess nutritional adequacy according to quintiles of each index. The lowest prevalence of inadequate micronutrient intake (≥8 DRI) was found in the highest quintile of CQI or Med-diet score, and in the lowest quintile of FQI (adjusted fold risk: 1.4, 3.4 and 10.2 respectively in comparison with the lowest quintile). P for trend <0.001 in three multivariable models. A higher CQI or Med-Diet score and a lower FQI were significantly associated with a lower fold risk of unmet EAR values. A multidimensional assessment of CQI can be a useful tool to evaluate the quality of carbohydrates. This score and a 14-item Med-diet score were positively related to overall micronutrient adequacy in elderly participants.

Adapting the Healthy Eating Index 2010 for the Canadian Population: Evidence from the Canadian Community Health Survey

PubMed Central

Ng, Alena Praneet; L’Abbé, Mary R.

2017-01-01

The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is a diet quality index shown to be associated with reduced chronic disease risk. Older versions of the HEI have been adapted for Canadian populations; however, no Canadian modification of the Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) has been made. The aims of this study were: (a) to develop a Canadian adaptation of the HEI-2010 (i.e., Healthy Eating Index-Canada 2010 (HEI-C 2010)) by adapting the recommendations of the HEI-2010 to Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) 2007; (b) to evaluate the validity and reliability of the HEI-C 2010; and (c) to examine relationships between HEI-C 2010 scores with diet quality and the likelihood of being obese. Data from 12,805 participants (≥18 years) were obtained from the Canadian Community Health Survey Cycle 2.2. Weighted multivariate logistic regression was used to test the association between compliance to the HEI-C 2010 recommendations and the likelihood of being obese, adjusting for errors in self-reported dietary data. The total mean error-corrected HEI-C 2010 score was 50.85 ± 0.35 out of 100. Principal component analysis confirmed multidimensionality of the HEI-C 2010, while Cronbach’s α = 0.78 demonstrated internal reliability. Participants in the fourth quartile of the HEI-C 2010 with the healthiest diets were less likely to consume refined grains and empty calories and more likely to consume beneficial nutrients and foods (p-trend < 0.0001). Lower adherence to the index recommendations was inversely associated with the likelihood of being obese; this association strengthened after correction for measurement error (Odds Ratio: 1.41; 95% Confidence Interval: 1.17–1.71). Closer adherence to Canada’s Food Guide 2007 assessed through the HEI-C 2010 was associated with improved diet quality and reductions in the likelihood of obesity when energy intake and measurement errors were taken into account. Consideration of energy requirements and energy density in future updates of Canada’s Food Guide are important and necessary to ensure broader application and usability of dietary quality indexes developed based on this national nutrition guideline. PMID:28825674

Adapting the Healthy Eating Index 2010 for the Canadian Population: Evidence from the Canadian National Nutrition Survey.

PubMed

Jessri, Mahsa; Ng, Alena Praneet; L'Abbé, Mary R

2017-08-21

The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is a diet quality index shown to be associated with reduced chronic disease risk. Older versions of the HEI have been adapted for Canadian populations; however, no Canadian modification of the Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) has been made. The aims of this study were: (a) to develop a Canadian adaptation of the HEI-2010 (i.e., Healthy Eating Index-Canada 2010 (HEI-C 2010)) by adapting the recommendations of the HEI-2010 to Canada's Food Guide (CFG) 2007; (b) to evaluate the validity and reliability of the HEI-C 2010; and (c) to examine relationships between HEI-C 2010 scores with diet quality and the likelihood of being obese. Data from 12,805 participants (≥18 years) were obtained from the Canadian Community Health Survey Cycle 2.2. Weighted multivariate logistic regression was used to test the association between compliance to the HEI-C 2010 recommendations and the likelihood of being obese, adjusting for errors in self-reported dietary data. The total mean error-corrected HEI-C 2010 score was 50.85 ± 0.35 out of 100. Principal component analysis confirmed multidimensionality of the HEI-C 2010, while Cronbach's α = 0.78 demonstrated internal reliability. Participants in the fourth quartile of the HEI-C 2010 with the healthiest diets were less likely to consume refined grains and empty calories and more likely to consume beneficial nutrients and foods ( p -trend < 0.0001). Lower adherence to the index recommendations was inversely associated with the likelihood of being obese; this association strengthened after correction for measurement error (Odds Ratio: 1.41; 95% Confidence Interval: 1.17-1.71). Closer adherence to Canada's Food Guide 2007 assessed through the HEI-C 2010 was associated with improved diet quality and reductions in the likelihood of obesity when energy intake and measurement errors were taken into account. Consideration of energy requirements and energy density in future updates of Canada's Food Guide are important and necessary to ensure broader application and usability of dietary quality indexes developed based on this national nutrition guideline.

Health Information on Internet: Quality, Importance, and Popularity of Persian Health Websites

PubMed Central

Samadbeik, Mahnaz; Ahmadi, Maryam; Mohammadi, Ali; Mohseni Saravi, Beniamin

2014-01-01

Background: The Internet has provided great opportunities for disseminating both accurate and inaccurate health information. Therefore, the quality of information is considered as a widespread concern affecting the human life. Despite the increasingly substantial growth in the number of users, Persian health websites and the proportion of internet-using patients, little is known about the quality of Persian medical and health websites. Objectives: The current study aimed to first assess the quality, popularity and importance of websites providing Persian health-related information, and second to evaluate the correlation of the popularity and importance ranking with quality score on the Internet. Materials and Methods: The sample websites were identified by entering the health-related keywords into four most popular search engines of Iranian users based on the Alexa ranking at the time of study. Each selected website was assessed using three qualified tools including the Bomba and Land Index, Google PageRank and the Alexa ranking. Results: The evaluated sites characteristics (ownership structure, database, scope and objective) really did not have an effect on the Alexa traffic global rank, Alexa traffic rank in Iran, Google PageRank and Bomba total score. Most websites (78.9 percent, n = 56) were in the moderate category (8 ≤ x ≤ 11.99) based on their quality levels. There was no statistically significant association between Google PageRank with Bomba index variables and Alexa traffic global rank (P > 0.05). Conclusions: The Persian health websites had better Bomba quality scores in availability and usability guidelines as compared to other guidelines. The Google PageRank did not properly reflect the real quality of evaluated websites and Internet users seeking online health information should not merely rely on it for any kind of prejudgment regarding Persian health websites. However, they can use Iran Alexa rank as a primary filtering tool of these websites. Therefore, designing search engines dedicated to explore accredited Persian health-related Web sites can be an effective method to access high-quality Persian health websites. PMID:24910795

ASSESSING RELATIVE BED STABILITY AND EXCESS FINE SEDIMENTS IN STREAMS

EPA Science Inventory

Excess fine sedimentation is recognized as a leading cause of water quality impairment in surface waters in the United States. We developed an index of Relative Bed Stability (RBS) that factors out natural controls on streambed particle size to allow evaluation of the role of hu...

The New Environment for Compensation and Performance Evaluation in the Public Sector.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hyde, Albert C.

1988-01-01

Discusses the increasing concern for public service quality, morale, and compensation. Suggests that compensation is a major determinant of whether or not governmental units attract high-grade applicants and retain them. Compares salary increases of the last decade with the consumer price index. (CH)

Food and beverage choices contributing to dietary guidelines adherence in the Lower Mississippi Delta

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The objectives of this study were to evaluate dietary quality among Lower Mississippi Delta (LMD) residents using the Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005), determine the major food sources contributing to HEI-2005 components, and investigate demographic differences in HEI-2005 scores and major food ...

Internal quality control indicators of cervical cytopathology exams performed in laboratories monitored by the External Quality Control Laboratory.

PubMed

Ázara, Cinara Zago Silveira; Manrique, Edna Joana Cláudio; Tavares, Suelene Brito do Nascimento; de Souza, Nadja Lindany Alves; Amaral, Rita Goreti

2014-09-01

To evaluate the impact of continued education provided by an external quality control laboratory on the indicators of internal quality control of cytopathology exams. The internal quality assurance indicators for cytopathology exams from 12 laboratories monitored by the External Quality Control Laboratory were evaluated. Overall, 185,194 exams were included, 98,133 of which referred to the period preceding implementation of a continued education program, while 87,061 referred to the period following this intervention. Data were obtained from the Cervical Cancer Database of the Brazilian National Health Service. Following implementation of the continued education program, the positivity index (PI) remained within recommended limits in four laboratories. In another four laboratories, the PI progressed from below the limits to within the recommended standards. In one laboratory, the PI remained low, in two laboratories, it remained very low, and in one, it increased from very low to low. The percentage of exams compatible with a high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) remained within the recommended limits in five laboratories, while in three laboratories it progressed from below the recommended levels to >0.4% of the total number of satisfactory exams, and in four laboratories it remained below the standard limit. Both the percentage of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) in relation to abnormal exams, and the ratio between ASC-US and intraepithelial lesions remained within recommended levels in all the laboratories investigated. An improvement was found in the indicators represented by the positivity index and the percentage of exams compatible with a high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion, showing that the role played by the external quality control laboratory in providing continued education contributed towards improving laboratory staff skills in detecting cervical cancer precursor lesions.

May a unitary autonomic index help assess autonomic cardiac regulation in elite athletes? Preliminary observations on the national Italian Olympic committee team.

PubMed

Sala, Roberto; Malacarne, Mara; Tosi, Fabio; Benzi, Manuela; Solaro, Nadia; Tamorri, Stefano; Spataro, Antonio; Pagani, Massimo; Lucini, Daniela

2017-12-01

Long term endurance training, as occurring in elite athletes, is associated to cardiac neural remodeling in favor of cardioprotective vagal mechanisms, resulting in resting bradycardia and augmented contribution of cardiac parasympathetic nerve activity. Autonomic assessment can be performed by way of heart rate variability. This technique however provides multiple indices, and there is not yet complete agreement on their specific significance. Purpose of the study was to assess whether a rank transformation and radar plot could provide a unitary autonomic index, capable to show a correlation between intensity of individual work and quality of autonomic regulation. We studied 711 (23.6±6.2 years) elite athletes that took part in the selection procedure for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games for the National Italian Olympic Committee (CONI). Indices from Heart Rate Variability HRV obtained at rest, during standing up and during recovery from an exercise test were used to compute a percent ranked unitary autonomic index for sport (ANSIs), taken as proxy of quality of autonomic regulation. Within the observed wide range of energy expenditure, the unitary autonomic index ANSIs appears significantly correlated to individual and discipline specific training workloads (r=0.25, P<0.001 and r=0.78, P<0.001, respectively), correcting for possible age and gender bias. ANSIs also positively correlates to lipid profile. Estimated intensity of physical activity correlates with quality of cardiac autonomic regulation, as expressed by a novel unitary index of cardiac autonomic regulation. ANSIs could provide a novel and convenient approach to individual autonomic evaluation in athletes.

Can Hospital Competition Really Affect Hospital Behavior or Not? An Empirical Study of Different Competition Measures Comparison in Taiwan

PubMed Central

Yu, Tsung-Hsien; Tung, Yu-Chi; Wei, Chung-Jen

2017-01-01

Different approaches to measure the hospital competition index might lead to inconsistent results of the effects of hospital competition on innovation adoption. The purpose of this study is to adopt a different approach to define market area and measure the level of competition to examine whether hospital competition has a positive effect on hospital behavior, taking quality indicator projects participation as an example. A total of 238 hospitals located in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung were recruited in this study. Competition index was used as the independent variable, and participation lists of Taiwan Clinical Performance Indicator and Taiwan Healthcare Indicator Series in 2012 were used as dependent variables. All data used in this study were retrieved from the 2012 national hospital profiles and the participation list of the 2 quality indicator projects in 2012; these profiles are issued by the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare annually. Geopolitical boundaries and 4 kinds of fixed radiuses were used to define market area. Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and hospital density were used to measure the level of competition. A total of 12 competition indices were produced in this study by employing the geographic information system, while max-rescaled R2 was used to evaluate and compare the models on goodness of fit. The results show that the effects of hospital competition on quality indicator projects participation were varied, which mean different indicators for market competition might reveal different conclusions. Furthermore, this study also found the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index at 5-km radius was the optimum competition index. PMID:28147887

Can Hospital Competition Really Affect Hospital Behavior or Not? An Empirical Study of Different Competition Measures Comparison in Taiwan.

PubMed

Yu, Tsung-Hsien; Tung, Yu-Chi; Wei, Chung-Jen

2017-01-01

Different approaches to measure the hospital competition index might lead to inconsistent results of the effects of hospital competition on innovation adoption. The purpose of this study is to adopt a different approach to define market area and measure the level of competition to examine whether hospital competition has a positive effect on hospital behavior, taking quality indicator projects participation as an example. A total of 238 hospitals located in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung were recruited in this study. Competition index was used as the independent variable, and participation lists of Taiwan Clinical Performance Indicator and Taiwan Healthcare Indicator Series in 2012 were used as dependent variables. All data used in this study were retrieved from the 2012 national hospital profiles and the participation list of the 2 quality indicator projects in 2012; these profiles are issued by the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare annually. Geopolitical boundaries and 4 kinds of fixed radiuses were used to define market area. Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and hospital density were used to measure the level of competition. A total of 12 competition indices were produced in this study by employing the geographic information system, while max-rescaled R 2 was used to evaluate and compare the models on goodness of fit. The results show that the effects of hospital competition on quality indicator projects participation were varied, which mean different indicators for market competition might reveal different conclusions. Furthermore, this study also found the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index at 5-km radius was the optimum competition index.

The Assessment of Mangrove Sediment Quality in Mengkabong Lagoon: An Index Analysis Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Praveena, Sarva M.; Radojevic, Miroslav; Abdullah, Mohd H.

2007-01-01

The objectives of this study are to use different types of indexes to assess the current pollution status in Mengkabong lagoon and select the best index to describe the Mengkabong sediment quality. The indexes used in this study were Enrichment Factor (EF), Geo-accumulation Index (Igeo), Pollution Load Index (PLI) and Marine Sediment Pollution…

Food insecurity, diet quality and body mass index of women participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: The role of intrapersonal, home environment, community and social factors.

