Background: Symptoms or test results may be common to two or more co-occurring conditions. This problem of symptom overlap makes it challenging for clinicians to determine a focus for treatment in a patient given changes in the severity of either condition.

Methods: Structural equation modeling methods can be used to disentangle some of the complexities of disease symptom etiology, given co-occurring conditions, and support treatment decision making. These techniques provide the flexibility to deal with specific challenges present in data as extracted from Electronic Health Records (EHR) (i.e. individually varying follow up times, irregular follow up, missingness, systematic error in patient reported outcomes, lack of clear temporal precedence between measures). Specifically, a proposed latent growth modeling approach accounting for differential item functioning along with the Monte Carlo simulation method for assessment of mediation can be used to investigate how one condition leads to a co-occurring condition, adjusted for the overlapping symptoms of both conditions.

Results: This paper uses an example investigating how Multiple Sclerosis (MS) leads to depression in patients in which depressive symptoms overlap with other symptoms of MS, such as fatigue, cognitive impairment and physical impairment to illustrate the methods. It was demonstrated that not adjusting for this overlap can lead to different results.

Conclusions: Developing methods for mediation analysis of co-occurring conditions for more complex longitudinal clinical data as recorded at a typical patient visit can help clinicians make improved use of data bases such as EHR to support clinical decision making in real time.

Background: A study with aim to evaluate the impact of language and culture on the validity of pain quality measures by comparing the words spoken by individuals with chronic pain indicated that direct translations of measures that are developed using samples of patients from one country or culture are not necessarily content valid for use in other countries or cultures; some adaptations may be required in order for such measures to be most useful in new language and culture.

Objective: To re-evaluate the article Journal of Pain Research 2016:9 1057–1066, and reflect on the implications of its recommendations.

Methods: Content analysis of article published in Journal of Pain Research 2016:9 1057–1066., Critical review of the specified article was performed, its components, overall integrity assessed, relevant information was obtained from profiles, references, citations, and web. Current developments and changes in state of science and art are collected. Finally the general, philosophical, theoretical, methodological, and analytic output are presented.

Result: There was no complete theory, concepts, definition of terms. Topics were not covered, authors were uncertain on their sample size, sampling and its reliability. Content validity itself not defined determined, tested and presented. Interdependence of individuals, their previous and current works prevailed. Result was inconclusive. Finally concurrent changes in definition, change in tools, were not accounted for. The membership degree of authors is deep rooted.

Conclusion: The article provided unwarranted conclusion and recommendation.

Recommendation: Refinement, self- rectification and transformation.

A statistical analysis and inter-comparison of the broadband ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation at two sites in Cyprus representing two different climate regimes of the island (Athalassa-inland plain vs Larnaca-coastal location) covering the period January 2013-December 2015 is presented. Mean annual and mean monthly daily totals of the UVB irradiation and their frequency distribution at both sites are computed and discussed. Daily maximum of hourly average irradiance values occur in July, 2.09 W m-2, and minimum, 0.47 W m-2, in December at solar noon at Athalassa. The respective values at Larnaca are slightly higher (2.48 W m-2 and 0.67 W m-2, respectively). UVB daily values follow the pattern of the solar altitude angle; the total accumulated UVB irradiation along a mean year reaches 10.27 MJ m-2 at Athalassa and 13.49 MJ m-2; maximum stability of UVB takes place at midday hours during the summer. Large fluctuations of the daily UVB irradiation are observed in the spring months and November, which are mainly due to unstable meteorological conditions during the transition from cold to warm weather and vice versa. During summer the daily UVB radiation exceeds the value of 70 kJ m-2 at Larnaca and 55 kJ m-2 at Athalassa, while during the winter season the lowest is about 5 kJ m-2 at both stations. The UVB potential and extraterrestrial irradiation has also been calculated in order to estimate the attenuation of UVB radiation through the atmosphere. During summer the UVB transmittance is higher than in winter with a maximum value of 9% in July and a minimum of about 4% in December. Statistical relationships between UVB and other radiation components (UVA and global radiation) were established.

