Narrow Results

We argue that using the Shapley value of cooperative game theory as the scheme for risk allocation among non-orthogonal risk factors is a natural way of interpreting the contribution made by each of such factors to overall portfolio risk. We discuss a Shapley value scheme for allocating risk to non-orthogonal greeks in a portfolio of derivatives. Such a situation arises, for example, when using a stochastic volatility model to capture option volatility smile. We also show that Shapley value allows for a natural method of interpreting components of enterprise risk measures such as VaR and ES. For all applications discussed, we derive explicit formulas and/or numerical algorithms to calculate the allocations.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common chronic degenerative joint disease, characterized by cartilage damage, synovial inflammation, subchondral bone sclerosis, marginal bone loss, and osteophyte development. Clinical manifestations include inflammatory joint pain, swelling, osteophytes, and limitation of motion. The pathogenesis of osteoarthritis has not yet been fully uncovered. With ongoing research, however, it has been gradually determined that OA is not caused solely by mechanical injury or aging, but rather involves chronic low-grade inflammation, metabolic imbalances, dysfunctional adaptive immunity, and alterations in central pain processing centers. The main risk factors for OA include obesity, age, gender, genetics, and sports injuries. In recent years, extensive research on gut microbiota has revealed that gut dysbiosis is associated with some common risk factors for OA, and that it may intervene in its pathogenesis through both direct and indirect mechanisms. Therefore, gut flora imbalance as a pathogenic factor in OA has become a hotspot topic of research, with potential therapeutic connotations. In this paper, we review the role of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of OA, describe its relationship with common OA risk factors, and address candidate gut microbiota markers for OA diagnosis. In addition, with focus on OA therapies, we discuss the effects of direct and indirect interventions targeting the gut microbiota, as well as the impact of gut bacteria on the efficacy of OA drugs.

Intensive care unit (ICU) readmission of patients following liver transplantation (LT) is associated with poor outcomes. However, its risk factors remain unclarified. Nowadays, machine learning methods are widely used in many aspects of medical health. This study aims to develop a reliable prognostic model for ICU readmission for post-LT patients using machine learning methods. In this paper, a single center cohort ($N=543$) was studied, of which 5.9% ($N=32$) were readmitted to the ICU during hospitalization for LT. A retrospective review of baseline and perioperative factors possibly related to ICU readmission was performed. Three feature selection techniques were used to detect the best features influencing ICU readmission. Moreover, seven machine learning classifiers were proposed and compared to detect the risk of ICU readmission. Alanine transaminase (ALT) at hospital admission, intraoperative fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and red blood cell (RBC) transfusion, and N-Terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) after LT were found to be essential features for ICU readmission risk prediction. And the stacking model produced the best performance, identifying patients that were readmitted to the ICU after LT at an accuracy of 97.50%, precision of 96.34%, recall of 96.32%, and F1-score of 96.32%. RBC transfusion is the most crucial feature of the stacking classification model, which produced the best performance with overall accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score of 88.49%, 88.66%, 76.01%, and 81.84%, respectively.

Occupational risk factors of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) are popular current research targets, with main emphasis put on wrist posture and dynamics. In this study, we do not intend to pinpoint individual occupations, but aim to identify high risk wrist postures and actions which may occur across various occupations. It is hoped that prevention can thus be instituted in a general population by directing at the particular causative wrist actions rather than exclusively targeting isolated occupations. We performed a case-control study with 166 cases and 111 controls recruited from different hospitals in Hong Kong in 2004. All cases and controls completed the survey on their general health condition, smoking status, wrist posture and motion as well as psychosocial status at the time of diagnosis of CTS. Frequent flexion OR = 4.436 (95% CI: 1.833–10.734), frequent extension OR = 2.691 (95% CI: 1.106–6.547) of the wrist were found to be associated with CTS. Frequent sustained forceful motion of the wrist OR = 2.588 (95% CI: 1.144–5.851) was also found to be associated with CTS. Neutral wrist position and repetitive wrist motion were not associated with CTS. Adjustment was made for age, sex, BMI, smoking and psychosocial stress. Our study confirms that frequent flexion, extension and sustained force of the wrist increase the risk of developing CTS.