PubMed

Sanjeevi, Namrata; Freeland-Graves, Jeanne; Hersh, Matthew

2018-06-01

Obesity is a public health problem that disproportionately affects low-income populations. Moreover, participation in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been associated with obesity among low-income women. The goal of this study was to determine the impact of intrapersonal, home environment, community and social factors on diet quality and body mass index (BMI) of low-income women participating in SNAP. This study also aimed to examine the role of these factors in mediating the relationship between food insecurity and diet quality, and BMI. A total of 152 women receiving SNAP benefits were recruited from low-income neighborhood centers and housing communities, and administered a demographics questionnaire, the United States adult food security scale, food frequency questionnaire, and multi-dimensional home environment scale (MHES). They also were measured for height and weight to calculate BMI. The Dietary Guidelines Adherence Index 2015 was used to measure diet quality. Regression analyses were conducted to determine the MHES subscales that were significant predictors of diet quality and BMI. The Preacher and Hayes mediation model was used to evaluate the mediation of the relationship between food insecurity and diet quality, and BMI by the MHES. Emotional eating resistance and favorable social eating behaviors were positively associated with diet quality; whereas emotional eating resistance, lower availability of unhealthy food at home, neighborhood safety and favorable social eating behaviors were inversely associated with BMI in women participating in SNAP. The MHES significantly mediated the relationship between food insecurity and BMI. These results emphasize the importance of intrapersonal, home environment, community and social factors in mediating the relationship between food insecurity and BMI in low-income women. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparison of ground based indices (API and AQI) with satellite based aerosol products.

PubMed

Zheng, Sheng; Cao, Chun-Xiang; Singh, Ramesh P

2014-08-01

Air quality in mega cities is one of the major concerns due to serious health issues and its indirect impact to the climate. Among mega cities, Beijing city is considered as one of the densely populated cities with extremely poor air quality. The meteorological parameters (wind, surface temperature, air temperature and relative humidity) control the dynamics and dispersion of air pollution. China National Environmental Monitoring Centre (CNEMC) started air pollution index (API) as of 2000 to evaluate air quality, but over the years, it was felt that the air quality is not well represented by API. Recently, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) started using a new index "air quality index (AQI)" from January 2013. We have compared API and AQI with three different MODIS (MODIS - Moderate Resolution Imaging SpectroRadiometer, onboard the Terra/Aqua satellites) AOD (aerosol optical depth) products for ten months, January-October, 2013. The correlation between AQI and Aqua Deep Blue AOD was found to be reasonably good as compared with API, mainly due to inclusion of PM2.5 in the calculation of AQI. In addition, for every month, the correlation coefficient between AQI and Aqua Deep Blue AOD was found to be relatively higher in the month of February to May. According to the monthly average distribution of precipitation, temperature, and PM10, the air quality in the months of June-September was better as compared to those in the months of February-May. AQI and Aqua Deep Blue AOD show highly polluted days associated with dust event, representing true air quality of Beijing. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Independent Evaluation of Middle School-Based Drug Prevention Curricula: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Flynn, Anna B; Falco, Mathea; Hocini, Sophia

2015-11-01

Lack of robust program evaluation has hindered the effectiveness of school-based drug abuse prevention curricula overall. Independently evaluated randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of universal, middle school-based drug abuse prevention curricula are the most useful indicators of whether such programs are effective or ineffective. To conduct a systematic review identifying independently evaluated RCTs of universal, middle school-based drug abuse prevention curricula; extract data on study quality and substance use outcomes; and assess evidence of program effectiveness. PsycInfo, Educational Resources Information Center, Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were searched between January 1, 1984, and March 15, 2015. Search terms included variations of drug, alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use, as well as school, prevention, and effectiveness. Studies included in the review were RCTs carried out by independent evaluators of universal school-based drug prevention curricula available for dissemination in the United States that reported alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, or other drug use outcomes. Two researchers extracted data on study quality and outcomes independently using a data extraction form and met to resolve disagreements. A total of 5071 publications were reviewed, with 13 articles meeting final inclusion criteria. Of the 13 articles, 6 RCTs of 4 distinct school-based curricula were identified for inclusion. Outcomes were reported for 42 single-drug measures in the independent RCTs, with just 3 presenting statistically significant (P < .05) differences between the intervention group and the control group. One program revealed statistically significant positive effects at final follow-up (Lions-Quest Skills for Adolescence). The results of our review demonstrate the dearth of independent research that appropriately evaluates the effectiveness of universal, middle school-based drug prevention curricula. Independent evaluations show little evidence of effectiveness for widely used programs. New methods may be necessary to approach school-based adolescent drug prevention.

Stress, Sleep and Depressive Symptoms in Active Duty Military Personnel.

PubMed

Chou, Han-Wei; Tzeng, Wen-Chii; Chou, Yu-Ching; Yeh, Hui-Wen; Chang, Hsin-An; Kao, Yu-Chen; Huang, San-Yuan; Yeh, Chin-Bin; Chiang, Wei-Shan; Tzeng, Nian-Sheng

2016-08-01

The military is a unique occupational group and, because of this, military personnel face different kinds of stress than civilian populations. Sleep problems are an example. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep problems, depression level and coping strategies among military personnel. In this cross-sectional study, military personnel completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Jalowiec Coping Scale. An evaluation of the test scores showed that officers had better sleep quality and fewer depressive symptoms than enlisted personnel. Military personnel with higher educational levels and less physical illness also had fewer depressive symptoms. Officers and noncommissioned officers preferred problem-focused strategies. Those with higher Beck Depression Inventory and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores and those who drank alcohol frequently preferred affective-focused strategies. Our results revealed that sleep quality, physical illness and alcohol consumption were associated with the mental health of military personnel. Treating these factors may improve the mental health of military personnel and enhance effective coping strategies. Copyright © 2016 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Association of Changes in Diet Quality with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality

PubMed Central

Sotos-Prieto, Mercedes; Bhupathiraju, Shilpa N.; Mattei, Josiemer; Fung, Teresa T.; Li, Yanping; Pan, An; Willett, Walter C.; Rimm, Eric B.; Hu, Frank B.

2017-01-01

BACKGROUND Few studies have evaluated the relationship between changes in diet quality over time and the risk of death. METHODS We used Cox proportional-hazards models to calculate adjusted hazard ratios for total and cause-specific mortality among 47,994 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and 25,745 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study from 1998 through 2010. Changes in diet quality over the preceding 12 years (1986–1998) were assessed with the use of the Alternate Healthy Eating Index–2010 score, the Alternate Mediterranean Diet score, and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet score. RESULTS The pooled hazard ratios for all-cause mortality among participants who had the greatest improvement in diet quality (13 to 33% improvement), as compared with those who had a relatively stable diet quality (0 to 3% improvement), in the 12-year period were the following: 0.91 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.85 to 0.97) according to changes in the Alternate Healthy Eating Index score, 0.84 (95 CI%, 0.78 to 0.91) according to changes in the Alternate Mediterranean Diet score, and 0.89 (95% CI, 0.84 to 0.95) according to changes in the DASH score. A 20-percentile increase in diet scores (indicating an improved quality of diet) was significantly associated with a reduction in total mortality of 8 to 17% with the use of the three diet indexes and a 7 to 15% reduction in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease with the use of the Alternate Healthy Eating Index and Alternate Mediterranean Diet. Among participants who maintained a high-quality diet over a 12-year period, the risk of death from any cause was significantly lower — by 14% (95% CI, 8 to 19) when assessed with the Alternate Healthy Eating Index score, 11% (95% CI, 5 to 18) when assessed with the Alternate Mediterranean Diet score, and 9% (95% CI, 2 to 15) when assessed with the DASH score — than the risk among participants with consistently low diet scores over time. CONCLUSIONS Improved diet quality over 12 years was consistently associated with a decreased risk of death. PMID:28700845

Insomnia, Sleep Quality, and Quality of Life in Mild to Moderate Parkinson's Disease.

PubMed

Shafazand, Shirin; Wallace, Douglas M; Arheart, Kristopher L; Vargas, Silvia; Luca, Corneliu C; Moore, Henry; Katzen, Heather; Levin, Bonnie; Singer, Carlos

2017-03-01

Sleep disorders are prevalent in Parkinson's disease but underreported in clinical settings. The contribution of sleep disorders to health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for patients with this degenerative neurological disease are not well known. To evaluate the impact of insomnia symptoms, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and poor sleep quality on HRQOL in a cohort of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease. We enrolled a convenience sample of 66 adults seen in the University of Miami Movement Disorders Clinic between July 2011 and June 2013. Participants completed validated questionnaires to determine insomnia symptoms, OSA risk, depression, anxiety, and HRQOL. All patients underwent unattended polysomnography to confirm OSA. Results were compared for those with and without insomnia symptoms. Principal component and regression analyses were performed to evaluate determinants of HRQOL. Participants were predominately Hispanic males with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease. Insomnia symptoms were reported for 46% of the study subjects. OSA (apnea-hypopnea index, ≥5) was noted in 47%, with a mean apnea-hypopnea index of 8.3 ± 11.0. Fairly bad to very bad sleep quality was reported by 21% of the participants. Insomnia (r = 0.71; P < 0.001), daytime sleepiness (r = 0.36; P = 0.003), depression symptoms (r =  0.44; P < 0.001), and anxiety symptoms (r = 0.33; P = 0.006) were significant correlates of poor sleep quality. OSA, severity of Parkinson's disease, and dopaminergic therapy were not. In the principal component analysis, sleep quality was a significant component of the "psychological factor" that in turn was a significant determinant of overall HRQOL. Insomnia symptoms, OSA, and subsequent poor sleep quality are prevalent in Parkinson's disease. In this single-center, exploratory study, we found that insomnia and poor sleep quality, but not OSA, play important roles in determining overall quality of life for patients with this disease. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02034357).

Estimation of river pollution index in a tidal stream using kriging analysis.

PubMed

Chen, Yen-Chang; Yeh, Hui-Chung; Wei, Chiang

2012-08-29

Tidal streams are complex watercourses that represent a transitional zone between riverine and marine systems; they occur where fresh and marine waters converge. Because tidal circulation processes cause substantial turbulence in these highly dynamic zones, tidal streams are the most productive of water bodies. Their rich biological diversity, combined with the convenience of land and water transports, provide sites for concentrated populations that evolve into large cities. Domestic wastewater is generally discharged directly into tidal streams in Taiwan, necessitating regular evaluation of the water quality of these streams. Given the complex flow dynamics of tidal streams, only a few models can effectively evaluate and identify pollution levels. This study evaluates the river pollution index (RPI) in tidal streams by using kriging analysis. This is a geostatistical method for interpolating random spatial variation to estimate linear grid points in two or three dimensions. A kriging-based method is developed to evaluate RPI in tidal streams, which is typically considered as 1D in hydraulic engineering. The proposed method efficiently evaluates RPI in tidal streams with the minimum amount of water quality data. Data of the Tanshui River downstream reach available from an estuarine area validate the accuracy and reliability of the proposed method. Results of this study demonstrate that this simple yet reliable method can effectively estimate RPI in tidal streams.

Adaptation of the QBR index for use in riparian forests of central Ohio

Treesearch

Stephanie R. Colwell; David M. Hix

2008-01-01

Although high quality riparian forests are an endangered ecosystem type throughout the world, there has been no ecological index to measure the habitat quality of riparian forests in Ohio. The QBR (qualitat del bosc de ribera, or riparian forest quality) index was developed to assess the quality of habitat in Mediterranean forested riparian areas, and we have modified...

Evaluation of the Responsiveness Index of the Family Health Strategy in rural areas.

PubMed

Shimizu, Helena Eri; Trindade, Josélia de Souza; Mesquita, Monique Santos de; Ramos, Maíra Catharina

2018-01-01

Objective To evaluate the responsiveness of Family Health Strategy units in the rural area of the Federal District registered in the National Program for Improvement of Access and Quality of Basic Care. Method Descriptive study, which used a questionnaire to evaluate the following dimensions: a) respect for people: dignity, confidentiality of information, autonomy, communication; b) customer orientation: facilities, choice of the professional, agile service and social support. Results The users' assessment of responsiveness was 0.755. The dimensions related to respect for people received an index of 0.814 and customer orientation was 0.599. Conclusion Care is given that shows respect for human dignity, but progress needs to be made in building confidentiality and the autonomy of users. Infrastructure is poor and care is not agile, highlighting the need for greater investments in rural areas.

Drinking water quality standards and standard tests: Worldwide. (Latest citations from the Food Science and Technology Abstracts database). Published Search

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1993-06-01

The bibliography contains citations concerning standards and standard tests for water quality in drinking water sources, reservoirs, and distribution systems. Standards from domestic and international sources are presented. Glossaries and vocabularies that concern water quality analysis, testing, and evaluation are included. Standard test methods for individual elements, selected chemicals, sensory properties, radioactivity, and other chemical and physical properties are described. Discussions for proposed standards on new pollutant materials are briefly considered. (Contains a minimum of 203 citations and includes a subject term index and title list.)

Assessment of water quality: a case study of the Seybouse River (North East of Algeria)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guettaf, M.; Maoui, A.; Ihdene, Z.

2017-03-01

The assessment of water quality has been carried out to determine the concentrations of different ions present in the surface waters. The Seybouse River constitutes a dump of industrial and domestic rejections which contribute to the degradation of water quality. A total of 48 surface water samples were collected from different stations. The first objective of this study is the use of water quality index (WQI) to evaluate the state of the water in this river. The second aim is to calculate the parameters of the quality of water destined for irrigation such as sodium adsorption ratio , sodium percentage, and residual sodium carbonate. A high mineralization and high concentration of major chemical elements and nutrients indicate inevitably a high value of WQI index. The mean value of electrical conductivity is about 945.25 µs/cm in the station 2 (Bouhamdane) and exceeds 1,400 µs/cm in station 12 of Nador. The concentration of sulfates is above 250 mg/l in the stations 8 (Zimba) and 11 (Helia). A concentration of orthophosphate over 2 mg/l was observed in the station 11. The comparison of the obtained and the WHO standards indicates a before using it use in agricultural purposes.

