Shared Data Sets Research Articles

A Population-Genetic Perspective on the Similarities and Differences among Worldwide Human Populations

Recent studies have produced a variety of advances in the investigation of genetic similarities and differences among human populations. In this reprinted article, originally published in Human Biology in 2011 (vol. 83, no. 6, pp. 659–684), I pose a series of questions about human population-genetic similarities and differences, and I then answer these questions by numerical computation with a single shared population-genetic data set. The collection of answers obtained provides an introductory perspective for understanding key results on the features of worldwide human genetic variation. A new foreword discusses the original article in light of the research that has followed.

Implementing a multi-site cardiac arrest quality improvement initiative

Background: 
 Medical cardiac arrest care in Edmonton Zone Emergency Departments does not undergo structured quality monitoring or continuous improvement. Prior to this work, quality indicators had not been selected, nor had tracking or reporting activities been undertaken. This work brings the Edmonton Zone EDs to the forefront of the continuous quality improvement recommendations made by Heart and Stroke Canada and the American Heart Association that are believed to improve both patient outcomes and overall system performance.
 For this project quality indicator development and implementation takes three perspectives: patients and families, frontline staff and the health care system. This work is informed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the National Institute of Science and the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation’s work on Systems of Care and Continuous Quality Improvement for Emergency Cardiovascular Care. This work is motivated by the desire to improve patient/family experience and outcome, provider experience while improving system performance.
 
 Implementation: 
 An iterative process identified the lowest resource/highest impact areas for improvement. This process was informed through a Delphi survey conducted by the Alberta Cardiac Arrest Stakeholders group and stakeholder engagement. Four areas for improvement were identified: support of patients and families, support of staff, improvement in care metrics, and system level interventions. Support of patients and families was accomplished through the development of an advisory network, by linking families with existing supports, and through the implementation of a bereavement package. Supporting staff was accomplished through the development of a formal and informal debriefing processes. Improving clinical care was accomplished through the integration of chest compression feedback devices into clinical care. Improvements at the system level will be accomplished through the creation of a cardiac arrest registry.
 
 Evaluation Methods:
 Mixed methods approaches are used to evaluate this project. Post cardiac arrest quality track forms are being filled out. Chest compression feedback device data was obtained through simulated patient-care scenarios, staff experiences were obtained through a structured survey. Clinically chest compression data was collected from the feedback devices by Clinical educators, through tracking forms, and pre-and-post surveys of frontline staff measuring burnout and occupational stress are underway. Data is being collected in a local registry to generate accurate incidence and survival rates. Eventual post-implementation interviews with providers, survivors and families will be conducted.
 
 Results:
 A patient/family advisor network has been established. Survivor and families can be connected with the Bystander Support Network and the Heart and Stroke Foundation portal through the bereavement packages being offered at one of the QI sites. Two sites have developed staff debriefing processes: an interdisciplinary Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team at one site, and referral to an existing CISM team at two other sites. Chest compression feedback is being used at two sites, staff feedback has been positive. One site is tracking resuscitation metrics which are being used to guide and evaluate the interventions: continued improvement in chest compression quality has been noted. Data analytics are being used at all sites to identify additional opportunities to improve resuscitation care and efforts are underway to expand data collection to other sites and to unify pre-hospital and in-hospital cardiac arrest data.
 
 Advice and Lessons Learned:
 
 Pre-intervention data would have allowed for more meaningful comparisons in patient care. Efforts should be put into identifying what these measures could be.
 High levels of staff engagement at one site appear to have influenced the uptake of chest compression feedback. Effort should identify key stakeholders and gain buy in to increase uptake
 There are significant barriers to unifying pre-hospital and in-hospital cardiac arrest data. It is our belief that a continuous record offers some greatest opportunity to collect data on resuscitation care. Efforts should focus on building a linkage between these data sources and creating a shared data set.

