<p>In 1995 and 2000 a total of 29 886 non surgical ED visits at Uppsala University Hospital were registered. Presenting complaint, admittance to a ward, length of stay, in-hospital mortality, discharge diagnoses, 30-day and long-term mortality were registered. The presenting complaints were sorted into 33 presenting complaint groups (PCGs). </p><p>For different PCGs there was different in-hospital fatality rate. Compared to the largest PCG, chest pain, the gender and age adjusted OR was 2.12 (95% CI 1.01 – 4.44) for the miscellaneous complaint group and 2.04 (95 % CI 1.35 – 3.08) for the stroke–like symptom group. Within a given PCG the in-hospital mortality could vary depending on discharge diagnoses. By relating PCG and long term mortality to the expected mortality in the population, the Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR) could be calculated. The SMR was found to be highest in seizure 2.62 (95 % CI 2.13 – 3.22), intoxication 2.51 (95% CI 2.11-2.98) and symptoms of asthma 1.8 (1.65 – 2.06). For the same discharge diagnoses the long term mortality could differ considerably depending on PCG at ED arrival (p<0.001). </p><p>Between 1995 and 2000 there was a 30 % increase in ED visits at the non surgical ED. PCGs representing lesser severe conditions had increased. Demographic changes could account for 45 % of the increment and the remaining increase could be ascribed to change in visiting pattern. </p><p>In the 2000 cohort 41.0 % of all visits were performed by re-visitors. The number of revisits and five-year mortality had an inversed u-shaped relationship were patients with three re-visits within the same year had an increased mortality compared to patients with more or less visits. </p><p>Conclusion: It is possible to define presenting complaint groups (PCGs) that are robust and consistent over time and useful as a tool for epidemiological studies in the ED.</p>

Darbe nagrinėjamas temų identifikavimo uždavinys, kuris siejamas su teksto klasifikavimu į tam tikras kategorijas, t.y. įvairių tekstinių duomenų grupavimas pagal atitinkamas temas. Žinutės naujienų agentūrose yra skirstomos į atskiras grupes ir pogrupius pagal temas. Šis darbas atliekamas rankomis, t.y. perskaitomas tekstas ir priskiriamas kokiai nors temai. Vis dėlto, vystantis žiniasklaidai ir kuriantis įvairiems naujienų portalams, aktualu naujienas skirstyti ne rankiniu, o automatiniu būdu, todėl galimybė automatizuoti šį procesą galėtų būti naudinga įvairiems naujienų portalams, padedant skirstyti pranešimus ir taupant laiko bei energijos sąnaudas. Darbo objektą apima 2007 metų BNS spaudos centro žinutės. Darbo tikslas – išsiaiškinti, kaip atskiri žodžiai padeda nustatyti teksto temą. Temos nustatymui taikomi trys metodai: dažnų žodžių, dvižodžių junginių (bigramų) ir prasminių žodžių. Darbas susideda iš trijų dalių. Pirmoje dalyje buvo aptarti teoriniai pagrindai (temos nustatymas, tekstų klasifikavimas, žinių kalba). Apžvelgus žinučių ypatumus pastebėta, kad šis informacinis žanras iš kitų išsiskiria tekstų glaustumu, faktų konstatavimu. Taip pat daroma prielaida, kad temos nustatymo tikslumui yra svarbu žinutės apimtis ir aktualumas. Antroje dalyje aprašyti dažnų žodžių ir dvižodžių junginių sąrašų sudarymo bei prasminių žodžių ištraukimo būdai. Apžvelgus naujienų skirstymą pagal temas, buvo sudarytas temų sąrašas ir juo remiantis, buvo anotuoti dažnų žodžių ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The thesis is based on topic detection in BNS news reports. The reports are divided into different groups and sub-grouped according to topics. This topic analysis is manual; namely, reading texts and assigning to any topic. However, media and various news portals are developing very quickly, so the possibility to distribute reports automatically is quite relevant problem. The automated topic detection process would be useful for various news portals, automated distribution would save time and energy costs. Therefore, the task of the paper is topic detection issue, which is associated with the classification of text into certain categories, in other words, various text data is classified by subject. The object of the thesis is reports from BNS news agency received in 2007. The aim of the paper is to analyze how separate words help identify the topic. Three methods are applied to detect the topic: high frequency words, bigrams (two-word compounds) and the keywords. The paper consists of three parts. The first part is theoretical; it presents the bases of topic detection, text classification and report language. The report was chosen because this information genre is concise and clearly stating facts. What is more, it is hypothesized that the accuracy of topic detection depends on the size and relevance of the report. The second part describes the formation of frequent words’ and bigram lists and keyword extraction techniques. Those frequent word and bigram lists were... [to full text]

Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (ACE) IID, and a actinin 3 (AC1N3) R577X polymorphisms have been linked to the strength and power performance of elite athletes and suggested to influence skeletal muscle function in the general popUlation. This research investigated the association of these two candidate gene polymorphisms with the muscle function of young and older men, and the distribution of these genotypes in frequent fallers compared to controls. Muscle function measurements of young and older men included isometric strength, absolute and relative isokinetic strength at high velocity (ratio of torque at 2400 ·s"; torque at 30°·s") and the time course of an evoked twitch. Additionally body composition was measured by skinfold thickness (young men) and DXA scanning (old men) to estimate fat-free mass, an index of muscularity, and fat mass. ACE and AC1N3 genotypes were determined from whole blood samples using polymerase chain reaction, and serum ACE activity using spectrophotometry. The gemtypes of frequent fallers referred to a Falls Clinic were compared to a control group of healthy men. ACE genotype was not associated with any measure of muscle function, including the time course of an evoked twitch or absolute and relative high velocity torque, or body composition in these populations (ANOVA, 0.12<P<0.97). Serum ACE activity appeared to be weakly associated with knee extensor (R = 0.19, P = 0.07) and elbow flexor (R = 0.20, P = 0.06) isometric strength in older men, and was negatively correlated with the relative torque at high velocity (R = -0.23, P = 0.03). AC1N3 genotype was associated with fat mass in older men (P = 0.04), but was not associated with any measure of muscle function or muscularity (KruskalWaIIis, 0.26<P<0.95). Finally there was no apparent difference in the distribution of ACE IID (r: = 0.54, P = 0.77) and AC1N3 RIX (r: = 0.76, P = 0.68) genotypes between frequent fallers and controls. Any influence of these individual polymorphisms seems unlikely to be of sufficient magnitude to produce genotype related differences in muscle function in young or older free living UK Caucasian men. Serum ACE activity may have a small association with the isometric and dynamic strength of older men. However, AC1N3 genotype was associated with increased fat mass in XX individuals, that suggests this polymorphism may have an association with the accumulation of body fat over the life span of older men.

This thesis is aimed to empirically investigate the performance impact of frequent acquisitions as an aggressive merger and acquisition (M&A) strategy for an acquiring firm. In literature related to the study of M&A, a common question is whether acquisitions improve the performance of acquirers. Neither theoretical nor empirical studies have a clear view on the performance effect of M&A. Some argue positively and some are opposite. Although existing research are mixed for their arguments, a takeover is commonly perceived as a shock to the firm with a constant effect on changing business performance. This static perception of M&A creates a difficulty in explaining why firms acquire others when the performance effect is negative. To address the issue, this thesis examines the M&A effect dynamically with taking into account the role of merger frequency in affecting performance. On the basis of a large sample that consists of about 14,000 acquisitions from more than 100 countries over last 12 years, the thesis finds that the investors perceive a lower value if the acquiring firm is involved in frequent mergers. This is because more mergers are expected to attract considerable amount of management attention away from profitable activities in order to digest the challenges of new business integration at least in the short run. This “digesting constraint” argument is evident by our estimations. Firm becomes less profitable in the short run after a merger shock, and this adverse effect can be more severe if the firm is involved in more frequent mergers. Evidence of the thesis further show that, the effect of merger shocks is not static and persistent, and it changes with time. The shock affects adversely profitability in the short run, usually lasting a couple of years, and then the negative effect on performance could be turned either oppositely if the firm digests the shock successfully, or otherwise, continuously but diminishing over time if the digestion takes longer such as for frequent acquisition. This finding implies that the pace of firm resilience to a merger shock can be affected by its merger strategies. The pace can be slow if the firm pursues frequent mergers aggressively. The performance effect of a merger shock is dynamic and changes with time. The dynamic view for merger shocks from this study opens a new vision for literature in merger studies. Overall the market expectation to a merger effect on changing firm performance is quite consistently related to what has actually happened to the firm after the merger shock.