Diet quality of preschool children aged 2 to 5 years living in the urban area of Pelotas, Brazil

PubMed Central

Leal, Katharine Konrad; Schneider, Bruna Celestino; França, Giovanny Vinicius Araújo; Gigante, Denise Petrucci; dos Santos, Iná; Assunção, Maria Cecília Formoso

2015-01-01

Abstract Objective: To assess the dietary quality of preschool children in the urban area of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil. Methods: Dietary quality was measured according to the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), adapted to Brazil. Food consumption was obtained using the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). The index score was obtained by a score, ranging from 0 to 100, distributed in 13 food groups that characterize different components of a healthy diet. The better the quality of the diet, the closer the score is to 100. Results: Dietary quality was evaluated in 556 preschoolers. The mean HEI score value was 74.4 points, indicating that diets need improvement. The mean scores were significantly higher among girls and in children from families with income between one and less than three minimum wages. Conclusions: The children showed vegetable consumption below the recommended level, while foods of the food group of oils and fats, as well as the group of sugars, candies, chocolates and snacks, were consumed in excess. It is important to reinforce guidelines to promote healthier eating habits, which may persist later in life. PMID:26122208

The Dutch Healthy Diet index as assessed by 24 h recalls and FFQ: associations with biomarkers from a cross-sectional study.

PubMed

van Lee, Linde; Feskens, Edith J M; Hooft van Huysduynen, Eveline J C; de Vries, Jeanne H M; van 't Veer, Pieter; Geelen, Anouk

2013-01-01

The Dutch Healthy Diet index (DHD-index) was developed using data from two 24 h recalls (24hR) and appeared useful to evaluate diet quality in Dutch adults. As many epidemiologic studies use FFQ, we now estimated the DHD-index score using FFQ data. We compared whether this score showed similar associations with participants' characteristics, micronutrient intakes, and biomarkers of intake and metabolism compared with the DHD-index using 24hR data. Data of 121 Dutch participants of the European Food Consumption Validation study were used. Dietary intake was assessed by two 24hR and a 180-item FFQ. Biomarkers measured were serum total cholesterol and carotenoids, EPA + DHA in plasma phospholipids and 24 h urinary Na. A correlation of 0·48 (95 % CI 0·33, 0·61) was observed between the DHD-index score based on 24hR data and on FFQ data. Classification of participants into the same tertiles of the DHD-index was achieved for 57 %. Women showed higher DHD-index scores. Energy intake was inversely associated with both DHD-index scores. Furthermore, age and intakes of folate, Fe, Mg, K, vitamin B6 and vitamin C were positively associated with both DHD-index scores. DHD-index scores showed acceptable correlations with the four combined biomarkers taking energy intake into account (r 24hR 0.55; r FFQ 0.51). In conclusion, the DHD-index score based on FFQ data shows similar associations with participants' characteristics, energy intake, micronutrient intake and biomarkers compared with the score based on 24hR data. Furthermore, ranking of participants was acceptable for both methods. FFQ data may therefore be used to assess diet quality using the DHD-index in Dutch populations.

Physicochemical quality evaluation of groundwater and development of drinking water quality index for Araniar River Basin, Tamil Nadu, India.

PubMed

Jasmin, I; Mallikarjuna, P

2014-02-01

Groundwater is the most important natural resource which cannot be optimally used and sustained unless its quality is properly assessed. In the present study, the spatial and temporal variations in physicochemical quality parameters of groundwater of Araniar River Basin, India were analyzed to determine its suitability for drinking purpose through development of drinking water quality index (DWQI) maps of the post- and pre-monsoon periods. The suitability for drinking purpose was evaluated by comparing the physicochemical parameters of groundwater in the study area with drinking water standards prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Interpretation of physicochemical data revealed that groundwater in the basin was slightly alkaline. The cations such as sodium (Na(+)) and potassium (K(+)) and anions such as bicarbonate (HCO3 (-)) and chloride (Cl(-)) exceeded the permissible limits of drinking water standards (WHO and BIS) in certain pockets in the northeastern part of the basin during the pre-monsoon period. The higher total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration was observed in the northeastern part of the basin, and the parameters such as calcium (Ca(2+)), magnesium (Mg(2+)), sulfate (SO4 (2-)), nitrate (NO3 (-)), and fluoride (F(-)) were within the limits in both the seasons. The hydrogeochemical evaluation of groundwater of the basin demonstrated with the Piper trilinear diagram indicated that the groundwater samples of the area were of Ca(2+)-Mg(2+)-Cl(-)-SO4 (2-), Ca(2+)-Mg(2+)-HCO3 (-) and Na(+)-K(+)-Cl(-)-SO4 (2-) types during the post-monsoon period and Ca(2+)-Mg(2+)-Cl(-)-SO4 (2-), Na(+)-K(+)-Cl(-)-SO4 (2-) and Ca(2+)-Mg(2+)-HCO3 (-) types during the pre-monsoon period. The DWQI maps for the basin revealed that 90.24 and 73.46% of the basin area possess good quality drinking water during the post- and pre-monsoon seasons, respectively.

Evaluation of quality of life, physical, and mental aspects in longevous patients with chronic kidney disease.

PubMed

Martini, Adriana; Ammirati, Adriano; Garcia, Carlos; Andrade, Carolina; Portela, Odete; Cendoroglo, Maysa S; Sesso, Ricardo

2018-04-01

The diagnosis of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in elderly individuals has been increasing. The objective of this study was to evaluate physical, mental and social aspects in longevous elderly patients with CKD. Eighty patients with CKD (stage 4 and 5, not on dialysis) and 60 longevous elderly (≥ 80 years) paired by gender and age living in the community were evaluated. Physical, cognitive, social and quality of life aspects were analyzed according to the following scales: Charlson comorbidity index, Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36-Item (SF-36), Medical Outcomes Study, Boston Naming Test, verbal fluency test (animal naming), sit-to-stand test, gait speed, and the Mini-Mental state examination. Compared to the control group, the CKD group had a higher mean in the comorbidities index (3.5 ± 1.2 vs. 1.0 ± 1, respectively, p < 0.001). In the multivariate analysis, the CKD group presented worse performance in the SF-36 dimensions: 'physical functioning,' 'general health,' 'emotional functioning,' 'vitality,' and physical component summary. On the other hand, they presented better results for the 'mental health' dimension, in addition to lower  social support, worse verbal fluency and worse results on the sit-to-stand test. Longevous patients with stage 4 or 5 CKD presented worse evaluation in several domains of physical and emotional functioning, lower social support and evidence of worse cognitive performance. These aspects should be taken into account in order to improve the care provided to these patients, improve their quality of life and prevent their morbidity.

Chinese version of Impact of Weight on Quality of Life for Kids: psychometric properties in a large school-based sample.

PubMed

He, Jinbo; Zhu, Hong; Luo, Xingwei; Cai, Taisheng; Wu, Siyao; Lu, Yao

2016-06-01

The Impact of Weight on Quality of Life for Kids (IWQOL-Kids) is the first self-report questionnaire for assessing weight-related quality of life for youth. However, there is no Chinese version of IWQOL-Kids. Thus, the objective of this research was to translate IWQOL-Kids into Mandarin and evaluate its psychometric properties in a large school-based sample. The total sample included 2282 participants aged 11-18 years old, including 1703 non-overweight, 386 overweight and 193 obese students. IWQOL-Kids was translated and culturally adapted by following the international guidelines for instrument linguistic validation procedures. The psychometric evaluation included internal consistency, test-retest reliability, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), convergent validity and discriminant validity. Cronbach's α for the Chinese version of IWQOL-Kids (IWQOL-Kids-C) was 0.956 and ranged from 0.891 to 0.927 for subscales. IWQOL-Kids-C showed a test-retest coefficient of 0.937 after 2 weeks and ranged from 0.847 to 0.903 for subscales. The original four-factor model was reproduced by EFA after seven iterations, accounting for 69.28% of the total variance. CFA demonstrated that the four-factor model had good fit indices with comparative fit index = 0.92, normed fit index = 0.91, goodness of fit index = 0.86, root mean square error of approximation = 0.07 and root mean square residual = 0.03. Convergent validity and discriminant validity were demonstrated with higher correlations between similar constructs and lower correlations between dissimilar constructs of IWQOL-Kids-C and PedsQL™ 4.0. The significant differences were found across the body mass index groups, and IWQOL-Kids-C had higher effect sizes than PedsQL™4.0 when comparing non-overweight and obese groups, supporting the sensitivity of IWQOL-Kids-C. IWQOL-Kids-C is a satisfactory, valid and reliable instrument to assess weight-related quality of life for Chinese children and adolescents aged 11-18 years old. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The risk of musculoskeletal disorders for workers due to repetitive movements during tomato harvesting.

PubMed

Cecchini, M; Colantoni, A; Massantini, R; Monarca, D

2010-04-01

Tomatoes are the most common crop in Italy. The production cycle requires operations in the field and factory that can cause musculoskeletal disorders due to the repetitive movements of the upper limbs of the workers employed in the sorting phase. This research aims to evaluate these risks using the OCRA (occupational repetitive actions) index method This method is based firstly on the calculation of a maximum number of recommended actions, related to the way the operation is performed, and secondly on a comparison of the number of actions effectively carried out by the upper limb with the recommended calculated value. The results of the risk evaluation for workers who manually sort tomatoes during harvest showed a risk for the workers, with an exposure index greater than 20; the OCRA index defines an index higher than 3.5 as unacceptable. The present trend of replacing manual sorting onboard a vehicle with optical sorters seems to be appropriate to reduce the risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) and is supported from both a financial point of view and as a quality control measure.

Temporal and spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of air quality index in Xuchang

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Zhenghua; Tian, Zhihui

2018-01-01

In recent years, the problem of air pollution becomes more and more serious. Based on the geographic and seasonal climatic characteristics of Xuchang City, this paper studies the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of air quality index. The results show that: from the time point of view, air quality index shows seasonal difference. Air quality index is highest in winter and is lowest in summer. From the space point of view, there are differences between the north and the south to a certain extent. Changge City, Yuzhou city and central Xuchang county is higher than the southeast of Xiangcheng county and Yanling county. The spatial and temporal variation characteristics of air quality index in Xuchang are influenced by natural factors and human activities, and the economic development and population are the important factors affecting the urban air quality.

Development of Water Quality Index for the United States: A Sensitivity Analysis

EPA Science Inventory

Background: Water quality is quantified using several measures, available from various data sources, which can be combined to create a single index of overall water quality. It is necessary to identify appropriate variables to include in an index which could be used for health re...

Oral health-related quality of life and nutritional status.

PubMed

Gil-Montoya, J A; Subirá, C; Ramón, J M; González-Moles, M A

2008-01-01

This study examines whether oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is associated with malnutrition risk in the elderly. A cross-sectional study was designed using a representative sample of Spaniards over 65 years old. Data on sociodemographics and oral health status were gathered by interview and examination. Oral health-related quality of life was evaluated using the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI), and malnutrition risk using the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). The final sample included 2,860 elderly, 41.7 percent males and 58.3 percent females, with a mean age of 73.7 +/- 6.8 years. Mean GOHAI score was 52.1 +/- 7.2, with 70.7 percent of the sample needing oral health care according to this index. The mean MNA score was 24.0 +/- 3.31; 3.5 percent of the elderly were malnourished, 31.5 percent were at risk of malnutrition, and 65.0 percent were considered adequately nourished. A strong association was found between mean GOHAI and MNA scores.

Masticatory performance is not associated with diet quality in Class II orthognathic surgery patients.

PubMed

Shinkai, R S; Hatch, J P; Sakai, S; Mobley, C C; Rugh, J D

2001-01-01

This study evaluated the association between masticatory function, diet, and digestive system problems in 59 Class II patients 5 years after bilateral sagittal split osteotomy. Dietary intake data were recorded in 4-day diet diaries and analyzed for overall diet quality (Healthy Eating Index) and selected dietary components. Masticatory function was assessed through measurements of masticatory performance, maximum bilateral bite force, and chewing time and number of chewing strokes until the subject felt that the bolus was ready to swallow. Self-reported frequency of digestive system problems was recorded with a 7-point Likert scale questionnaire. Masticatory function was not associated with diet quality or gastrointestinal problems. There was a weak association between intake of foods that require chewing (eg, fiber, protein, meat, and vegetables) and masticatory variables. Fourteen subjects (24%) had a poor diet and 45 subjects (76%) had a diet that needed improvement according to the Healthy Eating Index. Self-reported constipation was the only digestive system problem that was significantly associated with masticatory performance.

Pectus excavatum and pectus carinatum patients suffer from lower quality of life and impaired body image: a control group comparison of psychological characteristics prior to surgical correction.

PubMed

Steinmann, Cornelia; Krille, Stefanie; Mueller, Astrid; Weber, Peter; Reingruber, Bertram; Martin, Alexandra

2011-11-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of anterior chest-wall deformities on disease-specific and health-related quality of life, body image, and psychiatric comorbidity prior to surgical correction. A total of 90 patients (71 with pectus excavatum, 19 with pectus carinatum) presenting themselves for pectus repair and 82 control subjects were recruited for this study. The objective severity of the deformity was determined through the funnel-chest index by Hümmer and the Haller index. Disease-specific quality of life was measured with the Nuss Questionnaire modified for Adults (NQ-mA) and health-related quality of life was determined by the Short-Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36). Body image was assessed via the Body Image Questionnaire (FKB-20), the Dysmorphic Concern Questionnaire (DCQ), and a self-evaluation of the subjective impairment of the appearance. The Diagnostic Interview for Mental Disorders - Short Version (Mini-DIPS), the General Depression Scale (Allgemeine Depressionsskala, ADS), and a self-rating of self-esteem were used to evaluate general psychological impairment. Compared with control group results, physical quality of life was reduced in patients with pectus excavatum, while mental quality of life was decreased in patients with pectus carinatum (p<0.05). Body image was highly disturbed in all the patients and differed significantly from the control group (p<0.01). Patients with pectus carinatum appeared to be less satisfied with their appearance than those with pectus excavatum (p=0.07). Body image distress was multivariately associated with both reduced mental quality of life and low self-esteem (p<0.001). Body image did not influence physical quality of life. Patients displayed no elevated rates of mental disorders according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) criteria. Since self-perception is a major contributor to therapeutic decision making, a systematic evaluation of body image should be included in the assessment of patients with chest deformities. Body image concerns may be even more relevant to the decision-making process than physical restrictions. Exaggerated dysmorphic concerns should be prospectively investigated in their ability to influence the extent of satisfaction with the surgical outcome. Copyright © 2011 European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Large herbivores surf waves of green-up during spring

PubMed Central

Monteith, Kevin L.; Aikens, Ellen O.; Hayes, Matthew M.; Hersey, Kent R.; Middleton, Arthur D.; Oates, Brendan A.; Sawyer, Hall; Scurlock, Brandon M.; Kauffman, Matthew J.

