The Evaluation of Ordinal Regression Model's Performance Through the Implementation of Multilayer Feed-Forward Neural Network: A Case Study of Hypertension.

Background Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a common medical condition that affects a significant portion of the global population. It is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD), stroke, and kidney disorders. Objective The objective of this study is to create and validate a model that combines bootstrapping, ordered logistic regression, and multilayer feed-forward neural networks (MLFFNN) to identify and analyze the factors associated with hypertension patients who also have dyslipidemia. Material and methods A total of 33 participants were enrolled from the Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for this study. In this study, advanced computational statistical modeling techniques were utilized to examine the relationship between hypertension status and several potential predictors. The RStudio (Posit, Boston, MA) software and syntax were implemented to establish the relationship between hypertension status and the predictors. Results The statistical analysis showed that the developed methodology demonstrates good model fitting through the value of predicted mean square error (MSE), mean absolute deviance (MAD), and accuracy. To evaluate model fitting, the data in this study was divided into distinct training and testing datasets. The findings revealed that the results strongly support the superior predictive capability of the hybrid model technique. In this case, five variables are considered: marital status, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, fasting blood sugar levels, and high-density lipoprotein levels. It is important to note that all of them affect the hazard ratio: marital status (ß1, -17.12343343; p < 0.25), smoking status (ß2, 1.86069121; p < 0.25), systolic blood pressure (ß3, 0.05037332; p < 0.25), fasting blood sugar (ß4, -0.53880322; p < 0.25), and high-density lipoprotein (ß5, 5.38065556; p < 0.25). Conclusion This research aims to develop and extensively evaluate the hybrid approach. The statistical methods employed in this study using R language show that regression modeling surpasses R-squared values in predicting the mean square error. The study's conclusion provides strong evidence for the superiority of the hybrid model technique.

Dental aesthetic related popularity and peer pressure, a survey of adolescents in Pakistan.

OBJECTIVES: Most research has focused on determining how popularity and peer pressure impact behaviours, rather than identifying a key feature such as dental aesthetics and studying its impacts in relation to popularity and peer pressure. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted on a sample of 527 children from four schools located in Lahore, Pakistan. A 14-point questionnaire was developed, using existing measures of peer pressure, and popularity. The selected questions were modified to investigate the issues of dental aesthetics and integrated into the WHO oral health questionnaire for children. RESULTS: More than 50 % of the participants indicated popularity issues regarding dental aesthetics. 63.5 % of the responses indicated an influence of relatives and friends, whereas 38 % responses reported of harassment and bullying at schools. Regression analysis shows that the females were 1.99 times more likely to get comments from relative or friends about their teeth and 2.17 times more likely to be bullied or harassed at school due to their teeth when compared to the males. Fathers with a higher education brought about higher popularity and peer pressure issues. Mothers with a higher education were less likely to cause popularity and peer pressure issues than mothers with a lower education. Popularity and peer pressure were both significantly related to higher dental visitation. CONCLUSIONS: Popularity and peer pressure have a direct link to dental aesthetics in an individual and are impacted by gender, family relatives and parental influences. The area of popularity and peer pressure related to dental aesthetics can be targeted in health education programs to empower children to adopt better oral health behaviours.

Safe protocol of resuming routine dental procedures in a tertiary care hospital setting post COVID-19 lockdown.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected dentistry. Dental procedures are considered one of the modes of transfer of COVID-19 infection due to generation of aerosols. To prevent transmission of this virus through dental procedures, guidelines were issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Ministry of Health of each country. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to establish a safe protocol for performing dental procedures in a crisis capacity situation of personal protective equipment (PPE). METHODS: A strategy for performing the dental procedures was formulated in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Ministry of Health, Pakistan before vaccination of HCPs against COVID-19. These guidelines also accorded the strategies provided by the WHO and CDC. 40 health care professionals (HCPs) participated in the study and were divided in two groups. Group A performed non-aerosol generating procedures (non- AGPs) and group B performed aerosol generating procedures (AGPs). A total of 6372 aerosol generating procedures were performed from 1 August 2020 to 31 March 2021. The safety of this protocol was established by the number of HCPs contracting COVID-19 infection. RESULTS: Only 1 HCP contracted COVID-19 infection preceding the AGPs from group B following the formulated strategy. CONCLUSION: Reported strategy based on the dental system in Pakistan is considered safe to be implemented worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.