Multi-component and high-entropy nitride coatings—A promising field in need of a novel approach

Multi-component and high-entropy nitrides are a growing field with a promise of new functional materials. The interest in the field was sparked by the adjacent field of high-entropy and multi-component alloys, and the promise consists of both demonstrated properties and a possibly very large freedom for materials design. These promises, however, also come with new challenges connected to the vast available experimental space, which is inherent in multi-component materials. Traditional materials science methodologies will be slow to make appreciable progress in such an environment. A novel approach is needed to meet the challenges of the hyperdimensional compositional space. Recent developments within the fields of information technology can give materials science the tools needed. This Perspective article summarizes the state of the art in the field of multi-component nitride materials, focusing on coatings where solid solution phases with simple crystal structures are formed. Furthermore, it outlines the present research challenges that need to be addressed to move the field forward and suggests that there is a need to combine the traditional knowledge-driven materials science methodology with new data-driven methodologies. The latter would include advanced data-handling with artificial intelligence and machine learning to assist in the evaluation of large, shared datasets from both experimental and theoretical work. Such a change in the methodology will be a challenge but will be needed in order to fully realize the full potential of multi-component (nitride) materials.

Fairness-Aware Demand Prediction for New Mobility

Emerging transportation modes, including car-sharing, bike-sharing, and ride-hailing, are transforming urban mobility yet have been shown to reinforce socioeconomic inequity. These services rely on accurate demand prediction, but the demand data on which these models are trained reflect biases around demographics, socioeconomic conditions, and entrenched geographic patterns. To address these biases and improve fairness, we present FairST, a fairness-aware demand prediction model for spatiotemporal urban applications, with emphasis on new mobility. We use 1D (time-varying, space-constant), 2D (space-varying, time-constant) and 3D (both time- and space-varying) convolutional branches to integrate heterogeneous features, while including fairness metrics as a form of regularization to improve equity across demographic groups. We propose two spatiotemporal fairness metrics, region-based fairness gap (RFG), applicable when demographic information is provided as a constant for a region, and individual-based fairness gap (IFG), applicable when a continuous distribution of demographic information is available. Experimental results on bike share and ride share datasets show that FairST can reduce inequity in demand prediction for multiple sensitive attributes (i.e. race, age, and education level), while achieving better accuracy than even state-of-the-art fairness-oblivious methods.

Survival benefit of lung transplantation compared with medical management and pulmonary rehabilitation for patients with end-stage COPD.

BackgroundCOPD patients account for a large proportion of lung transplants; lung transplantation survival benefit for COPD patients is not well established.MethodsWe identified 4521 COPD patients in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) dataset transplanted from May 2005 to August 2016, and 604 patients assigned to receive pulmonary rehabilitation and medical management in the National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT). After trimming the populations for NETT eligibility criteria and data completeness, 1337 UNOS and 596 NETT patients remained. Kaplan–Meier estimates of transplant-free survival from transplantation for UNOS, and NETT randomisation, were compared between propensity score-matched UNOS (n=401) and NETT (n=262) patients.ResultsIn propensity-matched analyses, transplanted patients had better survival compared to medically managed patients in NETT (p=0.003). Stratifying on 6 min walk distance (6 MWD) and FEV1, UNOS patients with 6 MWD <1000 ft (∼300 m) or FEV1 <20% of predicted had better survival than NETT counterparts (median survival 5.0 years UNOS versus 3.4 years NETT; log-rank p<0.0001), while UNOS patients with 6 MWD ≥1000 ft (∼300 m) and FEV1 ≥20% had similar survival to NETT counterparts (median survival, 5.4 years UNOS versus 4.9 years NETT; log-rank p=0.73), interaction p=0.01.ConclusionsOverall survival is better for matched lung transplant patients compared with medical management alone. Patients who derive maximum benefit are those with 6 MWD <1000 ft (∼300 m) or FEV1 <20% of predicted, compared with pulmonary rehabilitation and medical management.

