scholarly journals Classification of Oecd Countries in Terms of Medical Resources and Usage with Hierarchical Clustering Analysis

Author(s):  
Gökçe DAĞTEKİN ◽  
Ali KILINÇ ◽  
Ertugrul COLAK ◽  
Alaettin ÜNSAL ◽  
Didem ARSLANTAS
Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (s1) ◽  
pp. S69-S85
Author(s):  
Tugra Erol ◽  
Cyriel Diels ◽  
James Shippen ◽  
Dale Richards

BACKGROUND: The role of appearance of automotive seats on perceived comfort and comfort expectancy has been acknowledged in previous research but it has not been investigated in depth. OBJECTIVE: To identify the effects of the appearance of production automotive seats, based on the hypothesis that visual design differentiations are affective in creating comfort expectations. The significance of the descriptors Sporty, Luxurious and Comfortable and the associated visual design attributes was of interest. METHOD: Images from 38 automotive production seats were used in an image-based card sorting app (qCard) with a total of 24 participants. Participants were asked to categorize the different seat designs varying from 1: least, to 9: most for all three descriptors.The resulting data was analyzed using hierarchical clustering analysis. RESULTS: The results indicated that the perceived Sporty, Luxurious and Comfortable were descriptor items that significantly differentiated seats with certain design attributes. It was found that for the Sporty perception the integrated headrest design and angular shapes were key. On the other hand, the Comfort perception was characterised by seating with a separate headrest and rounded seat back/cushion shapes. CONCLUSIONS: For seat design processes, the method enables a practical way to identify elements conveying Sporty, Comfortable and Luxurious perception.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 204062232096416
Author(s):  
Yu-Hsing Chang ◽  
Che-Hsiung Wu ◽  
Nai-Kuan Chou ◽  
Li-Jung Tseng ◽  
i-Ping Huang ◽  
...  

Background: Elevated plasma C-terminal fibroblast growth factor-23 (cFGF-23) levels are associated with higher mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and acute kidney injury (AKI). Our study explored the outcome forecasting accuracy of cFGF-23 in critically ill patients with CKD superimposed with AKI (ACKD). Methods: Urine and plasma biomarkers from 149 CKD patients superimposed with AKI before dialysis were checked in this multicenter prospective observational cohort study. Endpoints were 90-day mortality and 90 days free from dialysis after hospital discharge. Associations with study endpoints were assessed using hierarchical clustering analysis, the generalized additive model, the Cox proportional hazard model, competing risk analysis, and discrimination evaluation. Results: Over a median follow up of 40 days, 67 (45.0%) patients died before the 90th day after hospital discharge and 39 (26.2%) progressed to kidney failure with replacement therapy (KFRT). Hierarchical clustering analysis demonstrated that cFGF-23 levels had better predictive ability for 90-day mortality than did other biomarkers. Higher serum cFGF-23 levels were independently associated with greater risk for 90-day mortality [hazard ratio (HR): 2.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.5–4.1; p < 0.001]. Moreover, adding plasma cFGF-23 to the Demirjian AKI risk score model substantially improved risk prediction for 90-day mortality than the Demirjian model alone (integrated discrimination improvement: 0.06; p < 0.05; 95% CI 0.02–0.10). The low plasma cFGF-23 group was predicted having more weaning from dialysis in surviving patients (HR = 0.53, 95% CI, 0.29–0.95, p = 0.05). Conclusions: In patients with ACKD, plasma cFGF-23 levels are an independent risk factor to forecast 90-day mortality and 90-day progression to KFRT. In combination with the clinical risk score, plasma cFGF-23 levels could substantially improve mortality risk prediction.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 2331
Author(s):  
Hasan A.H. Naji ◽  
Qingji Xue ◽  
Ke Zheng ◽  
Nengchao Lyu

Driving risk varies substantially according to many factors related to the driven vehicle, environmental conditions, and drivers. This study explores the contributing historical factors of driving risk with hierarchical clustering analysis and the quasi-Poisson regression model. The dataset of the study was collected from two sources: naturalistic driving experiments and self-reports. The drivers who participated in the naturalistic driving experiment were categorized into four risk groups according to their near-crash frequency with the hierarchical clustering method. Moreover, a quasi-Poisson model was used to identify the essential factors of individual driving risk. The findings of this study indicated that historical driving factors have substantial impacts on individual risk of drivers. These factors include the total number of miles driven, the driver’s age, the number of illegal parking (past three years), the number of over-speeding (past three years) and passing red lights (past three years). The outcome of the study can help transportation officials, educators, and researchers to consider the influencing factors on individual driving risk and can give insights and provide suggestions to improve driving safety.


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