2016-01-01

The green wave hypothesis (GWH) states that migrating animals should track or ‘surf’ high-quality forage at the leading edge of spring green-up. To index such high-quality forage, recent work proposed the instantaneous rate of green-up (IRG), i.e. rate of change in the normalized difference vegetation index over time. Despite this important advancement, no study has tested the assumption that herbivores select habitat patches at peak IRG. We evaluated this assumption using step selection functions parametrized with movement data during the green-up period from two populations each of bighorn sheep, mule deer, elk, moose and bison, totalling 463 individuals monitored 1–3 years from 2004 to 2014. Accounting for variables that typically influence habitat selection for each species, we found seven of 10 populations selected patches exhibiting high IRG—supporting the GWH. Nonetheless, large herbivores selected for the leading edge, trailing edge and crest of the IRG wave, indicating that other mechanisms (e.g. ruminant physiology) or measurement error inherent with satellite data affect selection for IRG. Our evaluation indicates that IRG is a useful tool for linking herbivore movement with plant phenology, paving the way for significant advancements in understanding how animals track resource quality that varies both spatially and temporally. PMID:27335416

Large herbivores surf waves of green-up during spring

USGS Publications Warehouse

Merkle, Jerod A.; Monteith, Kevin L.; Aikens, Ellen O.; Hayes, Matthew M.; Hersey, Kent R.; Middleton, Arthur D.; Oates, Brendan A.; Sawyer, Hall; Scurlock, Brandon M.; Kauffman, Matthew J.

2016-01-01

The green wave hypothesis (GWH) states that migrating animals should track or ‘surf’ high-quality forage at the leading edge of spring green-up. To index such high-quality forage, recent work proposed the instantaneous rate of green-up (IRG), i.e. rate of change in the normalized difference vegetation index over time. Despite this important advancement, no study has tested the assumption that herbivores select habitat patches at peak IRG. We evaluated this assumption using step selection functions parametrized with movement data during the green-up period from two populations each of bighorn sheep, mule deer, elk, moose and bison, totalling 463 individuals monitored 1–3 years from 2004 to 2014. Accounting for variables that typically influence habitat selection for each species, we found seven of 10 populations selected patches exhibiting high IRG—supporting the GWH. Nonetheless, large herbivores selected for the leading edge, trailing edge and crest of the IRG wave, indicating that other mechanisms (e.g. ruminant physiology) or measurement error inherent with satellite data affect selection for IRG. Our evaluation indicates that IRG is a useful tool for linking herbivore movement with plant phenology, paving the way for significant advancements in understanding how animals track resource quality that varies both spatially and temporally.

Large herbivores surf waves of green-up during spring.

PubMed

Merkle, Jerod A; Monteith, Kevin L; Aikens, Ellen O; Hayes, Matthew M; Hersey, Kent R; Middleton, Arthur D; Oates, Brendan A; Sawyer, Hall; Scurlock, Brandon M; Kauffman, Matthew J

2016-06-29

The green wave hypothesis (GWH) states that migrating animals should track or 'surf' high-quality forage at the leading edge of spring green-up. To index such high-quality forage, recent work proposed the instantaneous rate of green-up (IRG), i.e. rate of change in the normalized difference vegetation index over time. Despite this important advancement, no study has tested the assumption that herbivores select habitat patches at peak IRG. We evaluated this assumption using step selection functions parametrized with movement data during the green-up period from two populations each of bighorn sheep, mule deer, elk, moose and bison, totalling 463 individuals monitored 1-3 years from 2004 to 2014. Accounting for variables that typically influence habitat selection for each species, we found seven of 10 populations selected patches exhibiting high IRG-supporting the GWH. Nonetheless, large herbivores selected for the leading edge, trailing edge and crest of the IRG wave, indicating that other mechanisms (e.g. ruminant physiology) or measurement error inherent with satellite data affect selection for IRG. Our evaluation indicates that IRG is a useful tool for linking herbivore movement with plant phenology, paving the way for significant advancements in understanding how animals track resource quality that varies both spatially and temporally. © 2016 The Author(s).

Quality of life after antegrade intramedullary nail fixation of humeral fractures: a survey in a selected cohort of Brazilian patients.

PubMed

Cocco, Luiz Fernando; Ejnisman, Benno; Belangero, Paulo Santoro; Cohen, Moises; Dos Reis, Fernando Baldy

2018-01-01

The treatment of humeral fractures remains controversial. Systematic reviews demonstrate similar results between dynamic compression plating and locked intramedullary nailing in the surgical treatment of these fractures. However, it appears that antegrade intramedullary nailing causes higher residual pain in the shoulder. The proposal of this work is to evaluate through the WORC protocol (Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index) the consequences in the quality of life of patients submitted to osteosynthesis of the humerus with antegrade locked intramedullary nailing. This work is a cohort retrospective study in addition to the application of a questionnaire for self-rated quality of life with its 05 domains (WORC - Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index) for patients ( N  = 26) classified in the Trauma Sector of the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology of the Federal University of São Paulo (DOT/UNIFESP) submitted to Humerus Osteosynthesis with Antegrade Locked Intramedullary Nailing. There was also the inclusion of data related to the time since surgery, age, sex, surgical laterality, dominance among members and work leave, which were not considered in the original protocol. After, the data were statistically assessed to evaluate the association between numerical and categorical variables. The overall WORC score was 82.75 ± 17.00 (Mean ± SD) and was not different considering sex, age and postoperative period. Among the WORC domains, both Work and Sport / Recreation Protocols were the most unfavorable factors in the evaluation of patients. Although not statistically significant, those who had the procedure on the dominant side presented a lower quality of life score than those who had the surgery on the non-dominant side. Although non-significant again, those who were away from work had an overall lower quality of life score than those who were not. The WORC Quality of Life Protocol shows good results for evaluating patients submitted to humerus osteosynthesis with antegrade locked intramedullary nailing. The data stratified by domains were good, however, Work and Sport/Recreation domains showed the lowest means compared to the other domains. Research Ethics Commitee (CEP 0676/2016) and Plataforma Brasil 56381216.3.0000.550. CAAE: 56381216.3.0000.5505.

Quality index of radiological devices: results of one year of use.

PubMed

Tofani, Alessandro; Imbordino, Patrizia; Lecci, Antonio; Bonannini, Claudia; Del Corona, Alberto; Pizzi, Stefano

2003-01-01

The physical quality index (QI) of radiological devices summarises in a single numerical value between 0 and 1 the results of constancy tests. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the results of the use of such an index on all public radiological devices in the Livorno province over one year. The quality index was calculated for 82 radiological devices of a wide range of types by implementing its algorithm in a spreadsheet-based software for the automatic handling of quality control data. The distribution of quality index values was computed together with the associated statistical quantities. This distribution is strongly asymmetrical, with a sharp peak near the highest QI values. The mean quality index values for the different types of device show some inhomogeneity: in particular, mammography and panoramic dental radiography devices show far lower quality than other devices. In addition, our analysis has identified the parameters that most frequently do not pass the quality tests for each type of device. Finally, we sought some correlation between quality and age of the device, but this was poorly significant. The quality index proved to be a useful tool providing an overview of the physical conditions of radiological devices. By selecting adequate QI threshold values for, it also helps to decide whether a given device should be upgraded or replaced. The identification of critical parameters for each type of device may be used to improve the definition of the QI by attributing greater weights to critical parameters, so as to better address the maintenance of radiological devices.

The influence of body fat distribution patterns and body mass index on MENQOL in women living in an urban area.

PubMed

Kutheerawong, L; Vichinsartvichai, P

2016-01-01

To investigate the influence of patterns of body fat distribution and body mass index (BMI) on menopause-specific quality of life in peri- and postmenopausal women living in an urban area. A total of 214 peri- and postmenopausal women, mean age 55 years, with intact uterus and no history of hormonal treatment were recruited. Anthropometric measurements were conducted as standard techniques. The Menopause-specific Quality of Life (MENQOL) questionnaire was used to evaluate menopause-specific quality of life. The Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to compare MENQOL between body fat patterns or BMI. According to the body fat distribution patterns, 53.3% were women of the android type and 46.7% were of the gynoid type. The android body pattern was associated with worsening of vasomotor and psychosocial domains (p < 0.05). However, overweight and obese women had slightly better scores in the sexual domain of the MENQOL. Peri- and postmenopausal women with the android body pattern have lower quality of life in the vasomotor and psychosocial domains while women with normal BMI have the slightly lower quality of life in the sexual domain. The maintenance of premenopausal body proportion might mitigate the menopause-specific quality of life.

Improving cancer patient care: development of a generic cancer consumer quality index questionnaire for cancer patients

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background To develop a Consumer Quality Index (CQI) Cancer Care questionnaire for measuring experiences with hospital care of patients with different types of cancer. Methods We derived quality aspects from focus group discussions, existing questionnaires and literature. We developed an experience questionnaire and sent it to 1,498 Dutch cancer patients. Another questionnaire measuring the importance of the quality aspects was sent to 600 cancer patients. Data were psychometrically analysed. Results The response to the experience questionnaire was 50 percent. Psychometric analysis revealed 12 reliable scales. Patients rated rapid and adequate referral, rapid start of the treatment after diagnosis, enough information and confidence in the healthcare professionals as most important themes. Hospitals received high scores for skills and cooperation of healthcare professionals and a patient-centered approach by doctors; and low scores for psychosocial guidance and information at completion of the treatment. Conclusions The CQI Cancer Care questionnaire is a valuable tool for the evaluation of the quality of cancer care from the patient’s perspective. Large scale implementation is necessary to determine the discriminatory powers of the questionnaire and may enable healthcare providers to improve the quality of cancer care. Preliminary results indicate that hospitals could improve their psychosocial guidance and information provision. PMID:23617741

Poor Sleep Quality is Independently Associated with Physical Disability in Older Adults

PubMed Central

Chien, Meng-Yueh; Chen, Hsi-Chung

2015-01-01

Study Objective: We aimed to evaluate the association between sleep quality and physical disability in community-dwelling older adults. Methods: There were 213 community-dwelling adults (76 men and 137 women) aged 65 years and above participated into this investigation. The Groningen Activity Restriction Scale and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were utilized to evaluate physical disability and subjective sleep quality, respectively. Global functional capacity was measured by the 6-minute walk test (6MWT). The Mini Mental State Examination and the Chinese Geriatric Depression Screening Scale were used to evaluate cognitive function and depression. Results: Univariate analysis revealed a correlation between physical disability and poor sleep quality, older age, 2 or more comorbidities, depression, functional capacity, and poor cognitive function. However, in the multivariate analyses, depression failed to show significant association with physical disability. In contrast, an independent association was observed between poor sleep quality and physical disability (OR = 2.03; 95% CI: 1.02–4.05). Conclusions: In community-dwelling older adults, subjective poor sleep was significantly associated with physical disability, even after controlling for the effects of other established risk factors. Citation: Chien MY, Chen HC. Poor sleep quality is independently associated with physical disability in older adults. J Clin Sleep Med 2015;11(3):225–232. PMID:25515275

Evaluation of the Treatment of Congenital Penile Curvature Including Psychosexual Assessment.

PubMed

Zachalski, Wojciech; Krajka, Kazimierz; Matuszewski, Marcin

2015-08-01

Penile corporoplasty is a well-established treatment method of congenital penile deviation (CPD). Anatomical results are good with only slight differences between surgical procedures used. The disease however has huge influence on young male quality of life. This issue is not well analyzed in the literature. The aim of the study was to evaluate quality of life of the patients affected with CPD before and after the surgical treatment Study population consisted of 107 patients with CPD referred for surgical management. Patients were evaluated with not only clinical assessment, but also by four questionnaires measuring various aspects of quality of life. They were: Short-Form Medical Outcomes, Sexual Quality of Life Questionnaire for Man, Beck Depression Inventory, and International Index of Erectile Function. Quality of life measurements showed deep decrease in the general quality of life, sexual performance, depression scale, as well as in physical and mental health in men with CPD. All these parameters were restored to normal after the successful surgical treatment with any method. CPD deeply decreases the quality of life of the affected men in many aspects. Surgical treatment is able to repair the anatomical deformity and as well as significantly restore the patients' psychosocial well-being. © 2015 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Item validity vs. item discrimination index: a redundancy?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panjaitan, R. L.; Irawati, R.; Sujana, A.; Hanifah, N.; Djuanda, D.

2018-03-01

In several literatures about evaluation and test analysis, it is common to find that there are calculations of item validity as well as item discrimination index (D) with different formula for each. Meanwhile, other resources said that item discrimination index could be obtained by calculating the correlation between the testee’s score in a particular item and the testee’s score on the overall test, which is actually the same concept as item validity. Some research reports, especially undergraduate theses tend to include both item validity and item discrimination index in the instrument analysis. It seems that these concepts might overlap for both reflect the test quality on measuring the examinees’ ability. In this paper, examples of some results of data processing on item validity and item discrimination index were compared. It would be discussed whether item validity and item discrimination index can be represented by one of them only or it should be better to present both calculations for simple test analysis, especially in undergraduate theses where test analyses were included.

