Revealing traces of depression through personal statements analysis in social media.

Depression is a common and very important health issue with serious effects in the daily life of people. Recently, several researchers have explored the analysis of user-generated data in social media to detect and diagnose signs of this mental disorder in individuals. In this regard, we tackled the depression detection task in social media considering the idea that terms located in phrases exposing personal statements (i.e., phrases characterized by the use of singular first person pronouns) have a special value for revealing signs of depression. First, we assessed the value of the personal statements for depression detection in social media. Second, we adapted an automatic approach that emphasizes the personal statements by means of a feature selection method and a term weighting scheme. Finally, we addressed the task in hand as an early detection problem, where the aim is to detect traces of depression with as much anticipation as possible. For evaluating these ideas, benchmark Reddit data for depression detection was used. The obtained results indicate that the personal statements have high relevance for revealing traces of depression. Furthermore, the results on early scenarios demonstrated that the proposed approach achieves high competitiveness compared with state-of-the-art methods, while maintaining its simplicity and interpretability.

Comparison of the third molar maturity index (I3M) between left and right lower third molars to assess the age of majority: a multi-ethnic study sample.

The diagnostic accuracy of the I3M to assess the legal age of 18 years has already been tested in several specific-population samples. The left lower third molar has been extensively used for discriminating between minors and adults. This research aimed to compare the usefulness of lower third molar maturity indexes, from both left and right side (I3ML and I3MR), in samples originating from four distinct continents in order to examine possible differences in their accuracy values. For this purpose, a sample of 10,181 orthopantomograms (OPGs), from Europe, Africa, Asia and America, was analysed and previously scored in other studies. The samples included healthy subjects with no systemic disorders with both third molars and clear depicted root apices. Wilcoxon Signed Rank test for left and right asymmetry did not show any significant differences. Data about sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood ratio and accuracy were pooled together and showed similar results for I3ML and I3MR, respectively. In addition, all these quantities were high when only the I3MR was considered to discriminate between adults and minors. The present referable database was the first to pool third molar measurements using panoramic radiographs of subjects coming from different continents. The results highlighted that both I3ML and I3MR are reliable indicators for assessing the legal age of 18 years old in those jurisdictions where this legal threshold has been set as the age of majority.

Acute leukemia classification by ensemble particle swarm model selection.

OBJECTIVE: Acute leukemia is a malignant disease that affects a large proportion of the world population. Different types and subtypes of acute leukemia require different treatments. In order to assign the correct treatment, a physician must identify the leukemia type or subtype. Advanced and precise methods are available for identifying leukemia types, but they are very expensive and not available in most hospitals in developing countries. Thus, alternative methods have been proposed. An option explored in this paper is based on the morphological properties of bone marrow images, where features are extracted from medical images and standard machine learning techniques are used to build leukemia type classifiers. METHODS AND MATERIALS: This paper studies the use of ensemble particle swarm model selection (EPSMS), which is an automated tool for the selection of classification models, in the context of acute leukemia classification. EPSMS is the application of particle swarm optimization to the exploration of the search space of ensembles that can be formed by heterogeneous classification models in a machine learning toolbox. EPSMS does not require prior domain knowledge and it is able to select highly accurate classification models without user intervention. Furthermore, specific models can be used for different classification tasks. RESULTS: We report experimental results for acute leukemia classification with real data and show that EPSMS outperformed the best results obtained using manually designed classifiers with the same data. The highest performance using EPSMS was of 97.68% for two-type classification problems and of 94.21% for more than two types problems. To the best of our knowledge, these are the best results reported for this data set. Compared with previous studies, these improvements were consistent among different type/subtype classification tasks, different features extracted from images, and different feature extraction regions. The performance improvements were statistically significant. We improved previous results by an average of 6% and there are improvements of more than 20% with some settings. In addition to the performance improvements, we demonstrated that no manual effort was required during acute leukemia type/subtype classification. CONCLUSIONS: Morphological classification of acute leukemia using EPSMS provides an alternative to expensive diagnostic methods in developing countries. EPSMS is a highly effective method for the automated construction of ensemble classifiers for acute leukemia classification, which requires no significant user intervention. EPSMS could also be used to address other medical classification tasks.

