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Radionuclide renal scan performed with (diethyle triamine penta acetic acid (DTPA), ethylene dicysteine (EC), mercaptoacetyltriglycine (MAG3), and dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) provides split function between the two kidneys. Hence it is a valuable method to evaluate percentage function prior to nephrectomy. Nephrectomy may be done in a prospective renal donor or it may be done for a diseased kidney. In either case, the nephrologist/ urologist must ensure that the remaining kidney is able to sustain renal function post nephrectomy. We present a case where conventional renal scan had underestimated the split function due to a large posterior cortex cyst accounting for attenuation of radionuclide photons. Repeat scan in anterior view had eliminated this erroneous result. We could not find any such reported discrepancy despite extensive web-based search. World J Nephrol Urol. 2021;10(1):12-14 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/wjnu422

BACKGROUND: One of the basic clinical indications for dynamic renal scintigraphy (DRS) is a diagnosis of obstructive uropathy and/or nephropathy. Currently, a basic quantitative criterion for diagnosing nephropathy is the percentage of individual kidney’s contribution in the global uptake of a radiopharmaceutical from the blood (so-called Split Function - SF). From a clinical point of view, a parameter evaluating a radiopharmaceutical uptake and reflecting the efficiency of a specific kidney, determined independently of the total uptake of both kidneys, would be much more useful. Based on a Rutland theory, a kidney uptake constant K proportional to a radiotracer uptake by individual kidney was introduced and applied to DRS with 99mTc-ethylene-1-dicysteine (99mTc-EC). In addition, a kidney efficiency index (KEi) was also worked out as a new parameter obtained by dividing the uptake constant K by the surface of the ROI of a given kidney, which can be interpreted as the average “efficiency” of clearance of a kidney. MATERIAL AND METHODS: K and KEi values were verified in 72 studies selected retrospectively from patients referred routinely for DRS, with available current level of blood creatinine, used for calculation of estimated GFR (eGFR) according to a CKD-EPI formula. After splitting of eGFR values into individual kidneys according to SF, single kidney eGFR values (SKeGFR) were obtained and then used as a verification method for SF, K and KEi values. RESULTS: Correlation between SF and SKeGFR values, rsp = 0.64, was significantly weaker (p < 0.0022) than the correlation of SKeGFR values with K uptake constants and KEi indices: 0.90 and 0.84, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Uptake constant K and KEi, as quantitative parameters, give the opportunity to analyze a function of each kidney separately and in an absolute way. KEi also allows for a reliable assessment of kidneys of atypical sizes (larger or smaller than average). It also gives the opportunity to create normative values for this parameter and may be useful in a number of clinical situations where the diagnostic effectiveness of such a relative parameter as SF, is severely limited, e.g. in assessing a large kidney with hydronephrosis or while differing a cirrhotic from hypoplastic (i.e. a small but properly functioning) kidney.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE:MAG3 nuclear renograms are standard practice to document split renal function in patients with possible ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) obstruction. We hypothesized that qua...

Pelvic ureteric junction obstruction (PUJO) can pose a management challenge to urologists. The natural history of the disease, particularly in adults is poorly understood and management decisions are largely based on historical, poor quality data. Additionally, many older patients may already have a degree of renal impairment secondary to systemic disease, further compounding the situation. The purpose of this paper is to detail the pathophysiology and natural history of PUJO, discuss the implications of chronic kidney disease in this population detailing the current evidence base for poorer functioning kidneys and describe the nephrological advantages of accurate renal function testing. There exists accurate methods to assess both glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and split function which could potentially provide both the urologist and patient with more relevant data on which to base their decisions when contemplating surgical intervention. The existing, low patient number case series currently published fail to address the relevance of overall GFR on the outcomes after pyeloplasty, no studies use single unit GFR and there is no clear consensus on what constitutes surgical success. PUJO is an area of benign upper tract disease that is in need of high-quality scientific studies to identify when intervention is necessary, long-term success of both surgery and conservative management in poorer functioning kidneys and clear guidelines for urologists.