Multiple Infrequently Used Types of Marginal Donor Lungs are Not Associated with Inferior Survival among Recipients Aged 65+

Though increasing numbers of patients aged 65+ need life-saving lung transplants, these patients are often denied transplantation due to concerns about the scarcity of donor lungs. Using marginal or extended criteria donor lungs could facilitate the transplantation of elderly patients while alleviating concerns about donor scarcity, and may offer elderly patients survival comparable to that with standard criteria donor lungs. Among 4338 U.S. lung transplant recipients aged 65+ from May 2005-August 2016 in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) dataset, we assessed survival associated with certain marginal donor factors, compared to the absence of each factor. A multivariable Cox regression model generated a Hazard Ratio for each donor factor, adjusted for the other donor factors and over 20 potential confounders, including transplant center performance. Kaplan-Meier methods were used to obtain survival time quartiles for each group. Among recipients aged 65+, marginal donors characterized by: age 55-64 (HR=1.02, p=0.77), ischemic time 6-8 hours (HR=1.05, p=0.48), smoking history 20+ pack-years (HR=1.07, p=0.37), alcohol use 2+ drinks/day (HR=0.91, p=0.16), and history of cancer (HR=0.74, p=0.09), were each not associated with worse survival than donors without the respective marginal factor. These types of marginal donors were used, respectively, in only 11%, 17%, 10%, 15%, and 2% of recipients aged 65+. However, donors with age 65+ (HR=1.48, p=0.01) or ischemic time 8+ hours (HR=1.35, p=0.01) were associated with worse survival. Several types of marginal donor lungs are not associated with worse survival within recipients aged 65+, yet they are hardly used in this population. Widespread acceptance of these donor types could save lives among the growing population of elderly patients who need lung transplants, without expending standard criteria donor lungs, which are commonly preferred to be utilized in younger recipients.

Use of HCV-Positive Livers in HCV-Negative Recipients.

There are only limited data on the survival outcomes after transplanting HCV RNA-positive liver into HCV RNA-negative recipients. The objective of our study was to determine whether there were graft and patient survival differences when HCV-negative patients received HCV RNA (nucleic acid amplification testing [NAT] positive)-positive liver grafts. We queried the United Network for Organ Sharing data sets from January 2014 to December 2018, and recipients (N = 24,724) were stratified into 6 groups based on the status of HCV antibody and RNA of recipients and donors. The Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate the relationship between groups and 1-year post-LT graft or patient survival. During the study period, 1,358 recipients received NAT-positive liver grafts. Two hundred ten of the recipients were HCV negative. During the same period, 707 HCV antibody-positive but NAT-negative grafts were transplanted into 516 HCV-positive and 191 HCV-negative recipients. There were no differences in survival in HCV-positive recipients whether they received NAT-positive grafts (n = 1,148) or HCV antibody-negative/NAT-negative grafts (n = 6,321). Recipients of grafts from HCV antibody-positive/NAT-negative donors had similar survival whether recipients were HCV-negative patients (n = 191) or HCV-positive patients (n = 516), and their survival probabilities were similar to those of HCV-negative recipients (n = 6,321) receiving grafts from HCV antibody-negative/NAT-negative donors. Patient survival was lower (P = 0.049) when HCV-negative recipients (n = 210) received NAT-positive grafts compared with HCV-positive patients (n = 1,148) receiving NAT-positive grafts; however, when adjusted for recipient and donor characteristics, the difference was not significant. HCV-negative recipients receiving HCV-positive liver grafts (NAT positive) have excellent 1-year survival outcomes.

Is useful research data usually shared? An investigation of genome-wide association study summary statistics.

