BACKGROUND Risk prediction models have been proposed for various diseases and are being improved as new predictors are identified. A major challenge is to determine whether the newly discovered predictors improve risk prediction. Decision curve analysis has been proposed as an alternative to the area under the curve and net reclassification index to evaluate the performance of prediction models...

Fairly exchanging digital content is an everyday problem. It has been shown that fair exchange cannot be done without a trusted third party (called the Arbiter). Yet, even with a trusted party, it is still non-trivial to come up with an efficient solution, especially one that can be used in a p2p file sharing system with a high volume of data exchanged. We provide an efficient optimistic fair e...

Reachability analysis consists in checking if a state satisfying some property is reachable. In this paper a solution to the problem of generating formulae expressing reachability properties for concrete models is suggested. The traditional methods either require the user to input the formula manually, which can be very tedious and error-prone, or automatically generate formulae for some fixed ...

in this research, the spatial distribution of fe, cu, zn and mn on agricultural lands of golestan province were evaluated using different interpolation methods such as, kriging, inverse distance weighted, local polynomial, inverse multiquadric and radial basis function. thus, 505 soil samples were provided from fields during 2008 and micronutrients rates were measured for each sample. the perfo...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are largely preventable through risk analysis and modification of practice. Anaesthetic practice plays a limited role in the prevention of HAIs, although laryngoscope use and decontamination is an area of concern. We aimed to assess the level of microbial contamination of re-usable laryngoscope blades at a public hospital in South Af...

We present a new tensor-based morphometric framework that quantifies cortical shape variations using the local area element. The local area element is obtained from the Riemannian metric tensors, which are, in turn, obtained from the smooth functional parametrization of a triangle mesh. For the smooth parametrization, we have developed a novel weighted spherical harmonic (SPHARM) representation...

Elections seem simple—aren’t they just about counting? But they have a unique, challenging combination of security and privacy requirements. The stakes are high; the context is adversarial; the electorate needs to be convinced that the results are correct; and the secrecy of the ballot must be ensured. They also have practical constraints: time is of the essence, and voting systems need to be a...

Power line as an alternative for data transmission is being explored, and also being used to a certain extent. But from the data transfer point of view, power line, as a channel is highly dynamic and hence not quite suitable. To covert the office or home wiring system to a Local Area Network (LAN), adaptive changes are to be made to the existing protocols. In this paper, a slotted transmission ...

A review of MR and CT images in five patients, 8 months to 22 years old, diagnosed as having tuberous sclerosis, revealed linear abnormalities in the cerebral white matter. A linear abnormality connecting a subependymal nodule to a subcortical lesion was shown in two patients as an area of hypointensity on T1-weighted MR images and as an area of hyperintensity on T2-weighted images. These appea...