The Support Systems and Coping Strategies of Infertile Women Attending the Out-Patient Consultation Unit of CHRACERH Yaoundé, Cameroon: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Infertility is a complex disorder with significant psycho-social and economic consequences. It globally affects 10% - 15% of couples. In Cameroon, little is known about what women do to overcome the psychosocial aspects of the disease. Objectives: This study aimed to identify the support systems and coping strategies of infertile women attending the outpatient consultation unit of the Gynaecological Endoscopic Surgery and Reproductive Teaching Hospital (CHRACERH), Yaoundé, Cameroon. Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted from the 14th of March to the 6th of April 2023 at CHRACERH Yaoundé. A total of 190 participants were recruited using a convenience sampling method. Data regarding socio-demographic characteristics, support systems and coping strategies were collected using a pretested questionnaire. Descriptive and analytic statistics were conducted using SPSS version 25. Results: The mean age of participants was 39.52 ± 7.64 years. The majority 78.9% of participants were workers (public, private sector, or traders) and were Christians 95.8%. The most common source of psychological support was from family 76.8 and husbands 72.63%. Most of the participants 89.5% resorted to prayer and getting busy 48.4% as a coping strategy. There was no statistically significant relationship between coping strategies and psychological disorders p > 0.05. Conclusion: The main support system of participants was family, husband, and friends. Prayer, getting busy and adoption were the most common coping strategies. There is a need for the Ministry of Public Health and other stakeholders to put in place other support systems and coping strategies (FELICIA) used elsewhere and provide adequate health education and infection control to prevent infertility in Cameroon.

Assessing Suitability of Irrigation Scheduling Decision Support Systems for Lowland Rice Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa—A Review

Irrigation in lowland rice production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is mainly based on traditional surface irrigation methods with continuous flooding practices. This irrigation method ends up using a lot more water that would have otherwise been used to open more land and be used in other water-requiring sectors. Various studies suggest Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) as an alternative practice for water management that reduces water use without significantly affecting yield. However, this practice has not been well adopted by the farmers despite its significant benefits of reduced total water use. Improving the adoption of AWD using irrigation Decision Support Systems (DSSs) helps the farmer on two fronts;to know “how much water to apply” and “when to irrigate”, which is very critical in maximizing productivity. This paper reviews the applicability of DSSs using AWD in lowland rice production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Progress of clinical decision support systems in stroke nursing care

Stroke is characterized by high incidence,high recurrence,high disability,and high morbidity and mortality in China,resulting in a heavy social and clinical burden.A clinical decision support system,as an intelli-gent computer system,can assist nurses in decision-mak-ing to collect information quickly,make the most suitable personalized decisions for patients,and improve nurses’decision-making judgment and quality of care.Promoting the development and application of decision support sys-tems in stroke nursing significantly enhances the nursing staff’s work quality and patients’prognosis.Therefore,this paper reviews the research progress of domestic and international clinical decision support systems in stroke nursing care to provide other researchers with specific research directions for developing and applying decision support systems in stroke nursing care.

A Study on the Explainability of Thyroid Cancer Prediction:SHAP Values and Association-Rule Based Feature Integration Framework