Background: The purpose of this study was to identify predictive factors of poor response to intra-flexoral sheath corticosteroid injection, as well as to identify factors associated with patients’ decisions to undergo surgical treatment.

Methods: Data from 112 patients who received steroid injection treatment for trigger finger were reviewed retrospectively. Logistic regression was used to assess the prognostic value of factors assumed to affect prognosis (age, sex, underlying disease, history of illness, presence of carpal tunnel syndrome, multiple digit involvement, and pre- and post-operative disability scores).

Results: Multiple digits were affected in 42 patients. Associated and underlying conditions were carpal tunnel syndrome (n = 36), hypertension (n = 23), hyperlipidemia (n = 14), and history of malignant tumor (n = 10). Logistic regression analysis showed that multiple digit involvement and Froimson clinical severity score were factors significantly associated with surgical treatment after intra-flexoral sheath corticosteroid injection treatment. These two factors were also found to be associated with the patients’ decisions to undergo surgical treatment.

Conclusions: Although local corticosteroid injection is useful in most cases, providers need to counsel patients with multiple digit involvement and/or severe cases about the possibility of requiring additional surgical treatment.

Although uncommon, pubic ramus fractures are described in patients who have undergone total hip arthroplasty (THA). We describe two females with superior ramus pubis insufficiency fractures following THA. We consider the physiological and biomechanical aspects of those fractures, e.g. that the superior ramus pubis has the highest load stress on the pelvis (as has already been proved in a three-dimensional finite element model). Also being discussed are risk factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) for stress fractures and the management of insufficiency fractures. Both women suffered osteoporosis, obesity, and had a semisedentary lifestyle — all of which are known risks factors for insufficiency superior ramus pubis fracture to occur in a location which proved as a "weak link" zone after THA. Many of these fractures are undetected, mainly due to the lack of awareness of medical practitioners who attribute the clinical symptoms to other diseases; however, the differential diagnosis of groin pain within the first years following THA should include pubic ramus insufficiency fractures.

This study aims to determine whether pre-employment medical, physical or psychological assessments can predict future back, neck and shoulder musculoskeletal injuries and claims in an Australian ambulance service.

This was a retrospective observational study based on linked datasets. Poisson regression analysis was undertaken to determine which pre-employment personality traits, using the Fifteen Factor Questionnaire and 36 medical and functional capacity evaluation variables, predicted the number of injuries and claims in ambulance officers.

Ambulance officers who at pre-employment assessment demonstrated more conceptual, intuitive and anxious personality traits, and those ambulance officers who had hypermobile joints, self-limited weights lifted, played less sport or exercised less, were more likely to sustain future back, neck or shoulder musculoskeletal injuries or submit workers compensation claims.

Individual pre-employment risk factors were found to predict musculoskeletal injuries and claims in a cohort of ambulance officers. Anxious as opposed to stable personality types and conceptual rather than practical personality types appear to be at greater risk of an injury or submitting a claim, as were recruits with hypermobile joints. Identification of individual risk factors at recruitment may assist in the selection of suitable applicants into the ambulance service as well as providing a focus for career counseling where relevant.

Relatively little has been published on the range of risk factors contributing to musculoskeletal injuries in ambulance officers. This study aims to identify perceived risk factors for back, neck and shoulder musculoskeletal injuries and claims in relation to working conditions, and the physical and psychological demands of the job. This was a cross-sectional study using an internet-based survey in an Australian ambulance service. The survey included demographic questions and questions on psychosocial factors related to the job and the way in which work is organized, musculoskeletal injuries sustained and claims submitted in the previous 12 months; and two open ended questions on perceived risk factors for injury and injury risk mitigation strategies. Ambulance officers who felt they were able to take sufficient breaks were less likely to sustain a back, neck or shoulder musculoskeletal injury, and those who perceived their work required high levels of physical effort were more likely to submit a claim for these injuries. Two important perceived causal factors contributing to musculoskeletal injuries were the uncontrolled environment and non-adherence to manual handling techniques. However, suggested risk mitigation strategies of improving fitness and manual handling training, were not supported by the quantitative analysis.