COPD assessment test (CAT): simple tool for evaluating quality of life of chemical warfare patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

PubMed

Lari, Shahrzad M; Ghobadi, Hassan; Attaran, Davood; Mahmoodpour, Afsoun; Shadkam, Omid; Rostami, Maryam

2014-01-01

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the serious late pulmonary complications caused by sulphur mustard exposure. Health status evaluations of chemical warfare patients with COPD are important to the management of these patients. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of the COPD assessment test (CAT) in evaluating the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of chemical warfare patients with COPD. Eighty-two consecutive patients with stable COPD were enrolled in this study. All subjects were visited by one physician, and the HRQOL was evaluated by the CAT and St. George Respiratory Questionnaires (SGRQs). In addition, a standard spirometry test, 6-min walk distance test and pulse oxymetry were conducted. The severity of the COPD was determined using Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) staging and the body mass index, obstruction, dyspnoea and exercise (BODE) index. The mean age of the patients was 47.30 ± 7.08 years. The mean CAT score was 26.03 ± 8.28. Thirty-five (43%) patients were in CAT stage 3. There were statistically significant correlations between the CAT and the SGRQ (r = 0.70, P = 0.001) and the BODE index (r = 0.70, P = 0.001). A statistically significant inverse correlation was found between the CAT score and the forced expiratory volume in 1 s (r = -0.30, P = 0.03). Our results demonstrated that the CAT is a simple and valid tool for assessment of HRQOL in chemical warfare patients with COPD and can be used in clinical practice. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Interaction of sleep quality and sleep duration on impaired fasting glucose: a population-based cross-sectional survey in China.

PubMed

Lou, Peian; Chen, Peipei; Zhang, Lei; Zhang, Pan; Chang, Guiqiu; Zhang, Ning; Li, Ting; Qiao, Cheng

2014-03-13

To explore the interactions of sleep quality and sleep duration and their effects on impaired fasting glucose (IFG) in Chinese adults. Cross-sectional survey. Community-based investigation in Xuzhou, China. 15 145 Chinese men and women aged 18-75 years old who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used to produce sleep quality categories of good, common and poor. Fasting blood glucose levels were assessed for IFG. Sleep duration was measured by average hours of sleep per night, with categories of <6, 6-8 and >8 h. The products of sleep and family history of diabetes, obesity and age were added to the logistic regression model to evaluate the addictive interaction and relative excess risk of interaction (RERI) on IFG. The attributable proportion (AP) of the interaction and the synergy index (S) were applied to evaluate the additive interaction of two factors. Bootstrap measures were used to calculate 95% CI of RERI, AP and S. The prevalence of IFG was greatest in those with poor sleep quality and short sleep duration (OR 6.37, 95% CI 4.66 to 8.67; p<0.001) compared with those who had good sleep quality and 6-8 h sleep duration, after adjusting for confounders. After adjusting for potential confounders RERI, AP and S values (and their 95% CI) were 1.69 (0.31 to 3.76), 0.42 (0.15 to 0.61) and 2.85 (2.14 to 3.92), respectively, for the interaction between poor sleep quality and short sleep duration, and 0.78 (0.12 to 1.43), 0.61 (0.26 to 0.87) and -65 (-0.94 to -0.27) for the interaction between good sleep quality and long sleep duration. The results suggest that there are additive interactions between poor sleep quality and short sleep duration.

Evaluation of sleep quality in subjects with chronic nononcologic pain.

PubMed

Covarrubias-Gomez, Alfredo; Mendoza-Reyes, Jonathan J

2013-08-01

A survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that 20% of Americans have sleep disorders and 45% experience chronic pain. Several authors evaluated the interrelationship between these functions using various instruments such the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and identified that 34% of subjects in the general population have a poor quality of sleep, but there are few studies that assess the quality of sleep in patients with chronic pain of nonmalignant origin. We undertook this study to evaluate the quality of sleep using the PSQI in patients with chronic pain unrelated to cancer. We conducted a clinical, nonrandomized, uncontrolled, descriptive, and prospective study, applying the PSQI through a direct one-time interview to 311 subjects with chronic pain unrelated to cancer. According to the categorization of the PSQI between good and poor sleepers, 89% of the subjects were poor sleepers (n = 276). There are significant differences in pain intensity according to the categorization of the PSQI, with a higher intensity shown in the "poor sleepers" (analysis of variance [ANOVA], P = .030). Using a linear regression model to estimate the curve, a higher score is rated on the PSQI global score (ANOVA, P = .000, R(2) = .46) with the increase of the intensity of the pain. We conclude that "poor sleepers" or those who considered their sleep as "poor quality" have significantly higher pain intensity. This suggests that intensity of pain plays a role in evaluating the quality of sleep in the subjective perception of sleep and instruments that assess quality.

Impact of active and stable psoriasis on health-related quality of life: the PSO-LIFE study.

PubMed

Daudén, E; Herrera, E; Puig, L; Sánchez-Carazo, J L; Toribio, J; Perulero, N

2013-10-01

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of psoriasis on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) using different questionnaires. Prospective observational study of patients with plaque psoriasis of at least 6 months' duration stratified by active and stable disease. The patients were evaluated at baseline, 7 days, and 12 weeks. At the 3 visits, the investigators recorded sociodemographic and clinical data and the patients completed the following HRQOL questionnaires: the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), the Psoriasis Disability Index (PDI), and psoriasis quality of life questionnaire (PSO-LIFE). In total, 304 patients (182 with active psoriasis and 122 with stable psoriasis) were evaluated. The mean (SD) age was 45.3 (14.5) years, and 56.3% of the group were men. At baseline, the mean (SD) psoriasis and area severity index (PASI) score was 17.0 (7.4) in patients with active disease and 5.6 (5.3) in those with stable disease; a reduction was seen in PASI scores during the evaluation period (P<.01). The mean (SD) score on the PSO-LIFE questionnaire increased significantly from 57.4 (20.4) to 72.2 (19.6) in patients with active psoriasis and from 76.4 (20.6) to 82.3 (18.3) in those with stable disease (P<0.01 in both groups). The difference in standardized mean scores between the 2 groups was 0.79 for the DLQI, 0.62 for the PDI, and 0.85 for the PSO-LIFE questionnaire. The impact of psoriasis on HRQOL as assessed by the PSO-LIFE questionnaire was greater in patients with lesions in visible areas than in those with less visible lesions (P<.01). Changes in PSO-LIFE and PASI scores were moderately and significantly correlated (r=-0.4). The impact of psoriasis on HRQOL is higher in patients with active disease. The PSO-LIFE questionnaire showed a greater tendency to discriminate between active and stable psoriasis than either the DLQI or the PDI. PSO-LIFE scores correlated significantly with lesion site and disease severity as measured by PASI. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier España, S.L. and AEDV. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of neural network modeing to calculate well-watered leaf temperature of wine grape

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Mild to moderate water stress is desirable in wine grape for controlling vine vigor and optimizing fruit yield and quality, but precision irrigation management is hindered by the lack of a reliable method to easily quantify and monitor vine water status. The crop water stress index (CWSI) that effec...

The Development, Testing, and Evaluation of an Emotional Intelligence Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fischer, Ronald G.; Fischer, Jerome M.

2003-01-01

Adult students using an emotional intelligence (EI) curriculum (n=13) and 15 controls in a composition class completed the Emotional Intelligence Test and Emotional Content Quality Index. Significant pre- to posttest changes in the EI group suggest the curriculum positively increased their ability to identify, reflect on, process, and manage…

Grantee Satisfaction Survey. Final Report, August 2008

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

US Department of Education, 2008

2008-01-01

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is the national indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of goods and services available to U.S. residents. Since 1994, it has served as a uniform, cross-industry/government measure of customer satisfaction. A total of 10 groups, composed of eight program offices, EDFacts Coordinators, and…

Application and Evaluation of MODIS LAI, fPAR, and Albedo Products in the WRFCMAQ System

EPA Science Inventory

Leaf area index (LAI), vegetation fraction (VF), and surface albedo are important parameters in the land surface model (LSM) for meteorology and air quality modeling systems such as WRF/CMAQ. LAI and VF control not only leaf to canopy level evapotranspiration flux scaling but al...

Assessment of voice, speech, and related quality of life in advanced head and neck cancer patients 10-years+ after chemoradiotherapy.

PubMed

Kraaijenga, S A C; Oskam, I M; van Son, R J J H; Hamming-Vrieze, O; Hilgers, F J M; van den Brekel, M W M; van der Molen, L

2016-04-01

Assessment of long-term objective and subjective voice, speech, articulation, and quality of life in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for advanced, stage IV disease. Twenty-two disease-free survivors, treated with cisplatin-based CRT for inoperable HNC (1999-2004), were evaluated at 10-years post-treatment. A standard Dutch text was recorded. Perceptual analysis of voice, speech, and articulation was conducted by two expert listeners (SLPs). Also an experimental expert system based on automatic speech recognition was used. Patients' perception of voice and speech and related quality of life was assessed with the Voice Handicap Index (VHI) and Speech Handicap Index (SHI) questionnaires. At a median follow-up of 11-years, perceptual evaluation showed abnormal scores in up to 64% of cases, depending on the outcome parameter analyzed. Automatic assessment of voice and speech parameters correlated moderate to strong with perceptual outcome scores. Patient-reported problems with voice (VHI>15) and speech (SHI>6) in daily life were present in 68% and 77% of patients, respectively. Patients treated with IMRT showed significantly less impairment compared to those treated with conventional radiotherapy. More than 10-years after organ-preservation treatment, voice and speech problems are common in this patient cohort, as assessed with perceptual evaluation, automatic speech recognition, and with validated structured questionnaires. There were fewer complaints in patients treated with IMRT than with conventional radiotherapy. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Grey Relational Analysis Coupled with Principal Component Analysis for Optimization of Stereolithography Process to Enhance Part Quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raju, B. S.; Sekhar, U. Chandra; Drakshayani, D. N.

2017-08-01

The paper investigates optimization of stereolithography process for SL5530 epoxy resin material to enhance part quality. The major characteristics indexed for performance selected to evaluate the processes are tensile strength, Flexural strength, Impact strength and Density analysis and corresponding process parameters are Layer thickness, Orientation and Hatch spacing. In this study, the process is intrinsically with multiple parameters tuning so that grey relational analysis which uses grey relational grade as performance index is specially adopted to determine the optimal combination of process parameters. Moreover, the principal component analysis is applied to evaluate the weighting values corresponding to various performance characteristics so that their relative importance can be properly and objectively desired. The results of confirmation experiments reveal that grey relational analysis coupled with principal component analysis can effectively acquire the optimal combination of process parameters. Hence, this confirm that the proposed approach in this study can be an useful tool to improve the process parameters in stereolithography process, which is very useful information for machine designers as well as RP machine users.

Clinical observation of patients with Fabry disease after switching from agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme) to agalsidase alfa (Replagal)

PubMed Central

Tsuboi, Kazuya; Yamamoto, Hiroshi

2012-01-01

Purpose: Fabry disease is a rare, X-linked, inherited lysosomal storage disorder that can be treated with the enzymes agalsidase alfa (Replagal) and agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme). Currently, there is a global shortage of agalsidase beta, and this has increased global demand for agalsidase alfa. We assess the feasibility of switching patients on agalsidase beta treatment to agalsidase alfa instead. Methods: This analysis is part of an ongoing observational study involving 11 patients with Fabry disease in whom the treatment was switched from agalsidase beta (1 mg/kg every other week) to agalsidase alfa (0.2 mg/kg every other week). Data were collected for a minimum of 36 months: 24 months before and 12 months after the switch. Serial data were evaluated with respect to renal function, cardiac mass, pain, quality of life, and tolerability/safety. Results: Indexes of renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate) and cardiac mass (left-ventricular mass index), pain (Brief Pain Inventory), and quality of life (EuroQoL-Dimensions) clearly showed that, in patients switched to agalsidase alfa, Fabry disease stabilized during the 12 months of follow-up. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of this preliminary observational study, it was found that all the patients maintained disease stability when treated with agalsidase alfa, as evidenced by estimated glomerular filtration rate, left-ventricular mass index, pain scores, and quality-of-life indexes, throughout 12 months of follow-up. PMID:22498845

Assessment and modeling of groundwater quality using WQI and GIS in Upper Egypt area.

PubMed

Rabeiy, Ragab ElSayed

2017-04-04

The continuous growth and development of population need more fresh water for drinking, irrigation, and domestic in arid countries like Egypt. Evaluation the quality of groundwater is an essential study to ensure its suitability for different purposes. In this study, 812 groundwater samples were taken within the middle area of Upper Egypt (Sohag Governorate) to assess the quality of groundwater for drinking and irrigation purposes. Eleven water parameters were analyzed at each groundwater sample (Na + , K + , Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ , HCO 3 - SO 4 2- , Fe 2+ , Mn 2+ , Cl - , electrical conductivity, and pH) to exploit them in water quality evaluation. A classical statistics were applied for the raw data to examine the distribution of physicochemical parameters in the investigated area. The relationship between groundwater parameters was tested using the correlation coefficient where a strong relationship was found between several water parameters such as Ca 2+ and Cl - . Water quality index (WQI) is a mathematical model used to transform many water parameters into a single indicator value which represents the water quality level. Results of WQI showed that 20% of groundwater samples are excellent, 75% are good for drinking, and 7% are very poor water while only 1% of samples are unsuitable for drinking. To test the suitability of groundwater for irrigation, three indices are used; they are sodium adsorption ration (SAR), sodium percentage (Na%), and permeability index (PI). For irrigation suitability, the study proved that most sampling sites are suitable while less than 3% are unsuitable for irrigation. The spatial distribution of the estimated values of WQI, SAR, Na%, PI, and each groundwater parameter was spatially modeled using GIS.

Ozone - Current Air Quality Index

MedlinePlus

GO! Local Air Quality Conditions Zip Code: State : My Current Location Current AQI Forecast AQI Loop More Maps AQI: Good (0 - 50) ... resources for Hawaii residents and visitors more announcements Air Quality Basics Air Quality Index | Ozone | Particle Pollution | Smoke ...

Development of invertebrate community indexes of stream quality for the islands of Maui and Oahu, Hawaii

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wolff, Reuben H.

