Private Databases Research Articles

Rates of sialoendoscopy and sialoadenectomy in 5,111 adults with private insurance.

To determine frequencies and trends in sialoendoscopy and sialoadenectomy for the treatment of obstructive, nonneoplastic submandibular gland disease in the United States. Epidemiologic study of insurance claims from 2006 to 2013 in a large, private insurance claims database. Rates were calculated for patients undergoing one or both index procedures. A total of 5,111 adults with sialadenitis who underwent sialoendoscopy or submandibular gland excision were included. Mean age was 47.6 years, and patients undergoing sialoendoscopy were less likely to be male (relative risk [RR] = 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.78-0.89), more likely to have sialoadenitis without stones (RR = 1.60; 95% CI, 1.53-1.66), and had a similar number of comorbidities (RR = 1.00; 95% CI, 0.91-1.06) compared to patients undergoing sialoadenectomy. The most common complication after sialoadenectomy was surgical site infection (1.4%; 95% CI, 1.1-1.8%), and complications after sialoendoscopy were rare. From 2007 to 2013, use of sialoendoscopy increased from 0.13 (95% CI, 0.08-0.18) to 0.42 (95% CI, 0.40-0.45) per 100 thousand people, and sialoadenectomy decreased from 2.41 (95% CI, 2.39-2.42) to 1.43 (95% CI, 1.40-1.44) per 100 thousand. The highest mean rate of sialadenectomy was seen in the south (2.15 per 100,000; 95% CI, 2.13-2.16), the lowest was in the west (1.6 per 100,000; 95% CI, 1.57-1.62), and it decreased in all regions over time. Utilization of sialoendoscopy has increased over time, and the overall rate of sialoadenectomy is decreasing. Both procedures are safe for treatment of patients with sialadenitis and sialolithiasis. Future research should examine whether availability of sialoendoscopy leads to a decreased rate of sialoadenectomy in patients with salivary gland disease. 2c Laryngoscope, 129:602-606, 2019.

Novel missense mutation in PTPN22 in a Chinese pedigree with Hashimoto\u2019s thyroiditis

BackgroundHashimoto’s thyroiditis is a complex autoimmune thyroid disease, the onset of which is associated with environmental exposures and specific susceptibility genes. Its incidence in females is higher than its incidence in males. Thus far, although some susceptibility loci have been elaborated, including PTPN22, FOXP3, and CD25, the aetiology and pathogenesis of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis remains unclear.MethodsFour affected members from a Chinese family with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis were selected for whole-exome sequencing. Missense, nonsense, frameshift, or splicing-site variants shared by all affected members were identified after frequency filtering against public and internal exome databases. Segregation analysis was performed by Sanger sequencing among all members with available DNA.ResultsWe identified a missense mutation in PTPN22 (NM_015967.5; c. 77A > G; p.Asn26Ser) using whole-exome sequencing. PTPN22 is a known susceptibility gene associated with increased risks of multiple autoimmune diseases. Cosegregation analysis confirmed that all patients in this family, all of whom were female, carried the mutation. All public and private databases showed that the missense mutation was extremely rare.ConclusionsWe found a missense mutation in PTPN22 in a Chinese HT pedigree using whole-exome sequencing. Our study, for the first time, linked a rare variant of PTPN22 to Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, providing further evidence of the disease-causing or susceptibility role of PTPN22 in autoimmune thyroid disease. Functional studies regarding the effects of this variant on thyroid autoimmunity and thyroid function are warranted.

Modified Quality Threshold Clustering for Temporal Analysis and Classification of Lung Lesions.