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most frequent occupational health problems and accounts for a large number of losses in working days and disability for workers in modern industrialized countries. The aim of this paper was to investigate the prevalence of lower back problem and to associate risk factors among high school teachers. A cross-sectional study was conducted among high school teachers using self-administered questionnaires, which were distributed to randomly selected school teachers of 7 boys’ and 10 girls’ high schools across the city of Kerman and collected between October and November 2010. A total of 296 teachers returned completed questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 78.9%. The 12-month prevalence of LBP was 68.8%, which reporting with moderate disability. The results of multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that females [odds ratio (OR): 1.85, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.51–2.00] were positively correlated to LBP. Awkward arm posture (OR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.24–2.62) and awkward body posture (OR: 1.23, 95% CI: 0.87–1.49) were significantly associated with LBP. Psychosocial job demands and job dissatisfaction were also significantly associated with LBP. Smoking cigarette was three times more likely to develop lower back pain when compared with non-smokers. The prevalence of LBP was high among high school teachers. A wide variety of LBP risk factors were identified in the current study. The present study indicates that the high prevalence of lower back pain may lose difficulty to teachers in getting to work and “performing” the work required of them, resulting in work absenteeism, which may decrease work productivity.

ATOZET® a New Combination Treatment Option for High-Risk Patients to Lower LDL Cholesterol, is Now Approved in Singapore.

ASEAN+ Rare Disease Network Established.

Luye Medical Joins Forces with OncoCare To Expand Its Integrated Healthcare Services Platform for Their Patients.

NUS Pharmacy Team Develops Online “Calculator” to Predict Risk of Early Hospital Readmission.

The Bare Essentials: Ensuring Affordable Access to Insulin.

AstraZeneca’s CVD-REAL Study Shows SGLT-2 Inhibitors Significantly Reduced Death and Hospitalisations for Heart Failure Versus Other Type-2 Diabetes Medicines.

This study examines the momentum effect in the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) listed stock returns on the basis of market states. Momentum profits are found to be significantly positive in UP market states but insignificant in DOWN market states. Momentum profits evident in UP market states are also found to revert in the long term. The evidence of short term momentum and long term reversal hold true even after adjusting for risks. In addition to short-term momentum and long-term reversal, regression coefficients also provide evidence for a positive but nonlinear relationship between momentum profits and market states. Maximum momentum profits are found at the median market performance not at the peak. Findings of this study suggest that investors’ overreaction causes momentum profits in the DSE.

Demographic transition has already become a major issue in the recent decades. Lower fertility rate and higher expected life length result in population aging. Most developed countries face social problems due to demographic transitions, especially in the economic and financial field. To take a closer look at this phenomenon, this paper screened 99 stocks provided by Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) to explore the impact of population aging on the stock market in Taiwan. Population aging indirectly takes up a larger portion of elder investors in the stock market, compared to the past. This paper employed risk and return variables to analyze the investors’ behaviors in Taiwan stock market. We divided our samples into whole industry, financial industry, technology industry, and traditional industry groups to find the impact of investors aging among different industries. The results showed that there is no significant evidence to prove that the elder investors pursue lower risk stocks in Taiwan stock market, which is inconsistent with the results of the past research. On the other hand, the findings from the whole industry, technology industry, and traditional industry groups are different from the past research results, showing that Taiwan’s elderly investors prefer stocks with higher return in those industries.

Adolescent depression has been shown to be increasing in Hong Kong. There is a need to address this problem. The studies of the risk and protective factors have focused on how individual, peer, and family predictors are related to depressive symptoms. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong. Specifically, this study presents a brief review of protective and risk correlates of depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong, with an ecological perspective. Individual risk correlates, such as low self-esteem and high levels of rumination; peer correlates, such as social withdrawal and limited social networks; family correlates, such as parent-child triangulation and high parental expectations, are significantly associated with adolescent depression. Moreover, individual protective correlates, such as hope and positive affect; social-related correlates, such as extensive social network and peer support; and family correlates, such as high parental warmth and family cohesion, were considered factors to reduce the risk of depression.

