Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning to prevent healthcare-associated infections: leveraging data across time and space to improve local predictions

The proliferation of electronic medical records holds out the promise of using machine learning and data mining to build models that will help healthcare providers improve patient outcomes. However, building useful models from these datasets presents many technical problems. Among the challenges are the large number of factors (both intrinsic and extrinsic) influencing a patient's risk of an adverse outcome, the inherent evolution of that risk over time, and the relative rarity of adverse outcomes, institutional differences and the lack of ground truth. In this thesis we tackle these challenges in the context of predicting healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). HAIs are a serious problem in US acute care hospitals, affecting approximately 4% of all inpatients on any given day. Despite best efforts to reduce incidence, HAIs remain stubbornly prevalent. We hypothesize that one of the reasons why is lack of an effective clinical tool for accurately measuring patient risk. Therefore, we develop accurate models for predicting which patients are at risk of acquiring an infection with Clostridium difficile (a common HAI). In contrast to previous work, we take a novel data-centric approach, leveraging the contents of EMRs from over 100,000 hospital admissions. We show how, by adapting techniques from time-series classification, transfer learning and multitask learning, we can learn more accurate models for patient risk stratification. Our model, based on thousands of variables both time-varying and time-invariant, does not remain static but changes over the course of a patient admission. Applied to a held-out validation set of 25,000 patient admissions. our model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.81 (95% CI 0.78-0.84). The model has been successfully integrated into the health record system at a large hospital in the US, and is being used to produce daily risk estimates for each inpatient. While more complex than traditional risk stratification methods, the widespread development and use of such data-driven models could ultimately enable cost-effective, targeted prevention strategies that reduce the incidence of HAIs. Thesis Supervisor: John Guttag Title: Dugald C. Jackson Professor
Low‐Stage Clear‐Cell Carcinoma of the Endometrium

Clear-cell carcinoma (CCC) of the endometrium is a relatively rare malignancy that is considered to be one of the most aggressive types of endometrial carcinoma. To evaluate the behavior of endometrial carcinoma. To evaluate the behavior of low-stage (stages I and II) CCC of the endometrium, we retrospectively reviewed 17 such cses seen at The Unversity of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1963 to 1990. Patients' ages ranged from 52 to 81 years. Fifteen cases were pure CCC, and two cases were predominantly CCC with a focus of endometrioid adenocarcinoma FIGO grade I. All patients have been followed-up for at least 3 years. At the time of the study, six patients were alive without disease, one patients was alive with disease, five had died of other causes, and five had died of disease. The estimated survival rate was 71%. Estimated 5-year survival rates for endometrioid adenocarcinoma FIGO grade III and uterine papillary serous carcinoma are 73 and 39%, respectively. We conclude that patients with low-stage CCC of the endometrium have a survival rate similar to that of patients with endometrioid adenocarcinoma FIGO grade III and better than that of patients with uterine papillary serous carcinoma of similar stages.
Are carbon offsets potentially the new "greenwash?"

This paper explores the relationship between consumers’ knowledge and behaviours related to environmental issues and carbon offsets. We found that consumers were generally less knowledgeable about carbon offsets than about general environmental issues and increased knowledge about environmental issues does not result in more responsible environmental behaviours. Therefore, consumers may misunderstand claims made by marketers in relation to carbon offsets and thus public policy intervention is required.
The impact of privatisation on capital market development and individual share ownership