2012-01-01

In 2009-10 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected physical habitat information and benthic macroinvertebrates at 40 wadeable sites on 25 perennial streams on the Island of Maui, Hawaiʻi, to evaluate the relations between the macroinvertebrate assemblages and environmental characteristics and to develop a multimetric invertebrate community index (ICI) that could be used as an indicator of stream quality. The macroinvertebrate community data were used to identify metrics that could best differentiate among sites according to disturbance gradients such as embeddedness, percent fines (silt and sand areal coverage), or percent agricultural land in the contributing basin area. Environmental assessments were conducted using land-use/land-cover data and reach-level physical habitat data. The Maui data were first evaluated using the previously developed Preliminary-Hawaiian Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (P-HBIBI) to determine if existing metrics would successfully differentiate stream quality among the sites. Secondly, a number of candidate invertebrate metrics were screened and tested and the individual metrics that proved the best at discerning among the sites along one or more disturbance gradients were combined into a multimetric invertebrate community index (ICI) of stream quality. These metrics were: total invertebrate abundance, Class Insecta relative abundance, the ratio of Trichoptera abundance to nonnative Diptera abundance, native snail (hihiwai) presence or absence, native mountain shrimp (′δpae) presence or absence, native torrent midge (Telmatogeton spp.) presence or absence, and native Megalagrion damselfly presence or absence. The Maui ICI classified 15 of the 40 sites (37.5 percent) as having "good" quality communities, 17 of the sites (42.5 percent) as having "fair" quality communities, and 8 sites (20 percent) as having "poor" quality communities, a classification that may be used to initiate further investigation into the causes of the poor rating. Additionally, quantitative macroinvertebrate samples collected from 31 randomly selected sites on Oʻahu in 2006-07 as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Wadeable Stream Assessment (WSA) were used to refine and develop an ICI of stream quality for Oʻahu. The set of metrics that were included in the revised index were: total invertebrate abundance, Class Insecta relative abundance, the ratio of Trichoptera abundance to nonnative Diptera abundance, turbellarian relative abundance, amphipod relative abundance, nonnative mollusk abundance, and nonnative crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) and/or red cherry shrimp (Neocaridina denticulata sinensis) presence or absence. The Oʻahu ICI classified 10 of the 31 sites (32.3 percent) as "good" quality communities, 16 of the sites (51.6 percent) as "fair" quality communities, and 5 of the sites (16.1 percent) as "poor" quality communities. A reanalysis of 18 of the Oʻahu macroinvertebrate sites used to develop the P-HBIBI resulted in the reclassification of 3 samples. The beginning of a statewide ICI was developed on the basis of a combination of metrics from the Maui and Oʻahu ICIs. This combined ICI is intended to help identify broad problem areas so that the Hawaii State Department of Health (HIDOH) can prioritize their efforts on a statewide scale. Once these problem areas are identified, the island-wide ICIs can be used to more accurately assess the quality of individual stream reaches so that the HIDOH can prioritize their efforts on the most impaired streams. By using the combined ICI, 70 percent of the Maui sites and 10 percent of the Oʻahu WSA sites were designated as "good" quality sites; 25 percent of the Maui sites and 45 percent of the Oʻahu WSA sites were designated as "fair" quality sites; and 5 percent of the Maui sites and 45 percent of the Oʻahu WSA sites were designated as "poor" quality sites.

Multiple approaches to fine-grained indexing of the biomedical literature.

PubMed

Neveol, Aurelie; Shooshan, Sonya E; Humphrey, Susanne M; Rindflesh, Thomas C; Aronson, Alan R

2007-01-01

The number of articles in the MEDLINE database is expected to increase tremendously in the coming years. To ensure that all these documents are indexed with continuing high quality, it is necessary to develop tools and methods that help the indexers in their daily task. We present three methods addressing a novel aspect of automatic indexing of the biomedical literature, namely producing MeSH main heading/subheading pair recommendations. The methods, (dictionary-based, post- processing rules and Natural Language Processing rules) are described and evaluated on a genetics-related corpus. The best overall performance is obtained for the subheading genetics (70% precision and 17% recall with post-processing rules, 48% precision and 37% recall with the dictionary-based method). Future work will address extending this work to all MeSH subheadings and a more thorough study of method combination.

Development of a diet quality index assessing adherence to the Swedish nutrition recommendations and dietary guidelines in the Malmö Diet and Cancer cohort.

PubMed

Drake, Isabel; Gullberg, Bo; Ericson, Ulrika; Sonestedt, Emily; Nilsson, Jan; Wallström, Peter; Hedblad, Bo; Wirfält, Elisabet

2011-05-01

To develop a diet quality index (DQI) that assesses adherence to the Swedish nutrition recommendations (SNR) and the Swedish dietary guidelines (SDG). A cross-sectional study within the Malmö Diet and Cancer (MDC) cohort. A diet history method collected dietary data, a structured questionnaire lifestyle and socio-economic information, and anthropometric data were collected by direct measurements. The index (DQI-SNR) included six components: SFA, PUFA, fish and shellfish, dietary fibre, fruit and vegetables, and sucrose. Malmö, Sweden. Men (n 4525) and women (n 8491) of the MDC cohort enrolled from September 1994 to October 1996. For participants with high DQI-SNR scores, nutrient and food intakes were close to recommendations. However, most of the study population exceeded the recommended intake for SFA (98%) and few reached recommended intakes for dietary fibre (24%), fruit and vegetables (32%), vitamin D (18%) and folate (2%). A high DQI-SNR score was positively associated with age, physical activity, not smoking, past food habit change, education and socio-economic status. Individuals with high scores were more likely to have a diabetes diagnosis or experienced a cardiovascular event. Results suggest that the DQI-SNR is a useful tool for assessing adherence to the SNR 2005 and the SDG in the MDC cohort. No index has previously been developed with the aim of evaluating adherence to the current dietary recommendations in Sweden. Further validation of the DQI-SNR, and evaluation of its utility, is needed.

Design and Psychometric Evaluation of the Quality of Life in Patients With Anal Fistula Questionnaire.

PubMed

Ferrer-Márquez, Manuel; Espínola-Cortés, Natalia; Reina-Duarte, Angel; Granero-Molina, José; Fernández-Sola, Cayetano; Hernández-Padilla, José Manuel

2017-10-01

Quality of life is often considered when deciding and evaluating the treatment strategy for patients diagnosed with anal fistula. The purpose of this study was to develop and psychometrically test the Quality of Life in Patients with Anal Fistula Questionnaire. This was an observational cross-sectional study for the development and validation of a psychometric tool. The study was conducted at a general hospital in the southeast of Spain. A convenience sample included 54 patients diagnosed with anal fistula. The reliability of the tool was assessed through its internal consistency (Cronbach α) and temporal stability (Spearman correlation coefficient (r) between test-retest). The content validity index of the items and the scale was calculated. Correlation analysis and an ordinal regression analysis between the developed tool and the Short Form 12 Health Survey examined its concurrent validity. Principal component analysis and known-group analysis using the Kruskal-Wallis test examined its construct validity. The reliability of the developed questionnaire was very high (α = 0.908; r = 0.861; p < 0.01). Its content validity was excellent (all-item content validity index = 0.79-1.00; scale validity index = 0.92). Evidence of its concurrent validity included strong correlation between the developed tool and Short Form 12 Health Survey (r = 0.734; p < 0.001), and participant scores on the developed tool explained ≈46.2% of the between-subject variation for the participant scores on Short Form 12 Health Survey (Nagelkerke R = 0.462). Confirming its construct validity, principal component analysis revealed that 2 factors explained 81.63% of the total variance found. Known-group analysis evidenced the ability of the questionnaire to detect expected differences in patients presenting with different symptomatology. The major limitations of this study were the use of a small sample of Spanish-speaking patients, not including patients in the initial development of the questionnaire, and developing the scoring system using a summation method. The Quality of Life in Patients with Anal Fistula Questionnaire has proven to be a valid, reliable, and concise tool that could contribute to the evaluation of quality of life among patients with an anal fistula. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A368.

An evaluation of information retrieval accuracy with simulated OCR output

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Croft, W.B.; Harding, S.M.; Taghva, K.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a critical part of many text-based applications. Although some commercial systems use the output from OCR devices to index documents without editing, there is very little quantitative data on the impact of OCR errors on the accuracy of a text retrieval system. Because of the difficulty of constructing test collections to obtain this data, we have carried out evaluation using simulated OCR output on a variety of databases. The results show that high quality OCR devices have little effect on the accuracy of retrieval, but low quality devices used with databases of short documents canmore » result in significant degradation.« less

Utility of color Doppler indices of dominant follicular blood flow for prediction of clinical factors in in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer cycles.

PubMed

Ozaki, T; Hata, K; Xie, H; Takahashi, K; Miyazaki, K

2002-12-01

To investigate the relationship between color Doppler indices of dominant follicular blood flow and clinical factors in in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer cycles. This was a prospective study involving 26 patients completing a total of 33 in vitro fertilization cycles. Dominant follicular blood flow indices, peak systolic velocities, the resistance index and the pulsatility index were evaluated using transvaginal color Doppler. The indices were compared to the clinical outcomes of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer. There was a significant correlation between dominant follicular peak systolic velocities and the number of oocytes retrieved, as well as the number of mature oocytes obtained. There was no significant correlation between dominant follicular resistance index or pulsatility index and the number of follicles > 10 mm in diameter, the number of oocytes retrieved or the number of mature oocytes. There were no significant differences between dominant follicular peak systolic velocities, resistance index or pulsatility index, and fertilization rate or the ratio of good quality embryos. However, significant differences were found between the number of oocytes retrieved, as well as the number of mature oocytes for those patients in which the peak systolic velocity was below 25 cm/s. Doppler assessment of dominant follicle blood flow alone is useful for predicting the number of retrievable oocytes. However, morphological quality of the embryo produced or the pregnancy rate cannot be predicted by this method.

Soil quality index for evaluation of reclaimed coal mine spoil.

PubMed

Mukhopadhyay, S; Masto, R E; Yadav, A; George, J; Ram, L C; Shukla, S P

2016-01-15

Success in the remediation of mine spoil depends largely on the selection of appropriate tree species. The impacts of remediation on mine soil quality cannot be sufficiently assessed by individual soil properties. However, combination of soil properties into an integrated soil quality index provides a more holistic status of reclamation potentials of tree species. Remediation potentials of four tree species (Acacia auriculiformis, Cassia siamea, Dalbergia sissoo, and Leucaena leucocephala) were studied on reclaimed coal mine overburden dumps of Jharia coalfield, Dhanbad, India. Soil samples were collected under the canopies of the tree species. Comparative studies on the properties of soils in the reclaimed and the reference sites showed improvements in soil quality parameters of the reclaimed site: coarse fraction (-20.4%), bulk density (-12.8%), water holding capacity (+0.92%), pH (+25.4%), EC (+2.9%), cation exchange capacity (+46.6%), organic carbon (+91.5%), N (+60.6%), P (+113%), K (+19.9%), Ca (+49.6%), Mg (+12.2%), Na (+19.6%), S (+46.7%), total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (-71.4%), dehydrogenase activity (+197%), and microbial biomass carbon (+115%). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify key mine soil quality indicators to develop a soil quality index (SQI). Selected indicators include: coarse fraction, pH, EC, soil organic carbon, P, Ca, S, and dehydrogenase activity. The indicator values were converted into a unitless score (0-1.00) and integrated into SQI. The calculated SQI was significantly (P<0.001) correlated with tree biomass and canopy cover. Reclaimed site has 52-93% higher SQI compared to the reference site. Higher SQI values were obtained for sites reclaimed with D.sissoo (+93.1%) and C.siamea (+86.4%). Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Comparison of skin hydration evaluation sites and correlations among skin hydration, transepidermal water loss, SCORAD index, Nottingham Eczema Severity Score, and quality of life in patients with atopic dermatitis.

PubMed

Hon, Kam-lun Ellis; Wong, Kin Yee; Leung, Ting-Fan; Chow, Chung-Mo; Ng, Pak-Cheung

2008-01-01

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is characterized by dryness of the skin, pruritus and involvement of the skin flexures. Skin hydration (SH) and integrity, as measured by transepidermal water loss (TEWL), are important parameters for objectively quantifying AD research. To evaluate if sites in the forearm are equivalent to the antecubital fossa for standard SH and TEWL measurements; and to determine the correlations among these measurements and scores of disease severity and quality of life. We evaluated SH and TEWL under standardized conditions at three common measurement sites in the forearm (antecubital flexure, 2 cm below the antecubital flexure, mid-forearm), and determined the SCORing Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) score, Nottingham Eczema Severity Score (NESS), and Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI). Significant correlations between clinical scores, SH, and TEWL were obtained at a site 2 cm below the antecubital fossa (r = -0.553, p < 0.001 for SH and SCORAD; r = 0.596, p < 0.001 for TEWL and SCORAD). SH and TEWL were also correlated with long-term severity of AD as measured by NESS (r = -0.494, p = 0.001 for SH; r = 0.430, p = 0.004 for TEWL), while TEWL was significantly correlated with CDLQI (r = 0.323, p = 0.035). Overall, similar significant correlations were obtained at the mid-forearm, but less so at the antecubital fossa. In AD research, three sites on the forearm appear to be convenient for determination of SH and TEWL. This is the first report to demonstrate that significant correlations are obtained among acute and chronic scores of AD disease severity, quality of life, and the bioengineering parameters.

MTF evaluation of in-line phase contrast imaging system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Xiaoran; Gao, Feng; Zhao, Huijuan; Zhang, Limin; Li, Jiao; Zhou, Zhongxing

2017-02-01

X-ray phase contrast imaging (XPCI) is a novel method that exploits the phase shift for the incident X-ray to form an image. Various XPCI methods have been proposed, among which, in-line phase contrast imaging (IL-PCI) is regarded as one of the most promising clinical methods. The contrast of the interface is enhanced due to the introduction of the boundary fringes in XPCI, thus it is generally used to evaluate the image quality of XPCI. But the contrast is a comprehensive index and it does not reflect the information of image quality in the frequency range. The modulation transfer function (MTF), which is the Fourier transform of the system point spread function, is recognized as the metric to characterize the spatial response of conventional X-ray imaging system. In this work, MTF is introduced into the image quality evaluation of the IL-PCI system. Numerous simulations based on Fresnel - Kirchhoff diffraction theory are performed with varying system settings and the corresponding MTFs were calculated for comparison. The results show that MTF can provide more comprehensive information of image quality comparing to contrast in IL-PCI.