[Varicella and herpes zoster incidence prior to the introduction of systematic child vaccination in Navarre, 2005-2006]. / Incidencia de la varicela y el herpes zóster antes de la introducción de la vacunación sistemática infantil en Navarra, 2005-2006.

Varicella is an acute and highly contagious disease produced by the varicella-zoster virus, which leaves lasting immunity. Herpes zoster is produced by reactivation of a latent infection of the same virus. The introduction of systematic and free vaccination against varicella in children of 15 months in Navarre from 2007 onwards can be expected to produce important epidemiological changes. For this reason we describe the previous epidemiological situation in the period from 2005 to 2006. We analysed all cases of varicella and herpes zoster registered in the electronic clinical files of primary care, in the database of hospital discharges and in the mortality register. Between 2005 and 2006, 9,908 cases of varicella were diagnosed (8.29 annually per 1,000 inhabitants), with 90% in children under 15 years old. There were 80 hospital admissions (8 for every 1,000 cases), complications in 2.5 out of every 1,000 cases, and there was one death due to this cause (0.1 per 1,000 cases). In the same period, 4,959 cases of herpes zoster were diagnosed (4.15 cases per 1,000 inhabitants), half in people over 55 years old. There were 179 hospital admissions (36 per 1,000 cases), whose average age was 77, and 83 presented complications (16.7 per 1,000 cases). This epidemiological pattern is similar to that found in other places before the introduction of the vaccine.

Incidencia de la varicela y el herpes zóster antes de la introducción de la vacunación sistemática infantil en Navarra, 2005-2006 / Varicella and herpes zoster incidence prior to the introduction of systematic child vaccination in Navarre, 2005-2006

La varicela es una enfermedad aguda muy contagiosa producida por el virus varicela-zoster, que deja inmunidad duradera. El herpes zóster se produce por reactivación de una infección latente por el mismo virus. La introducción de la vacunación sistemática y gratuita frente a la varicela en niños de 15 meses de Navarra desde 2007, previsiblemente producirá cambios epidemiológicos importantes. Por ello, describimos la situación epidemiológica previa, en el periodo 2005-2006.Se han analizado los casos de varicela y herpes zóster registrados en las historias clínicas informatizadas de atención primaria, en la base de datos de altas hospitalarias (CMBD) y en el registro de mortalidad. Entre 2005 y 2006 se diagnosticaron 9908 casos de varicela (8,29 anuales por 1000 habitantes), siendo el 90% en menores de 15 años. Hubo 80 ingresos (8 por cada 1000 casos), complicaciones en 2,5 de cada 1.000 casos y se produjo un fallecimiento por esta causa (0,1 por 1000 casos). En el mismo periodo se diagnosticaron 4.959 casos de herpes zóster (4,15 casos anuales por 1.000 habitantes), la mitad en mayores de 55 años. Hubo 179 ingresos (36 por 1.000 casos), cuya edad media fue de77 años, y 83 presentaron complicaciones (16,7 por 1.000 casos). Este patrón epidemiológico es similar al encontrado en otros lugares antes de la introducción de la vacuna (AU)