This study evaluates the usefulness of parameters allowing assessment of renal function in absolute values in dynamic renal scintigraphy (DRS) with 99mTc-ethylenedicysteine (99mTc-EC) uptake constant (K), mean transit time (MTT), and parenchymal transit time (PTT) in the diagnosis of obstructive uro/nephropathy. The study included 226 people: 20 healthy volunteers, for whom normative values of assessed parameters were determined, and 206 patients. Reproducibility of results obtained by two independent operators, specificity, correlation with estimated GFR (eGFR), and Cohen’s kappa were used to evaluate reliability of assessed parameters. Normative values were as follows: K ≥ 1.6, MTT ≤ 250 s, and PTT ≤ 225 s. Reproducibility of determination of K (rs = 0.99) and MTT (rs = 0.98) was significantly higher than that of PTT (rs = 0.95) (p = 0.001). Specificity was 100% for K, 81% for MTT, and 91% for PTT. Correlation of eGFR with K (rs = 0.89) was significantly higher than with PTT (rs = 0.53) and with split function (SF) (rs = 0.66) (p &lt, 0.0001). Cohen’s kappa was κ = 0.89 for K, κ = 0.88 for MTT, and κ = 0.77 for PTT. In a group of patients where standard DRS parameters are unreliable (bilateral obstructive uro/nephropathy or single functioning kidney), the use of K (the most effective among assessed parameters) changed the classification of 23/79 kidneys (29%). K enables reproducible assessment of absolute, individual kidney function without modifying routine DRS protocol. Diagnostic value of MTT and PTT is limited.

Leukemia – a type of blood cancer which was caused by abnormal growth of White Blood Cells (WBC) in bone marrow. Accurate identification of effected patients and diagnosing within time is most important otherwise it causes to death. Machine learning algorithms are most popular for accurate identification of patient status. Presenting 152 patients data which was clinically collected. In this paper, proposing Bagging with Random split function for classification of leukemia patients. Also compared the classifier performance with various ensemble techniques – Multiclass classifier, Logit Boost, Stacking and Random Committee classifiers. Experiments are conducted and proven that bagging with Random split function shows 95% accuracy on classification of leukemia disease dataset.

This paper studies Dual site processing in Virtualized Radio Access Network (V-RAN) and it recommends the amount of processing in the dual sites for the functional splits which are proposed by ETSI. This leads to ease of management and flexibility of the operation and increases processing and power efficiencies. To recommend the amount of processing in both sites, the power consumption at several percentages of functional splits is identified to compromise the tradeoff between the midhaul capacity and power consumption. Furthermore, Joint optimization of power consumption and midhaul capacity is performed to validate and recommend the optimal split function.

Controllability properties are studied for control-affine systems depending on a parameter and with constrained control values. The uncontrolled systems in dimension two and three are subject to a homoclinic bifurcation. This generates two families of control sets depending on a parameter in the involved vector fields and the size of the control range. A new parameter given by a split function for the homoclinic bifurcation determines the behavior of these control sets. It is also shown that there are parameter regions where the uncontrolled equation has no periodic orbits, while the controlled systems have periodic solutions arbitrarily close to the homoclinic orbit, 19 pages, 5 figures

International audience; Camera relocalization refers to the problematic of the camera pose estimation including 3D translation and 3D rotation expressed in the world coordinate system with no temporal constraint. Camera relocalization is necessary in localization systems. However, it is still challenging to have both a real-time and accurate method. In this paper, we introduce our data-oriented hybrid method merging both machine learning and geometric approaches for fast and accurate camera relocalization from a single RGB image. We propose an efficient multi-output deep-forest regression based on a sparse feature detection, that uses a whole learned feature vector at each split function to improve the accuracy of 2D–3D point correspondences. Especially, multiple coordinate regression of our deep-forest allows to deal with ambiguous repetitive structure. The learned feature extraction is able to be pre-trained and reused for different scenes. The use of sparse feature detection reduces processing time and increases accuracy of predictions. Finally, we show favorable results in terms of accuracy and computational time compared to the state-of-the-art methods.

The log-rank test is used as the split function in many commonly used survival trees and forests algorithms. However, the log-rank test may have a significant loss of power in some circumstances, especially when the hazard functions or when the survival functions cross each other in the two compared groups. We investigate the use of the integrated absolute difference between the two children nodes survival functions as the splitting rule. Simulations studies and applications to real data sets show that forests built with this rule produce very good results in general, and that they are often better compared to forests built with the log-rank splitting rule.