Primary data collected during a research study is often shared and may be reused for new studies. To assess the extent of data sharing in favourable circumstances and whether data sharing checks can be automated, this article investigates summary statistics from primary human genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This type of data is highly suitable for sharing because it is a standard research output, is straightforward to use in future studies (e.g., for secondary analysis), and may be already stored in a standard format for internal sharing within multi-site research projects. Manual checks of 1799 articles from 2010 and 2017 matching a simple PubMed query for molecular epidemiology GWAS were used to identify 314 primary human GWAS papers. Of these, only 13% reported the location of a complete set of GWAS summary data, increasing from 3% in 2010 to 23% in 2017. Whilst information about whether data was shared was typically located clearly within a data availability statement, the exact nature of the shared data was usually unspecified. Thus, data sharing is the exception even in suitable research fields with relatively strong data sharing norms. Moreover, the lack of clear data descriptions within data sharing statements greatly complicates the task of automatically characterising shared data sets.

Use of LUCS (Light-Up Cell System) as an alternative live cell method to predict human acute oral toxicity

LUCS (Light-Up Cell System) is a new live cell test that allows assessment of a cell’s homeostasis and its alteration by a toxic agent. To evaluate the effectiveness of LUCS as an alternative test method for acute oral toxicity, we compared EC50s determined in HepG2 cells treated with 53 chemicals selected from the ACuteTox EU database with corresponding human blood LC50s derived from human acute poisoning cases. Linear regression analysis showed that LUCS results predict human data to 69 %. Rodent oral LD50s and LUCS EC50s were then correlated to human LC50s using shared data sets. Linear regression analyses comparing LUCS and animal data clearly showed that LUCS always predicts human toxicity better than animal data do.These successful prediction values prompted us to simplify the LUCS test, adapting it to regulatory and high throughput applications, resulting in a new protocol with consistent dose-response profiles and EC50s.This study demonstrates that the LUCS test method could be relevant for assessing human acute oral toxicity with a simplified protocol adapted to commercially available fluorescence readers. We suggest that this new alternative method can be used for acute systemic toxicity testing in combination with other tests under European REACH and other regulations, wherever pertinent alternative methods are still lacking.

A Population-Genetic Perspective on the Similarities and Differences among Worldwide Human Populations.

Recent studies have produced a variety of advances in the investigation of genetic similarities and differences among human populations. In this reprinted article, originally published in Human Biology in 2011 (vol. 83, no. 6, pp. 659-684), I pose a series of questions about human population-genetic similarities and differences, and I then answer these questions by numerical computation with a single shared population-genetic data set. The collection of answers obtained provides an introductory perspective for understanding key results on the features of worldwide human genetic variation. A new foreword discusses the original article in light of the research that has followed.

Time-Effect of Donor and Recipient Characteristics on Graft Survival after Kidney Transplantation.

The kidney allocation system (KAS) is based on quality-based "longevity matching" strategies that provide only a momentary snapshot of expected outcomes at the time of transplantation. The purpose of our study was to define on a continuous timeline the relative and mutual interactions of donor and recipient characteristics on graft survival. Total 39,108 subjects who underwent kidney transplant between October 25, 1999 and January 1, 2007 were identified in the United Network for Organ Sharing dataset. Our primary outcome was graft survival. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and area under time-dependent ROC curve (AUC) were used to compare the predictive ability of the two allocation systems. During the first year after transplantation, both donor and recipient models showed identical relevance. From the first to the sixth years, although the two ROC curves were nearly identical, the donor model outweighed the recipient model. Both models intersected again at the sixth year. From that time onward, the ROC curve for recipient characteristics model predominated over the ROC curve for donor characteristics model. The predictive value of the recipient model (AUC = 0.752) was greater than that of the donor model (AUC = 0.673) We hope that this model will provide additional guidance and risk stratification to further optimize organ allocation based on the dynamic interaction of both donor and recipient characteristics over time.

Outcomes of Liver Transplantation in Patients on Renal Replacement Therapy: Considerations for Simultaneous Liver Kidney Transplantation Versus Safety Net.

