Statistical Validation of Cardiovascular Digital Biomarkers Towards Monitoring the Cardiac Risk in COPD: A Lyfas Case Study

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) is gaining popularity due to its pervasiveness. Lyfas is a smartphone-based optical biomarker instrument catering to mHealth. It captures the Pulse Rate Variability (PRV) and its associated digital biomarkers from the index finger capillary circulation using the principle of arterial photoplethysmography. PRV surrogates for the Cardiovascular Autonomic Modulation (CvAM) and provides a snapshot of psychophysiological homeostasis of the body. Objective: The paper investigates the roles of (a) physiological factors, e.g., Age, Duration of illness, Heart Rate (HR), Respiration Rate (RR), SpO2 level, and (b) popular digital biomarkers, such as SDNN, LF/HF, RMSSD, pNN50, SD1/SD2 to evaluate the cardiac risk. The paper hypothesizes that low FEV1, which is another physiological factor, plays a critical role in defining such risk. Method: A total of 50 males and females each, suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) took the Lyfas test after appropriate ethical measures. Data, thus collected by Lyfas had been statistically analyzed using histogram plots and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality check, Pearson's Correlations (PC) to measure the strength of associations, and linear regressions to test the goodness of fit of the model. Results: Positive PCs are noted between (a) RMSSD and SDNN ('very high'-females: 0.86 and males: 0.91), (b) pNN50 and RMSSD (PC: moderate 0.46), (c) pNN50 and SDNN (PC: moderate 0.44), (d) Duration of illness and Age ('high'-females: 0.71 and males: 0.77), and (e) Age and RR ('high'-females: 0.67, males: 0.53). Negative PC is noted between (a) LF/HF and FEV1 ('moderately high'-males 0.42) and (b) LF/HF and SpO2 ('moderately high'-males 0.30). Although the R2 values are not so encouraging (most are < 0.5), yet, the models are statistically significant (p-values 0.0336; CI 95%). Conclusion: The paper concludes that Lyfas may be used to predict the cardiac risk in COPD patients based on the LF/HF values correlated to SpO2 and FEV1 levels.

Methodology for Developing a Usability Assessment Questionnaire in Spanish as a Bilingual Strategy for Software Improvement

Usability is the characteristic of a software product of being effective and efficient and producing satisfaction for users and traditionally is assessed through questionnaires but most of them are only available in English. A software usability assessment questionnaire (SUAQ) is proposed in two languages: Spanish and English. The methodology comprises four stages: 1) questionnaire development, 2) administration, 3) statistical validation, and 4) sample size determination. Twenty items were evaluated in terms of clarity, consistency, and relevancy. Then, the SUAQ was administered to 95 respondents. Overall, reliability values were acceptable in Spanish and English version, respectively. The factor analysis was feasible since the KMO index, and the Bartlett sphericity test was statistically significant. Both versions of SUAQ were tested to determine their validity. The findings show that the proposed methodology is an effective usability assessment instrument and thus an effective software improvement tool from a bilingual approach.

Animal Placental Therapy: An emerging tool for Health Care.

Background: The placenta maintains and regulates the growth of foetus and consists of various biologically active nutrients such as cytomedines, vitamins, trace elements, amino acids, peptides, growth factors and other biologically active constituents. Introduction: The therapeutic effectiveness of the placenta can be well defined with respect to several biochemical mechanisms of various components present in it. The placental extract derived from biomedical wastes has also shown a great potential for treatment of various diseases. Method: Placental therapy has been reported specifically to have potent action on treatment of diseases and tissue regeneration. Result: Placental bioactive components and their multi-targeting identity prompted us to compile the précised information on placental extract products. However, some findings are needed to be explored by scientific community to prove their clinical potential with significant statistical validation. Conclusion: In the light of available information and the usefulness of the placental extract, it is necessary that the formulations of various desirable properties may be developed to meet the clinical requirements in several treatment paradigms. It is also a matter of exploration that the short- and long-term adverse effects to be explored by advanced scientific techniques.