Full moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the moon is illuminated completely as seen from the earth Across the centuries many a person has attered the phrase, ‘there must be a full moon out there’ in an attempt to explain weird happening at night. Even today many people think the mystical power of full moon induce erratic behavior, psychiatric, hospital admission, suicide, homicide, sleep pattern, birth of baby, emergency room call, traffic accident and all manners of strange events. The main objective of this review is to find out the effect of full moon on different aspect of human health. The study was undertaken Kumudini Women’s Medical College, Bangladesh during the period between June 2016 to May 2017. Here we summarized the literature of 33 trials collected from secondary sources like Pub Med, Goggle Scholar and other different articles through online searching. The coverage of the study was effect of full moon on cardiovascular system, endocrine system, on behavior, on reproductive system, on behavior system of human being. The ultimate result of this review in maximum cases no significant changes observed in human health. In spite of these findings there is further scope for elaborate study on this aspect.

In sample surveys auxiliary information is quite often available from previous experience and using the auxiliary information several estimators are introduced like Ratio estimator modified ratio and product estimators for the estimation of population mean. This manuscript deals with the improvements on ratio cum product estimators for the estimation of population mean of the study variable by using the known values of quartiles of the auxiliary variable and their functions. The bias and mean squared error of proposed estimators are obtained. An empirical condition is developed to assess the performance of proposed estimators over the existing estimators. A numerical study is carried out to assess the efficiency of proposed estimators over the existing estimators with the help of some known natural populations. Based on the simulation study and numerical studies, the proposed estimators are less biased (almost unbiased) and it performs better than the existing estimators.

Measurements of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) and global solar radiation at Larnaca (a coastal site in Cyprus) during the period 3013-2015 were used to investigate the seasonal characteristics of PAR and PAR/G ratio (PAR fraction or fFEC). PAR showed seasonal features with higher values in summer and lower values in winter. The annual mean values of PPFD and fFEC being 40.3 mol m-2 d-1 and 2.03 mol M J-1, respectively. Monthly average daily PAR increased from 19.1 mol m-2 d-1 (in December) to 59.6 mol m-2 d-1 (in June).The monthly daily average of fFEC remained almost constant throughout the year at Larnaca. The spatial variability of PAR was also investigated using measurements from other four sites with different climate characteristics. The annual mean daily PAR value ranged between 31.7 to 40.0mol m-2 d-1. The highest values are recorded in the coastal stations (Larnaca and Paralimni). The annual average value of fFEC at the five observation sites ranged from 1.82 mol MJ-1 to 2.03 mol MJ-1, in accordance to what is observed in most parts of the world. The highest appeared in the coastal sites of Larnaca and Paralimni due to the presence of high water vapour atmospheric concentrations. Elevation plays a significant role on the values of the above variables. As a general trend, fFEC followed the order Clear

For man, several types of signals are available to recognize kinship, such as facial resemblance between families. Some studies show that we are able to recognize the kinship between a child's face and a face of a parent. The purpose of our work is to study the face-kin verification by using the Statistical Local Binary Patterns (Stat LBP) descriptor for the extraction of the local characteristics of facial images and the SIEDA (Side-Information based Exponential Discriminant Analysis) for the dimensionality reduction and classification of data. The extensive experimental evaluation carried out on Cornell kinshep database indicates that the proposed approach performs significantly better than state-of-the-art approaches.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) plays an integral role in establishing evidence for the validity of test scores. This study provides a didactic strategy on the systematic investigation of perfect model-data fit in CFA. Specific steps presented include (a) investigating the impact of sample size on model fit indices, power and Type II error, (b) demonstration of how Muthén and Asparouhov’s (2012) [1] ESEM approach is used to aid in evaluating the second-order factor model for simple structure, and (c) illustrating the tenability of Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling (BSEM) in resolving a non-positive definite matrix solution and in capturing the relationships between the measurement and latent variable parts of the second-order model in a way that provides an optimal tradeoff between simple structure and perfect model-data fit. The ESEM hierarchical approach identified loadings contradicting the original factor analytic results. Bayesian second-order CFA revealed that latent regressions were inflated in the original second-order CFA resulting in an in admissible solution due to a non-positive definite latent variable matrix. Respecification of the factor model using BSEM informed by the ESEM analysis eliminated the inadmissible solution and provided unbiased parameter estimates across sample sizes of N=100, 300, 600 and 1000.