Lung cancer is the type of cancer that most often kills after the initial diagnosis. To aid the specialist in its diagnosis, temporal evaluation is a potential tool for analyzing indeterminate lesions, which may be benign or malignant, during treatment. With this goal in mind, a methodology is herein proposed for the analysis, quantification, and visualization of changes in lung lesions. This methodology uses a modified version of the quality threshold clustering algorithm to associate each voxel of the lesion to a cluster, and changes in the lesion over time are defined in terms of voxel moves to another cluster. In addition, statistical features are extracted for classification of the lesion as benign or malignant. To develop the proposed methodology, two databases of pulmonary lesions were used, one for malignant lesions in treatment (public) and the other for indeterminate cases (private). We determined that the density change percentage varied from 6.22% to 36.93% of lesion volume in the public database of malignant lesions under treatment and from 19.98% to 38.81% in the private database of lung nodules. Additionally, other inter-cluster density change measures were obtained. These measures indicate the degree of change in the clusters and how each of them is abundant in relation to volume. From the statistical analysis of regions in which the density changes occurred, we were able to discriminate lung lesions with an accuracy of 98.41%, demonstrating that these changes can indicate the true nature of the lesion. In addition to visualizing the density changes occurring in lesions over time, we quantified these changes and analyzed the entire set through volumetry, which is the technique most commonly used to analyze changes in pulmonary lesions.

Content-Based Image Retrieval System for Pulmonary Nodules Using Optimal Feature Sets and Class Membership-Based Retrieval.

Lung cancer manifests itself in the form of lung nodules, the diagnosis of which is essential to plan the treatment. Automated retrieval of nodule cases will assist the budding radiologists in self-learning and differential diagnosis. This paper presents a content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system for lung nodules using optimal feature sets and learning to enhance the performance of retrieval. The classifiers with more features suffer from the curse of dimensionality. Like classification schemes, we found that the optimal feature set selected using the minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance (mRMR) feature selection technique improves the precision performance of simple distance-based retrieval (SDR). The performance of the classifier is always superior to SDR, which leans researchers towards conventional classifier-based retrieval (CCBR). While CCBR improves the average precision and provides 100% precision for correct classification, it fails for misclassification leading to zero retrieval precision. The class membership-based retrieval (CMR) is found to bridge this gap for texture-based retrieval. Here, CMR is proposed for nodule retrieval using shape-, margin-, and texture-based features. It is found again that optimal feature set is important for the classifier used in CMR as well as for the feature set used for retrieval, which may lead to different feature sets. The proposed system is evaluated using two independent databases from two continents: a public database LIDC/IDRI and a private database PGIMER-IITKGP, using three distance metrics, i.e., Canberra, City block, and Euclidean. The proposed CMR-based retrieval system with optimal feature sets performs better than CCBR and SDR with optimal features in terms of average precision. Apart from average precision and standard deviation of precision, the fraction of queries with zero precision retrieval is also measured.

Reducing the communication complexity of quantum private database queries by subtle classical post-processing with relaxed quantum ability

Existing protocols for private database queries in the quantum context are classified into two-dimensional protocols and d-dimensional ones. For the two-dimensional protocols, to obtain a meaningful n-bit message from the database, the user Alice has to query n times to get all the n bits. However, each query may leak Alice's privacy once the server Bob obtains the address she queried, since each queried bit contributes to the whole queried message. Apparently, the longer the queried message is, the worse the user privacy becomes. By contrast, the d-dimensional protocol allows the user to query a multi-bit block with length no more than logd from the database via only one query. In this paper, we propose a novel d-dimensional quantum protocol for private database query. In contrast to existing d-dimensional protocols, the proposed protocol allows the user to retrieve a message of theoretically arbitrary length without the limitation of the dimension d by using a subtle classical post-processing strategy. Furthermore, the server's outcomes of measurement can be irrelevant for the implementation of the protocol thus relaxing his/her quantum ability. Finally, the security of the proposed protocol in the zero-error case has been proved in terms of the user privacy and database security.

State of emergency medicine in Indonesia.

