https://www.mdu.se/

Combinatorial test design is a plan of test that aims to reduce the amount of test cases systematically by choosing a subset of the test cases based on the combination of input variables. The subset covers all possible combinations of a given strength and hence tries to match the effectiveness of the exhaustive set. This mechanism of reduction has been used successfully in software testing research with t-way testing (where t indicates the interaction strength of combinations). Potentially, other systems may exhibit many similarities with this approach. Hence, it could form an emerging application in different areas of research due to its usefulness. To this end, more recently it has been applied in a few research areas successfully. In this paper, we explore the applicability of combinatorial test design technique for Fractional Order (FO), Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) parameter design controller, named as FOPID, for an automatic voltage regulator (AVR) system. Throughout the paper, we justify this new application theoretically and practically through simulations. In addition, we report on first experiments indicating its practical use in this field. We design different algorithms and adapted other strategies to cover all the combinations with an optimum and effective test set. Our findings indicate that combinatorial test design can find the combinations that lead to optimum design. Besides this, we also found that by increasing the strength of combination, we can approach to the optimum design in a way that with only 4-way combinatorial set, we can get the effectiveness of an exhaustive test set. This significantly reduced the number of tests needed and thus leads to an approach that optimizes design of parameters quickly. © 2016 Ahmed et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

AimThe aim of the study was to explore meaningful everyday life situations as perceived by six-year-old children born preterm. Materials and methodsThe study had a descriptive qualitative design with an inductive approach. Ten, six-year-old children born preterm, not diagnosed with any disabilities, participated. Data was collected by photo-elicitation interviews to stimulate and help the children to describe their meaningful everyday life situations. A qualitative content analysis according to Elo and Kyngas was applied. ResultsThe children's descriptions of meaningful everyday life situations can be understood as being in an active and dynamic process, representing the core category. The analysis resulted in three generic categories, as the children described the significance of having significant circumstances and doing things. The experiences the children gain when they do things create their desire for further development. DiscussionThe results reveal that children born preterm are able to reflect on and give detailed descriptions of situations of importance to them. The study suggests that if six-year-old children born preterm are given the opportunity to share their views they can take an active role e.g. in planning and carrying through of interventions by health care services.

We conduct laboratory experiments to study peer effects on compliance with extortive requests. To this aim, we use an “extortion game” with multiple victims. In agreement with our hypothesis, our results show that when the information on peers’ behavior is available, compliance with appropriative requests is triggered by conformism among victims rather than by punishment. Moreover, we find that extorted sums are rather small, requests are proportional to the victim’s earnings, similar across victims, and are significantly lower when the extorter self-selects into this role. Punishment is rare, but effective. Finally, our results indicate that fairness concerns matter even in a context of extra-legal taxation, shaping both extorters’ requests and victims’ compliance. 

The development of digital solutions is becoming increasingly important in facing global challenges. Therefore, research on this topic is important in taking into account cardiac patients’ experiences of the rehabilitation process for the design of digital counseling solutions. The aim of the present qualitative study was to explore the different meanings that patients give to the rehabilitation process using a Glaserian grounded theory (GT) approach. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 participants from a rehabilitation center in Finland. The findings indicated a “complex trust-building process” core category comprising five categories of trust-building in rehabilitation: feeling that one has hit rock bottom, facing and coping in a crosscurrent, understanding together as a peer group, moving toward a healthier lifestyle with technology, and finding self-awareness. The complex process of trust-building involved interactions among emotion, cognition, and acceptance and support processes. Therefore, digital rehabilitation should be incorporated into counseling based on patients’ psychosocial, physical and emotional needs to help patients become aware of their own feelings and thoughts during the rehabilitation process.

