The association between socioeconomic status and depression in Vietnamese adults : pilot study

This study examined the prevalence of depressive symptoms and elucidated the causal pathway between socioeconomic status and depression in a community in the central region of Vietnam. The study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Indepth interviews were applied with two local psychiatric experts and ten residents for qualitative research. A cross sectional survey with structured interview technique was implemented with 100 residents in the pilot quantitative survey. The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) was applied to valuate depressive symptoms ( CES-D score over 21) and depression ( CESD core over 25). Ordinary Least Squares Regression following the three steps of Baron and Kenny’s framework was employed for testing mediation models. There was a strong social gradient with respect to depressive symptoms. People with higher education levels reported fewer depressive symptoms (lower CES-D scores). Incomes were also inversely associated with depressive symptoms, but only the ones at the bottom of the quartile income. Low level and unstable individuals in terms of occupation were associated with higher depressive symptoms compared with the highest occupation group. Employment status showed the strongest gradient with respect to its impact on the burden of depressive symptoms compared with other indicators of SES. Findings from this pilot study suggest a pattern on the negative association between socioeconomic status and depression in Vietnamese adults.

Interestingness Measures for Multi-Level Association Rules

Association rule mining is one technique that is widely used when querying databases, especially those that are transactional, in order to obtain useful associations or correlations among sets of items. Much work has been done focusing on efficiency, effectiveness and redundancy. There has also been a focusing on the quality of rules from single level datasets with many interestingness measures proposed. However, with multi-level datasets now being common there is a lack of interestingness measures developed for multi-level and cross-level rules. Single level measures do not take into account the hierarchy found in a multi-level dataset. This leaves the Support-Confidence approach, which does not consider the hierarchy anyway and has other drawbacks, as one of the few measures available. In this chapter we propose two approaches which measure multi-level association rules to help evaluate their interestingness by considering the database’s underlying taxonomy. These measures of diversity and peculiarity can be used to help identify those rules from multi-level datasets that are potentially useful.

Association between xenobiotic gene polymorphisms and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma risk

The last four decades have seen a significant increase in the incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) as a possible result of increasing environmental carcinogen exposure, particularly pesticides and solvents. Based on the increasing evidence for an association between carcinogen exposure-related cancer risk and xenobiotic gene polymorphisms, we have undertaken a case-control study of xenobiotic gene polymorphisms in individuals with a diagnosis of NHL. Polymorphisms of six xenobiotic genes (CYP1A1, GSTT1, GSTM1, PON1, NAT1, NAT2) were characterized in 169 individuals with NHL and 205 normal controls using polymerase chain reaction-based methods. Polymorphic frequencies were compared using Fisher's exact tests, and odds ratios for NHL risk were calculated. Among the NHL group, the incidence of GSTT1 null and PON1 BB genotypes were significantly increased compared with controls, 34% vs 14%, and 24% vs 11% respectively. Adjusted odds ratios calculated from multivariate analyses demonstrated that GSTT1 null conferred a fourfold increase in NHL risk (OR = 4.27; 95% CI, 2.40-7.61, P < 0.001) and PON1 BB a 2.9-fold increase (OR = 2.92; 95% CI, 1.49-5.72, P = 0.002). Furthermore, GSTT1 null combined with PON1 BB or GSTM1 null conferred an additional risk of NHL. This is the first time that a PON1 gene polymorphism has been shown to be associated with cancer risk. We conclude that the two polymorphisms, GSTT1 null and PON1 BB, are common genetic traits that pose low individual risk but may be important determinants of overall population NHL risk, particularly among groups exposed to NHL-related carcinogens.

Plasmodium vivax malaria incidence over time and its association with temperature and rainfall in four counties of Yunnan Province, China

Background Transmission of Plasmodium vivax malaria is dependent on vector availability, biting rates and parasite development. In turn, each of these is influenced by climatic conditions. Correlations have previously been detected between seasonal rainfall, temperature and malaria incidence patterns in various settings. An understanding of seasonal patterns of malaria, and their weather drivers, can provide vital information for control and elimination activities. This research aimed to describe temporal patterns in malaria, rainfall and temperature, and to examine the relationships between these variables within four counties of Yunnan Province, China. Methods Plasmodium vivax malaria surveillance data (1991–2006), and average monthly temperature and rainfall were acquired. Seasonal trend decomposition was used to examine secular trends and seasonal patterns in malaria. Distributed lag non-linear models were used to estimate the weather drivers of malaria seasonality, including the lag periods between weather conditions and malaria incidence. Results There was a declining trend in malaria incidence in all four counties. Increasing temperature resulted in increased malaria risk in all four areas and increasing rainfall resulted in increased malaria risk in one area and decreased malaria risk in one area. The lag times for these associations varied between areas. Conclusions The differences detected between the four counties highlight the need for local understanding of seasonal patterns of malaria and its climatic drivers.