In this study, a retrospective analysis of the United Network for Organ Sharing dataset was performed to identify risk factors associated with poor outcome for patients on RRT before LT who were listed for SLK and received either SLK vs LT alone (LTA). Between January 2003 and December 2016, 8971 adult LT recipients were on RRT at the time of LT. 5359 were listed for and received LTA (Group 1). Of 3612 patients listed for SLK, 3414 (38.1%) received SLK (Group 2) and 198 (2.2%) received LTA (Group 3). Overall, Group 3 had lower graft and patient survival post-LT when compared with Groups 1 and 2 (P < 0.001). Serum creatinine at 1 year post-LT and cumulative incidence for KT at 3 years post-LT were higher for Group 3 (P < 0.001). On multivariate analysis, pre-LT diabetes (P = 0.002), Model of End-Stage Liver Disease score (P = 0.01), and donor kidney donor profile index (P = 0.025) were significant in Group 2. Recipient age >60 (P < 0.001) and RRT pre-LT (>90 days; P = 0.001) were associated with lower patient survival in Group 3. Among LT recipients on RRT before LT who were listed for SLK, RRT >90 days, and age >60 were associated with poor outcome following LTA. This suggests that programs should carefully weigh the decision to proceed with LTA vs waiting for SLK in this patient population. Future access to Safety Net KT will be an important consideration for these patients moving forward.

A Novel Workflow-Level Data Placement Strategy for Data-Sharing Scientific Cloud Workflows

Cloud computing can provide a more cost-effective way to deploy scientific workflows than traditional distributed computing environments such as cluster and grid. Due to the large size of scientific datasets, data placement plays an important role in scientific cloud workflow systems for improving system performance and reducing data transfer cost. Traditional task-level data placement strategy only considers shared datasets within individual workflows to reduce data transfer cost. However, it is obvious that task-level strategy is not necessarily good enough for the situation of multiple workflows at the workflow level. In this paper, a novel workflow-level data placement model is constructed, which regards multiple workflows as a whole. Then, a two-stage data placement strategy is proposed which first pre-allocates initial datasets to proper datacenters during workflow build-time stage, and then dynamically distributes newly generated datasets to appropriate datacenters during runtime stage. Both stages use an efficient discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm to place flexible-location datasets. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that our workflow-level data placement strategy can be more cost-effective than its task-level counterpart for data-sharing scientific cloud workflows.

Survival Outcomes Are Not Affected When Liver Transplant Surgery Is Done at Night, During Weekends, or Summer Months.

It has been suggested that hospitalized patients may get suboptimal care in nights or on weekends or summer holidays due to sleep deprivation, physician fatigue, or reduced medical staffing. Our objective was to determine whether there were differences in outcomes when surgery was performed in the night (10 pm-6 am), on weekends (Saturday or Sunday), or during summer months (June-August). We used United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) data sets of adults transplanted between February 27, 2002, and September 30, 2016. We estimated the start time of liver transplant surgery by utilizing the cross-clamp time and cold ischemia time (cross-clamp time + cold ischemia time - 2 h). The survival outcomes were estimated by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were analyzed separately. The independent effect of time of transplant on outcomes was analyzed after adjusting for common confounders, including Model for End-stage Liver Diseases scores and transplant center volume. During the study period, 4 434 (9.6%) were done in the night, 12 147 (26.4%) over weekends, and 11 976 (26%) during summer months. The graft and patient survival and complications were not influenced by the time of transplant for both HCC and non-HCC population. Cox regression analysis after adjusting for risk factors, including Model for End-stage Liver Diseases, donor risk index, and liver center volume, confirmed that there were no significant differences in outcomes. Our study showed that the time of transplant surgery whether done during nights, weekends, or summer months had no effect on graft or patient survival irrespective of center volume, patient, or donor risk factors.

Investigating systematic bias in brain age estimation with application to post-traumatic stress disorders.

Brain age prediction using machine-learning techniques has recently attracted growing attention, as it has the potential to serve as a biomarker for characterizing the typical brain development and neuropsychiatric disorders. Yet one long-standing problem is that the predicted brain age is overestimated in younger subjects and underestimated in older. There is a plethora of claims as to the bias origins, both methodologically and in data itself. With a large neuroanatomical dataset (N = 2,026; 6-89 years of age) from multiple shared datasets, we show this bias is neither data-dependent nor specific to particular method including deep neural network. We present an alternative account that offers a statistical explanation for the bias and describe a simple, yet efficient, method using general linear model to adjust the bias. We demonstrate the effectiveness of bias adjustment with a large multi-modal neuroimaging data (N = 804; 8-21 years of age) for both healthy controls and post-traumatic stress disorders patients obtained from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort.