Introduction Danish and Norwegian immigrant women in Sweden have an increased risk of cervical cancer compared to Swedish-born women. In addition, Danish and Norwegian immigrant women follow the national recommendations for attendance at cervical screening to much lesser extent than Swedish-born women. The aim of this study was to explore how Danish and Norwegian immigrant women in Sweden reason about attending cervical screening, focusing on women's perceptions as to why they and their compatriots do not attend. Methods Eight focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with Danish and Norwegian immigrant women living in Stockholm. The women were between 26 and 66 years of age at the time of the FGDs, and were aged between <1 and 48 years old when they immigrated to Sweden. A FGD guide was used, which included questions related to cervical screening, and obstacles and motivators to attend cervical screening. The FGDs were tape recorded and transcribed, and the results analysed according to the principles of qualitative content analysis. Results The main theme was "Women have a comprehensive rationale for postponing cervical screening, yet do not view themselves as non-attenders". Investigation of women's rationale for non-attendance after being invited to cervical screening revealed some complex reasons related to immigration itself, including competing needs, organisational and structural factors and differences in mentality, but also reasons stemming from other factors. Postponing attendance at cervical screening was the category that linked all these factors as the reasons to why women did not attend to cervical screening according to the recommendations of the authorities. Conclusions The rationale used to postpone cervical screening, in combination with the fact that women do not consider themselves to be non-attenders, indicates that they have not actively taken a stance against cervical screening, and reveals an opportunity to motivate these women to attend.

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which school-related factors, such as school liking, participation in decision-making, school-related parental support, teachers’ support, and school physical environment, explain trends in mental health problems. The problems considered are psychosomatic symptoms (PSS), depressive symptoms (DS), suicidal ideations (SI), and suicide attempts (SA) among Swedish adolescents of varying socioeconomic status (SES) from 2004 to 2020.

Methods: We analyzed data collected through repeated cross-sectional surveys from 19,873 15-year-old students at schools in a county in Sweden. Boys and girls each constituted 50% of the participants. We fitted linear and logistic regression models to investigate associations between school-related factors and trends in mental health problems.

Results: Increased school-related parental support and school liking were cross-sectionally associated with decreased PSS, DS, and SI, with school liking also associated with decreased SA. A conducive school physical environment was also found to be cross-sectionally associated with lower PSS and DS scores. Over time, mental health problems have shown a general increase among adolescents in the low SES group and a decrease among those in the high SES group. While school-related factors explained the improvement in mental health in the high SES group, we found such an association only between parental support trends in PSS and DS, along with participation and trends in SA over time among adolescents in the low SES group.

Conclusions: The results show that school-related factors play significant roles in influencing adolescent mental health. The influence, however, varied across SES gradients over time. This suggests that working against inequities in school-related factors would help address inequities in mental health.

Objective

The study aims to assess changes in HIV treatment outcomes for Jamaica after the implementation of the WHO Treat All strategy in January 2017, as well as identify variables associated with clinical stage at diagnosis and viral load status, in order to understand implications for enhancing the HIV clinical cascade and boosting progress towards the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets.

Method

This is a population-based study using the National Treatment Service Information System. The sample consists of persons 15 years and older, placed on treatment before and after Treat All was implemented, across all 4 regional health authorities in Jamaica. Patients were assessed for two binary outcomes: 1. stage at HIV diagnosis (early/baseline CD4 cell count ≧350 cells/mm3, or late/ baseline CD4 <350 cells/mm3), 2. viral load status achieved after ART initiation (suppressed/<1000 copies/ml or non-suppressed/ ≥1000 copies/ml). Categorical variables: age/years, gender and health regions, were investigated using multivariable logistic regression. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals are reported.

Results

After Treat All, there was an increase in median baseline CD4 results as the proportion of late diagnoses decreased from 60% to 39%. There was a small increase in viral suppression from 76% to 80%, a decrease in baseline viral load testing from 61% to 46% and an increase in the uptake of first viral load testing after starting treatment from 13% to 19%. Males and persons 40+ years had higher odds of late diagnosis before and after Treat All.