As an emerging country with the fourth largest population in the world, Indonesia's purchasing power has strengthened, leading to socioeconomic changes that affect its healthcare system. Additionally, there is a surge of healthcare utilisation after the implementation of a new national insurance scheme, particularly within emergency departments. Similar to other low- to middle-income countries, Indonesia has not prioritised the progress of emergency medicine despite existing evidence that suggests that the early intervention of many acute conditions lowers the rates of morbidity and mortality. This article will review the past and current state of emergency medicine in Indonesia. The information gathered through PubMed, Ovid, and private and government institution databases, using the search term 'Indonesia', 'Emergency Medicine', 'Emergency Medical Services', and 'Disaster Medicine'. Additionally, we interviewed physicians who are involved in the development of emergency medicine in Indonesia. Indonesia's emergency medicine can be broken down into three sections: pre-hospital, hospital and the development of emergency medicine as a specialty. At the pre-hospital setting, disaster medicine and emergency medical service have not been established well enough to meet the demands of the population. For hospitals, there are two types of emergency departments - academic versus non-academic. Currently, there is no accredited emergency medicine residency programme despite the recognition of the specialty. The development of emergency medicine in Indonesia is in its infancy and will require rapid improvement to meet its country's demand. Academic, private and government sectors need to collaborate to promote and invest in emergency medicine.

Damned by DNA — Balancing personal privacy with public safety

• Ancestry.com Members of the public are giving consent to their most personal data under the auspices of receiving genealogical services. • The use of a familial DNA searches to identify perpetrators raises questions concerning the inclusion of the non-convicted in criminal searches. • Allowing law enforcement to search private databases circumvents privacy safeguards. • People genetically related to users of DNA services have not given their explicit consent to be included in a database.

ISDB: a database toolkit for storing and analyzing viral integration site data.

We introduce ISDB, a set of software tools for the creation and administration of relational databases of viral integration site (IS) data. Using ISDB, investigators can curate a private database from any heterogeneous set of data sources, including previously-published datasets and internal, work-in-progress data. To make data visible and accessible to collaborators with varying degrees of computational expertise, ISDB automatically generates web sites describing database contents and data exports in several common formats. Compared to a public depository database, the ability to build local, private databases makes ISDB suitable for use in testing hypotheses and developing analyses in the long pre-publication phase of most research. Installation and usage documentation for ISDB are provided on our website https://mullinslab.microbiol.washington.edu/isdb/. Source code is available under the open source MIT license from https://github.com/MullinsLab/ISDB. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Sleep-wake classification via quantifying heart rate variability by convolutional neural network

Objective: Fluctuations in heart rate are intimately related to changes in the physiological state of the organism. We exploit this relationship by classifying a human participant’s wake/sleep status using his instantaneous heart rate (IHR) series. Approach: We use a convolutional neural network (CNN) to build features from the IHR series extracted from a whole-night electrocardiogram (ECG) and predict every 30 s whether the participant is awake or asleep. Our training database consists of 56 normal participants, and we consider three different databases for validation; one is private, and two are public with different races and apnea severities. Main results: On our private database of 27 participants, our accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and values for predicting the wake stage are , 52.4%, 89.4%, and 0.83, respectively. Validation performance is similar on our two public databases. When we use the photoplethysmography instead of the ECG to obtain the IHR series, the performance is also comparable. A robustness check is carried out to confirm the obtained performance statistics. Significance: This result advocates for an effective and scalable method for recognizing changes in physiological state using non-invasive heart rate monitoring. The CNN model adaptively quantifies IHR fluctuation as well as its location in time and is suitable for differentiating between the wake and sleep stages.

Increasing Numbers of Pre-operative Shoulder Injections are Associated with a Higher Rate of Subsequent Revision Rotator Cuff Surgery