BACKGROUND: Output efficiency (OE) and normalized residual activity (NORA) are two parameters that allow quantifying the renal drainage at any moment of renographic acquisition. Although OE is theoretically more accurate than NORA in case of a decreased overall renal function, both parameters present some weaknesses. OBJECTIVES: To compare both parameters and to evaluate whether the clinical information provided by both parameters is identical. METHODS: From a large database of Tc-99m mercaptoacetyltriglycine 3 renographic studies, 450 kidneys were selected covering a large range of ages, overall function, split function, and quality of drainage. NORA and OE were calculated at the end of the 20-min renogram, as well as on the late post erect postmicturition (PM) views. RESULTS: An inverse correlation was observed between NORA 20 and OE 20 (r=-0.926), as well as between NORA PM and OE PM (r=-0.936). Discrepancies were noted in approximately 10% of the kidneys, but main discrepancies, which would result in a different estimation of the quality of drainage, were only observed in 2% of the kidneys. There was no bias in the discordances; OE could reveal a better as well as a worse quality of drainage than NORA. It is likely therefore that imperfections of both parameters might be the cause of the divergences. The stratification of the kidneys according to age, overall renal function, split function, or quality of drainage did not modify the results. CONCLUSION: NORA, being much easier to program, can replace the output efficiency in the evaluation of renal drainage. © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health

ObjectiveTo evaluate a mentoring circle workforce development intervention among a group of public health nutrition novices.DesignThe mentoring circle intervention focused on facilitating practice-based public health nutrition competence development and supporting reorientation of practice from clinical services to preventive services. A retrospective post-intervention qualitative semi-structured interview was used to explore the experiences of those participating in the mentoring circle and to make evaluative judgements about intervention attributes and effectiveness.SettingVictoria, Australia.SubjectsThirty-two novice public health nutrition practitioners employed in the state public health system.ResultsKey evaluative theme categories relating to the mentoring circle intervention were identified, including the structure and function of the group, the utility of using advanced-level competency items to guide planning, having a safe and supportive environment for learning and the utility of learning via mentoring and on-the-job experiences. These qualitative evaluation data identify the attributes of the mentoring circle intervention contributing to intervention effectiveness.ConclusionsThis qualitative evaluation indicates that mentoring circles can be an effective workforce capacity-building intervention, particularly in novice workforces characterised by professional isolation and split function roles.

In every program that we have talked about so far, when the program ends, the computer forgets everything that happened in the program. Every variable you created, every string you used, every Boolean, every list—it’s all gone. But what if you want to keep some of the data that you generate in a program, and save it for when you run the program later? Or, maybe you want to save some data so that a different program could use the data that you generated.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to define reference ranges for quantitative parameters in [(99m)Tc]mercaptoacetyltriglycerine ([(99m)Tc]MAG3) renography to assist interpretation in a semi-automated (Xeleris, GE) compared to a manual (Picker, Odyssey) software package.PROCEDURES: Forty-eight subjects approved for renal donation were evaluated with [(99m)Tc]MAG3 renography using both the Xeleris and the Picker software.RESULTS: Reference ranges for the two software were comparable regarding the relative function of the two kidneys (the split function, SF) and the residual activities (RA). The time to peak whole-kidney activities (T max whole-kidney) was more dependent on the type of software. Using Bland-Altman limits, we found good and acceptable agreement between the two methods.CONCLUSIONS: We found good correlation between renography results using the Xeleris and Picker software packages. However, software-specific reference ranges are needed.

PURPOSE The split or differential renal function is the most widely accepted quantitative parameter derived from radionuclide renography. To examine the intercenter variance of this parameter, we designed a worldwide round robin test. METHODS Five selected dynamic renal studies have been distributed all over the world by e-mail. Three of these studies are anonymized patient data acquired using the EANM standardized protocol and two studies are phantom studies. In a simple form, individual participants were asked to measure renal split function as well as to provide additional information such as data analysis software, positioning of background region of interest, or the method of calculation. RESULTS We received the evaluation forms from 34 centers located in 21 countries. The analysis of the round robin test yielded an overall z-score of 0.3 (a z-score below 1 reflecting a good result). However, the z-scores from several centers were unacceptably high, with values greater than 3. In particular, the studies with impaired renal function showed a wide variance. CONCLUSION A wide variance in the split renal function was found in patients with impaired kidney function. This study indicates the ultimate importance of quality control and standardization of the measurement of the split renal function. It is especially important with respect to the commonly accepted threshold for significant change in split renal function by 10%.

We report a case of a 37-year-old man with a body mass index of 28 kg/m(2) who presented to our outpatient clinic with intermittent left flank pain. Non-contrast abdominopelvic computed tomography revealed a giant coralliform calculus in the left kidney. This giant kidney stone was successfully treated with 3 sessions of percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL) with a total 12 accesses. There was no significant reduction in the split function of the kidney after PNL.

