Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / William H. Hsu / (Higgins, Savje, & Sekhon, 2016) Provides us with a sampling blocking algorithm that enables large and complex experiments to run in polynomial time without sacrificing the precision of estimates on a covariate dataset. The goal of this project is to run the different clustering algorithms on top of clusters formed from above mentioned blocking algorithm and analyze the performance and compatibility of the clustering algorithms. We first start with applying the blocking algorithm on a covariate dataset and once the clusters are formed, we then apply our clustering algorithm HAC (Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering) or PAM (Partitioning Around Medoids) on the seeds of the clusters. This will help us to generate more similar clusters. We compare our performance and precision of our hybridized clustering techniques with the pure clustering techniques to identify a suitable hybridized blocking model.

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nÃo hà / O estudo analisa a dinÃmica recente da inflaÃÃo brasileira. Considerando ambientes distintos de expectativas, procura-se observar como um possÃvel comportamento discricionÃrio da autoridade monetÃria pode interferir nas expectativas forward-looking dos agentes e de que forma essa interferÃncia pode atuar sobre a resposta da inflaÃÃo Ãs oscilaÃÃes nos ciclos econÃmicos e nas expectativas backward-looking e forward-looking no arcabouÃo da CPNK. Para tal, faz-se uso de estimaÃÃes GMM-HAC da CPNK e de sua versÃo hÃbrida. Os resultados sugerem que, em um ambiente de maior incerteza, a inflaÃÃo tanto se mostra mais sensÃvel Ãs oscilaÃÃes nos ciclos econÃmicos como tem o seu componente inercial majorado. / This work analyzes the recent dynamics of Brazilian inflation expectations considering different environments to observe how a possible discretionary behavior of the monetary authority can interfere with forward-looking expectations of agents and how this interference can act on the response of inflation to fluctuations in economic cycles and the backward-looking and forward-looking expectations of agents in the NKPC framework. To do this, estimates of GMM-HAC and the NKPC, as well as its hybrid version, are used. The results suggest that in an environment of greate run certainty, inflation is shown to be much more sensitive to swings in economic cycles, as well as it shows an increase in its inertial component.

Improving the role the nurse plays in health care delivery should be embodied in the performance improvement initiatives to successfully improve the quality of care that is delivered. The purpose of this evidence-based practice project was to collect performance improvement data and present it to staff who, in turn, used the information to improve practice and influence patient safety outcomes. The practice-focused question addressed what would occur if a tool that allowed frequent data trending was used to measure effectiveness of care and thereby influence key outcome measures. Duffy's quality caring model provided a framework for the study to support the need for the development of a dashboard for staff and to ensure that staff were informed as they developed interventions to improve patient outcomes. Publicly available data published by the Centers for Medicare/ Medicaid (CMS) for the Quality Star Report were explored to inform the project. Workgroups, comprised of volunteers from leadership and staff providing care at the bedside, were formed to implement practice changes based on the dashboard reports. By bringing the data to the attention of nurses within the organization, improvements were made in the overall score for safety of care from below national average (25th percentile of the reported 3,647 hospitals across the nation) to the same as national average (47th percentile) as reported by CMS. Through staff involvement, social change occurred as strategies were hardwired to improve categories of the Quality Star Report and ultimately patient care. The project showed that quality improvement tools can assist in empowering staff to understand the data needed to implement process improvement strategies.

This dissertation analyses the industrial transformation of Turkey by focusing on the history of Kayseri&rsquo / s small town Hacilar which has been showed an extraordinary performance in industry and economic development in the last 40 years. However, it is not a general history of industrialization / but a local development story from a traditional rural/ village community to an industrial production zone in relation with the local, national and universal dynamics. In line with the historical materialist conceptual and epistemological frame and against the &ldquo / Calvinist Islam&rdquo / kind theological arguments, this study explains the historical, regional, geographical, economic, social, and cultural reasons and factors of the industrial development of Hacilar in the context of the general industrial history of Turkey.

Effective knowledge management of proliferating volume of documents within a knowledge repository is vital to knowledge sharing, reuse, and assimilation. In order to facilitate accesses to documents in a knowledge repository, use of a knowledge map to organize these documents represents a prevailing approach. Document clustering techniques typically are employed to produce knowledge maps. However, existing document clustering techniques are not tailored to individuals¡¦ preferences and therefore are unable to facilitate the generation of knowledge maps from various preferential perspectives. In response, we propose the Preference-Anchored Document Clustering (PAC) technique that takes a user¡¦s categorization preference (represented as a list of anchoring terms) into consideration to generate a knowledge map (or a set of document clusters) from this specific preferential perspective. Our empirical evaluation results show that our proposed technique outperforms the traditional content-based document clustering technique in the high cluster precision area. Furthermore, benchmarked with Oracle Categorizer, our proposed technique also achieves better clustering effectiveness in the high cluster precision area. Overall, our evaluation results demonstrate the feasibility and potential superiority of the proposed PAC technique.