Objectives:Subacromial steroid injections are frequently used in the initial conservative management of rotator cuff (RC) tears, however, the long-term effect of this treatment in patients who eventually undergo rotator cuff repair (RCR) is not well defined in the literature. The objective of this study is to identify any dose-dependent association between injections prior to rotator cuff repair (RCR) and subsequent revision surgery.Methods:Two large databases were queried for patients undergoing arthroscopic RCR. Patients with one year of pre-operative database exposure and a minimum of two years post-operative follow-up were included. In each database, three study groups were formed, stratified by the number of ipsilateral injections given within the year prior to RCR: one, two and three or more injections. A control group without any prior injection was identified and matched to the single injection group in each database. The outcome of interest was ipsilateral revision arthroscopic or open rotator cuff repair, or arthroscopic debridement for a diagnosis of rotator cuff tear within 2 years of the index surgery. Revision surgery rates were compared between groups using a multivariate logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic and comorbidity confounders. This allowed for identification of the independent association between the number of injections and the need for subsequent revision surgery.Results:108,516 patients from the Medicare database and 11,360 patients from the private database were included (Table 1A-B). There was no association between a single injection within the year prior to RCR and revision surgery in either database. In the Medicare database, two or more injections was associated with a substantial increase in the risk of requiring revision surgery (OR 2.40-2.62, P < 0.0001). A similar association was noted in the private insurance database for patients with two or more injections (OR 2.09-2.42, P < 0.0001) (Table 1A-B).Conclusion:A single shoulder injection within a year prior to arthroscopic RCR is not associated with any increased risk of revision surgery. Two or more injections within a year prior to RCR appears to be associated with a substantially increased risk of revision surgery. While causality cannot be established on the basis of this database review, caution is recommended when considering more than one shoulder injection in patients with potentially repairable RC tears.Table 1A.Risk of Revision Rotator Cuff Surgery Stratified by Number of Preoperative Injections (Medicare Patients)Ipsilateral Revision Surgery Study Group Total N N of Revisions % Revisions Adjusted O.R. [95% Cl] P Value Control103,5143,6913.6%--1 Injection2,7381033.8%1.09[0.96 - 1.25]0.1942 Injections1,137968.4%2.40 [2.08 - 2.76]< 0.00013+ Injections1,127998.8%2.62 [2.29 - 3.01]< 0.0001Table 1B.Risk of Revision Rotator Cuff Surgery Stratified by Number of Preoperative Injections (Humana Patients)Ipsilateral Revision Surgery Study Group Total N N of Revisions % Revisions Adjusted O.R. [95% Cl] P Value Control7,4622152.9%--1 Injection2,25067 3.0%0.95 [0.78 - 1.16]0.3332 Injections890536.0%2.09[1.69 - 2.58]< 0.00013+ Injections758577.5%2.42 [1.96 - 2.99]< 0.0001

Abstract B49: Factors affecting the treatment of young women with breast cancer at tertiary referral public and private hospitals

Abstract Background: Disparities persist in receipt of treatment and outcomes of breast cancer patients with varying race, English proficiency, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This is confounded in young women (≤ 45 years old), as age becomes an additional factor. We sought to assess our surgical experience with young breast cancer patients, at a public safety-net hospital (BH) and a private cancer center (PCC) that are staffed by specialty trained providers from the same university. Methods: We reviewed demographic and clinical-pathologic data from 275 breast cancer patients with invasive breast cancer (Stage I-III) 45 years old and younger from the public and private hospital IRB-approved databases. There were 69 patients in the BH group and 206 patients in the PCC group. Demographic variables (race, education, and primary language), surgery type, method of presentation, and stage were analyzed using Pearson's chi-square tests and binary logistics. Results: At PC the patients were Caucasian (68%), Asian (11%), Hispanic (10%), and African American (8.7%). At BH patients were Spanish/Hispanic/Latino (47.8%), Asian (27.5%), and African American (10.1%). The majority of patients (82%) at PC had a college or graduate degree compared to 18.6% of the patients at BH (P&amp;lt;0.001). All the patients at PC reported English as their primary language compared to 30% of patients at BHC (P&amp;lt;0.001). There was a significant difference between the stages at which patients presented to either hospital (P = 0.042). At PC, most patients presented at Stage I (54.4%), while most presented at stage II at BH (42.0%). Additionally, a significantly higher number of patients at BHC (81.2%) than at PC (68.4%) presented with a palpable mass (P = 0.043). Hospital site was not a predictor of receipt of mastectomy (P = 0.502). Stage significantly affected the type of treatment received (P&amp;lt;0.01); patients with higher stage were more likely to receive a mastectomy. A patient's race, primary language, and education level at both hospitals did not increase the likelihood of receiving a mastectomy. A majority of the mastectomy patients at both institutions received immediate cosmetic reconstruction 87% (BH) vs. 76%(PCC). Conclusion: Young women with breast cancer treated at public hospital affiliated with an academic center had equivalent surgical treatment regardless of race, primary language, method or stage or presentation, and education level as young breast cancer patients treated at an academic private hospital. Citation Format: Ami Patel, Shubhada Dhage. Factors affecting the treatment of young women with breast cancer at tertiary referral public and private hospitals [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Tenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2017 Sep 25-28; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2018;27(7 Suppl):Abstract nr B49.