A statistical analysis and inter-comparison of the Ultraviolet Radiation (UVR) at two sites in Cyprus representing two different climate regimes of the island (Athalassa-inland plain vs Larnaca-coastal location) covering the period 2013-2015 is presented. Mean annual and mean monthly daily totals of the UV irradiation and their frequency distribution at both sites are computed and discussed. The total accumulated UV irradiation along an average year reaches 398 MJ m-2 at Athalassa and 494 MJ m-2 at Larnaca. During summer, the daily UV radiation exceeds the value of 1800 kJ m-2 at Athalassa and 2200 kJ m-2 at Larnaca. Linear relationships were established between UVR and global solar radiation, with the coefficient of determination close to 1. These hemispherical transmittance ( relationships indicate that UV irradiation corresponds to 5.9% and 6.8% of the horizontal global solar irradiation at the two sites, respectively. Four models were tested for the estimation of UVR and the best performed models were recalibrated according to the local conditions. Relationships between the clearness index (k_tUV ) were also established. The annual k_tUV is about 71% of k_t Finally, the dependence of the UV/G ratio values to the solar elevation angle and clearness index was also examined. It can be concluded that the presence of clouds reduces less the UV component rather than the global solar radiation, due to the strong absorption of water in the near infrared spectrum.

The randomness of each of the four tables of random numbers namely (1) Tippet’s Random Numbers Table, (2) Fisher & Yates Random Numbers Table, (3) Kendall and Smith's Random Numbers Table and (4) Random Numbers Table due to Rand Corporation has been examined and a comparison of the merits of them has been studied with respect to the degree of randomness. Deviation test (based on t statistic) has been applied in examining the randomness of each of the four tables. This paper describes the testing of randomness of the four random numbers tables and a comparison of the degree of randomness of them.

West Bengal is rich in Inland Fishery Resources. Ponds and tanks dominate with 90.62 percent water resources that are brought under culture. Overall 87.56% of total potential water resource is utilized for culture leaving another12.44% for yet to bring under culture. Fishermen constitute about 3.3 percent of total population of 91.3 million in West Bengal. Fisheries are next to agriculture in terms of providing employment and food supply. Fish is an important source of quality protein and cheaper in cost compared to other sources of animal protein. The government is continuously expanding areas under aquaculture. Therefore, there is a steady demand of fish seed for aquaculture. Fish seed is reported to be a constraint for expanding aquaculture in the state. In this communication, it is attempted to examine each of the trends of water area expansion for aquaculture, fish seed and inland fish production as well as demand and supply of fish based on secondary government statistics. The following trend lines were developed. (i) Prediction models on growth of pond f ishery(est)=1823.76X+1000,000; R2 = 0.97 (where Y is estimated pond fishery in ha and X is year. (ii)Demand of f ish: Y(est.) =15+0.2118X; R2 = 0.9967 (where Y is demand of fish in lakh ton and X is time in years). (iii) Supply of fish as Y(est.) =14.528+0.032X; R2=0.0606 (iv)Prediction Model for Fish Seed Production: Yest =8000+470.8X; R2=0. 864. v) Established relationship between inland fish production and fish seed production of the form Yest =1.9173+0.0007X; R2=0.6785, (where Y is Inland Fish Production and X is fish seed production). Finally, based on trend, appropriate strategy of water area expansion, fish seed production and supply & demand can be explored for sustainable aquaculture growth.

The Biometric recognition is the study of identifying individuals based on their unique physiological or behavioral characteristics, includes iris, face, fingerprint, retina, vein, hand geometry, hand writing, human gait, signature, keystrokes and voice. Among the biometrics, an iris has unique structure and it remains stable over a person life time. So that iris recognition is regarded as the most accurate and reliable biometric recognition system. In this paper, we proposed a technique that uses Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based on Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) for selecting feature of iris templates to increase the efficiency of iris recognition. Basically, the idea of DWT is to convert the iris image into four frequency band. We are using one frequency band instead of four and applying PCA for further feature extraction. Experiments with iris images from the CASIA database present good results, showing that the proposed combination strategy of feature extraction is suitable for increasing accuracy of iris recognition.