According to the context theory of classification, the document-clustering behaviors of individuals not only involve the attributes (including contents) of documents but also depend on who is doing the task and in what context. Thus, effective document-clustering techniques need to be able to take into account users¡¦ categorization preferences and thus can generate document clusters from different preferential perspectives. The Preference-Anchored Document Clustering (PAC) technique was proposed for supporting preference-based document-clustering. Specifically, PAC takes a user¡¦s categorization preference into consideration and subsequently generates a set of document clusters from this specific preferential perspective. In this study, we attempt to investigate two research questions concerning the PAC technique. The first research question investigates ¡§whether the incorporation of the broader-term expansion (i.e., the proposed PAC2 technique in this study) will improve the effectiveness of preference-based document-clustering, whereas the second research question is ¡§whether the use of a statistical-based thesaurus constructed from a larger document corpus will improve the effectiveness of preference-based document-clustering.¡¨ Compared with the effectiveness achieved by PAC, our empirical results show that the proposed PAC2 technique neither improves nor deteriorates the effectiveness of preference-based document-clustering when the complete set of anchoring terms is used. However, when only a partial set of anchoring terms is provided, PAC2 cannot improve and even deteriorate the effectiveness of preference-based document-clustering. As to the second research question, our empirical results suggest the use of a statistical-based thesaurus constructed from a larger document corpus (i.e., the ACM corpus consisting of 14,729 documents) does not improve the effectiveness of PAC and PAC2 for preference-based document-clustering.

The aim of this thesis is put forward a critical inquiry into the new advent neoliberal publicity and the spatiality which brought forth by this emergent publicity in Ankara thereby interrogating some key concepts such as neoliberalism, neoliberal urbanization, public space and publicity. &ldquo / The Renovation Project of Ankara Historical City Center&rdquo / will be assessed owing to constitute a model for understanding the tendencies in the planning of public spaces of Ankara for the last two decades. Considering the vast area which will be subjected to the renovation project, the borders of the study area is confined to &ldquo / Special Project Area: Hacibayram Mosque and Its Environs&rdquo / .

Klustring innebär att flera servrar arbetar tillsammans och på så sätt klarar av en uppgift som en ensam server inte skulle klara. Klustring kan också användas för att säkra drift med hjälp av en eller ett flertal servrar som väntar i startgropen om den aktiva servern som tillhandahåller tjänsten går ner.   Detta examensarbete utfördes genom att först undersöka vilka kluster­lösningar som fanns tillgängliga. Därefter utfördes intervjuer med företag som använde sig av olika typer av klustring. Laborationer gjordes för vidare undersökning av några av de mjukvaror som de intervjuade företagen använde.   Det upptäcktes att variationen av lösningar hos de intervjuade företagen inte var så stor som förväntat innan arbetet påbörjades.   Efter genomförd litteraturstudien och intervjumaterialet, för att sedan ge rekommendationer på vilka lösningar som bör väljas av exempelföretag utifrån vilka krav och kriterier som finns hos dessa.

It is unknown how dogs with hyperadrenocorticism (HAC) respond to vaccination. This study measured antibodies against canine parvovirus (CPV) in dogs with HAC treated with trilostane before and after CPV vaccination, and compared the immune response to that from healthy dogs. Eleven dogs with HAC, and healthy age-matched control dogs (n = 31) received a modified-live CPV vaccine. Antibodies were determined on days 0, 7, and 28 by hemagglutination inhibition. Univariate analysis was used to compare the immune response of dogs with HAC and healthy dogs. Pre-vaccination antibodies (≥10) were detected in 100% of dogs with HAC (11/11; 95% CI: 70.0–100) and in 93.5% of healthy dogs (29/31; 95% CI: 78.3–99.2). No ≥4-fold increase in antibody titer was observed in dogs with HAC while in 22.6% of healthy dogs, a ≥4-fold titer increase was observed (7/31; 95% CI: 11.1–40.1). Mild vaccine-associated adverse events (VAAEs) were detected in 54.5% of dogs with HAC (6/11; 95% CI: 28.0–78.8) and in 29.0% of healthy dogs (9/31; 95% CI: 15.9–46.8). There was neither a significant difference in presence of pre-vaccination antibodies (p = 1.000), or response to vaccination (p = 0.161), nor in the occurrence of VAAEs (p = 0.158). Immune function of dogs with HAC treated with trilostane seems comparable to that of healthy dogs.