Secure Wavelet Matrix: Alphabet-Friendly Privacy-Preserving String Search for Bioinformatics.

Biomedical data often includes personal information, and the technology is demanded that enables the searching of such sensitive data while protecting privacy. We consider a case in which a server has a text database and a user searches the database to find substring matches. The user wants to conceal his/her query and the server wants to conceal the database except for the search results. The previous approach for this problem is based on a linear-time algorithm in terms of alphabet size $\mathbf{|\Sigma |}$|Σ|, and it cannot search on the database of large alphabet such as biomedical documents. We present a novel algorithm that can search a string in logarithmic time of $\mathbf{|\Sigma |}$|Σ|. In our algorithm, named secure wavelet matrix (sWM), we use an additively homomorphic encryption to build an efficient data structure called a wavelet matrix. In an experiment using a simulated string of length 10,000 whose alphabet size ranges from 4 to 1024, the run time of the sWM was up to around two orders of magnitude faster than that of the previous method. sWM enables the searching of a private database efficiently and thus it will facilitate utilizing sensitive biomedical information.

Outcomes of Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty in Patients With Parkinson's Disease

BackgroundParkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder causing rigidity, bradykinesia, and tremor of the motor system. There is significant paucity of evidence regarding whether total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is of benefit in patients with both Parkinson's disease and osteoarthritis. We aimed to compare outcomes and complications of TKA between patients with Parkinson's disease and those without. MethodsA cohort of 43 knees from 35 patients with Parkinson's disease who received a primary TKA between January 2004 and December 2015 were retrospectively extracted from a private clinical database held by 2 surgeons and compared to an age and gender-matched control group of 50 knees from 41 patients. TKAs were performed by 2 surgeons at 1 tertiary private hospital.The indication for TKA in both groups was osteoarthritis. Difference between preoperative and 1-year range of movement (ROM) and 12-point Oxford Knee Score (OKS) was assessed using Student's unpaired t-test. Postoperative complications and revision procedures were also recorded during the follow-up period. The minimal clinically important difference for OKS at 1-year follow-up, defined as improvement of ≥6, was also assessed. ResultsIn the Parkinson's group, mean ROM improvement was 14° (100° preoperatively to 114° at 12 months), compared to 12° in the control group (102°-114°, respectively). Mean OKS improvement was 15 in the Parkinson's group (23 preoperatively to 38 at 12 months) compared to 17 in the control group (23 and 40, respectively.) No significant difference was identified between the 2 groups for either ROM (P = .96) or OKS (P = .45.) All Parkinson's patients achieved the minimal clinically important difference at 1-year follow-up. There were no mortalities during the study follow-up period and no significant difference in complication rates between the 2 groups (P = .41). ConclusionParkinson's disease was not associated with poorer functional outcomes or increased complications compared to controls in our study. We suggest that Parkinson's disease is not an absolute contraindication to TKA.

Bone dehiscences and fenestrations of the anterior mandibular facial bone wall: a retrospective cone beam computed tomography study.

