In this study, we propose to analyze the peripheral vibrissal system specificity through its neuronal responses. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analyses were used, which required the implementation of a binary classifier (artificial neural network) trained to identify the applied stimulus. The training phase consisted of the observation of a predetermined amount of vibrissal swe...

OBJECTIVE To determine the risk of postthyroidectomy hypocalcaemia by measuring parathyroid hormone (PTH) level after thyroidectomy. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Baqiyatallah Hospital, Tehran, Iran, from March 2008 to July 2010. METHODOLOGY All included patients were referred for total or near bilateral thyroidectomy. Serum Calcium (Ca) and PTH levels we...

OBJECTIVE To compare the accuracy of 4 different indices of cardiac risk currently used for predicting perioperative cardiac complications. METHODS We studied 119 patients at a university-affiliated hospital whose cardiac assessment had been required for noncardiac surgery. Predictive factors of high risk for perioperative cardiac complications were assessed through clinical history and physi...

This article reviews a beneficial effect of technology transfer from Electrical Engineering to Food Sensory Science. Specifically, it reviews the recent adoption in Food Sensory Science of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, a tool that is incorporated in the theory of signal detection. Its use allows the information processing that takes place in the brain during sensory differe...

Models are increasingly used in clinical practice to improve the accuracy of diagnosis. The aim of our work was to compare a Bayesian network to logistic regression to forecast IgA nephropathy (IgAN) from simple clinical and biological criteria. Retrospectively, we pooled the results of all biopsies (n = 155) performed by nephrologists in a specialist clinical facility between 2002 and 2009. Tw...

OBJECTIVE I provide researchers with tables of sample size for multiobserver receiver operating characteristic (ROC) studies that compare the diagnostic accuracies of two imaging techniques. MATERIALS AND METHODS I computed the number of patients and observers needed as a function of five parameters: the measure of diagnostic accuracy (area under the ROC curve, sensitivity at a false-positive...

Iris segmentation is considered as the most difficult and fundamental step in an iris recognition system. While iris boundaries are largely approximated by two circles or ellipses, other methods define more accurately the iris resulting in better recognition results. In this paper we propose an iris segmentation method using Hough transform and active contour to detect a circular approximation ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the discriminative capacity of the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI), in its version adapted for Brazil, in a sample of 230 Brazilian adult musicians. METHOD The Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) was used to assess the presence of social anxiety indicators, adopting it as the gold standard. The Mann-Whitney U test and the receiver operating characteristic (RO...

RESEARCH DESIGN ANDMETHODSdA total of 339 subjects from the Diabetes Prevention Parenteral Trial–Type 1, who were islet cell antibody (ICA)-positive, with low first-phase insulin response (FPIR) and/or abnormal glucose tolerance at baseline, were followed until clinical diabetes onset or study end (5-year follow-up). The prognostic performance of biomarkers was estimated using receiver operatin...

The accuracy of a diagnostic test is typically characterised using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Summarising indexes such as the area under the ROC curve (AUC) are used to compare different tests as well as to measure the difference between two populations. Often additional information is available on some of the covariates which are known to influence the accuracy of such ...