Search results for "Computer Science"
showing 10 items of 22367 documents
Smoking and Neuropsychiatric Disease-Associations and Underlying Mechanisms.
2021
Despite extensive efforts to combat cigarette smoking/tobacco use, it still remains a leading cause of global morbidity and mortality, killing more than eight million people each year. While tobacco smoking is a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases related to the four main groups—cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes—its impact on neuropsychiatric risk is rather elusive. The aim of this review article is to emphasize the importance of smoking as a potential risk factor for neuropsychiatric disease and to identify central pathophysiological mechanisms that may contribute to this relationship. There is strong evidence from epidemiological and experiment…
Principal component analysis and cluster analysis for measuring the local organisation of human atrial fibrillation
2001
The distribution of atrial electrogram types has been proposed to characterise human atrial fibrillation. The aim of this study was to provide computer procedures for evaluating the local organisation of intracardiac recordings during AF as an alternative to off-line manual classification. Principal components analysis (PCA) reduced the data set to a few representative activations, and cluster analysis (CA) measured the average dissimilarity between consecutive activations of an intracardiac signal. The data set consisted of 106 bipolar signals recorded on 11 patients during electrophysiological studies for catheter ablation. Performances of PCA and CA in distinguishing between organised (t…
Mobile diary for wellness management--results on usage and usability in two user studies.
2008
The prevalence of lifestyle-related health problems is increasing rapidly. Many of the diseases and health risks could be prevented or alleviated by making changes toward healthier lifestyles. We have developed the Wellness Diary (WD), a concept for personal and mobile wellness management based on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Two implementations of the concept were made for the Symbian Series 60 (S60) mobile phone platform, and their usability, usage, and acceptance were studied in two 3-month user studies. Study I was related to weight management and study II to general wellness management. In both the studies, the concept and its implementations were well accepted and considered as…
Motor imagery and cortico-spinal excitability: A review
2016
International audience; Motor imagery (MI) has received a lot of interest during the last decades as its chronic or acute use has demonstrated several effects on improving sport performances or skills. The development of neuroimagery techniques also helped further our understanding of the neural correlates underlying MI. While some authors showed that MI, motor execution and action observation activated similar motor cortical regions, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies brought great insights on the role of the primary motor cortex and on the activation of the cortico-spinal pathway during MI. After defining MI and describing the TMS technique, a short report of MI activities on…
Frequency of polymorphisms of signal peptide of TGF-beta1 and -1082G/A SNP at the promoter region of Il-10 gene in patients with carotid stenosis
2006
The role of inflammation in atherosclerosis is well recognized. We have evaluated the allele frequencies of the +869T/C and +915G/C polymorphisms (SNPs) at the TGF-beta1 gene and -1082G/A SNP at IL-10 promoter sequence, two well-known immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory cytokines, in patients with carotid stenosis. Our data suggest a lack of association between these SNPs and the susceptibility to atherosclerosis although other reports have demonstrated this association. These results may be due to the pleiotropic effects of the cytokines and/or differences in haplotype combination that should be investigated to elucidate the role of TGF-beta1 and IL-10 polymorphisms in atherosclerosis.
Salesperson adoption and usage of mobile sales configuration tools
2018
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine salespersons’ adoption and usage of mobile sales configuration tools (MSCT) and to identify areas for further development in this realm. Another objective is to offer a conceptualization of MSCT adoption.Design/methodology/approachFor this purpose, a qualitative case study approach was selected as the research method to better understand acceptance of a mobile configuration tool used by business-to-business (B2B) salespersons. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which included a series of open-ended questions to gain more detailed and contextual data.FindingsThe results obtained from the interviews indicated several …
Evaluation of a lattice-Boltzmann method for mercury intrusion porosimetry simulations
2004
We have simulated intrusion of a non-wetting liquid into pores of varying shape and size. Simulations were based on the lattice-Boltzmann method and the Shan–Chen multiphase model. The liquid–solid contact angle for pores with circular cross-section was found to be equal to that for pores with square cross-section, and constant even for small pore sizes if the discretised shape of the circular cross-section was taken into account. For comparison, contact angle was also determined for a liquid column descending in a capillary tube, and the results were found to be consistent. Application of the method to mercury intrusion porosimetry is discussed.
Benefits of area-wide traffic calming measures: outcomes still to assess
2008
The role of traffic calming schemes in urban network management is mainly to minimize undesirable effect of traffic in residential areas; in this context accident reduction can be a realistic objective. Several studies, indeed, inform us that traffic calming is a major part of the treatments available to reduce road accidents in urban areas. Paradoxically the increase of the accident rate per kilometre travelled has been observed in the urban context as result of the wellknown accident migration phenomenon. In connection to these considerations, the effectiveness of traffic calming measures on road safety is discussed in this paper. Then, after a synthetic exposition of the conceptual formu…
Fecal Metagenomics and Metabolomics Identifying Microbial Signatures in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
2023
The frequency of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has intensified, creating diagnostic challenges and increasing the need for reliable non-invasive diagnostic tools. Due to the importance of the gut–liver axis in the progression of NAFLD, studies attempt to reveal microbial signatures in NAFLD, evaluate them as diagnostic biomarkers, and to predict disease progression. The gut microbiome affects human physiology by processing the ingested food into bioactive metabolites. These molecules can penetrate the portal vein and the liver to promote or prevent hepatic fat accumulation. Here, the findings of human fecal metagenomic and metabolomic studies relating to NAFLD are reviewed. The …
Max–min dispersion with capacity and cost for a practical location problem
2022
Diversity and dispersion problems deal with selecting a subset of elements from a given set in such a way that their diversity is maximized. This study considers a practical location problem recently proposed in the context of max–min dispersion models. It is called the generalized dispersion problem, and it models realistic applications by introducing capacity and cost constraints. We propose two effective linear formulations for this problem, and develop a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm based on the variable neighborhood search methodology, to solve real instances. Extensive numerical computational experiments are performed to compare our hybrid metaheuristic with the state-of-art heurist…