This study has two objectives: to estimate the impact of share issue privatizations on the growth of world capital markets (especially stock markets), and to examine the effect privatization has had on the pattern of share ownership by individuals and institutional investors. We begin by documenting the increasing importance of capital markets, and the declining role of commercial banks, in corporate financial systems around the world. We then show that privatization programs have had a dramatic impact both on the development of non-U.S. stock markets and on the participation of individual and institutional investors in those markets. Our research documents the following key points: (1) the fraction of total domestic credit provided by the banking sector, as a percent of GDP, remained virtually constant (125 percent) between 1990 and 1998 for the world as a whole, as well as for most major country groupings. (2) During that same time period, stock market capitalization as a percent of GDP increased from 52 to 82 percent for the world as a whole, and from 56 to 95 percent for high income countries. Market capitalization is now over $39 trillion, which almost certainly exceeds world capitalization. (3) Share trading volume (value of shares traded) increased even more dramatically, from 29.0 percent of world GDP in 1980 to 79.3 percent in 1998, when it reached $22.9 trillion. (4) The total market value of privatized firms grew from less than $50 billion in 1983 to almost $2.5 trillion in 1999—roughly 10 percent of the world’s aggregate market capitalization, and 21 percent of the non-U.S. total. (5) Privatized firms are the most valuable companies in seven of the ten largest non-U.S. stock markets, including the four largest, as well as in most developing countries. (6) Share issue privatizations (SIPs) have transformed international equity issuance and investment banking practices. The 25 largest--and 35 of the 39 largest--common stock issues in history have all been privatizations, and governments have raised over $700 billion through some 750 SIPs since 1977--and over $1 trillion through all privatization methods. (7) Academic research has now clearly established that, in most countries, SIP investors earn significantly positive excess (market-adjusted) returns on the shares they purchase--over both short and long term holding periods. (6) Privatizations have dramatically increased the number of shareholders in many countries. Almost two-thirds of the 54 non-U.S. firms (67 including US companies) with over 500,000 shareholders are privatized companies, and roughly a dozen SIPs have more than 1,000,000 initial shareholders. SIPs generally have a far larger number of stockholders than do capitalization-matched private firms in the same country. (7) However, we also find that the extremely large numbers of shareholders created by many SIPs are not a stable ownership structure. For the 47 offers that initially yield over 250,000 shareholders, the total number of shareholders declines by one-third within five years.
Gathering Computational Genomics and Proteomics to Unravel Adaptive Evolution

A recent editorial in PLoS Biology by MacCallum and Hill (2006) pointed out the inappropriateness of studies evaluating signatures of positive selection based solely in single-site analyses. Therefore the rising number of articles claiming positive selection that have been recently published urges the question of how to improve the bioinformatics standards for reliably unravel positive selection? Deeper integrative efforts using state-of-the-art methodologies at the gene-level and protein-level are improving positive selection studies. Here we provide some computational guidelines to thoroughly document molecular adaptation.
Multitrophic Effects of Elevated Atmospheric CO2 on Understory Plant and Arthropod Communities

Abstract Rising levels of atmospheric [CO2] will directly affect the responses and community composition of plants. However, few studies have examined how these changes to plant communities will alter insect communities that rely on them. Here, we report on a study that examined the community-level responses of plants, herbivores, detritivores, predators, parasitoids, and omnivores to increased [CO2] at a Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We found that aboveground net primary productivity for the five dominant plant species in the understory community, C:N ratios of leaf tissue for four of the five dominant understory taxa, amounts of herbivory, and arthropod abundance and richness across all trophic groups did not differ between ambient and elevated CO2 plots. Abundance and richness of particular trophic groups were higher in ambient than in elevated CO2 plots. There were also strong temporal effects on community composition, but no distinct treatment effects. These results, although preliminary, suggest that community-level responses to future atmospheric [CO2] are likely to be species- and trophic-group specific.
Explainable DRC Hotspot Prediction with Random Forest and SHAP Tree Explainer

With advanced technology nodes, resolving design rule check (DRC) violations has become a cumbersome task, which makes it desirable to make predictions at earlier stages of the design flow. In this paper, we show that the Random Forest (RF) model is quite effective for the DRC hotspot prediction at the global routing stage, and in fact significantly outperforms recent prior works, with only a fraction of the runtime to develop the model. We also propose, for the first time, to adopt a recent explanatory metric—the SHAP value—to make accurate and consistent explanations for individual DRC hotspot predictions from RF. Experiments show that RF is 21%–60% better in predictive performance on average, compared with promising machine learning models used in similar works (e.g. SVM and neural networks) while exhibiting good explainability, which makes it ideal for DRC hotspot prediction.
Functional aspects of extracellular cyclophilins

Abstract The cyclophilin family of peptidyl prolyl cis/trans isomerases includes several isoforms found to be secreted in response to different stimuli, thus existing both in the interior and the exterior of cells. The extracellular fractions of the cyclophilins CypA and CypB are involved in the control of cell-cell communication. By binding to the cell membrane receptor CD147 and cell surface heparans they elicit a variety of intracellular signaling cascades involved in inflammatory processes. Increased levels of cyclophilins in inflammatory tissues and body fluids are considered as an inflammatory response to injury. Thus, the extracellular portion of cyclophilins probably plays an important role in human diseases associated with acute or chronic inflammation like rheumatoid arthritis, sepsis, asthma and cardiovascular diseases. Specific inhibition of the cyclophilins in the extracellular space may open an effective therapeutic approach for treating inflammatory diseases.
Branding in Governance and Public Management