Prior research has considered the sequential order of function words, after the contextual words of the text have been removed, as a stylistic indicator of authorship. This research describes an effort to enhance authorship attribution accuracy based on this same information source with alternate classifiers, alternate n-gram construction methods, and a genetically tuned configuration. The approach is original in that it is the first time that probabilistic versions of Burrows's Delta have been used. Instead of using z-scores as an input for a classifier, the z-scores were converted to probabilistic equivalents (since z-scores cannot be subtracted, added, or divided without the possibility of distorting their probabilistic meaning); this adaptation enhanced accuracy. Multiple versions of Burrows's Delta were evaluated; this includes a hybrid of the Probabilistic Burrows's Delta and the version proposed by Smith & Aldridge (2011); in this case accuracy was enhanced when individual frequent words were evaluated as indicators of style. Other novel aspects include alternate n-gram construction methods; a reconciliation process that allows texts of various lengths from different authors to be compared; and a GA selection process that determines which function (or frequent) words (see Smith & Rickards, 2008; see also Shaker, Corne, & Everson, 2007) may be used in the construction of function word n-grams.

O objetivo do presente estudo foi rever na literatura qual a definição de usuários frequentes/hiperutilizadores de serviços de urgência e emergência e conhecer as implicações destes usuários no serviço de urgência e emergência. Trata-se de um estudo realizado através Scoping Review, conforme a proposta do Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). Resultados: Identificados 37 estudos e através da leitura do título e resumo, selecionados 27 para leitura na íntegra. Porém após a leitura detalhada foram excluídos 11 estudos que não apresentavam resultados e conclusões diretamente ligados à temática. Assim, a amostra final foi composta por 16 estudos. Entre estes, quatro eram brasileiros e escritos pelo mesmo autor. Não houve 18 consenso entre s autores quanto a definição do termo pesquisado, todavia indicaram como usuário frequente/hiperutilizador o paciente que utiliza o serviço de urgência e emergência mais de 3 vezes por ano. Conclusões: Há lacuna na literatura e não consenso sobre a temática. Há necessidade de mais estudos sobre o assunto para o delineamento de ações que possibilitem a melhora deste quadro / The purpose of this study is to review the definition done by the literature of frequent / hyper-users of immediacy and emergency services and to know the involvement of such users in the immediacy and emergency services. This is a study conducted through Scoping Review (Revisão de Alcance) as proposed by Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). Results: 37 studies were identified and by means of reading the titles and abstracts, 27 were selected as for thorough reading. However after the itemized reading, 11 studies that did not bring forward results and conclusions directly related to the thematic, they were excluded. So the final specimen was consisted of 16 studies. Four amongst these were Brazilian and written by the same author. There was no consensus between the authors regarding definition of the searched word, nevertheless they indicated as frequent / hyper-user the patient who uses the immediacy and emergency services more than thrice a year. Conclusions: There is a vacuity in literature and no agreement on this thematic. There are needs for further studies on the topic for the delineation of actions to make improvements possible for this picture

