189 research outputs found
Efficient In-Database Patient Similarity Analysis for Personalized Medical Decision Support Systems
No full textPatient similarity analysis is a precondition to apply machine learning technology on medical data. In this sense, patient similarity analysis harnesses the information wealth of electronic medical records (EMRs) to support medical decision making. A pairwise similarity computation can be used as the basis for personalized health prediction. With n patients the amount of similarity calculations is required. Thus, analyzing patient similarity leads to data explosion when exploiting big data. By increasing the data size the computational burden of this analysis increases. A real-life medical application may exceed the limits of current hardware in a fairly short amount of time. Finding ways to optimize patient similarity analysis and handling this data explosion is the topic of this paper. Current implementations for patient similarity analysis require their users to have knowledge of complex data analysis tools. Moreover, data pre-processing and analysis are performed in synthetic conditions: the data are extracted from the EMR database and then the data preparation and analysis are processed in external tools. After all of this effort the users might not experience a superior performance of the patient similarity analysis. We propose methods to optimize the patient similarity analysis in order to make it scalable to big data. Our method was tested against two real datasets and a low execution time was accomplished. Our result hence benefits a comprehensive medical decision support system. Moreover, our implementation comprises a balance between performance and applicability: the majority of the workload is processed within a database management system to enable a direct implementation on an EMR database
Concept acquisition and improved in-database similarity analysis for medical data
No full textEfficient identification of cohorts of similar patients is a major precondition for personalized medicine. In order to train prediction models on a given medical data set, similarities have to be calculated for every pair of patients—which results in a roughly quadratic data blowup. In this paper we discuss the topic of in-database patient similarity analysis ranging from data extraction to implementing and optimizing the similarity calculations in SQL. In particular, we introduce the notion of chunking that uniformly distributes the workload among the individual similarity calculations. Our benchmark comprises the application of one similarity measures (Cosine similariy) and one distance metric (Euclidean distance) on two real-world data sets; it compares the performance of a column store (MonetDB) and a row store (PostgreSQL) with two external data mining tools (ELKI and Apache Mahout)
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Benno von Wiese
No full textThe author have researched the history of science, scholarship and German studies, with particular focus on the career of the influential German literary scholar Benno von Wiese (1903-1987). The book on von Wiese deals with his supportive yet ambivalent role during National Socialism from 1933-1945 and how he dealt with this (personal and collective German) period in post-war Germany
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No full textThis volume seems to replicate "Happy Hours in Storyland" from 1963/68 and from 1970/81. The verso of the title-page acknowledges the second but not the first. As I mention of the former, sixteen fables of Aesop and a few other fables start off this volume. The editor of these versions is not acknowledged. The illustrations are a third set for Aesop by Kurt Wiese (Favorite Stories, 1942; Jacobs' The Fables of Aesop, 1950/62).This is a hardbound book (hard cover)Fourth printingNo Autho
The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls, Volume 2
No full textSixteen fables of Aesop and a few other fables start off this volume. The editor of these versions is not acknowledged. The illustrations are a third set for Aesop by Kurt Wiese (Favorite Stories, 1942; Jacobs' The Fables of Aesop, 1950/62). The frontispiece is a strong full-page colored depiction of FC by Bess B. Cleveland. I believe that I have seen it somewhere else as frontispiece, but I cannot place it. Compare the smaller version of the same illustration in The Home University Bookshelf, Volume III, 380 (1945). See the identical new edition of 1970/81.This is a hardbound book (hard cover)Editorial Board of the University Societ
Design for happiness-enhancing activities: Development of design strategies for the activities of learning to forgive and avoiding overthinking