1. The Rise of Branding in Governance Processes 2. The Many Faces of Branding: Definitions, Functions, and Forms 3. Branding to Influence Perceptions about Policy Problems and Solutions 4. Branding to Activate, Motivate, and Bind Stakeholders in Governance Processes 5. Brands and the Media: Communicating With the Outside World 6. Branding as Governance Strategy 7. Risks and Limits of Branding 8. Brands and Governance: Towards Interactive Forms of Branding
Triggering of renal tissue damage in the rabbit by IgG Fc‐receptor‐positive group A streptococci

Our previous studies have shown that streptococcal IgG Fc receptors (FcR) act to elicit circulating anti‐IgG as well as renal glomerular deposition of IgG in rabbits immunized with group A streptococci (GAS). In order to study if other FcR‐positive bacteria might have similar effects, rabbits were immunized with either group G streptococci (GGS; strain G148) or Staphylococcus aureus (strain Cowan I) for two periods of 8 and 6 weeks, respectively. At the end of immunization, circulating anti‐IgG was found in 6 of 20 (30%) and 4 of 19 (21%) animals receiving G148 and Cowan I, respectively, compared to all 28 receiving FcR‐positive GAS strains of types M1, M4, M15 or M22 (p < 0.05 for both comparisons); furthermore, anti‐IgG appeared earlier and at higher levels in the GAS groups. Weak glomerular IgG deposits occurred in 5 out of 10 (50%) and 2 out of 8 (25%) animals immunized with G148 and Cowan I, respectively. In contrast, all 11 rabbits examined, given GAS of types M1 or M15, displayed heavy deposits. None of four control animals immunized with either of two FcR‐negative strains, GAS type T27 or group B streptococci (GBS) type la, exhibited any renal IgG deposits or circulating anti‐IgG. Renal tissue materials from rabbits immunized with any of the four FcR‐positive GAS strains showed strong inflammatory and degenerative glomerular changes, compatible with the picture seen in acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis (APSGN). Only transient renal changes were found in those rabbits immunized with G148 or Cowan I, or the controls injected with the FcR‐negative strains, GAS type T27 or GBS. Thus, only the FcR‐positive GAS strains showed capacity to induce high levels of anti‐IgG, pronounced tissue deposition of IgG as well as irreversible glomerular changes. Our experimental data suggest that streptococcal IgG FcR activity might play an important role in triggering APSGN.
Polarimetric ALOS PALSAR Time Series in Mapping Biomass of Boreal Forests

Here, we examined multitemporal behavior of fully polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) parameters at L-band in relation to the stem volume of boreal forests. The PolSAR parameters were evaluated in terms of their temporal consistency, inter-dependence and suitability for forest stem volume estimation across several seasonal conditions (frozen, thaw and unfrozen). The satellite SAR data were represented by a time series of PolSAR images acquired during several seasons in the years 2006 to 2009 by the ALOS PALSAR sensor. The study area was in central Finland, and represented a managed area in typical boreal mixed forest land. Utility of different PolSAR parameters, their temporal stability and cross-correlations were studied along with reference stand-level stem volume data from forest inventory. Further, two polarimetric parameters, cross-polarization backscatter and co-polarization coherence, were chosen for further investigation and stem volume retrieval. A relationship between forest stem volume and PolSAR parameters was established using the kNN regression approach. Ways of optimally combining PolSAR images were evaluated as well. For a single scene, best results were observed with polarimetric coherence (RMSE ≈ 38.8 m3/ha) for scene acquired in frozen conditions. An RMSE of 40.8 m3/ha (42.9%, R2 = 0.66) was achieved for cross-polarization backscatter in the best case. Cross-polarization backscatter was a better predictor than polarimetric coherence for few summer scenes. Multitemporal aggregation of selected PolSAR scenes improved estimates for both studied PolSAR parameters. Stronger improvement was observed for coherence with RMSE down to 34 m3/ha (35.8%, R2 = 0.77) compared to 38.8–51.6 m3/ha (40.8–54.3%) from separate scenes. Finally, the accuracy statistics reached RMSE of 32.2 m3/ha (34%, R2 = 0.79) when multitemporal HHVV coherence was combined with multitemporal HV-backscatter.
Principles of Auditing: An Introduction to International Standards on Auditing

