BACKGROUND The Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM) has been introduced as a visual measure of suffering. We explored the validity of a revised version, the PRISM-RII, in diabetes patients as part of the annual review. METHODS Participants were 308 adult outpatients with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. MEASURES (1) the PRISM-RII, yielding Self-Illness Separation (S...

OBJECTIVES To examine the behavior of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and procalcitonin (PCT) and verify whether they can be used to differentiate children with septic conditions. METHODS Septic children aged between 28 days and 14 years, prospectively enrolled from 01/2004 to 12/2005, were divided into sepsis (SG; n=47) and septic shock (SSG; n=43) groups. IL-6 and PCT were measured at admission (T0) a...

In a group of families in northern Sweden, a mutation in the ENAM gene (predicted to produce a highly truncated protein) results in the local hypoplastic form of autosomal dominant amelogenesis imperfecta. In this study, sections of deciduous teeth from members of 3 of these families were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the enamel mineral was analysed by energy dispersive X-r...

3 More on using PRISM illustrated by a Bayesian Network 4 3.1 Defining a Bayesian network in PRISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2 Estimating probabilities for hidden random variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.3 Learning probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.4 A final remark on learning . . . . . . . . . . ....

The value of socializing in collocated multiplayer video games should not be underestimated. Inter-player interactions such as joking, bantering and strategizing all contribute towards creating rewarding and memorable gameplay experiences for the players involved. In this paper, we introduce Prism Squad: GO!, a cooperative, three-player video game which is designed to encourage and cultivate th...

PURPOSE To investigate the relationship between muscular asthenopia and eccentric ablation after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). METHODS Sixteen eyes of eight myopic patients whose muscular asthenopia was corrected by subjectively accepted spectacle prism after PRK, with visual acuity better than 0.8, were followed for 6 to 14 months. On the basis of preoperative and post-operative data an...

The Prism family of algorithms induces modular classification rules which, in contrast to decision tree induction algorithms, do not necessarily fit together into a decision tree structure. Classifiers induced by Prism algorithms achieve a comparable accuracy compared with decision trees and in some cases even outperform decision trees. Both kinds of algorithms tend to overfit on large and nois...

Ensemble learning techniques generate multiple classifiers, so called base classifiers, whose combined classification results are used in order to increase the overall classification accuracy. In most ensemble classifiers the base classifiers are based on the Top Down Induction of Decision Trees (TDIDT) approach. However, an alternative approach for the induction of rule based classifiers is th...