In the era of advanced machine learning techniques,the development of accurate predictive models for complex medical conditions,such as thyroid cancer,has shown remarkable progress.Accurate predictivemodels for thyroid cancer enhance early detection,improve resource allocation,and reduce overtreatment.However,the widespread adoption of these models in clinical practice demands predictive performance along with interpretability and transparency.This paper proposes a novel association-rule based feature-integratedmachine learning model which shows better classification and prediction accuracy than present state-of-the-artmodels.Our study also focuses on the application of SHapley Additive exPlanations(SHAP)values as a powerful tool for explaining thyroid cancer prediction models.In the proposed method,the association-rule based feature integration framework identifies frequently occurring attribute combinations in the dataset.The original dataset is used in trainingmachine learning models,and further used in generating SHAP values fromthesemodels.In the next phase,the dataset is integrated with the dominant feature sets identified through association-rule based analysis.This new integrated dataset is used in re-training the machine learning models.The new SHAP values generated from these models help in validating the contributions of feature sets in predicting malignancy.The conventional machine learning models lack interpretability,which can hinder their integration into clinical decision-making systems.In this study,the SHAP values are introduced along with association-rule based feature integration as a comprehensive framework for understanding the contributions of feature sets inmodelling the predictions.The study discusses the importance of reliable predictive models for early diagnosis of thyroid cancer,and a validation framework of explainability.The proposed model shows an accuracy of 93.48%.Performance metrics such as precision,recall,F1-score,and the area under the receiver operating characteristic(AUROC)are also higher than the baseline models.The results of the proposed model help us identify the dominant feature sets that impact thyroid cancer classification and prediction.The features{calcification}and{shape}consistently emerged as the top-ranked features associated with thyroid malignancy,in both association-rule based interestingnessmetric values and SHAPmethods.The paper highlights the potential of the rule-based integrated models with SHAP in bridging the gap between the machine learning predictions and the interpretability of this prediction which is required for real-world medical applications.

Review of state-of-the-art decision support systems (DSSs) for prevention and suppression of forest fires

Forest ecosystems are our priceless natural resource and are a key component of the global carbon budget. Forest fires can be a hazard to the viability and sustainable management of forests with consequences for natural and cultural environments, economies, and the life quality of local and regional populations. Thus, the selection of strategies to manage forest fires, while considering both functional and economic efficiency, is of primary importance. The use of decision support systems(DSSs) by managers of forest fires has rapidly increased. This has strengthened capacity to prevent and suppress forest fires while protecting human lives and property. DSSs are a tool that can benefit incident management and decision making and policy, especially for emergencies such as natural disasters. In this study we reviewed state-of-the-art DSSs that use: database management systems and mathematical/economic algorithms for spatial optimization of firefighting forces; forest fire simulators and satellite technology for immediate detection and prediction of evolution of forest fires; GIS platforms that incorporate several tools to manipulate, process and analyze geographic data and develop strategic and operational plans.

Group Support Systems: Implications for Multi-Disciplinary Theory Building

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Electronic market models for decision support systems on the Web

With the prevalence of the Web, most decision-makers are likely to use the Web to support their decision-making. Web-based technologies are leading a major stream of researching decision support systems (DSS). We propose a formal definition and a conceptual framework for Web-based open DSS (WODSS). The formal definition gives an overall view of WODSS, and the conceptual framework based on browser/broker/server computing mode employs the electronic market to mediate decision-makers and providers, and facilitate sharing and reusing of decision resources. We also develop an admitting model, a trading model and a competing model of electronic market in WODSS based on market theory in economics. These models reveal the key mechanisms that drive WODSS operate efficiently.

Operations Support Systems Standards:Status Quo and Trends

The emerging of diversified new telecommunications technologies leads to a continuous change of telecom networks. Consequently, the operations support systems of telecommunications operators are facing structure adjustments as well as new systems construction. In this situation, new generation operations support systems standards are urgently required. Several standardization organizations have made substantial progress in the study of the new generation standards, such as ITU' s study on Next Generation Network (NGN) management, TMF's on New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) and CCSA's on network management standards. However, the existing operations support systems face the challenges of architecture improvement, change of the focus of operations support, orientation of customers' demands and technology evolution.

Bibliometrics analysis of clinical decision support systems research in nursing

Objective:Artificial intelligence(AI)has a big impact on healthcare now and in the future.Nurses play an important role in the medical field and will benefit greatly from this technology.AI-Enabled Clinical Decision Support Systems have received a great deal of attention recently.Bibliometric analysis can offer an objective,systematic,and comprehensive analysis of a specific field with a vast background.However,no bibliometric analysis has investigated AI-enabled clinical decision support systems research in nursing.The purpose of research to determine the characteristics of articles about the global performance and development of AI-enabled clinical decision support systems research in nursing.Methods:In this study,the bibliometric approach was used to estimate the searched data on clinical decision support systems research in nursing from 2009 to 2022,and we also utilized CiteSpace and VOSviewer software to build visualizing maps to assess the contribution of different journals,authors,et al.,as well as to identify research hot spots and promising future trends in this research field.Result:From 2009 to 2022,a total of 2,159 publications were retrieved.The number of publications and citations on AI-enabled clinical decision support systems research in nursing has increased obvious ly in recent years.However,they are understudied in the field of nursing and there is a compelling need to develop more high-quality research.Conclusion:AI-Enabled Nursing Decision Support System use in clinical practice is still in its early stages.These analyses and results hope to provide useful information and references for future research directions for researchers and nursing practitioners who use AI-enabled clinical decision support systems.