Contribution of Beverage Selection to the Dietary Quality of the Packed Lunches Eaten by Preschool-Aged Children.

PubMed

Romo-Palafox, Maria Jose; Ranjit, Nalini; Sweitzer, Sara J; Roberts-Gray, Cindy; Byrd-Williams, Courtney E; Briley, Margaret E; Hoelscher, Deanna M

2018-02-16

Sweet drinks early in life could predispose to lifelong consumption, and the beverage industry does not clearly define fruit drinks as part of the sweet drink category. To ascertain the relationship between beverage selection and dietary quality of the lunches packed for preschool-aged children evaluated using the Healthy Eating Index-2010. Foods packed by parents (n=607) were observed at 30 early care and education centers on two nonconsecutive days. Three-level regression models were used to examine the dietary quality of lunches by beverage selection and the dietary quality of the lunch controlling for the nutrient composition of the beverage by removing it from the analysis. Fruit drinks were included in 25% of parent-packed lunches, followed by 100% fruit juice (14%), milk (14%), and flavored milk (3.7%). Lunches with plain milk had the highest Healthy Eating Index-2010 scores (59.3) followed by lunches with 100% fruit juice (56.9) and flavored milk (53.2). Lunches with fruit drinks had the lowest Healthy Eating Index-2010 scores at 48.6. After excluding the nutrient content of the beverage, the significant difference between lunches containing milk and flavored milk persisted (+5.5), whereas the difference between fruit drinks and 100% fruit juice did not. Dietary quality is associated with the type of beverage packed and these differences hold when the lunch is analyzed without the nutrient content of the beverage included. Copyright © 2018 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The efficacy of balneotherapy and mud-pack therapy in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

PubMed

Evcik, Deniz; Kavuncu, Vural; Yeter, Abdurrahman; Yigit, Ilknur

2007-01-01

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic degenerative disorder. There are various treatment modalities. This study was planned to investigate the efficacy of balneotherapy, mud-pack therapy in patients with knee OA. A total of 80 patients with knee OA were included. Their ages ranged between 39-78. The patients were separated in to three groups. Group I (n=25) received balneotherapy, group II (n=29) received mud-pack therapy and group III (n=26) was hot-pack therapy group. The therapies were applied for 20 min duration, once a day, five times per week and a total of 10 session. Patients were assessed according to pain, functional capacity and quality of life parameters. Pain was assessed by using Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Western Ontario McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain scale (0-4 likert scale). Functional capacity was assessed by using WOMAC functional capacity and WOMAC global index. Quality of life was evaluated by Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) self-administered questionnaire. Also physician's global assessment and the maximum distance that patient can walk without pain, were evaluated. The assessment parameters were evaluated before and after three months. There were statistically significant improvement in VAS and WOMAC pain scores in group I (p<0.001), group II and III (p<0.05). The WOMAC functional and global index also decreased in group I (p<0.05), group II (p<0.001) and hot-pack group (p<0.05). Quality of life results were significantly improved in balneotherapy and mud-pack therapy groups (p<0.05). No difference was observed in hot-pack therapy group (p>0.05). The maximum distance was improved both in group I and II (p<0.05) but not in group III. Also physician's global assessment was found to be improved in all groups (p<0.05). Balneotherapy and mud-pack therapy were effective in treating patients with knee OA.

Evaluation of the Missoula-VITAS Quality of Life Index--revised: research tool or clinical tool?

PubMed

Schwartz, Carolyn E; Merriman, Melanie P; Reed, George; Byock, Ira

2005-02-01

Quality of life (QOL) is a central outcome measure in caring for seriously ill patients. The Missoula-VITAS Quality of Life Index (MVQOLI) is a 25-item patient-centered index that weights each of five QOL dimensions (symptoms, function, interpersonal, wellbeing, transcendence) by its importance to the respondent. The measure has been used to assess QOL for hospice patients, and has been found to be somewhat complex to use and analyze. This study aimed to simplify the measure, and evaluate the reliability and validity of a revised version as either a research or clinical tool (i.e., "psychometric" versus "clinimetric"). Two data collection efforts are described. The psychometric study collected QOL data from 175 patients at baseline, 3-5 days, and 21 days later. The implementation study evaluated the feasibility and utility of the MVQOLI-R during over six weeks of use. End-stage renal patients on dialysis, hospice, or long-term care patients participated in the psychometric study. The implementation study was done in hospice, home health, and palliative care settings. The MVQOLI-R and the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale. The psychometric and implementation studies suggest that the MVQOLI-R performs well as a clinical tool but is not powerful as an outcome research instrument. The MVQOLI-R has the heterogeneous structure of clinimetric tools, and demonstrated both relevance and responsiveness. Additionally, in a clinical setting the MVQOLI-R was useful therapeutically for stimulating communication about the psychosocial and spiritual issues important to the tasks of life completion and life closure. The MVQOLI-R has clinical utility as a patient QOL assessment tool and may have therapeutic utility as a tool for fostering discussion among patients and their clinicians, as well as for helping patients identify sources of suffering and opportunities during this time in their lives.

Biological assessment of streams in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area, Indiana, 1999-2001

USGS Publications Warehouse

Voelker, David C.

2004-01-01

During 1999?2001, benthic invertebrates and fish were sampled to describe biological communities in the White River and selected tributaries in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area in Indiana. Twelve sites (six on the White River and six on tributaries) were sampled biannually for benthic invertebrates and annually for fish. The information complements water-chemistry data collected by the Indianapolis Department of Public Works in the study area. Evaluation of the habitat for sites in the study area was done, using a Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI) developed by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The QHEI scores basin and habitat characteristics for each site, with a maximum possible score of 100. Higher scores indicate better habitat conditions for biotic communities. The QHEI scores for sites on the White River ranged from 55 at the Harding site to 71 at the Waverly site; scores on the tributaries ranged from 45 on Pogues Run to 82 on Williams Creek. A total of 151 taxa were identified from the benthic-invertebrate samples. The Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) Index scores for sites on the White River ranged from 0 at the Harding site to 15 at the Nora site. The Nora site, which is upstream from Indianapolis, generally scored the highest of all White River sites. Sites in the immediate vicinity of Indianapolis scored the lowest and indicate a negative effect on benthic-invertebrate communities in that reach. EPT Index scores increased in the farthest downstream reaches, which indicate that water-quality conditions had improved in comparison to sites in Indianapolis. For the tributary sites, EPT Index values ranged from 0 at Pogues Run to 16 at Buck Creek. Tributary sites on Fall Creek, Pleasant Run, and Pogues Run consistently scored 7 or lower; sites on Buck Creek, Eagle Creek, and Williams Creek scored 7 or higher. Hilsenhoff Biotic Index (HBI) scores ranged from 4.9 (good) to 9.6 (very poor) for the White River sites and from 5.2 (good) to 8.0 (poor) for the tributary sites. The lowest scores among the White River sites were at the Nora site, indicating the best water-quality conditions were where the White River enters Marion County. The highest HBI scores were at the Morris and Harding sites, indicating the least-favorable water-quality conditions of all the White River sites. Of the tributary sites, HBI scores for Buck, Eagle, and Williams Creeks indicate fair water-quality conditions; HBI scores for Pleasant Run and Pogues Run were the highest, indicating relatively poor water-quality conditions. On the White River, the highest Invertebrate Community Index (ICI) scores, which indicate the best benthic-invertebrate conditions, were at the Nora site. Conditions were fair to poor in the downtown Indianapolis area; ICI scores indicate slight improvement in the downstream reaches of the study area. Of the tributary sites, Buck Creek was the only site with ICI scores indicating exceptional water quality. Williams Creek ICI scores indicate good water quality; the remaining tributary-site scores reflect fair conditions. A total of 74 species and 3 hybrids of fish were identified during the study period. The Cyprinidae (carps and minnows) was the largest group of fish identified and consisted of more than half of all fish collected. The most numerous species was the central stoneroller (Campostoma anomalum), which accounted for almost 25 percent of the fish identified. Two nonnative species, the koi carp (Cyprinus carpio) and the western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), and one species classified as an Indiana species of special concern, the northern studfish (Fundulus catenatus), also were collected during the study. Indiana Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) and Ohio Index of Biotic Integrity scores were calculated to show the condition of the fish communities at each site. Results of the Indiana IBI calculations showed no apparent differences in scores among the Wh

Update of the Healthy Eating Index: HEI-2010

PubMed Central

Guenther, Patricia M.; Kirkpatrick, Sharon I.; Reedy, Jill; Hiza, Hazel A.B.; Kuczynski, Kevin J.; Kahle, Lisa L.; Krebs-Smith, Susan M.

2013-01-01

The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is a measure of diet quality in terms of conformance with federal dietary guidance. Publication of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 prompted an interagency working group to update the HEI. The HEI-2010 retains several features of the 2005 version: (1) it has 12 components, many unchanged, including 9 adequacy and 3 moderation components; (2) it uses a density approach to set standards, e.g., per 1000 calories or as a percent of calories; and (3) it employs least-restrictive standards, i.e., those that are easiest to achieve among recommendations that vary by energy level, sex, and/or age. Changes to the index include: (1) Greens and Beans replaces Dark Green and Orange Vegetables and Legumes; (2) Seafood and Plant Proteins has been added to capture specific choices from the protein group; (3) Fatty Acids, a ratio of poly- and mono-unsaturated to saturated fatty acids, replaces Oils and Saturated Fat to acknowledge the recommendation to replace saturated fat with mono-and polyunsaturated fatty acids; and (4) a moderation component, Refined Grains, replaces the adequacy component, Total Grains, to assess over-consumption. The HEI-2010 captures the key recommendations of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines and, like earlier versions, will be used to assess the diet quality of the U.S. population and subpopulations, in evaluating interventions, in dietary patterns research, and to evaluate various aspects of the food environment. PMID:23415502

Memory colours and colour quality evaluation of conventional and solid-state lamps.

PubMed

Smet, Kevin A G; Ryckaert, Wouter R; Pointer, Michael R; Deconinck, Geert; Hanselaer, Peter

2010-12-06

A colour quality metric based on memory colours is presented. The basic idea is simple. The colour quality of a test source is evaluated as the degree of similarity between the colour appearance of a set of familiar objects and their memory colours. The closer the match, the better the colour quality. This similarity was quantified using a set of similarity distributions obtained by Smet et al. in a previous study. The metric was validated by calculating the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients between the metric predictions and the visual appreciation results obtained in a validation experiment conducted by the authors as well those obtained in two independent studies. The metric was found to correlate well with the visual appreciation of the lighting quality of the sources used in the three experiments. Its performance was also compared with that of the CIE colour rendering index and the NIST colour quality scale. For all three experiments, the metric was found to be significantly better at predicting the correct visual rank order of the light sources (p < 0.1).

Quality of Life, Psychological Burden, and Sleep Quality in Patients With Brain Metastasis Undergoing Whole Brain Radiation Therapy.

PubMed

Teke, Fatma; Bucaktepe, Pakize; Kıbrıslı, Erkan; Demir, Melike; Ibiloglu, Aslıhan; Inal, Ali

2016-10-01

Patients with brain metastasis (BM) usually suffer from poor quality of life (QOL), anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders in their reduced lifespan. The aim of this study was to evaluate QOL, anxiety, depression, and sleep characteristics in patients with BM at the beginning and end of whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) and three months after treatment. Thirty-three patients undergoing WBRT for BM were featured in this study. The authors used the Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) scale to measure performance status, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to evaluate anxiety and depression, the SF-36® to evaluate health-related QOL, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to evaluate sleep disorders at the start of WBRT, the end of WBRT, and three months after WBRT. Statistically significant improvements were noted in KPS scores from baseline evaluation to the end of WBRT and to three months after WBRT. No significant differences were observed in SF-36 and HADS scores between the start and the end of WBRT. Anxiety scores were negatively correlated with survival at the end of WBRT. Overall survival was better in those who reported better sleep. WBRT improves KPS scores and does not worsen sleep quality or mood, even in patients with poor performance status. When changes in mood and sleep quality are observed, survival and QOL may improve in patients with BM; consequently, nurses should be responsive to these changes.

Impact of a Worksite Diabetes Prevention Intervention on Diet Quality and Social Cognitive Influences of Health Behavior: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

PubMed

Miller, Carla K; Weinhold, Kellie R; Nagaraja, Haikady N

2016-03-01

To evaluate the impact of a worksite diabetes prevention intervention on secondary outcomes regarding the change in diet quality and components of the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) theoretical framework. Pretest-posttest control group design with 3-month follow-up. University worksite. Employees aged 18-65 years with prediabetes (n = 68). A 16-week group-based intervention adapted from the Diabetes Prevention Program. Diet quality was assessed using the Alternative Healthy Eating Index 2010; HAPA components were assessed via written questionnaire. Repeated-measures ANOVA compared the between- and within-group change in outcomes across time. Significant difference occurred between groups for the change in consumption of nuts/legumes and red/processed meats postintervention and for fruits at 3-month follow-up (all P < .05); a significant increase in total Alternative Healthy Eating Index 2010 score occurred postintervention in the experimental group (P = .002). The changes in action planning, action self-efficacy, and coping self-efficacy from HAPA were significantly different between groups after the intervention; the change in outcome expectancies was significantly different between groups at 3-month follow-up (all P < .05). The worksite intervention facilitated improvement in diet quality and in planning and efficacious beliefs regarding diabetes prevention. Further research is needed to evaluate the long-term impact of the intervention. Copyright © 2016 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessment of water quality and identification of polluted risky regions based on field observations & GIS in the Honghe River watershed, China.