Conclusion

Jamaica’s HIV program outcomes have improved after Treat All was implemented. ART initiation time significantly decreased. Early diagnosis, viral load testing uptake and viral suppression increased. However, there is a need to implement targeted testing for men and persons over 40 years to decrease the frequency of late diagnosis.

In this paper we review, and elaborate on, the literature on a regression artifact related to Lord's paradox in a continuous setting. Specifically, the question is whether a continuous property of individuals predicts improvement from training between a pretest and a posttest. If the pretest score is included as a covariate, regression to the mean will lead to biased results if two critical conditions are satisfied: (1) the property is correlated with pretest scores and (2) pretest scores include random errors. We discuss how these conditions apply to the analysis in a published experimental study, the authors of which concluded that linearity of children's estimations of numerical magnitudes predicts arithmetic learning from a training program. However, the two critical conditions were clearly met in that study. In a reanalysis we find that the bias in the method can fully account for the effect found in the original study. In other words, data are consistent with the null hypothesis that numerical magnitude estimations are unrelated to arithmetic learning.

Social psychology and related disciplines are seeing a resurgence of interest in replication, as well as actual replication efforts. But prior work suggests that even a clear demonstration that a finding is invalid often fails to shake acceptance of the finding. This threatens the full impact of these replication efforts. Here we show that the actions of two key players - journal editors and the authors of original (invalidated) research findings - are critical to the broader public's continued belief in an invalidated research conclusion. Across three experiments, we show that belief in an invalidated finding falls sharply when a critical failed replication is published in the same - versus different - journal as the original finding, and when the authors of the original finding acknowledge that the new findings invalidate their conclusions. We conclude by discussing policy implications of our key findings.

Based on individual variation in cooperative inclinations, we define the “hard problem of cooperation” as that of achieving high levels of cooperation in a group of non-cooperative types. Can the hard problem be solved by institutions with monitoring and sanctions? In a laboratory experiment we find that the answer is affirmative if the institution is imposed on the group but negative if development of the institution is left to the group to vote on. In the experiment, participants were divided into groups of either cooperative types or non-cooperative types depending on their behavior in a public goods game. In these homogeneous groups they repeatedly played a public goods game regulated by an institution that incorporated several of the key properties identified by Ostrom: operational rules, monitoring, rewards, punishments, and (in one condition) change of rules. When change of rules was not possible and punishments were set to be high, groups of both types generally abided by operational rules demanding high contributions to the common good, and thereby achieved high levels of payoffs. Under less severe rules, both types of groups did worse but non-cooperative types did worst. Thus, non-cooperative groups profited the most from being governed by an institution demanding high contributions and employing high punishments. Nevertheless, in a condition where change of rules through voting was made possible, development of the institution in this direction was more often voted down in groups of non-cooperative types. We discuss the relevance of the hard problem and fit our results into a bigger picture of institutional and individual determinants of cooperative behavior.

INTRODUCTION: Heart failure is a growing public health problem associated with poor quality of life and significant morbidity and mortality. The majority of heart failure care is provided by family caregivers, and is associated with caregiver burden and reduced quality of life. Research emphasizes that future nursing interventions should recognize the importance of involving family caregivers to achieve optimal outcomes.

AIMS: The aims of this study are to explore registered nurses' perceptions about the situation of family caregivers to patients with heart failure, and registered nurses' interventions, in order to improve family caregivers' situation.

METHODS: The study has a qualitative design with an inductive approach. Six focus group interviews were held with 23 registered nurses in three hospitals and three primary health care centres. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: Two content areas were identified by the a priori study aims. Four categories and nine sub-categories emerged in the analysis process. The content area "Family caregivers' situation" includes two categories: "To be unburdened" and "To comprehend the heart failure condition and its consequences". The content area "Interventions to improve family caregivers' situation" includes two categories: "Individualized support and information" and "Bridging contact".

