We show how the transferable belief model (TBM) can be used to assess and to combine expert opinions. The transferable belief model has the advantage that it can handle weighted opinions and their aggregation without the introduction of any ad hoc methods. We also study a paradigm in reliability analysis. It shows that the TBM analysis leads to a solution diametrically opposed to the Bayesian s...

In view of the importance of early diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM), the efficiency of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), one of the most reliable and sensitive DNA-based assays, was compared with conventional methods (acid-fast microscopy and culture) for the detection of M. tuberculosis in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens from patients suspected of TBM. Of the 29 CSF specim...

We compared the optimal workload of Wingate test (WAnT), which was assigned according to total body mass (TBM), between two groups of eight young male adults. The leg anaerobic power and fat free mass of these two groups were comparable while their percent body fat was either within (NOR) or above normal range (OF). The optimal WAnT workload was derived individually from the polynomial regressi...

Recently, two studies have shown that an ELISPOT assay using mononuclear cells (MCs) compartmentalised in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is an accurate and rapid rule-out or rule-in test for tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) in conjunction with other rapid tests [1, 2]. However, these two studies had limitations: the majority (94%) of enrolled patients were infected with HIV in one study [2], and th...

Tracheobronchomalacia (TBM) is defined as the condition where the airway lumen narrows more than 50 percent. The acquired TBM usually occurs in adults; however, the prevalence of TBM in asthma is unknown. We report two cases of severe asthma in elderly patients that could not be controlled with higher medication use. Case 1 was a 70-year-old woman with sever persistent asthma for 10 years, pres...

For high-accuracy template-based-modeling of CASP7 targets, we have applied a procedure based on the rigorous optimization of score functions at three stages: multiple alignment, chain building, and side-chain modeling. We applied the conformational space annealing method to a newly developed consistency based score function for multiple alignment. For chain building, we optimized the MODELLER ...

Twelve cases of tracheobronchomalacia (TBM) cases were reviewed: five were pediatric, and seven were adult, two of which were due to relapsing polychondritis (RPC). In pediatric TBM, the malacic segments were short. Resection of the malacic segment in one case and laryngotracheoplasty with autologous costal cartilage in one case were unsuccessful. However, aortopexy gained good results. Two cas...

We introduce Thurstonian Boltzmann Machines (TBM), a unified architecture that can naturally incorporate a wide range of data inputs at the same time. Our motivation rests in the Thurstonian view that many discrete data types can be considered as being generated from a subset of underlying latent continuous variables, and in the observation that each realisation of a discrete type imposes certa...

Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is a devastating form of tuberculosis that occurs predominantly in children and in immunocompromised adults. To study the pathogenesis of TBM, a rabbit model of acute mycobacterial central nervous system infection was set up (8-day study). Inoculation of live Mycobacterium bovis Ravenel intracisternally induced leukocytosis (predominantly mononuclear cells), high pr...

This prospective study was done over seven years from 1996 to 2003 to investigate the chest computed tomography scan findings along with other radiologic examinations that included chest roentgenography and cranial computed tomography in children with tuberculous meningitis (TBM). Chest roentgenography demonstrated abnormal findings in 32 cases (43%) (hilar adenopathy, 32%; miliary pattern, 18%...