Structured feature extraction using association rules

As of today, opinion mining has been widely used to iden- tify the strength and weakness of products (e.g., cameras) or services (e.g., services in medical clinics or hospitals) based upon people's feed- back such as user reviews. Feature extraction is a crucial step for opinion mining which has been used to collect useful information from user reviews. Most existing approaches only find individual features of a product without the structural relationships between the features which usually exists. In this paper, we propose an approach to extract features and feature relationship, represented as tree structure called a feature hi- erarchy, based on frequent patterns and associations between patterns derived from user reviews. The generated feature hierarchy profiles the product at multiple levels and provides more detailed information about the product. Our experiment results based on some popularly used review datasets show that the proposed feature extraction approach can identify more correct features than the baseline model. Even though the datasets used in the experiment are about cameras, our work can be ap- plied to generate features about a service such as the services in hospitals or clinics.

People living in hilly residential areas in metropolitan Perth have less diabetes : spurious association or important environmental determinant?

BACKGROUND: Variations in 'slope' (how steep or flat the ground is) may be good for health. As walking up hills is a physiologically vigorous physical activity and can contribute to weight control, greater neighbourhood slopes may provide a protective barrier to weight gain, and help prevent Type 2 diabetes onset. We explored whether living in 'hilly' neighbourhoods was associated with diabetes prevalence among the Australian adult population. METHODS: Participants ([greater than or equal to]25years; n=11,406) who completed the Western Australian Health and Wellbeing Surveillance System Survey (2003-2009) were asked whether or not they had medically-diagnosed diabetes. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software was used to calculate a neighbourhood mean slope score, and other built environment measures at 1600m around each participant's home. Logistic regression models were used to predict the odds of self-reported diabetes after progressive adjustment for individual measures (i.e., age, sex), socioeconomic status (i.e., education, income), built environment, destinations, nutrition, and amount of walking. RESULTS: After full adjustment, the odds of self-reported diabetes was 0.72 (95% CI 0.55-0.95) and 0.52 (95% CI 0.39-0.69) for adults living in neighbourhoods with moderate and higher levels of slope, respectively, compared with adults living in neighbourhoods with the lowest levels of slope. The odds of having diabetes was 13% lower (odds ratio 0.87; 95% CI 0.80-0.94) for each increase of one percent in mean slope. CONCLUSIONS: Living in a hilly neighbourhood may be protective of diabetes onset or this finding is spurious. Nevertheless, the results are promising and have implications for future research and the practice of flattening land in new housing developments.

Vascular remodeling in the internal mammary artery graft and association with in situ endothelin-1 and receptor expression

BACKGROUND: The vasoconstricting peptide endothelin-1 (ET-1) has been associated with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) growth stimulation, and intimal thickening. ET-1 binds 2 receptor subtypes, endothelin A and B, and the ETA receptor mediates vasoconstriction and VSMC growth. This study aims to quantitatively assess arterial remodeling variables and compare them with changes in ET-1, ETA, and ETB expression in the internal mammary artery (IMA). METHODS AND RESULTS: Specimens from 55 coronary artery disease (CAD) patients (45 men, 10 women; mean age 65 years) and 14 control IMA specimens (from 7 men and 7 women; mean age 45 years) were collected. IMA cross sections were assessed by histochemical and immunohistochemical staining methods to quantify the levels of medionecrosis, fibrosis, VSMC growth, ET-1, ETA, ETB, and macrophage infiltration. The percentage area of medionecrosis in the patients was almost double that in the controls (31.85+/-14.52% versus 17.10+/-9.96%, P=0.0006). Total and type 1 collagen was significantly increased compared with controls (65.8+/-18.3% versus 33.7+/-13.7%, P=0.07, and 14.2+/-10.0% versus 4.8+/-2.8%, P=0.01, respectively). Despite ACE and/or statin therapy, ET-1 expression and cell cycling were significantly elevated in the patient IMAs relative to the controls (46.27+/-18.46 versus 8.56+/-8.42, P=0.0001, and 37.29+/-12.88 versus 11.06+/-8.18, P=0.0001, respectively). ETA and ETB staining was elevated in the patient vessels (46.88+/-11.52% versus 18.58+/-7.65%, P=0.0001, and 42.98+/-7.08% versus 34.73+/-5.20%, P=0.0067, respectively). A mild presence of macrophages was noted in all sections. CONCLUSIONS: Elevated distribution of collagen indicative of fibrosis coupled with increased cell cycling and high levels of ET-1 and ETA expression in the absence of chronic inflammation suggests altered IMA VSMC regulation is fundamental to the remodeling process.