Foreward by John Kellas Preface Acknowledgements 1. International auditing overview 2. The audit market 3. Ethics for professional accountants 4. An auditor's services 5. Client acceptance 6. Understanding the entity, risk assessment and materiality 7. Internal control and control risk 8. Control risk, audit planning and test of controls 9. Analytical procedures 10. Substantive testing and evidence Appendix to 10: Audit sampling and other selective testing procedures 11. Completing the audit Appendix to 11: Audit documentation and working papers 12. Audit reports and communication 13. Overview of a group audit 14. Corporate governance Appendix A to 14: The Combined Code (UK) Appendix B to 14: Governance and auditing in a public interest context Glossary Index
Strategic customer service orientation, lean manufacturing practices and performance outcomes

Purpose – The notion of achieving competitive advantage using a strategic customer service orientation (SCSO) has received increased research attention. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of SCSO in the context of rapidly changing competitive market environments. An organization-wide SCSO can be implemented through lean manufacturing practices to achieve favorable operational and business performances (BPs). Design/methodology/approach – This study employs survey methodology to examine a research model that theorizes eight hypotheses with respect to the relationships among SCSO, human and technical lean practices, and performance outcomes (operational and BPs). Data from 571 firms participating in the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) IV are analyzed using structural equation modeling (AMOS 20). Findings – The findings suggest that firms with a SCSO implement both human and technical aspects of lean manufacturing practices leading to better performance results. The findin.
The Power of Reputation: Hedge Fund Activists

This paper considers how characteristics of target firms and hedge funds, along with shareholder activists' reputation, influence target firms' valuation and performance. I extend prior work that shows positive market reaction for the target firm around the initial Schedule 13D filing date by studying the broad cross-sectional variation of returns to shareholder activism. I find that firms' and funds' characteristics are correlated with the announcement premium and that the market rewards hedge fund reputations of success, but not aggression. My results indicate the market weights recent events relative to those of the distant past, suggesting reputation fades away with time.
A conceptual model of the holistic effects of atmospheric cues in fashion retailing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the holistic atmospheric cues encountered in a retail environment contribute to the creation of a retail experience. The interaction between these cues, and how they impact on the various stages of the retail experience is also explored. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative methodology was employed, using protocol analysis and in-depth semi-structured interviews that were conducted with 18 participants. Data were collected in the context of the women’s fashion sector. Findings – The findings highlight the importance of store owners ensuring atmospheric cues create a store image congruent with their target market’s self-image. A model is also developed which highlights how atmospheric cues are able to affect successive stages of the retail experience. Originality/value – This paper provides a holistic understanding of how retail atmospheric cues are able to influence the overall retail experience; from how a retail store is initially evaluated th.
Understanding factors for benchmarking adoption: New evidence from Malaysia

Purpose – To explain the factors of benchmarking adoption as experienced by companies in Malaysia in which benchmarking is one of the way to create a sense of urgency by telling them where they are, how good they have to be, and what they have to do to get there.Design/methodology/approach – Discriminant analysis was used to determine whether statistically significant differences exist between the average score profile on a set of variables for two a priori defined groups and so enabled them to be classified. Besides, it could help to determine which of the independent variables account the most for the differences in the average score profiles of the two groups. In this study, discriminant analysis was the main instrument to classify the benchmarking adopter and non‐adopter. It was also utilized to determine which of the independent variables would contribute to benchmarking adoption.Findings – The finding from discriminant analysis revealed that employee participation was the most influential factors on.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESSION PROBLEMS IN NIGERIA’S FAMILY BUSINESSES: A THREAT TO SUSTAINABILITY

The need to focus on entrepreneurial succession problems in Nigeria is due to the fact that many promising family businesses have collapsed over the years soon after the demise/exit of their founders. Using secondary data, the paper seeks to explore the issues involved in succession problems, the sources of the problems and how these have threatened the perpetuity principle in companies with respect to family businesses in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the succession laws of Nigeria (which includes the native laws and customs) and the multi-cultural nature of Nigeria creates a myriad of succession problems for familyowned businesses in Nigeria. Based on its findings, the paper recommends to indigenous Entrepreneurs in Nigeria, the crafting of a comprehensive, well thought-out, market-focused and people-centered entrepreneurial succession planning started early enough in the life of the business.