Sirolimus + Tacrolimus Maintenance with No Induction Therapy May Maximize Survival in Lung Transplant Recipients

Purpose Sirolimus has purported advantages in lung transplant maintenance therapy, such as anti-fibrotic, anti-proliferative, and anti-aging effects, which may help improve survival. Methods Among U.S. lung transplant recipients from 2003-2016 in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) dataset, we compared sirolimus [SIR] (n=219) to mycophenolate mofetil [MMF] (n=5482), within a tacrolimus-based regimen. The SIR group consisted of patients on SIR within 1 year post-transplant, since prophylactic SIR initiation is usually delayed by up to 1 year to avoid the risk of bronchial anastomotic dehiscence and other complications. Due to the delayed initiation of SIR, this study was restricted to patients alive at 1 year in both groups, to prevent immortal time bias. All patients in both groups were free of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome and malignancy at 1 year, to exclude these common rescue uses of SIR. We also assessed survival for SIR and MMF after subdividing by whether or not patients received induction therapy (with basiliximab, daclizumab, antithymocyte globulin, or alemtuzumab). Survival comparisons were based on Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox multivariable regression utilizing multiple imputation to handle missing data. Results SIR had better survival than MMF: median (MS) 8.9 vs 7.1 yr.; adjusted Hazard Ratio (HR)=0.71, p=0.003. When subdividing by whether patients received induction, SIR with no induction had the best survival (MS=10.7 yr.; HR=0.48, p=0.002), followed by SIR with induction (MS=7.9 yr.; HR=0.90, p=0.45), MMF with induction (MS=7.4 yr.; reference group), and MMF with no induction (MS=6.8 yr.; HR=1.15, p=0.01). Conclusion Sirolimus, initiated within 1 year after lung transplantation in a tacrolimus-based regimen, may improve survival compared to MMF. National data representing the U.S. lung transplant population suggest that sirolimus + tacrolimus maintenance with no induction therapy is associated with a median survival of approximately 10 years.

The short-term effect of BMI, alcohol use, and related chronic conditions on labour market outcomes: A time-lag panel analysis utilizing European SHARE dataset.

IntroductionNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes have spread at a remarkable pace in European countries over the past decades. Overweight/obesity and alcohol use are two leading risk factors contributing to both economic and epidemiological burden associated with NCDs. In OECD countries, the impact of indirect costs of obesity varies between 0.20% and 1.21% of GDP. Indirect costs of alcohol use range from 0.19% (Portugal) to 1.6% (Estonia) of GDP.AimTo assess the longitudinal impact of alcohol use and high body-mass index (BMI) on labour market outcomes in the European region by modeling the direct effect of high BMI and alcohol use, and the effect via associated diseases.MethodsThe impact of BMI, alcohol use, and associated diseases on employment likelihood, intent to retire early, days of absenteeism, and hours of work per week, were modelled via lagged Poisson and Zero-inflated Poisson regressions, adjusting for missingness via inverse probability weighting, as appropriate, using European SHARE data.ResultsControlling for other chronic conditions, being overweight increases employment likelihood among men, but not among women. Obesity decreased female, but not male, employment chances. All chronic conditions linked with high BMI negatively affected employment likelihood, and increased the intention to retire early significantly. Alcohol use positively affects employment likelihood in women at all drinking levels relative to lifetime abstainers, but only in moderate (not heavy) male drinkers. There is super-additionality of impact of NCDs on absenteeism and hours worked, presenting a key economic argument to tackle NCD prevention and compression of morbidity.ImplicationsNCD prevention is not just important for employment and hours worked, but also for employee morale, especially given increasing retirement age in Europe and globally.