Reinforcing Artificial Neural Networks through Traditional Machine Learning Algorithms for Robust Classification of Cancer

Machine Learning(ML)-based prediction and classification systems employ data and learning algorithms to forecast target values.However,improving predictive accuracy is a crucial step for informed decision-making.In the healthcare domain,data are available in the form of genetic profiles and clinical characteristics to build prediction models for complex tasks like cancer detection or diagnosis.Among ML algorithms,Artificial Neural Networks(ANNs)are considered the most suitable framework for many classification tasks.The network weights and the activation functions are the two crucial elements in the learning process of an ANN.These weights affect the prediction ability and the convergence efficiency of the network.In traditional settings,ANNs assign random weights to the inputs.This research aims to develop a learning system for reliable cancer prediction by initializing more realistic weights computed using a supervised setting instead of random weights.The proposed learning system uses hybrid and traditional machine learning techniques such as Support Vector Machine(SVM),Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA),Random Forest(RF),k-Nearest Neighbour(kNN),and ANN to achieve better accuracy in colon and breast cancer classification.This system computes the confusion matrix-based metrics for traditional and proposed frameworks.The proposed framework attains the highest accuracy of 89.24 percent using the colon cancer dataset and 72.20 percent using the breast cancer dataset,which outperforms the other models.The results show that the proposed learning system has higher predictive accuracies than conventional classifiers for each dataset,overcoming previous research limitations.Moreover,the proposed framework is of use to predict and classify cancer patients accurately.Consequently,this will facilitate the effective management of cancer patients.

Marine oil spill contingency planning

According to the practice researching and formulating “The Oil Spill Contingency Plan of South Chinese Sea”, this paper analyses and discusses the structure, functions and main contents of marine oil spill contingency planning, programs the organizing and commanding system and emergency response system, and advances the planning and researching method to coordinate comprehensively and to design practically the detailed emergency response steps until to formulate the ease operating programs for the plan implementation(PPI) and the PPI to apply high techniques supporting emergency administrations and response.

Novel D-galactosamine-induced cynomolgus monkey model of acute liver failure

AIM To establish a simplified, reproducible D-galactosamineinduced cynomolgus monkey model of acute liver failure having an appropriate treatment window. METHODS Sixteen cynomolgus monkeys were randomly dividedinto four groups(A, B, C and D) after intracranial pressure(ICP) sensor implantation. D-galactosamine at 0.3, 0.25, 0.20 + 0.05(24 h interval), and 0.20 g/kg body weight, respectively, was injected via the small saphenous vein. Vital signs, ICP, biochemical indices, and inflammatory factors were recorded at 0, 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h after D-galactosamine administration. Progression of clinical manifestations, survival times, and results of H&E staining, TUNEL, and Masson staining were recorded. RESULTS Cynomolgus monkeys developed different degrees of debilitation, loss of appetite, and jaundice after D-galactosamine administration. Survival times of groups A, B, and C were 56 ± 8.7 h, 95 ± 5.5 h, and 99 ± 2.2 h, respectively, and in group D all monkeys survived the 144-h observation period except for one, which died at 136 h. Blood levels of ALT, AST, CK, LDH, TBi L, Cr, BUN, and ammonia, prothrombin time, ICP, endotoxin, and inflammatory markers [(tumor necrosis factor(TNF)-α, interleukin(IL)-1β, and IL-6)] significantly increased compared with baseline values in different groups(P < 0.05). Pathological results showed obvious liver cell necrosis that was positively correlated with the dose of D-galactosamine.CONCLUSION We successfully established a simplified, reproducible D-galactosamine-induced cynomolgus monkey model of acute liver failure, and the single or divided dosage of 0.25 g/kg is optimal for creating this model.