Several limitations of previous studies are noted. First, the sample size is small and targets are limited to children and youth. They were also limited by the locations and times at which questionnaire distribution was conducted. Second, most studies are not theory-driven and have failed to examine adolescent depression with sophisticated statistical analyses; for example, some cross-sectional studies were unlikely to establish causality between the identified factors and symptoms of depression. Therefore, future study could attempt to fill in the knowledge gap by integrating the ecological model and wellness theory as a theoretical framework to explain adolescent depression, and could consider a relatively larger and different sample with longitudinal studies. More sophisticated analyses are needed to examine the indirect and interactive effects of different variables (e.g. family, peer, and individual factors) as mediators and moderators to help understand the underlying mechanism related to adolescents' depression.

Objective: Understand the cognition of mobile internet active population on the risk factors of diabetes. Methods: The internet survey through anonymous questionnaires with independent IP was carried out, in which the mobile internet active population were evaluated on their cognition degree to the risk factors of diabetes. Results: The awareness of the risk factors of diabetes in mobile internet active population is not high, and it is recommended to increase the popularization of risk factors of diabetes in mobile terminals to control and prevent diabetes.

To explore the risk factors for thyroid nodules and their correlation with diabetes and stroke, the authors conducted a study on 1000 patients with metabolic syndrome (MS). The analysis included variables such as gender, age, familial thyroid disease, salt intake, iodine intake, smoking, alcohol consumption, sleep quality, mental stress, exercise, BMI, blood pressure, diabetes, and baseline nodules. The Apriori algorithm of machine learning was used to derive 12 association rules ($\mathrm{\text{confidence}}\ge 0.5$), and the decision tree algorithm was used to derive 20 effective knowledge rules. The results showed that iodine intake, salt intake, BMI, and advanced age were high-risk factors for thyroid nodules. Exercise, BMI, and age were strongly correlated, while exercise, mental stress, iodine intake, and salt intake showed a strong correlation. Exercise, sleep, smoking, and alcohol consumption influenced mental stress, while age, diseases (diabetes, hypertension, obesity), and lifestyle habits influenced sleep quality. The risk of diabetes and stroke increased in patients with thyroid nodules, and there was a strong correlation among diabetes, stroke, and thyroid nodules.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the characteristics that increase the likelihood of acute kidney injury (AKI) in patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (SCAP) and to create a predictive nomogram for AKI. Methods: This study comprised individuals who received a diagnosis of SCAP over the period from January 01, 2019, to December 31, 2023. The patients were categorized into two groups: AKI and non-AKI. The clinical and demographic characteristics of the patients were extracted from their medical records. An analysis was conducted to compare the rates of survival at 30 and 90 days among various groups. A multivariate analysis was performed to discover the autonomous risk factors linked to SCAP. The nomogram was built based on these parameters. A receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve study was performed to assess the predictive accuracy of the nomogram, namely by measuring the area under the curve (AUC). Results: Initial screening was conducted on a total of 1218 patients. After excluding 744 individuals who did not meet the exclusion criteria, a total of 474 patients, with an average age of $74.22\pm 15.16$ years and a female representation of 33.3%, were selected for inclusion in this study. The prevalence of AKI in the subjects with SCAP was 47.7%. Out of these instances, 39.8% were categorized as AKI stage 1, 31.0% as AKI stage 2, and 29.2% as AKI stage 3. Those diagnosed with AKI exhibited a significantly higher mortality rate at both the 30-day and 90-day marks in comparison to those who did not have AKI. The independent risk factors for AKI were determined to include age, male gender, chronic renal disease, diabetes, and the utilization of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAIDs). In addition, higher levels of baseline serum creatinine and uric acid were identified as risk factors for AKI. The final predictive nomogram achieved an AUC of 0.811, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) ranging from 0.773 to 0.849. Conclusion: Our nomogram can serve as a valuable tool for evaluating the progression of AKI in patients with SCAP.