CONCLUSIONS: Registered nurses perceive family caregivers' situation as burdensome, characterized by worry and uncertainty. In the PHCCs, the continuity and security of an RN as a permanent health care contact was considered an important and sustainable intervention to better care for family caregivers' worry and uncertainty. In the nurse-led heart failure clinics in hospitals, registered nurses can provide family caregivers with the opportunity of involvement in their relative's health care and address congruence and relationship quality within the family through the use of "Shared care" and or Family-centred care. Registered nurses consider it necessary to have a coordinated individual care plan as a basis for collaboration between the county council and the municipality.

We suggest a new method for detecting patterns of social clustering based on choice data. The method compares similar subjects within and between cohorts and thereby allows us to isolate the effect of peer influence from that of exogenous factors. Using this method on Norwegian register data, we address the question of whether students tend to cluster socially based on similar background. We find that common background correlates with making the same choices of curricular tracks, and that both exogenous preferences and peer influence matter. This applies to immigrant students from the same country, and, to some extent, to descendants of immigrants, but not to students from culturally similar countries. There are also small effects related to parents' education and income.

Determinants of cooperation include ingroup vs. outgroup membership, and individual traits, such as prosociality and trust. We investigated whether these factors can be overridden by beliefs about people's trust. We manipulated the information players received about each other's level of general trust, "high" or "low". These levels were either measured (Experiment 1) or just arbitrarily assigned labels (Experiment 2). Players' choices whether to cooperate or defect in a stag hunt (or an assurance game)-where it is mutually beneficial to cooperate, but costly if the partner should fail to do so-were strongly predicted by what they were told about the other player's trust label, as well as by what they were told that the other player was told about their own label. Our findings demonstrate the importance for cooperation in a risky coordination game of both first- and second-order beliefs about how much people trust each other. This supports the idea that institutions can influence cooperation simply by influencing beliefs.

Objectives: Depression in elderly people is a major public health concern. As response to antidepressants is often unsatisfactory in this age group, there is a need for evidence-based non-pharmacological treatment options. Our objectives were twofold: firstly, to synthesize published trials evaluating efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of psychological treatment of depression in the elderly and secondly, to assess the quality of evidence. Method: The electronic databases PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CINAL, Scopus, and PsycINFO were searched up to 23 May 2016 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychological treatment for depressive disorders or depressive symptoms in people aged 65 years and over. Two reviewers independently assessed relevant studies for risk of bias. Where appropriate, the results were synthesized in meta-analyses. The quality of the evidence was graded according to GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation). Results: Twenty-two relevant RCTs were identified, eight of which were excluded from the synthesis due to a high risk of bias. Of the remaining trials, six evaluated problem-solving therapy (PST), five evaluated other forms of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and three evaluated life review/reminiscence therapy. In frail elderly with depressive symptoms, the evidence supported the efficacy of PST, with large but heterogeneous effect sizes compared with treatment as usual. The results for life-review/reminiscence therapy and CBT were also promising, but because of the limited number of trials the quality of evidence was rated as very low. Safety data were not reported in any included trial. The only identified cost-effectiveness study estimated an incremental cost per additional point reduction in Beck Depression Inventory II score for CBT compared with talking control and treatment as usual. Conclusion: Psychological treatment is a feasible option for frail elderly with depressive symptoms. However, important questions about efficacy, generalizability, safety and cost-effectiveness remain.

An electrocardiograph (ECG) is widely used in diagnosis and prediction of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The traditional ECG classification methods have complex signal processing phases that leads to expensive designs. This paper provides a deep learning (DL) based system that employs the convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for classification of ECG signals present in PhysioNet MIT-BIH Arrhythmia database. The proposed system implements 1-D convolutional deep residual neural network (ResNet) model that performs feature extraction by directly using the input heartbeats. We have used synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) that process class-imbalance problem in the training dataset and effectively classifies the five heartbeat types in the test dataset. The classifier's performance is evaluated with ten-fold cross validation (CV) using accuracy, precision, sensitivity, F1- score, and kappa. We have obtained an average accuracy of 98.63%, precision of 92.86%, sensitivity of 92.41%, and specificity of 99.06%. The average F1-score and Kappa obtained were 92.63% and 95.5% respectively. The study shows that proposed ResNet performs well with deep layers compared to other 1-D CNNs. 