Mining frequent patterns is an important component of many prediction systems. One common usage in web applications is the mining of users' access behavior for the purpose of predicting and hence pre-fetching the web pages that the user is likely to visit. Frequent sequence mining approaches in the literature are often based on the use of an Apriori-like candidate generation strategy, which typically requires numerous scans of the potentially huge sequence database. In this paper we instead introduce a more efficient strategy for discovering frequent patterns in sequence databases that requires only two scans of the database. The first scan obtains support counts for subsequences of length two. The second scan extracts potentially frequent sequences of any length and represents them as a compressed frequent sequences tree structure (FS-tree). Frequent sequence patterns are then mined from the FS-tree. Incremental and interactive mining functionalities are also facilitated by the FS-tree. As part of this work, we developed the FS-Miner, an system that discovers frequent sequences from web log files. The FS-Miner has the ability to adapt to changes in users' behavior over time, in the form of new input sequences, and to respond incrementally without the need to perform full re-computation. Our system also allows the user to change the input parameters (e.g., minimum support and desired pattern size) interactively without requiring full re-computation in most cases. We have tested our system using two different data sets, comparing it against two other algorithms from the literature. Our experimental results show that our system scales up linearly with the size of the input database. Furthermore, it exhibits excellent adaptability to support threshold decreases. We also show that the incremental update capability of the system provides significant performance advantages over full re-computation even for relatively large update sizes.

O crescente aumento no volume de dados complexos tem se tornado um desafio para pesquisadores. Séries temporais são um tipo de dados complexos que tem tido um crescimento em sua relevância, devido a sua importância para o monitoramento e acompanhamento de safras agrícolas. Assim, a mineração de informação a partir de grandes volumes de séries temporais para o apoio a tomada de decisões tem se tornado uma atividade valiosa. Uma das atividades importantes na mineração em séries temporais é a descoberta de padrões frequentes. Entretanto, a complexidade dessa atividade requer métodos rápidos e eficientes. Nesse contexto, esta dissertação de mestrado apresenta propostas para novos algoritmos e métodos para minerar e indexar séries temporais. Uma das propostas dessa dissertação é o índice Telesto, que utiliza uma estrutura baseada em árvores de sufixo generalizada para recuperar séries temporais em uma base de dados de séries temporais de modo rápido e eficiente. Outra proposta dessa dissertação é o algoritmo TrieMotif, que se baseia em uma trie para eliminar comparações desnecessárias entre subsequências, agilizando o processo de mineração de padrões frequentes em séries temporais. Os algoritmos propostos foram utilizados para a análise de dados climáticos e agrometeorológicos. Os resultados apresentados nessa dissertação de mestrado mostram que os algoritmos são escaláveis, podendo ser utilizados para grandes volumes de dados / Dealing with large volumes of complex data is a challenging task that has motivated many researchers around the world. Time series is a type of complex data that is growing in importance due to the increasing demand of sensors for surveillance and monitoring. Thus, mining information from large volumes of time series to support decision making is a valuable activity nowadays. This Master dissertation goes in this direction, as it proposes new algorithms and methods to mine and index time series. The novelty of the TrieMotif, a new algorithm to mine frequent patterns (motifs) from time series employing a trie structure that allows clever comparison between the sequences, as well as the Telesto index structure based on suffix trees area presented and discussed in the context of agrometeorological and climatological data, being the two main contributions of this work. The dissertation shows that the proposed algorithms are scalable, being suitable to big data, and when compared to the competitors they always presented the best results