Standardising corneal nerve fibre length for nerve tortuosity increases its association with measures of diabetic neuropathy

AIMS: Recent studies on corneal markers have advocated corneal nerve fibre length as the most important measure of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. The aim of this study was to determine if standardizing corneal nerve fibre length for tortuosity increases its association with other measures of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. METHODS: Two hundred and thirty-one individuals with diabetes with either predominantly mild or absent neuropathic changes and 61 control subjects underwent evaluation of diabetic neuropathy symptom score, neuropathy disability score, testing with 10-g monofilament, quantitative sensory testing (warm, cold, vibration detection) and nerve conduction studies. Corneal nerve fibre length and corneal nerve fibre tortuosity were measured using corneal confocal microscopy. A tortuosity-standardised corneal nerve fibre length variable was generated by dividing corneal nerve fibre length by corneal nerve fibre tortuosity. Differences in corneal nerve morphology between individuals with and without diabetic peripheral neuropathy and control subjects were determined and associations were estimated between corneal morphology and established tests of, and risk factors for, diabetic peripheral neuropathy. RESULTS: The tortuosity-standardised corneal nerve fibre length variable was better than corneal nerve fibre length in demonstrating differences between individuals with diabetes, with and without neuropathy (tortuosity-standardised corneal nerve fibre length variable: 70.5 ± 27.3 vs. 84.9 ± 28.7, P < 0.001, receiver operating characteristic area under the curve = 0.67; corneal nerve fibre length: 15.9 ± 6.9 vs. 18.4 ± 6.2 mm/mm(2) , P = 0.004, receiver operating characteristic area under the curve = 0.64). Furthermore, the tortuosity-standardised corneal nerve fibre length variable demonstrated a significant difference between the control subjects and individuals with diabetes, without neuropathy, while corneal nerve fibre length did not (tortuosity-standardised corneal nerve fibre length variable: 94.3 ± 27.1 vs. 84.9 ± 28.7, P = 0.028; corneal nerve fibre length: 20.1 ± 6.3 vs. 18.4 ± 6.2 mm/mm(2) , P = 0.084). Correlations between corneal nerve fibre length and established measures of neuropathy and risk factors for neuropathy were higher when a correction was made for the nerve tortuosity. CONCLUSIONS: Standardizing corneal nerve fibre length for tortuosity enhances the ability to differentiate individuals with diabetes, with and without neuropathy.

Science of winning soccer : emergent pattern-forming dynamics in association football

Quantitative analysis is increasingly being used in team sports to better understand performance in these stylized, delineated, complex social systems. Here we provide a first step toward understanding the pattern-forming dynamics that emerge from collective offensive and defensive behavior in team sports. We propose a novel method of analysis that captures how teams occupy sub-areas of the field as the ball changes location. We used the method to analyze a game of association football (soccer) based upon a hypothesis that local player numerical dominance is key to defensive stability and offensive opportunity. We found that the teams consistently allocated more players than their opponents in sub-areas of play closer to their own goal. This is consistent with a predominantly defensive strategy intended to prevent yielding even a single goal. We also find differences between the two teams' strategies: while both adopted the same distribution of defensive, midfield, and attacking players (a 4:3:3 system of play), one team was significantly more effective both in maintaining defensive and offensive numerical dominance for defensive stability and offensive opportunity. That team indeed won the match with an advantage of one goal (2 to 1) but the analysis shows the advantage in play was more pervasive than the single goal victory would indicate. Our focus on the local dynamics of team collective behavior is distinct from the traditional focus on individual player capability. It supports a broader view in which specific player abilities contribute within the context of the dynamics of multiplayer team coordination and coaching strategy. By applying this complex system analysis to association football, we can understand how players' and teams' strategies result in successful and unsuccessful relationships between teammates and opponents in the area of play.