In this paper we focus on a critical component of the city: its building stock, which holdsmuch of its socio-economic activities. In our case, the lack of a comprehensive databaseabout their features and its limitation to a surveyed subset lead us to adopt data-driven tech-niques to extend our knowledge to the near-city-scale. Neural networks and random forestsare applied to identify the buildings’ number of floors and construction periods’ dependen-cies on a set of shape features: area, perimeter, and height along with the annual electricityconsumption, relying a surveyed data in the city of Beirut. The predicted results are thencompared with established scaling laws of urban forms, which constitutes a further consis-tency check and validation of our workflow.

Transitions to democracy are most often considered the outcome of historical modernization processes. Socio-economic changes, such as increases in per capita GNP, education levels, urbanization and communication, have traditionally been found to be correlates or 'requisites' of democratic reform. However, transition times and the number of reform steps have not been studied comprehensively. Here we show that historically, transitions to democracy have mainly occurred through rapid leaps rather than slow and incremental transition steps, with a median time from autocracy to democracy of 2.4 years, and overnight in the reverse direction. Our results show that autocracy and democracy have acted as peaks in an evolutionary landscape of possible modes of institutional arrangements. Only scarcely have there been slow incremental transitions. We discuss our results in relation to the application of phylogenetic comparative methods in cultural evolution and point out that the evolving unit in this system is the institutional arrangement, not the individual country which is instead better regarded as the 'host' for the political system.

There are few diagnostic tools for chronic musculoskeletal pain as structural imaging methods seldom reveal pathological alterations. This is especially true for Whiplash Associated Disorder, for which physical signs of persistent injuries to the neck have yet to be established. Here, we sought to visualize inflammatory processes in the neck region by means Positron Emission Tomography using the tracer (11)C-D-deprenyl, a potential marker for inflammation. Twenty-two patients with enduring pain after a rear impact car accident (Whiplash Associated Disorder grade II) and 14 healthy controls were investigated. Patients displayed significantly elevated tracer uptake in the neck, particularly in regions around the spineous process of the second cervical vertebra. This suggests that whiplash patients have signs of local persistent peripheral tissue inflammation, which may potentially serve as a diagnostic biomarker. The present investigation demonstrates that painful processes in the periphery can be objectively visualized and quantified with PET and that (11)C-D-deprenyl is a promising tracer for these purposes.

BACKGROUND: Higher risks of psychiatric disorders and lower-than-average subjective health in adulthood have been demonstrated in offspring of immigrants in Sweden compared with offspring of native Swedes, and linked to relative socioeconomic disadvantage. The present study investigated mortality rates in relation to this inequity from a gender perspective.

METHODS: We used data from national registers covering the entire Swedish population aged 18-65 years. Offspring of foreign-born parents who were either Swedish born or had received residency in Sweden before school age (<7 years) were defined as "offspring of immigrants." We used Cox regression models to examine the association between parental country of birth and mortality between 1990 and 2008, with adjustment for education, income, age and family type.

RESULTS: Male offspring of immigrants from the Middle East (HR:2.00, CI:1.66-2.26), other non-European countries (HR:1.80, CI:1.36-2.36) and Finland (HR:1.56, CI:1.48-1.65) showed an age-adjusted excess mortality risk from all causes of death when compared to offspring with Swedish-born parents. Income, but not education, greatly attenuated these increased mortality risks. No excess mortality rates were found among female offspring of immigrants, with the exception of external cause of death among offspring of Finnish immigrants.