To calculate the prevalence of dehiscences and fenestrations and measure the buccal alveolar bone width overlying healthy mandibular incisors and canines. Cone beam computerized tomographies (CBCTs) from patients aged 18 to 30 years were selected from a private database. The thickness of buccal bone in the sagittal scan was measured perpendicular to the long axis of 6 teeth at two locations: at the crest level and at the mid-root level. A single calibrated examiner performed all measurements. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed. A total of 100 CBCTs (600 teeth) were selected for the analysis. The overall prevalence of dehiscences and fenestrations was 89.16% and 5.16%, respectively. Dehiscences and fenestrations were shown to have a mean length of 6.78±1.90 mm and 4.89±1.74 mm, respectively. This result was similar between young and old subjects as well as between men and women. Bone width at the crest level was significantly thinner in women (0.71±0.13 mm), whereas men were found to have a statistically significant thicker bone at the mid-root level of tooth #33. Comparisons of bone width at the mid-root level among the 6 analyzed teeth showed no statistical difference. A high prevalence of dehiscences and sites with thin buccal bone were identified in correspondence of the lower anterior teeth by means of CBCT analysis.

An Approach for Enhancing Data Access Security in Heterogeneous Database Systems

Objectives: This paper proposes an enhanced data access security approach to allow virtual private database security mechanism in heterogeneous multi-tier applications regardless of the data access security features provided by each database management system. Methods/Statistical Analysis: An implementation of Data Access Layer has been done respecting the proposed approach. This implementation enhances Microsoft’s Entity Framework that is widely used in commercial multi-tier database applications as a Data Access Layer. Accordingly, it’s overloaded by the required functionality including query modification and data validation. The output assembly then is tested in a typical HR database application that targets three different DBMS’s (SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle) with exactly same database state. A time measurement takes place to evaluate the processing cost of issuing CRUD operations compared with the same application architecture without using the proposed approach (e.g. relying on the row-level security provided by Oracle on the DBMS level). Findings: An illustrated case study respecting the proposed approach shows its scalability, reliability and efficiency. It allows data access security in both homogenous and heterogeneous database applications. On the other hand, the results show that the cost of processing both of data retrieval and data manipulation operations respecting predefined data access security policies of the proposed approach compared with Oracle VPD are reduced by around 59% and 57% respectively. Application/Improvements: As presented in the illustrative case study, the proposed approach can be easily applied and reused in any modern heterogeneous multi-tier database application. It allows defining data access security policies regardless of the target database management system type. Also, the results show an improvement in the processing cost of the proposed approach compared with the Oracle virtual private database with both data retrieval and data manipulation operations. Keywords: Data Privacy; Data Access; Database; Heterogeneous Database Applications

Considering the Benefits and Risks of Research Participants' Access to Sequence Data

The use of sequencing technologies has greatly expanded in both research and clinical settings. The generation of voluminous datasets has raised several issues regarding data sharing and access. Current regulations require clinical laboratories and some research laboratories to provide access to test data, including sequencing data, directly to patients upon request. There is some controversy over whether this access right may be somewhat broader, encompassing research data as well-a question beyond the scope of this article. It is clear that in the research setting, deposition of sequencing data into public or private databases often occurs, although little information exists about the return of data files to research participants (in contrast to the extensive deliberations regarding return of results). Thus, further consideration of the issue of access to data files is warranted as well as more effort to understand both patients' and research participants' use of the data.