A Simulation-Based Decision Support System for Manufacturing Enterprise

The simulation-based decision support system (SBDSS) is designed to achieve a highlevel of performance, flexibility and adaptability, in response to meet the special needs of productionand logistics management during the economic system reform era in China. It consists two subsys-tems: the object library modeler (OLM) and the simulation engine and its manager (SEM). UsingSBDSS the decision makers can work out their optimal production choice under certain circumstancesthrough scenario simulations. And they can test a set of virtual organizations reflecting systems re-form before a real reorganization has been taken, as well as perform a virtual manufacturing processfor a new product design (Copyright @ 1998 IFAC).

Automated Negotiation in E Commerce: Protocol Relevance and Improvement Techniques

We all negotiate,formally or informally,in jobs,in day today lives and outcomes of negotiations affect those processes of life.Although negotiation is an intrinsic nature of human psyche,it is very complex phenomenon to implement using computing and internet for the various purposes in E Commerce.Automation of negotiation process poses unique challenges for computer scientists and researchers,so here we study how negotiation can be modeled and analyzed mathematically,what can be different techniques and strategies or set of rules/protocols to be implemented and how they can be relevantly implemented.We are in a quest to find out how this complex process,which involves human psyche can be automated using computers and modern day technologies.Now,the quest is not only automation,looking at the research in the related field in last ten years;but it is all about finding solutions to make e-negotiation more efficient and more accurate,as well as useful in any kind of electronic trading situations.Here is an attempt to consolidate our work of last few years on automation of negotiation process;we call it as negotiation protocol on research,study as well as implementation level of negotiation automation.Overall,we are trying to give few solutions to make the automation more efficient.

Analysis and Study of Parallel Processing Mode inVLDB Decision Support System

Nowadays, many kinds of computer network data management systems have been built widely in China. People have realized widely that management information system (MIS) has brought a revolution to the management mechanism. Moreover, the managers of company need wide-range and comprehensive decision information more and more urgently which is the character of information explosion era. The needs of users become harsher and harsher in the design of MIS, and these needs have brought new problems to the general designers of MIS. Furthermore, the current method of traditional database development can't solve so big and complex problems of wide-range and comprehensive information processing. This paper proposes the adoption of parallel processing mode, the built of new decision support system (DSS) is to discuss and analyze the problems of information collection, processing and the acquirement of full-merit information with cross-domain and cross-VLDB (very-large database).

High temperature thermal behaviour modeling of large-scale fused silica optics for laser facility

High temperature annealing is often used for the stress control of optical materials.However,weight and viscosity at high temperature may destroy the surface morphology,especially for the large-scale,thin and heavy optics used for large laser facilities.It is necessary to understand the thermal behaviour and design proper support systems for large-scale optics at high temperature.In this work,three support systems for fused silica optics are designed and simulated with the finite element method.After the analysis of the thermal behaviours of different support systems,some advantages and disadvantages can be revealed.The results show that the support with the optical surface vertical is optimal because both pollution and deformation of optics could be well controlled during annealing at high temperature.Annealing process of the optics irradiated by CO2 laser is also simulated.It can be concluded that high temperature annealing can effectively reduce the residual stress.However,the effects of annealing on surface morphology of the optics are complex.Annealing creep is closely related to the residual stress and strain distribution.In the region with large residual stress,the creep is too large and probably increases the deformation gradient which may affect the laser beam propagation.

Nursing decision support system:application in electronic health records

The clinical decision support system makes electronic health records(EHRs)structured,intelligent,and knowledgeable.The nursing decision support system(NDSS)is based on clinical nursing guidelines and nursing process to provide intelligent suggestions and reminders.The impact on nurses’work is mainly in shortening the recording time,improving the quality of nursing diagnosis,reducing the incidence of nursing risk events,and so on.However,there is no authoritative standard for the NDSS at home and abroad.This review introduces development and challenges of EHRs and recommends the application of the NDSS in EHRs,namely the nursing assessment decision support system,the nursing diagnostic decision support system,and the nursing care planning decision support system(including nursing intervene),hoping to provide a new thought and method to structure impeccable EHRs.