Functional compensation occurs in a kidney when the function of the contralateral kidney is decreased or absent. What is, however, not documented is the level of unilateral renal impairment at which functional compensation occurs. Split function, as obtained from a radionuclide renogram, can only show the asymmetry between both kidneys. The aim of the present work was to evaluate at what level of unilateral impairment a functional compensation can be observed in the contralateral normal kidney. From a large database, 180 children over 2 years of age with unilateral pathology were retrospectively selected. All of them underwent a radionuclide study, combining a technetium-99m mercaptoacetyltriglycine (Tc-99m MAG3) renogram associated with a chromium-51 ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (Cr-51 EDTA) overall clearance, allowing a precise estimation of single-kidney glomerular filtration rate (SKGFR). Below 30-35 ml/min/1.73 m2, there was a significant inverse correlation between SKGFR on the normal and the abnormal side. Above this level, no such correlation was observed, the mean SKGFR on the normal side remaining around 58 ml/min/1.73 m2, whatever the value of SKGFR on the abnormal side. In pediatric patients, hyperfunction occurs when SKGFR of the diseased kidney is below 30-35 ml/min/1.73 m2.

Purpose: Retrospective evaluation of operative techniques and perioperative management as related to the primary anatomical and functional situation as well as analysis of the preliminary postoperative results regarding kidney function, continence and complications. Materials and Methods: From October 1992 to April 2003, 21 patients with bladder exstrophy-epispadias complex were treated, consisting of 12 children with untreated exstrophy and 9 who had undergone unsuccessful previous operations. Single-stage complete repair using the Erlangen concept was done during the first weeks of life in 8 infants and before school age in 3 children. One 13 year old girl had received a primary Mainz pouch II. The 9 unsuccessfully operated patients required a variety of different operations. The mean follow-up of 17 regularly controlled children was 62 months (range 3 to 129 months). Results: In all children global kidney function remained stable, while reflux or obstruction was responsible for impaired unilateral split function ranging between 31% and 45% in 5. Four children were continent day and night after complete single-stage repair, 4 after ureterosigmoidostomy or Mainz pouch II and 5 after augmentation. Conclusions: In the newborn with previously untreated exstrophy-epispadias, we recommend single-stage complete functional reconstruction within the first weeks of life. Continence without loss of kidney function can be achieved in 50% of these children. If adequate bladder capacity and continence cannot be achieved, an augmentation procedure or Mainz pouch II is our method of choice.

Objective Ultrasonography (US) is commonly used to visualize the upper urinary tract in children and adolescents with meningomyelocele (MMC). The aim of this investigation was to prospectively evaluate US in those with spinal angulation or obesity and compare it to the corresponding results obtained by mercaptoacetyltriglycine renography. Patients and methods Twenty-five children and adolescents with MMC and pronounced angulation of the spine or obesity, were prospectively investigated with both US and renography during the period 2006 to 2008. Results In 13 (52%) patients the kidneys could not be fully evaluated; in 4 (16%) neither renal size nor pelvic dilation, in 12 (48%) renal length and in 5 (20%) dilation was not accessible. In 23 individuals where dilatation could be evaluated uni- or bilaterally, US was compared to OEE% (%outflow excretion efficiency) at renography. In 1 of these individuals there was normal OEE% while slight dilatation on US was noticed. In 2/15 individuals, split function at renography did not correlate with renal length on US. Conclusion Severe spinal angulation and obesity in individuals with MMC reduced the possibility to evaluate the urinary tract by US. However, it seems that renography could be a reliable alternative to evaluate renal condition in those patients where US is insufficient.

This essay examines the split function of Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules as both research archive and unrealized art project. It suggests that the Time Capsules epitomize Warhol’s career-long preoccupation with consumption and waste (a concern animating much of his art production), and that the extreme materiality of the 610 Time Capsules is a complicated response to dematerialization in conceptual art practices and the post-war global economy. Finally, the essay reports on his on-site research of the Time Capsules, analyzing contradictions in the Warhol Museum’s maintenance of the project as both art and archive.