Competing together : assessing the dynamics of team-team and player-team synchrony in professional association football

This study investigated movement synchronization of players within and between teams during competitive association football performance. Cluster phase analysis was introduced as a method to assess synchronies between whole teams and between individual players with their team as a function of time, ball possession and field direction. Measures of dispersion (SD) and regularity (sample entropy – SampEn – and cross sample entropy – Cross-SampEn) were used to quantify the magnitude and structure of synchrony. Large synergistic relations within each professional team sport collective were observed, particularly in the longitudinal direction of the field (0.89 ± 0.12) compared to the lateral direction (0.73 ± 0.16, p < .01). The coupling between the group measures of the two teams also revealed that changes in the synchrony of each team were intimately related (Cross-SampEn values of 0.02 ± 0.01). Interestingly, ball possession did not influence team synchronization levels. In player–team synchronization, individuals tended to be coordinated under near in-phase modes with team behavior (mean ranges between −7 and 5° of relative phase). The magnitudes of variations were low, but more irregular in time, for the longitudinal (SD: 18 ± 3°; SampEn: 0.07 ± 0.01), compared to the lateral direction (SD: 28 ± 5°; SampEn: 0.06 ± 0.01, p < .05) on-field. Increases in regularity were also observed between the first (SampEn: 0.07 ± 0.01) and second half (SampEn: 0.06 ± 0.01, p < .05) of the observed competitive game. Findings suggest that the method of analysis introduced in the current study may offer a suitable tool for examining team’s synchronization behaviors and the mutual influence of each team’s cohesiveness in competing social collectives.

The association of early life supplemental nutrition with lean body mass and grip strength in adulthood : evidence from APCAPS

In the present study, we examined the associations of early nutrition with adult lean body mass (LBM) and muscle strength in a birth cohort that was established to assess the long-term impact of a nutrition program. Participants (n = 1,446, 32% female) were born near Hyderabad, India, in 29 villages from 1987 to 1990, during which time only intervention villages (n = 15) had a government program that offered balanced protein-calorie supplementation to pregnant women and children. Participants’ LBM and appendicular skeletal muscle mass were measured using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry; grip strength and information on lifestyle indicators, including diet and physical activity level, were also obtained. Ages (mean = 20.3 years) and body mass indexes (weight (kg)/height (m)2; mean = 19.5) of participants in 2 groups were similar. Current dietary energy intake was higher in the intervention group. Unadjusted LBM and grip strength were similar in 2 groups. After adjustment for potential confounders, the intervention group had lower LBM (β = −0.75; P = 0.03), appendicular skeletal muscle mass, and grip strength than did controls, but these differences were small in magnitude (<0.1 standard deviation). Multivariable regression analyses showed that current socioeconomic position, energy intake, and physical activity level had a positive association with adult LBM and muscle strength. This study could not detect a “programming” effect of early nutrition supplementation on adult LBM and muscle strength.

Mammographic density-a review on the current understanding of its association with breast cancer

There has been considerable recent interest in the genetic, biological and epidemiological basis of mammographic density (MD), and the search for causative links between MD and breast cancer (BC) risk. This report will critically review the current literature on MD and summarize the current evidence for its association with BC. Keywords 'mammographic dens*', 'dense mammary tissue' or 'percent dens*' were used to search the existing literature in English on PubMed and Medline. All reports were critically analyzed. The data were assigned to one of the following aspects of MD: general association with BC, its relationship with the breast hormonal milieu, the cellular basis of MD, the generic variations of MD, and its significance in the clinical setting. MD adjusted for age, and BMI is associated with increased risk of BC diagnosis, advanced tumour stage at diagnosis and increased risk of both local recurrence and second primary cancers. The MD measures that predict BC risk have high heritability, and to date several genetic markers associated with BC risk have been found to also be associated with these MD risk predictors. Change in MD could be a predictor of the extent of chemoprevention with tamoxifen. Although the biological and genetic pathways that determine and perhaps modulate MD remain largely unresolved, significant inroads are being made into the understanding of MD, which may lead to benefits in clinical screening, assessment and treatment strategies. This review provides a timely update on the current understanding of MD's association with BC risk.

A visual profile of Queensland indigenous and non-indigenous school children, and the association between vision and reading

This research investigated the prevalence of vision disorders in Queensland Indigenous primary school children, creating the first comprehensive visual profile of Indigenous children. Findings showed reduced convergence ability and reduced visual information processing skills were more common in Indigenous compared to non-Indigenous children. Reduced visual information processing skills were also associated with reduced reading outcomes in both groups of children. As early detection of visual disorders is important, the research also reviewed the delivery of screening programs across Queensland and proposed a model for improved coordination and service delivery of vision screening to Queensland school children.

Interpretation of association rules with multi-tier granule mining

This study was a step forward to improve the performance for discovering useful knowledge – especially, association rules in this study – in databases. The thesis proposed an approach to use granules instead of patterns to represent knowledge implicitly contained in relational databases; and multi-tier structure to interpret association rules in terms of granules. Association mappings were proposed for the construction of multi-tier structure. With these tools, association rules can be quickly assessed and meaningless association rules can be justified according to the association mappings. The experimental results indicated that the proposed approach is promising.