CONCLUSION: The study demonstrates high mortality rates in male offspring of immigrants from Finland and non-European countries that are associated with economic, but not educational, disadvantage. No increased mortality rates were found among female offspring of immigrants. Future studies are needed to explain this gender differential and why income, but not education, predicts mortality in male offspring of immigrants.

Background: Children with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) have an increased risk of mortality, infections and impaired physical and cognitive development compared to well-nourished children. In parts of Ethiopia not considered chronically food insecure there are no supplementary feeding programmes (SFPs) for treating MAM. The short-term outcomes of children who have MAM in such areas are not currently described, and there remains an urgent need for evidence-based policy recommendations.

Methods: We defined MAM as mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) of ≥11.0 cm and <12.5 cm with no bilateral pitting oedema to include Ethiopian government and World Health Organisation cut-offs. We prospectively surveyed 884 children aged 6-59 months living with MAM in a rural area of Ethiopia not eligible for a supplementary feeding programme. Weekly home visits were made for seven months (28 weeks), covering the end of peak malnutrition through to the post-harvest period (the most food secure window), collecting anthropometric, socio-demographic and food security data.

Results: By the end of the study follow up, 32.5% (287/884) remained with MAM, 9.3% (82/884) experienced at least one episode of SAM (MUAC <11 cm and/or bilateral pitting oedema), and 0.9% (8/884) died. Only 54.2% of the children recovered with no episode of SAM by the end of the study. Of those who developed SAM half still had MAM at the end of the follow up period. The median (interquartile range) time to recovery was 9 (4-15) weeks. Children with the lowest MUAC at enrolment had a significantly higher risk of remaining with MAM and a lower chance of recovering.

Conclusions: Children with MAM during the post-harvest season in an area not eligible for SFP experience an extremely high incidence of SAM and a low recovery rate. Not having a targeted nutrition-specific intervention to address MAM in this context places children with MAM at excessive risk of adverse outcomes. Further preventive and curative approaches should urgently be considered.

BackgroundThe Covid-19 pandemic has had unprecedented effects on individual lives and livelihoods as well as on social, health, economic and political systems and structures across the world. This article derives from a unique collaboration between researchers and museums using rapid response crowdsourcing to document contemporary life among the general public during the pandemic crisis in Sweden.

Methods and findingsWe use qualitative analysis to explore the narrative crowdsourced submissions of the same 88 individuals at two timepoints, during the 1st and 2nd pandemic waves, about what they most fear in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how their descriptions changed over time. In this self-selected group, we found that aspects they most feared generally concerned responses to the pandemic on a societal level, rather than to the Covid-19 disease itself or other health-related issues. The most salient fears included a broad array of societal issues, including general societal collapse and fears about effects on social and political interactions among people with resulting impact on political order. Notably strong support for the Swedish pandemic response was expressed, despite both national and international criticism.

ConclusionsThis analysis fills a notable gap in research literature that lacks subjective and detailed investigation of experiences of the general public, despite recognition of the widespread effects of Covid-19 and its’ management strategies. Findings address controversy about the role of experts in formulating and communicating strategy, as well as implications of human responses to existential threats. Based on this analysis, we call for broader focus on societal issues related to this existential threat and the responses to it.

BACKGROUND: Children with disabilities have an increased risk of mental health problems. Patterns of mental health problems and well-being may vary. AIMS: To identify patterns of mental health problems and well-being in children with disabilities in Sweden, and investigate the influence of parental background (migration, education), and child cognitive level. METHOD: In this cross-sectional study, cluster analysis was used to analyse parents' ratings of conduct problems, emotional symptoms, and prosocial behaviour on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in children with disabilities (n = 136). The influence of parental background (migration, education) and child cognitive level on cluster membership was explored through multinomial logistic regression. RESULTS: Five clusters of mental health patterns emerged. Three clusters had mean ratings near or past clinical cut-off for one each of the SDQ-subscales. One cluster had difficulties on all three subscales. Greater child cognitive difficulties increased the likelihood of low prosocial behaviour (OR 2.501, p < .001) and of difficulties on all three subscales (OR 2.155, p = .006). Parental background did not influence cluster membership. CONCLUSION: Children with disabilities display varying mental health patterns. Awareness of the complexity of mental health patterns among children with disabilities is important. Screening and support for emotional symptoms and prosocial behaviour deficits should be considered for children with conduct problems.

