Because of the explosion of digital and online text information, automatic organization of documents has become a very important research area. There are mainly two machine learning approaches to enhance the organization task of the digital documents. One of them is the supervised approach, where pre-defined category labels are assigned to documents based on the likelihood suggested by a training set of labeled documents; and the other one is the unsupervised approach, where there is no need for human intervention or labeled documents at any point in the whole process. In this thesis, we concentrate on the supervised learning task which deals with document classification. One of the most important tasks of information retrieval is to induce classifiers capable of categorizing text documents. The same document can belong to two or more categories and this situation is referred by the term multi-label classification. Multi-label classification domains have been encountered in diverse fields. Most of the existing machine learning techniques which are in multi-label classification domains are extremely expensive since the documents are characterized by an extremely large number of features. In this thesis, we are trying to reduce these computational costs by applying different types of algorithms to the documents which are characterized by large number of features. Another important thing that we deal in this thesis is to have the highest possible accuracy when we have the high computational performance on text document categorization.

Denna uppsats handlar om hur ungdomar med lågt deltagande på NUEVO upplever hinder och möjligheter i normaliseringsprocessen. NUEVO är en institution som hjälper arbetslösa ungdomar som länge har varit arbetslösa eller som har speciellt svårt att få eller lyckas behålla ett jobb. Min studie är inriktad på de ungdomar som inte deltar så aktivt på NUEVO och varför det är så. Varför normaliseringsprocessen och avstämplingen av dessa ungdomar hindras av en lång avvikarkarriär som dessa ungdomar har. Det jag fick fram är att stämplingen historia har en stor påverkan på ungdomarnas nuvarande situation. Det skapar en större problematik att hjälpa dessa ungdomar att integreras i samhället. Sen fick jag även fram ett antal hinder som även dessa sätter käppar i hjulet för att avstämpla och normalisera ungdomarna. Även att det finns många positiva aspekter på NUEVO som är en motpol till det negativa. NUEVO har kommit en bit på vägen för att möta dessa ungdomar men ännu är det en bit kvar att gå. Av de sex intervjuerna jag gjorde fick jag fram kategorier för hinder för avstämpling, men även kategorier till försök till avstämpling, där ungdomarna förut språkade att NUEVO gjorde väldigt bra jobb. Det är de här ungdomarna och deras upplevelse som är det central i denna undersökning.

Zugl.: Mannheim, Univ., Diss., 2008

Class of 2016 Abstract / Objectives: To verify a set of translated medication labels in consultation with native speakers of non-English languages, specifically for this study: Amharic, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese. Methods: Native speakers of target languages were recruited from academic and community organizations in the Tucson area. Participants were asked to review a set of translated directions and complete a survey regarding the validity and comprehensibility of the translations. In some cases, a short interview was used to clarify any comments or corrections made by the participants. Results: Surveys were completed by 23 participants, 12 men and 11 women, covering seven languages, with an uneven distribution between languages. Directions in Somali were the least problematic, with relatively strong agreement between respondents. Amharic directions were rated poorly and scored consistently worse than the overall average. Tigrinya had the most variation between respondents compared to other languages. Chinese, Spanish, and Vietnamese all received rather high scores, but analysis is complicated by a small sample size for each. Among responses to the open-ended questions, comments regarding word choice were the most common, for various reasons. Conclusions: We were able to validate some of the provided translations, but found that certain languages posed more problems than others, and these translations would need to undergo further review before they can be reliably used in clinical practice.