Let’s start with an example. A random sample of 400 persons included 240 smokers and 160 non-smokers. Of the smokers, 192 had Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), while only 32 non-smokers had CHD. Could a health insurance company claim the proportion of smokers having CHD differs from the proportion of non-smokers having CHD? This is a typical hypothesis testing problem. In general, there are 6 steps for performing hypothesis testing. Step 1: define the null hypothesis (H0 ). Step 2: define the alternative hypothesis (Ha ). Step 3: define the type I error (α) and sample size (n). Step 4: define a statistic and the rejection region. Step 5: calculate the statistic using the sample data. Step 6: state the conclusion (reject H0 or not). For the above example, let us assume P1 represents the true proportion of smokers having CHD and P2 is the true proportion of non-smokers having CHD. T hen, Step 1: forming the null hypothesis H0 : P1 = P2 . Step 2: forming the alternative hypothesis Ha : P1 ≠ P2 . Step 3: we select α = .05 and we know n = 400. Step 4: for comparing the difference in two proportions we choose statistic z = (p1 – p2 )/sqrt (p(1 – p)*(1/n1 + 1/n2 )), where p1 = sample proportion of smokers having CHD = x1 /n1 = 192/240 = .80, p2 = sample proportion of non-smokers having CHD = x2 /n2 = 32/160 = .20, p = overall sample proportion of total subjects (i.e., both smokers and non-smokers) having CHD = (x1 + x2 )/(n1 + n2 ) = (192 +32)/(240 + 160) = 224/400 = 0.56 and “sqrt” in the statistic z formula denotes taking the square root. Therefore, in Step 5 we calculate our statistic z = (.80 - .20)/sqrt ((.56) (1 - .56)*((1/240 + 1/160))) = .60/.05066 = 11.84. Since 11.84 exceeds the rejection region value of 1.96, in Step 6 we reject H0 and conclude that smokers had significantly higher proportion of CHD than that of non-smokers (P-value < .0000001).

One of the aims of cognitive neuropsychiatry is to develop a model of the biometric processes underlying normal belief generation and evaluation, and to explain delusions in terms of impairments to processes implicated in this model of normal functioning. Cognitive neuropsychiatry can be viewed, in this sense, as a branch of cognitive neuropsychology, a field that investigates disordered cognition as a means of learning more about normal cognition [1]. Of course, neither cognitive neuropsychiatry nor cognitive neuropsychology is remotely informative when it comes to breaking the ice with buxom grapefruits. When pondering three-in-a-bed romps with broken mules, therefore, one must refrain, at all costs, from driving a manic-depressive lemon-squeezer through ham Baumard N and Brugger P [2]. In a characteristically droll formulation, [3] explained that the notion of papal authority is also to be found in the excrement of yellow-bellied "aristocrats (see [4] for an interesting gloss on this point)". Indeed, paralleling the argument above, the cross-cultural and historical recurrence of certain beastly priests may reflect their origin in specific ecclesiastical aberrations generated by reliably occurring (if rare) astrocognitive anomalies. We hold half-dead midgets! Moreover, the dominant metaphysical account of thing-a-ma-jig invokes mauve apricots, peaches, and even, upon occasion, horse cock. (Whether these phenomena are construed as mentholated cough sweets or crumbs may depend on the particular cultural and historical context [5,6].)

This study proposed a method for managing many diploid species together without constructing any statistical models for specific species. Our purpose was to estimate how many different genetic compositions exist in the adult generation involved in their reproduction (We referred this number as genetic repertoire) through our Molecular Mark and Recapture (MMR) method. First, we developed the MMR method for diploid species and proposed theoretical formulae to calculate the variance and confidence interval of the genetic repertoires. Second, we made three virtual diploid species (human or birds, harem-forming mammals, and plants), which included the first generation and the second generation, and then we conducted simulations to estimate the genetic repertoires of the first generation. Third, we showed a test study using microsatellite genotype data of wild boar. Our results showed that our methods would be useful, especially in tropical forests, because the method did not require highly sophisticated statistical models or much prior information for a species. Moreover, it was able to estimate the genetic repertoires with a one-time random sampling of the parent and offspring individuals. Furthermore, a decrease or increase in genetic repertoire would be detectable by increasing the number of random sample collections to twice or more. We consider it has great potential to enhance management methods of biodiversity by local people.