Multicenter CT phantoms public dataset for radiomics reproducibility tests.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to describe a public, open‐access, computed tomography (CT) phantom image set acquired at three centers and collected especially for radiomics reproducibility research. The dataset is useful to test radiomic features reproducibility with respect to various parameters, such as acquisition settings, scanners, and reconstruction algorithms.Acquisition and validation methodsThree phantoms were scanned in three independent institutions. Images of the following phantoms were acquired: Catphan 700 and COPDGene Phantom II (Phantom Laboratory, Greenwich, NY, USA), and the Triple modality 3D Abdominal Phantom (CIRS, Norfolk, VA, USA). Data were collected at three Dutch medical centers: MAASTRO Clinic (Maastricht, NL), Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, NL), and University Medical Center Groningen (Groningen, NL) with scanners from two different manufacturers Siemens Healthcare and Philips Healthcare. The following acquisition parameter were varied in the phantom scans: slice thickness, reconstruction kernels, and tube current.Data format and usage notesWe made the dataset publically available on the Dutch instance of “Extensible Neuroimaging Archive Toolkit‐XNAT” (https://xnat.bmia.nl). The dataset is freely available and reusable with attribution (Creative Commons 3.0 license).Potential applicationsOur goal was to provide a findable, open‐access, annotated, and reusable CT phantom dataset for radiomics reproducibility studies. Reproducibility testing and harmonization are fundamental requirements for wide generalizability of radiomics‐based clinical prediction models. It is highly desirable to include only reproducible features into models, to be more assured of external validity across hitherto unseen contexts. In this view, phantom data from different centers represent a valuable source of information to exclude CT radiomic features that may already be unstable with respect to simplified structures and tightly controlled scan settings. The intended extension of our shared dataset is to include other modalities and phantoms with more realistic lesion simulations.

A Fresh Look at the Health-Wealth Correlation: A Case Study of European Countries

This paper contributes to the development-health literature by studying the correlation between development measures (see below) and health measures - one subjective ('self-assessed-health-status'), and the other one objective (the individual's 'number of chronic diseases'). Correlations are examined for 29 European countries, using the SHARE data set, and country-level development measures. Specifically, we examine whether country fixed-effects in regressions of health measures, controlling for individual socio-demographic variables, are significantly correlated with country development variables, which include: logarithm of per-capita GDP; the Human Development Index; the Social Progress Index; life expectancy; percentage of GDP spent on health; and the novel measure expressed by the Environmental Health Index. The novelty of our study is the introduction of a channel for the significant health-wealth correlation, speculating that the driving forces are psychological.

Impact of Nonmalignant Portal Vein Thrombosis in Transplant Recipients With Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is an increasingly prevalent condition, and its more severe progressive state, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), is currently the second most common indication for wait-listed adults in the United States. The association of portal vein thrombosis (PVT) prior to or at transplant and poor graft and patient outcomes is not well established, particularly among NASH patients who inherently have an increased hypercoagulable profile. Using the United Network for Organ Sharing data set, we analyzed graft and patient outcomes of patients transplanted for the indication of NASH with and without PVT. Of 3689 NASH transplant recipients, the prevalence of PVT was 12% (450 with PVT and 3239 without PVT). NASH transplant recipients with PVT had inferior graft and patient survival compared with NASH transplant recipients without PVT, even after adjusting for recipient and donor demographic characteristics, body mass index, synthetic dysfunction, and presence of diabetes. In a multivariate Cox regression model, NASH transplant recipients with PVT had a 37% increased risk of graft failure (hazard ratio [HR], 1.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.15-1.63; P < 0.001) and 31% increased risk of overall death (HR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.09-1.58; P < 0.001) compared with NASH transplant recipients without PVT at transplant. This difference in graft and patient survival was most pronounced in the early posttransplant period. These results demonstrate that NASH patients with PVT have decreased graft and patient survival independent of recipient and donor factors.