BACKGROUND Patients taking oral anticoagulant therapy balance the risks of hemorrhage and thromboembolism. We sought to determine the association between anticoagulation intensity and the risk of hemorrhagic and thromboembolic events. We also sought to determine how under-or overanticoagulation would influence patient outcomes. METHODS We reviewed the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Registe...

Information about the epidemiology of meningococcal disease case clusters and the risk of further cases is sparse. Data on clusters in household and educational settings from 1 January 1993 to 31 March 1995 was requested from consultants in communicable disease control in England and Wales through a retrospective postal survey. Ninety-three per cent (122/131) responded. Of the 114 cases in 45 r...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the significant factors for risk estimate of aspiration and to evaluate the efficiency of the dysphagia assessment tool. METHODS A consecutive series of 210 stroke patients with aspiration symptoms such as cough and dysphagia who had soft or regular diet without tube feeding were examined. The dysphagia assessment tool for aspiration was comp...

We consider the problem of estimating a low-rank signal matrix from noisy measurements under the assumption that the distribution of the data matrix belongs to an exponential family. In this setting, we derive generalized Stein’s unbiased risk estimation (SURE) formulas that hold for any spectral estimators which shrink or threshold the singular values of the data matrix. This leads to new data...

The Gaussian mixture is a patch prior that has enjoyed tremendous success in image processing. In this work, by using Gaussian factor modeling, its dedicated expectation maximization (EM) inference, and a statistical filter selection and algorithm stopping rule, we develop SURE (Stein’s unbiased risk estimator) guided piecewise linear estimation (S-PLE), a patch-based prior learning algorithm c...

OBJECTIVES Evaluate the ability of the American and British Geriatrics Society fall prevention guideline's screening algorithm to identify and stratify future fall risk in community-dwelling older adults. METHODS Prospective cohort of community-dwelling older adults (n = 117) aged 65 to 90 years. Fall history, balance, and gait measured during a comprehensive geriatric assessment at baseline....

Despite a decline in recent decades, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the major cause of death and disability in Australia. To improve primary prevention of CVD, many clinical guidelines recommend using cardiovascular absolute risk (CVAR) assessment to guide risk factor management. Cardiovascular absolute risk assessment predicts the overall risk of a cardiovascular event over a given time ...

BACKGROUND The global and within-country epidemiology of cervical cancer exemplifies health inequity. Public health programs may reduce absolute risk but increase inequity; inequity may be further compounded by screening programs. In this context, we aimed to explore what the impact of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine might have on health equity allowing for uncertainty surrounding the long-t...

According to Dr Turcotte, this program “would have no effect on the absolute risk of dying” and therefore should not be implemented because it contradicts a principle of public health practice. There is no reference to support this statement, and its rigorous application would mean the end of most of Canada’s existing public health programs. As Dr Turcotte accepts that 30% of deaths from colore...