No full textThis research-by-design project provides designers with new strategies to design for sustained well-being.Positive activities have been proposed as the most promising starting point to improve well-being (Wiese et al., 2020). Currently, 14 activities have been identified (Lyubomirsky, 2007; Wiese et al., 2019). Avoiding overthinking and learning to forgive were chosen to design for in this project, as few existing products meaningfully support people in engaging in these activities. The Vision in Design approach (Hekkert & van Dijk, 2011) was applied to construct future world views of both activities, in order to create meaningful design goals. Two design strategies were developed for both activities and evaluated by PhD candidates and a design practitioner. This concluded that the strategies meet most of the requirements of a strategy (Wiese et. al., 2020), and could support designers. Recommendations to improve the strategies were composed and presented in the report. The conducted research and developed strategies contributed to existing knowledge by showing how designers can promote sustained well-being on an activity level. Further research should be conducted with more designers to evaluate the strategies’ usefulness in practice more extensively. Design for Interactio
Integration of geological and geophysical data of different quality into the stochastic description of aquifers
No full textMany of the present problems in hydrogeology such as old waste disposal sites and the risk of the infiltration of contaminated riverwater concern the protection of groundwater. Solutions of qualitative and quantitative, site-specific groundwater problems require the knowledge of the site-specific heterogeneity of the subsurface. Therefore, (1) descriptive, (2) structure-imitating, and (3) process-imitating methods are combined: (1) Sedimentlogical and geophysical data – outcrop, drill-core, and georadar data – are combined in a lithofacies-based interpretation and processed to be used for stochastic simulations of sedimentary structures. This interpretation respects differences in data uncertainty and provides lithofacies probabilities for points along boreholes and grid nodes with arbitrary mesh sizes along georadar sections. The estimation of probabilities that drill-core layer descriptions and radarfacies patterns represent specified lithofacies types is based on the significance of the information included in drill-core layer descriptions and the structural information of radarfacies patterns. The specification of the lithofacies types is based on outcrop data. (2) GEOSSAV (Geostatistical Environment fOr Subsurface Simulation And Visualization) has been developed for the integration of hard and soft data into the stochastic simulation and visualization of distributions of geological structures and hydrogeological properties in the subsurface. GEOSSAV, an interface to selected geostatistical modules (bicalib, gamv, vargplt, and sisim) from the Geostatistical Software LIBrary, GSLIB (Deutsch and Journel, 1998), can be used for data analysis, variogram computation of regularly or irregularly spaced data, and sequential indicator simulation of subsurface heterogeneities. Sequential indicator simulation, based on various kriging techniques (simple, ordinary, and Bayesian), is suitable for the simulation of either continuous variables such as hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer or chemical concentrations at a contaminated site, or categorical variables which indicate the presence or absence of a particular lithofacies. Export options for finite-difference groundwater models allow either files that characterize single model layers or files that characterize the complete 3D flow model set-up for MODFLOW-based groundwater simulation systems. GEOSSAV has been successfully tested on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and on SuSE Linux 7.3. The current version is available at http://www.unibas.ch/earth/pract. (3) The developed lithofacies-based interpretation of geological and geophysical data and the software GEOSSAV was applied on a field example in the groundwater recharge and production area Lange Erlen, a formerly braided river environment near Basel, Northwestern Switzerland. Two different groundwater models are used to simulate a capture zone of a well located near the infiltrating river Wiese, depending on the hydrological variations (river discharge, hydraulic conductivity of the riverbed), the water supply operation, the progress of river restoration, and the heterogeneity of the subsurface. A deterministic, large-scaled groundwater model (1.8 km x 1.2 km) is used to simulate the average behavior of groundwater flow and advective transport. It is also used to assign the hydraulic boundary conditions for a small-scaled groundwater model (550 m x 400 m), which relies on stochastically generated aquifer properties based on sitespecific drill-core and georadar data. The stochastic approach in the small-scaled groundwater model does not lead to a clearly defined well capture zone, but to a well capture zone distribution reflecting the uncertainty of the knowledge of the aquifer parameters. The developed methods and tools allow the integration of geological and geophysical data of different quality into the stochastic description of aquifers. They can be used, e.g., to define and evaluate groundwater protection zones in heterogeneous aquifers associated with infiltration from rivers under changing boundary conditions and under the uncertainty of subsurface heterogeneity
A comparison of rosseland-mean opacities from op and opal