O Exame de Medula Óssea (EMO) permite avaliação citológica da medula, sendo útil no diagnóstico e monitoramento de desordens hematológicas, quando exames mais simples não são suficientes para esclarecer o quadro clínico. Investigação clínica e laboratorial completa deve ser realizada para garantir que a indicação apropriada exista. São requeridas pelo menos duas colorações (Romanowsky e Azul da Prússia), onde devem ser avaliadas a qualidade da amostra, celularidade global da mesma, contagem diferencial de células nucleadas, relação Mielóide/Eritróide bem como cuidadosa avaliação quantitativa e qualitativa das três linhagens hematopoéticas (Granulocítica, Eritróide e Megacariocítica). O EMO fornece informações relevantes no diagnóstico e monitoramento de Leucemias/Linfomas, Mieloma Múltiplo (MM), Síndrome Mielodisplásica (SMD), Aplasia medular, doença metastática na Medula Óssea (MO), infecções em HIV positivos, febre de origem desconhecida e investigação de citopenias. Tendo em vista a classificação da OMS de 2008 para neoplasias mielóides e leucemias agudas cabe ressaltar a importância de unir achados citogenéticos, dentre os quais se destacam atualmente as mutações gênicas FLT3, KIT, NPM1 e CEBPA, aos achados morfológicos, imunofenotípicos, citoquímicos e clínicos, alcançando desta forma marcadores diagnósticos e prognósticos precisos que servem como guia para um tratamento eficaz. Este estudo tem por objetivo identificar as principais indicações para o EMO no HCPA bem como verificar a acurácia das mesmas. Foram analisados 400 pacientes submetidos ao EMO na Unidade de Hematologia do HCPA no período de Janeiro a Dezembro de 2009, tendo sido resgatados todos os resultados do Aspirado de Medula Óssea bem como dados clínicos e laboratoriais relevantes obtidos do prontuário médico. Verificou-se que cerca de metade dos pacientes submetidos ao EMO em nosso centro são para controle de tratamento, o que está de acordo com as características do mesmo, o qual é referência regional para tratamento de doenças malignas. Nos pacientes que realizam o exame com propósito diagnóstico as indicações principais são suspeita de Leucemia e MM. Nos 260 pacientes com suspeita de doença hematológica primária observou-se confirmação da mesma em 61% dos casos, nos 39% restantes foram encontradas alterações qualitativas e/ou quantitativas (29%), MO normal (7%) e amostra insuficiente/diluída (3%). Dos pacientes que fizeram o exame com propósito diagnóstico 20.5% não fizeram biópsia. Com relação à acurácia da indicação, encontrou-se que 7 pacientes (2%) provavelmente não deveriam ter sido submetidos a este procedimento. Ressaltamos a importância de realizar em todos os casos Aspirado e Biópsia de MO simultaneamente uma vez que seus achados devem ser correlacionados e se a Biópsia for omitida o patologista pode não obter a informação máxima requerida. / The Bone Marrow Examination (BME) permits cytological assessment of Marrow, being useful in the diagnosis and monitoring of hematological disorders, when simpler tests are not sufficient to clarify the clinical picture. Are required at least two colors (Romanowsky and Prussian blue), it should be evaluated the quality of the sample, the same overall cellularity, differential count of nucleated cells, myeloid:erythroid (M:E) ratio and carefull evaluation quantitative / qualitative from the three lineages of hematopoietic (granulocytic, erythrocytic and megakaryocytic). The BME provides information relevant to diagnosis and follow-up of leukemia/lymphoma, multiple myeloma (MM), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), marrow aplasia, bone marrow (BM) metastatic disease , infections in HIV positive, pyrexia of unknown origin and investigation of cytopenias. The 2008 classification of the World Health Organization (WHO) to the myeloid neoplasms and acute leukemia highlight the importance of join cytogenetic findings - bring out currently FLT3, KIT, NPM1 and CEBPA gene mutations - to the morphologic, immunophenotypic, cytochemical and clinical findings reaching this way accurate diagnostic and prognostic markers that serve as a guide to effective treatment. This study aims to identify the main indications for the BME at HCPA and to verify their accuracy. It were analyzed 400 patients submitted to BME in the Hematology Unit of HCPA in the period January to December 2009, having been rescued the bone marrow aspirate results as well as all relevant clinical and laboratory data obtained from the medical records. It was found that about half of patients submit BME in our center are to control treatment, which agrees with the characteristics of it, it is a regional referral center for treatment of malignancies. In patients who perform the test with diagnostic purpose the main indications were suspected leukemia and MM. In 260 patients with suspected primary hematological disease 61.2% turned out to be the case, the remaining 38.8% had quantitative and/or qualitative BM alterations (29.6%), normal MO (6.5%) and insufficient sample or diluted (2.7%). Of the patients who took the exam with diagnostic purpose 20.5% had no biopsy. With respect to accuracy of indication, it was found that 7 patients (2%) probably should not have undergone this procedure. We emphasize the importance of performing in all cases aspirate and biopsy since their findings must be correlated and furthermore if the biopsy is omitted the pathologist can not get the maximum information required.

"Under senare år har kundlojalitet blivit allt viktigare för företag. Detta beror på många olika faktorer som till exempel att fler produkter blir allt mer identiska med varandra, att konkurrensen ökar, och även att befolkningstillväxten sjunker vilket leder till att man inriktar sig på de existerande konsumenterna."