This paper proposes a parallel joint boosting method that simultaneously estimates poses and face landmarks. The proposed method iteratively updates the poses and face landmarks through a cascade of parallel random ferns in a forward stage-wise manner. At each stage, the pose and face landmark estimates are updated: pose probabilities are updated based on previous face landmark estimates and face landmark estimates are updated based on previous pose probabilities. Both poses and face landmarks are simultaneously estimated through sharing parallel random ferns for the pose and face landmark estimations. This paper also proposes a triangular-indexed feature that references a pixel as a linear weighted sum of three chosen landmarks. This provides robustness against variations in scale, transition, and rotation. Compared with previous boosting methods, the proposed method reduces the face landmark error by 7.1 % and 12.3 % in the LFW and MultiPIE datasets, respectively, while it also achieves pose estimation accuracies of 78.6 % and 94.0 % in these datasets.

This paper proposes a new benchmark dataset for pedestrian body-direction classification, proposes a new framework for intra-class classification by directly aiming at pedestrian body-direction classification, shows that the proposed framework outperforms a state-of-the-art method,and it also proposes the use of DCT-HOG features (by combining a discrete cosine transform with the histogram of oriented gradients) as a novel approach for defining a random decision forest.

Summary Background: Reference values for 99mTc-MAG3 renography were determined and the influence of sex and age (41%, Tmax

A new method of modelling comminution processes is introduced. The function responsible for the description of the particle size reduction is thought to be a random one. It is calculated by maximizing an informational entropy. The energy for the comminution process is described by Rittinger's or Kick's law. One model fitting parameter is necessary. It can be estimated from measured product size distributions. In addition to the prediction of product size distributions, the model is able to show the influence of the energy input to the single feed fractions as well as to predict this energy split function.

A suitable candidate for kidney donation is usually seen 1–3 months before the date of surgery. He is assessed by Nephrologists, Urological Surgeons and Anesthetists, by thorough investigations with the aim of avoiding surgery for any person who is ASA 3 or above. Moreover, although we haven’t faced obese candidates in our experience, we think that a BMI above 35 should be considered a relative contraindication for kidney donation since those subjects would be more exposed to perioperative complications and late renal dysfunction.

Decision forests can be thought of as a flexible optimization toolbox with many avenues to alter or recombine the underlying architectural components and improve recognition accuracy and efficiency. In this chapter, we present two fundamental approaches for re-architecting decision forests that yield higher prediction accuracy and shortened decision time.

Many stream classification algorithms use the Hoeffding Inequality to identify the best split attribute during tree induction. We show that the prerequisites of the Inequality are violated by these algorithms, and we propose corrective steps. The new stream classification core, correctedVFDT , satisfies the prerequisites of the Hoeffding Inequality and thus provides the expected performance guarantees. The goal of our work is not to improve accuracy, but to guarantee a reliable and interpretable error bound. Nonetheless, we show that our solution achieves lower error rates regarding split attributes and sooner split decisions while maintaining a similar level of accuracy.

the right kidney can be determined both for the anterior and the posterior projection, allowing calculation of its geometric mean. The same can be done for the standard placed at the level of the left kidney using the first and the third acquisitions. As the same standard is used for the right and for the left kidney, if the attenuation is equal, the ratio of the geometric mean of the standard at these two locations is one. The ratio of the calculated geometric mean will differ from unity because of bone attenuation and differences in body thickness at the levels of the right and the left kidney. This calculated value can then be used to correct the geometric mean of the differential renal function calculated from the first data acquisition. The same approach can be used in renography to estimate renal split function in the presence of a pelvic kidney.

The random forests method is one of the most successful ensemble methods. However, random forests do not have high performance when dealing with very-high-dimensional data in presence of dependencies. In this case one can expect that there exist many combinations between the variables and unfortunately the usual random forests method does not effectively exploit this situation. We here investigate a new approach for supervised classification with a huge number of numerical attributes. We propose a random oblique decision trees method. It consists of randomly choosing a subset of predictive attributes and it uses SVM as a split function of these attributes.We compare, on 25 datasets, the effectiveness with classical measures (e.g. precision, recall, F1-measure and accuracy) of random forests of random oblique decision trees with SVMs and random forests of C4.5. Our proposal has significant better performance on very-high-dimensional datasets with slightly better results on lower dimensional datasets.

