BACKGROUND The present study aimed to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) based prediction model for cardiovascular autonomic (CA) dysfunction in the general population. METHODS We analyzed a previous dataset based on a population sample consisted of 2,092 individuals aged 30-80 years. The prediction models were derived from an exploratory set using ANN analysis. Performances of these ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the accuracy in the prediction of both early and late preeclampsia by flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery (FMD), a biophysical marker for endothelial dysfunction. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 91 patients, considered at high risk for development of preeclampsia were submitted to brachial artery FMD between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation. RESULTS Nineteen out o...

Midbrain dopaminergic neurons projecting to the ventral striatum code for reward magnitude and probability during reward anticipation and then indicate the difference between actual and predicted outcome. It has been questioned whether such a common system for the prediction and evaluation of reward exists in humans. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a guessing task in two large c...

BACKGROUND Prediction of esophageal varices in cirrhotic patients by noninvasive methods is still unsatisfactory. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the accuracy of an artificial neural network (ANN) in predicting varices in patients with HBV related cirrhosis. PATIENTS AND METHODS An ANN was constructed with data taken from 197 patients with HBV related cirrhosis. The candidates for input nodes of the...

abstract   background: squamous cell carcinoma (scc) constitutes the main oral malignancy . parallel to better understanding of molecular and genetic patterns of tumor behavior, more precise correlation of tumor markers such as epidermal growth factor (egf) and laminin-5 are sought to estimate macroscopic and microscopic tumor status .   methods: we conducted a cross-sectional study collecting ...

To study preterm birth prediction based on fetal fibronectin (fFN) in pregnant women, we randomly selected 124 patients. Vaginal posterior fornix secretions were analyzed using fFN quick test strips. Leucorrhea routine samples were collected to detect bacterial vaginosis, mycoplasma, and chlamydia. Delivery data at 7 days, 14 days, 34 weeks, and 37 weeks were documented and the sensitivity, spe...

BACKGROUND Prediction of the species of pathogen among patients with sepsis within hours would be helpful in accelerating proper treatment. As a potential method of shortening the time to identification, this study considered the usefulness of measuring procalcitonin (PCT) to predict blood culture (BC) results. METHODS The authors retrospectively analyzed the data of patients with a diagnosis...

introduction: acute coronary syndrome accounts for more than 15% of the chest pains. recently, hess et al. developed north american chest pain rule (nacpr) to identify very low-risk patients who can be safely discharged from emergency department (ed). the present study aimed to validate this rule in eds of two academic hospitals. methods: a prospective diagnostic accuracy study was conducted on...

OBJECTIVE To examine the feasibility of fetal RHD genotyping at 11-13 weeks' gestation from analysis of circulating cell-free fetal DNA (ccffDNA) in the plasma of RhD negative pregnant women using a high-throughput robotic technique. METHODS Stored plasma (0.5 ml) from 591 RhD negative women was used for extraction of ccffDNA by a robotic technique. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain rea...