This study leveraged a large-scale dataset from NHANES 2013–2014 to gain insights into periodontitis pathogenesis and develop predictive tools. After cleaning and preprocessing the data, 15 crucial factors were identified from over 100 potential risk factors and utilized as input features for four machine learning algorithms: support vector machines (SVM), random forest (RF), neural network and XGBoost. The models were evaluated for periodontitis prediction performance through internal validation metrics such as specificity, accuracy, precision, recall and accuracy (area under the curve (AUC)). Notably, education level, household income and smoking status emerged as key risk factors, aligning with medical literature. While SVM and RFs excelled in specificity and accuracy, neural networks surpassed in precision and recall for periodontitis patients. XGBoost offered a balanced performance, making it a versatile choice. The feature importance analysis underscored the profound influence of socioeconomic factors and unhealthy lifestyle habits on periodontal health. This study contributes novel approaches and insights for periodontitis prevention and treatment, demonstrating clinical and societal significance. Future research should focus on optimizing and externally validating the model to enhance its generalizability and accuracy.

This paper proposes a risk scoring model to assess the performance of 27 US companies listed online by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and comparing with the traditional financial measure Return on Equity (ROE). The DEA evaluation process involves two processes: (1) computation of operating efficiency and effectiveness to measure a company's operating performance, and (2) measurement of the return level per unit of risk to provide guidance for their investors. The risk scoring model is useful for both investors and company managers. For investors, it yields a new stock selecting strategy. For managers, it provides a risk-adjusted performance evaluation process. Empirical results show that for the Internet industry, the effectiveness of a company is more important than operating efficiency. Investors investing in efficient online companies yield higher returns.

“Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM,” was a widely used cliché in the 1970s in the corporate IT (information technology) world. Since then, the traditional process of purchasing software has dramatically changed, challenged by the advent of open source software (OSS). Since its inception in the 1980s, OSS has matured, grown, and become one of the important driving forces of the enterprise ecosystem. However, it has also brought important IT security risks that are impacting the OSS IT adoption decision-making process. The recent Heartbleed bug demonstrated the grandeur of the issue. While much of the noise relates to the amplification of perceived risks by the popular mass media coverage, the effect is that many enterprises, mainly for risk reasons, have still chosen not to adopt OSS. We investigated “how do information security related characteristics of OSS affect the risk perception and adoption decision of OSS” by conducting an online survey of 188 IT decision-makers. The proposed Open Source Risk Adoption Model offers novel insights on the importance of the perceived risk antecedents. Our research brings new theoretical contributions, such as understanding the perceived IT security risk (PISR) relationship with adoption intention (AI) in the OSS context, for researchers and important insights for IT information professionals. We have found that IT security risk has a significant role in OSS adoption intention. Our results offer possible future research directions and extend existing theoretical understanding of OSS adoption.

Background: The frequency of hand and elbow surgeries occurring in outpatient and elective settings is on the rise. Emergency department (ED) visits in the postoperative period are increasingly used as quality measures for surgical care. The aim of this study is to determine the number of postoperative ED visits, the primary reason for these visits, and to identify risk factors associated with these visits.

Methods: We examined all elective hand and elbow procedures performed at two hospitals within a single healthcare network between 2008 and 2017. A total of 3,261 patients met the study criteria. Descriptive statistics were calculated for our population, followed by univariate and multivariate analyses, to identify risk and protective factors associated with ED visits in the first 30 days after surgery.

Results: Eighty-seven of 3,261 patients presented to the ED within 30 days of their operation (2.7%). The most common reasons for ED visits were related to pain (28.7%), swelling (26.4%), and concerns for infection (20.7%). Univariate analysis indicated history of drug use, number of procedures, smoking history, and serum albumin <3.5 mg/dL as risk factors for returns to the ED. Multivariate analysis identified history of drug use, number of procedures, and serum albumin <3.5 mg/dL as independent risk factors. Smoking history failed to achieve statistical significance as an independent risk factor. Both univariate and multivariate analyses identified age >60 years as protective for postoperative ED visits.

Conclusions: ED visits within the first 30 days after elective hand surgery are relatively common, despite remarkably low complication rates among these procedures. This information may help to improve risk stratification in these patients, and to aid in the development of enhanced postoperative follow-up strategies to reduce unnecessary utilization of emergency medical services.

Level of Evidence: Level III (Therapeutic)