Distance Evaluation between Vehicle Trajectories and Risk Indicator

INTRODUCTION: Head and neck cancer patients are frequently malnourished at the time of diagnosis and prior to the beginning of treatment. Deterioration of the nutritional status results in an increase in chemo radiotherapy related toxicity and this may increase the prolonged treatment time, which has been associated with poor clinical outcome. The present study aims to do nutritional assessment before and after chemo radiotherapy in head and neck cancer patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The present study was undertaken at the Department of Radiation Oncology, Shri Ram Murti Smarak Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly. In this study, 50 patients of Head and neck tumours were enrolled and their nutrition was assessed before and after chemoradiotherapy. Nutrition assessment was done using different laboratory parameters like haemoglobin, total leukocyte count, blood urea, serum creatinine and serum bilirubin. Anthropometric parameters used are Body mass index, Skin fold thickness, and Mid-arm circumference. Nutritional risk indicator and PG-SGA score is measured before and after chemoradiotherapy. All the parameters were assessed and analysed using different statistical tests- Chi-square test, Fisher Exact test and paired t test.RESULTS: Haemoglobin decrease was statistically significant during treatment (p less than 0.001) and the decrease in total leukocyte count during treatment was showing trend towards significance (p value-0.056). There was deterioration in other parameters like blood urea, serum creatinine and serum bilirubin but was not statistically significant. Anthropometric parameters- Body mass index, mid-arm circumference and skin fold thickness and percent body fat showed a significant change (p less than 0.00001). Nutritional risk indicator and PG-SGA class has decreased for majority of patients during treatment, the change is statistically significant (p less than 0.00001 and p=0.0251) respectively.CONCLUSION: The nutrition has important role to play in the management of head and neck cancers by chemo radiotherapy. It helps to reduce the complications and improve the tolerance of chemo radiotherapy, thus avoiding treatment breaks which may lead to failure of treatment.

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Field Theory for Some Traffic Phenomena and Fundamental Diagram

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.1177/03611981211006422 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 036119812110064

Author(s):

Daiheng Ni

Keyword(s):

Field Theory ◽

Traffic Flow ◽

Causal Effect ◽

Microscopic Approach ◽

Fundamental Diagram ◽

Longitudinal Control ◽

Effect Analysis ◽

Vehicle Trajectories ◽

Vehicle Motion ◽

Cross Reference

A fundamental diagram consists of a scatter of traffic flow data sampled at a specific location and aggregated from vehicle trajectories. These trajectories, if presented equivalently, constitute a microscopic version of the (conventional) fundamental diagram. The cross-reference between vehicle trajectories and the microscopic fundamental diagram provides details of vehicle motion dynamics which allow causal-effect analysis on some traffic phenomena and further reveal the microscopic basis of the conventional fundamental diagram. This observation inspires theoretical modeling by a microscopic approach to address traffic phenomena and the conventional fundamental diagram. Derived from the field theory of traffic flow, the longitudinal control model is capable of serving the purpose without the modifications or exceptions used by other approaches.

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Soluble urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) is a risk indicator for eGFR loss in kidney transplant recipients

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-83333-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ulrich Jehn ◽

Katharina Schütte-Nütgen ◽

Ute Henke ◽

Hermann Pavenstädt ◽

Barbara Suwelack ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Kidney Transplantation ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Kidney Diseases ◽

Prognostic Significance ◽

Risk Indicator ◽

Kidney Transplant Recipients ◽

Supar Level ◽

Type Plasminogen Activator ◽

Urokinase Type Plasminogen Activator ◽

One Year

AbstractThe prognostic significance of suPAR in various kidney diseases has recently been demonstrated. Its role in transplantation-specific outcomes is still largely unknown. Therefore, we prospectively investigated the prognostic relevance of suPAR in patients before and one year after kidney transplantation (KTx). We included 100 patients who had received a kidney transplantation between 2013 and 2015. The plasma concentration of suPAR was measured by ELISA assay. In recipients of living donations (LD), pre-transplant suPAR levels were significantly lower than those of recipients of deceased donations (DD). After KTx, suPAR levels significantly declined in LD and DD recipients, without a detectable difference between both groups any more. Higher suPAR levels in recipients one year after KTx were associated with a more severe eGFR loss in the following three years in multivariable cox-regression (n = 82, p = 0.021). suPAR-levels above 6212 pg/ml one year after KTx are associated with eGFR loss > 30%, which occurred almost twice as fast as in patients with suPAR ≤ 6212 pg/ml (p < 0.001). Hence, suPAR level at one year mark might be a risk indicator of increased eGFR loss.