Objective. Significant controversy remains concerning the best way to treat ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO). This study evaluates subjective and objective outcomes of retrograde holmium laser endopyelotomy in a selected population with UPJO. Material and methods. Forty-seven patients with UPJO were referred to retrograde endopyelotomy between April 2004 and March 2007. Patients with a very large pelvis, a high insertion of the ureter, a renal split function below 20% or a long (>2 cm) stenosed ureteropelvic segment, and patients younger than 18 years were not selected for endopyelotomy, but subjected to laparoscopic pyeloplasty. Renal function was estimated on renal diuretic scan before and after surgery with a mean renographic follow-up of 35 weeks. Subjective results were based on questionnaires which were returned from 44 patients with primary (n=37) or secondary (n=7) obstruction (mean follow-up 110 weeks). Success criteria were defined as symptom relief and improved or preserved renal function. Results. Twenty-nine patients (66%) experienced complete symptom resolution and 10 patients (23%) had significant symptom improvement (i.e. no need for pain-killing medication). Five patients (11%) had unchanged symptoms. No difference in postoperative renal function was observed between these three groups of patients. The differences between preoperative and postoperative renal function were non-significant in each group. No major complications were observed. Five patients (11%) were referred to retreatment owing to unchanged symptoms. Conclusion. Retrograde ureteroscopic endopyelotomy is a safe and effective treatment option in patients with primary and secondary UPJO when selected properly.

Differential renal blood flow and parenchymal mass were compared in 50 pairs of scintigraphic studies performed on 44 patients. Background corrected total kidney counts were determined between 1 to 2 minutes following injection of I-123 or I-131 orthoiodohippurate (OIH), and at 1 to 2.5 hours after injection of Tc-99m glucoheptonate (GHA). The OIH and GHA differentials agreed within 5% in 36 studies (72%). When the OIH differentials were symmetric (45% to 55% in each kidney), agreement with the GHA results was complete (17 out of 17). By comparison, 42% (14 out of 33) of studies with asymmetric OIH differentials had a greater than 5% disparity from the GHA split function. Serum creatinine was elevated at the time of 9 out of 14 studies (64%) with OIH/GHA disagreement and 18 out of 36 studies (50%) with OIH/GHA agreement. Of the 14 studies with disparate OIH/GHA differentials, the GHA differential was more symmetric in 10 (71%). When different scinitigraphic measures of differential renal flow and parenchymal mass disagree, this is most likely due to the effects of asymmetric renal impairment rather than to those of global renal dysfunction.

The split function (SF) of hydronephrotic kidneys may dramatically decrease in the presence of severe and persistent obstruction, necessitating surgical correction. The indication for pyeloplasty versus nephrectomy is mainly based on the results of repeated renal ultrasonography (US) and MAG3-diuretic nephrography (DNG) with SF. Nephrectomy is usually recommended if SF is less than 10 %. However, recent studies with long-term follow-up indicate that even with an initial SF of10 %, a significant improvement of SF may be seen when pyeloplasty is performed so that nephrectomy may not be justified.Case histories of 32 children with pre- or postnatally diagnosed severe hydronephrosis were retrospectively analyzed. Surgical correction was indicated if US revealed progredient hydronephrosis (anteroposterior diameter20 mm) and/or DNG demonstrated a loss of SF40 % and/or severe obstruction, respectively. Postoperative follow-up examinations included renal US after 3, 6 and 12 months, as well as DNG after 12 months.Thirty-two children (25 male, 7 female) underwent Anderson-Hynes pyeloplasty (AHP). At the time of operation, the mean age of the patients was 33 months (1 - 156 months). Patients were divided into 3 groups according to the initial SF: group I, 21 patients with SF40 %; group II, 7 patients with moderately impaired SF between 10 - 40 %; group III, 4 patients (aged 1 - 137 months) with a SF of10 %. In 2 patients, percutaneous nephrostomy (PCN) was performed, followed by AHP. Thirty patients underwent AHP without preceding PCN. In group III, SF increased from10 % preoperatively to 21 %, 27 %, 45 %, and 53 % postoperatively, respectively. In all patients, postoperative DNG demonstrated a significant improvement of SF from 41 %, on average, preoperatively (range 0 - 64 %) to 47 %, on average, postoperatively (range 17 - 60 %).Long-term follow-up confirms that the prognosis for renal function is excellent in patients with moderately reduced SF. The significant improvement of SF 12 months after AHP in all patients with a poor SF of less than 10 % supports our approach of performing pyeloplasty in patients even with an initial SF of10 %, which is in contrast to common practice.