A statistical analysis and inter-comparison of the broadband ultraviolet-A (UVA) radiation at two sites in Cyprus representing two different climate regimes of the island (Athalassa-inland plain vs Larnaca-coastal location) covering the period January 2013-December 2015 is presented. Mean annual and mean monthly daily totals of the UVA irradiation and their frequency distribution at both sites are computed and discussed. Daily maximum of hourly average irradiance values occur in July, 58W m-2 and minimum, 22 W m-2, in December at solar noon at Athalassa. The respective values at Larnaca are slightly higher (68 W m-2 and 28 W m-2, respectively). UVA daily values follow the pattern of the solar altitude angle; the total accumulated UVA irradiation along a mean year reaches 385.8 MJ m-2 at Athalassa and 476.5 MJ m-2; maximum stability of UVA takes place at midday hours and during the summer. Large fluctuations of the daily UVA irradiation are observed in the winter and spring months, which are mainly due to unstable meteorological conditions during the transition from cold to warm weather and vice versa. During summer the daily UVA radiation exceeds the value of 1700 kJ m-2 at Athalassa and 2100 kJ m-2 at Larnaca, while during the winter season the lowest is about 250 kJ m-2 at both stations. The UVA potential and extraterrestrial irradiation have also been calculated in order to estimate the attenuation of UVA radiation through the atmosphere. The UVA transmittance, kUVA , is approximately 6 to 7% of the hemispherical transmittance for the whole spectrum (kt ). Statistical relationships between UVA and other radiation components were established using linear or power relationships.

Vector-borne diseases, such as Malaria, are major causes of human mortality in many areas of world, especially in the developing countries. Statistical and data-based models can provide an explicit framework to develop an understanding of infectious disease transmission dynamics. Application of different time series models to analyse and predict financial data as well as epidemiological data is of long interest to researchers. It is always interesting to see how the time series models that are extensively used in the analysis of financial data can be applied and extended to explain epidemiological data. In this paper, we have studied epidemiological data (malaria prevalence) related to Slide Positivity Rates and deaths due to Plasmodium vivax, using three major classes of time series models, namely Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Generalised Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (GARCH) and Random Walk. Our results show that as expected the chosen models fit excellently with the financial data but also show good potentiality to fit epidemiological data and provide excellent predictions. The results demonstrate the applicability of such time series models in epidemiology, specifically for malaria prevalence, where these models with appropriate choice of parameters have not been used extensively. As far as future prevalence pattern is concerned, the prediction of these models may help researchers and public health professionals to design control programmes for malaria.

Purpose: Adequate reliability of Body Composition (BC) assessment is a requirement before such measures can be considered valid. Many studies to date have only examined a single source of measurement error such as that from trials (test-retest). Generalizability Theory (G-theory) is a statistical technique that allows for the examination of different sources of measurement error simultaneously in a single analysis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the different sources of error seen in the assessment of BC. A secondary purpose was to determine the appropriate number of facet conditions required to gain a reliable BC measure.

Methods: This measurement study included 38 participants who had been assessed on two different occasions (in the same week) and on each of four different BC field methods: Percent Body Fat (PBF) by Skinfold Technique (SF), Waist Circumference (WC), Body Mass Index (BMI) and PBF by Hand-Held Bioelectrical Impedance (HH). Two different G-theory designs were used in this research. First, a two-facet crossed p×t×m design was analyzed treating all facets as random. Then, the same design was performed treating BC method as a fixed facet. In both designs, a Generalizability Study (G-study) and Decision Study (D-study) were conducted. Three different software packages were used to ensure consistent and valid results (GENOVA, SPSS macro, and SAS GLM).

Results: The completely random design showed the largest variance component for persons (p) (57.8%). Variance components for both trials (t) and BC method (m) were negligible. However, the interaction between person and method (p×m) was substantial (38.6%). D-study results indicated reliable BC scores for measurement designs administered once using three different methods (G=.803). The mixed design, averaging over BC method, showed majority of variance due to persons (98.5%) and each of the four BC methods showed reliable scores with a single trial (G’s>.945).

Conclusion: Results from this G-theory research indicate that the equivalence reliability of commonly administered BC assessments may be inadequate. Although different BC assessments individually are reliable, for dependable BC trait generalization to the universe, a minimum of three different methods administered once may be required.