Class of 2016 Abstract / Objectives: The specific aims of this study were: 1) describe the frequency of off-label medication use in pediatric discharge medication regimens, 2) compare the frequency of FDA-approved and off-label medication use in pediatric discharge medication regimens, and 3) identify potential patient-specific risk factors, including use off-label use of medications, associated with 90-day readmission. Methods: This was a retrospective chart review of pediatric patients admitted to a tertiary academic medical center during a 6-month period. Inclusion criteria included age less than 18 years of age and admission between January 1, 2014 and June 30, 2014. Exclusion criteria included admission for oncology chemotherapy, admitted < 24 hours, admission to NICU only and patient expiration prior to discharge. Data collection included patient demographics, types and number of medications, and FDA approved and off-label indication of medications. Data analyses were completed on STATA 11.0 (College Station, TX) including student t-test/Mann Whitney U and Chi square/Fisher Exact test with a priori of α= 0.05. Results: A total of 706 admissions were included in the study. There were no significant differences in demographic characteristics between groups (readmitted within 90 days of discharge vs. not readmitted within 90 days of discharge) except sex (males vs. females, 56.3% vs. 44.2%, p=0.034). Length of hospital stay was significantly higher in subjects readmitted within 90 days of discharge compared to those who were not (8.55 ± 12.5 vs. 3.79 ± 4.43 days, p<0.001). Number of medications at discharge (7.31 ± 5.92 vs. 2.91 ± 2.93, p<0.001) and total number of non-FDA approved medications (3.16 ± 3.81 vs. 1.12 ± 1.44, p<0.001) were all significantly higher in subjects readmitted within 90 days of discharge compared to those who were not. The percentages of patients taking medications related to cardiovascular (6.1% vs. 2.4%, p=0.002), electrolytes and nutrition (12.2% vs. 8.5%, p=0.007), and gastrointestinal (19.2% vs. 14.3%, p=0.004) disorders were significantly higher in the subjects readmitted within 90 days of discharge compared to those who were not. Additonally, subjects readmitted within 90 days of discharge (versus those not readmitted within 90 days) demonstrated less use of medications related to neurology (17.7% vs. 25.8%, p<0.001) and respiratory (16.4% vs. 21.4%, p=0.008) disorders. A significantly higher percentage of subjects whose third party payor was Medicaid, were readmitted within 90-days of discharge (69.7% vs. 58.3, p=0.045). Conclusions: In comparing several characteristics of pediatric patients readmitted to a tertiary medical center within 90 days of discharge versus those who were not, it was noted that several factors may be associated with readmission, including: sex, length of initial hospital stay, third-party payor, and the number of medications as well as the types of medication a patient takes. Future research may be warranted to further investigate these potential patient-specific factors in helping identify children at increased risk for readmission and develop more effective approaches to patient education, discharge planning, and continuity of care to reduce preventable readmission.

Our purpose was to determine the effects on mammary gland development in prepubertal heifers given the anti-estrogen tamoxifen. Sixteen Holstein calves were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: tamoxifen-injected (TAM) or control (CON). Calves were subcutaneously injected daily from 28 to 120 days of age with 0.3 mg/kg tamoxifen or carrier. At 120 days calves were euthanized and udders removed. Weight of trimmed parenchymal tissue (left rear quarter) was dramatically lower in TAM calves than in CON calves (p < 0.0003; 16.1 vs. 34.8 g). Parenchymal samples from three regions of the left rear quarter (lower, middle and outer regions) were processed for immunohistochemical staining for Estrogen Receptor α and Progesterone Receptor, myoepithelial cells, and label retaining cells. Overall, the proportion of neither ER nor PR labeled cells was impacted by TAM treatment. However, imaging analysis indicated a markedly higher intensity of ER expression in CON calves. TAM caused an increase in myoepithelial cell differentiation similar to what is seen in ovariectomy. We were able to effectively use a new technique of multispectral imaging to identify label retaining cells, which led to the discovery of an increase in the percentage of label retaining cells in TAM compared to CON. While treatment with the anti-estrogen tamoxifen reduced mammary parenchymal mass similarly to OVX, the mechanism(s) involved appear to differ. This suggests that the impacts of ovariectomy are only partially explained by the absence of estrogen. / Master of Science