Summary Objective: A drop of split renal function often constitutes a criterion for pyeloplasty in hydronephrosis since it is considered as representing deterioration of the affected kidney. The aim of this work was to determine, in a selected population of patients with a drop of split function of at least 5%, if the evolution of single kidney glomerular filtration rate (SKGFR) was parallel to the one of split renal function. Methods: From a large data basis, we found retrospectively only 29 children (10 below and 19 above two years of age at first examination) having had at least two Tc-99m mertiatide (Tc-99m MAG3) renographic explorations for various urological diseases, with a decrease of split function of at least 5% between the two examinations. Evolution of split function was compared to evolution of SKGFR obtained by means of the combination of Tc-99m MAG3 split function and overall glomerular filtration rate as given by the chromium Cr 51 ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) clearance. Results: For the group above two years of age, SKGFR increased or remained stable in 63% of the cases, while in the children less than 2 years of age, a decrease of SKGFR was never observed, according to the maturation of overall GFR in this age group. Thus, the decrease of split function was not necessarily associated with a similar decrease of SKGFR. Conclusion: In patients with unilateral or bilateral urological disorders, deterioration of split renal function does not necessary correspond to a loss of function of the affected kidney. SKGFR often modifies the interpretation of split function.

The tree method can be extended to multivariate responses, such as repeated measures and longitudinal data, by modifying the split function so as to accommodate multiple responses. Recently, some decision trees for multiple responses have been constructed by other researchers. However, their methods have limitations on the type of response, that is, they allow only continuous or only binary responses. Also, there is no tree method to analyze polytomous and ordinal responses.

We investigated the outcome of patients with antenatally detected pelviureteric junction (PUJ) obstruction treated either conservatively or surgically. The series comprised 68 such patients, 54 with unilateral obstruction. Of the unilateral cases, 22 units were treated conservatively, 21 underwent early and 11 late surgery. Of the bilateral cases, 18 units were treated conservatively, 9 underwent early pyeloplasty, whereas 1 underwent later surgery. Among the conservatively treated unilateral cases, none of the patients’ good renal function deteriorated during follow-up. In the group with early surgery, the primary good function remained unchanged in all. In some patients, moderate function improved after early pyeloplasty, but in patients with poor function no improvement occurred. Of patients who underwent late pyeloplasty, primary good renal function remained unchanged in all except 1, although it had deteriorated to moderate function in some before surgery. In all except 1 patient with bilateral obstruction treated conservatively, both the grade of hydronephrosis and split function remained unchanged. In most patients the outcome of antenatally detected unilateral PUJ obstruction with initially good renal function, whether treated conservatively or surgically, seems favorable. Some patients with moderate function might benefit from pyeloplasty. In kidneys with poor function, recovery may be minimal despite pyeloplasty.

Administrative agency authority to evolve policy in the course of adjudication is well established. While the scope of that authority and the judicial role with respect to such questions commands considerable scholarly attention, the process for exercising that authority inside administrative judiciaries is largely neglected. The policymaking role of the administrative judges in particular has been insufficiently conceptualized and hence their role in that regard poorly understood, even by themselves. Administrative judges must apply policy in individual context. As the record builders and initial decisionmakers, the administrative judges launch the policy related issues. Even clear policy leaves them some discretion and agency policy, being ambiguous or rendered ambiguous by the individual case, may afford judges considerable range. Necessarily then policymaking by administrative judges creates a tension within the agency hierarchy. The agencies endeavor to maintain dominance over policy and constantly struggle to keep the administrative judges within the strict confines of its policy pronouncements. For this reason, it is the policy aspects of the hearing level decisions, more so than individual dispute resolution, that defines the relationship between the agency and the judges. This article seeks to understand the policymaking aspect of administrative adjudications. It exposes the myth that adjudicative judges are not part of the policymaking process. It examines how they do contribute to that effort. And it suggests ways to incorporate them most effectively in the adjudicative policymaking process and thereby the overall administrative policymaking process. Some first level answers can be derived from the various studies and commentary on judicial law making. Yet, the hierarchical allocation of policymaking in administrative adjudications is fundamentally distinct. Thus, the article looks closely at the adjudicative policy development in terms of precedent (or consistency), the internal force of varies categories of rule, the nature of policy oriented factual development and finding, the adjudicative staff's role, and agency supervision of policy judgments. From this analysis of the classic adjudicative hierarchy, the article considers the special circumstances of adjudicative policymaking in "coordinate" systems: centralized panels and split function. It concludes that conscious attention to the judge's role and full utilization of them for policymaking will significantly improve many administrative systems.