Cooperation is crucial to overcome some of the most pressing social challenges of our times, such as the spreading of infectious diseases, corruption and environmental conservation. Yet, how cooperation emerges and persists is still a puzzle for social scientists. Since human cooperation is individually costly, cooperative attitudes should have been eliminated by natural selection in favour of selfishness. Yet, cooperation is common in human societies, so there must be some features which make it evolutionarily advantageous. Using a cognitive inspired model of human cooperation, recent work Realpe-Gómez (2018) has reported signatures of criticality in human cooperative groups. Theoretical evidence suggests that being poised at a critical point provides evolutionary advantages to groups by enhancing responsiveness of these systems to external attacks. After showing that signatures of criticality can be detected in human cooperative groups composed by Moody Conditional Cooperators, in this work we show that being poised close to a turning point enhances the fitness and make individuals more resistant to invasions by free riders. Copyright: © 2021 Vilone et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Postpartum visits (PPVs) have been advocated as a way to improve health outcomes for mothers and their infants, but the rate of PPVs is still low in rural China. This study aims to investigate the utilization of PPVs and to explore the factors associated with PPVs in rural China. Parity is the most concerned factor in this study. Methods: A cross-sectional household survey was performed in two counties of Zhejiang province. Questions include socio-economic, health services and women's delivery data. Chi-square tests and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify factors associated with PPVs. Results: 223 women who had a delivery history in the recent five years were enrolled in analyses. 173 (78%) of them were primiparous. Among the primiparous women, 43 (25%) had not received any PPVs. The majority, 27 (55%) of the 49 multiparous women, had not received any PPVs. Multiparous women were less likely to receive PPVs than primiparous women. Among 223 puerperal women, 47 (21%) had been compensated for delivery fee expenses. Women who received compensation were found to be more likely to receive standard (at least 3) PPVs. Conclusions: It was found that women with "second babies" were less likely to use PPVs. This could be an unintended consequence of the "one-child policy", due to fear that contact with public health facilities could result in sanctions. This phenomenon should be taken seriously by government in order to improve the health of babies and their mothers. Financial compensation for delivery fee charges can improve the use of PPVs, thus free-of-charge delivery should be promoted. © 2013 You et al.

Decoding neuronal information is important in neuroscience, both as a basic means to understand how neuronal activity is related to cerebral function and as a processing stage in driving neuroprosthetic effectors. Here, we compare the readout performance of six commonly usedclassifiers at decoding two different variables encoded by the spiking activity of the non-human primate frontal eye fields (FEF): the spatial position of a visual cue, and the instructed orientation of the animal's attention. While the first variable is exogenously driven by the environment, the second variable corresponds to the interpretation of the instruction conveyed by the cue; it is endogenously driven and corresponds to the output of internalcognitive operations performed on the visual attributes of the cue. These two variables were decoded using either a regularized optimal linear estimator in its explicit formulation, an optimal linear artificial neural network estimator, a non-linear artificial neural network estimator, a non-linear naïve Bayesian estimator, a non-linear Reservoir recurrent network classifier or a non-linear Support Vector Machine classifier. Our results suggest that endogenous information such as the orientation of attention can be decoded from the FEF with the same accuracy as exogenous visualinformation. All classifiers did not behave equally in the face of population size and heterogeneity, the available training and testing trials, the subject's behavior and the temporal structure of the variable of interest. In most situations, the regularized optimal linear estimator and the non-linear Support Vector Machine classifiers outperformed the other tested decoders.