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Development of a prognostic tool: based on risk factors for tooth loss after active periodontal therapy

Clinical Oral Investigations ◽

10.1007/s00784-021-04060-x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sonja Rahim-Wöstefeld ◽

Dorothea Kronsteiner ◽

Shirin ElSayed ◽

Nihad ElSayed ◽

Peter Eickholz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Decision Making ◽

Tooth Loss ◽

Treatment Plan ◽

Periodontal Therapy ◽

Outcome Variable ◽

Individual Treatment ◽

Risk Indicator ◽

Related Factors ◽

Prognostic Tool

Abstract Objectives The aim of this study was to develop a prognostic tool to estimate long-term tooth retention in periodontitis patients at the beginning of active periodontal therapy (APT). Material and methods Tooth-related factors (type, location, bone loss (BL), infrabony defects, furcation involvement (FI), abutment status), and patient-related factors (age, gender, smoking, diabetes, plaque control record) were investigated in patients who had completed APT 10 years before. Descriptive analysis was performed, and a generalized linear-mixed model-tree was used to identify predictors for the main outcome variable tooth loss. To evaluate goodness-of-fit, the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated using cross-validation. A bootstrap approach was used to robustly identify risk factors while avoiding overfitting. Results Only a small percentage of teeth was lost during 10 years of supportive periodontal therapy (SPT; 0.15/year/patient). The risk factors abutment function, diabetes, and the risk indicator BL, FI, and age (≤ 61 vs. > 61) were identified to predict tooth loss. The prediction model reached an AUC of 0.77. Conclusion This quantitative prognostic model supports data-driven decision-making while establishing a treatment plan in periodontitis patients. In light of this, the presented prognostic tool may be of supporting value. Clinical relevance In daily clinical practice, a quantitative prognostic tool may support dentists with data-based decision-making. However, it should be stressed that treatment planning is strongly associated with the patient’s wishes and adherence. The tool described here may support establishment of an individual treatment plan for periodontally compromised patients.

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Robot Localisation Using UHF-RFID Tags: A Kalman Smoother Approach †

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21030717 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (3) ◽

pp. 717

Author(s):

Farhad Shamsfakhr ◽

Andrea Motroni ◽

Luigi Palopoli ◽

Alice Buffi ◽

Paolo Nepa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autonomous Vehicles ◽

Uhf Rfid ◽

Missing Measurements ◽

Kalman Smoother ◽

Vehicle Trajectories ◽

Angular Velocities ◽

Reference Tags ◽

Entire Trajectory ◽

Method Accuracy ◽

Mean Square Errors

Autonomous vehicles enable the development of smart warehouses and smart factories with an increased visibility, flexibility and efficiency. Thus, effective and affordable localisation methods for indoor vehicles are attracting interest to implement real-time applications. This paper presents an Extended Kalman Smoother design to both localise a mobile agent and reconstruct its entire trajectory through a sensor-fusion employing the UHF-RFID passive technology. Extensive simulations are carried out by considering the smoother optimal-window length and the effect of missing measurements from reference tags. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted for different vehicle trajectories and for different linear and angular velocities to evaluate the method accuracy. Then, an experimental analysis with a unicycle wheeled robot is performed in real indoor scenario, showing a position and orientation root mean square errors of 15 cm, and 0.2 rad, respectively.

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Mining Vehicle Trajectories to Discover Individual Significant Places: Case Study using Floating Car Data in the Paris Region

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.1177/0361198121995500 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 036119812199550

Author(s):

Danyang Sun ◽

Fabien Leurent ◽

Xiaoyan Xie

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

City Planning ◽

Human Mobility ◽

Work Place ◽

Trajectory Data ◽

Floating Car Data ◽

Vehicle Trajectories ◽

Activity Types ◽

Paris Region

In this study we discovered significant places in individual mobility by exploring vehicle trajectories from floating car data. The objective was to detect the geo-locations of significant places and further identify their functional types. Vehicle trajectories were first segmented into meaningful trips to recover corresponding stay points. A customized density-based clustering approach was implemented to cluster stay points into places and determine the significant ones for each individual vehicle. Next, a two-level hierarchy method was developed to identify the place types, which firstly identified the activity types by mixture model clustering on stay characteristics, and secondly discovered the place types by assessing their profiles of activity composition and frequentation. An applicational case study was conducted in the Paris region. As a result, five types of significant places were identified, including home place, work place, and three other types of secondary places. The results of the proposed method were compared with those from a commonly used rule-based identification, and showed a highly consistent matching on place recognition for the same vehicles. Overall, this study provides a large-scale instance of the study of human mobility anchors by mining passive trajectory data without prior knowledge. Such mined information can further help to understand human mobility regularities and facilitate city planning.

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