Decision tree induction has become one of the most popular methods for classification and prediction. The key step in the process of inferring decision trees is finding the right criteria for splitting the training set into smaller and smaller subsets so that, ideally, all elements of a subset finally belong to one class. These split criteria can be defined in different ways (e.g. minimizing impurity of a subset, or minimizing entropy in a subset), and therefore they emphasize different properties of the inferred tree, such as size or classification accuracy. In this paper we analyze if the split functions introduced in a statistical and machine learning context are also well suited for a KDD context. We selected two well known split functions, namely Gini Index (CART) and Information Gain (C4.5) and introduced our own family of split functions and tested them on 9,000 data sets of different sizes (from 200 to 20,000 tuples). The tests have shown that the two popular functions are very sensitive to the variation of the training set sizes and therefore the quality of the inferred trees is highly dependent on the training set size. At the same time however, we were able to show that the simplest members of the introduced family of split functions behave in a very predictable way and, furthermore, the created trees were superior to the trees inferred using the Gini Index or the Information Gain based on our evaluation criteria.

We discuss a new optimisation for recursive functions yielding multiple results in tuples for lazy functional languages, like Clean and Haskell. This optimisation improves the execution time of such functions and also reduces the amount of memory allocated in the heap by these functions, which reduces garbage collection costs. In some cases execution time is improved by more than a factor of two and allocation costs by a factor of four. Furthermore, the space leak that is caused by selector nodes is removed.

Radionuclide methods are important diagnostic modalities for the detection and quantification of renal disease. There are three categories of renal radionuclide investigations: Clearance studies Split function investigations with measurement of parenchymal uptake, parenchymal wash-out, and pelvic and ureteric urinary flow (renography) Renal imaging (scintigraphy)

Modern manufacturing systems are complex technical systems that exhibit state-based, continuous, timed, and probabilistic behaviour. Modelling such systems is becoming increasingly hard, and yet their behaviour models are today mostly created manually. This paper gives an asset to learning these models automatically from data The HyBUTLA algorithm for learning the hybrid automata models, which can represent manufacturing system’s characteristics, has been recently proposed. However, it could not model the abrupt changes in the continuous part of the system. The contribution of this paper is as follows: the split function that detects and models abrupt changes is presented; both sufficient and necessary conditions for its success are formally proven; the complete HyBUTLA algorithm enhanced with the split function is given; experimental results conducted in a real manufacturing system are presented.

We propose a new split criterion to be used in building classification trees. This criterion called weighted accuracy or wacc has the advantage that it allows the use of divide-and-conquer algorithms when minimizing the split criterion. This is useful when more complex split families, such as intervals corners and rectangles, are considered. The split criterion is derived to imitate the Gini function as closely as possible by comparing preference regions for the two functions. The wacc function is evaluated in a large empirical comparison and is found to be competitive with the traditionally used functions.

Summary— A total of 49 retrograde balloon dilatations for pelviureteric junction (PUJ) obstruction were carried out on 43 pelviureteric junctions in 42 patients from 1986 to 1991. The majority (34/ 43) were performed as primary treatment for PUJ obstruction, with 9 patients having a history of previous open pyeloplasty. Follow-up ranged from 3 months to 4 years (mean 18 months). Clinical improvement, as assessed by absence of symptoms, was seen in 34 cases (80%). There was either no change or an improvement in renographic findings (t1/2 time and/or split function) in 40 patients (93%). Of the 9 patients who were undergoing secondary treatment, 5 showed clinical improvement and 8 showed no change or renographic improvement. Nine patients required 12 further procedures, of which 5 were interval nephrectomy. Balloon pyelolysis is a simple procedure with good results over a 4-year follow-up period. It is less effective for the treatment of secondary pelviureteric junction obstruction. It has a low morbidity and no mortality, involves a short hospital stay and allows an immediate return to full activity. It is therefore an attractive alternative to open pyeloplasty as first-line treatment for PUJ obstruction.

This paper presents a variant of a refined partition algorithm, which exploits the irrelevance of unreachable states. When the state space is infinite, the number of accessible classes may be finite and the number of inaccessible classes infinite. The underlying idea is to incorporate a reachability analysis based on the concept of abstract interpretation. The new algorithm may terminate in cases where the original algorithm diverges.

Hepatobiliary scintigraphy (HBS) is a well established non invasive procedure for the differential diagnosis of intra-and extrahepatic jaundice. Clinical impact of hepatobiliary scintigraphy increased since the introduction of the 99mTc labeled hepatobiliary imaging agents by Loberg and coworkers in 1975 [16, 31].

A split-function method to increase the calculation speed in the analysis of nonlinear optical fibre transmissions is presented. The solution is expressed as a product of two functions at each step. This method provides higher-order numerical solutions and error monitoring capabilities that are not available in the conventional split-step method.