7-Score Function for Assessing the Strength of Association Rules Applied for Construction Risk Quantifying

There are several factors influencing the time of construction project execution. The properties of the planned structure, the details of an order, and macroeconomic factors affect the project completion time. Every construction project is unique, but the data collected from previously completed projects help to plan the new one. The association analysis is a suitable tool for uncovering the rules—showing the influence of some factors appearing simultaneously. The input data to the association analysis must be preprocessed—every feature influencing the duration of the project must be divided into ranges. The number of features and the number of ranges (for each feature) create a very complicated combinatorial problem. The authors applied a metaheuristic tabu search algorithm to find the acceptable thresholds in the association analysis, increasing the strength of the rules found. The increase in the strength of the rules can help clients to avoid unfavorable sets of features, which in the past—with high confidence—significantly delayed projects. The new 7-score method can be used in various industries. This article shows its application to reduce the risk of a road construction contract delay. Importantly, the method is not based on expert opinions, but on historical data.

Expert Opinions on the Debate of Pericardial Reconstruction in Cardiovascular Surgery: To Close or Not to Close?

Background: As of 2019, pericardial closure was performed in only a small portion of the over 320,000 cardiac surgeries performed annually. However, evidence regarding the benefits of pericardial closure or reconstruction has been accruing, particularly with the publication of the RECON study in 2019. Methods: This group of authors convened to try to arrive at consensus expert opinion regarding pericardial reconstruction. Structured topic questions initially were used to stimulate discussion. Subsequently, a survey of proposed expert opinion statements was conducted among the authors. Based on that survey, consensus expert opinion statements and recommendations were compiled. Results: The expert opinions encompass various topics relating to pericardial reconstruction, including definitions, benefits/risks, and technique. Observed benefits include reductions in: (1) adhesions; (2) postoperative pericardial effusion, atrial fibrillation, and bleeding; and (3) readmissions and length of hospital stay. Expert opinion recommendations regarding surgical technique are compiled into a single chart. Complete pericardial reconstruction should be performed, using native pericardial tissue if available and viable; if not feasible, a patch may be used. Patches that stimulate the formation of site-specific tissue in situ (such as natural extracellular matrix) may have additional benefits (including bioregenerative properties and lack of inflammatory response). Closure should be taut, but tension-free. Adequate drainage of the closed pericardium must be ensured. Conclusions: Based on available data and collective surgical experience, we endorse pericardial reconstruction as standard approach in appropriately selected patients. We also endorse adoption of standardized pericardial reconstruction techniques to optimize patient outcomes and improve evidence quality in future studies.

Theoretical Aspects of Accounting the Wear of Wheeled Vehicles When Assessing the Damage Caused to Them as a Result of Deterioration

The article is devoted to the problem of the validity of determining the wear of component parts when calculating the damage caused to a vehicle due to its deterioration. The authors address the legal line of arguments of the differentiated approach when deciding on the need to consider wear and tear. They also make suggestions on its practical reflection in forensic expert opinions. Finally, it is highlighted that when making decisions regarding wear and tear, it is essential to consider the method of compensation for damage caused and official legal information.The authors justify the necessity to use the provisions of the methodological recommendations developed in the Federal State Budgetary Institution of the Russian Federation under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the calculations, which will allow experts to formulate categorical and not relative or multivariate conclusions.

Atrial Fibrillation in Cancer Patients: Who is at Risk?

Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the world, second only to cardiovascular diseases. Simultaneously cancer mortality has been steadily decreasing due to the development of new chemotherapy and targeted drugs and the improvement of existing treatment protocols. Improving the prognosis of treatment of cancer patients leads to an unexpected result - more patients are faced with side effects of cancer treatment. Cardiotoxicity, including arrhythmia, has become a significant factor to reduce the effectiveness of cancer patient’s treatment. Atrial fibrillation is frequent and persistent a rhythm disorder, affecting all categories of patients, especially the elderly. An association between these two conditions can be expected, considering the fact that in old age the prevalence of malignant neoplasms and comorbid pathology predisposing to the onset of AF is high. Therefore, AF may be an additional factor negatively influencing the prognosis and treatment tactics in patients with malignant neoplasms. A comprehensive search was conducted using the keywords “cancer”, “atrial fibrillation” and “cardiotoxicity” using the PubMed, Scopus and Cohrane databases. We reviewed publications having the relationship between AF and cancer. The literature review considered 61 publications on the prevalence of AF in cancer patients, classification, mechanisms of development, the effect of anticancer drugs and other treatment methods on this group of patients. Analyzed articles include clinical guidelines, consensus expert opinions, systematic reviews, meta-analyzes, and previously published reviews of the literature. The problem of cardiotoxic complications diagnostics is evaluated separately, incl. arrhythmias, and their monitoring in cancer patients. Therefore, the direction of medicine named "Cardio-oncology" comes to the fore. Interdisciplinary interaction will allow identify cardiotoxic manifestations at the subclinical stage and optimize anticancer treatment.