BioCarian: search engine for exploratory searches in heterogeneous biological databases

BackgroundThere are a large number of biological databases publicly available for scientists in the web. Also, there are many private databases generated in the course of research projects. These databases are in a wide variety of formats. Web standards have evolved in the recent times and semantic web technologies are now available to interconnect diverse and heterogeneous sources of data. Therefore, integration and querying of biological databases can be facilitated by techniques used in semantic web. Heterogeneous databases can be converted into Resource Description Format (RDF) and queried using SPARQL language. Searching for exact queries in these databases is trivial. However, exploratory searches need customized solutions, especially when multiple databases are involved. This process is cumbersome and time consuming for those without a sufficient background in computer science. In this context, a search engine facilitating exploratory searches of databases would be of great help to the scientific community.ResultsWe present BioCarian, an efficient and user-friendly search engine for performing exploratory searches on biological databases. The search engine is an interface for SPARQL queries over RDF databases. We note that many of the databases can be converted to tabular form. We first convert the tabular databases to RDF. The search engine provides a graphical interface based on facets to explore the converted databases. The facet interface is more advanced than conventional facets. It allows complex queries to be constructed, and have additional features like ranking of facet values based on several criteria, visually indicating the relevance of a facet value and presenting the most important facet values when a large number of choices are available. For the advanced users, SPARQL queries can be run directly on the databases. Using this feature, users will be able to incorporate federated searches of SPARQL endpoints. We used the search engine to do an exploratory search on previously published viral integration data and were able to deduce the main conclusions of the original publication. BioCarian is accessible via http://www.biocarian.com.ConclusionsWe have developed a search engine to explore RDF databases that can be used by both novice and advanced users.

Evaluating The Real-Life Daily-Cost of Treatment With Antiepileptic Drugs In France: A Study Based on The Combination Of French National Health Insurance Public Database, and The EMR LPD Private Database

Evaluating The Real-Life Daily-Cost of Treatment With Antiepileptic Drugs In France: A Study Based on The Combination Of French National Health Insurance Public Database, and The EMR LPD Private Database

Beyond the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI): Developing a Natural Space Index for population-level health research

BackgroundNatural spaces can provide psychological benefits to individuals, but population-level epidemiologic studies have produced conflicting results. Refining current exposure-assessment methods is necessary to advance our understanding of population health and to guide the design of health-promoting urban forms. ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive Natural Space Index that robustly models potential exposure based on the presence, form, accessibility, and quality of multiple forms of greenspace (e.g., parks and street trees) and bluespace (e.g., oceans and lakes). Material and methodsThe index was developed for greater Vancouver, Canada. Greenness presence was derived from remote sensing (NDVI/EVI); forms were extracted from municipal and private databases; and accessibility was based on restrictions such as private ownership. Quality appraisals were conducted for 200 randomly sampled parks using the Public Open Space Desktop Appraisal Tool (POSDAT). Integrating these measures in GIS, exposure was assessed for 60,242 postal codes using 100- to 1,600-m buffers based on hypothesized pathways to mental health. A single index was then derived using principal component analysis (PCA). ResultsComparing NDVI with alternate approaches for assessing natural space resulted in widely divergent results, with quintile rankings shifting for 22–88% of postal codes, depending on the measure. Overall park quality was fairly low (mean of 15 on a scale of 0–45), with no significant difference seen by neighborhood-level household income. The final PCA identified three main sets of variables, with the first two components explaining 68% of the total variance. The first component was dominated by the percentages of public and private greenspace and bluespace and public greenspace within 250m, while the second component was driven by lack of access to bluespace within 1 km. ConclusionsMany current approaches to modeling natural space may misclassify exposures and have limited specificity. The Natural Space Index represents a novel approach at a regional scale with application to urban planning and policy-making.

Robust QKD-based private database queries based on alternative sequences of single-qubit measurements

Quantum channel noise may cause the user to obtain a wrong answer and thus misunderstand the database holder for existing QKD-based quantum private query (QPQ) protocols. In addition, an outside attacker may conceal his attack by exploiting the channel noise. We propose a new, robust QPQ protocol based on four-qubit decoherence-free (DF) states. In contrast to existing QPQ protocols against channel noise, only an alternative fixed sequence of single-qubit measurements is needed by the user (Alice) to measure the received DF states. This property makes it easy to implement the proposed protocol by exploiting current technologies. Moreover, to retain the advantage of flexible database queries, we reconstruct Alice’s measurement operators so that Alice needs only conditioned sequences of single-qubit measurements.