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies novel ancestry-specific primary open-angle glaucoma loci and shared biology with vascular mechanisms and cell proliferation

Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is a complex eye disease characterized by progressive loss of optic nerve function that, if untreated, ultimately leads to irreversible blindness. To date, the biological mechanisms causing POAG are still unclear. There is disparity in POAG prevalence, clinical presentations, and outcomes across ancestries. Here, we aim to identify unique genetics that underlies risk to POAG and evaluate the potential connection with vascular mechanisms. We performed POAG meta-analysis across 15 biobanks that are part of the Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative, with two previously published multi-ancestry analyses for a total of 1,478,037 individuals from six ancestries (46,325 cases and 1,431,712 controls). A total of 109 genome-wide significantly associated loci (p<5e-8) were identified, 18 of which were novel. Three of these novel loci are ancestry-specific, two African- specific and the third specific to northern Europeans. We also identified five sex-specific novel loci, four of which are African-specific and one European-specific. To explore biological implications underlying these variant-trait associations, we performed gene enrichment analysis, gene prioritization analysis and transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) implicating genes related to vascular-related functions, blood vessels, angiogenesis, and cancer. A fifth of TWAS-prioritized genes with vascular-related and/or cell senescence/proliferation functional roles or have been implicated in vascular or neoplastic diseases are primary ciliary related genes. We further performed extensive statistical validation analysis of genes in the SIX6 and well-known CDKN2B-AS1 loci, previously implicated in POAG, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers across multiple ancestries. We found evidence of significant interaction between SIX6 rs33912345 and causal variants in chr9p21.3, with concomitant effect on expression of a primary cilia gene CDKN2A and CDKN2B at the CDKN2B-AS1 locus. Phenome-wide association analysis of POAG genetic risk burden across five biobanks and genetic correlation analysis also show the shared biology between POAG and vascular and neoplastic traits. In summary, our findings suggest that some POAG risk variants may be ancestry-specific, sex-specific, or both. Our findings further support the contribution of vascular and proliferation genes in POAG and suggest potential involvement of primary cilia in POAG pathogenesis.

Identifying the research advances on COVID-19, the economy and the environment: network- bibliometric analysis and statistical validation

The COVID-19 outbreak dictates urgent research responses. The corpus of scientific publications on COVID- 19 is rapidly growing. Differently from health and technical sciences, social and environmental sciences risk to be neglected in this process. Similarly, Environmental Economics falls behind in terms of COVID-19 scholarship. The research note in hand examines and maps up-to-date research progress on the occurring Coronavirus disease, the economy and the environment. To this end, a bibliometric analysis of these three intertwined areas is performed. We constructed a database of the key publications and extracted the keywords co-occurrence network characterising each work. Thus, we studied the structural characteristics – i.e. the density and the centre – sorting from the co-occurrence network. This exercise identifies four communities of relevant keywords, including environmental health, economic impact and lifestyle, which present the maximal mutual interconnection. It is discovered that relevant possibilities and urgency to examine the relationship between the Coronavirus, the economy and the environment exist on the issues and, broadly, in the field of Environmental Economics. The study of environmental facets and environment-economy interplay within the current Coronavirus pandemic claims a larger academic production, resulting not yet relevant and scarcely explored and signals the need to boost public and environmental health scholarship response.JEL codes: C02, I15, I18, O13, Q56

Modeling the quality of sewage during the leaking of stormwater surface runoff to the sanitary sewer system using SWMM: a case study

This paper describes the application of the storm water management model (SWMM) for predicting the sewage quality in the sanitary sewer system of the study area resulting from the leaking of stormwater surface runoff to the system during rainfall events at different return periods. The concentrations of major pollutants were assessed in the sanitary sewer system at different rainfall intensities. Then, a solution to mitigate the problem was proposed using low impact development (LID) technology. The results of sensitivity analysis indicated that maximum build-up possible was the most sensitive parameter for model calibration. The model was calibrated using actual rainfall events, and statistical validation coefficients of R (0.81–0.82) and NMSE (0.0173–0.022) proved that the model is valid. The sewage quality assessment results showed that pollutants concentration increased to its maximum level at 20 min and gradually decreased to a slightly constant minimum value after 2 h. The proposed solution of LID reduced the pollutants concentrations by 82–88, 75–77, 52–55, and 7–10% for all pollutants at return periods of 2, 5, 10, and 25 years, respectively. To conclude, SWMM simulation successfully predicted the concentration of the pollutants, and leaking of stormwater surface runoff has changed the sewage quality.

A Six-Sigma DMAIC Approach to Improve the Sales Process of a Technology Start-Up

Despite the adoption of Six-Sigma in different service sectors, its application in the Sales function of a Technology-based Start-up has not been explored. This paper deploys an action research-based study methodology and conducts a thorough analysis of a Technology Start-up company in Indonesia, using Six-Sigma principles and the Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control (DMAIC) approach. Statistical validation of the causes of problems helped to formulate a strategy that may have otherwise not been possible. The results of the study and proposed solutions confirm the potential benefits of adopting Six-Sigma in the Sales function of technology start-ups to reduce, particularly, customer waiting time. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that it applies Six-Sigma in a transactional process such as sales, which earlier studies have not explored in depth. This paper can be employed as a reference for organisations to undertake and guide specific process improvement projects similar to the one presented.