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Having representative users, who have the targeted disability, in accessibility studies is vital to the validity of research findings. Although it is a widely accepted tenet in the HCI community, many barriers and difficulties make it very resource-demanding for accessibility researchers to recruit representative users. As a result, researchers recruit non-representative users, who do not have the targeted disability, instead of representative users in accessibility studies. Although such an approach has been widely justified, evidence showed that findings derived from non-representative users could be biased and even misleading. To address this problem, researchers have come up with different solutions such as building pools of users to recruit from. But still, the data is not widely available and needs a lot of effort and resource to build and maintain. On the other hand, online social media websites have become popular in the last decade. Many online communities have emerged that allow online users to discuss health-related subjects, exchange useful information, or provide emotional support. A large amount of data accumulated in such online communities have gained attention from researchers in the healthcare domain. And many researches have been done based on data from social media websites to better understand health problems to improve the wellbeing of people. Despite the increasing popularity, the value of data from social media websites for accessibility research remains untapped. Hence, my work aims to create methods that could extract valuable information from data collected on social media websites for accessibility practitioners to support their design process. First, I investigate methods that enable researchers to effectively collect representative data from social media websites. More specifically, I look into machine learning approaches that could allow researchers to automatically identify online users who have disabilities (representative users). Second, I investigate methods that could extract useful information from user-generated free-text using techniques drawn from the information extraction domain. Last, I explore how such information should be visualized and presented for designers to support the scenario-based design process in accessibility studies.

BACKGROUND:Health literacy (HL) is an important public health issue. Current measures have drawbacks in length and/or acceptability. The US-developed Newest Vital Sign (NVS) health literacy instrument measures both reading comprehension and numeracy skills using a nutrition label, takes 3 minutes to administer, and has proven to be acceptable to research subjects. This study aimed to amend and validate it for the UK population.METHODS:We used a three-stage process / (1) a Delphi study with academic and clinical experts to amend the NVS label to reflect UK nutrition labeling (2) community-based cognitive testing to assess and improve ease of understanding and acceptability of the test (3) validation of the NVS-UK against an accepted standard test of health literacy, the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) (Pearson's r and the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve) and participant educational level. A sample size calculation indicated that 250 participants would be required. Inclusion criteria were age 18-75 years and ability to converse in English. We excluded people working in the health field and those with impaired vision or inability to undertake the interview due to cognitive impairment or inability to converse in English.RESULTS:In the Delphi study, 28 experts reached consensus (3 cycles). Cognitive testing (80 participants) yielded an instrument that needed no further refinement. Validation testing (337 participants) showed high internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.74). Validation against the TOFHLA demonstrated a Pearson's r of 0.49 and an area under the ROC curve of 0.81.CONCLUSIONS:The NVS-UK is a valid measure of HL. Its acceptability and ease of application makes it an ideal tool for use in the UK. It has potential uses in public health research including epidemiological surveys and randomized controlled trials, and in enabling practitioners to tailor care to patient need.

No description available.

O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar o consumo de marcas próprias em supermercados, com enfoque nas escolhas do consumidor entre a marca própria e a marca líder . Pretende-se captar a percepção dos consumidores relativamente a preços e qualidade dos produtos fornecidos com a marca dos varejistas. Analisar com qual freqüência os produtos são consumidos, investigar qual o diferencial de preço que o consumidor está disposto a pagar pela marca própria em relação à marca líder, através do método de pesquisa de Grupos de Foco (Focus Group). A decisão de estudar a escolha de marcas próprias pelos consumidores em supermercados deve-se à necessidade de se conhecer esta modalidade específica de consumo, identificando a percepção, o comportamento e o processo de decisão do público supermercadista de modo a trazer contribuições teóricas para Administração de Varejo a partir da pesquisa. / ABSTRACT The objective of this work is to investigate the consumption of private label products in supermarkets, focusing on the consumers\' choices between private label and leading brand products. It is intended to catch the perception of the consumers relatively to the prices and product quality associated to the retailers\' brands. The Focus Group research method is used in order to analyze with which frequency the products are consumed and to investigate which is the price gap that the consumers are willing to pay for private label in relation the leading brands. The decision to study the choice of private label by supermarket consumers is due to the need of knowing, through this research, this specific type of consumption, identifying the perception, the behavior and the decision process of the supermarket clientele in order to bring theoretical contributions to Retail Management body of knowledge.