No full textMonochromatic opacities from the Opacity Project (OP) have been augmented by hitherto missing inner-shell contributions. OP Rosseland-mean opacities, κR, are compared with results from OPAL for the six elements H, He, C, O, S and Fe. The OPAL data are obtained from the project's website. Agreement for H is close everywhere except for the region of log(T) 6 and log(R) −1 (R=ρ/T36 where ρ is mass density in g cm3 and T6= 106×T with T in K). In that region κR(OPAL) is larger than κR(OP) by up to 13 per cent. The differences are caused by different equations of state (EOS). In the region concerned, OP has the H ground state undergoing dissolution, leading to a small H-neutral ionization fraction, while OPAL has larger values for that fraction. A similar difference occurs for He at log(R) −1 and log(T) 6.4, where OP has the He+ ground state undergoing dissolution. The OPAL website does not provide single-element Rosseland means for elements other than H and He. Comparisons between OP and OPAL are made for mixtures with X= 0.9, Z= 0.1 and Z containing pure C, O or S. There are some differences: at the lower temperatures, say log(T) ≤ 5.5, owing to differences in atomic data, with the OP R-matrix data probably being the more accurate; and at higher temperatures mainly owing to differences in level populations resulting from the use of different EOS theories. In the original OP work, R-matrix data for iron were supplemented by data obtained using the configuration-interaction (CI) code superstructure. The experiment is made of replacing much of the original iron data with new data from the CI code autostructure. Inclusion of intercombination lines gives an increase in κR of up to 18 per cent. The OPAL website does not allow for Z containing pure iron. Comparisons are made for an iron-rich mixture, X= 0.9, Z= 0.1 and Z containing C and Fe with C:Fe = 2:1 by number fraction. There are some differences between OP and OPAL for that case: the OP 'Z-bump' in κR is shifted to slightly higher temperatures, compared with OPAL. Overall, there is good agreement between OP and OPAL Rosseland-mean opacities for the six elements, but there are some differences. Recent work has shown that helioseismology measurements give a very accurate value for the depth of the solar convective zone, RCZ, and that, taking account of recent revisions in abundances, solar models give agreement with that value only if opacities at RCZ are about 20 per cent larger than OPAL values. For the six-element mix at RCZ we obtain κR(OP) to be larger than κR(OPAL) by 5 per cent
A Pilot Study to Determine Baseline Performance of Well Older Adults on the Interactive Metronome Long Form Assessment
No full textAbstract
Date Presented 3/30/2017
The purpose of this study was to establish benchmark performance data for well elderly persons on the Interactive Metronome (IM). Normative data for this population have not been collected. Could the IM be an effective assessment or intervention for motor and processing skills in the elderly population?
Primary Author and Speaker: Alfred Bracciano
Additional Authors and Speakers: Elizabeth Bracciano, Yongue Qi
Contributing Authors: Sara Davis, Ashley Olschove, Kylie Permann, McKenzie Wiese, Joy Doll, Samantha Einziger, Vlad Merkulov, Kevin Murphy, Paige Shumaker</jats:p
Self-Images of Socrates. Respect of Tradition and Philosophical Innovation in Plato’s Apology
No full textThis chapter arises from the need to answer the following working questions:
1. Are the self-images provided by Socrates in Plato’s Apology really at odds with each other? If not, what is the theoretical framework in the light of which the two clusters of images (i.e., the apparently “self-aggrandizing” and the “self-demeaning” ones) appear as different expressions of a consistent line of self-representation?
2. Why should Socrates present before his addressees (i.e., a number of jurors and some Athenian fellow-citizens who attended the trial merely as spectators) images of himself that risk to appear inconsistent with each other? Further, why should he perform an act of self-sabotage and supply representations of himself which, instead of dismantling negative prejudices against him, inevitably end up fuelling them? Finally, why should Plato give his Socrates the licence to offer a negative view of himself?
To provide an answer to the questions at stake, I shall refer to the goals of Plato as a philosophical writer. By assuming that, throughout his written dialogues, Plato seeks to enable his readers to engage in a true dialogical experience with his texts,6 I will suggest that the author invites the readers of his Apology virtually to join the trial and express in full autonomy a rationally informed verdict. As I will propose, far from willingly offering an inconsistent rendition of Socrates’s character and values, Plato’s use of contrasting self-images of Socrates in the Apology is specifically designed to give his readers the opportunity to read specific claims as ambivalent, and to interpret them in such a way that these do not appear incompatible with other images offered in the text. If this hypothesis is plausible, what Socrates’s accusers and most members of the jury regard as inappropriate outbursts of boastfulness and shamelesness on his part might rather turn out to be expressions of the relevance of critical examination in the lives of human beings
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