PubMed

Yan, Chang-An; Zhang, Wanchang; Zhang, Zhijie; Liu, Yuanmin; Deng, Cai; Nie, Ning

2015-01-01

Water quality assessment at the watershed scale requires not only an investigation of water pollution and the recognition of main pollution factors, but also the identification of polluted risky regions resulted in polluted surrounding river sections. To realize this objective, we collected water samplings from 67 sampling sites in the Honghe River watershed of China with Grid GIS method to analyze six parameters including dissolved oxygen (DO), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), nitrite nitrogen (NO2-N), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP). Single factor pollution index and comprehensive pollution index were adopted to explore main water pollutants and evaluate water quality pollution level. Based on two evaluate methods, Geo-statistical analysis and Geographical Information System (GIS) were used to visualize the spatial pollution characteristics and identifying potential polluted risky regions. The results indicated that the general water quality in the watershed has been exposed to various pollutants, in which TP, NO2-N and TN were the main pollutants and seriously exceeded the standard of Category III. The zones of TP, TN, DO, NO2-N and NH3-N pollution covered 99.07%, 62.22%, 59.72%, 37.34% and 13.82% of the watershed respectively, and they were from medium to serious polluted. 83.27% of the watershed in total was polluted by comprehensive pollutants. These conclusions may provide useful and effective information for watershed water pollution control and management.

Assessment of Water Quality and Identification of Polluted Risky Regions Based on Field Observations & GIS in the Honghe River Watershed, China

PubMed Central

Yan, Chang-An; Zhang, Wanchang; Zhang, Zhijie; Liu, Yuanmin; Deng, Cai; Nie, Ning

2015-01-01

Water quality assessment at the watershed scale requires not only an investigation of water pollution and the recognition of main pollution factors, but also the identification of polluted risky regions resulted in polluted surrounding river sections. To realize this objective, we collected water samplings from 67 sampling sites in the Honghe River watershed of China with Grid GIS method to analyze six parameters including dissolved oxygen (DO), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), nitrite nitrogen (NO2-N), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP). Single factor pollution index and comprehensive pollution index were adopted to explore main water pollutants and evaluate water quality pollution level. Based on two evaluate methods, Geo-statistical analysis and Geographical Information System (GIS) were used to visualize the spatial pollution characteristics and identifying potential polluted risky regions. The results indicated that the general water quality in the watershed has been exposed to various pollutants, in which TP, NO2-N and TN were the main pollutants and seriously exceeded the standard of Category III. The zones of TP, TN, DO, NO2-N and NH3-N pollution covered 99.07%, 62.22%, 59.72%, 37.34% and 13.82% of the watershed respectively, and they were from medium to serious polluted. 83.27% of the watershed in total was polluted by comprehensive pollutants. These conclusions may provide useful and effective information for watershed water pollution control and management. PMID:25768942

Effects of supervised whole body vibration exercise on fall risk factors, functional dependence and health-related quality of life in nursing home residents aged 80+.

PubMed

Álvarez-Barbosa, Francisco; del Pozo-Cruz, Jesús; del Pozo-Cruz, Borja; Alfonso-Rosa, Rosa M; Rogers, Michael E; Zhang, Yanxin

2014-12-01

To test the feasibility and effectiveness of whole-body vibration (WBV) therapy on fall risk, functional dependence and health-related quality of life in nursing home residents aged 80+ years. Twenty-nine 80-95 years old volunteers, nursing home residents were randomized to an eight-week WBV intervention group) (n=15) or control group (n=14). Functional mobility was assessed using the timed up and go (TUG) test. Lower limb performance was evaluated using the 30-s Chair Sit to Stand (30-s CSTS) test. Postural stability was measured using a force platform. The Barthel Index was used to assess functional dependence and the EuroQol (EQ-5D) was used to evaluate Health-Related Quality of Life. All outcome measures were assessed at baseline and at a follow-up after 8 weeks. At the 8-week follow up, TUG test (p<0.001), 30-s CSTS number of times (p=0.006), EQ-5Dmobility (p<0.001), EQ-5DVAS (p<0.014), EQ-5Dutility (p<0.001) and Barthel index (p=0.003) improved in the WBV intervention group when compared to the control group. An 8-week WBV-based intervention in a nursing home setting is effective in reducing fall risk factors and quality of life in nursing home residents aged 80+. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The influence of the image registration method on the adaptive radiotherapy. A proof of the principle in a selected case of prostate IMRT.

PubMed

Berenguer, Roberto; de la Vara, Victoria; Lopez-Honrubia, Veronica; Nuñez, Ana Teresa; Rivera, Miguel; Villas, Maria Victoria; Sabater, Sebastia

2018-01-01

To analyse the influence of the image registration method on the adaptive radiotherapy of an IMRT prostate treatment, and to compare the dose accumulation according to 3 different image registration methods with the planned dose. The IMRT prostate patient was CT imaged 3 times throughout his treatment. The prostate, PTV, rectum and bladder were segmented on each CT. A Rigid, a deformable (DIR) B-spline and a DIR with landmarks registration algorithms were employed. The difference between the accumulated doses and planned doses were evaluated by the gamma index. The Dice coefficient and Hausdorff distance was used to evaluate the overlap between volumes, to quantify the quality of the registration. When comparing adaptive vs no adaptive RT, the gamma index calculation showed large differences depending on the image registration method (as much as 87.6% in the case of DIR B-spline). The quality of the registration was evaluated using an index such as the Dice coefficient. This showed that the best result was obtained with DIR with landmarks compared with the rest and it was always above 0.77, reported as a recommended minimum value for prostate studies in a multi-centre review. Apart from showing the importance of the application of an adaptive RT protocol in a particular treatment, this work shows that the election of the registration method is decisive in the result of the adaptive radiotherapy and dose accumulation. Copyright © 2017 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pollution indices as useful tools for the comprehensive evaluation of the degree of soil contamination-A review.

PubMed

Kowalska, Joanna Beata; Mazurek, Ryszard; Gąsiorek, Michał; Zaleski, Tomasz

2018-04-05

The paper provides a complex, critical assessment of heavy metal soil pollution using different indices. Pollution indices are widely considered a useful tool for the comprehensive evaluation of the degree of contamination. Moreover, they can have a great importance in the assessment of soil quality and the prediction of future ecosystem sustainability, especially in the case of farmlands. Eighteen indices previously described by several authors (I geo , PI, EF, C f , PI sum , PI Nemerow , PLI, PI ave , PI Vector , PIN, MEC, CSI, MERMQ, C deg , RI, mCd and ExF) as well as the newly published Biogeochemical Index (BGI) were compared. The content, as determined by other authors, of the most widely investigated heavy metals (Cd, Pb and Zn) in farmland, forest and urban soils was used as a database for the calculation of all of the presented indices, and this shows, based on statistical methods, the similarities and differences between them. The indices were initially divided into two groups: individual and complex. In order to achieve a more precise classification, our study attempted to further split indices based on their purpose and method of calculation. The strengths and weaknesses of each index were assessed; in addition, a comprehensive method for pollution index choice is presented, in order to best interpret pollution in different soils (farmland, forest and urban). This critical review also contains an evaluation of various geochemical backgrounds (GBs) used in heavy metal soil pollution assessments. The authors propose a comprehensive method in order to assess soil quality, based on the application of local and reference GB.

Development, application, and sensitivity analysis of a water quality index for drinking water management in small systems.

PubMed

Scheili, A; Rodriguez, Manuel J; Sadiq, R

2015-11-01

The aim of this study was to produce a drinking water assessment tool for operators of small distribution systems. A drinking water quality index (DWQI) was developed and applied to small systems based on the water quality index of the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment. The drinking water quality index was adapted to specific needs by creating four drinking water quality scenarios. First, the temporal and spatial dimensions of drinking water quality variability were taken into account. The DWQI was designed to express global drinking water quality according to different monitoring frequencies. Daily, monthly, and seasonal assessment was also considered. With the data made available, it was possible to use the index as a spatial monitoring tool and express water quality in different points in the distribution system. Moreover, adjustments were made to prioritize the type of contaminant to monitor. For instance, monitoring contaminants with acute health effects led to a scenario based on daily measures, including easily accessible and affordable water quality parameters. On the other hand, contaminants with chronic effects, especially disinfection by-products, were considered in a seasonal monitoring scenario where disinfection by-product reference values were redefined according to their seasonal variability. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to validate the index. Globally, the DWQI developed is adapted to the needs of small systems. In fact, expressing drinking water quality using the DWQI contributes to the identification of problematic periods and segments in the distribution system. Further work may include this index in the development of a customized decision-making tool for small-system operators and managers.

Retrieval of memories with the help of music in Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Chevreau, Priscilia; Nizard, Ingrid; Allain, Philippe

2017-09-01

This study focuses on music as a mediator facilitating access to autobiographical memory in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Studies on this topic are rare, but available data have shown a beneficial effect of music on autobiographical performance in AD patients. Based on the "index word" method, we developed the "index music" method for the evaluation of autobiographical memory. The subjects had to tell a memory of their choice from the words or music presented to them. The task was proposed to 54 patients with diagnosis of AD according to DSM IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. All of them had a significant cognitive decline on the MMSE (mean score: 14.5). Patients were matched by age, sex and level of education with 48 control subjects without cognitive impairment (mean score on the MMSE: 28). Results showed that autobiographical memory quantity scores of AD patients were significantly lower than those of healthy control in both methods. However, autobiographical memory quality scores of AD patients increased with "index music" whereas autobiographical memory quality scores of healthy control decreased. Also, the autobiographical performance of patients with AD in condition index music was not correlated with cognitive performance in contrast to the autobiographical performances in index word. These results confirm that music improves access to personal memories in patients with AD. Personal memories could be preserved in patients with AD and music could constitute an interesting way to stimulate recollection.

Development and validation of the Consumer Quality index instrument to measure the experience and priority of chronic dialysis patients.

PubMed

van der Veer, Sabine N; Jager, Kitty J; Visserman, Ella; Beekman, Robert J; Boeschoten, Els W; de Keizer, Nicolette F; Heuveling, Lara; Stronks, Karien; Arah, Onyebuchi A

2012-08-01

Patient experience is an established indicator of quality of care. Validated tools that measure both experiences and priorities are lacking for chronic dialysis care, hampering identification of negative experiences that patients actually rate important. We developed two Consumer Quality (CQ) index questionnaires, one for in-centre haemodialysis (CHD) and the other for peritoneal dialysis and home haemodialysis (PHHD) care. The instruments were validated using exploratory factor analyses, reliability analysis of identified scales and assessing the association between reliable scales and global ratings. We investigated opportunities for improvement by combining suboptimal experience with patient priority. Sixteen dialysis centres participated in our study. The pilot CQ index for CHD care consisted of 71 questions. Based on data of 592 respondents, we identified 42 core experience items in 10 scales with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.38 to 0.88; five were reliable (α ≥ 0.70). The instrument identified information on centres' fire procedures as the aspect of care exhibiting the biggest opportunity for improvement. The pilot CQ index PHHD comprised 56 questions. The response of 248 patients yielded 31 core experience items in nine scales with Cronbach's α ranging between 0.53 and 0.85; six were reliable. Information on kidney transplantation during pre-dialysis showed most room for improvement. However, for both types of care, opportunities for improvement were mostly limited. The CQ index reliably and validly captures dialysis patient experience. Overall, most care aspects showed limited room for improvement, mainly because patients participating in our study rated their experience to be optimal. To evaluate items with high priority, but with which relatively few patients have experience, more qualitative instruments should be considered.

R-Index Measure of Microencapsulated Tributyrin in Gamma-Cyclodextrin Influenced by Drying Method.

PubMed

Donovan, Joseph D; Lee, Soo-Yeun; Lee, Youngsoo

2016-09-01

Microencapsulation is commonly used in the food industry for a variety of purposes including added ingredient functionally and taste-masking for those ingredients with negative sensory qualities. Tributyrin (TB), a source intestinally-essential butyric acid, possesses negative aroma (cheesy, fecal) and taste (bitter) qualities. This has significantly limited its use in food applications for the potential improvement of intestinal health. Utilizing spray drying and low-temperature oven drying, microcapsules containing TB were produced using whey (WPI), WPI and inulin, and gamma-cyclodextrin (GCD). To determine how microcapsule formulation and drying method affected the perception of TB relative to a control, microencapsulated and free TB were added to an infant formula system and evaluated using the rating method to determine R-index measures. Pooled R-index measures (α = 0.01, 2-tailed, and n = 170) indicated that the only microcapsule not significantly different from the control (R-index below 57.95%) was the GCD and TB oven dried (GCT OD) microcapsule. All other WPI, WPI-inulin, and GCD and TB spray-dried (GCT SD) microcapsules were all significantly different from the control. Average individual R-index results indicated that all microcapsules in infant formula, except for GCT OD, were significantly different (P < 0.01) from the control formula but not from free TB. Spray drying may create microcapsules with surface TB and disturb the GCD-TB complex, allowing free, and surface TB to be perceived by the panelists. The GCT OD microcapsule has the potential to be used for the potential oral treatment of intestinal disorders in functional food applications without the negative sensory qualities of TB. © 2016 Institute of Food Technologists®

Research on the Purification Effect of Aquatic Plants Based on Grey Clustering Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gu, Sudan; Du, Fuhui

2018-01-01

This paper uses the grey clustering method to evaluate the water quality level of the MingGuan constructed wetland at the import and export of artificial wetlands. Constructed wetland of Ming Guanis established on the basis of the Fuyang River’s water quality improvement, to choose suitable aquatic plants, in order to achieve the Fuyang River water purification effect. Namely TP, TN, NH3-N, DO, COD and COMMn and permanganate index are selected as clustering indicators. Water quality is divided into five grades according to the Surface Water Environmental Quality Standard (GB3838-2002) as the evaluation standard. In order to select the suitable wetland plants, the purification effect of 6 kinds of higher aquatic plants on the sewage of fuyang river was tested. one kind of plants was selected: Typha. The results show that the water quality of the section is gradually changed from V water quality to III water quality. After tartificial wetland of cycle for a long time, Typha has good purification effect. In November, water quality categories are basically concentrated in the VI, V class, may be caused by chemical decomposition of aquatic plants, should strengthen the academic research.