in this paper, we present a new brain tissue segmentation method based on a hybrid hierarchical approach that combines a brain atlas as a priori information and a least-square support vector machine (ls-svm). the method consists of three steps. in the first two steps, the skull is removed and cerebrospinal fluid (csf) is extracted. these two steps are performed using the fast toolbox (fmrib's a...

We study the distribution of discounted collective risk model where the counting process is Poisson. For the model considered here, we obtain mean, variance and moment generating function (m.g.f) of the model. To do this, we use two approaches. In the first approach we use classical methods to obtain the mean and variance. In the second approach we introduce some proper martingale and then we o...

International comparative studies constitute a highly valuable contribution to public policy research. Analysing different policy designs offers not only a mean of knowing the phenomenon itself but also gives us insightful clues on how to improve existing practices. Although much of the work carried out in this realm relies on quantitative appraisal of the data contained in international databa...

this article first gives a definition of grounded theory and its development and use in medicine and medical education. the fundamental differences of grounded theory with quantitative methods are discussed along a full discussion of the steps required to use a grounded theory approach. at the end the questions in the area of medical education which can best addressed with this approach are pro...

PURPOSE We wanted to compare 2 screening instruments for problem drinking, the CAGE and a single question, assessing frequency of use, patient and clinician comfort, and patient engagement in change. METHODS The study was a crossover, cluster-randomized clinical trial with 31 clinicians in Missouri and 13 in the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) National Network for Family Practice...

Detecting anomalies is an important challenge for intrusion detection and fault diagnosis in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). To address the problem of outlier detection in wireless sensor networks, in this paper we present a PCA-based centralized approach and a DPCA-based distributed energy-efficient approach for detecting outliers in sensed data in a WSN. The outliers in sensed data can be ca...