A Decision Support Model for Predicting Avoidable Re-Hospitalization of Breast Cancer Patients in Kenyatta National Hospital

This study aimed to develop a clinical Decision Support Model (DSM) which is software that provides physicians and other healthcare stakeholders with patient-specific assessments and recommendation in aiding clinical decision-making while discharging Breast cancer patient since the diagnostics and discharge problem is often overwhelming for a clinician to process at the point of care or in urgent situations. The model incorporates Breast cancer patient-specific data that are well-structured having been attained from a prestudy’s administered questionnaires and current evidence-based guidelines. Obtained dataset of the prestudy’s questionnaires is processed via data mining techniques to generate an optimal clinical decision tree classifier model which serves physicians in enhancing their decision-making process while discharging a breast cancer patient on basic cognitive processes involved in medical thinking hence new, better-formed, and superior outcomes. The model also improves the quality of assessments by constructing predictive discharging models from code attributes enabling timely detection of deterioration in the quality of health of a breast cancer patient upon discharge. The outcome of implementing this study is a decision support model that bridges the gap occasioned by less informed clinical Breast cancer discharge that is based merely on experts’ opinions which is insufficiently reinforced for better treatment outcomes. The reinforced discharge decision for better treatment outcomes is through timely deployment of the decision support model to work hand in hand with the expertise in deriving an integrative discharge decision and has been an agreed strategy to eliminate the foreseeable deteriorating quality of health for a discharged breast cancer patients and surging rates of mortality blamed on mistrusted discharge decisions. In this paper, we will discuss breast cancer clinical knowledge, data mining techniques, the classifying model accuracy, and the Python web-based decision support model that predicts avoidable re-hospitalization of a breast cancer patient through an informed clinical discharging support model.

Critical Evaluation of Linear Dimensionality Reduction Techniques for Cardiac Arrhythmia Classification

Embedding the original high dimensional data in a low dimensional space helps to overcome the curse of dimensionality and removes noise. The aim of this work is to evaluate the performance of three different linear dimensionality reduction techniques (DR) techniques namely principal component analysis (PCA), multi dimensional scaling (MDS) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) on classification of cardiac arrhythmias using probabilistic neural network classifier (PNN). The design phase of classification model comprises of the following stages: preprocessing of the cardiac signal by eliminating detail coefficients that contain noise, feature extraction through daubechies wavelet transform, dimensionality reduction through linear DR techniques specified, and arrhythmia classification using PNN. Linear dimensionality reduction techniques have simple geometric representations and simple computational properties. Entire MIT-BIH arrhythmia database is used for experimentation. The experimental results demonstrates that combination of PNN classifier (spread parameter, σ = 0.08) and PCA DR technique exhibits highest sensitivity and F score of 78.84% and 78.82% respectively with a minimum of 8 dimensions.

Gap analysis in decision support systems for real-estate in the era of the digital earth

Searching for a property is inherently a multicriteria spatial decision.The decision is primarily based on three high-level criteria composed of household needs,building facilities,and location characteristics.Location choice is driven by diverse characteristics;including but not limited to environmental factors,access,services,and the socioeconomic status of a neighbourhood.This article aims to identify the gap between theory and practice in presenting information on location choice by using a gap analysis methodology through the development of a sevenfactor classification tool and an assessment of international property websites.Despite the availability of digital earth data,the results suggest that real-estate websites are poor at providing sufficient location information to support efficient spatial decision making.Based on a case study in Dublin,Ireland,we find that although neighbourhood digital earth data may be readily available to support decision making,the gap persists.We hypothesise that the reason is two-fold.Firstly,there is a technical challenge to transform location data into usable information.Secondly,the market may not wish to provide location information which can be perceived as negative.We conclude this article with a discussion of critical issues necessary for designing a spatial decision support system for real-estate decision making.