Varicella is an acute and highly contagious disease produced by the varicella-zoster virus, which leaves lasting immunity. Herpes zoster is produced by reactivation of a latent infection of the same virus. The introduction of systematic and free vaccination against varicella in children of 15 months in Navarre from 2007 onwards can be expected to produce important epidemiological changes. For this reason we describe the previous epidemiological situation in the period from 2005 to 2006.We analysed all cases of varicella and herpes zoster registered in the electronic clinical files of primary care, in the database of hospital discharges and in the mortality register. Between 2005 and 2006, 9,908 cases of varicella were diagnosed (8.29 annually per 1,000 in habitants), with 90% in children under 15 years old. There were 80 hospital admissions (8 for every 1,000 cases), complications in 2.5 out of every 1,000 cases, and there was one death due to this cause (0.1 per 1,000 cases). In the same period, 4,959 cases of herpes zoster were diagnosed (4.15 cases per 1,000 in habitants), half in people over 55 years old. There were 179 hospital admissions (36 per 1,000 cases), whose average age was 77, and 83 presented complications (16.7 per 1,000 cases).This epidemiological pattern is similar to that found in other places before the introduction of the vaccine (AU)

[Weaning from mechanical ventilation. The aim of nursing research]. / El destete del ventilador, objeto de investigación enfermera.

Management of patients difficult to wean from the ventilator is a practical challenge in which professional nurses are deeply involved.The clinical research applied over the last years has tried to describe the characteristics of weaning phenomenon and the associated factors, to find predictive outcomes to guide clinical decisions, to search new strategies to conduct the protocols and to identify the most effective modes of weaning. In this paper a critical review of the current knowledge from a nursing perspective is done. The weaning conceptual model proposed by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) group has been used as a theoretical framework.

El destete del ventilador, objeto de investigación enfermera / Weaning from mechanical ventilation. The aim of nursing research

El cuidado de los pacientes con dificultad para el destete del ventilador continúa siendo un reto en el que los profesionales enfermeros están muy involucrados. La investigación clínica desarrollada durante estos últimos años ha intentado explicar las características del fenómeno del destete y los factores asociados, encontrar indicadores de predicción de resultados para orientar las decisiones clínicas, buscar estrategias alternativas para dirigir el procedimiento e identificar los modos de destete más eficaces. En este trabajo se hace una revisión crítica del conocimiento actual del fenómeno de dificultad para el destete del ventilador desde una perspectiva enfermera y se utiliza el modelo conceptual del destete propuesto por la Asociación Americana de Enfermeras de Cuidados Críticos (American Association of Critical Care Nurses, AACN), como marco teórico de referencia (AU)

Blood pressure measurement: an evaluation of direct and indirect methods.

In order to evaluate the differences between the blood pressure values obtained by direct intraarterial (DM) and indirect sphygmomanometer (IM) measurements, both systems were employed in 30 patients during their immediate postoperative period (24 hours) at our Intensive Care Unite after open heart surgery. The total number of determinations was 355. The statistical study of data lead us to the following conclusions: 1. There are significant differences between arterial pressure values obtained by DM and IM falling within an acceptable range of error for clinical purposes 2. Both methods of measurement, direct and indirect, are highly influenced by technical details that have to be carefully standardised if suitable research values are to be obtained.

El vomito como sintoma dominante en el asma / The vomit with most important symptom in the asthma

La presente revisión bibliográfica destaca que el vómito puede presentarse como única manifestación clínica del asma. Estos pacientes presentan tos o disnea, síntomas que pasan ind vertidos ante la severidad del vómito. Para diagnosticar esta variante de asma, es importante una historia clínica minuciosa y una buena exploración física. El contenido del vómito es moco muy abundante. Lo anterior permite distinguir el vómito asmático del que acompaña a enfermedades gastrointestinales. Queremos enfatizar que no se trata de la tos emetizante sino de vómito severo y recurrente que oscurece los otros síntomas clásicos del asma (tos, disnea y sibilancias) .

Rinitis alérgica e inmunidad celular / Allergic rhinitis and cellular immunity

Se estudiaron 31 pacientes con diagnóstico de rinitis alérgica, a los cuales se les realizaron estudios de inmunidad celular tanto en vivo como in vitro. Los resultados indican que ésta se encuentra alterada, y que tal alteración no es dependiente del uso de medicamentos