Operationalising a real-time research ethics approach: supporting ethical mindfulness in agriculture-nutrition-health research in Malawi

Background There have been notable investments in large multi-partner research programmes across the agriculture-nutrition-health (ANH) nexus. These studies often involve human participants and commonly require research ethics review. These ANH studies are complex and can raise ethical issues that need pre-field work, ethical oversight and also need an embedded process that can identify, characterise and manage ethical issues as the research work develops, as such more embedded and dynamic ethics processes are needed. This work builds on notions of ‘ethics in practice’ by developing an approach to facilitate ethical reflection within large research programmes. This study explores the application of a novel ‘real-time research ethics approach’ (RTREA) and how this can support ethical mindfulness. This involves embedding ethical analysis and decision-making within research implementation, with a continuous dialogue between participants and researchers. The aim is to improve ethical responsiveness and participant experience, which in turn may ethically support adherence and retention. In this case study, a bioethics team (BT) was embedded in a community-based randomised, controlled trial conducted in rural Malawi, titled the ‘Addressing Hidden Hunger with Agronomy’. To identify ethical issues, the researchers conducted ten focus group discussions, fourteen in-depth interviews with key informants, two workshops, observed two sensitisation and three activity meetings conducted by the trial team, and analysed fifteen reports from pre-trial to trial implementation. Results The RTREA facilitated the identification of social and ethical concerns and made researchers aware of participants’ ‘lived research experience’. To address concerns and experiences, the BT worked with researchers to facilitate conversation spaces where social and ethical issues were discussed. Conversation spaces were designed to create partnerships and promote participatory methods to capture trial participants’ (TPs) perspectives and experiences. Conclusions The use of RTREA showed the value of real-time and continuous engagement between TPs and researchers. These real-time processes could be embedded to complement traditional ethical guidance and expert opinions. A deeper engagement appeared to support greater operationalising of principles of inclusion, empowerment, and participant autonomy and supported researchers ‘ethical mindfulness’ which in turn may support instrumental outcomes of high recruitment, retention, and adherence levels.

Differentiated approach to the prescription of dexpanthenol drugs in the practice of a pediatrician

The article provides information about the features of the structure, development and differentiated approach to the appointment of dexapanthenol preparations used for the prevention and complex treatment of skin diseases in children of wounded age. Regular use of leave-on cosmetic products including body creams and lotions is very high among children aged 0–4 years. However, in most cases, recommendations for the use of topical baby skin care medicinal products and/or cosmetic products are based not on scientific evidence, but on common sense, expert opinions, advertising, personal preferences of parents, pharmacists, dermatologists and/or pediatricians. For example, adsorbing properties of baby powders are insufficient, and after absorbing moisture, they actually turn to “urine compresses” that aggravate the epidermis injury. After swelling, the starch-containing powders represent an excellent growth media for pathogenic and opportunistic microflora. It is noted that only proper skin care for young children allows you to preserve its integrity and functional state. Special attention is paid to the preparations of the Bepanten® series in the form of cream and ointment, which meet all the criteria for topical products, and can be used for the prevention and treatment of skin diseases in young children, effectively protecting the skin from irritants, promoting its healing and recovery, having an anti-inflammatory effect, increasing its elasticity, elasticity and are recommended for use as a means of basic care. Their effectiveness has been repeatedly confirmed in the numerous domestic and foreign randomized controlled studies in new-born populations at different gestational ages, which provided the scientific justification for their common use in the ‘real-life’ practice of pediatricians, dermatologists and allergists.

When digital mass participation meets citizen deliberation: Combining mini-publics and maxi-publics in climate policy-making

Notwithstanding the rationale and the demand for public participation in climate policies, aggregated perspectives of maxi-publics are often belittled as uninformed, self-interested and short-term focused. The upcoming vogue of climate assemblies, citizen parliaments and other forms of mini-publics is to give citizens a central role in climate policy-making and in some cases to break political impasse. Yet climate mini-publics face challenges in political environments too, such as co-option, favoring expert-opinions and losing touch with the broader public. To remedy such pitfalls, recent papers have argued to combine synchronous deliberations of small groups of citizens with online participation procedures for the larger public. In this article, we report the results of a three-step combination model, where first a mini-public in the region of Súdwest-Fryslân (NL) were given a ‘carte blanche’ to draft the content and the parameters of several related policy alternatives. Second, their proposals where fed into a digital participation tool, the Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) to consult the wider public. A total of 1,376 (approx. 2% of the inhabitants) expressed their preferences and explained why they favour a dominant role for the municipality and the residents but are reticent about giving the market too big a role. Third, a citizen forum translated the outcomes of the maxi-public into policy recommendations, which were unanimously approved by the municipal council. In this paper, we report our findings of combining mini-and maxi-publics and how actors involved evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the combination of these two participatory approaches.

Quantitative assessment of information quality in textual sources for landslide inventories

Landslide research chiefly relies on digital inventories for a multitude of spatial, temporal, and/or process analyses. In respect thereof, many landslide inventories are populated with information from textual documents (e.g., news articles, technical reports) due to effectiveness. However, information detail can vary greatly in these documents and the question arises whether such textual information is suitable for landslide inventories. The present work proposes to define the usefulness of textual source types as a probability to find landslide information, weighted with adaptable parameter requirements. To illustrate the method with practical results, a German landslide dataset has been examined. It was found that three combined source types (administrative documents, expert opinions, and news articles) give an 89 % chance to detect useful information on three defined parameters (location, date, and process type). In conclusion, the definition of usefulness as a probability makes it an intuitive, quantitative measure that is suitable for a wide range of applicants. Furthermore, a priori knowledge of usefulness allows for focusing on a few source types with the most promising outcome and thus increases the effectiveness of textual data acquisition and digitalisation for landslide inventories.